“It’s the Blood River Boys’ song,” I say, voice high with excitement. “The one we were just talking about!” I’d never heard it before, but it had to be it. Since when did Landry put that on the jukebox?
A thrill rolls down my spine as the fiddle joins the melody with a minor note, and I’m not sure if it’s the music or something else that’s making the room feel colder and the night darker out there beyond the thin windowpanes.
“I didn’t pick this!” Neveah complains. She slams her hand against the player again. “It just started on its own.” She shoots me a suspicious glare. “If this is some kind of sick joke, Lukas…”
“He said, ‘Wrath is my birthright and woe my first swaddling, blood for my feast as I take what is owed … The harvest is coming, and we reap what’s been sowed.’”
“I didn’t do it!” I protest, laughing. “You did it. If anyone’s playing around, it’s you.”
“Well, you make it stop!” Her voice rises, panicky, and I realize she’s serious. I drop the mop, letting it clatter to the floor, and take three quick steps so I’m close enough to reach around the back of the jukebox and hit the emergency OFF button.
For a minute I think it’s not going to shut off, like we’re in some horror movie and the thing has a life of its own, but sure enough, the machine cuts off, just like it’s supposed to.
Silences rushes in. The lights behind the counter dip with the electrical surge, the neon signs in the windows blink off and then power back on with a high-pitched whine. And something out in the night howls.
My skin prickles as a solid rush of fear rolls up my back. Neveah and I exchange a look.
“We are never letting Brandon tell us scary stories again,” she says, nervously rubbing her hands up her arms.
“Sure thing,” I say, absently, eyes drawn out into the night, searching. But for what, and why exactly, I’m not sure. It’s just a feeling …
Neveah shudders like it’s cold. “I just told you that if you sing the song, those freaks are supposed to appear, and then you play it? Don’t you think that’s a little much?”
“I told you I didn’t do it.”
“Well, somebody did!”
A shadow passes by the window. Something’s out there, moving through the parking lot. Probably a raccoon or a skunk. But bigger.
“Probably Brandon,” Neveah mutters.
“In the parking lot?”
“What? No. It was probably Brandon who set up the song.” She peers out the big front windows. “What do you mean ‘in the parking lot’?”
“Nothing. Just thought I saw animals in the trash.” Maybe it was Brandon. Scaring the shit out of us would be his idea of fun. But still. How would he have set it up beforehand? And Landry would never go for that sort of thing. She’s pretty uptight about the jukebox.
“I want to go home,” Neveah says, thrusting her hands in her hoodie pockets. “This is all too much.”
I sigh. I want to go home, too. The night feels sour now, as if the joke’s on us and we’re not in on it.
She pulls her phone out of her pocket, swipes it on, and types furiously. “Where is Brandon? I knew he should have waited for my shift to end.”
“I can give you a ride.” Even as I say it, I’m wincing. Maybe it’s too much, too presumptuous. Like I said, we’re not really friends.
She glances up, and I can see the calculations run across her face: surprise, suspicion, hesitation, and then all that finally loses to her desire to get out of here as soon as possible.
“Okay, sure. Why not.”
I grin, strangely relieved. Maybe being rejected for offering her a ride home would have hurt more than I want to admit. It’s not that I like Neveah that way. I don’t like any girls that way. She knows that. But I’m the town loser. Nobody wants to spend too much time with a loser. It might rub off.
She bends and picks up the mop where I dropped it, hands it back to me. I gesture toward the rag and spray bottle on the counter. “It’ll be faster if you help.”
She exhales disapprovingly but slouches over to the counter, grabs the cleaning supplies, and gets to work. I start mopping, and we clean in silence, neither of us much wanting to try the jukebox again. But I can’t get that song out