Jack_ Secret Vengeance - F. Paul Wilson [5]
“Did you see that?” Weezy said, her voice hushed.
Of course he’d seen it. And now he knew what else was missing from the bare square.
“Tracks.”
Weezy stared at him. “What?”
“Look.” He pointed to the ground around them. “It hasn’t rained for at least a week but the only tracks here are our footprints. The only explanation for that has to be that animals won’t cross this space. It’s really and truly a dead zone. What’s going on here?”
“Or maybe, what went on here. I don’t know, but … it doesn’t feel right.”
Jack knew exactly what she meant.
She gave him a sickly look. “I don’t think I want to be here anymore.”
Neither did he, but he put on a carefree expression. “Whatever. I’ve got to go to work anyway.” He looked around. “You think this place might be part of your Secret History of the World?”
She nodded. “Definitely. But maybe some things should remain secret. Let’s get out of here.”
Jack didn’t argue. If nothing else, the dead zone seemed to have chased Carson Toliver from her thoughts.
But not from Jack’s.
MONDAY
1
The first clue that something was wrong came on the school bus.
Jack waited with Eddie and Weezy at the intersection of Route 206 and Quakerton Road with four other Johnson kids who attended South Burlington County Regional High School—SBR for short. They stood in front of Sumter’s used car lot. A FOR SALE sign hung in the showroom window. The place had been closed since Mr. Sumter’s mysterious death a couple of months ago and didn’t look like it was going to reopen. Joe Burdett’s Esso station and a Krauszer’s convenience store occupied two other corners.
The grammar and middle-school kids clustered by the vacant lot across the street. He saw Sally Vivino and her mother waiting for the northbound school bus. Mrs. Vivino wouldn’t look at him. Jack knew why.
He and Weezy stood apart. Eddie hung with the others but was in his own world, lost in whatever music his Walkman was pumping through his headphones.
“You okay?” Jack said.
Weezy had her eyeliner back on and was dressed in a sweatshirt, skirt, and tights, all black.
“Fine. Just glad to be out of the house.”
“Your dad?”
She nodded. “He just shakes his head and keeps saying, ‘What are we gonna do with you, Weezy? What are we gonna do?’ That’s all he ever says. I think I embarrass him. No, I’m sure I embarrass him. He still thinks I should be wearing pink.”
Jack didn’t get the whole black thing, but he never gave it much thought. Just something Weezy was into.
“Weez…”
Her lower lip trembled for an instant. “You know, if I ran away like Marcie Kurek, I wonder if he’d even care.”
Marcie Kurek was from Shamong and had been a soph at the high school last year. One night she told her folks she was going out to visit a friend and never showed up. No one had ever seen or heard from her since.
“Hey, I know you two don’t get along, but that’s crazy.”
She looked at him. “Didn’t I ask you—”
“Yeah, okay. Right. Sorry.” Touchy-touchy-touchy. “What about Toliver?”
“What about him?”
“What are you going to do when you see him?”
And she would see him. SBR wasn’t all that big.
“I won’t see him. If we wind up in the same hall or in the caf at the same time, I won’t look at him. As far as I’ll be concerned, he won’t be there. He won’t exist.”
The big yellow school bus pulled up and clattered to a stop. Jack and Weezy hung back and were last on. He said hello to Karina and Cristin. He found Karina interesting and, well, attractive too. He wished she and Cristin weren’t joined at the hip. He’d like riding the bus next to her.
Not that it was a long ride. SBR was only three miles from Johnson. He could have ridden his bike there easily in good weather like today’s, but his folks