It’s been a year and two days since Kyle, Andrew, and I first stepped foot into the decrepit old house at the end of our street. As I pushed the door open, the smell of wet dirt and mildew twirled into my nose.
“Real romantic spot, smooth stuff,” Kyle scoffed at me.
“Hey! I have an idea turd burglar, why don’t we bring the girls over to your house so your mom can walk in and bust us!” I rolled my eyes.
“Whatever,” Kyle huffed.
We pulled out a couple candles from Andrew’s backpack and lit them, setting them strategically through the room, trying to drive the gloom out. The girls should be here soon.
“So, Andrew, figured out how you’re going to convince Abby to give a guy like you the time of day?” I wiggled my eyebrows. Andrew had been down lately. He hadn’t said anything, but Kyle and I had noticed. It was a big part of why we’d hit up Abby’s friends to set this whole thing up. He’d had the hots for Abby for a long time, but he was cripplingly shy and completely inexperienced with girls as a result.
He responded by throwing his backpack at me. Before I could retaliate, the front door creaked open. Abby, Chelsea, and Malorie walked in.
“Hey ladies,” Kyle greeted, flashing a lopsided grin, “I brought a refreshment!” He presented an empty coke bottle.
He laughed as he placed it in the center of the circle that had formed as the girls sat down. Abby pushed her dark hair out of her face and smiled at Andrew.
“Smooth, Kyle,” I cringed.
“Right to it, huh?” Malorie giggled.
“Me first!” Abby grabbed the bottle and pointed its tip towards Andrew before spinning it hard. As the bottle was still in motion, the front door opened again.
Chelsea yelped as a boy near our age confidently strolled in.
“Closed party?” he asked.
I hopped to my feet, “Something like that. I didn’t know anybody else came here.”
In the dim lighting, his eyes looked completely black. Something about him made my stomach feel icy.
The boy smirked as the bottle stopped with the cap end pointing at Andrew.
“I like to play games too,” he grinned, “got room for one more?” The boy squeezed between Andrew and Kyle without waiting for an answer.
“We can’t play spin the bottle with an odd number,” Malorie interjected, “How about truth or dare instead? And what’s your name?”
“I don’t believe I picked Truth yet, did I?” the mystery boy asked.
Kyle staged whispered to Andrew, “Want me to dare you to kiss Abby?” Andrew blushed and slugged Kyle on the shoulder as the rest of us hooted. The boy sat expressionless, waiting.
“Abby,” Malorie started, “Truth or dare!”
Abby didn’t hesitate, “Dare!”
“I dare you to go in the other room for fifteen seconds by yourself!”
“Lame,” Abby muttered, glancing towards Andrew as she left the group.
Internally, I groaned. This wasn’t going as planned at all. We were supposed to get Andrew comfortable enough with Abby for us to go home. Malorie had basically invited the new guy to hang out with us and now she was intentionally dragging this out. A part of me suspected that she knew him.
Abby shuffled in and sat back down with the group.
The boy scoffed.
“Truth or dare, new boy?” Malorie teased.
“Truth, always,” he responded with a small smile.
“What’s up your ass?”
The smile fell into a scowl. “Mostly, Malorie, this is stupid. Every one of you has limited time left and this is what you do with it? Completely wasted. Childish. We all have a role to play, and here the six of you are, fucking it up. That’s what’s ‘up my ass’ as you put it. But wouldn’t you rather ask me something more interesting?”
All of us were stunned into silence. Embarrassment glowed brightly on Malorie’s cheeks.
Finally, Chelsea broke the silence, “Something more interesting like what?”
That uncomfortable grin kissed his lips again, “Like when you’ll die, of course. I’m in a giving mood tonight. I can tell you all about it.”
My stomach flipped with the realization that this kid was psychotic.
“Like you, Chelsea, you die of a heart attack at your desk at work at 47!” his eyes shined brightly in the candlelight.
“And you, Kyle, you die falling off a boat at 42. You drown,” he faked a gag, “You’re a bloater, in case you were wondering, not a floater. It takes them nearly a week to find you! And you, Malorie, you die of the flu at 61,” he scoffed, “So boring. And Alex,” I flinched at the sound of my name, “you’ll die of lung cancer at 50. It hurts so, so bad when you can’t breathe. Keep sucking ‘em down! Abby, I’ll be seeing you again soon. Very soon. You die at 17. Do you want to know how?”
The boy’s broad, toothy smile took up far too much of his bony face. Abby started to cry softly. The boy took that as an affirmative answer.
“You die in a car accident. Your mother is driving. She hits a tree!” he exclaimed gleefully. “And Andrew, I’ll be seeing you soonest of all. I think we both already knew that though, didn’t we?” The boy nodded slowly as he faked a pout.
Andrew jumped to his feet and kicked the boy in the face before throwing the front door open and running into the night. The boy held his head swung back and cackled.
He brushed his pants off as he stood up and turned towards the door. Fresh rage rose from my chest and lit my cheeks on fire. I shot up and reached out to grab him and yank him back in. To make him pay for ruining my friend’s perfect night. “Hey assh-” as my hand gripped his face, my words were stolen from me. My eyes rolled like the reels on a slot machine.
I wasn’t in the musty house anymore. I was standing at the front iron gates of a graveyard, the boy next to me, a proud smile plastered across his face. Inside, hundreds of people danced in their Sunday’s best. Some danced jerkily like marionettes whose strings were being pulled by an inexperienced puppeteer. Others twirled like the ballerina in my mother’s antique jewelry box. As I moved deeper in, they paid me no mind.
I cautiously walked closer to a well-dressed man with a long mustache. I counted 8 bullet holes across his face. He was quietly humming under his breath as he jerked. I glanced down at his feet encapsulated in concrete blocks and knees bent backwards.
I took a few steps back before bumping into a woman with cropped dark hair. She twirled effortlessly with both arms raised high above her head. Worms occasionally fell from her empty eye sockets. The hanging flesh from the slash in her throat bellowed softly as she spun, like lace curtains in a gentle breeze.
On and on they danced.
They’re dead. They’re all dead. The thought brought a buzzing to my ears, my vision wavering as I frantically looked from corpse to corpse.
“Malorie wanted to know my name, do you?” the boy asked, still beside me. “My name is Death, Alex. And in time, I come for everyone. Young men, old women, and children, I come for them all. Your friend Andrew is coming with me tonight, he’s coming to dance. Go home, or you’ll see me again sooner than you may wish.”
The low hum that rumbled through the purple night sky rose to a murmur, and then a roar. All at once, every person in the graveyard dropped their jaws and screamed. Their eternal dancing never stopped or slowed.
I shoved my fingers in both ears, crouched down, ducked my head between my knees, and screamed with them.
Someone shook me hard enough I lost my balance and fell into the fetal position on the hard floor. A girl’s voice screamed my name. As I slowly opened my eyes, I saw Abby’s face above me.
I scrambled to my feet, sucking in air like a man rescued from an angry sea. The boy laughed from the doorway.
“Well, as you’ve seen Alex, I have somewhere I’d desperately like to get back to, but I have business to attend to first.” He turned his dark eyes to Abby, “See you next year.” He pulled the hood of his pullover down and walked casually into the night.
Chaos broke out in the house behind me but I just ran home. I laid in bed all night sobbing.
In the morning, screaming from outside pulled me from my bed.
Across the street, Andrew’s mother was being held back by her husband as she wailed and reached towards a stretcher with a black body bag on top, “My son! My beautiful boy! Bring him back! He’s okay, he’s okay, please just let me see my boy!” She eyed me standing at the edge of my driveway watching. “Did you know? Tell me you didn’t know! Tell me you didn’t know what he was going to do to himself!”
I didn’t answer, I just turned around and went back inside.
Rumors about a note flew through the school.
“All I needed was just one good night.”
Andrew’s suicide drove us all apart. Or maybe it was the boy. We didn’t even smile if we caught each other’s eyes in passing in the hallways. Although I was the only one who’d seen it, I think deep inside, all of us had one foot in that graveyard, desperate to dance.
Grieving Andrew without Kyle was the hardest part. But eventually we all made new friends. We slowly began to move on. Separately.
Our self-imposed distance didn’t stop the news of Abby’s death from reaching each of us.
A year exactly from the night of Andrew’s suicide, Abby had gone to a house party. Dan Harper’s dad was the officer on duty that night.
According to Dan, his dad had told him Abby had drank too much at the party and called her mother to come get her. Abby’s mom, thinking Abby had plans to stay at a friend’s house overnight, had dipped harder into her bourbon bottle than usual. Nonetheless, she couldn’t bear to leave her daughter in a place she thought was unsafe. So, she went and picked her up. The irony of her mother’s drunk driving to “rescue” her daughter wasn’t missed.
With a light fog glittering against her headlights, Abby’s mom plowed the car into the same oak tree she passed while heading to work five days a week. Dan’s dad said there were no skid marks, so either Abby’s mom hadn’t seen it, or she’d fallen asleep behind the wheel. Abby’s mom survived. Abby didn’t. I wonder whether Death sat beside her in the car as it collided with the tree, or whether he collected her after.
I inhaled deeply on my Marlboro, letting the smoke twirl and rake its hot claws across my lungs. I tossed it on the ground, stomped on it, and threw my half empty pack into the street as I walked to see what had become of the house we’d all been in just over a year ago. I wonder if I’ll have an unexpected visitor. I have so many questions for him.
I think I’m finally done smoking.