Read Online Blood Trail by Nancy Springer - Free Book Online

wife’s waiting for you, sir.”
    Mr. Gingrich turned to him and stabbed his finger at me. “I want him out of here!”
    â€œHe has a right to be here, sir.”
    â€œIt’s time to go, anyway,” Coach said.
    Fine with me; I was tired. I followed him to his car, and we left.
    More silence as he drove me home. Finally I said, “So you don’t think I’m a liar?”
    â€œI don’t see any reason why you would lie, Jeremy. But there’s a lot I don’t understand.”
    â€œMe neither.”
    He pulled up in front of my house and said, “Oh, for God’s sake.” I saw too: yellow ick splattering the brick and the windows, along with sticky bits of shell. Somebody had egged the place while we were at Aaron’s funeral.

chapter nine
    When I finally got to sleep that night, I had a dream that was almost worse than lying awake. I don’t remember all of it but I do remember that Aaron passed me the football and I fumbled and Coach yelled at me, “Liar! Liar!” but Aaron smiled and said it didn’t matter, he was just being stupid, imagining things. Then somehow he had the football again and he ran it between the other players, only they weren’t players, they were couples in tuxedos and evening gowns, he was running through the prom and every footstep left a blood trail. I screamed, “Aaron, run !” and he ran like a devil was after him, over the roof of the church and down Main Street and through Rose’s café and his dad’s store and all over Pinto River, leaving a blood trail everywhere. He ran into the development, down through my basement and up again and across his lawn, where all the dead flowers were lying, and instead of a football he was carrying his severed head under his arm, tracking blood like floods of red ink out of a lie detector machine. I screamed, “The river! Head for the river!” like in an old movie, like the bloodhounds were after him. We ran and ran, I ran with him up mountains and over cliffs and down the winding river road, and he left blood on the sky and blood on the boulders and scrub pines and blood on the asphalt as he ran. When we got to the river and he dived in, the water turned blood red. He dived into the swimming hole and disappeared, he didn’t come up again, and I knew he was dying but I couldn’t do a thing to help him, I stood there dripping sweat and tears, with my legs aching like my heart, just stood there in the shallows with a giant crayfish clamped onto my ankles like shackles. Only Aaron’s head stayed on the surface. It floated past me, looked at me and said, “Booger, I’m scared—”
    I woke up sweating. My throat hurt like I had a knife blade stuck in it. I heard someone whimpering and sobbing, and it wasn’t me; it came from across the hallway. My stupid sister, crying in her sleep. Then she sighed and quieted down. Maybe she woke up. Outside, a car blasted past with the stereo thumping. Somebody yelled almost as loud as the stereo, and I heard a rock or something hit the front of the house.
    God damn everything. I lunged out of bed and stomped downstairs. Without turning the light on, I plugged the phone in and quick-dialed my father.
    On the third ring he picked up. “Yo.”
    â€œHey, you’re there.”
    â€œI ought to be,” he said. “It’s three in the morning.”
    There were a lot of things I could have said, like he could have still been hanging out at the Tipple Tavern, or he could have been with his girlfriend, or if he wanted me not to call at three in the morning, he should have called me back when he got my message. But all I said was, “Yeah, and people are throwing rocks at the house.”
    â€œJust the usual dumb crap. Have they hosed down the car and dumped flour on it yet?”
    â€œNo, because it’s in the garage!”
    â€œThey could get in there if they wanted to. Break a