Shiver Trilogy (Shiver, Linger, Forever) (56 page)

• SAM •

I should’ve known it would come to this. And maybe, in some way, I did, because I wasn’t surprised when I saw a blue SUV in Beck’s driveway, one of the glossy, huge ones that were the size of a small convenience store. The license plate said
CULPEPR,
and Tom Culpeper stood in front of it. He was gesturing wildly to Cole, who looked profoundly unimpressed.

I had no hard feelings about Tom Culpeper, other than those generated by him staging a hunt on the wolves and shooting me in the neck. So my stomach clenched when I saw him standing in the driveway.

“Is that Tom Culpeper?” Grace said, voice conveying all the lack of enthusiasm I felt. “Do you think he’s here about Isabel?”

As I parked on the street, an uneasy tingle shot down my limbs.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think he is.”

• COLE •

Tom Culpeper was a prick.

Being one myself, I was allowed to think such things. He’d been trying to get Beck’s whereabouts out of me for about five minutes when Sam’s little gray Volkswagen pulled up at the curb. Sam, in the driver’s seat, looked tight mouthed as he got out of the car. Clearly he had some history with this tool.

Tom Culpeper stopped running his mouth as Sam walked across the brittle lawn, casting no shadow in the sunless afternoon.

“What can I do for you?” Sam asked.

Culpeper put his thumbs in the pockets of his khakis and eyed Sam. Suddenly he was jovial, confident. “You’re Geoffrey Beck’s kid. The adopted one.”

Sam’s smile was brittle. “I am.”

“Do you know if he’s around?”

“’Fraid not,” Sam replied. Grace joined us, standing between me and him. She had a vague frown on her face, like she was hearing music no one else did and she didn’t like it. Culpeper’s amiable expression sharpened when he saw her. Sam added, “I’ll let him know you stopped by.”

“He won’t be back today?” Culpeper asked.

“No, sir,” Sam said, managing to sound both polite and insolent. Perhaps unintentionally.

“That’s too bad. Because I had something for him that I really wanted to give to him in person. But you know, I think you can probably handle it for him.” He gestured with his chin toward the back of the SUV.

Sam’s face was as gray as the sky above, as he and I followed; Grace lagged behind.

“Do you think this looks like something that might interest Mr. Beck?” Culpeper asked. He lifted the tailgate.

This moment. There are moments that change you forever, and this was one of mine.

In the back of the SUV, among plastic grocery bags and a fuel can, was a dead wolf. It lay on its side, shoved a bit to make it fit, its legs crossed over each other. Blood matted the fur at its neck and again at its stomach. Its jaw was slightly slack, the tongue lying limply across the canines.

Victor.

Sam put the back of his fist to his mouth, very softly, and then lowered it. I stared at the pale gray face with the dark markings, and at Victor’s brown eyes staring blankly at the carpeted wall of the SUV.

Crossing my arms, I balled my hands to keep them from shaking. My heart was thumping in a frenzied, desperate way. I needed to turn away, but I couldn’t.

“What is this?” Sam asked coldly.

Culpeper grabbed one of the wolf’s back legs and, with a single jerk, tugged the body over the bumper. It made a sickening
thump
when it hit the driveway. Grace cried out, her voice full of the horror that was just starting to rise up inside me.

I had to turn around. My gut felt like it was unwinding inside me.

“You tell your father this,” Culpeper snarled. “You tell him to stop feeding these things. I see another one on my property, I
will
shoot it. I will shoot every single wolf I can get in my
sights. This is Mercy Falls, not
National Geographic
.” He looked at Grace, who appeared as sick as I felt. To her, he said, “I would’ve thought you’d know to keep better company, considering who your father is.”

“Better company than your daughter?” Grace managed to shoot back.

Culpeper gave her a thin smile.

Sam had gone very, very quiet, but Grace’s voice seemed to bring him back to life. “Mr. Culpeper, I’m sure you’re aware of my adopted father’s profession.”

“Very. One of the very few things we have in common.”

Sam’s voice was disturbingly even. “I’m pretty sure there are legal implications to tossing a dead wild animal on private property. It’s out of hunting season for pretty much every animal, and most certainly for wolves. And I’m guessing if anyone knew about those implications, it would be him.”

Tom shook his head and headed back around toward the driver-side door. “Right. Wish him luck on that. You have to spend better than half the year in Mercy Falls if you want the judge on your side.”

I wanted to hit him so badly it hurt. I wanted to pound the waxy smug smile from his mouth.

I didn’t think I could stop myself.

I felt a touch on my arm and looked down to see Grace’s fingers circling my wrist above my fisted hand. She looked up at me, biting her lip. From the look in her eyes and the set of her shoulders, I could see that she wanted to pound the living crap out of him, too, and that was what stopped me.

“Better move that thing if you don’t want me to back over
it,” Culpeper called as he slapped the driver’s door shut, and the three of us rushed forward to pull Victor’s body off the driveway, right before the SUV’s engine roared and he backed out.

It had been forever since I’d felt so damn young, so absolutely powerless against an adult.

As soon as the blue SUV was out of sight, Grace said, “He’s gone. The bastard.”

I dropped to the ground next to the wolf and lifted the muzzle. Victor’s eyes looked back at me, dull and lifeless, losing meaning every second this side of death.

And I said what I should’ve said a long time ago — “I’m sorry, Victor. I’m so sorry” — to the last person I would ever destroy.

• SAM •

I felt like I had dug too many graves this year already.

Together, Cole and I got the shovel from the garage and took turns digging through the partially frozen ground. I didn’t know what to say to him. My mouth felt stuffed full of words that I should’ve said to Tom Culpeper, and when I tried to find some left over for Cole, I came up short.

I wanted Grace to wait inside, but she insisted on coming along. She watched us from among the trees, arms folded tightly across her chest, eyes red.

I had chosen this site, sloped and sparse, because of its beauty in summer; when it rained, the leaves flipped up to reveal glowing white undersides that rippled in the wind. However, I had never been human here to appreciate its equally beautiful presence this time of year. While we dug, the evening transformed the woods, making ribbons of warm sunlight across the forest floor and painting stripes of blue shadows over our bodies. Everything was splashes of yellow and indigo, an impressionist painting of three teens at an evening funeral.

Cole had transformed yet again from the guy I’d seen last. When I handed off the shovel to him, we exchanged glances. And for the first time since I’d met him, his expression wasn’t empty. When our eyes met, I saw pain and guilt … and Cole.

Finally, Cole.

Victor’s body lay a few feet away from us, partially wrapped in a sheet. In my head, I came up with lyrics for him as I dug.

Grace caught my eye, as if she knew what I was doing. The lyrics could also be about her, so I shoved them out of my mind. Digging and waiting to dig. That was what I thought about as the sun crept down.

When the grave was deep enough, we both hesitated. From here, I could see Victor’s belly and the blast that had killed him. In the end, he died as an animal.

It could have so easily been Beck’s or Paul’s body that Culpeper pulled out of the back of his truck. Last year, it could have been me. It was almost me.

• GRACE •

Cole couldn’t do it.

When the grave was finally dug and he was finally standing by Sam and looking down at the body next to the pit, I saw that
Cole couldn’t do it. I recognized the veneer of control as he stood, his breaths ragged enough to make his body sway with each exhalation.

I’d been there.

“Cole,” I said, and both Sam’s head and Cole’s jerked toward me. They had to look down, because I had long before gotten too tired to stand. From my place in the cold, dry leaves, I gestured toward Victor. “Why don’t you say something? I mean, to Victor.”

Sam blinked at me, surprised. I think maybe he’d forgotten that I’d already had to say good-bye to him once. I knew how it felt.

Cole didn’t look at either of us. He pressed his knuckles to his forehead and swallowed. “I can’t, um …” He stopped, because his voice was unsteady. I saw his throat move as he swallowed again.

We were making it harder for him. We were making him fight both grief and tears.

Sam picked up on this, and said, “We can go if you want some privacy.”

“Please don’t,” Cole whispered.

His face was still dry, but a tear, cold against my hot cheek, streaked off my chin.

Sam waited a long moment for Cole to speak, and when he didn’t, Sam recited a poem, his voice low and formal, “
Death arrives among all that sound, like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it
…” I watched Cole go completely still as Sam spoke. Still like not moving. Not breathing. A sort of still so deep you know it went all the way through him.

Sam took a step toward Cole and then, carefully, he put a hand on Cole’s shoulder.

“This isn’t Victor. This is something Victor wore, for a little while. Not anymore.”

They both looked at the body of the wolf, stiff and small and defeated-looking in death.

Cole sank to the ground.

• COLE •

I had to look at his eyes.

I uncovered the body so there was nothing between me and Victor’s brown eyes. They were empty and faraway, ghosts of his real eyes.

The cold shook my shoulders, a soft threat of what was to come, but I pushed it away, out of my head. I looked into his eyes and tried to pretend that there was no wolf around them.

I remembered the day I’d asked Victor if he wanted to start a band with me. We were in his room, which was one part bed and three parts drum kit, and he was slamming out a solo. The echo was so loud in the small room that it sounded like there were three drummers. His poster frames jittered on the walls and his alarm clock was slowly jerking toward the edge of his bedside table. Victor’s eyes were shining with manic fervor, and he made a crazy face at me every time he kicked the bass drum.

I could barely hear Angie’s shout from the next room. “Vic, you’re making my ears bleed! Cole, shut that stupid door!”

I shut Victor’s bedroom door behind me.

“Sounds hot,” I told him.

Victor tossed me one of his drumsticks. It arced past my head, and I had to jerk to catch it. I took a whack at his cymbals.

“Victor!”
howled Angie.

He called, “These are magic hands!”

“One day, people will
pay
for the privilege of listening!” I shouted back.

Victor grinned at me and did a fast run with just one stick and the bass drum.

I smashed the cymbal again to piss Angie off and turned to Victor.

“What’s up?” Victor asked. He pounded at the drums again, smacking his stick off the one I held in my hand in the middle of the run.

“So you ready to do this thing?” I asked him.

Victor lowered his drumstick. His eyes were steady on me. “What?”

“NARKOTIKA,” I said.

Now, in this freezing cold wind, the sun disappearing, I reached out and touched the fur on Victor’s shoulder. I said, my voice gravelly and uneven, “I came here to get away. I came here to forget everything. I thought … I thought I didn’t have anything to lose.”

The wolf lay there, small and gray and dark in the failing light. Dead. I had to keep looking at his eyes. I wouldn’t let myself forget that this was not a wolf. This was Victor.

“And it really worked, Victor.” I shook my head. “You know it, don’t you? It’s all gone when you’re a wolf. It’s just what I wanted. It is so, so good. It’s absolute nothing. I could be a wolf
right now, and I wouldn’t remember this. It would be like it never happened. I wouldn’t care if you were dead, because I wouldn’t even remember who you were.”

Out of the corner of my field of vision, I saw Sam turn his face away from me. I was profoundly aware of him not looking at me, not looking at Grace.

I closed my eyes.

“All … this … pain. This …” My voice was failing me again, suddenly dangerously unsteady. But I wouldn’t let myself stop. I opened my eyes. “Guilt. Because of what I’ve done to you. Because of what I’ve always done to you. It would — it would be gone.” I stopped, rubbed my hand across my face. My voice was nearly inaudible. “But that’s what I always do, isn’t it, Vic? Screw things up and then make myself disappear?”

I reached out and touched one of the wolf’s front paws; the fur was coarse and cold beneath my fingertips. “Ah, Vic,” I said, and my voice caught in my throat. “You were so good.
Magic hands.
” He’d never have hands again.

I didn’t say the next part out loud.
Never again, Victor. I’m done running. I’m sorry this is what it took for me to see.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something, the darkness shifting.

Wolves.

As a human, I had never seen so many of them, but now, the dark spaces between the trees seethed with them. Ten? A dozen? They were far enough away that I could almost believe I was imagining the dim shapes.

Grace’s eyes were on them, too. “Sam,” she whispered. “Beck.”

“I know,” he said.

We were all frozen, waiting to see how long the wolves would stay, and if they would come any closer. Crouched there beside Victor, I was aware that the glinting eyes meant something different to each of us. Sam’s past. My present. Grace’s future.

“Are they here for Victor?” Sam asked, voice soft.

Nobody answered him.

I realized: I was the only one mourning Victor for who he really was.

The wolves remained where they were, specters in the oncoming night. Finally, Sam turned to me and asked, “Are you ready?”

I didn’t think it was something you could be ready for, but I covered Victor’s face with the sheet. Together, Sam and I hefted his weight — it felt like nothing between us — and gently lowered him into the grave, with Grace and the pack as our audience.

The woods were utterly silent.

Then Grace stood up, finally, unsteady on her feet, one of her hands pressed to her stomach.

Sam startled as one of the wolves began to croon. It was a low, sad sound, far more like a human voice than I thought possible.

One by one, the other wolves added their voices; as the evening grew darker, the song swelled, filling every crevice and gully in the forest. It prickled some wolf memory, buried deep in my mind, of me tipping my head back to the sky, calling the spring.

The lonely song drove home the fact of Victor’s cold body in the grave like nothing else, and I realized that my cheeks were wet as I lowered my face to my palms.

Lowering my hands, I saw Sam cross the few steps to Grace and hold her swaying form.

Holding tight, denying the fact that eventually we all had to let go.