62. A Mess

“Want a smoke?”

Brick asks me this as we’re standing at the top of the steps of Harrington High braving the cold and the on-and-off-again drizzle.

“Are you always going to ask me if I want a cigarette even though I’ve said no a hundred times?”

“Seems the right thing to do.”

I laugh. “Well, thanks, but no. I need something stronger than a smoke.”

“Seriously?”

I shake my head. “Just kidding.”

“’Cause you know—”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.”

Occasionally I’ll hang around with skinhead here because he makes me laugh and because I don’t feel the need to be anybody else for this guy. He doesn’t have a set group of friends. Rather, Brick is a loner who everybody knows and pretty much likes.

I wonder what will happen to him when he’s no longer at Harrington High.

“What are you going to do after graduation?” I ask.

“Didn’t you hear? I’m deciding between Princeton and Yale.”

“No, thanks,” I say. “You know how hard it is to get a job after college.”

“Yeah. And that’s now. In another four years we’ll be in a depression.”

“Don’t joke about it,” I say.

“Who says I’m joking?” He takes a drag and looks out to the road below. “Nah, I’m staying around here. Figure someone will always need a mechanic, you know? Especially if everybody’s broke and driving around broken-down cars.”

“So you don’t mind this place?”

He looks at me as if he’s wondering why I’m asking. “Remember—people leave people like me alone.”

“Yeah.”

“Any more stuff going on with Staunch?” Brick asks. “I know you and the hot chick asked me all about the dirt on him not long ago.”

“Nothing going on. Nothing now.”

“You ever check out what I told you about?”

I think of the pit in the woods not far from the Staunch house. I think of the remains of the hand I found in the woods.

“Yeah. But they got rid of whatever you saw.”

“A lot to get rid of,” Brick says.

“They burned it.”

Brick goes “Hmm.”

“Hey—if I needed your help sometime, would that be cool?” I ask.

“What kind of help?”

“Just—actually, I don’t know. Just help—maybe watching my back or something like that.”

“Yeah. From who? Gus?”

“No—he’s laid off. Ever since his father attacked him with a serving spoon in front of the town. Just from other people.”

“Yeah, sure. You just tell me when.”

How about Memorial Day weekend when something big is going to happen?

“Thanks,” I tell Brick.

At least I know someone who is willing to help with no questions asked.

But Brick does surprise me with a question.

“You ever think of Lily?”

I’m not sure what to say at first. So I just tell him the truth. “Yeah. Pretty much every day.”

“Man, she was fine, wasn’t she?”

I nod.

She probably didn’t realize how fine she was.

“It’s just a mess, isn’t it?” Brick says.

“What?”

“This world.”

Maybe this is a chance for me to share some hope and inspiration with Brick. But I have no idea where to start without sounding lame.

“Yeah, it is” is all I can say.

The world is a mess. Doesn’t mean it’s God’s fault.

But it does mean that He can save us from it. And from ourselves.

I’m heading back to class when I see a tall guy walking down a hallway all alone.

I stop for a second and feel a weird sense of déjà vu.

A tall kid walking in sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

He turns to look at me, and I see what I didn’t want to see.

It’s him. It’s the guy again.

I saw him last summer at school. The same exact kid. He has a bloody neck and cheek, as if they’ve been eaten away by something.

Or shot.

I almost put my hand in front of my face, but I can’t stop looking. The guy just turns and looks at me, then he keeps walking toward the end of the hallway.

I look around me, but nobody else saw him.

I bolt down the hallway just to make sure that there’s not really some guy there who’s shot and wandering.

I go into the room at the end of the hallway; it’s dark and I quickly turn on the lights. It’s cold in here, and I know that any second he’s going to jump out and make me give him a big kiss on his missing cheek.

But no.

The room is empty and silent.

Like my head. Like my sanity.

I’m going to leave, but then I glance at the chalkboard. It’s not empty.

The writing is large.

In big, thick letters, the message is pretty clear.

Marsh killed me and killed Jocelyn and will kill Kelsey too so be careful

I look around the room again and then sneak a peek back outside the hallway. Nobody is around.

Even after everything that’s happened, I still feel like someone’s playing a prank on me.

Surprise! This whole last year has just been one big reality television show trying to freak you out!

The kid I saw …

Was that Stuart Algiers?

I’m going to ask, but I have a feeling what the answer will be.

I go to the chalkboard to wipe the message away. I touch it, expecting the chalk not to be there, but it is. It’s very real.

It takes me five minutes to erase it all.

As I’m heading out of the classroom, I see Miss Harking waiting for me in the hallway. Almost standing at attention, her narrow eyes and face judging me in an instant.

“Do you need help, Chris?”

The way she asks this isn’t like someone asking another person if they need assistance. This is more like someone who thinks the person is trying to hide something.

“No, I’m good.”

“Are you sure?”

I see her eyes staring at me with guilt and judgment.

“No. But thanks.”

I smile and then walk away.

I have to hide the fact that I want to take off in a sprint. My back feels watched by the rigid lady.

When I’m finally seated in my next class, I can’t get the message out of my head.

It’s not so much that I question whether Marsh is bad or not.

But does this mean he was the one to physically kill Jocelyn and Stuart and others?

Is he planning to do the same to me maybe? Or is he using Kelsey as bait?

This is the reason I’m not doing particularly well in my classes. It’s hard to concentrate when you’re contemplating a message a ghost sent you about how he died.