The Boys Are Back in Town by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online Page A

smile was sweet and yet somehow regal. There had always been a touch of majesty about her. “Thank you. You look pretty good, too, if we ignore the pale, nearly fainting part.”
    Will laughed softly and felt as though some of the color flooded back into the world. The surreal quality of the room rolled back like a wave on the shore, but he was cautious, afraid it would wash over him anew. When it didn't, he smiled again and this time it felt more real.
    “Very long week,” he reiterated.
    “You're not alone,” Martina said. “I arrived from Vienna yesterday. I am still not in this time zone.”
    For a brief instant it seemed to him that he was going to be able to do it, to take a breath and dive back into the flow of the evening. But then Danny's words came back to him, coupled with the ghost of a memory he did not recall ever experiencing before. It wasn't déjà vu. If there was an opposite to déjà vu, that's what this was.
    Caitlyn sobbing, face streaked with tears. The strength going out of Ashleigh's legs as she sat down hard on the tile in the corridor, slumping up against a row of lockers.
    I still have nightmares about his funeral.
    Jesus,
Will thought, trying not to let Martina see how shaken he was.
Mike Lebo is dead?
    It was fucking impossible. Completely, utterly impossible. He had no recollection of a funeral—
a sliver of a memory, a rose dropped upon a casket, already in the ground, loose dirt sifting down to spatter the wood
—but Danny wasn't fucking around. Will had seen that in his eyes. He might joke about a lot of things, almost everything, but not about this.
    “Damn,” Will muttered, shaking his head. Then he focused on her. “Martina, you remember Mike Lebo, right?”
    A veil of melancholy was drawn across her eyes. “Of course I do, Will. Who could forget? What a sweet guy. The day they announced it in school, when he was killed, that moment is burned into my mind. He's still the only friend I've ever had die. Maybe that makes me lucky.”
    Will could not seem to catch his breath. His eyes burned as though he were about to cry, but no tears fell.
    “Yeah. Maybe it does,” he rasped. That look of concern was back in Martina's eyes, but he could not bear speaking with her even a moment longer. Not right now.
    “You know what? I'd love to catch up with you. I've been to Europe once, back in college, and I've always wanted to go again. I'd love to pick your brain, but I'm really not feeling well. Are you going to be at the other events this weekend?”
    Martina nodded, frowning. “I'll be around all weekend. You just look after yourself and feel better, all right? Are you all right to drive? Maybe someone should take you home.”
    “I live in Somerville.”
    “A hotel, then?” she suggested.
    He took another long breath and shook his head, trying not to be too dismissive of her kindness. “I'll be all right.”
    They said their good-byes and he turned to walk back to the table. As he did he caught sight of Stacy. With a toss of her hair she strummed out the final chords of a song by the Eagles that had been released before any of them had been born.
    “Thank you,” she said as the applause erupted. That knowing smile was there again. “It's great to see all of you. I'm going to take a break and then do one more set for tonight. It's really a pleasure to play for you guys. Thanks for having me.”
    In the lights that illuminated the platform and the microphone stand, the spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose seemed somehow darker. When she put her guitar on its stand and came down off the platform, she had an expression of real contentment on her face.
    Will had paused on his way back to the table. Now he waited as she approached him. When she had crossed half the distance that separated them, the smile on Stacy's face faltered and a kind of trepidation crept into her eyes.
    “Hey. You all right?”
    “No,” he admitted, hoping she read the regret in his tone. “I'm