Chain Letter by Christopher Pike Read Free Book Online Page A

dad will be furious. He’ll take your head
     off, Tony. Let’s go, let’s go now.”
    “Right. Here we go.” Tony nodded, pressing down on the accelerator. Fifty yards. Don’t
     turn around. One hundred yards. It was just a cactus. One hundred and fifty yards . . .
    “Tony,” Neil said.
    Tony hit the brake, threw the car in park and turned off the engine. His head fell
     to the steering wheel. Neil was like his conscience: quiet and soft-spoken and impossible
     toignore. Tony took a deep breath, clenched his fists and sat upright. “Give me the
     flashlight.” Brenda slipped it into his hand. “All of you, stay here,” he ordered.
     “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
    “No,” Kipp protested.
    “Yes,” Tony told him, reaching for the door.
    Outside was a full-fledged dust storm. His eyes stung and he quickly had a dirty taste
     in his mouth. The flashlight flickered as he hurriedly retraced the deep grooves the
     tires had eaten into the dirt. A branch flung out of the shadows and slapped him in
     the face and he jumped twenty feet inside and the soles of his shoes didn’t leave
     the ground. He was in a state a hairline beyond scared, where shock and dread stood
     as equals. A part of his mind he did not want to listen to was trying to tell him
     exactly what he would find.
    Two hundred yards behind the car, he came to the man.
    He lay on his back in a relatively casual position, no limbs bent at radical angles,
     his tan sports coat flung apart, untorn but filthy with dust. He was not old, thirty
     perhaps, nor was he tall, having Neil’s slight build. The eyes were wide open, drawn
     up, focused on the mythical third eye, the gaze unnerving in the trembling light and
     the haunting wind. It was the mouth, however, that dropped Tony to his knees. A ragged
     trail of blood spilt out the corner of the slightly parted lips, and still, the guy
     looked like he was grinning.
    Tony did not know how long he sat there, the flashlightforgotten in the dirt. The next thing he was aware of was Kipp shaking him, seeming
     to call his name from the other end of a long tunnel. He raised his head with effort,
     found the others gathered in a half circle at his back.
    “Is he dead?” Kipp asked. He was sober. His eyes had never looked so wide. He knelt
     by the man and felt for a pulse at the wrist.
    “Looks it,” Tony heard himself say.
    Kipp touched the blood at the mouth. It was not dry. “Looks like he’s been dead awhile.”
    The hope that swelled in Tony’s chest was as bright as it was brief. “I don’t think
     so,” he said softly.
    “You’re saying we hit him?” Kipp asked, startled. Tony was thankful for the we. Before he could respond, Fran, Brenda, and Joan freaked out.
    “I told you to slow down, Tony!” Fran squealed. “I told you when we were leaving the
     parking lot. I said, ‘Tony, you’re driving too fast.’ ”
    “You imbecile.” Joan swore. “You told him to turn off his lights.”
    “I never said that! I didn’t mean it!”
    “But it was you , Joan, who turned off the lights!” Brenda shouted. “You were so mad and drunk that
     you . . . ”
    “If I was drunk, who gave me the beer?” Joan shot back. “You! You brought the beer.
     You kept shoving it down our throats. No wonder Tony didn’t know where he was going.Which doesn’t leave you out, Ali. You’re the one who told him to come down this damn
     road.”
    “You’re right,” Alison said. The acceptance of responsibility had a quieting effect
     on the group. Alison came and knelt beside him, touching his arm. “What should we
     do, Tony?”
    “I don’t know. Find out who he is, I suppose.” Tony was hoping Kipp would take the
     initiative. He didn’t want to touch the guy. Kipp understood and began to go through
     the pockets. He should have closed the eyes first. With each touch of the body, they
     rolled slightly.
    “He doesn’t have a wallet,” Kipp pronounced a minute later. “How could a