The Girl Who Wasn't There

by Nick Clausen

  And then he finally recognizes what’s going on inside him.

  He has a strong impulse to act instead of just feeling sorry for himself. If he can talk with a dead girl in a book, then anything is possible. And since it’s his fault Rebecca disappeared, it’s also his responsibility to find her again.

  Andy gets out of bed and begins planning.

  DAY 58

  He is awakened by his alarm at exactly 0:00. The ringtone is dialed all the way down; that way, he doesn’t risk waking anyone else in the house.

  Andy gets up and gets dressed. His clothes are laid out and ready. So is his backpack, which he puts under the blanket and arranges it just like he practiced earlier. With a little effort he manages to make it look exactly like he’s still in bed. He goes to the door and looks back at the bed, making sure it looks right from over here—which is where Mom or Dad will be looking from, in case either of them gets up to take a pee and decides to check on him.

  As the final touch, Andy takes his phone and starts the recording he made. It’s a three-minute-long audio file of him snoring discretely. He sets it on loop and hides the phone next to the pillow. Then he steps back to get the full impression.

  It looks totally realistic—in fact, with the added sound effect, Andy gets an eerie feeling of really looking at someone sleeping in his bed.

  “Perfect,” he whispers to himself, realizing he is smiling. He can’t recall the last time he smiled. He can’t recall the last time he felt this good, either. He’s not exactly happy, but he feels motivated, which is a big step up from sadness.

  Now for the second part of the plan, he thinks to himself as he turns to the door. Getting out of the house unnoticed.

  He leaves his room and slips downstairs. He knows which steps give off screeching sounds, so he deftly avoids them. In his jacket pocket is his own key to the house, and he uses it to lock the front door after he steps outside.

  The night air is cool and crisp and quiet. Andy goes to the garage, unlocks his bike and takes it outside. He rides down the street, stops at the nearest light post and finds the map he printed out.

  The town is not that big; he doesn’t know the exact population figure, but besides the church there is a mall, a drugstore, a nursing home, and of course the school and the library.

  He pulls out his marker, locates his own house on the map and puts a tiny X. He does the same with Paul Herbert’s house.

  “Two down,” he whispers. “Only the rest of town to go.”

  He puts away the map and marker, turns his bike lights on and heads down the street.

  Andy spends two hours riding around town.

  Surprisingly, he’s not sleepy at all. On the contrary, his senses seem somehow heightened, and his lungs welcome the chill air. He only meets a couple of late drivers; besides that the streets are quiet and empty.

  He checks every driveway. Every single house gets an X on the map. Where there are closed-off garages, he peeks in through windows or opens the doors slightly—if they aren’t locked, of course. If they are locked—or if he is for some other reason unable to get a visual of the car—that particular house gets a dot on the map; which means “scheduled for a later checkup.”

  A few places he’s surprised by automated lights turning on, almost causing him to trip over his own bike in a frantic attempt to get out of sight.

  And at one house, a large dog chained up in the carport starts barking at him furiously, probably waking up half the street. By the time the owners could get out to see what the dog was barking at, however, Andy was long gone, riding his bike like a desperate fugitive.

  He can’t skip even a single house; he needs to cross them all off the map. If he misses one, he might miss the one where the yellow van resides.

  Half past three Andy rides back home. He’s dead tired and a little disappointed. He honestly didn’t expect to find the yellow van on this first night of searching, though; that would be too much luck to ask for, as he has only cleared a very modest portion of the town. He’s still determined to spend as many nights as it will take.

  When he comes home, he puts the bike in the garage, lets himself inside, sneaks upstairs, throws himself on the bed and immediately falls asleep.

  DAY 60

  Andy spends all Saturday and Sunday in his room. They are the longest days of his life.

  He has finished Solaris and reread another book, though he had a hard time concentrating on the reading, since his thoughts were constantly darting back and forth between Rebecca and Lisa Labowski. The thought of her waiting for him at the library is plaguing him. He keeps imagining her standing behind the glass doors, gazing out, a frail ghost girl with a look of sadness in her eyes. Or maybe not sadness—maybe something else. Disappointment? Frustration? Anger, even? How will she react to him standing her up like this, when he promised to be back the next day?

  At the same time, Andy is fighting a constant battle with his thoughts which keep telling him Lisa Labowski isn’t waiting for him, that she was never really there, that it was all just a trick of his imagination.

  Andy finds that idea even worse. For some reason, the prospect of talking with a ghost fills him with great excitement—even though he knows absolutely nothing about her or her intentions.

  Which is why he decides to Google her.

  It’s a pretty rare name, not exactly the kind of name you hear every day. And he’s in luck: He finds an article from a local newspaper about a thirteen-year-old girl by the name of Lisa Labowski who died in a car accident right by the intersection of Low Banks and Glenmore Ground—which is the one next to the library building.

  So Lisa was hit and killed by a car right outside the library. Perhaps that’s why her spirit ended up in the books? Maybe, on its way to heaven after leaving her dead body, it got entangled somehow in the world of the books, which enabled her to live on even though she should be dead.

  The only other thing helping Andy to keep his spirit up is his nightly excursions.

  In three nights he has crossed off more than two hundred houses—and yet there are still so many left. Being awake half the night is also starting to take a toll on him during the day.

  Finally, Monday arrives and Andy is back in school. He fights his way through the lessons, struggling to keep his eyes open.

  As soon as he hears the bell, his energy shifts completely, and he bolts out the classroom and makes for the bike shed.

  Just as he rounds the corner, Sheila steps out right in front of him. Andy has no time to react, so he bumps into her, nearly knocking her over.

  “Watch where you’re going, Fatty!” she yells at him, shoving him hard in the chest. Andy is so surprised he loses his balance and trips, falling to the asphalt. He breaks the fall with his left hand, scraping it pretty badly and even drawing blood.

  Sheila just scoffs and walks away.

  It all happened so fast and unexpectedly, Andy is still befuddled as he gets back up, carefully dusting dirt off his bleeding palm.

  Sheila has never done something like this before. Usually, she just taunts him.

  He looks in the direction she left and sees her standing not far away, joined by Kimmie and Stacey. Sheila smiles and points to him, making the older girls laugh out loud.

  Andy frowns. She did it on purpose. She was waiting for me.

  Now that he thinks about it, Sheila actually darted him menacing looks more than once during the day, when their eyes incidentally met. He was too tired to read anything into it, but now it’s clear to him that Sheila was just waiting for the right time to strike.

  I don’t get it, Andy thinks, as the mean trio turns and walks away, still sniggering. What did I do to piss her off?

  He can’t think of an answer, so he unlocks his bike and hurries on towards the library.

  Regan isn’t at work that afternoon; instead Andy is greeted by Stanley, an older librarian with a meticulous grey beard always dressed in shirt and tie. Stanley is chatting with a younger man by the autobiogr
aphy section as Andy slips by them and heads for row B.

  He pulls out The Wendigo and brings it to the armchair, which luckily is unoccupied. He makes sure no one is within earshot, before he whispers to the book. “Lisa? It’s me, Andy.”

  He opens to a random page and reads the lines, but they all seem normal.

  Maybe she didn’t hear me.

  He clears his throat and says a little louder: “Lisa Labowski? Can you hear me? It’s Andy Wisler.”

  He scans the page—still nothing.

  Perhaps she’s in a different book right now?

  He gets up and picks another book at random. He whispers to it, opens it and checks—but finds no reply from Lisa.

  A sinking feeling settles in Andy’s stomach. Is Lisa Labowski not real after all? Was it all just make-believe?

  Then something occurs to him.

  He gazes at the book, biting his lip, before speaking softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t show up when I said I would. I didn’t mean to stand you up like that. My mom grounded me because I came home late.”

  He holds his breath and with shaky hands he opens the book once more. This time, one of the lines pops out at him.

  »hello«

  Andy feels a jolt of excitement. But it’s quickly dampened by a feeling of guilt. Somehow, he senses a lot of different feelings in that single word on the page; sadness, hesitation, anger. The thought of Lisa being trapped in the world of the undead all alone with no one to talk with for eighteen years—and the first time she reaches out, she’s almost rejected. He realizes he needs to say something more.

  “I … I thought of you all day. I was really looking forward to speaking with you again.”

  There’s no answer this time. But Andy feels that Lisa heard him, and he gives her a minute before he opens the book again. This time, there’s a question:

  »hand?«

  Andy looks to his left hand and remembers the scrape. It’s not bleeding anymore, but it still throbs a little. He discretely closes it. “It’s nothing,” he mutters, aptly changing the subject. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about: How can you see me? I mean, are you, like, looking out from the book? Like it’s a window or something?”

  Lisa’s reply is both cryptical and very fascinating.

  »worlds behind worlds«

  Andy imagines being inside the world of the book, to be able to hear all the sounds of the story, smell all the odors, being able to touch the characters and perhaps even talk with them. He imagines it must feel completely real. And still, there’s another reality—his reality, the reality of the living—right under the surface. Like two photographs blended together.

  The thought almost makes him dizzy. “So, does that mean you’re actually in both worlds at once?”

  This time, he gets no answer. He tries again, but still Lisa is silent.

  “Lisa?” he asks tentatively. “Is something wrong?”

  The lines remain unchanged. For a moment, Andy fears he might have said something insulting, something to make her upset. But he can’t imagine what that would be, and he—

  “Andy?”

  The voice is right next to him, and Andy jumps in the chair.

  Stanley is standing there, a pile of books under his arm, looking from Andy to the book in Andy’s lap. “Are you … talking to the book?”

  “I … uhm … yeah, well … it’s just …” Andy stutters, searching frantically for a plausible excuse. “I guess I got a little carried away … by the story, you know.” He tries for a smile, which feels more like a grimace.

  Stanley stares at him for a long moment. He’s far more old fashioned and rigid than Regan, always talking slowly and deliberately. Andy halfway expects him to wrinkle his nose and walk on, but to his surprise, a faint smile tugs at Stanley’s mouth. “It’s amazing when a book can make you forget everything else around you. Sorry to disturb you, Andy.”

  Stanley gives him a nod, then walks to the nearest shelf and begins putting books in their places. He whistles low as he makes his way around the shelves, disappearing out of sight.

  Andy’s pulse takes a minute to calm down. When it finally does, he asks the book: “Lisa? You there?”

  And when he opens the book, Lisa says:

  »yes«

  Andy thinks for a moment. Lisa got quiet when Stanley was here. But why? Didn’t she want him to see what she was saying? Perhaps she wants only Andy to know about her. That at least seems like a logical explanation—and it makes Andy feel special.

  On the other hand, it also somewhat fans the flame of the creeping doubt at the back of his mind, the doubt about whether the ghost of Lisa Labowski is real or not.

  If she’s simply a figment of his imagination, it would make perfect sense that Andy imagines her not wanting anyone else to come in contact with her—just like she avoided Regan the first time Andy saw the strange lines in the book—as that would cause the illusion to break down.

  In order to know if she’s real or not, Andy decides he needs to know more about her.

  “There are so many things I’d like to ask you,” he tells her. “Like, did you live here in town? When you were alive, I mean.”

  He shuts the book and opens it again.

  »yes«

  “Right. And who were your family? Do they still live here?”

  Andy closes and opens the book again, and this time, Lisa’s reply takes him by surprise.

  »my turn«

  “Oh! Sure. I mean … you want to ask me something? Go ahead.”

  Closes and opens.

  »siblings?«

  “Uhm, yes, I’ve got two sisters. One older sister called Cindy, but she’s hardly ever home. I don’t even feel like I know her anymore, and I can’t remember the last time we talked. My other sister’s name is Rebecca. She’s younger than me. She’s …” Andy stops himself short. “Right, my turn to ask. I want to know about your family. Are they still in town?”

  Lisa doesn’t answer his question; instead, she poses another one of her own:

  »rebecca?«

  Andy frowns. “I thought we were supposed to take turns? You already asked a question.”

  He closes and opens the book a few times, but the line doesn’t change and doesn’t go away. It’s obvious Lisa wants to hear about Rebecca.

  Andy sighs. He doesn’t want to argue with a ghost. “All right. Rebecca is ten. She can be a real pain in the butt, but also very sweet. If, for instance, she already ate all her candy and I still have some left, then she’s really sweet. Let me see, what else? Oh, she’s good at drawing. She likes to draw birds. We used to go looking at birds together back before she—”

  Andy realizes at the last moment what he’s about to say and closes his mouth. He closes the book, too, then opens it again, looking for a reply from Lisa.

  But there isn’t one.

  Andy can sense her waiting; can sense the question still hanging in the air.

  He breathes deeply, then begins talking in a low voice. “Rebecca is missing. It happened two months ago …”

  He tells Lisa everything. For the first time since Rebecca disappeared, he allows himself to go through everything that happened that day. It makes him sad to talk about Rebecca like this, but it also somehow makes him feel lighter once he’s done.

  He closes the book and opens it again. This time, Lisa speaks.

  »sorry«

  Andy smiles sadly. “Thank you. I guess it’s even harder on my parents. They almost never speak anymore. But once I find Rebecca, it’ll all be all right again. I’m looking for her, you see, at night. Or rather, I’m looking for the yellow van I told you about. As soon as I find that, I’ll find Rebecca.”

  »police?«

  Andy shakes his head. “I already told them about the van, but they don’t believe it’s got anything to do with Rebecca. But I know it was her knocking. I just know it.”

  This time, Lisa doesn’t reply.

  Andy waits for a minute, then tries again.


  Still nothing.

  He says her name a few times, but still Lisa remains silent. He looks around to see if anyone could be within earshot, but he’s all alone with the book.

  Then, finally, Lisa speaks.

  »saw it«

  Andy feels a tug in his intestines. “What did you see? The yellow van?”

  »outside«

  Andy’s heart speeds up. “Did you see the yellow van go by right outside the library? When was it, Lisa? Do you remember? And did you get the license plate?”

  His hands shake as he shuts the book and opens it again.

  »no«

  Andy feels his heart sink, but only a little. Now he knows the yellow van drove by the library at least once, which means it probably belongs to someone here in town or nearby. It makes him more optimistic about finding it.

  He sits for a few minutes, brooding. Then he decides to turn the conversation back to Lisa by saying: “I read an article about you. I know how you died. What’s the last thing you remember from being alive? What’s your last memory?”

  Half a minute passes, before Lisa says:

  »blinding sunlight«

  An image comes to Andy immediately of Lisa sitting on a porch in the afternoon sunlight, enjoying the warmth on her face. The thought makes him smile. “That’s a beautiful memory. You want to ask me something now?”

  »tired«

  “Oh, okay,” Andy says, feeling embarrassed. “Well, I was about to head home anyway. I guess … I guess I’ll see you around?”