Haunted. Heather Graham

that might have made the grade at the Daytona 500. His window was down. He had a beer in his hand while driving.

      “Ass!” Darcy said.

      Josh was quiet, staring ahead. He didn’t seem frightened. Only…strangely resigned.

      Mike was making signs for her to roll the window down.

      “Might as well do it,” Josh said.

      “He’s an idiot. Just drive,” Darcy told him.

      She looked straight ahead as well. To her amazement, Mike slammed his Chevy’s tank side right against the Volvo.

      She was wearing her seat belt; still, she slammed against Josh. Amazed, she straightened as Josh deftly maneuvered to keep the car on the road.

      “Josh, I’m so sorry!” she gasped, real fear starting to trickle down her spine. She’d known that Mike could be a real jerk. She hadn’t known that he could be this insane. She stared furiously over at the Chevy, still driving neck-and-neck with them.

      The problem with small-town Pennsylvania, of course, could be the roads. Miles and miles of them in almost total darkness, with no one around for help.

      Mike knew that. She could tell the minute she saw the grin on his face.

      Then, to her great dismay, she saw that Hunter was sitting next to him, in the passenger’s seat.

      She rolled her window down. Surely, Josh’s father was going to have a fit about the car. And someone was going to wind up really hurt.

      “Stop it! You idiots!” she shouted.

      “Ah, come on, you want to play with the geeks?” Mike called back.

      Wind was racing by them. Darcy was afraid her voice wouldn’t carry. “Hunter! Make him stop this, now!”

      Hunter leaned forward and she saw his face. He was as white as a ghost. “Darcy, I’m trying!”

      Mike laughed and slammed the car again. Darcy heard the terrible screech of metal against metal.

      “Stop! We’ll just stop, Josh,” she said. “Hunter won’t let Mike hurt you. He’s still sober, I can see.”

      Just as she finished speaking, the Chevy began to veer insanely. She grabbed hold of her seat with a death grip as the Volvo veered accordingly. There was a split second in which she saw Hunter trying to seize the Chevy’s steering wheel.

      Then it all went out of control. The Chevy jackknifed with a roaring vengeance against the nose of the Volvo. Then it flipped, and rolled over and over in front of them. Josh pumped the brakes, but simple physics sent them flying into the body of the Chevy.

      For a moment, Darcy felt the weightlessness of flight herself. An air bag suddenly exploded in her face. She felt a thud unlike anything she had ever known before, and the world suddenly turned to an absurd cartoon vision as stars in a field of black velvet swam before her eyes. Then, one by one, the stars twinkled out, and there was nothing but an ebony darkness.

      

      Ashes to ashes.

      Dust to dust.

      Darcy attended Josh’s funeral with blackened eyes and heavy bruises. They told her that it was only thanks to the integrity of Josh’s Volvo that she was still alive.

      Mike wouldn’t be buried for another two days. Somehow, again miraculously, Hunter had survived as well. Darcy thought that she must still be in shock, unable to really absorb what had happened because, as she stood by Josh’s grave site, supported on either side by her parents, she was able to look at Hunter. She could even think that, to his credit, he’d had the balls to come here, and that he was weeping like an infant.

      The accident had been a wake-up call for the entire school, she thought, for those who had shunned Josh for years had come. He might well have been amused, she thought. But again, every face showed shock and sorrow. Those who had thought themselves young and immortal had discovered that life was fragile and death could come at any time. Who, in their realm of experience, had ever imagined that taunting a nerd could come to such a tragic end?

      Josh’s father, grave, tall, ancient, and bowed, tenderly kissed the coffin, and laid a flower upon it. His grief seemed beyond tears, and still, when the last words of the priest had faded into the bizarre and beautiful blue beauty of the day, he came toward her. He managed a gentle smile, as if her pain could be as deep as his own, and reached for her hand. She took it, let him lead her to the coffin, where he offered her a flower to cast upon it.

      It was a strange moment, for those who had attended seemed to want to come to him, to offer their condolences. Yet, he and Darcy stood in their own little world, and people hesitated, then let them be. Even Darcy’s parents, loving, kind people, allowed them that moment.

      They stood in silence for the longest time. Oddly, Darcy became aware of a bird chirping. At last, she found her voice. It was broken and trembling, but she managed the words she wanted. “I’m so sorry. So, so, sorry. I—I’m responsible. That can’t help you any, I know,” she babbled. “But he was my friend, truly, my best friend, always there, and oh, God, I didn’t know…I….”

      “Please,” Josh’s father said softly. “Darcy, you did nothing wrong. It’s never wrong to be a real friend. He loved you. Not romantically, of course. You didn’t love him that way, either. But he knew you really, truly cared about him. You were a special person to him. Incredibly so.”

      She looked up at the old man who seemed bowed with sorrow, and yet so accepting. She offered him a teary, rueful smile. “Please, you’re trying to comfort me. You’ve lost your only child.”

      He looked back at her a long time. “I always knew that I would,” he said quietly. “And still, what a fine, bright boy! The love we shared will remain in this old heart as long as it ticks. I was privileged to have him as long as I did. Remember this, those we love do live forever in our hearts. You’ll remember his voice. The things he said that made you laugh. I can’t explain this, but…Josh wasn’t really for this world.”

      “He has gone to a far better place,” she whispered, wincing at the way the words, sincerely meant, could sound so trite.

      “He was different, Darcy. You must have known that.”

      “Smart, sweet, wonderful,” she whispered.

      Josh’s father was still smiling. He reached into his wallet suddenly, producing a card. “I doubt if I’ll be around the old homestead here much anymore. Please, take this. If you ever need help, if you ever need to just talk, call me. Come see me. You have great folks of your own, Darcy. I know they’ll help you through. But if you’re ever confused, lost…call me. Remember that I am—was—his dad. I’ll always be there for you. You were always there for my boy.” He hesitated. “And you may find that you need me. Remember this, please, I’ll always be there.”

      He touched her head gently, then walked away, leaving her at the coffin. She stood there for several seconds, feeling the breeze touch her face, noting again the unbelievable blue of the sky. Down by the road, her parents were waiting. They would give her all the time she needed.

      She saw that Hunter, leaning on his crutches, was waiting as well.

      She didn’t think that she could bear to talk to him.

      She knelt down in the earth at the head of the coffin, suddenly overwhelmed with bitterness. “Oh, Josh, I will never speak to him again,” she whispered softly, then shook her head. “God help me!”

      She closed her eyes. It seemed that Josh’s voice entered her head. “Darcy, hey, don’t be so hard on Hunter. You know, he realized that Mike was being a homicidal jerk. He tried.”

      The voice was so real that her eyes flew open.

      The day hadn’t changed. The sky was still blue, the breeze still soft. The coffin still lay in the mechanism that would shortly bring it deep into the ground.

      Tears