39

MYERS IS CURLED up on Marcy’s bed, surrounded by her sea of clothes, covered in a pink blanket that may or may not have flowers on it. I can’t tell. I don’t even think I care. His eyes are open into slits, and he’s mumbling. I still don’t think he knows he’s in a bedroom or even in Marcy’s house. He’s flying somewhere through time and space. I only hope he’ll be able to find his way back home soon.

I wade through her ocean of clothing to her floating laptop, pluck it free of panties and single socks that have long ago lost their mates in the abyss of the dryer where all second socks go, and pray that she doesn’t have her computer password-protected.

She doesn’t.

Big miracles come from the smallest of things.

I sit on her laundry, cross-legged, with the laptop in front of me, and close my eyes. There is something that I have to search for, but I’m not sure what that something is. Random ideas shuffle inside my head, but none of them seem to fit together.

The first one that rises to the surface is Bellingham. There’s a trifecta of connections there. Tate Cole is at The Bellingham School where he is supposedly locked away. I can picture him, with the same face as Marcy’s but much harder, and that sinister look he was always so good at hiding, but not good enough. That look—that narrowing of the eyes and the tiniest hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth, was the look of someone who liked to cause pain in all sorts of ways.

But my brain isn’t pushing me to search for him yet. If not Tate Cole, then that girl, Calista Diamond, is next on my list.

I’ll never forget the way she stared at us back on Covington Circle in front of Running Man’s house, her head shaved and dotted with lines, screaming loud enough and long enough to wake all the dead people being pulled free of his residence. The reporter on TV said that she’s from Bellingham, too.

That’s two for two.

A shiver races through my body and I involuntarily whip my head around for fear that Myers isn’t lying on Marcy’s mess of a bed anymore. Calista Diamond is there instead, waiting for me to look at her so she can open her mouth wider than a human being should ever be able to open a mouth, and let free with a sonic bullet that will drop me on the spot.

I shake my head to dislodge the horrific thoughts and involuntarily rub my left forearm. I’m again becoming painfully aware that there is a burn there that is crying out for more Neosporin.

My fingers rest on Marcy’s keyboard.

What am I searching for?

What am I searching for?

Two words pop into my head, so innocuous and unassuming that most people would never pay much attention to them. However, to me, there is something vital there.

Pizza Depot.

Pizza Depot in Bellingham is an hour away from Meadowfield. In Massachusetts geography that means it’s practically in another part of the state. I look down at Marcy’s keyboard and quickly type in a search. All sorts of weird things come up that have nothing to do with Pizza or Bellingham at all. Several entries down on the list, something a little eerie catches my eye. It’s a story about the Pumpkin Festival in Keene, New Hampshire. I don’t know why Pizza Depot is associated with The Pumpkin Festival in Keene, but I know all about what happened there.

The temperature in Marcy’s room seems to drop several degrees as I press on the link.

An article pops up from the Keene Sentinel. The story is two years old, but what happened there is still fresh in every New Englanders’ mind.

The headline reads, ‘Riot decimates annual fall festival.’

This is what follows:

‘Police in riot gear used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse a large crowd at Keene, New Hampshire’s 24th annual Pumpkin Festival Saturday night. Dozens of individuals were arrested, and ambulances were summoned to deal with a variety of injuries.

“State and local public safety officials are on the scene and have been working to defuse the situation,” Mayor Christopher Flowers said. “We will continue to monitor the situation and provide any assistance necessary to our citizens.”

It’s unclear at which point during the evening things took a turn, but there were reports of people being struck by flying bottles as attendees traded insults with the police, started fires, and overturned cars.

“It’s like a rush,” Amanda Gagne, 18, told The Keene Sentinel Saturday night. “You’re revolting against the cops. It’s a blast to do things that you’re not supposed to do,” she added, describing the night’s events as ‘wicked.’

Last year’s pumpkin festival set a world record by lighting 50,596 jack-o-lanterns.’

A strange, uneasy feeling washes over me. I had nothing to do with the riots up in Keene. I’ve never even been to any of the pumpkin festivals there, even though they are within an hour of Meadowfield. Still, when they happened, I remember feeling so unsafe. Now I knew that bad things could darken good places like Keene, New Hampshire.

Or Meadowfield.

I scroll through the pictures of the devastation in Keene, where cars were overturned and dozens of people were sent to the hospital, until I find why Pizza Depot is connected with the riots.

There is a picture of the Pizza Depot delivery truck parked there, along with a dozen other food vendors, selling funnel cakes and candied apples. I click on the picture, and it fills up Marcy’s screen.

Immediately, I push Marcy’s computer off of my lap, stand, and go to her disaster of a desk where a house phone sits in its cradle. I snatch it up and go back to the computer, squinting as I look at the numbers painted on the side of the truck next to a red picture of a fat chef and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

I take a deep breath, jab at the phone, and wait.

“Hello, Pizza Depot,” says a man’s voice. He sounds both rushed and annoyed at the same time.

“Hi,” I say.

“How can I help you?”

“Um, do you deliver?” I feel like a little kid making a goof, asking if this guy’s refrigerator is running, because if it is, he should go and catch it.

“What’s the address?” says the guy on the other end of the line. He probably gets the same call a hundred times a day. The people ordering are probably fat, neglected teens, whose mothers are named Beryl and smoke pot all day long while pretending to talk to their spirit guides. They probably order two pizzas at once—one Hawaiian and one with everything on it.

“21 Primrose Lane,” I breathe into the phone.

Immediately, I can feel a wave of anger flow through the receiver along with a barrage of words worthy of any truck driver. “In fucking Meadowfield, Massachusetts?” the guy hisses. “I don’t need this shit. You’re goddamned lucky your phone number is blocked, kid, or I’d be calling the cops. For the hundredth time, we don’t fucking deliver to fucking Meadowfield.” The man growls like he may actually have sharpened teeth in his mouth. “Grow up and stop with the prank calls. If you call here one more time, I’ll kill you.”

Then the guy from Bellingham’s Pizza Depot hangs up on me, like I now know he’s hung up on someone else dozens of times before who has pranked him to deliver pizza to Marcy Cole’s house.

I know who, too.

Of course I do.