police say they’re going to begin an extensive search of Bakersville and the surrounding area over the next few days in the hope that some clue will emerge that might lead them to Jill Vitelli’s killer. The authorities are asking anyone who has any information to call the state police. Back to you, Kip.”
I flicked the TV off and fell back in bed. All of a sudden, I was wide awake as the adrenaline began pumping through me.
I was pretty sure the police wouldn’t find the killer—whoever had abandoned the car in Parson Woods was long gone. But what I wasn’t sure about was what else the police might discover in the process of looking.
I’d been nervous already about leaving Chris stuffed in that culvert just waiting for someone to come along and find him, but now I was downright terrified. The idea of dozens of cops combing through the area with dogs and God knows what else made it just about impossible to sleep, and when I did, I dreamed about it, which was even worse.
In my nightmare I was walking up and down the train tracks, and no matter where I went, I could hear Chris calling out. As he did, a crowd gathered, coming out of the woods in bunches.
“Here I am!” he kept shouting as Barry, Sheila, Echo, Coach, and everyone else I knew kept coming closer and closer to the culvert. I tried to distract them, tried to tell them the noise was coming from the nearby woods, but they wouldn’t listen to me, and pretty soon the pack had gathered around the culvert just as the sun was setting. They pulled the roll of plastic out, and the next thing I knew, Chris was ripping his way out of it and standing up. His skin was all rotten and discolored, like the zombies in those old movies on TV, and he turned toward me with everyone else behind him.
He didn’t say anything to me. He just lifted his arm and pointed a shriveled, bony finger in my direction, looking at me with his sad, swollen eyes, and began walking toward me. It was just like that banquet scene when Banquo’s ghost comes after Macbeth in the middle of his dinner party, only in my dream Chris was no ghost. Everyone could see him. In fact, they began following him, drawing toward me with that same look of recrimination. They kept coming closer and closer, and I knew I had to get away, but I didn’t know where to go. I finally stumbled down the far side of the bank and crawled into the culvert from the other side. The culvert was suddenly bigger than in real life. It was pitch-black inside except for a circle of light way in the distance, and as I sat up with my back against the wall, another flicker of light appeared. Chris was sitting right beside me, holding a candle.
“I was wondering when you’d come back,” he said.
I screamed and turned to escape, but when I looked back at the hole in the distance, I could see the faces of everyone peeking in. Before I could do anything, they were plugging up the hole, and all the light, but for Chris’s candle behind me, had been extinguished. I heard a little puff, and everything went dark.
I woke up from the dream covered in sweat and rolled over to discover it was half past nine in the morning. I’d overslept.
I took my time getting up and getting ready for school. I figured there was no point in rushing since I was already late. I spent a long time in the shower, feeling the water wash over the body I’d worn now for over three weeks, trying to shake the dream. At least my rash was gone.
The walk to school wasn’t much better. These police cruisers kept driving by, going real slow. Every time one of them passed me, I had to fight the urge to start running away. I suddenly thought of COPS, a show I used to watch on Friday nights. In fact, that stupid theme song started running through my brain, over and over again: “Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do…” It’s like I kept expecting a whole pack of cruisers to tear around the corner and surround me, with their sirens blaring and their lights flashing, while an army of cops jumped out with their guns all pointed in my face. I guess that’s what