The Widening Gyre Read online

  The voice had spoken three words. Softly, and clearly.

  Listen to me.

  7

  He didn’t feel a sting as the needle slipped into the flesh between his toes. It was one of the few places left on his body that wasn’t covered with scar tissue. He couldn’t find a vein in his arms and legs anymore even if he tried, just hardened knots of bluish-black skin.

  He slowly pushed the plunger, closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the cracked plaster wall. The drug slithered out from the end of the hypodermic needle like a serpent, flicking its narcotic tongue as it burrowed into his bloodstream. He grimaced as the burn traveled up his leg.

  The apartment was dark. The walls were a dirty gray, and the curtains on the single window were dusty and tattered. The room reeked of decades-old urine. He sat on the splintered hardwood floor and waited for the heroin to take effect.

  Pittsburgh was losing its appeal. He’d stayed here for far too long. He unscrewed the cap of a half-full bottle of cheap bourbon sitting on the floor by his side and took a quick swig. It burned his throat, and he coughed as heat spread across his chest. Go west, young man, go west, he thought.

  Vic Davol knew it was time to move again.

  *

  In a Manhattan office suite about four hundred miles away, a well-groomed man in an expensive silk suit paused from what he was doing, raised his head, and smiled. “Go west? I think that’s a wonderful idea. I’m glad I thought of it.”

  He finished folding a handwritten note and centered it on the imported mahogany desk before him, and moved to the southeast window of his corner office. It was a spectacular view from thirty stories up. He opened the window and slipped off his Italian loafers.

  “I guess we shouldn’t have embezzled all those funds, but fine living takes a lot of money, doesn’t it? And maybe we shouldn’t have cheated on your wife, but she was a nagging whore anyway. And maybe we shouldn’t have killed your secretary after she was stupid enough to get pregnant, but hey, she was one incredible fuck. It was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it, partner?” He stood in the open window of his office, looking at the bustling traffic below. The cold winter wind was really whipping thirty stories up.

  It was so easy to slip into people like this. A little greed, a little hate, a little envy . . . they might as well just leave the door wide open.

  As the Traveler stepped off the window ledge and watched the cement below rush up to meet him, he quickly found his ticket west and left the silk-suited businessman to meet his fate.

  Fifteen feet before impact, the businessman realized he was alone for the first time in months. It was too late to ask for forgiveness.

  8

  The newly fallen snow scrunched under Peyton’s shoes as she walked toward the front entrance of East High School. The hours spent within these walls were a release for her, a chance to experience a measure of normalcy—if high school could be called normal—until she returned home at night. She buried herself in her studies because a college scholarship, if she could qualify, would be her ticket to something better.

  Peyton had a couple of close friends, but none had any idea what she was going through at home, and neither did her teachers. She was afraid they would treat her differently if they knew. When she graduated, she’d walk out these same doors and take her secrets with her.

  Peyton kicked the snow off her shoes and made her way through the throng of students to her locker. In a mirror hung on the inside of the door, an attractive seventeen-year-old brunette stared back: a girl with thick, shoulder-length hair and large, sky-blue eyes . . . eyes that had seen so much sadness, yet caused any number of boys to take a long second glance. Her cheeks and nose were rosy red from the cold. She smiled at the face in the mirror, checking to make sure there was nothing stuck in her teeth.

  “Hey, Pey, what’s up?” Desiree Williams peeked around Peyton’s locker door, smiling her perfect smile. Dezi’s mocha skin was radiant, as always, and her brown eyes sparkled. If Dezi weren’t such a good friend, Peyton would be jealous of how pretty she was.

  “Hey, Dez,” Peyton said.

  “Ready for first hour?” Dezi asked. “I think Lynch is gonna pull a surprise test. He’s such a dickhead.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Peyton put her books under her arm and shut her locker.

  “Seriously,” Dezi said. “He’s a dickhead.”

  It took Peyton a second or two to get the joke. “I meant the test.”

  “Gotcha, girl,” Dezi said. “If he does, I’m gonna be pissed. I didn’t study at all this weekend.”

  “Why?”

  “There was a party at Jason’s house Saturday night and I could hardly move yesterday. I had my mom convinced I had the flu or something.” She leaned closer and whispered, “Randy was there.” Randy York was one of the “bad boys” around school, and Dezi couldn’t resist the attraction. She had been trying to catch his eye for months. “There’s another party tonight, and I think he’s going.”

  “Are you?”

  “I think so. I’ll probably tell my mom I’m going to go to the library to study or something. You’re coming too,” she said.

  “Duh,” Peyton said, jumping at the chance to get out of her house. Unlike her friend, she wouldn’t have to make an excuse, since her parents wouldn’t even notice she was gone. “You don’t think I’d let you have all that fun by yourself, do you?”

  As the two friends took their seats in class, Mr. Lynch, as predicted, passed out the surprise test.

  Peyton breezed through it, finishing before most of her classmates. She would wait to turn in her test until Dezi was done, which, from the look on her friend’s face, might be a while.

  As she waited, Peyton pondered the strange dream she had the previous night. She couldn’t remember the entire thing, but there was one particular part she recalled clearly.

  The boy.

  The face she had seen for a fleeting second seemed so real. Handsome, yet full of despair, full of fear. A face she could not get out of her head. She felt she should know him.

  The temperature in the classroom suddenly dropped, as if someone had opened an industrial freezer and let the door swing wide.

  Peyton jumped as the classroom door violently slammed open.

  A figure clad in blue jeans, a sweatshirt, and a ski mask entered the room, holding a pistol in his right hand. His rubber boot soles squeaked on the waxed floor. In his left hand he held some sort of gym bag.

  The coldest eyes Peyton had ever seen peered out from behind the mask, darting quickly around the room.

  Mr. Lynch reacted slowly, not quite grasping what was going on. He took a small step back, and opened his mouth as if to speak.

  Trisha Conwood understood, and screamed. Her seat was closest to the classroom door, and she was the first student to panic.

  She was also the first to die.

  The gunman swung his pistol toward Trisha. The eyes behind the mask squinted, aimed. A loud crack resounded through the confined space of the classroom.

  The shot hit Trisha square in the forehead, and her head snapped back violently from the force of the blast. She grunted, as if someone had punched her in the stomach. Her arms sprang out to her sides as her body convulsed—if she were holding her pom-poms, it would have been a perfect cheerleading move, something she was quite good at—and then her body collapsed onto her desk like a marionette falling limply to the stage, its strings abruptly severed. Her head lolled to the side, eyes still open and wide with fear, staring directly at Peyton.

  As the first stirrings of a scream scratched at the back of Peyton’s throat, she watched in morbid fascination as Trisha’s pupils dilated, opening fully in the final relaxation of death.

  The mechanical action of the semiautomatic pistol ejected the spent cartridge, sliding forward to place the next round in the chamber. The empty brass cartridge hit the floor, bouncing twice before it rolled to a stop near Mr. Lynch’s feet.

  Other studen
ts reacted, frantically ducking under their desks or dropping to the floor as the reality of what was happening became clear. They had all seen the stories about Columbine High School. The Amish school in Pennsylvania. Virginia Tech. Sandy Hook. And now, it was happening at their school. A symphony of screams sang from terrified throats.

  The killer swung his gun toward Mr. Lynch, and fired.

  Lynch reeled backward, hitting the wall with a dull thud. By the time he hit the floor, Mr. Lynch was dead, a look of shock still etched on his face.

  The gunman turned his attention toward the rest of the class, looking, searching. Peyton was halfway to the floor when his icy stare settled directly on her. He had found who he was looking for.

  For a second, Peyton sensed she had looked into those eyes before.

  The man raised his gun again, and aimed it directly at Peyton. He pulled the trigger.

  “No!” Peyton screamed, closing her eyes and waiting for the inevitable hammer blow to her forehead. She hoped it wouldn’t hurt, and would be quick. Would she see a bright light at the end of a long tunnel, like she read about? Would there be people waiting for her in the light, people who loved her? Whatever awaited didn’t really matter, because if she were dead, she wouldn’t have to go home ever again. Years of heartache and pain would be over. But the feeling was short-lived.

  Her blood began to boil as an inexplicable hatred shot through her veins. Hot, fiery.

  She wrapped her arms around her midsection, feeling a sudden need to protect that part of her body. I can’t die. I have to live. We have to live.

  *

  “Peyton? Are you okay?”

  It was Mr. Lynch’s voice. Peyton slowly opened her eyes.

  Mr. Lynch was standing at the front of the classroom in the exact spot he’d been when the killer first entered. But there was no killer. In the next desk, Trisha, head intact, stared at Peyton with a puzzled look.

  Peyton glanced around the room. They were all staring at her.

  “Are you all right?” Mr. Lynch asked again.

  Peyton’s mind was spinning. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Complete confusion. Her body shut down.

  She fainted.

  *

  For a moment, Peyton had no idea where she was.

  She was covered with a soft, lightweight blanket that smelled of disinfectant. Hovering over her was a large woman wearing a white smock.

  “Peyton?” Jackie Diamond, the school nurse, smiled broadly. “Are you okay, honey?”

  Peyton was confused. She was in the nurse’s office? “What happened? Why am I—?”

  “You were in your American history class, Peyton. Mr. Lynch said you screamed and then passed out.”

  Peyton remembered the killer. The gun. Her hand flew to her forehead, searching for a bullet hole that wasn’t there. “There was a man with a—” She stopped short. It had been a dream, right?

  “A man with a what?” the nurse asked.

  “Nothing,” Peyton said. “I guess I didn’t get enough— I must’ve fallen asleep at my desk and had a daymare, or something.” She could see Jackie Diamond wasn’t convinced. “Really, Mrs. Diamond, I’m fine. I’ll just go back to class.”

  “Have you taken anything today?”

  Peyton knew what she meant. “No ma’am. I don’t do drugs. Can I please go back to class now?”

  *

  Peyton sat in her last class of the day. Dezi was next to her.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Peyton said. “The nurse thought I was on drugs or something.”

  “Are you sure you want to come tonight?” Dezi asked, the concern obvious in her voice.

  “Yes I want to.” Peyton smiled at her best friend. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t want you freaking out in front of everybody. All that screaming and fainting would be kind of embarrassing.”

  “If you weren’t kidding I’d slap you right now. I won’t freak out as long as you promise not to jump Randy in front of everybody.” Peyton giggled. “I wouldn’t want you to embarrass me or anything.”

  “I’m sure.” Dezi blushed. “Pick you up at seven-thirty?”

  “Seven-thirty.”

  With the final bell, another day away from home had come to an end. As she left the school, Peyton couldn’t shake the memory of what she’d seen. Sure, she’d daydreamed before, but not like that. It had been so vivid, so real.

  Too real.

  When the man pointed the gun at her and she looked into his cold, unblinking eyes, she felt a hatred so strong, so powerful. The intensity of it scared her, for even after all she had been through, she’d never felt such anger. It was as if she’d experienced the last moments of someone who knew they were going to be killed.

  Gunned down by a man in a ski mask.

  9

  Zach parked down the street from the Van Pelts’ house, and had sat in his car for the last fifteen minutes. He could hear muffled music from a stereo system turned up a little too high, and laughter interspersed between rhythmic booms of bass. The dashboard clock read 9:06 p.m. It was getting cold.

  Part of him wanted to start the car and drive back home—which meant he would have to make up an excuse for his parents, who seemed glad that he’d decided to get out of the house, and an excuse for Randy when he next saw him at work. The incident with Cora shook him, but it hadn’t happened again. Neither had the dream, for that matter.

  “Come on, Zach,” he said to himself, “just go inside already.”

  *

  The party was going strong when Peyton and Dezi arrived at 8:10. Dezi was already on her second cup of punch—spiked—and Peyton was holding a can of Coke. They stood together in a corner of the Van Pelts’ living room watching Greg Robinson and Clark Stebbins, two of East High’s varsity football players, suck down shots of bright green Apple Pucker. A human Barbie doll was hanging on Greg Robinson’s arm.

  Dezi gestured toward the girl. “She’s such a bitch.”

  “Not so loud,” Peyton said. The alcohol in the punch was already influencing her friend. “Who’s that?”

  “Rakel friggin’ Anders.”

  Peyton recognized the girl from school—it was hard not to, considering how pretty she was—but didn’t know her. “Why is she a bitch?”

  “She was in my physics class last semester,” Dezi said. “Look up ‘bitch’ in the dictionary and there’s her picture. Uppity, preppie, beyotch.”

  “What did she do to you?” Peyton asked.

  “Nothing.” A pause. “I just hate her.” Dezi let out a blast of laughter, mostly through her nose.

  “You’re being mean.” Peyton elbowed her friend in the ribs. “And be quiet, will ya?”

  The noise level in the room suddenly dropped, as if everyone had stopped what they were doing. When she looked up and saw Rakel walking toward them, Peyton knew why. She nudged Dezi again to get her attention.

  “Oh shit,” Dezi said. “Hi, Rakel.”

  Rakel responded with two simple words, a pause in the middle for effect, and a universally understood hand gesture. “Fuck . . . you.”

  Peyton noticed the nail polish on Rakel’s middle finger was chipped. She also noticed the air around Dezi had suddenly become charged. She grabbed her friend by the arm, but couldn’t stop her from saying, “Fuck me? Oh no, I didn’t just hear you say that.”

  Dezi strained against Peyton’s grip, but Peyton held her back.

  Rakel turned on her heel and walked back to Greg, who looked like he was on his sixth or seventh Apple Pucker shot and hadn’t noticed what just happened. Other people, however, did notice, and stared intensely at Peyton and Dezi. Most of them, Peyton assumed, were Rakel’s friends.

  “Come on, Dezi, let’s just go,” Peyton said.

  “Did you hear what she said to me? I’m gonna—”

  “No you’re not,” Peyton said, dragging Dezi by the arm. “You’re gonna get both of our asses kicked.” She steered Dezi into the
kitchen, hoping Randy would be there so she could get her friend’s mind on something other than Rakel.

  *

  Zach stood at the Van Pelts’ front door. He knocked. Nobody answered. The music was too loud, he figured, and knocked again, harder. The door opened, and he was relieved to see Randy standing there to meet him.

  “Dude, come on in.”

  Zach stepped through the door.

  *

  Peyton felt faint. Her knees buckled, and she leaned against Dezi for support.

  “Whoa, girl, are you okay?” Dezi asked.

  “I don’t know, I—”

  “I thought you were just having Coke,” Dezi said.

  “I am, I don’t—I feel dizzy.”

  “Let’s go,” Dezi said, worried that maybe Peyton was having another episode, like earlier in the day.

  “No, I’ll be all right,” Peyton said, shaking her head. “I’ll get a glass of water and hang out here for a little while.” She tried to smile. “Why don’t you go find Randy?”

  “No way,” Dezi said. “I’m staying right here until I’m sure you’re okay.”

  “All right,” Peyton said. “Just give me a few minutes.”

  *

  A strange sensation washed over Zach as soon as he entered the house. He paused for a second, a little woozy on his feet, and then the feeling was gone. Before he could even begin to think about what he had just felt, Randy handed him a plastic cup of punch. “This’ll get you started, Zach.”

  “Thanks.” Zach held the drink up to his mouth, and smelled the alcohol. He took a sip, and immediately felt the burn. “Geez, Randy, what’s in this stuff?”

  “Knowing Jason, it’s probably piss. Just drink it.” Randy closed the front door. “Come on out back. Jason’s got some killer cigars.” He slapped Zach on the arm and then headed toward the kitchen, which Zach figured led to the back porch.

  Zach looked around, careful to avoid making eye contact with anyone as he navigated his way through the living room. The house was full of people, most of whom he did not know. The music was loud, and there was enough going on that no one noticed him. Except for a girl in a short red dress.