The Boys are Back in Town by Christopher Golden

CHAPTER THREE

Up on the platform, Stacy growled into the microphone, smiling mischievously as she sang Sheryl Crow’s “Steve McQueen.” Maybe a dozen people had abandoned their seats or their quiet corners and gathered to bump and grind in front of the platform. There were several Will did not recognize, but the others were all older versions of familiar faces. Others stood up behind him and started in dancing as well, so that he was caged on either side by laughing, gyrating people.

A frenetic, benevolent energy exuded from them just as surely as sweat and alcohol from their pores, and yet it touched him not at all. The evening’s celebration churned all around him but he was no longer a part of it. The colorful dresses on the women seemed tacky all of a sudden, and the laughter perverse. A hollow place had opened up inside of him.

Will felt completely detached, as though he had phased into some gray limbo, passed out of existence completely, and the rest of the world went on around him as though he wasn’t there at all. He had had dreams like this, and they had always terrified him. The room had taken on the texture of a dream now, and the air he was breathing was not quite right. The voices were too loud, the music somehow muffled.

He closed his eyes and felt himself swaying, knew he was about to pass out but could do nothing to stop it.

“Will?” a soft voice said, a gentle hand steadying him.

His eyes fluttered open. The delicate, almost otherworldly face of Martina Dienst swam into focus. Her eyes were narrowed with concern but other than the tiny lines at the edges of her mouth, she looked as though she had not aged a day in the last ten years.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He stared at her, his throat dry. The woman had changed not at all, and yet it seemed that his eyes had altered; or perhaps what had evolved was his way of seeing. Martina had always been beautiful, but now she was stunning. There was an elegance and grace about her that had always been there, but seemed far more vital now.

“Hey,” he said, forcing a smile that felt stiff and false. “I’m . . . I’m okay. I’ve just had a really long week.” Will took a deep breath and raised his chin, stood a bit straighter, not wanting her to think he was drunk or high. “You look amazing, by the way.”

Her smile was sweet, and yet somehow regal. There had always been a touch of majesty about her. “Thank you. You look pretty good, too, if we ignore the pale, nearly-fainting part.”

Will laughed softly and felt as though some of the color flooded back into the world. The surreal quality of the room rolled back like a wave on the shore, but he was cautious, afraid it would wash over him anew. When it didn’t, he smiled again and this time it felt more real.

“Very long week,” he reiterated.

“You’re not alone,” Martina said. “I arrived from Vienna yesterday. I am still not in this time zone.”

For a brief instant it seemed to him that he was going to be able to do it, to take a breath and dive back into the flow of the evening. But then Danny’s words came back to him, coupled with the ghost of a memory he did not recall ever experiencing before. It wasn’t déjà vu. If there was an opposite to déjà vu, that’s what this was.

Caitlyn sobbing, face streaked with tears. The strength going out of Ashleigh’s legs as she sat down hard on the tile in the corridor, slumping up against a row of lockers.

I still have nightmares about his funeral.

Jesus, Will thought, trying not to let Martina see how shaken he was. Mike Lebo is dead?

It was fucking impossible. Completely, utterly impossible. He had no recollection of a funeral-a sliver of a memory, a rose dropped upon a casket, already in the ground, loose dirt sifting down to spatter the wood-but Danny wasn’t fucking around. Will had seen that in his eyes. He might joke about a lot of things, almost everything, but not about this.

“Damn,” Will muttered, shaking his head. Then he focused on her. “Martina, you remember Mike Lebo, right?”

A veil of melancholy was drawn across her eyes. “Of course I do, Will. Who could forget? What a sweet guy. The day they announced it in school, when he was killed, that moment is burned into my mind. He’s still the only friend I’ve ever had die. Maybe that makes me lucky.”

Will could not seem to catch his breath. His eyes burned as though he were about to cry, but no tears fell.

“Yeah. Maybe it does,” he rasped. That look of concern was back in Martina’s eyes, but he could not bear speaking with her even a moment longer. Not right now.

“You know what? I’d love to catch up with you. I’ve been to Europe once, back in college, and I’ve always wanted to go back. I’d love to pick your brain, but I’m really not feeling well. Are you going to be at the other events this weekend?”

Martina nodded, frowning. “I’ll be around all weekend. You just look after yourself and feel better, all right? Are you all right to drive? Maybe someone should take you home.”

“I live in Somerville.”

“A hotel, then?” she suggested.

He took another long breath and shook his head, trying not to be too dismissive of her kindness. “I’ll be all right.”

They said their goodbyes and he turned to walk back to the table. As he did he caught sight of Stacy. With a toss of her hair she strummed out the final chords of a song by the Eagles that had been released before any of them had been born.

“Thank you,” she said, as the applause erupted. That knowing smile was there again. “It’s great to see all of you. I’m going to take a break and then do one more set for tonight. It’s really a pleasure to play for you guys. Thanks for having me.”

In the lights that illuminated the platform and the microphone stand, the spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose seemed somehow darker. When she put her guitar on its stand and came down off the platform, she had an expression on her face of real contentment.

Will had paused on his way back to the table. Now he waited as she approached him. When she had crossed half the distance that separated them, the smile on Stacy’s face faltered and a kind of trepidation crept into her eyes.

“Hey. You all right?”

“No,” he admitted, hoping she read the regret in his tone. “I’m really not feeling well. I’m going to head out, I think. Will you be at the game tomorrow?”

Stacy looked pensive, gnawing her lower lip a moment. “Yeah,” she said at length. “I’ll be there. Feel better, all right?”

“Probably just working too hard,” he lied.

She nodded, leaned forward and gave him a light kiss on the cheek, and then turned away. “See you tomorrow. You take care of yourself,” she said over her shoulder. Then she was off across the room, threading through the crowd, politely fending off the compliments she received as she went to mingle.

Will pushed her out of his head, along with everything else that had happened tonight. The only way he could put one foot in front of the other, the only way he could think at all, was to purposely avoid thinking about certain things. But he knew he would not be able to put those thoughts off forever.

He went to the table where his friends sat, moving amongst chairs that had been pushed too far out from their places, trying not to knock off jackets that had been hung off the backs. Several people greeted him and Will managed to smile and even shake a few hands, to promise he would catch up with them at the football game the next day.

Ashleigh noticed him first. She was in the midst of a conversation with Lolly and Pix, but her smile evaporated the second she spotted Will. Despite the mire of unsettling thoughts in his head, he could not help but laugh.

“I must really look like shit, judging from the expression on your face.”

At his words, everyone at the table turned to look at him. Will did not miss the cold glint of pain in Danny’s eyes. It hurt him to see it, to know that at the moment his old friend thought he was a total asshole.

“You do, bro,” Eric said earnestly. “Absolute shit. What’s the matter?”

“Something I ate, maybe,” Will said. His gaze ticked from one face to the next, lingering a moment on Ashleigh until at last he focused on Danny. “I’m headed home. Figure I should get some rest now so I don’t miss the entire weekend.”

“Good idea,” Pix piped up. “You’ll need all your energy to watch those cheerleaders at the game tomorrow.”

Will didn’t have the energy to deadpan a grin, but Eric did it for him.

“We admire them for their athleticism. And all that synchronization. That’s a science.”

Ashleigh rapped him on the shoulder and scolded him with a look. Then she turned to glance up at Will again.

“Drive carefully,” she said, playing big sister. “We’ll save you a seat tomorrow.”

“You got it,” he promised.

Without further hesitation, he headed for the door that would take him downstairs and out of Liam’s Irish Tavern, where he could get into his car and drive away from the impossible.

On the Massachusetts Turnpike, Will turned the radio up loud and rolled the front windows down halfway, letting the chill air rush in, hoping it would clear his head. The sick feeling in his stomach that had combined with astonishment had been superceded now by a dark anger that surged up like bile in his throat.

Sick fuckers, he thought.

It had to be a joke. The most disturbing practical joke he had ever even heard of-and far more clever than he would ever have given Danny Plumer credit for. There were images in his head, snippets of memory he didn’t understand, fragments of emotions that slipped his mind even as he tried to grasp and make sense of them. But all of that might just be the power of suggestion thrown into the mix with what was genuine exhaustion. He was more tired than he had imagined. That part, as least, had not been a lie.

The flag at Eastborough High flies at half-mast. Will’s parents have bought him a black suit, and his father is shining his son’s shoes. If he lets his eyes close, Will knows he will see the brush moving across shoe leather.

But he wouldn’t close his eyes. That was how idiots totaled their cars. Falling asleep behind the wheel.

A cross beside the road, a hasty memorial erected not with wood and steel but with flowers and cards and photographs and candles, flickering candles. In the street Will finds something the police have missed-a broken tooth-knocked from Mike’s mouth when the motherfucking hit-and-run murdering son of a . . .

“No!” Will shouted, snapping his head up, jerking the wheel to the left to correct his course. He had started to fall asleep, started to drift into the next lane.

He shook his head and turned the radio up even louder. With his teeth grinding together, he accelerated, the needle leaping up past sixty-five to seventy and then to seventy-five. He had to get home. There were things he needed to look into, things he had to put his hands on, touch. He knew once he did that, he could flush all of this insanity right out of his head.

Insanity. He didn’t like the sound of that word.

The road hummed under his wheels. Tail lights glowed ahead and too bright headlights glared in his rearview mirror. Will reached up and turned it down to get the brightness out of his eyes.

They still burned, promising tears, but he didn’t have anything to cry about. That was the hell of it. After high school graduation he had lost contact with all but the closest of his old friends. He saw Danny the most because he was in the area, but he and Mike had kept in touch. Christmas cards, a flurry of e-mails four or five times a year. Hell, Mike had been at Ashleigh’s party the night after they had graduated.

Will knew it. He remembered it. They had all been there. Mike had mixed rum and Cokes for everyone and Eric had ended up puking in the shrubs. After Will and Caitlyn had gone upstairs to Ashleigh’s bedroom to have a little private time, Mike and Danny had serenaded them from the flower garden outside the window.

“This is fucked,” he said, cold wind whipping his face, wide awake, eyes staring at the road ahead. The engine thrummed and he saw that the needle had crept up to eighty. Will slowed down a little, knuckles white, fists tight on the steering wheel.

After graduation he and Mike had hung out every time a holiday or summer break brought them both home to Eastborough. After college had come and gone, Mike had moved to Phoenix. His address was in Will’s book back at the apartment.

The wake. The flowers. Mike’s Uncle Bill singing “Danny Boy” so softly under his breath that no one else can hear it.

No. Simply no way.

Will pounded the steering wheel and the horn let out a startled beep.

We just traded e-mails last week, he thought. That night at Ashleigh’s after graduation, he signed my fucking yearbook. “To Will, a better friend than most of us deserve.” Will could see the handwriting in his mind, right above Mike’s picture.

Mike’s picture. How could Mike even have his picture in the yearbook if he had died before those pictures could be taken? The answer was, he couldn’t. Mike Lebo could not possibly be dead.

Grimly, Will kept his hands tight on the wheel and forced himself to stop thinking about it, intent on reaching his apartment and finding the proof that he knew lay waiting. Proof that would put the lie to Danny Plumer’s ire and disappointment and Martina Dienst’s sad recollections.

I still have nightmares about his funeral.

Danny’s voice kept playing in his head, but Will wasn’t listening.

When at last he reached his apartment, he ran up the stairs. The back of his skull ached dully, but he was not tired anymore. If anything he felt more awake, electrified with determination, or perhaps it was merely desperation. Will unlocked his door and flung it open, then left it that way, the keys jangling in the lock behind him as he hurried down the corridor. Emotions warred within him. Brows knitted grimly, he went into the second bedroom, which he used as an office.

His address book sat beside the computer screen.

Will had no idea where Mike would be staying if he had indeed come back to Massachusetts for the reunion. The first guess would logically be at his parents’ home, but Will hadn’t the first clue as to whether the Lebos still lived in the area, or where.

It didn’t matter. Mike had responsibilities back in Arizona-a job, a fiancée, friends-he would be checking his messages from time to time. All Will had to do was call and leave him a message, and then this bullshit would be resolved. And if it was a gag-it has to be-and Mike was in on it, well then Will would have a few choice words for him.

As he picked up his address book, Will shivered unconsciously. A chill went up the back of his neck and the book felt strangely heavy. He stared at its turquoise cover and was filled with the impulse not to open it, to simply slide it back onto the desk.

Images he did not want to see flashed in his mind and he squeezed his eyes shut a moment, massaging the bridge of his nose, trying to force them away. The chill was gone. His entire body felt as though it were alive with prickly heat.

Then he scowled, shaking his head, and he flipped through the book to section L. Mike Lebo’s was the second name he had put into that section of the book, the second address listing under L.

Only it wasn’t.

“No,” Will whispered, shaking his head. His face began to feel oddly numb and his eyes began to fill up as though he might weep.

The second listing under L was for Angie Lester, a woman who worked in sales for the Trib with whom he had gone on a total of three dates several years ago. He glared at the page as though he might be capable of intimidating it into resolving the confusion in his mind, but the conflicting thoughts and memories were still there.

Will flipped to the next page. And the one after. Then there were no more entries for the letter L, and he had not found a listing for Mike Lebo.

“Bullshit,” he muttered to himself. “Bullshit.”

He picked up the phone and dialed directory assistance. When the cold digital voice asked him for the listing and city, he spoke them aloud. “Michael Lebo. Phoenix, Arizona.” But he had to bite down hard to keep from shouting into the phone, from screaming that he had just traded e-mails with the guy, that he had talked to Mike on the phone right around the Fourth of July.

But as he waited for the response he bit his lower lip and closed his eyes and a knot of ice formed in his chest, because he knew what the answer was going to be.

There was no listing for a Michael Lebo in Phoenix, Arizona.

His mind began to grasp for understanding. The previous week, he and Mike had made plans to get together on Sunday because Will was reluctant to attend the reunion. He had not imagined it. A nervous laugh escaped his lips and Will slapped the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Idiot,” he said, clicking on the computer. He had deleted the e-mail but all that did was move it from the Inbox folder to the one for Deleted Items. Some computer systems dumped that folder at regular intervals, but he purposely let his accumulate, having eliminated messages he needed one too many times. He nodded his head in rhythm, silently urging the computer to boot up faster, then logged onto the ‘Net to get to his e-mail. As the new messages began to download he clicked over to Deleted Items and scanned down, trying to remember Mike’s e-mail address. He checked his e-mail address book, but as he scanned through it he realized he did not expect to find the information he sought.

He sat back in the chair and stared at the screen. His head still hurt but now the ache seemed to spread throughout his body, a dull pain that went deep as the marrow of his bones.

There was a soft ding that let him know his new e-mail had finished downloading. Conditioned by routine he clicked to open the In-box. There were over a dozen new messages but his eyesight blurred as he glanced at the names, knowing by now that none of them would be from Mike.

How could they be?

Girls in black dresses, a line of people across the ragged lawn at Pine Hill Cemetery, the collar of his new white shirt is too tight and he feels as though he is being strangled, as though he will pass out before the priest falls silent and dismisses them . . .

Two words leaped out at him from the screen, the return address of one of the new e-mails in his In-box. Message Undeliverable.

Shuddering, he bent over the desk, fingers twined in his hair, palms against his forehead. The headache had taken on a new ferocity, the dull throbbing replaced by slivers of ice that shot through his skull, spiking him with pain. Will felt suddenly as though his head could not contain the conflicting images, the contrary memories that were clashing in his mind. There just wasn’t room.

“Jesus,” he whispered and though he often spoke that name as a curse, for once it was a prayer.

Will shoved back his chair and stood up so quickly that he nearly toppled it. One entire wall of the room was covered with bookshelves and as he walked stiffly toward them he felt as though he were wandering. It was only as he dropped to his knees and began pulling at the oversized books on the bottom shelf-the Atlases and coffee table books-that an understanding of his own intentions began to filter into his conscious thoughts.

He clawed at the books and they toppled out, slapping one upon the other and spilling across the floor. Weakly he sifted through them until he found the smooth, thin, blue volume he had been searching for-the one with Eastborough High School in gold leaf on the cover.

Holding his breath Will paged through the yearbook. In his mind he could still see Mike’s handwriting, and the message that he had written that night at Ashleigh’s graduation party. But the image in his mind was blurry now, out of focus, and he could not quite recall the precise phrasing of the words Mike had scrawled above his picture.

Vanessa Lalley. Mark Leung.

There was no picture of Mike Lebo. No message.

As if moving of their own volition his fingers began to turn pages. A prisoner of his morbid curiosity and impaled upon a blade of dread that twisted in his gut, Will flipped to the back of the yearbook. Some part of him-some newly minted portion of his mind-knew what he would find there, just a few pages before the end.

A picture. Not the one that had been in the yearbook but another, more candid shot, that had been donated by his parents.

In Memoriam. Michael Paul Lebo. We will never forget you.

“Holy shit.” Will let the yearbook slip from his fingers. His right hand shook as he raised it up to cover his mouth. “Holy shit,” he said again, repeating it several times like a mantra. His eyes burned and it was only when he tasted the salt upon his lips that he realized he was crying.

Weeping over the loss of someone dear to him.

Grieving for a friend who had died more than a decade before and who would never become a man. Never move to Phoenix. Never have a fiancée.

“What the hell’s the matter with me?” he rasped, speaking the question to the shadows in his darkened office, half-believing that they would respond, that some voice from the ether would whisper an answer.

Minutes passed before he realized that he was rocking gently back and forth, staring at the books he had spread across the floor. There was the biography on Houdini, whose image adorned the wall here in his home office just as it did at work. And amongst the other research volumes strewn about, there was A History of Magic, something he’d picked up for research years before.

Will stopped rocking. He scowled as he lifted the Houdini bio and dropped it on top of the other book. The suggestion of something had flitted across his mind like a flare fired into the night sky only to drop into the ocean and be snuffed. Houdini had debunked all of that crap. How convenient it would have been to be able to blame this on magic. How much easier. He would have happily embraced any other explanation for this than the one that seemed so patently obvious to him.

I’m slipping. My mind is slipping.

The terror that gripped him at this dawning realization was unlike anything he had ever felt before. He shivered as he rose from the floor and then staggered to the bathroom to piss, after which he stepped out of his jeans and somehow managed to navigate his way into the bedroom.

For hours he simply lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling. Much as he wanted sleep to claim him, to carry him away from the confused jumble of his thoughts and memories, it would not. The ache in his head became a kind of haze that seemed to disorient him.

A night out playing pool during Christmas break, sophomore year of college. Mike was never any good at pool but he has been practicing and he beats Will easily, swigging from the bottle of Rumple Minze Peppermint Schnapps they’ve been drinking, and wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

As his eyes closed and he at last began to drift off, Will’s mind was assaulted by a series of zoetrope-flashing images. Mike hands him a tourism flyer about Arizona, telling him to come visit. The two of them on Cape Cod for a weekend the summer after freshman year in college. Singing along at a matchbox twenty concert at the Fleet Center in Boston.

But those images had already begun to fade, the edges charring and crumbling like burning photographs in his mind. There were simply wrong. Impossible. They could not have happened.

Not when he could remember now, so very clearly, the morning Principal Chadbourne had announced the hit-and-run that had killed Mike Lebo. Not when every moment of anguish in the days that followed was engraved upon his memory. The oh-so-silent wake, where no one had recovered from the shock of it enough to speak about it. The funeral, with the sobbing girls and the fallen roses, and the white collar that was so tight around his neck.

Mike Lebo was dead.

And all these years later, Will’s grief was still an open wound.