Lindsay chirped over her shoulder, “How much further?”
Willy heard herself respond, unable to stop what she knew would happen. “Just around the next turn.”
The sun bathed the circular clearing. Willy sat next to Lindsay, both cross-legged. Willy reached out, taking Lindsay’s soft fingers in her own.
“Close your eyes,” Willy said.
No. Don’t show me. Willy searched for the sapphire mouth. The dead boy was nowhere. She screamed to be back in the corpse forest.
A soft vibration moved through her throat as she sang to Lindsay. Lindsay smiled, her eyes closed.
Willy couldn’t control the words slipping from her lips.
“Lindsay, Lindsay, lovely Lindsay.”
She placed Lindsay’s hands together, resting them in her lap.
“How does your garden grow?”
Willy slipped the knife from her pocket and clicked it open without a sound.
“With blue bells and cockleshells, and Lindsay lying in a row.”
That last word wrapped its death fingers around her heart. She tried to protest.
Her hand shot out, stabbing the knife into Lindsay’s heart. Scarlet syrup seeped over her hand.
Lindsay’s eyes popped open in shock and disbelief.
A click echoed through Willy’s mind. She expected the blackout to come, like it had on that day. The sun shone bright, the green trees stood in place. The blackout didn’t come. Instead, something washed over her, seething, an animal-like instinct through her veins.
Lindsay found her voice and cried out in terror.
Willy stared at her with curiosity. In a sudden movement, Willy flung herself over Lindsay and mounted her. Lindsay fell hard against the ground. Tears welled around her eyes. Her lips trembled.
Willy pulled the knife from Lindsay’s heart, flesh tearing and blood pouring. Turning the knife and positioning her hand above Lindsay’s neck, she plunged again. The blade slid into Lindsay’s neck.
A fresh burst of blood sprayed over Willy’s face. She licked the liquid from the corner of her mouth. A tang of copper clung to the back of her tongue. Pulling the blade down, she tore Lindsay open from neck to navel. Lindsay’s eyes went glassy, her cries simmering to a slight whimper.
Lindsay’s chest rose and fell. The movements became more subtle until there was stillness. Small organs wet with fluid were exposed as Willy pulled away skin in two large flaps.
Her brain clicked.
A flash. The carcasses hung, staring at her with their empty eyes.
Willy’s stomach churned. Digestive juices clawed up her throat. She swallowed hard against the vile revolt. The dead boy hovered as the hand retracted back into his eye socket.
“Why?” she muttered. “Why are you forcing me back there?”
The blue lips remained nothing more than a thin line. The boy vanished.
Willy’s mind raced. Her temples throbbed. Why couldn’t she just be a ghost hanging here in forever-pain for the wounds she had inflicted upon herself? Why did she have to relive what she knew she was but fought not to become?
Steamy, salty tears trickled down her face. Her nightdress was now crusty with caked blood. The slice in her neck was gooey and throbbing.
Lindsay. She’d never lived what she’d done to Lindsay. Until now. On that day, as soon as she’d stuck the knife into Lindsay’s heart, she’d heard the click in her brain, and she’d blacked out. When the light returned, she was covered in blood, hovering over Lindsay’s gutted body. She ran to the river and swam in the clear water until she was clean. She threw her knife in a dumpster in a back alley on the outskirts of the park. She ran all the way home and pretended to be napping when her mother came in from the grocery store. How she knew to do all these things, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was she’d stabbed Lindsay, blacked out, and woken to a scene from a slasher movie.
Wasn’t it enough that she had taken her own life to end it? Wasn’t it enough she was here, a swinging ghost under the scrutiny of the bottomless black eyes of a dead boy?
Was she the only one afraid to tell the truth, clinging to this horrific reality in fear of a worse one? She wished she could sprout a skeleton hand out of her own eye socket and examine each and every one of the scraggy figures hanging around her. She closed her eyes, dug deep inside, and searched. To her surprise, she could see inside of herself. She took an internal tour, scanning down her oesophagus, over her still heart, her translucent lungs, and her empty intestines. There it was. A bone hand, nestled beside her kidney. She focused her mind, concentrated, and willed it to move. The skeleton fingers twitched. Her scalp tightened. She sent neurological nudges to the twitching bone fingers. The hand flung up inside of her, out of her eye socket, and toward the blue boy. His corpse body seized as the hand pierced the top of his head.
A glimmer of light produced a vision. The young boy, in a small kitchen, holding a syringe in his hand. Droplets of clear fluid created small ripples in a circle of brown, housed by a floral teacup. A discarded tea bag, labeled orange spice, lay on the countertop.
A sweet voice trickled down from an upstairs bedroom. “Timmy. Is my tea ready?”
The boy looked up from his task. “Almost, Momma.”
“Thank you, dear.”
A yellow flash followed by the piercing cavern eyes of the corpse boy. Willy’s hand retracted. The blue-lipped boy stared. She returned his glare, refusing to flinch. He had his own secret. He wasn’t an innocent child. Willy could see it all—the droplets of poison, the sick mother in bed, the guilt that led him to swallow all those pills.
The boy returned to his tree. Her brain settled at the realization that she wasn’t the only one whispering half-truths.
The silence of the forest drowned all else. The ghosts swayed back and forth, sending an icy breeze through her bones. The dark-blue hue dimmed into complete darkness.
Serpent
* * *
The forest of hanging corpses vanished. Black nothingness cloaked Willy. Where was she going now? Thick silence clung to the cold air. Her breath pierced the dark in a white puff as she exhaled. The soft cloud vaporized before her eyes. Heat broiled her skin. The sun seared her eyes. Her feet sunk into hot sand. A vast desert opened up around her. The cry of an eagle shot through the silence.
Something scintillated, right in front of her. A small man walked along a dirt trail, black hair slicked back from his tanned face. Ahead of him, two young women wearing backpacks and sturdy boots chatted as they trekked. He approached them. They stopped to consider him. Willy couldn’t hear what they were saying. She could only watch from where she floated, a phantom imposed on a desert scene.
A flicker of worry in her gut told her something was off. Digging into his own pack, the man produced two cans of pop, cold droplets sprouting over the tins. The girls licked their lips as they reached for the refreshing gifts. Two snaps echoed through the silent desert followed by the hiss of carbonation escaping into the hot, dry air.
Willy watched as the girls tilted the cans to their mouths, gulping back the welcome liquid relief. They chatted with cheery voices to their new-found friend. A minute later their smiles turned to worried frowns. They dropped the cans into the sand, the moisture mixing with dry granules into a dark paste.
The girls fell to their knees. The man hovered over them. The blonde-haired girl crawled away until the immobility climbing up her legs reached her arms. The brown-haired girl froze in fear, clawing at her face. Blondie fell back against the sand, desperate wails seething from her pink lips.
What was happening? Willy looked down at her hands, the pale skin flaking away from her bones. She was still dead. Were these hikers ghosts, too? Why were they so scared if they were already dead? She thought of all the fear that had stricken her since she had died. Were they reliving their own horrific ends?
A tornado of questions whirled her mind into a haze. She longed to be surrounded by the corpses swaying from black trees. At least that made sense to
her.
Hot air circled around her as the desert shimmered. The man hovered over the paralysed blonde girl. His skin peeled away from his face, exposing viridescent scales. Terror shot through Willy. She shook her head, silently crying, “No, no, no.” She couldn’t watch any more of this.
A translucent layer stripped away from the man’s lips. A long, pink tongue slithered from his mouth, the end split in two prongs. Hissing drowned out the panicked cries of the blonde and the brunette. Cold crawled through Willy despite the desert heat. Her still heart came to life, beating hard against her skeleton chest.
The epidermis husked from the man in one long strip down his arms and legs. Shedding all that made him human, he became a massive serpent, sliding easily over the sand toward his helpless prey. Willy trembled, begging to be returned to the corpse forest.
A click rang through her head. The switch had moved to on. The blackout didn’t come. Willy’s body stilled. Her mind cleared.
The reptile weaved over the sand, circling around the girl. Its thick, scabrous physique wrapped around the girl’s neck, winding itself down the girl in a death coil. Bones cracked.
Willy’s arms tingled with electric energy. Her dead heart beat with excitement. The girl’s screams competed with the hissing of the two-pronged tongue. The scaly body tightened its grip, suppressing the shrill cries into mere whimpers. The girl wheezed her last few breaths, then went limp. Willy’s brain buzzed as she licked her lips.
The serpent unwrapped itself and slithered in circles around its kill. The brunette, still alive, whimpered. Large fangs were exposed as the mouth of the viper stretched wide. Scaly lips wrapped around the girl’s blonde curls. Flesh punctured as the fangs bit into the girl’s neck.
Bones crunched and crackled as blood oozed over the pale skin. A metallic tang clung to the back of Willy’s tongue as if she were the one feasting on the girl. Her stomach growled. Her arms tingled. Was this what it would be like if she didn’t black out?
The serpent worked its way down the length of the body, swallowing its meal in digestible chunks.
Could the man-serpent see her? Would he come for her? No. She knew he wouldn’t. The familiar click echoed through her mind. The switch went off. Fright coursed through her veins. Her stomach churned. What had happened to her?
Charcoal trees etched into the dark background. Her eyes darted across the swaying figures. The ghosts were quiet. She settled into the lull of swinging back and forth, home again in the corpse forest.
Wolf
* * *
A whisper woke Willy from her corpse sleep. Blue lips floated in front of her face. “You have to choose.”
The silhouettes of black trees gleamed as they vanished. A quiet street appeared. Willy floated in the cold dark of the night. A streetlight buzzed as the dim bulb blinked off and on. A young woman walked down the street, puffed up in a winter coat, a thick woolen scarf wrapped around her head.
Willy exhaled. White vapor misted the night air, little icicles forming around her lips. A voluminous moon hung high in the ink sky, casting a silver glow.
The woman walked briskly along the sidewalk. Willy hovered and watched.
A police cruiser rolled up the street. The car pulled alongside the curb, next to the young woman as she passed under the broken streetlamp. The window on the passenger side rolled down. A deep voice echoed through the quiet. “Can I offer you a ride, miss?”
Worry writhed through Willy. Something was off. Again. This was going to be another scene she didn’t want to watch.
The woman climbed into the police cruiser. The car pulled away from the curb and drove on down the dark street.
Willy’s stomach churned. The switch in her head moved to on, sending a loud click through her. The click was louder than usual and had a tone of finality. Worry evaporated from her pores, leaving a concoction of excitement and electricity coursing through her veins.
A cloud of white, frosty mist floated over the dark street. As it dissolved, the police cruiser rolled by a small, brown house. Willy could hear the young woman protesting from inside the vehicle. “Officer, my house is right there.”
The officer remained silent.
The cruiser gained speed. A dark forest appeared, looming over the small car. Not a single soul, dead or alive, was in sight.
The cruiser rolled into the forest, bouncing along a rough, dirt road. The panic-laced pleas of the young woman intensified. The tingling in Willy’s stomach crawled through her, down her legs and into her arms.
The cruiser stopped at the side of the dirt road, under a massive tree. The door on the driver’s side opened. The officer emerged, unfurling to his full stature. He casually strolled over to the passenger door.
A rattling echoed through the silence as the young woman frantically worked at the door handle. The officer leaned over and looked into the window at his frightened catch. He slid a key into the lock and turned it with a click. He opened the door and grabbed the woman by her rich, red hair.
Willy’s fingers tingled.
The officer yanked the woman from the car by a handful of ruby locks and dragged her along the dirt. Her boots shuffled awkwardly over rocks as she tried to gain control. They approached the massive tree stretching over the police cruiser. The officer smashed the young woman’s skull into the rough bark. A sound rung through the forest, pinging off the trees. A sound like no other Willy had ever heard.
The crunch of thick bone mixed with the tear of hair from scalp. A shiver of delight trickled down Willy’s spine, one vertebra at a time. Her arms shook in anticipation. The switch in her head hammered on.
Ruby hair streaked with dark crimson flew through the air in wild chunks. Flesh-brain jam oozed over the exposed skull as the officer smashed the woman’s head over and over into the solid trunk. The woman’s manic cries crawled up Willy’s insides, fueling the adrenaline-soaked blood pumping through her veins.
All those memories that were blacked out throughout her life at the click of a switch—would she be able to live them all, now? She supposed it had been a defense mechanism of some sort. She couldn’t handle what she did, so her mind took over and shut her out. Now, she’d never felt so alive, watching the horrific demise of an innocent being.
How could she go back to the pain of her self-inflicted wounds and constant whisper of a lie as she swayed back and forth in the corpse forest?
The woman lay limp on the dirt ground. The officer stood tall, hands raised, head tilted back, face turned to the celestial sphere high in the night sky, black strips of cotton clouds seeping through the silver glow. He shimmered as he changed. His lips peeled back into a snarl as long, razor-sharp teeth grew from the sides of his mouth. His nose protruded into a long snout, his nostrils sticky with mucus. His chest heaved with muscles, ripping his officer’s uniform free.
The pin holding the golden badge to his shirt snapped. The badge hit the pebbly ground with a tinny echo. Thick, black fur sprouted over his skin. His fingernails grew into shiny ivory claws. He crawled to the woman on all fours. Saliva dripped in thick drops from his mouth as his lips stretched wide and he plunged his snout toward the fresh meat. A ferocious feast of flying flesh ensued, blood drowning his face and matting the thick, black tufts of fur.
An ocean of saliva swelled in Willy’s mouth. She longed to savor a slab of buttery fat melting on the back of her tongue.
Sharp fangs bit into warm flesh. Blood oozed over chunks of human meat. Willy’s teeth nattered, pulling her to the fresh kill. Rooted to her spot, floating over the dark forest, a mere spirit, she couldn’t move.
She watched. She waited. The desire within her mounting. What was she?
A flash of light as the dark forest vanished and the hanging carcasses returned. She was home. Or, at least, what she’d called home since she sliced herself open.
The dead boy hovered, frowning. He blew icicles over her face as he spoke. “You have to choose.”
Willy hung and swayed. She waited for
the switch, but it didn’t click.
Willy
* * *
Willy stared at each hollow face, pondering the fates of all the others who had ended their lives by their own hands. The corpse forest was dark. If she concentrated hard enough, stared long enough at one skeletal face, her eyes would adjust, and she could make out the wounds.
She knew they were sleeping—or, at least, as close to sleeping as the dead could get. They were still, their swaying halted for the period of time deemed to be night in this death realm. She homed in on the man with the smoking hole in his head. He’d said he put a bullet through his skull to stop the pain of watching his daughter die of a sickness. Had his pain really stopped? She looked at the mess of brains and blood, a thick goo oozing over his bony skull. Her mouth watered.
Since she’d been back from the visit to the ice-cold night where she watched the policeman morph into a savage beast and feast on a young woman with luscious red hair, the switch in her head hadn’t clicked back to off. Had she made the choice the ghost boy told her she had to make? Is that why she was still on?
All she knew was that she was no longer afraid. She stared into the hole, looking straight into the man’s brain. She relished the thought of devouring the pink, meaty mush spilling out from the wound in his head.
A longing to uncover the secret behind the smoking hole overtook her.
She closed her eyes and looked within herself, finding the bone hand once again. Gathering a ball of neurons in her mind, she willed the electrical sphere to jolt the skeletal fingers to life. The bone hand twitched. It surged through her, shooting from her eye socket directly into the smoking hole of the man’s brain.
Yellow light pulsed. An image of the man, his brains intact and safely housed within his unblemished skull, showed him peering into a dark closet. A small girl in a stained nightgown pulled her knees to her chest, pressing her back into the corner of the tiny space. Her head twitched. Her teeth chattered. Tears stained her cracked cheeks. The door slammed.
The Other Side Page 6
