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

really not feeling well. I'm going to head out, I think. Will you be at the game tomorrow?”
    Stacy looked pensive, gnawing her lower lip a moment. “Yeah,” she said at length. “I'll be there. Feel better, all right?”
    “Probably just working too hard,” he lied.
    She nodded, leaned forward and gave him a light kiss on the cheek, and then turned away. “See you tomorrow. You take care of yourself,” she said over her shoulder. Then she was off across the room, threading through the crowd, politely fending off the compliments she received as she went to mingle.
    Will pushed her out of his head, along with everything else that had happened tonight. The only way he could put one foot in front of the other, the only way he could function at all, was to purposely avoid thinking about certain things. But he knew he would not be able to put those thoughts off forever.
    He went to the table where his friends sat, moving amongst chairs that had been pushed too far out from their places, trying not to knock off jackets that had been hung off the backs. Several people greeted him and Will managed to smile and even shake a few hands, to promise he would catch up with them at the football game the next day.
    Ashleigh noticed him first. She was in the midst of a conversation with Lolly and Pix, but her smile evaporated the second she spotted Will. Despite the mire of unsettling thoughts in his head, he could not help but laugh.
    “I must really look like shit, judging from the expression on your face.”
    At his words, everyone at the table turned to look at him. Will did not miss the cold glint of pain in Danny's eyes. It hurt him to see it, to know that at the moment his old friend thought he was a total asshole.
    “You do, bro,” Eric said earnestly. “Absolute shit. What's the matter?”
    “Something I ate, maybe,” Will said. His gaze ticked from one face to the next, lingering a moment on Ashleigh until at last he focused on Danny. “I'm headed home. Figure I should get some rest now so I don't miss the entire weekend.”
    “Good idea,” Pix piped up. “You'll need all your energy to watch those cheerleaders at the game tomorrow.”
    Will didn't have the energy to deadpan a grin, but Eric did it for him.
    “We admire them for their athleticism. And all that synchronization. That's a science.”
    Ashleigh rapped him on the shoulder and scolded him with a look. Then she turned to glance up at Will again.
    “Drive carefully,” she said, playing big sister. “We'll save you a seat tomorrow.”
    “You got it,” he promised.
    Without further hesitation, he headed for the door that would take him downstairs and out of Liam's Irish Tavern, where he could get into his car and drive away from the impossible.
             
    O N THE M ASSACHUSETTS T URNPIKE, Will turned the radio up loud and rolled the front windows down halfway, letting the chill air rush in, hoping it would clear his head. The sick feeling in his stomach that had combined with astonishment had been superseded now by a dark anger that surged up like bile in his throat.
    Sick fuckers,
he thought.
    It had to be a joke. The most disturbing practical joke he had ever even heard of—and far more clever than he would ever have given Danny Plumer credit for. There were images in his head, snippets of memory he didn't understand, fragments of emotions that slipped his mind even as he tried to grasp and make sense of them. But all of that might just be the power of suggestion thrown into the mix with what was genuine exhaustion. He was more tired than he had imagined. That part, at least, had not been a lie.
    The flag at Eastborough High flies at half-mast. Will's parents have bought him a black suit, and his father is shining his son's shoes. If he lets his eyes close, Will knows he will see the brush moving across shoe leather.
    But he wouldn't close his eyes. That was how idiots totaled their cars. Falling asleep behind the wheel.
    A cross beside the