Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(7)

“It’s so weird,” said Dave.

“What?” asked Dana. “Her dying like that?”

Dave shook his head. “Not just her. Seems like a lot of people are checking out lately. Maisie’s, like, the fifth this year.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Dana, shocked.

“You and Melissa are pretty new here, Dana,” said Eileen. “You moved here, what, around Christmas?”

“After Thanksgiving, but we didn’t start school until after the Christmas break. Mom homeschooled us for a while and—”

“And so you don’t know what’s been going on,” interrupted Dave. “See, Maisie wasn’t the first teenager from Craiger killed in a car accident. Maisie makes five.”

“What?” Melissa and Dana gasped at the same time.

“Yup,” said Dave, nodding. “Five teens since the school year started. Two from FSK and three from Oak Valley High right over the county line.”

“What? That’s horrible!” whispered Melissa.

“Think about how we feel,” Eileen said.

“I only knew Maisie and Chuck Riley, ’cause they both went to FSK,” said Dave.

“I’m so sorry,” Dana said, not knowing what else she could say.

Eileen said, “They said that all of them were high. Drunk or high, whatever.”

Dana frowned. “You sound like you don’t believe that.”

“Maybe with Chuck,” said Eileen, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “He hung out with his older brother and some frat guys, but Maisie? No way. I’m not saying she was Miss Goody Two-Shoes, but when it came to that sort of stuff, she was straight. No one is ever going to tell me different. And I’ve heard people say the same about the others. No one else believes they were stoned, either. At least, none of us do. It’s just what the cops say. And the teachers.” She sighed. “Which means we’re going to get another of those stupid assemblies about the danger of drugs, blah, blah, blah, but it’s all crap. Maisie definitely didn’t get high. No way on earth.”

“It’s the whole being-dead thing that’s messing with my head,” said Dave. “I’m seventeen, and we’re not supposed to have a sell-by date, you know?”

“Everyone dies,” said Eileen, matter-of-fact as always.

“Death is a doorway,” countered Melissa.

Dave shook his head. “Maybe it is. But if so, what’s on the other side?”

“We transform and reincarnate,” said Melissa. “We return to source and then take a new form in order to continue our journey to enlightenment.”

Dana resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Eileen looked away for a moment, and Dana figured she was rolling her eyes.

“Maybe,” Dave said again, “but that’s just a theory. And, hey, I try to keep an open mind and all, but none of us really know what it’s like to be dead.”

“I guess we’ll all find out,” said Eileen.

“Doesn’t make it any easier to process what happened last night,” said Dave. “Maisie went to our school, she lived in this neighborhood. We knew her. Not real well, but enough. Enough for her to be alive in our world … if that makes sense.”

Dana glanced at him in surprise and walked a few steps in silence, reappraising him. She did know what he meant, and she knew that it was a very deep question. It was a frightening question, too. When she was little, she’d believed in the Sunday school version of heaven. Her beliefs had evolved as she’d grown older, read more, thought more deeply, and considered such matters with a serious mind.

The conversation continued, and she drifted along with the others but tuned them out as she listened to her own thoughts. Dave had struck a nerve. None of us really know what it’s like to be dead. Was Maisie’s consciousness, her soul, still out there, up there, wherever, remembering the crash, the twisted metal, the pain, the dying? It was a horrifying thought.

They talked about Maisie all the way to school. To Dana it felt like Death was walking right beside them the whole way.





CHAPTER 8

Francis Scott Key Regional High School

7:06 A.M.

School was school.

Classes started with ringing bells. Hallways filled and emptied, filled and emptied. The principal made incoherent announcements through bad speakers mounted to classroom walls. Teachers attempted to teach, and students—mostly but not entirely—tried not to be taught. Normal.

Except that it wasn’t.

There was a subsurface stream of conversation, speculation, and gossip. The girls who were friends or semi-friends with Maisie held court and were extravagantly tragic. Dana observed it all but did not play the game. She had never met Maisie, didn’t even know what she looked like. And somehow she felt guilty for not knowing a fellow student who’d died. It seemed somehow disrespectful, though Dana could not figure out why. She decided that she’d go to church on Sunday and light a candle for her.

As the day played out, she realized just how little she had become involved in this school. She wasn’t part of any clique; she didn’t have a circle of friends. Even Dave and Eileen wouldn’t have told her about Maisie if Dave didn’t have a crush on Melissa. Dana felt invisible at times. Like a ghost, she thought, but thinking that creeped her out.