Spree (YA Paranormal) by Jonathan DeCoteau

passed,” she said. “Maybe you should’ve been thinking of that instead of drinking and driving.”
    “I am sorry.”
    “I’ll make sure of that.”
    “Cindy, don’t!”
    “See you in hell,” she told me.
    I felt her fire and brimstone stench fade, her clouds dissipate, swallowed as they were into a black hole of Taker energy.
    Just when I thought it couldn’t get any darker, an image of a teen girl wrapped in light stood up, floated closer. Though she was a ball of light and stardust, I could tell, through the well-defined, angular cheekbones, the gently sloping nose, the blue eyes.
    “Aliya,” I said.
    “Where am I?” she asked. “And what happened to your head?”
    A cloud of Keepers surrounded her with their balls of light and white energy. They came around me too, keeping me from following my instincts, from following Preggers into the black abyss.
    “I need your help,” I told her. “I’ve been killed.”
    “Is this heaven?” she asked.
    “Not exactly…”
     
    * * *
     
    My mind flashed to the moment Alex saw Zipper on the field, asked him if he’d joined the team.
    I got a sick feeling then, and now I knew why. I saw in Zipper’s aura what I didn’t see earlier, what I didn’t notice until my Taker energy was attracted to his. There was an image of Zipper with a shovel, digging by the stands. He’d taken a job as a part-time caretaker around the school with just this purpose in mind. His guidance counselor pushed for it, hoping to get Zipper an opportunity to help pay for college. Zipper was just under the stands, around their supporting beams. He had bought some type of explosive, and he was burying it by the stands. He’d been putting dynamite, petrol, and other explosives under the school grounds, all across the field, under and down along the stands, for months, just as soon as boys’ soccer got on a roll. There was enough there to blow up anybody and everybody who had a seat, to blow out the lights, to blow out the field and any players who were on it. He even placed some underneath torn patches in the parking lot, which it was his job to clean up and report on. Apparently, his studies of Andrew Kehoe had not gone to waste.
    Zipper played “Adam’s Song” by Blink 182 on his iPod, played it over and over again, as it was rumored to be the song Crazy T played just before he walked the streets for the school. Crazy T was hovering around him, making sure each detail was right. I knew this was what the Takers were doing, covering for Crazy T so that he could make sure he masterminded everything to perfection. I fought to see more, to see into Zipper’s aura, into his plan, into the exact time and place he’d fire his first shot, but it was already too dark. Before I could finish seeing the vision, I felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned around.
     
    * * *
     
    “…What happened to you?” Aliya asked me.
    “I was pulled somewhere,” I told her.
    “Why?”
    I attempted to show Aliya a vision of the darkness that was Zipper and Zipper’s plan, but she didn’t see. She appeared unlike any other soul I’d seen before. She’d start out as radiant light and then diminish.
    I put my head on. It would stay in place for only a few moments, a painful reminder of my death to all who came upon my ghost.
    “You’re not dead,” I told her. “You ended up in a coma.”
    “For how long?”
    “Less than a week,” I told her. “I died Saturday night.”
    “If I’m not dead, why am I here?” she asked.
    “You’re here to stop a killer,” I said.
    “What?”
    “One of our classmates snapped. He plans to shoot the school at the soccer championship,” I said. “You’ve heard of him. Zipper.”
    “Zipper would never do that,” she said.
    I tried to call the images I’d seen before, of bodies lying bloodied, of devastated bleachers.
    None of it made it through the light protecting Aliya.
    “This is a dream, isn’t it?” she asked.
    “More like an out-of-body