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Book One: The Boy In the Black Coat
Chapter 1: The Titan and the Newcomer|Chapter 2: The Problem with Kasira | Chapter 3: Coincidental Encounter?| Chapter 4: Shadows in the Trees | Chapter 5: John on the Spot | Chapter 6: Conspiracy Theories | Chapter 7: "The Arcade Incident" |
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Shortly after 11 o’clock, Zac and Ben rendezvoused in The Commons, which was the fancy name for the school’s combined cafeteria and assembly hall. |
It was a cavernous room with the general dimensions and chilly ambiance of an aircraft hanger. The classroom balconies overlooking the main floor were still draped with last year’s spirit flags and butcher paper banners encouraging the student body to get involved with extracurricular activities or congratulating seniors for whom high school was now a memory. On the west side of The Commons, great windows stretched upward and looked across a paved plaza to the school’s performing arts building, known as the Dionysus Theater. It had begun to rain during third period, so the view of the theater’s sweeping glass and metal facade dripped and shimmered with an eerie blue-gray light.
The Pacific Northwest weather doomed the boys to eating inside, which Zac detested because The Commons was the noisiest place in the school and greasy food slowly desiccating under heat lamps made it smell like a third-rate fast food restaurant. Zac purchased a ham and cheese hoagy and a bottle of orange juice and waited while Ben retrieved his usual fare of a large cinnamon roll and chocolate milk. He then chose a table at random. It didn’t matter where he sat, because his friends, favorites, hangers-on, admirers, associates, study partners, advocates and adversaries would always find him no matter where he was. In this respect, Zac was like a large cosmic body collecting dust from the vacuum of space and spinning it into a ring around himself.
For the first ten minutes, he played host to half a dozen students from all grade levels who stopped to ask how his summer had been or inquire about what extracurricular activities he was going out for this year. The answer to the latter was invariably the same — nothing. “I’m not a joiner,” Zac would tell them and this was a completely accurate statement. The last time he had actually joined something was when his father had enrolled him in Cub Scouts at age seven. His mother had died in an auto accident the previous year and Mr. Dryden had hoped the scouts would help Zac build new friendships and heal faster from the loss. Instead, he spent most of the meetings and activities weeping, frustrated by his forced participation when all he really wanted to do was go home and be with his dad. After three miserable weeks, he was allowed to quit but the unhappy memory had discouraged Zac for ever participating in another club, team, or organization of any kind. To those who didn’t know this history, his reputation as a non-joiner was a strange contradiction for a boy who was so naturally social. Thinking about this now, as he toyed with the cellophane on his hoagie, he instantly understood why John Gervais had rebuffed him.
Shit, I probably would’ve done the same thing, he thought, feeling both guilty and foolish.
Once the initial cloud of well-wishers had cleared, Zac turned back to Ben who was staring at him from over a half-consumed disk of frosted pastry. “Who are you looking for?” he asked.
“Explain that question,” Zac replied.
“You’re clearly looking around for someone. Who is it? If it’s the most important person in your life, the very center of your universe, then he’s sitting next to you eating a cinnamon roll.”
Zac snorted. “While that may be true, I was actually looking for this guy I met in Pembroke’s class. A new student. She asked me to show him around, but I think I came off as kind of an ass to him. I was gonna see if he wanted to sit with us.”
Almost immediately Ben was disinterested. “Ohhhhhhhh,” he moaned with deliberate extravagance.
Zac narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“I see what this is all about. You hate it when people ignore you.”
“Wow, make me sound like a dick why don’t you?”
Ben shrugged. "It's true, Zac. You like to be liked and don't like not being liked."
"That's true of every person on Earth..."
"I know it's hard to believe, dude, but maybe this guy's actually an independent human being and doesn't need the illustrious Zac Dryden to usher him around?"
"That's impossible," Zac answered smoothly. "Who wouldn't want to spend time with this" — he gestured to himself like a spokesmodel displaying a diamond bracelet on the Home Shopping Network — "I mean, c'mon here, I'm the complete package."
"Zac Dryden: inspiring masturbatory fantasies since the seventh grade,” Ben snickered. “But let’s remember how your last pet project turned out. Namely that asshat from Germany.”
“Okay, he was an asshat,” Zac conceded. “But that doesn’t mean everyone will be.”
“True, but you attract the asshats as easily as you attract nice people. You’re like flypaper for asshats.” Ben’s eyes flicked toward the crowd just beyond their table and then mumbled, “For example...”
A young woman with flawless chestnut skin, dark brown eyes and a long cascade of black hair was heading directly for them. Almost immediately students began to flee the table. The girl placed her plate of food carefully on the tabletop, slid onto the bench across from Zac and Ben and turned to the one boy who had dared to hold his seat next to her.
“Could you please move over?” she said to him. Her voice was downright icy. “You don’t need to be rubbing up against me like a perv.” She put particular emphasis on the word please, as if to stress that she was using it ironically. Duly humiliated her with certain advantages. As time passed, she became an expert at both enchanting and destroying others, often with just a well- timed look or a single word.
“So, Zac,” she began, spinning her fork absently in a pile of spaghetti. “Where were you this summer?”
Although this sounded like a question, Zac knew it was actually an accusation. “Where was I?” he repeated with irritation. “I was here, at home, around. Where else would I be?”
Her smile turned dangerous. “Oh, I assumed you had left town or something?”
It was obvious that Zac was being set up, but curious as to where she was leading this conversation he replied with a slow,
“Nooooooooo.”
“Then you just plain forgot?” she asked. “Forgot what, Kasira?
“That we were going to hang out over the break?”
“We were?”
“Yes. You said at the end of last school year that we should hang out over the summer and then you never called me.”
"Oh, well see I never called you because I never said that."
"I remember it distinctly."
"Then you're delusional. Do you honestly think I wouldn't remember something like that?"
"Apparently so. I even sent you messages on Facebook. Didn't you get them?"
If she had sent message, Zac had not received them because nine months earlier he'd been deluged with pouty photos of Kasira in various revealing outfits and had subsequently blocked her. "I did not," he said simply, taking a bite of his sandwich.
"You should give me your cell number so we can text."
Zac chewed slowly.
“Do you still have my number?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
She looked surprised. “Then you should hit me up. We should hang.”
Zac took another bite, chewed slowly.
He could tell by the way Kasira’s eyebrows pulled together over the bridge of her nose that she was irritated, but outwardly she remained calm and changed tactics. Ben, who had been enjoying the exchange as an unnoticed observer, suddenly found himself withering under her stare. “What’s his number?” she demanded.
Ben looked panicked but quickly packed his mouth so full of cinnamon roll that speech was impossible.
“You don’t need my number,” Zac interjected. “If you have anything you need to say to me, say it at school.”
Kasira ignored him. “Ben!” she insisted. “Tell me.”
Ben answered with a series of unintelligible noises as clumps of pastry fell out of his mouth and onto the table.
A second later, Kasira stood up and calmly informed them that they were assholes. Because she was an excellent performer, she made the entire confrontation look like teasing between three old friends. Only the untouched food she left behind indicated otherwise — and then only to someone who was paying careful attention. Zac pushed the plate of lukewarm noodles drenched in plain tomato sauce to the far end of the table. Though this act had been concluded, Zac knew the play was far from over.
"Damn," Zac muttered. "Every time she come around my balls jump into my chest. I wish she'd find someone else to obsess over."
"You could just fuck her," Ben suggested. "She's probably amazing and I bet she'd lose interest immediately afterward. She's interested in the hunt, not the kill.”
“I wouldn’t fuck her with your dick, Ben.”
A swig of chocolate milk slurped out of Ben’s mouth with laughter. “Dude, that’s not cool.”
“Someone needs to tell that girl how unattractive it is to combine desperation with cruelty.”
“Maybe that person is you? You seem to like helping all these defective people. Maybe you could save the heartless Kasira Vang from herself?”
“The only thing that’s gonna save that Waffle House tramp is a team of therapists and some potent mood- altering drugs,” Zac answered. He took a few more bites of his hoagy and then carefully arranged the remaining bread crust on top of Kasira’s forgotten spaghetti. “There, she can have that,” he chuckled. “But that’s all she gets.”
“You should’ve at least asked her for a ride home,” Ben suggested, gesturing to the wall of glass on the far side of the room with the tip of his chin. The weather had worsened and heavy gusts of gray water were now breaking against the building. “Otherwise, I think we’re riding the bus home.”
“No, no bus,” Zac insisted. “It always smells like B.O. We’ll find another way.”
The Pacific Northwest weather doomed the boys to eating inside, which Zac detested because The Commons was the noisiest place in the school and greasy food slowly desiccating under heat lamps made it smell like a third-rate fast food restaurant. Zac purchased a ham and cheese hoagy and a bottle of orange juice and waited while Ben retrieved his usual fare of a large cinnamon roll and chocolate milk. He then chose a table at random. It didn’t matter where he sat, because his friends, favorites, hangers-on, admirers, associates, study partners, advocates and adversaries would always find him no matter where he was. In this respect, Zac was like a large cosmic body collecting dust from the vacuum of space and spinning it into a ring around himself.
For the first ten minutes, he played host to half a dozen students from all grade levels who stopped to ask how his summer had been or inquire about what extracurricular activities he was going out for this year. The answer to the latter was invariably the same — nothing. “I’m not a joiner,” Zac would tell them and this was a completely accurate statement. The last time he had actually joined something was when his father had enrolled him in Cub Scouts at age seven. His mother had died in an auto accident the previous year and Mr. Dryden had hoped the scouts would help Zac build new friendships and heal faster from the loss. Instead, he spent most of the meetings and activities weeping, frustrated by his forced participation when all he really wanted to do was go home and be with his dad. After three miserable weeks, he was allowed to quit but the unhappy memory had discouraged Zac for ever participating in another club, team, or organization of any kind. To those who didn’t know this history, his reputation as a non-joiner was a strange contradiction for a boy who was so naturally social. Thinking about this now, as he toyed with the cellophane on his hoagie, he instantly understood why John Gervais had rebuffed him.
Shit, I probably would’ve done the same thing, he thought, feeling both guilty and foolish.
Once the initial cloud of well-wishers had cleared, Zac turned back to Ben who was staring at him from over a half-consumed disk of frosted pastry. “Who are you looking for?” he asked.
“Explain that question,” Zac replied.
“You’re clearly looking around for someone. Who is it? If it’s the most important person in your life, the very center of your universe, then he’s sitting next to you eating a cinnamon roll.”
Zac snorted. “While that may be true, I was actually looking for this guy I met in Pembroke’s class. A new student. She asked me to show him around, but I think I came off as kind of an ass to him. I was gonna see if he wanted to sit with us.”
Almost immediately Ben was disinterested. “Ohhhhhhhh,” he moaned with deliberate extravagance.
Zac narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“I see what this is all about. You hate it when people ignore you.”
“Wow, make me sound like a dick why don’t you?”
Ben shrugged. "It's true, Zac. You like to be liked and don't like not being liked."
"That's true of every person on Earth..."
"I know it's hard to believe, dude, but maybe this guy's actually an independent human being and doesn't need the illustrious Zac Dryden to usher him around?"
"That's impossible," Zac answered smoothly. "Who wouldn't want to spend time with this" — he gestured to himself like a spokesmodel displaying a diamond bracelet on the Home Shopping Network — "I mean, c'mon here, I'm the complete package."
"Zac Dryden: inspiring masturbatory fantasies since the seventh grade,” Ben snickered. “But let’s remember how your last pet project turned out. Namely that asshat from Germany.”
“Okay, he was an asshat,” Zac conceded. “But that doesn’t mean everyone will be.”
“True, but you attract the asshats as easily as you attract nice people. You’re like flypaper for asshats.” Ben’s eyes flicked toward the crowd just beyond their table and then mumbled, “For example...”
A young woman with flawless chestnut skin, dark brown eyes and a long cascade of black hair was heading directly for them. Almost immediately students began to flee the table. The girl placed her plate of food carefully on the tabletop, slid onto the bench across from Zac and Ben and turned to the one boy who had dared to hold his seat next to her.
“Could you please move over?” she said to him. Her voice was downright icy. “You don’t need to be rubbing up against me like a perv.” She put particular emphasis on the word please, as if to stress that she was using it ironically. Duly humiliated her with certain advantages. As time passed, she became an expert at both enchanting and destroying others, often with just a well- timed look or a single word.
“So, Zac,” she began, spinning her fork absently in a pile of spaghetti. “Where were you this summer?”
Although this sounded like a question, Zac knew it was actually an accusation. “Where was I?” he repeated with irritation. “I was here, at home, around. Where else would I be?”
Her smile turned dangerous. “Oh, I assumed you had left town or something?”
It was obvious that Zac was being set up, but curious as to where she was leading this conversation he replied with a slow,
“Nooooooooo.”
“Then you just plain forgot?” she asked. “Forgot what, Kasira?
“That we were going to hang out over the break?”
“We were?”
“Yes. You said at the end of last school year that we should hang out over the summer and then you never called me.”
"Oh, well see I never called you because I never said that."
"I remember it distinctly."
"Then you're delusional. Do you honestly think I wouldn't remember something like that?"
"Apparently so. I even sent you messages on Facebook. Didn't you get them?"
If she had sent message, Zac had not received them because nine months earlier he'd been deluged with pouty photos of Kasira in various revealing outfits and had subsequently blocked her. "I did not," he said simply, taking a bite of his sandwich.
"You should give me your cell number so we can text."
Zac chewed slowly.
“Do you still have my number?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
She looked surprised. “Then you should hit me up. We should hang.”
Zac took another bite, chewed slowly.
He could tell by the way Kasira’s eyebrows pulled together over the bridge of her nose that she was irritated, but outwardly she remained calm and changed tactics. Ben, who had been enjoying the exchange as an unnoticed observer, suddenly found himself withering under her stare. “What’s his number?” she demanded.
Ben looked panicked but quickly packed his mouth so full of cinnamon roll that speech was impossible.
“You don’t need my number,” Zac interjected. “If you have anything you need to say to me, say it at school.”
Kasira ignored him. “Ben!” she insisted. “Tell me.”
Ben answered with a series of unintelligible noises as clumps of pastry fell out of his mouth and onto the table.
A second later, Kasira stood up and calmly informed them that they were assholes. Because she was an excellent performer, she made the entire confrontation look like teasing between three old friends. Only the untouched food she left behind indicated otherwise — and then only to someone who was paying careful attention. Zac pushed the plate of lukewarm noodles drenched in plain tomato sauce to the far end of the table. Though this act had been concluded, Zac knew the play was far from over.
"Damn," Zac muttered. "Every time she come around my balls jump into my chest. I wish she'd find someone else to obsess over."
"You could just fuck her," Ben suggested. "She's probably amazing and I bet she'd lose interest immediately afterward. She's interested in the hunt, not the kill.”
“I wouldn’t fuck her with your dick, Ben.”
A swig of chocolate milk slurped out of Ben’s mouth with laughter. “Dude, that’s not cool.”
“Someone needs to tell that girl how unattractive it is to combine desperation with cruelty.”
“Maybe that person is you? You seem to like helping all these defective people. Maybe you could save the heartless Kasira Vang from herself?”
“The only thing that’s gonna save that Waffle House tramp is a team of therapists and some potent mood- altering drugs,” Zac answered. He took a few more bites of his hoagy and then carefully arranged the remaining bread crust on top of Kasira’s forgotten spaghetti. “There, she can have that,” he chuckled. “But that’s all she gets.”
“You should’ve at least asked her for a ride home,” Ben suggested, gesturing to the wall of glass on the far side of the room with the tip of his chin. The weather had worsened and heavy gusts of gray water were now breaking against the building. “Otherwise, I think we’re riding the bus home.”
“No, no bus,” Zac insisted. “It always smells like B.O. We’ll find another way.”
