First Evil Read online

  Kimmy and Debra were giggling loudly about something. Jennifer waited for them to get quiet. “First of all, unless it’s still drizzling, we’ll do the fire baton routine at halftime as planned,” Jennifer said, cupping her hands like a megaphone.

  Simmons made a sharp turn onto Canyon Road, causing Jennifer to topple back into her seat. She pushed herself back up, flashing the driver an annoyed look, which, of course, he didn’t see.

  “If the storm doesn’t blow over—” Jennifer continued.

  “Oh no!” Corky cried. “The fire batons!”

  All eyes turned to the back of the bus.

  A flash of lightning seemed to outline Corky and her sister.

  “We have to turn around!” Corky declared, shouting over the clap of thunder.

  “What?” Jennifer called, her face filled with confusion.

  “We have to stop at my house,” Corky explained. “The fire batons. Bobbi and I brought them home to practice. We forgot them. Can we turn around?”

  Several girls groaned, Kimmy the loudest of all.

  “It’s only a small detour,” Bobbi said, coming to her sister’s defense.

  “No problem,” Jennifer said, her expression troubled. Standing in the aisle beside Simmons, she tapped him hard on the shoulder.

  No reaction.

  So she tugged his ponytail. “We have to make a stop on Fear Street,” Jennifer told him.

  “Huh?”

  “Fear Street,” Jennifer repeated impatiently. “Just turn here.”

  Simmons turned the wheel, and the bus skidded into a turn over the wet pavement. Holding on to the seat-back, Jennifer turned back to Corky and Bobbi. “Direct us when we get to Fear Street, okay?”

  The two sisters agreed, apologizing again for the detour.

  “Oooh, Fear Street,” someone said, uttering a spooky howl. Some other girls laughed.

  Kimmy made some kind of wisecrack to Debra, and the two girls giggled together.

  The rain fell in heavy sheets, driven by unpredictable, powerful wind gusts. For some reason Simmons sped up. In front of him the big wipers swam mechanically across the steamy windshield.

  Jennifer resumed her position in the aisle beside him. “I have just a few more announcements to make,” she shouted.

  Staring out the window at the storm, Bobbi saw the passing houses and trees grow darker, as if a heavy shadow had lowered itself over them, over the whole world. Trees bent in the strong wind. The rain suddenly shifted and blew against the window, startling Bobbi and blocking her view.

  Up at the front, Jennifer continued with her announcements. Bobbi couldn’t hear her over the pounding rain, the thunder, the angry rush of wind.

  Suddenly Simmons reached out and pulled the lever to open the door. The sound of the rain grew louder. Cold, wet air cut through the bus.

  “Why did he open the door?” Corky asked her sister.

  “I guess to see better,” Bobbi replied thoughtfully. “The windshield is totally steamed.”

  “Are we near home?”

  The bus sped up. Simmons had his head turned to the open door, his eyes on the cross street, which passed by in a gray blur.

  Bobbi stared hard out the rain-blotted window, trying to read a street sign.

  Suddenly she realized that something was wrong.

  The bus—it began to skid.

  There was no time to scream or cry out a warning.

  One second they were moving along through the rain. The next second they were sliding, sliding out of control toward the curb.

  “Whoa!” Simmons shrieked over the squeal of tires. “The brakes—!”

  The tire squeals grew to a roar in Bobbi’s ears. She covered them with both hands. She tried to scream, but the sound caught in her throat.

  The impact was fast and hard.

  What had they hit? A tree? A rock? The curb?

  The bus seemed to bounce, to fly up off the road, to bounce again.

  Staring in horror and surprise at the front, Bobbi saw Jennifer’s eyes open wide. And then as the bus jolted and spun, she watched as Jennifer flew out the open door.

  Jennifer’s startled scream was drowned out by the squeal of the skidding tires.

  By the crunch of metal.

  By the shatter of glass.

  Chapter 5

  Death of a Cheerleader

  It all took a second. Maybe less.

  Bobbi blinked—and it was over.

  The screams swirled around her, surrounding her.

  She wasn’t sure whether she was hearing the squeal of the tires or the cries of the cheerleaders.

  And then the world tilted on its side.

  With a silent, choked gasp, Bobbi toppled onto Corky. And the two of them, arms flailing helplessly, fell sideways toward the far window.

  Which was now the floor.

  No time to scream.

  It took only a microsecond. Or so it seemed.

  The window glass beneath them cracked all the way down the pane like a jagged bolt of lightning.

  And still the bus bumped and slid, metal grating against pavement, invading their ears.

  Bobbi felt another hard bump. A stab of pain jolted her entire body, made her shake and bounce.

  And then all movement stopped. Such an abrupt stop. Such a shattering stop.

  I’m okay, Bobbi realized. Her first clear thought.

  She was on top of her sister, their arms and legs tangled.

  Corky is okay too.

  Corky stared up at her openmouthed, her green eyes wide with fear.

  All sideways.

  She heard muffled cries. Whimpers, like frightened puppies.

  “Oh, man.” A loud groan from the front of the bus. From Simmons.

  Bobbi pulled herself up. Simmons was trying to stand. But everything was tilted. Everything was wrong.

  “Are you okay?” Corky asked in a tiny voice.

  “Yeah. I think so,” Bobbi replied uncertainly.

  “Then get off me!” Corky cried.

  She sounded so angry, it made Bobbi laugh.

  Hysterical laughter, she realized, and forced herself to stop.

  Got to keep control. Control. Control.

  Bobbi looked up to find a row of windows above her head.

  “Oh,” she said out loud. She finally realized what had happened. The bus was on its side.

  It had rammed into a tree or something, bounced off and toppled onto its side, then skidded to a stop.

  “How do we get out?” She heard Kimmy call even though she couldn’t see her.

  In the darkness she saw a tangle of arms and legs.

  She heard a girl crying. She heard groans and whispers.

  “The emergency door. In back!” someone shouted.

  Bobbi reached for the emergency door, and tried pushing it open. It was stuck.

  “The windows are faster!” someone else cried.

  Kimmy stood up, raised both arms high, struggled to slide one of the windows open. Bobbi, balancing uneasily, tried to do the same.

  “Can’t you get off me?” Corky asked impatiently.

  “I’m trying, okay?” Bobbi replied, not recognizing her own tight, shrill voice.

  The window slid open.

  Raindrops hit Bobbi’s upturned face. Cold. Fresh.

  So clean.

  “Is anyone hurt?” Simmons was calling, a tall shadow in the front. 44Is anyone hurt? Who’s crying?”

  Bobbi raised herself up, grabbed hold of the window frame.

  “Is anyone hurt?”

  The rain was just a drizzle now. The rumble of thunder was low and far in the distance.

  Bobbi pulled herself halfway out of the bus.

  The whole world was shimmering, glistening, wet. Fresh and clean.

  The bus tires were still spinning.

  Where are we? Bobbi wondered. It all looked so familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

  Another face appeared. Debra was emerging from a window closer to the front. “A
re you okay?” she called, squinting at Bobbi as if she were far away.

  “I think so,” Bobbi replied. “You?”

  “Yeah. My wrist—I think it’s sprained. That’s all.”

  They pulled themselves out, smiled at each other, buoyed by the fresh air, the cool wetness, of being alive. Then standing on the overturned side that was now the roof, they leaned down into the windows to help other girls escape.

  Time seemed to stand still.

  Corky joined her sister, slid to the ground, stretched and yawned as if emerging from a long sleep.

  The bus headlights, one on top of the other, cut through the air, casting twin spotlights on the jagged tombstones poking up through tall weeds.

  Tombstones? Weeds?

  Bobbi lowered herself to the ground, her sneakers sinking into the wet grass. Gripping Corky’s ice-cold hand, she turned back toward the street.

  Behind them, a tilted street sign read: FEAR ST.

  “Oh.” She let go of Corky’s hand. “Look.”

  The bus had careened off the road and slid over the grass of the Fear Street cemetery. A thick yellow mist, catching the light from the headlights, lingered between the old gravestones, which rose up like arms and legs from the twisting, bending weeds.

  “We’re . . . in the cemetery,” Corky said, her voice a whisper, her expression stunned. “How?”

  “We’re only a block from home,” Bobbi said.

  “Is everybody out?” Simmons called. He came toward them, taking long strides, his jeans stained at the knees, a bandanna wrapped tightly around a bleeding cut on his arm. “You okay?” he asked the two sisters.

  “Yeah,” Bobbi told him.

  “Everyone got out,” Simmons said. “No one’s hurt too bad.”

  Then Bobbi and Corky cried out at the same time: “Jennifer!”

  Where was Jennifer?

  In the horror of the crash, in the noise and tilting darkness of it, they had forgotten about her.

  Jennifer. Bobbi saw her again. Saw her arms jerk up as she flew out the open bus door—almost as if being pulled out.

  “Jennifer?” Corky began calling, cupping her hands over her mouth. “Has anyone seen Jennifer?”

  “Jennifer. Jennifer.”

  The word buzzed through the group of dazed, frightened girls as they huddled together, squinting against the bright headlights, trying to turn things right side up in their minds.

  Trying to make sense of everything.

  Trying to convince themselves that they were okay. That everything was going to be fine.

  “Jennifer. Jennifer.”

  And then Corky saw her.

  From behind.

  Saw her body sprawled facedown, her head resting on the earth in front of an old tombstone, her arms stretched above her head as if she were hugging the stone.

  “Jennifer!” Bobbi shouted.

  A sudden gust of wind made Jennifer’s skirt ruffle. But Jennifer didn’t look up, didn’t raise her head.

  Corky and Bobbi reached her before the others. Bobbi grabbed her shoulders to roll her onto her back.

  “Don’t move her!” someone yelled.

  “Don’t touch her! It isn’t safe!”

  Bobbi looked up to see Simmons standing beside her, staring down at Jennifer sprawled so awkwardly across the old grave site.

  “Let’s carefully roll her over and get her face out of the mud,” he said quietly.

  They tugged her gently by the shoulders.

  As they turned Jennifer over, the words etched on the old grave marker came into Bobbi’s view: SARAH FEAR. The dates beneath the name had been worn away nearly beyond recognition: 1875-1899.

  They laid Jennifer gently onto her back.

  “Call an ambulance!” Heather was screaming. “Somebody—call for help!”

  Bobbi leaned over Jennifer’s unmoving form. “It’s too late,” she said, choking out the words. “She’s dead.”

  Chapter 6

  “It’s Your Fault!”

  “No!”

  Corky’s anguished cry cut through the air. She dropped to the wet ground beside Jennifer and grabbed her pale, limp hand.

  “No!”

  At first Bobbi thought the low wail she was hearing came from her sister. But as the sound grew louder, cutting through the crackle and whisper of the wind bending the ancient trees of the cemetery, Bobbi realized it was the siren of an ambulance.

  Someone in one of the houses across the street must have seen the accident and called for help.

  A few seconds later three ambulances and a police cruiser pulled onto the wet grass, their flashing red lights washing over everyone, making everything seem too bright, the colors all wrong, too frightening, too vivid to be real.

  The white coats of the paramedics, scrambling through the wet weeds, flashed red and gray, red and gray. The light caught their hard expressions like those in artificial-light snapshots, freezing them in Bobbi’s mind. She knew she’d always remember every somber face, every flash of light, every second of this dark, wet nightmare.

  Behind the tilted tombstone, Ronnie stood crying, sobbing loudly, her mouth open wide, her eyes round. Kimmy and Debra huddled around her, trying to comfort her, their faces distorted by the flickers of red light too.

  The rain had stopped now, leaving the air heavy and cold.

  On the ground in front of the tombstone, several paramedics worked over Jennifer, speaking softly among themselves, softly but urgently.

  Gentle hands pulled Bobbi and her sister back. Two young police officers were questioning Simmons, who was shrugging and gesturing to the overturned bus. He appeared very frightened and upset.

  Radios crackled from the ambulances and the police car. A paramedic leaning over Jennifer spoke rapidly into a cellular telephone. The wind blew a shower of ice-cold rainwater down from the trees. Bobbi took a reluctant step closer.

  Was Jennifer alive? Were they bringing her around? She had to see.

  The white coats had formed a protective circle around Jennifer. Bobbi tried to make sense out of the buzz of low voices. She made her way to just outside the circle, her sneakers sinking into soft earth.

  One of the paramedics stood up. In the blink of red light, Bobbi saw his eyes close, his teeth clench. “She’s gone,” he said.

  Another white-coated young man climbed to his feet, shaking his head.

  “Gone.”

  Radios crackled. Ronnie’s sobs cut through the air.

  “No!” Bobbi screamed.

  Without realizing it, without even realizing she was moving, Bobbi pushed past the grim-faced paramedics. She knelt at Jennifer’s side, stared down at her pretty, expressionless face.

  And Jennifer opened her eyes.

  “Hey!” Bobbi cried. “Whoa!”

  Jennifer blinked. And stared up at Bobbi.

  “Hey—” Bobbi called. “Hey—”

  Jennifer blinked again. Her lips trembled. Her dark eyes moved from side to side.

  “Hey—she’s alive!” Bobbi called. “Hey—”

  Corky was holding on to Bobbi’s shoulders, leaning over her, staring down at Jennifer.

  Jennifer smiled up at them both.

  “Hey—”

  Cheers and cries. Urgent voices. The crackling of the radios. A low voice speaking rapidly into a cellular phone.

  The sounds were drowned out by a rush of wind. It started to rain again.

  Bobbi stared at the flashing colors, the darting yellow cones of light from the flashlights, the pale white beams of headlights. The lights all melted into one and grew brighter and brighter until she had to close her eyes.

  Jennifer was alive. Okay. She was going to be okay.

  Her eyes still shut tightly, Bobbi said a silent prayer.

  When she opened her eyes, Jennifer’s gurney was being gently slid into an ambulance. Two more squad cars had pulled up. Several officers stood outlined in headlights, inspecting the overturned bus, shaking their heads.

  “Lucky no o
ne was killed.”

  The words floated through the air and repeated in Bobbi’s mind.

  The rain came down harder, swirled by the wind. The ambulance siren started with a cough. Then the shrill wail corkscrewed through the rustling trees. The ambulance roared away.

  “How will we get home?” Ronnie was asking, still flanked by Kimmy and Debra.

  “What about the game?” Heather asked.

  “We have to get home!” Ronnie insisted.

  “Will Jennifer be okay?”

  “Has anyone called our parents?”

  “Someone should call Miss Green”

  “She’s probably at the game.”

  “They won’t play in this rain.”

  Let it rain, Bobbi thought, raising her face to it. Let the rain wash everything away. Everything.

  She turned, startled to see Kimmy standing beside her, a cold, grim expression on her face, her eyes locked on Bobbi’s.

  “Kimmy—?” Bobbi started.

  “This is all your fault,” Kimmy said, speaking through clenched teeth. Her hands were balled into tight fists at her sides. The rain had matted her black hair against her forehead.

  “Huh?”

  “All your fault,” Kimmy repeated, continuing to glare at Bobbi. “If you hadn’t made us turn onto Fear Street—”

  “Now, wait a minute!” Bobbi cried. “That isn’t fair!”

  She realized the other cheerleaders were all staring at her, their faces grim and unhappy, lit by the flashes of red light.

  “Kimmy, that’s not fair,” Corky cried, rushing forward to join her sister.

  Kimmy walked quickly back to Ronnie and Debra.

  “That’s not fair!” Corky repeated.

  The rain fell harder, making it difficult to see. The ambulance carrying Jennifer was far in the distance now, its siren a lingering cry that refused to fade away.

  PART TWO

  The Fall

  Chapter 7

  The New Captain

  The cheers thundered down from the bleachers as the cheerleaders ran out onto the floor. As the seven girls bounded across the gym, the noise rose and echoed until it felt as if the roof might be blown off.

  Kimmy led the girls onto the floor, and they immediately went into what they called their clap-clap routine. The girls clapped out a rhythm—and everyone in the bleachers repeated it as loudly as possible.