Gravestone Read online

  GRAVESTONE

  Published by David C Cook

  4050 Lee Vance View

  Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

  David C Cook Distribution Canada

  55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5

  David C Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications

  Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England

  David C Cook and the graphic circle C logo

  are registered trademarks of Cook Communications Ministries.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

  no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

  without written permission from the publisher.

  This story is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental.

  2 Kings 6:16 in chapter 38 is taken from the King James Version of the Bible. (Public Domain.) The first passage in chapter 88, Isaiah 59:9–10, is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc™. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The second verse in chapter 88, 1 Corinthians 4:5, is taken from The New Testament in Modern English, copyright © 1958, 1959, 1960 J.B. Phillips and 1947, 1952, 1955, 1957 The Macmillian Company, New York. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The third verse in chapter 88, Daniel 10:19, is taken from the New Living Translation of the Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers.

  The poem segment in chapter 8 is from Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken,” Mountain Interval (1920). The first poem segment in chapter 39 is from Robert Frost, “A Ghost House,” A Boy’s Will (1915). The second poem segment in chapter 39 is from Robert Frost, “Now Close the Windows,” A Boy’s Will (1915). The third poem segment in chapter 39 is from Robert Frost, “The Flood,” West-Running Brook (1928). The fourth poem segment in chapter 39 is from Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken,” Mountain Interval (1920).

  LCCN 2011923885

  ISBN 978-1-4347-6419-5

  eISBN 978-0-7814-0688-8

  © 2011 Travis Thrasher

  The Team: Don Pape, LB Norton, Sarah Schultz, Caitlyn York, Karen Athen

  Cover Design: Amy Kiechlin Konyndyk

  Cover Images: iStockphoto 3403969; 5000316, royalty free

  First Edition 2011

  For Ben Lippen

  Contents

  Preface

  1. The State of a Sixteen-year-old

  2. Déjà Vu

  3. Something Warm

  4. Trust

  5. The Ghost in You

  6. Echoes

  7. Two Surprises

  8. Empty Canvas

  9. A Way of Making Things Happen

  10. Take a Deep Breath

  11. Stories and Troubles

  12. Options

  13. Utterly Ridiculous

  14. The Sighting

  15. Lost

  16. Don’t

  17. Reaching Out

  18. The Discovery

  19. The End of the Road

  20. Below

  21. At Your Doorstep

  22. Ichor Staunch??

  23. Some Kind of Misery

  24. As Imaginary as Laughter

  25. Girls

  26. The Prisoner

  27. Ghosts

  28. In My Sleep

  29. The Warning

  30. Iris

  31. Below

  32. Some Underground Labyrinth

  33. Building Blocks

  34. The Camera

  35. One Puzzle Piece

  36. Maybe

  37. A Locker Love Poem

  38. What Do You Believe?

  39. Promises to Keep

  40. A Different Language

  41. Here Comes the Sun

  42. Grown-ups

  43. Fight

  44. Belief

  45. Uninvited Guest

  46. In Rainbows

  47. Gravestone

  48. 1000 Reasons

  49. Emails

  50. All My Maybes

  51. Why We’re Talking

  52. And So

  53. The Hurting

  54. Groundhog Day

  55. Double Date

  56. The Nest

  57. The Rest of Us

  58. The Truth, Finally

  59. Oh Yeah

  60. In Between

  61. Creeper

  62. Alone

  63. The Project

  64. Afraid of the Dark

  65. Hell Is Here

  66. Love

  67. One Thing

  68. Train Wreck

  69. Getting Darker

  70. Truly Tortured

  71. Girls

  72. Meets and Meetings

  73. Harold Martin

  74. Normal and Messy

  75. Déjà Boo

  76. Proof

  77. A Way Out

  78. Something in Here

  79. In the Middle of Nowhere

  80. Upside Down

  81. Echoes

  82. Things in My Head

  83. Not Watching Anymore

  84. Happy Accidents

  85. Purpose

  86. Black Leopard

  87. She’s a Girl

  88. The Spaces in Between

  89. The Bike

  90. Oh Man

  91. As If Eventually

  92. A Change in Seasons

  93. Miss You

  94. Save a Prayer

  95. Rage

  96. Driving Again

  97. The Sign

  98. The Same Guy

  99. In Flames

  100. Driving

  101. Mad World

  102. UNKLE

  103. Summer Plans

  104. The Two Ladies

  105. One Moment

  106. The Big Bad Wolf

  107. Defy

  108. Too Much

  109. Sealed Shut

  110. The End Is the Beginning

  111. A Fine Ending

  112. Little Bird

  AfterWords

  Three Recommended Playlists

  Behind the Book: The Empire Strikes Back

  A Snapshot

  I hear her voice calling my name.

  The sound is deep in the dark.

  —“A Forest” by The Cure

  Preface

  Evil wears a mask, and I can finally see its face.

  The rushing waters surround us as sunlight plays tricks on my eyes. Gold glitters in these woods, damp from the earlier rain, foggy from the temperature change. My legs splash in the cool stream that comes up to my shins.

  He’s standing on the edge where the water drops fifty feet to the jutting rocks below. He faces me with his sick smile. “What are you going to do now, Chris?”

  I’m no longer scared, no longer running away.

  “It’s done,” I say. “You’re done.”

  The voice talking is not mine. The hand holding this knife doesn’t belong to me.

  Chris Buckley is gone. Long gone.

  It’s been six months, but I can still taste it in my mouth. The anger, the bitterness, the absolute hunger for revenge.

  You don’t have to do this, not here, not like this.

  He smiles. “What do you think you’re going to do?”

  “Whatever you’re doing to this place and these people—it’s over. Right now.”

  His laugh twists into my skin.

  “There are things you need to know,” he says.

  “I know enough.”

  “You know only what you’re supposed to know. That’s why I brought you here.”

 
“I followed you.”

  “I could break your neck if I wanted to.”

  I smile. Because something in me says he’s wrong. Something in me believes that if he wanted me dead, I’d be dead already.

  “You’re not going to do anything to anybody ever again,” I say.

  “So what happens after you kill the Big Bad Wolf?” he asks. “There are others lurking in these woods and in this town. I’m just the obvious one. Killing me achieves nothing.”

  My hand shakes, but I steady it as I walk closer to him. Streaks of sunlight circle us like a laser show.

  You can’t really do this, Chris, no matter how you feel and how right it is.

  “So the pastor stands at Marsh Falls,” he says. “How ironic. How fitting. And how utterly predictable.”

  “You killed her,” I say to him.

  He laughs and looks at me through his short glasses, and I want to take them and break them just like I want to break him.

  “Six months and you’re still seething,” Pastor Marsh says. “That’s good.”

  “People are going to know.”

  “Haven’t these past months taught you anything? You’re smart, but you’re not that smart. You’re not here because you’re some bright young star chosen because of your intelligence, Chris. You’re really rather unremarkable, to tell you the truth.”

  I inch closer.

  He’s now about five feet away from me. He looks behind him, then glances back at me.

  This is the first time I think I see fear on his face.

  Because maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t see fear in mine.

  One more step.

  The echoes of the falls smother all other sounds.

  Hell is not dying, Chris. It’s knowing and living.

  Whoever said that was right.

  I think whoever said that is standing before me right now.

  “Do you want to know the truth?” he asks.

  “I know the truth. The new church. I know where it is. I found the folders. The pictures. I have proof. Everybody is going to know about Solitary. Everybody is going to know what’s really going on.”

  “Have you ever been surprised, Chris?”

  “You’re a sick man.”

  “Have you ever believed in something with all your heart, only to discover it was an ugly little lie?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Everything you think you know about this town and about your mother and her family—all those things are pretty little lies covering up the ugly, awful truth.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, yes, Chris. Maybe this has all been some elaborate test.”

  I move closer.

  “Maybe we never wanted Jocelyn. That sweet but dirty little thing you professed to love.”

  I curse at him.

  “Maybe all we ever wanted was you.”

  My hand is steady and I know it’s because I’ve used a weapon before and I’ll do it again. Even though a gun’s a lot different from a knife, it doesn’t matter.

  I’m not Chris Buckley because that boy died on New Year’s Eve along with something far more precious.

  Stop before it’s too late.

  “We’re watching, but all you see is the scene before you,” Pastor Marsh says. “You don’t see anybody but a face you hate and fear and a boy you hate and fear even more.”

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  He smiles. “If you do, Chris, we will watch and applaud and await.”

  Then the pastor opens his arms as if giving the benediction at church.

  And that’s when I plunge the twelve-inch hunting blade deep into the place where I imagine his heart might have been at one time.

  I see Jocelyn’s face as I move the knife and feel the softness of skin and hear the gasping, choking breath as I thrust down.

  I let go and see him looking surprised. Not in horror, but almost in utter delight.

  “You want to know the truth, Chris?” a draining, coughing voice asks.

  And then he tells me.

  And suddenly I realize that he’s right and I’m wrong.

  I realize this just as he staggers over the falls and drops below.

  1. The State of a Sixteen-year-old

  Snow.

  That’s what the new day brings.

  A white, cold cover-up.

  Complete and total isolation.

  Icy fingertips on the window.

  And hot, raging anger.

  The second day of the new year, and I’m ready to wake up from this nightmare and find myself back in Illinois. Where’s my buddy Brady’s game room with all the latest games and the ability to connect with twenty other players online? I can only connect with a dog that looks like a cotton ball dropped in chocolate. Everything else is impossible. Starting with Mom.

  She looks like a survivor of a car crash. I didn’t want to talk with her yesterday, but when morning came and she eventually woke up and I made an effort to communicate, I knew that something was wrong with her, too. Maybe she watched her own personal New Year’s Eve bonfire and sacrifice. Maybe she got a call from Dad saying he wanted her back. Maybe she realized the mess the two of us are in and then proceeded to drink herself to oblivion.

  I was going to tell her, but not in her condition of walking unconsciousness. Instead I made her coffee and waited until she could listen without dozing off into Slumberland.

  Our phones don’t work. Of course. Mom says they’ve been out ever since the ice falling last night turned to snow. If she’s so groggy now, how can she remember what it was like in the middle of the night? All I can remember is the tapping on the window and Midnight snuggling next to me. I can’t imagine the dog enduring a storm like this in the deserted barn where Jocelyn was keeping her.

  Sure you can, buddy. You can imagine anything now. Anything.

  The Internet doesn’t work either. Yet our cable does.

  I’d try a cell, but we haven’t made it that far. Baby steps. Like my license. Like my sanity. Like my soul.

  Midday, and the weather reports are wrong. This ice-turning-into-snow storm has tripled expectations, at least in the wonderful little vacation getaway of Solitary. Come for the weekend, and you’ll leave scarred and changed for life! Come for life, and you’ll discover that life’s not exactly worth living.

  I stepped out on the deck and saw a good seven or eight inches.

  That was hours ago.

  That means any thought of driving is no good.

  No phone, no Internet, no car.

  And no Mom.

  I’m imprisoned with this rage inside me.

  Still in shock, still out of my mind in awesome terror, still in this little cabin that once belonged to Uncle Robert before he disappeared.

  A voice reminds me that oh, yeah, I’m still sixteen.

  But I don’t believe that voice anymore.

  2. Déjà Vu

  You leave, and we’ll forget you. Do you understand?

  Snowflakes hurl sideways as I make my way down the white, vanished road.

  We can do this to your mother, Chris. To your father. We can do this to anybody who means anything to you.

  I squint and look out the slit between my cap and the scarf covering my nose and mouth.

  You’ll live and you’ll know, Chris. And you won’t tell another single soul. Do you understand?

  Each step I take is like one taken on the top of Mount Everest. It’s not just the deep snow; it’s that wind.

  Do you understand?

  I’ve been walking for at least half an hour.

  Walking with that voice going off in my mind.

  My answer has changed.

  No, I don’t understand.

  And no, I’m not staying quiet.

  There are two ways into town. Sable Road comes in from both the north and the south. Two roads that feed into a town the world has somehow neglected. So snowed in really means that. As I trudge through foot-deep snow, I realize it’s going to take a while for them to
plow Sable Road, and far longer to plow side roads like mine.

  There’s no way every single person in this town could be crazy psycho. No way. That’s nice in zombie movies, but this is no Hollywood set.

  If I can’t find anybody in town, I’ll keep walking until I get to another town. To another state.

  To somewhere else.

  The wind howls, and I swear I hear Jocelyn’s voice in it.

  Whispering Be careful.

  Whispering Be smart.

  But that’s not her ghost because … because it’s not.

  Maybe I’ll be able to see her with the help of some freaky old lady who does séances, but not here and not today.

  I notice the tall trees that stand by the road like people watching a parade. Silent, towering sentries in white, guarding Solitary. I don’t realize just how far the town is from our cabin. It sure doesn’t help that I’m wearing tennis shoes. But snow boots are on the To Buy list along with a shotgun and some vampire repellent and an AA book for Mom.