Thirteen: “A Little Taste of Death” (Patricia Windsor-Point Thriller)

Louey spends the summer with her grandmother, barely doing anything or going anywhere. Her most exciting moments come from reading the newspaper and checking out the classified ads. She hopes that she might run into a lost dog or cat one day and reunite it with its owner. One morning she sees an ad for a support group that makes her remember her childhood.

She remembers running into a man on a train with her mother. He offered her a lollipop and pressed her. When she took it, her mom grabbed it and hid it away. Louey found it later and while her mom visited with relatives, she snuck outside and ate the sucker.

Still, she goes to the support group and everyone shares a similar story. She also meets Bobby Lee, the super hunky guy leading the meeting. Everyone discusses the feelings and weird sensations that keep plaguing them. Louey doesn’t share any of the same feelings, but she keeps listening.

Over the next few days, she sees a bunch of stories in the paper about teens from the meeting that died. She also has bad dreams featuring Bobby Lee, making her kill animals and do weird stuff. She wakes up one morning with a cut on her hand in the same spot she cut herself in the dream. Her grandma reveals that some vagrant snuck in and did something disgusting on the floor, which is all the description we get.

The doorbell rings and Louey gets up, knowing that it is for her. When she sees Bobby Lee there, she realizes that he is the guy from the train. He tells her that it is time to go, she shakes her head. She recalls what happened on the train and that she snuck the sucker away. She took one good lick, her mom caught her and she got a bad beating. She explains to him that it isn’t her time because she only had a “little taste of death.”