Brush with Death by E.J. Stevens
What had happened to my best friend?
“Hey,” I said, nodding at Calvin and Yuki both.
“Hey,” Yuki said.
Calvin’s tongue lolled in a goofy wolf grin. Apparently, he was happy to see me. We were making progress.
“Calvin, if you don’t want Katie and Gordy asking too many questions, go run off and change forms,” I said. “They’re in too much shock to think about it right now, but if you stick around they’re going to want to know what a wild wolf is doing with Yuki. They’re also going to start getting worried about where you are. Katie’s been listening in on Yuki’s phone and heard her talking to you.”
“And they don’t know about werewolves,” Yuki said.
“Right,” I said.
Calvin looked at Yuki, and for a moment I thought he wouldn’t leave her side. Werewolf boys were some of the most stubborn, protective creatures on the planet.
I should know, since I was dating one myself.
“Go on,” Yuki said. “Just come back really quick.”
Sweat shone on her pale face, but Yuki held her head high and put her hands on her hips. It seemed to pain her to be separated from Calvin, but she could be just as selfless as he. She had made it clear before that she would never do anything to risk discovery of his secret.
Yuki was trying to protect him.
Calvin seemed to finally realize this and loped away. I closed the last few feet between us and took Yuki’s hand.
“Where are you hurt?” she asked.
“I hurt all over,” she said, shaking her head. “But I’m alright. “Just a bit tongue and some bumps and bruises…and one of my headaches.”
“What about the blood?” I asked.
That much blood couldn’t possibly have come from a cut on her tongue.
“Blood?” she asked.
Yuki looked down at herself and laughed.
“Oh, that’s not blood,” she said. “It’s paint.”
With no more worries of serious injury, I wrapped Yuki in a fierce hug.
“Don’t ever do that again,” I said.
“Do what?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Fight with me, stop talking to me, scare me half to death…”
“Okay, okay, I promise,” she said, smiling.
“Don’t worry,” Calvin said, walking up behind Yuki. “I’m not ever letting her out of my sight again. She won’t have another chance to scare us all into thinking she’s dead.”
Seeing the wolf leave, and Cal appear, was Gordy and Katie’s cue to get out of the car and join our little reunion. Gordy was chewing his hair and Katie fidgeted with the ties on her blouse.
“You guys thought I was dead?” she asked, smile fading.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “We can talk over pizza after we get you home and cleaned up.”
“Okay,” she said.
My phone rang, making everyone jump.
“Sorry,” I said. I dug my phone out of my pocket and saw Simon’s eyes flash on the screen. “It’s Simon.”
“Of course it’s Simon,” Yuki said. “We mentioned pizza.”
Chapter 33
Yuki
After strapping my bike to Emma’s car, my friends drove me home. I felt like I was in a daze. The entire trip was a blur, with little pit stops of clarity when each friend said goodbye.
We dropped Cal off at a picnic area where he’d left his truck. He kissed my forehead and promised to meet us for pizza later. He whispered something about needing to retrieve his shoes so he could go to the restaurant with us. It was only then that I realized he was barefoot. Oh, right, wolves don’t wear sneakers.
Next we left Gordy and Katie at the pizza parlor. They went inside armed with a hefty pizza order. Apparently, worrying had made everyone ravenous.
My stomach growled at the scent of garlic and tomato sauce that filled the car as Gordy and Katie closed the door and Emma prepared to drive away. All I’d had to eat was that one handful of trail mix. Finding the skull had made me feel queasy, but now I was starving.
Usually it was smelly ghosts that ruined my appetite, now it was dead bodies—I was moving up in the world. Lucky me.
I wanted to know more about the skull in the woods, and my new smelly friend, but my friends came first. Emma brought me home and chatted with my parents about our upcoming graduation while I ran upstairs to shower and change into clothes that didn’t look like they were spattered with blood. The “I’m the survivor of a zombie massacre” couture was kind of cool, but Emma assured me that our fellow diners at the pizza parlor wouldn’t appreciate the look.
As usual, she was probably right.
I scrubbed myself pink. Paint had soaked through my clothes, leaving red circles on my skin that looked suspiciously like roses. The smell of roses permeating my bathroom added to the illusion. I poured more sandalwood scented shower gel onto the loofa and continued to scour my skin.
When the worst of the stains were removed, and the water running down the drain ran clear, I finally stepped out. There was no more delaying the inevitable. It was time to face my friends.
And the ghost waiting behind my bathroom door.
Chapter 34
Emma
Yuki sat so quietly in the passenger seat. It was almost like she wasn’t there. For some reason, that made me sad.
I’d missed my friend these past few weeks. To finally have her back in my life, but not knowing what to say to her seemed terribly unfair. I had hoped that Yuki would be the first to talk, being the vivacious one and all, but as soon as we’d left her parents’ house she had withdrawn into herself.
I snuck a glance over at Yuki and didn’t like what I saw. She was sitting slumped in her seat, picking at ragged, paint stained fingernails.
“So, what were you painting?” I asked.
I needed to pry Yuki out of her shell. Talking about our recent fights over Simon, or her debilitating fear of the school supply closet, would only stress her out. I figured that bringing up the skull she’d discovered also fell into the “stress Yuki out” category. That left one topic—the mysterious painting strapped on the back of Yuki’s bike.
Where had she been on her bicycle? What was so important that she had to paint it late in the evening? And why had she lied to Calvin about it?
“Huh?” Yuki said. “Oh, right, the painting. I guess you saw it on the back of my bike.”
“Well, that and you were covered in paint,” I said.
“It’s for art class,” she said. “There’s this final project that I have to present next week, if I want to graduate. I kind of left it until the last minute.”
Yuki tilted her head, shaking a curtain of dark hair down to cover her face. Was she embarrassed? I may be really into grades and school performance myself, but I’d never judge Yuki for slacking. Her procrastination just seemed to confirm my suspicions that she was suffering from PTSD. Finishing projects and looking ahead to the future were difficult tasks for someone who had recently faced life-changing fear. She didn’t need to feel ashamed.
I just hoped her ability to graduate wasn’t at risk.
Being kept back was bad enough, but I didn’t want to think about how hard it would be for Yuki to face that school, and the location of her confinement, without any of her friends there for support. We wouldn’t be there to protect her. Yuki would have to face her fears alone.
I’d have to look into Yuki’s grades later, but now I was curious about this painting.
“So why did you tell Calvin you were staying home to study for exams?” I asked.
“Once it was graded, I wanted to give the painting to Cal…as a graduation present,” she said, shrugging. “That’s why I didn’t tell him, and why I went somewhere outdoors to paint.”
“Oh, right,” I said. That made sense. “Calvin loves the woods, and the park. But why were you deep into the park trails?”
“Why else?” she said. “A smelly ghost led me there.”
But first, it was time to eat.
Chapter 35
Calvin
The bell over the door jingled and Yuki and Emma walked into the restaurant. They’ve always been opposites, one blond and dressed all in white and the other dark haired and all in black, but tonight those differences went deeper than appearances.
Yuki cast furtive glances around the room, eyes never resting on one person for long before turning her gaze to the floor. Her sleeves were pulled down over her hands, shoulders hunched and black and hot pink hood pulled up, as if she were trying to hide inside her hoodie. When she sat in the empty chair beside me, she drew her booted feet up onto the chair rung and wrapped her skirt and arms around her legs like a cocoon.
Where was the Yuki that I knew? Would that vibrant butterfly ever emerge again?
After a worried glance at Yuki, Emma strode into the room making a beeline for Simon. Her eyes never left his face, as if they both communicated their entire day through that one look. Emma looked intense, confident, and…in love.
I was used to seeing those things in Yuki, but now she sat hunched beside me, her body language screaming “stay away, don’t touch me, don’t hurt me.” I had involuntarily lifted my hand to reach for hers, but let it drop to my lap, thinking better of it. What would I do if she flinched away from me?
I didn’t think I could handle that right now, not after Simon’s biting words.
“Hey, Yuki,” Gordy said. “I ordered you a loaded veggie pizza, extra cheese.”
“Thanks Gordster,” she said.
A tiny smile fluttered across her face, but all too soon it was gone. Like a frightened bird that smile wouldn’t settle into place, choosing instead to fly away to safer ground, leaving Yuki staring blankly at the steaming slice of pizza on her plate.
“So, like, what was that wolf doing in the park?” Katie asked. “I mean, shouldn’t we call animal control or something?”
I tried not to groan. Of course Katie would have remembered seeing me at the park in my wolf form. She may have been too startled, and focused on Yuki’s safety, to say much at the time, but she had had an hour to sit here and wonder about it. Spotting a wolf this close to town was definitely strange. In fact, the only wolves around for miles were werewolves.
Our pack made sure to keep track of wolf activity, since a wolf sighting in the area could bring unwanted trouble to my people. And now I’d gone and risked discovery because I was too focused on protecting Yuki. The last thing my pack needed was animal control combing the woods, looking for wolves.
“Um, well, it didn’t hurt me or anything,” Yuki said.
“But wolves are wild animals,” she said. “And it was huge. I think I would have died of fright if I saw that thing while walking at the park. Aren’t they, like, dangerous?”
That thing? I liked Katie and knew she was more comfortable with her nose in a book than out wandering the wilderness, but her reaction to my wolf form stung. Yuki obviously needed saving, she just wasn’t focused enough to keep up her side of the conversation, but my mind kept returning to Katie’s comment like a tongue worrying at a sore tooth.
Thankfully Simon and Emma came to the rescue.
“Actually, love, wolves are quite harmless,” Simon said. “It’s humans you have to be wary of.”
“Right, like the Graduation Grabber,” Emma said.
“So what’s all this about the Grabber anyway?” Yuki asked. “You said a girl went missing?”
“Yes, the Graduation Grabber, the worst serial killer to ever plague the streets of Wakefield, is back in town,” Emma said.
Chapter 36
Yuki
I sighed with relief as Gordy and Katie said their goodbyes. Trying to answer their questions while keeping secrets made my head spin. But as soon as the restaurant door closed, all of the remaining eyes at the table turned to me. I fidgeted under the curious stares of my friends, knowing that they were all dying to know about the new ghost in my life.
But I was just dying to go home.
While I picked at my pizza, Emma had relayed the information she heard on the evening news report. I hoped my parents didn’t catch the late night broadcast. They never would have let us go out for pizza if they’d known that a girl from my school had gone missing.
Gordy, Katie, Simon, and Cal all had stories to add to the conversation. We had all heard tales about the Graduation Grabber. He was the bogeyman of Wakefield, a monster who returned each year during graduation week to abduct and kill innocent teen girls—until four years ago when he seemed to disappear.
When the killings stopped, most Wakefield residents went on with their lives. The popular theory was that the Grabber had been arrested for murders elsewhere, and remained in prison. People said that he was dead, some even going so far as to speculate that the Grabber had been killed by his final victim, Rose Peterson.
Rose’s body has never been found. But I had a nagging suspicion where it might be buried…and who my mysterious new ghost pal was.
Of course, I couldn’t talk about ghosts and smell impressions while Katie and Gordy were having pizza with us. Now that they were gone, it was time to talk.
Instead, I dipped a piece of fried zucchini into a cup of tomato sauce and filled my mouth. Even though I’d been starving earlier, I hadn’t eaten much of my pizza. I spent most of the evening trying not to jump at every sound. I clenched my teeth for so long, my jaw ached.
But I continued to take bites of the zucchini, delaying the questions I knew would come. I was so tired. I wanted to go home, crawl under the covers, and pretend that today hadn’t happened. Too bad sleep is where the nightmares were always lurking.
Terrifying dreams of sweaty jock assailants and leering grins from the J-team were there every night now, every time I closed my eyes and fell asleep.
I put down the fried zucchini and pushed my plate away, the food turning to ash on my tongue. I swallowed hard and focused on the dull throb where I’d bit myself earlier, trying to ignore the fear that gripped my chest and twisted my stomach.
It was ironic, the fear. I dealt with ghosts and werewolves all the time, but a couple of football jocks had reduced me to a cringing girl fearful of her own shadow. I felt like such a wimp. I tried to sit up straight and take a deep breath, but dread still strangled my lungs in its vice-like grip.
I settled for nodding to my friends.
“I know this is hard,” Emma said, keeping her voice low. “But we have to know. You said you found a body near one of the park trails, and that a smell impression led you there. Did you learn anything from the ghost?”
“Do you think it’s the missing girl from your school?” Simon asked. “The one who just went missing? If so, her parents deserve to know she’s gone. They’re worried bloody sick about her.”
“No, it’s not Sarah Randall,” I said. I took a sip of water and cleared my throat.“The body I found was just a skeleton. Just a skull really, I didn’t dig any farther once I could tell it was human. But the person must have been buried there for quite awhile.”
“What can you tell us?” Cal asked, giving me a weak smile. “We want to help.”
I dropped my head onto my fist and stared at a congealing blob of cheese on my plate. There was no escaping their questions and worried looks, but where to begin?
“It’s like I was saying to Gordy and Katie,” I said. “I had an art project to finish, so I rode my bike to the park hoping to find a nice outdoor scene to paint. What I didn’t tell them is that when I got there I was hit with a strong smell impression.”
“What did it smell like?” Emma asked, leaning in across the table.
“It smelled, continues to smell, like roses, lanolin, and darkroom chemicals,” I said. “But mostly, it sm
“And this ghost clung to you like you were its best mate, and led you to a human skull?” Simon asked.
“Yeah, something like that,” I said. “I followed the ghost for a long time, until it stopped at a section of old broken wall. Growing up the wall was a huge climbing rose bush, so I took a break from riding and decided to paint the location. The roses were beautiful…I didn’t know there was a dead body buried there.”
Cal gave my free hand a quick squeeze, but I wasn’t all that scared now. I had been afraid of someone trying to hurt me, like the J-team tried a few months ago, and how someone had possibly done to the body in the ground. The fear had lingered, but talking about it was helping.
The body in the woods had been buried in an unmarked grave in a secluded location. The ghost probably wanted a proper burial. If a murder had taken place, then someone needed to be brought to justice. And if the ghost had family, it may want them to know what really happened—why they had disappeared.
This ghost had unfinished business, and I was going to help it set things right.
“A ghost who smells like roses and was buried beneath a rose bush,” Emma said. “Is it me, or does that sound like a possible match for Rose Peterson, the last girl to go missing before the Grabber disappeared?”
“They never found her body,” Cal said. “It could be her.”
The smell of pizza was immediately replaced by the strong scent of roses. I grabbed my head in both hands and bit my lip. Oh yeah, I think we have a winner.
“Are you alright?” Cal asked, placing his hand on my back. “You just went really pale.”
“How can you tell?” Simon asked, raising one eyebrow.