I'd Rather Not Be Dead Page 6

My fingertips touch the keys without going through them, but the keys don't go down. Boo! It's all I can do not to cry in frustration. But maybe I just need to try harder. The remote didn't work at first either.

  The period ends and TOM leaves, Cris a few steps behind her. His eyes are locked onto her but he doesn't rush to catch up. I stay put, continuing to try to get the keyboard to acknowledge me.

  Lethargy settles on me, but I keep trying to type until the world starts swaying and I list forward, asleep before I hit the desk.

  Hours later, I'm drawn awake by a heavy but gentle warmth on my shoulder. “Drew?”

  Cooper Finnegan moves his hand as my eyes blink open, placing it on the back of my chair. His smile is lightly amused, but his forehead crinkles with worry. His home football jersey hangs loosely over torn jeans.

  “Is that your uniform?” I mumble, confused.

  He shrugs. “It's got my name on it.”

  “But...” Blinking, I run a hand through my hair and look around the room. People mill about in the early morning light, some of them struggling to complete homework assignments, others just not wanting to go to class yet. “It's morning.”

  “Yeah...” Cooper Finnegan tilts his head to the side. “When did you fall asleep?”

  “You're playing Yancy today?” I check, just to be sure.

  “Yep. Last game of the season.”

  I stretch. “Yesterday. Two classes after lunch. I was trying to type.”

  “Oh,” he says, giving me a pitying look that really pisses me off. I don't need pity.

  “Hey, Finn!” one of his teammates calls. “Talking to your self again?”

  Cooper Finnegan smiles sheepishly. “Nah. You must be hallucinating.”

  The other boy chuckles. “Yeah. I do that a lot.”

  Laughing along, Cooper Finnegan pulls out the chair next to mine and logs into its computer. He loads a word processor then types, “If you use too much energy, your body shuts down. It's normal.”

  “Nice to know,” I grumble.

  His eyes narrow toward me. “What did I do now?” his fingers ask.

  Ignoring him, I try to press a key. Same deal as yesterday.

  There's more tapping from beside me. “That's not going to work anytime soon,” Cooper Finnegan types.

  “I can use a TV remote,” I snap at him. “I can use a computer.”

  “You can use a remote?” he asks, out loud. He clears his throat and goes back to using the keyboard. “You shouldn't be able to do that yet, Drew. It took my granddad five years to learn to flip a light switch.”

  “Buttons are easier than switches.” But I also made Cris drop his phone, didn't I?

  “What?” Cooper Finnegan types. “You're thinking something.”

  I shake my head. “I just don't think moving stuff is that hard for me. I moved your pen in physics too, remember?” An idea strikes. “Are there different types of ghosts?”

  My companion considers that. “What do you mean?” scrolls over the screen. “You think you're a poltergeist?”

  I shrug. “Ever met one?”

  His head shakes before he types. “It's possible. What else have you done?”

  “I made a barstool spin.” I think, trying to remember if I've done anything else. “Changed the channel several times. And...” I take a breath. “I made Cris break his phone.”

  Cooper Finnegan's fingers fly over a few keys. “How'd you that?”

  “I tried to grab it from his hand. And it came out, but I couldn't hold onto it...”

  I'm incredibly aware of being closely watched. He's wondering why I would try to steal Cris's phone and he's looking at me intently enough that he might as well just ask.

  “None of your business why.”

  He watches me for another second, then nods and moves his eyes back to his screen. He taps the keys several times before he starts typing again. “If you could type to yourself, what would you type?”

  “I don't know,” I admit.

  The keys click slowly, almost in time with the clock on the wall as it counts off seconds. “I'll type it for you.”

  I stare at his profile. “What happened to events being unchangeable?”

  He won't look at me, but he answers out loud. “Doesn't mean we can't try.” He shifts in the seat, then types, “So? What do I tell her?”

  But I don't know what to tell her. “Dear me,” I imagine writing. “I'm you from the future. We're dead. Try to avoid it, would you?”

  I sigh. “I don't know how I died. I don't know what to warn her against.”

  The bell rings but Cooper Finnegan stays where he is, waiting on me. I wave him off. “Go to class.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” I look at the students leaving the room. Where any of them part of my death? “I need to figure out what to tell her.”

  “Okay.” He logs out, stands and grabs his backpack, tossing it over his shoulder in a way that's almost graceful. “Let me know.”

  “Yeah.”

  I let him walk ahead of me to class, even though we're going to the same place. Halfway there, though, I jog to catch up to him. “Are you really going to help me?”

  “Yeah.” Out of the corner of his eye, he looks at me.

  “Why?”

  His eyebrows rise.

  “I mean...” I take a deep breath. “We've never gotten along. You can't stand me. Why help me?”

  He looks away. “Maybe I just don't want your ghost following me around forever.”

  That statement shouldn't sting. It shouldn't. But it does.

  “You'll be free of me when you go to college anyway,” I mutter through a blast of depression. “I can't leave Mayberry. Ever.”

  “This place isn't that bad.”

  “That's what Fray said.”

  He shoots me a questioning look.

  “This ghost I met.” I sigh. “Lives in the hunting club. Hasn't been half as helpful as one could hope.”

  Cooper Finnegan makes a noncommittal noise. “Yeah. I know him.”

  He pauses, letting a couple cut him off to go through the door first.

  It's the other me, plastered against Cris's side as she admires his new phone, a shiny high-end model that all but shrieks drug dealer. Guess they're not fighting anymore.

  For half a second, I see something truly nasty cross over Cooper Finnegan's face, but it's gone before I can figure out what it is. And I don't have the courage to ask.

  I follow my medium to his desk instead of following TOM to mine. Watching the way she's looking at Cris is like voyeurism, getting in the middle of it would just be creepy. “They look like a real couple, don't they?”

  Cooper Finnegan grunts and flings himself into his seat. He glances toward them but looks quickly away.

  “They're not, you know.” A numb sadness creeps over me. “Not really. They're just friends who fool around.”

  “That what you call it?” His eyes go to them again but, like last time, move away quickly again. His jaw is clenched tight and something pulses in his throat.

  “Finn!” a voice calls from the doorway. Bobbi stands there, clasping her books to her chest. The pose should seem innocent but somehow it manages to be slutty. “I'll see you tonight, won't I?”

  “Wouldn't miss it.”

  The words are hostile, but Bobbi doesn't notice the tone and she preens in satisfaction.

  I narrow my eyes on Cooper Finnegan. “What crawled up your butt?”

  He glares back at me in silence.

  TOM asks him the same thing from behind me.

  He shakes his head and turns his face to the front of the room.

  A simple black pen lays on his desk, waiting to take notes. I reach down, pick it up, and wave it meaningfully toward him.

  His eyes fly open in horror before his hand leaps out to grab the writing implement. It's the expression which makes me realize anyone in the room could have seen what I just did.

  Anyone could see...

  “Do
n't!” Cooper Finnegan scrawls in large letters. “Freaking people out isn't going to get you anywhere,” he writes smaller, his letters sharp and cramped. “Exorcists are real.”

  “Exorcists?” Feeling woozy, I blink down at him.

  He nods and scrawls some more. “Yes. They'll be able to send you on. Do you want that?”

  The question seems to be asked not as a threat but as an offer.

  “Send me on to where?”

  Cooper Finnegan shrugs, his eyes firmly locked onto the paper and going nowhere near me. “Don't know. No one ever comes back.”

  “I don't believe in heaven,” I point out.

  The corners of his mouth tug upward, though he tries to keep his lips pressed in a straight line. The pen glides along. “You don't believe in ghosts either.”

  That's a good point. But I still haven't seen any evidence there's a life beyond this one. The fact that this one is beyond the last doesn't comfort me much because there's no reason to believe the chain goes on forever. At some point, I'll simply stop existing.

  “No exorcist,” I state firmly.

  He nods and turns the page. When he writes again, it's to copy down the prompt our English teacher scrawls on the board.

  Chapter Eight

  Worried about The Spirit making a comeback, I trail after Finn for the rest of the school day, but when it fails to make another appearance before classes let out, I decide to follow myself as she leaves the building. Which means I follow Cris since they're together. His arm's around her and he keeps leaning down to whisper things into her ear.

  She swats him lightly on the arm. “It's amazing how sentimental a week of celibacy makes you.”

  “Who says I was celibate?” He chuckles and she joins in, thinking he's joking. I'm fairly sure he's not.

  As if to confirm my suspicions, he doesn't answer the snazzy new phone when it rings. TOM asks who it is, but he evades the question. “It doesn't matter. The only person I want to talk to is right here.”

  I can't believe she's letting him get away with that. But, then... What would I put up with to feel him touch me again?

  “Stalking yourself, luv?”

  The couple I'm trailing walk through Fray without reacting.

  “Where have you been?” I ask, stopping to stare at him. His strange eyes glitter and dance while he watches me with a devastating grin. He's abandoned the leather jacket today, wearing worn jeans and soft green flannel.

  “Miss me?”

  I smack him, happy to hear the resulting thump. “You promised to show me how to do that teleporting thing. It would have been useful when I was running for my life from the frigging Spirit.”

  Never mind that I somehow managed to do it anyway.

  “Running for your life?” He frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “Yesterday? The Spirit was really strong. Everyone was all hidden away in their Places of Power.” My finger jabs at Fray. “Everyone except for me. Because I don't have one!”

  He tries to put his arm around me but takes a step back at my expression. “Everyone has a Place of Power. You just don't know where yours is.”

  “It doesn't matter!” My hands clench into fists at my sides. “What matters is that you left me alone sprinting for all I was worth to have Cooper Finnegan save me! Cooper Finnegan!”

  Fray's expression says he's suddenly caught on he's dealing with a lunatic.

  “Do you have any idea how it feels to have to rely on him, of all people?”

  “Can't say I do.” Fray shakes his head and waves me down the street toward his tavern. “So Cooper Finnegan... You mean the Shadow Walker? The one they call Finn?”

  The one they call Finn? I roll my eyes at the wording. “Yeah. The Pine Ridge poster boy. Valedictorian. Captain of the football team. On every dance court we have. Center of every social event. Plastered all over the frigging yearbook.”

  My fellow deceased gives the pavement a faint smile as we walk. “Not a friend of yours?”

  I glare. “Not even remotely.”

  “And how did he save you from The Spirit?” Fray isn't looking anywhere near me, but I get the impression my answer has his undivided attention.

  “When we touch, it goes away.”

  “Goes away?” Fray moves his eyes to stare at me. “Completely?”

  “Yeah.” Why is he looking at me like I have just grown a set of horns?

  My erstwhile guide to the afterlife takes his time starting his next sentence. “Usually, when we're in our Places of Power, it hovers nearby until it gets bored. It doesn't simply vanish because we're somewhere protected.”

  “Try sprinting to a medium next time,” I suggest dryly.

  “It don't think it's because he's a Walker. I've never heard of one who was able to do that.” He stops in front of the club, but paces back and forth in the parking lot instead of going in. “In fact, I knew someone who was taken while talking to one.”

  “Talking wouldn't help,” I say instantly. “I had to touch him. Just being near him wasn't enough.”

  Fray stops moving and looks at me. “What did it feel like?”

  “Feel like?” I shrug at his impatient nod. “Warm? Like he had a fever?”

  “Not what did he feel like.” Fray gives an annoyed growl. “Was there a sensation when you touched? A change in atmosphere maybe?”

  “The air seemed to get thinner,” I say slowly, concentrating on my memories. “A pressure released. It was suddenly easier to breathe. And, of course, the fog vanished.”

  “Any stillness?”

  I consider. “I guess you could describe it that way. A sudden calm.”

  “Well, isn't that interesting?”

  “Isn't what interesting?” I snap. I hate it when people talk over me.

  Fray's look is gentle. “You do have a Place of Power, luv.”

  “Yippee.” I fold my arms, tilt my head to the side, and wait. “And it's where?”

  “Cooper Finnegan.”

  I snort. “Yeah, right. His head might be big enough to take up the whole town, but he isn't a place.”

  “Doesn't have to be.” Fray seems very confident of what he's saying. After centuries of death, I suppose he should be. “A Place of Power is simply what you're haunting. I'm haunting this bar because the square where I died used to be here. That jackass in the hardware store haunts it. The sweet little girl up in the alleyway... Well, it's her alley. Just like the library belongs to that librarian who was poisoned there.”

  “What? No one ever poisoned a librarian.” I shake my head. No, not getting distracted. “Are you implying I'm haunting Cooper Finnegan?”

  “No one was ever caught poisoning a librarian.” Fray flashes me a smile. “Not the same thing as no one poisoning her. And, yes, I think that's exactly what you're doing.”

  “Why would I haunt Cooper Finnegan? I can't stand the guy.”

  “We could wonder how much he fails to stand you in return.”

  It takes me a while to figure out what he's saying and then I have to laugh. “Cooper Finnegan didn't murder me. He might be an idiot and a conceited jerk, but he's not a killer.”

  “An idiot?” Fray asks. “I thought you said he was valedictorian.”

  “He is. Or probably will be, anyway.”

  Fray's eyes sparkle. “So he's an idiot who gets better grades than you?”

  “Yes.” I glare. “What's your point, Fray?”

  “Point? Oh, no point.” He gives me a maddening grin and bounces on the balls of his feet.

  With a frustrated grunt, I punch his arm. It only makes him laugh. “You're like an angry little kitten. You have all this fury, but you can't do anything with it.”

  My teeth grind together and the car closest to me starts to shake. Then the car next to it. Then every car in the parking lot.

  Fray stops laughing.

  “Drew?” His eyes are wide with fear. “Are you doing that?”

  I growl, relishing his reaction.

  “Calm down,
luv,” Fray soothes. “You don't want to do this.”

  “Don't tell me what I want!”

  Every window in sight shatters. Crap, I didn't want to do that. Horrified, I look around at the damage while Fray curses.

  “Where's your boyfriend?”

  “What?” I squint at him, a disconnect between my brain and any actual thoughts.

  “Finn? Where's Finn?”

  Fray's voice seems very urgent. Nearly panicked.

  “I don't know.”

  His eyes are wide while he lets out a loud breath and shakes his head. “Well, you'd better figure it out!”

  The world starts to darken and the air thickens until I can hardly breathe.

  “If you tell me where he is, I can take you to him.” Fray grabs my arms, stares down into my face with naked pleading. “Tell me.”

  “I don't know,” I repeat, almost whining. I swallow, trying desperately to think. “There's no football practice today. He might have gone home?”

  There's a clap of thunder and we're standing in Cooper Finnegan's yard. He's on the porch, changing a light bulb.

  The fog is thicker here than it was at the tavern, as if it knew where we were going and cut us off. Fray pushes me toward the porch. “Run!”

  He vanishes. Hopefully to his haunted booth.

  I sprint.

  Cooper Finnegan runs toward me, meeting me half way. He catches me and swings me around as we come to a stop.

  The world is clear. I can breathe. The sun is out. I cling to Cooper Finnegan, whimpering. And I pass out.

  Chapter Nine

  A phone rings. And rings. No one answers the stupid thing, though someone does let out a noisy sigh.

  Groggily, I lift my head and try to glare at the offending phone. My eyes won't quite focus but I can tell I'm in a living room, on a couch bathed in funky copper lighting. It's blurry but the room seems to be decorated in a heavy 'country' theme with lots of blues and soft wooden curves. There's a pale oak armoire probably hiding a television and a lot of shelves littered with historically garbed teddy bears.

  “I've passed on to Hell.” My eyes squeeze shut and my head crashes back onto the pillow. “I thought I was in Hell before, but I was wrong.”

  “Sorry. I can toss you back on the lawn,” Cooper Finnegan offers.