“Are we going home?” I asked, standing and hiking my backpack up onto my shoulder.
He shook his head. “It’s not safe there.”
It’s not safe there? It wasn’t safe here, or else he wouldn’t have come for me.
“Well, where is safe?” I waited for him to answer, but he just growled in frustration. “Mom’s home. We need to get her. And Dad is across town at the garage. He just called and got cut off, but I think he wanted us to go home. He’ll probably head there, too.”
He looked torn, staring toward town. “He won’t make it.”
“Kes…”
“If I can get them both, there’s a chance… Look, if I go for them, you have to do exactly as I say.”
I nodded. “I will.”
He tossed me his car keys and I caught them against my stomach. This was bad. “You want me to drive your precious?” Kes shot me an aggravated look before turning on his heel and striding toward the parking lot.
Jogging was hard with a migraine. I winced as I rushed after him. “Kes,” I begged, the heel of my palm digging into my right temple. “Slow down.”
“We’re out of time.”
The underclassman girl with the fajitas and neon note cards rushed past me. The next thing I knew, her dingy messenger bag hit the ground and she was gone.
Vanished.
I stopped, gaping at the spot where she stood just seconds before.
“Kes!” I shrilled, rushing to her bag. “The girl carrying this just freaking disappeared!” I held the bag up by the strap and waited. There was no way that just happened.
No. Freaking. Way.
I dropped her bag. The flap flipped open and a neon yellow highlighter spilled onto the sidewalk. The wind caught her note cards and scattered them over the sidewalk, then the lawn. They flipped end over end toward the parking lot.
Kes grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the parking lot. “This is happening much faster than expected,” he muttered.
4
Kes waited as I adjusted the driver’s seat and mirrors and buckled up, nervously checking them all again. “I need you to drive fast,” he said.
My hands became cold and clammy. My heart thundered. “Kes, I’ll wreck.”
“Then go as fast as you feel comfortable, but in the back of your mind remember that I gave you permission to haul ass. So if you get the notion to do so, you’ll get no crap from me. And if you wreck, just make sure you don’t hurt yourself or anyone else. I don’t care about the car.”
Since when?
“Where am I even going?” I asked, scared and exasperated.
“Go to the cemetery.”
A lump formed in my throat. Why the cemetery?
“I know you know the mausoleum. You followed me there on more than one occasion when I snuck out, and I let you so you’d know where to go if anything like this ever happened. Why do you think I didn’t just disappear at home and reappear there? I wanted you to know where it was safe. Now go.” He slapped the top of the door. “I’ll meet you there.”
“With Mom and Dad,” I added pointedly.
He nodded, but I saw the worry written all over his face. What in the hell was happening where he thought he might not reach our parents in time to save them? Kes could blink there in an instant, but what if they’d already disappeared like that girl?
I backed slowly out of the parking space and slid the gear into drive.
If the cemetery was safe, and if I wouldn’t disappear from there, maybe it was some sort of sacred ground or something. In any event, I needed to haul ass like Kes said. Only, I was terrified. I gripped the wheel until my knuckles turned white.
I couldn’t exactly speed through town. There was too much traffic, even on the tiny, neighborhood streets. People were either oblivious to the directive to shelter in place or had decided to leave town. That technically included me, but I needed to get to the graveyard fast, whereas these people were driving like they were already dead.
Kes and Mom and Dad would probably beat me there at this rate. Which was good. I just hoped I didn’t disappear while I was driving. This felt like Avengers: Infinity War had come to life. I quickly searched the sky for Thanos’s ship, but could only see clear, blue sky.
Finally, I made it through Ashburn’s one stop light without incident and made my way onto the highway where the speed limit rose to fifty-five, then seventy where the new lanes had recently been opened. At that point, I became the impediment to people in a bigger hurry than me. I was driving forty-something, a speed in which I felt comfortable, like Kes told me to do, yet I was impeding traffic. The assholes started passing me, even in no-passing zones.
I was close to the exit and our road wasn’t far now. Our road, which also led to the cemetery. I signaled my turn in case anyone else thought they’d take a turn passing on the right – which was strictly prohibited in every driver’s handbook, by the way.
My fingers shook as they gripped the steering wheel. When the opposing lane was clear, I steered off the exit, drove gently through two stop signs, and merged onto our street.
Foggy Mountain Lane was as quiet as it got. The collection of split-level houses was all built in the eighties and had the same look; brick on the bottom with siding at the top. Each was a different color, some had garages and some didn’t, but that was as daring as the builders ventured to go.
I steered around parked cars and yapping dogs and made my way down the street. Lined with clear sidewalks and shady oak trees, everything seemed so normal. This whole thing should be over with soon, I told myself. And then said self reminded me that my classmate had vanished right before my eyes.
The girl disappeared. I saw her. She was there, then she wasn’t.
Slowly making my way down the street, I spied our house in the distance. I checked my cell to see if a signal had returned, then screamed when Kes suddenly appeared in the passenger’s seat. I dropped my phone and it fell between the seats.
I was about to have a panic attack. Or a heart attack. Or both.
“You should never play with your phone while driving,” he scolded.
I hit the brakes hard and he flew into the dashboard. Instant karma.
“You should never just appear in someone’s car while they’re driving, Kes. That’s way scarier than texting.”
He fished my cell out of the crack between the seats and put the car in park, flinging his door open. “Come on.”
“Where’s Dad?” The car was in the middle of the road. Surely, we couldn’t just park and leave it here. “Is Mom still home? Are we going to grab her on the way?”