"I'm sorry," Ian said suddenly. "I just couldn't listen to anymore of that sanctimonious, hypocritical bullshit. Sometimes…"

  "I know, man," Kevin said, keeping his voice mild and unthreatening. "I think you got your point across. Just go home and forget about it, okay?"

  "Whatever." Ian got in the car and reached across to open Erin's door. She gave Kevin an embarrassed smile, then ducked in and buckled up as Ian turned the key and the little car reluctantly coughed into life.

  Kevin and Lewis stepped back and watched them drive off. Kevin let out a relieved breath and turned back toward the crowd of mourners around the twin caskets.

  Lewis joined him, shaking his head. "That freak is completely fucked up," he said. "How does he come up with all that screwy shit?"

  Kevin smirked. "Reading, dude," he said, mouth twisted with subtle sarcasm that he knew damn well Lewis would never catch. "It fucks you up. Gives you all kinds of weird ideas."

  "No shit?" Lewis asked earnestly. "Man, I'm glad I never do that." He frowned. "Wait a second. What about the Cliff Notes we all used for Mrs. Thurmill's class? Those are safe, right?"

  Kevin had to suppress a laugh. "Lewis," he said, putting a hand on the big jock's massive shoulder. "I really don't think you need to worry."

  Lewis nodded and smiled, obviously relieved. "Cool," he said.

  Lewis sighed as they approached the edges of the continuing ceremony. "I hope this is over soon," Lewis said. "These things suck. Fucking dull as dirt, man, and I've been to, what, a fucking hundred of them lately? Shit, if you ever go have to go to my funeral, bring me a PSP so I got something to do."

  "I'll be sure to do that," Kevin said.

  Kevin started tightening his face into the proper expression of sober sadness, when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He stopped and motioned Lewis ahead, then turned his back on the funeral and flipped his phone open.

  "Hello?" he said.

  "It's Wendy," said the voice on the line. "I'm with Jay."

  Kevin frowned, momentarily shaken by that peculiar statement, then he raised his head and looked around the rolling green hills of the cemetery. He could just see Wendy standing with her cell phone on the spine of a hill about fifty yards away.

  "Oh, yeah, Wendy," he said. "What's up?"

  "Could… could you come here for a minute?"

  Kevin looked back at the funeral. The caskets were being lowered into the graves with electric winches. He shrugged. Ian was right. He already knew what the preacher and the family were going to say. He already knew all the sad little encouragements everybody was going to whisper to everybody else.

  "Sure," he told Wendy. "Be right there."

  He closed his phone and started up the slope toward Wendy. He found her a few moments later, standing by Jason's gravestone, staring at the inscription. It read: "JASON ROBERT WISE 1988-2005," and under that "BELOVED SON." Not "BEST BUDDY," not "BOYFRIEND," just "BELOVED SON" as if Jay's mom was the only one who lost him. Not that Kevin could really hold that against Rita Wise. She was so devastated by the loss of her only son that she had not spoken a single word since the funeral. Kevin had stopped by her place the day after the funeral to make sure she was alright, only to find her stern, mannish older sister there, frowning at him through the door chain like he was some sort of vacuum cleaner salesman or a Jehovah's Witness.

  "Yes?" the woman had said, arching an over-plucked eyebrow.

  "I'm, uh," Kevin had stammered. "Well, I mean, I was Jason's best friend. I was at the funeral. Remember? I'm the one who helped Rita back to her car. I just wanted to see if she needed anything."

  The woman had sniffed and closed the door, undone the chain, and opened it again, stepping aside to allow Kevin to enter, while making him feel as unwelcome as possible.

  "Well," she said. "You may as well say goodbye."

  It was so strange walking into Jay's familiar house and knowing he was not there, would never be there again. Kevin had spent so much time there over the years that it seemed more like home than his own house, and now it had become like some sort of weird museum. Everything was just like Jay had left it. A DVD that Jay had rented and never had a chance to watch, nearly a week overdue, sat untouched on the coffee table. Beside it was an open jar of all natural peanut butter with a spoon sticking out. Jay had always been weird about his diet, and had a habit of eating the stuff straight out of the jar because he had read about it in some body-building magazine. And in the center of this frozen shine to her dead son, Rita sat on the couch like a little girl, knees drawn up to her chest.

  She looked terrible. She was a really good-looking woman, not just for her age, but for any age. Though Jay's dad was out of the picture long before Kevin met Jay, Jay obviously got his good looks from Rita. She was tall and stunning in a bossy, dominatrix kind of way, so it was really disturbing to see her so shrunken and beaten down by grief. Her long dark hair, normally pulled back in a sleek bun, was loose and unwashed, hanging in greasy tangles. Her face was hollow and raw, her eyes and nose red crying. She wore loose sweatpants and had a knitted blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

  "A boy is here to see you," the older woman said, too loud, as if speaking to a slow child.

  "Hey, Rita," Kevin said softly. "How ya doing?"

  Rita's head turned towards him, slow and smooth as if operated by hydraulics. Her eyes did not seem to see him. She did not speak.

  "Say goodbye to her," the older woman said again. "Rita." She raised her voice again. "It's time to go now."

  That's when Kevin noticed the suitcases by the door.

  "Where is she going?" he asked, frowning.

  "She needs to rest," the older woman replied. "I'm taking her back to Mother's house in Wisconsin."

  "Oh…" Kevin said.

  Jay had always hated his grandmother for her controlling, criticizing and mean-spirited treatment of Rita. She made no secret of the fact that she thought her youngest daughter was the lowest kind of slut for getting knocked up with Jason out of wedlock. Rita couldn't possibly want to go stay with that old bitch, but she was getting up off the couch and moving towards the door.

  Kevin thought Rita was just going to walk right past him, but then at the last second, she turned and pulled him into a desperate, clutching embrace that took his breath away. She was so thin, he could feel every bone in her back as he patted her awkwardly, trying to comfort her and knowing there was really no such thing as comfort for her. He was deeply embarrassed to notice that she smelled bad, like she had not showered in days. She had always been so neat and clean, a by-product of her training as a nurse, and her current lack of hygiene disturbed Kevin on a level too profound to even express.

  The older woman gripped Rita's scrawny arm and pulled her away from Kevin, steering her towards the door.

  "That's enough now, Rita," she said.

  "Goodbye, Rita," Kevin half whispered. "Take care, okay?"

  Rita did not reply. Kevin looked back at the overdue DVD on the coffee table and wondered if he should offer to return it, but he couldn't seem to make his mouth move.

  "Well then," the older woman said abruptly, and Kevin took that as his cue to get out of that stuffy, awful shrine.

  He nodded and turned to go, but as he moved past Rita, she reached out and pressed something into his hand. Her eyes met his for a flickering fragment of a second, and Kevin thought he saw a glimpse of the old Rita peeking out from behind the cold, wordless madness. Then she tucked her head down and turned away as the older woman opened the door for Kevin. He left, unable to look back.

  It was not until he was behind the wheel of his truck that he looked down at the object that Rita had given him. It was a chipped and faded action figure of Batman. Jason had tons of Batman figures, but this was Lightning Strike Batman, who had white bolts of lightning all over his costume and had some kind of special power that Kevin couldn't quite remember. That figure had been Jason's favorite when he was a kid and he carried it everywhere. He'd had it in his pocket the day he and Kevin met. Kevin still had his own corresponding Joker figure sitting on top of his computer, though he had lost the helmet and jetpack that came with it long ago. Jason and Kevin had spent endless hours playing Batman vs. Joker in the scrappy woods behind Jason's house and in a strange way, those childhood roles had sort of defined their relationship for all the time. Jason was the strong and heroic good guy and Kevin the mischievous, wisecracking villain. Sitting there in his truck, holding the tiny Batman figure in his big, bulky, grown up hand, Kevin had cried silently for nearly an hour.

  Kevin had the little plastic figure in his breast pocket as he stood there in front of Jason's grave. He could feel its little feet and elbows pressing against the left side of his chest, just below his aching heart. He wondered how much longer it would keep on hurting like this, and when he was ever going to stop feeling like Jay ought to be there, standing beside Wendy, while Kevin lay cold and lifeless in the dirt, instead of the other way around. Where was the justice in a world where the brave hero died young and the villain had to keep on living, to try and find some way to define himself without his long time adversary?

  On the other side of the grave, Wendy seemed to be listening or waiting for something to happen. She was dressed in a very plain, black dress, just a sleeveless, loose fitting sheath beneath a lightweight black sweater. Her hair was gathered away from her pale, make-up free face in a thoughtless knot. She looked beautiful, so much so that Kevin had to look away, suddenly swamped with confusing emotions. He put his hand on the cold curve of Jason's headstone.

  "What are you doing up here in the nosebleed seats?" he asked, trying for his usual humor, and ending up with a kind of forced and anxious tone that did not quite cover the cold and hopeless grief beneath. "I could have gotten you second row."

  Wendy didn't look up. "I didn't want to upset anyone by being there," she said.

  Kevin shook his head. "Oh, you would have been second runner up in that department," he said. "Ian went off on the minister. Got the evil eye from the families. It was classic."

  Wendy tried to smile, but couldn't seem to make it happen. "I… I was just wondering if I could feel Jay's… whatever… presence or spirit or something. But now that I'm here… there's nothing." She shrugged. "If there's any place that makes you feel that there isn't any life after death, it's a cemetery. Nothing but cold stones and sorrow."

  "Yeah," Kevin said. "I know what you mean."

  He turned and looked back the way he had come. Down the hill Ashley and Ashlyn's funeral was breaking up, the family and friends wandering slowly back to their cars. He heard the bulldozer start up. It began pushing a mound of dirt into Ashley's –or was it Ashlyn's- grave.

  "I haven't felt Jay's presence either," he said. "Not him or Carrie. Not here, at home, at school, anywhere. And I'll tell you I've tried hard. Real hard."

  "I thought, maybe…" She paused, and Kevin could see her fighting tooth and nail against the threat of tears.

  He grimaced, feeling a powerful urge to put his arms around her and comfort her, but not sure his attentions would be welcome. She seemed so small and fragile, slender and waifish where Carrie had been curvy and vivacious. He took a step forward, then stopped as Wendy looked up, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

  "That night," she said. "Before we got on the ride, Jason said 'Your fear is from a sense of having no control.'" She frowned. "I've felt that fear since the moment he said it. I thought the fear might have even caused the… the hallucination I had."

  "The vision," Kevin said.

  "If you want to call it that," she said. "Though honestly, calling it that scares the shit out of me." She looked down at the bright clutter of wilting flowers around the foot of Jason's grave. "Anyway, the fear, it feels like more than just being scared. It's almost like a… a presence. Like a living thing, always with me, always hanging over my shoulder."

  "You think it's Jason?" Kevin asked, spooked and only half-humoring her.

  She shook her head vehemently. "No," she said. "I know it's not. Definitely. This, whatever it is, makes me feel the total opposite of how Jason made me feel. It's like cold ice around my spine, all the time."

  "That's rough," said Kevin, because he didn't know what else to say. "Maybe it's just shock. Maybe it'll go away after a while."

  He looked back to the winding road. His truck was one of the few vehicles still there. He didn't see Wendy's ride. "Well, I should probably get going. My dad…"

  "Wait," said Wendy. "I haven't shown you that thing I wanted to show you."

  He turned back to her. "Huh?" he asked. "What is it?"

  She bit her lip, seeming suddenly shy. "Well," she said. "First let me say that I'm starting to change my mind about what you said the other day."

  He looked up sharply. "What?"

  "You know," she said, "about that flight where all the people who got off before it blew up died? I think… I think I'm afraid…"

  "That it's happening now?" Kevin asked, incredulous.

  She nodded and reached into her purse. "Here," she said. "Have a look at these."

  She pulled out a messy pile of digital photos of varying quality, printed out on glossy photo paper. She handed the top one to Kevin. He looked at it, unsure. It was a printout of the cover of The Who's album "Who are you?" The photo was of the band posing backstage. Drummer Keith Moon straddled a chair that was stenciled with the words "Not to be taken away."

  Kevin raised an eyebrow, confused. "Ooookay," he said. "The Who, old British band, Tommy and all that. What about 'em?"

  Wendy tapped the picture. "Look at the chair Keith Moon is sitting on," she said. "See here it says, 'not to be taken away.' He died twenty days after the album was released."

  Kevin frowned, still not getting it. "Uh-huh," he said. "So you're being haunted by the ghost of Keith Moon?"

  Wendy pursed her lips, obviously annoyed by his flippancy. She handed him another photo. It was a posed portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was smiling, but an eerie line cut through the top of the image and veered through his head at an angle.

  Kevin looked up, waiting for the explanation. "Okay. And…"

  "That is the last photograph Lincoln ever posed for," she said. "The photographic plate was cracked when it was taken out of the camera. You see the line? It goes right through his head, exactly where John Wilkes Booth shot him."

  Kevin scowled at the photograph. "Okay," he said. "I think I see where you're going with this. Any more?"

  Wendy passed him a third photo. "This one was taken by a guy named Mark Phillips, just a few seconds after the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center."

  Kevin looked at it. It was a picture of fire and smoke pouring out of the second tower. Within the smoke could be seen what looked like a demonic face. He looked up at Wendy, a bit more skeptical this time.

  "I don't know about this one," he said. "It's more like one of those Rorschach tests, where you see what you want to see. Or like one of those faked up Weekly Enquirer photos…"

  "Okay, fine," Wendy said. "Take a look at this."

  She handed him a photo torn from an old newspaper. It showed a fatal freeway pile up. The tangle of twisted, blackened metal was ugly and grim, but Kevin couldn't see what this had to do with Lincoln and Keith Moon and the World Trade Center.

  "This accident occurred one year to the day after the flight One Eighty disaster you told me about," Wendy said. "Look at the road sign."

  He squinted at the grainy photo. In the left corner of the photo, he could make out a mobile traffic alert sign. It read: "CONSTRUCTION AHEAD 180 FEET." He paused, struggling between wanting to believe what she was showing him, and wanting to deny it.

  "Look," he said. "I guess you're showing this to me because I'm the one who put this in your head, with all that stuff about the Flight 180 business. I'm pretty convinced that did happen, and… and maybe it's happening here too. But just because you believe one screwy thing, that doesn't mean you should grab at every weirdo theory that comes down the pike because you're desperate for some kind of answer. You let that shit get out of control and pretty soon you're on the street, wearing a tin foil hat and telling people the government is beaming mind control waves into your…"

  Angry, Wendy snatched another print out off her stack and held it out to him. "I took this picture that night," she said. "The night of the crash."

  Kevin looked back down at the growing stack, trying to focus, then took the pictures from Wendy's hand. It was the picture Wendy had taken at the clown shoot booth at Red River. Ashlyn and Ashley were in the center of a crowd of boys, shooting water pistols. Nothing odd there, Kevin thought, except their skin was glowing crimson red, and their hair was tinged with hot orange highlights from some bright light out of the picture. It looked unnervingly like they were on fire.

  "Well," he said, trying to be logical about it all. "You just shot it when some light went off. It's not like…"

  Wendy pushed another picture at him. He looked at it. It was Jason, arm in arm with the Devil's Flight demon. Behind him was the looping rail of the coaster. The train of cars was aiming right for his head. Kevin swallowed.

  "How many of these do you have?" he asked, fighting back the slick coiling dread inside his belly.

  Wendy held up the rest of her stack of paper. "I took a lot of photos that night, Kevin," she said.

  A cold, nauseous shudder skittered over the surface of Kevin's skin, chilly sweat soaking his uncomfortable suit.

  "Oh, shit," he said. "And… and they're all…"

  Wendy shrugged, her face creased with worry.

  "Maybe yes," she said. "Maybe no. You can't look at Ashley and Ashlyn's picture and say, 'Oh, they're going to burn to death in a freak tanning bed accident.' It's more like a hint. And the other photos could be hints too, or…"

 

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