“Come on, man! We gotta get outta here!”
Reality hit Sam like a slap in the face. He stopped flailing.
It was Cody.
Sam searched wildly. He was lying on his back in the middle of the road and Cody was beside him, trying to yank him to his feet. Only one car was in the ditch — the black Accord. It was right side up and still had its roof. No other cars were around. There was no stench of oil in the night air.
The nightmare hadn’t happened. There hadn’t been a collision. No bike. No blood. No headless body. It had all been a weird hallucination. When Sam realized he was holding his breath, he let out the air slowly.
“Come on!” shouted Cody, pulling at him again. His voice was high-pitched and desperate. “Don’t zone out on me again, Maestro. We gotta get outta here. Quick, before someone sees us!”
Sam felt groggy, as if he were just waking from a long sleep. He rubbed the back of his head, pushed Cody’s hands away with one arm, and stood. When he started walking toward the Honda, Cody grabbed him by the sleeve and swung him around.
“Don’t you get it, man?” His voice was part hiss, part squeal. “We gotta get outta here before anyone sees us. We gotta forget this night ever happened. We can’t ever talk about this again. Not to anyone … not even to each other … not ever!”
Sam searched Cody’s eyes. There was fear in them. Still feeling only half-awake, Sam tried to comprehend what was happening.
Okay, so the car’s in the ditch. It’s not the end of the world. Not like the accident I just witnessed — or imagined I’d witnessed. We’ll call a tow-truck. What’s Cody so freaked out about? The car? It isn’t even his. It belongs to —
“Javon …” Sam whispered. His eyes met Cody’s. “Where’s Javon?”
Cody didn’t answer right away. He stared at Sam, his eyes dark and frightening.
“I said, where’s Javon?” Sam’s heart beat faster. His mouth was dry.
Cody looked at Sam, and then over at the car. “There,” he said in a barely audible voice.
Sam’s eyes followed Cody’s gaze. They zeroed in on a pair of legs sticking out from beneath the car. Sam’s heart exploded. He shoved Cody aside and scuttled toward the vehicle, but Cody caught him, tackled him from behind, and threw him to the ground.
“What are you doing, you idiot?” Sam demanded. “Are you out of your mind? Let me go! We have to help him!”
The two wrestled until Cody pinned Sam. “Don’t you get it?” Cody screamed. “I already checked him! He’s dead, man. Dead!”
Sam stopped struggling. “You’re lying! How can he be dead? What happened?”
“You must have fallen out of the car and smacked your head when we hit that pothole.” Cody took deep breath. “Javon fell, too. Only he fell forward and went under the car.”
Sam thrashed about, nearly breaking free, but Cody pinned him again. “We gotta call the cops, man. Call an ambulance. Call someone.”
“There’s nothing we can do for Javon. Let it go, man. We gotta get outta here. No one knows what happened except you and me.”
“And Mike …” Sam whispered.
“Mike don’t know nothing! So we drove off with Javon. So what? We’ll say we did something else. Some stupid little stunt. Then Javon dropped us off and he drove away on his own. We don’t know what happened to him — got it? We weren’t with him. That’s the story.”
Sam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This was crazy. Insane. In one swift motion he knocked Cody off and staggered toward the Honda.
“I’m not going down for this — no way, man!” Cody yelled.
Sam kept moving.
“You’re an idiot, Sam!” Cody shouted. It was the first time he’d called him by his name. “We can walk away from this, you and me, or we can go down for something that was an accident. An accident, man! You wanna go to Juvie for an accident?”
Sam stopped. He eyed the lifeless legs. He was battling himself, but he was losing. He didn’t want to admit it, but he didn’t want to go to Juvie for an accident, either. Tears spilled down his cheeks. He swiped them away bitterly before Cody noticed. “So what do we do? Just leave him here?”
In the distance a pair of headlights appeared. They were about two kilometres away. Sam had to make a decision quickly.
“Let’s just get outta here,” Cody said. “Someone will find him. No one needs to know we were here. Not Mikey Mouse. Not even AJ. No one.”
The lights were approaching rapidly. The car had to be doing a hundred. Soon it would be on top of them. Would the driver even see the Honda in the darkness? Would he see what was underneath? Or would he speed by, thinking it was an old, abandoned vehicle?
“What’s it gonna be, man?” Cody demanded. “Home or prison?”
The car was less than a kilometre away. It was now or never.
Sam scrunched his eyes, took a deep breath, and backed away from the Honda. He ran to the opposite side of the road, with Cody at his heels, and dived into the ditch as the car sped by. Sam glanced up as it passed. It was the blue Mustang.
“So we’re cool, right?”Cody asked. “We don’t talk about this? Not to anyone?”
Sam couldn’t bring himself to say a word. He still couldn’t believe what he was doing. He pressed his lips together and nodded once. His stomach bubbled and boiled. His mind kept telling him he was making a deal with the devil, but he didn’t want to go to jail. The stunt wasn’t his idea. He hadn’t been the driver. He didn’t even really know what happened. But he did know it was an accident. An accident.
Walking north, Sam stayed low in the ditch and out of sight. It was a long way home. He heard Cody call behind him, his voice echoing in the distance. “Remember, man. This is our secret.” Sam couldn’t bring himself to look back. He never wanted to see Cody again.
Sam kept trudging, keeping to the shadows in the ditch by the road. He couldn’t bear to think of what he’d done. It was so horrible that his mind switched off. The damp air seeped into his clothes, making him colder, freezing his brain.
As he hiked, he became acutely aware of every sound around him. A bird screeched in the distance. The wind whistled through the trees. Several times he thought he heard a car approaching. Each time that occurred he dived flat into the damp grass and dirt and waited, only to realize it was his imagination.
Sam began to shiver and hugged himself to stop the tremors. He marched on for almost an hour, his feet heavy, his mind cloudy and dull. His teeth chattered as words slipped through: “Didn’t happen … all a dream … a dream …” Several times he stopped to remind himself where he was. His feet led him onward mechanically, dragging his body forward, until nearing the woods that hid Sleepy Hollow he started to convince himself that everything had been just that — a dream.
When Sam entered the tunnel of trees past the old willow, the wind suddenly died off. There was never any wind in Sleepy Hollow. Darkness covered him in a cold blanket. He strained his eyes to see through the tunnel, but it was no use.
Crunch.
Something rustled the leaves. “Mike, is that you?” Sam searched frantically, but he couldn’t see a thing. He picked up his pace.
Sam needed to get home. If he could lie in his bed and pull the covers over his head, then this nightmare would fade away. He’d wake up and it would all be a dream. If only he could get home …
Crunch.
There it was again. Something was moving through the trees. Following him. Sam broke into a sprint. His house wasn’t far now.
Crunch, crunch.
Sam ran as fast as he could, peering at the darkness as he hurtled through the tunnel that seemed to close in on him. For a split second he thought he caught sight of a shadow as it slipped behind an old tree trunk.
That shadow.
That shape.
It had no head!
Sam broke through the trees, racing past driveway after driveway. Taking the steps of his porch in one giant leap, he lunged for the front door that Mike had left unlocked. He swung it open and slid inside, shutting it quickly but quietly, and then leaned back on the heavy oak to catch his breath. His heart was pounding. His side was aching.
The house was silent. Sam scanned the darkness. There was an empty feeling about it. He took a step toward the stairs. The old floors creaked beneath his weight, and he stopped. He was sure someone was watching him. Every nerve in his body was taut. Only his eyes moved, examining every corner and crevice.
“Mike?” he whispered.
Someone giggled. It was an airy sound that echoed through the hall.
Sam swung around. “Miranda?”
But there was no one there.