Title: The Society: Proof
Author: Aaron Crabill
Series: The Society (#1)
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Adventure
Publisher: Self
Published
Release Date: Jan 28
2011
Edition/Formats Available In: E~Book & Print
Synopsis:
Keely Allison has spent years trying to prove that her home
town of Pembleton Arizona is haunted. She’s let her grades slip, upset her
mother by avoiding anything remotely close to the normal high school
experience, and utterly ignored a love life. She’s the leader of two person
paranormal society, along with her polar opposite Tad Buckley. Tad’s an honors
student, the apple of his folks’ eyes and totally in love with Keely (he has
been for years and he really, really, really thinks this will be the year he
finally tells her just that). When Sean Cage moves to town everyone’s life gets
thrown into a violent upheaval. He joins the society, challenges their methods,
becomes the first crush of Keely’s life, and forces Tad into a put up or shut
up position with his feelings for Keely. As the three find their paranormal and
romantic lives suddenly in fast forward, they too find the already well
documented spookiness of Pembleton Arizona doing the same. Sean finds sleep
nearly impossible as he’s taunted by a monstrous black mass at the foot of his
bed. Tad is forced to choose between sneaking out the back door like the rest
of the honors kids or going out the front and potentially facing hazing at the
hands of a demon possessed jock-bully. As for Keely she just may find the proof
she’s always wanted so badly to find, the question is will she believe it when
it’s standing right in front of her?
The Society: Proof
Links
Chapter 3
Things went a lot differently for Tad that day. He wasn’t meeting any new mysterious
students. He was reconnecting with the
same crew he had run with last year.
Nate and Wendy were both there.
Ryan was sitting in the corner with his fingers in his ears reading from
a leather bound book. Tad felt like the
big man on campus what with not being a freshman and all anymore.
“Nate, my man, how are things going?” he asked walking into
his first honors class of the day.
“Not good,” Nate said hanging his head. Nate was tall and skinny. He had a penchant for wearing green polo
shirts and never combing his hair. He
had thick Coke bottle glasses and a pocket protector.
“What’s up?” Tad asked concerned.
“My mom says if I don’t keep my 4.0 this year she’s going to
ban me from playing World of Warcraft I started this summer…I’m already level
80. She thinks it’s going to interfere
with my studies,” Nate said shaking his head.
“That’s so lame,” Tad said.
“I know, right?” Nate asked looking up. “I’ve never gotten anything lower than a
98%.”
“No I meant you playing that stupid game all summer,” Tad
said with a smirk. “There’s real life
out there to experience, things to investigate and dig into you know?”
“What like ghost hunting?” Nate shot back.
“Well,” Tad started then trailed off.
“You’ve told me yourself that guy…Schneider.”
“Doctor Schneider,” Tad corrected.
“Fine that guy Dr. Schneider debunks almost everything you
bring him. I’ve lived here my whole life
and I’ve heard the stories and stuff, but I have never seen, heard or felt
anything that I would ever claim to be paranormal.”
“First, it’s just a matter of time before Keely and I find
something major that proves the existence of the paranormal. Second, you may not be receptive to
paranormal activity…as a matter of fact someone who’s as dulled to the world
around him by extensive on line game play as yourself, may not be able to connect with the ‘normal’
let alone the paranormal.”
“Yeah, when I think of people who are connected to reality I
always think of you first,” Nate said twisting his face into as sarcastic an
expression as he could muster.
“What does that mean?” Tad asked indignantly.
Before Nate could even open his mouth to begin what was no
doubt going to be a classic Nate rant on the topic, the first period bell
rang. “To be continued,” Nate said with
a smile.
The first half of Tad’s day was pretty basic. The teachers ran through what to expect this
year in each of his honors classes.
Between classes he kept his eyes out for a chance encounter with Keely
but didn’t see her. Nate didn’t get
around to finishing off his thoughts on Tad until lunch.
Tad walked to the table where the other honor students had
already congregated. He looked around
for Keely but deduced she must have second lunch this semester. Tad sat down across from Nate.
“So,” Tad said almost glumly.
“So?” Nate asked back.
“So weren’t you going to go off on me about something from
this morning?” Tad reminded, “My inability to connect with reality?”
“Oh yeah,” Nate remembered with a smile. “The thing about you and Keely and your
little and I do stress little paranormal society is that you’re not really in
it because you believe in ghosts or any of the garbage that goes along with
them. You’re in it because you’ve had a
crush on Keely since you guys were in grade school.”
Tad felt the blood rush to his head. He didn’t like being embarrassed and usually
responded by doing everything short of curling up in a fetal position and
sucking his thumb. This time he managed
to keep it together.
“Where do you even get that idea?” Tad asked taking a bite
of the Sloppy Joe on his lunch tray.
“We all read your blog on Tumblr,” Nate said
matter-of-factly.
Tad felt his stomach start to tighten. “What are you talking about? You’re crazy.”
The other honor students at the table started looking around
the table at one another and snickering.
Tad’s head snapped back and forth like a tennis ball at Wimbledon. “I don’t even have a Tumblr account.”
“Give us some credit,” Drew “Sneeze” Steichen said. “We all know you’re Para Hunter.”
Tad’s fist pounded down on the table. Instead of his normal retreat response to
this type of humiliation, he was losing his grip on his temper. Two of the girls at the end of the table
popped up in surprise at the sudden impact.
“You guys are just making things up now.”
“Oh of course we are,” Nate said with a sly grin, “This is
your year big guy. You’re going to come
out of your shell. I hear you are even
going to try and venture out the front door.
You might even tell your secret crush that you like her.”
Tad fumed unable to speak as the horror that they actually
had found him out hit home.
“Hello. You and I
shared a lap top last year in Econ. I
went through the history and found your page,” Sneeze finally revealed with a
proud smile. “We’ve been reading up on
you since last year.”
Tad was mortified. He
wanted to scream and act out. But he
held it down. Right now he was more
worried that Keely knew, that she had known, that one of these guys told her,
and for the last year she’d been spending weekends with him praying he wouldn’t
try and put the moves on her. “I’ll say
this,” Tad said after a few beats, “Keely is a special girl. She’s my best friend. But she’s not the person I was talking about
in that blog. And back to your main
point here Nate, I spend my time investigating the paranormal because I’m hell
bent on finding real tangible, definitive, concrete, indisputable evidence.”
“You’d have better luck getting a date with Keely,” Nate
laughed.
Tad stood up, thought it over, and left the table.
“Hey,” Nate called after him as the other kids laughed. “You
really should think again about going out those front doors. This year’s seniors are just as bad as last
years.”
“We’re not freshmen anymore, Nate. No one’s going to haze us,” Tad shouted back
without turning to look at him.
The end of the day couldn’t come fast enough for Tad. After the embarrassing lunch break all he
wanted to do was get this first day, which he’d at one point been looking so
very much forward to, over. The day
seemed to drag on and his thoughts wandered to what Dr. Schneider would say
about their evidence. Deep in his heart
Tad didn’t think Schneider would find it any more viable than the other
evidence they had brought him. But Keely
seemed so sure and that made Tad surer.
The final bell sounded and Tad stopped by his locker to load
up all his text books to take home and start reading. He marched down the stairs. His fellow honors class mates continued
straight ahead toward the back exit, while he turned hard right and made for
the front door.
As he walked through two of the four glass doors into the
lobby, he saw lines of freshmen on the floor doing pushups while guys in purple
and white letterman’s jackets stood over them.
Tad tried not to make eye contact.
He wasn’t a freshman, that much was true, but he was still not going to
do anything stupid like look a senior in the eye. It struck him just how incredibly evil it was
for the school to not only allow this kind of behavior but to actually suspend
the fall sports practices on the first day of school just to facilitate
it. He shifted his mind back to
tonight’s planned meeting with Dr. Schneider.
“Hey there Winston,” someone barked behind him. Tad kept walking thinking nothing of it.
“Hey Winston Zeddmore from the Ghostbusters, I’m talking to
you,” came the same voice from behind a second time.
Tad turned and saw Randolph Adams standing there with his
arms crossed. “Why don’t you get over
here and fall in? Give me about twenty
pushups to get started.”
“I am not a freshman Randy,” Tad said feeling a surge of
adrenaline.
“You might as well be.
You never got initiated last year.
This guy here,” Randy said turning to his fellow jock seniors, “snuck
out the back door with the rest of the honor weenies.”
The other jocks mocked him and Tad felt his stomach roll
over. He looked around for Keely but
didn’t see her. He was frozen and unable
to move or even think of what to do.
“I’m not playing around here,” Randy said raising his voice
just a bit. “You never got initiated
last year. It’s time you paid your
dues. Besides that Goth girlfriend of
yours pissed me off today. Get over here
tons of fun, fall in line, and give me twenty.”
Tad managed to say this, “No,” and then he managed to turn
on his heels and run. Randy shouted to
his jock friends to let him have him. He
took off bolting through the doors after Tad.
Tad managed to get to the bottom of the four steps that were just
outside the main doors when Randy caught him by the shoulder and spun him
around a corner and shoved him hard back first into a wall.
“Are you hard of hearing there, Ghostbuster?” Randy barked
at him.
“I’m not a freshman,” Tad stated with some bass in his
voice.
“You think I care?
You’re weird, your girlfriend is weird, and you never paid your dues
last year!” Randy barked.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Tad said feeling his
emotions take over,
This was really different kind of read for me..but definitely enjoyable and I can't wait for book . Suspense lovers..what out for the read read!! Excellent book!
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