The Dead Girls Club (ARC)

by Damien Walters

  But I wasn’t like them. Not even remotely similar. Some people are born with an innate cruelty; others have to work at it. And even if they’re successful, it doesn’t mean it will ever occur again.

  I close my eyes and see images of us laughing, of an angry face in a dark basement, of blood and a knife, of running across the field. How quickly it all seemed to happen.

  When things begin to fall apart, they do so with shocking speed.

  There’s no doubt as to the picture’s authenticity. On the bottom right corner is Becca’s signature with its distinct curlicue. Every artist has a signature.

  She drew us wearing calf-length dresses and shaded the ground beneath our feet red, so we appear to be stepping in, or out, of blood.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I say, hunching forward with arms folded over my belly. “What do you want?”

  * * *

  Two hours later, Cassidy is sitting in the cartoon chair, staring at the floor. “And the princess ran away, but she couldn’t run fast enough, and—”

  Even though I have the volume down, the light on my office phone begins to blink. “Cassidy, honey, can you hold on for a second? Miss Ellie needs to talk to me.”

  When I call up front, Ellie says, “I’m sorry, but there’s something here from Dr. Carlson that you need to sign for.”

  To Cassidy again, I say, “I’ll be right back.”

  I return with an envelope of patient notes for a referral to see Cassidy standing next to my desk, holding several pieces of paper. Irritation flashes bright, but I tamp it down. It’s my fault for not wanting to touch Becca’s picture again, for covering it with other papers instead of putting it away. Out of sight, not of mind. Part of it must’ve been exposed, and Cassidy has an eight-year-old’s curiosity.

  “Who’s the lady in the window?” she asks.

  “Where?” I ask.

  “See?” She points to the window at the top left of the house. “Right here, peeking through the curtain.”

  I grip the edge of the desk tight. Cassidy’s right. There’s a figure drawn in the upper window, partially obscured by the fading and a crease. The more I stare, the clearer she becomes. Beside the half-open curtain, a hint of red, a pale face, dark hair. Drawn as though she’s watching me and Becca as we approach.

  “She looks hungry,” Cassidy says.

  “What?”

  “The lady. She looks hungry, like maybe she’s not a lady at all but a monster wearing a lady face. That’s how they trick you, monsters. They put normal faces on so you think they’re real, but they’re not. And when you get too close to run away, they show you their real ones,” she says, eyes serious and far too knowing.

  My fingers spider to the hollow of my throat. Is the woman’s mouth open a bit, revealing not teeth and tongue but darkness? Or is it simply a smudge in the pencil?

  “Is she going to eat those girls?”

  “I don’t think so. See that girl?” I point. “That’s me.”

  “But you don’t have long hair.”

  “I did when I was a little girl.”

  “How come you don’t have it now?”

  I shake away an image of scissors, of long strands stark against the white curve of a sink.

  “It takes too much time to take care of, and I’d rather spend that time taking care of other people, like you.”

  She smiles, but it’s fleeting. “I still think she’s going to eat them. Monsters can do that without taking you away. They eat you in here.” She touches her chest.

  I mimic her gesture to quell the ache in my heart. She’s right. Sometimes they do.

  “Who drew the picture?” she says.

  “A friend drew it a long time ago. The other girl in the picture.”

  “Did the monster eat her?”

  My stomach clenches. “No,” I say. “Why don’t you sit back down so you can finish telling me your story?”

  “Will I be okay, Dr. Cole?”

  An unexpected—and odd—question, but I nod. “Of course you will.”

  Is there any crueler lie we tell kids? Regardless of what happens, of how deep the scars might run, we say they’ll be okay and they believe it. They trust us. But what else are we supposed to say? Hey, kid, childhood is a bitch and she leaves marks?

  I fold the picture and shove it in my desk. Cassidy starts talking again, peeking through her lashes. Innocent and trusting. I may have done a monstrous thing, but I’m not a monster. I’m not.

  I believed that once. I wish I could believe it now.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THEN

  The used bookstore in Timonium had a big horror section, way bigger than the mall. They had two copies of Stephen King’s The Dark Half, which I hadn’t read yet, and I grabbed the one in better shape. I picked out five more books, and since my dad wasn’t finished looking, I went to Becca’s favorite section, mythology, and found one she didn’t have, thick and heavy with pictures and descriptions. Another looked good, too, about ghosts and folklore. Halfway in, there was a picture of a woman in a long red robe. A ghost in Alabama, not a witch. Maybe not Becca’s Red Lady, but she reminded me of her. I tucked it under my arm. My dad wouldn’t mind; I had some of my allowance with me.

  I’d called Becca to see if she wanted to come with us, but her mom had said, all slurry and garbled like I woke her up even though it was after breakfast, that Becca wasn’t home.

  On the way home, we played license plates, where you had to make up words beginning with the letters on the plate of the car in front. Dad made me laugh with Stinky Cat Butt and Dog Poo Brain, and I made him groan with Fart Cheese Balls and Monkey Gut Bomb, but on my next turn the letters were TRL. All I could think of was The Red Lady, so I said I was stuck, but it was okay. We were close to home.

  He dropped me off at Becca’s so I could give her the books, but no one answered. I didn’t just want to leave the books, but since her mom had said earlier she wasn’t home, I had an idea where she might be.

  Even thinking about going inside the empty house made my palms slippery and my skin hot, but I didn’t need to be scared. The Red Lady wasn’t in the house that night. It was only my imagination. Because of the stories Becca told, because of the candles making me sick.

  The door was locked and I thought knocking would scare Becca, so I walked around the side, crouching beside an overgrown bush next to a basement window. With the branches pushed out of the way, I tried to peek in, but the curtains were shut tight. Staying low, I crept to the next window, also mostly hidden by another bush. But there was a tiny gap in these curtains, a hint of light. I knuckled the glass.

  “Becca, it’s me,” I said.

  The curtain twitched. I rocked back on my heels and fell on my butt. “Geez,” I said. “It’s Heather.”

  The light went out. I knocked on the glass twice more, but the light didn’t come back on. I sat for a while, expecting her to come outside, but she didn’t.

  “Fine,” I said. “Be that way.”

  I walked back, scuffing my feet on the pavement, left the books by her front door, and went home.

  She called when it was starting to get dark. My parents were across the street at a neighbor’s and I was slouched on the sofa, flipping through television channels.

  Instead of hello, she said, “Did you leave books at my house?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “I found them at the used bookstore in Timonium. Did you like them?”

  “Yeah, they’re cool.”

  “Want to come over?”

  The phone got quiet, and then she said, “Okay, but only for a little while. I’ll come up the alley.”

  I waited in the backyard. When we were little, me, Becca, and my dad had camped out here with a tent and sleeping bags. I’d once asked if we could do it alone, but Dad said it wasn’t safe. Too many roaming perverts. But no one was ever completely safe anywhere. I knew that from the books in Becca’s house.

  When she came in, she plopped down on the grass with a mutter
ed “Hey.” The bruise on her cheek was turning green at the edges. I told her about the books I got, but when I stopped talking, she stayed quiet, too.

  “So you really liked your books?” I said.

  “I told you I did.”

  “Just checking,” I said.

  A lightning bug flew past me, flashing as it did, and I caught it in my palm. Its legs tickled as it traveled the side of my hand before it flew off.

  “Remember last summer when Rachel’s brother smooshed one and rubbed the light all over his arms? Then he cried because it wouldn’t come off?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “He said it was an accident,” Becca said, flopping back on her elbows and talking to the sky. “But I bet it wasn’t. Lots of people say things are accidents when they aren’t. Or they pretend they are when they really wanted to do them in the first place.”

  I plucked several blades of grass. “Didn’t you hear me today at the house when I knocked on the window?”

  She blinked a couple times. “I wasn’t at the house.”

  “But the light was on in the basement, and after I knocked, it went out.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” I said. “I just—”

  “I said I wasn’t there.”

  “So who do you think it was? Your mom, maybe?”

  She made a sound in her throat. “She was in bed all day. She wasn’t feeling well.”

  “Oh,” I said, sticking my hands underneath my thighs. “Maybe another real estate agent?”

  “Does it matter?” she said. “I said it wasn’t me.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t think anyone else was supposed to be there.”

  She tipped her head back. A few stars were starting to appear, but not enough to make out any constellations yet. Not that I knew many, other than Orion’s Belt and the Big Dipper. Gia knew a bunch and always got frustrated when the rest of us couldn’t find them.

  “I have to go,” she said, rising to her feet as if pulled by a string.

  “But you just got here.”

  “I have to get back before she gets mad.”

  “But you said she was in bed. How will she know you’re not home?”

  She glanced over her shoulder, expressionless. “You know that ghost isn’t her, right? The one in the book?”

  I plucked more grass. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “She’s so much better than a ghost,” she said as she slipped out the gate.

  “Well goodbye then,” I said to myself.

  I tried watching TV, but there was nothing on that I wanted to see, so I went to my room and read until I was tired.

  In the middle of the night, I woke up, gasping for air. It felt like my mouth was full, but the only thing in it was my tongue. I had a vague impression of a person standing behind me, saying my name, and then the dream faded. Becca always remembered hers. I hardly ever did. Once when she spent the night, she had a nightmare. She woke me up, too, and we stayed up until the sun rose.

  I rubbed my face. Something moved beside me. I whipped my head around, but nothing was there. I rolled onto my side, facing the wall, but I couldn’t fall asleep. I hated the way things had changed between me and Becca. Hated the way she was someone else now, someone who wasn’t my best friend anymore, someone who didn’t even like me very much. And I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. I was the same Heather. All I wanted was my friend back. I started crying and buried my face in my pillow so no one would hear.

  * * *

  I walked super slow to the front door of the empty house, almost wanting someone to see me, to yell at me to get away. Maybe if they did, if we weren’t allowed to sneak in anymore, Becca would act like Becca again. But there was no one around to see me or yell.

  The door was unlocked and everyone else already downstairs, sitting in a circle. No candles or anything else. Rachel and Gia seemed okay, and they scooted to make a space in between for me, but Becca barely said hello.

  Rachel was the one who’d told me we were hanging out here tonight, and the only reason I’d even come was because she’d said it was a meeting of the Dead Girls Club.

  I said, “Did you see about the lady in Florida?”

  Becca rolled her eyes and made her lips thin.

  “What lady?” Rachel said.

  “You didn’t see it on the news last night?” I said.

  “I never watch the news,” Rachel said.

  “Me either,” Gia said. “It’s boring.”

  Becca made the face again, but I knew she watched it sometimes. She’d heard when my dad told me it was important for me to know what was happening in the world.

  I swallowed, waiting to see if Becca would tell me to shut up, but she didn’t, and I said, “She got attacked outside a store by her old boyfriend. They broke up, but he kept calling her and showing up at her apartment, and the police couldn’t stop him. He followed her shopping, and they got into a fight in front of the store because she told him to leave her alone. Then he stabbed her a bunch of times, right there, out in front. He left and people walked by and saw all the blood and didn’t even help. She was alive for a long time, too. People even saw him stab her and didn’t do anything at all.”

  “Did they call the cops?” Rachel said.

  “I guess,” I said. “But by the time they got there, she was dead.”

  “How could you not try to help?” Rachel said.

  “Maybe they didn’t know she was hurt,” Gia said.

  “They said there was a lot of blood,” I said. “No way people didn’t know. They just didn’t want to help. It was like that story you read, Becca, about the woman in New York, that woman Kitty.”

  She blinked at me, but nothing else.

  “Did they catch him? The boyfriend?” Rachel said.

  “Not yet,” I said. “They showed a picture, and he looked totally normal. He didn’t even have psycho Ted Bundy eyes, just regular eyes.”

  Rachel’s forehead got all scrunchy. “Is he—”

  “Has anyone seen anything weird?” Becca asked. “Or had any more dreams?”

  I pinched my lower lip between my teeth, Rachel chewed a fingernail, and Gia played with the laces on her shoe.

  “I thought somebody was in my house the other day,” Gia said, talking fast. “Nobody else was home, but I heard somebody in the kitchen.”

  “I keep having the dream,” Rachel said.

  “Am I the only one who cares?” Becca said.

  “About what?” I said.

  “About what matters.”

  “The lady in Florida mattered,” I said.

  “But we aren’t here to talk about her,” Becca said.

  “She’s a dead girl, right? So she counts. There’s more things to talk about than the Red Lady,” I said, and I didn’t even pretend not to be angry. I didn’t care if it would make Becca mad. It felt like she was always mad at me lately anyway, no matter what I did or said.

  “Maybe I don’t want to talk about them,” Becca said.

  I hoped Rachel and Gia would back me up, but they turned away. To Becca, I said, “Why are you acting so weird? It’s like you hate me all of a sudden, nothing I do or say is right.”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “You’re acting like you do,” I said. “All I did was tell a story. I thought this was an official meeting. I thought telling the story—”

  “I’m the one who tells the stories,” Becca said.

  “But I asked if you heard about her first, and you didn’t say anything.”

  Becca hit the floor with a fist. “Maybe you should’ve waited.”

  “Waited?” I said. “For what?”

  “Hey,” Rachel said.

  “For me to tell you what we were talking about,” Becca said.

  “You don’t make any sense,” I said. “Why do we have to talk about someone specific? We never did before. You never got mad at me this way before, either.”

  “Hey,” Rachel said. “Please do
n’t fight.”

  “And no, I’m not having any dreams or seeing anything,” I said.

  “How come?” Becca said.

  “How come what?”

  “How come you’re not having any dreams?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Because I’m not. Why does it even matter?”

  “Maybe the Red Lady hates you,” Becca said.

  I sighed, openmouthed. “Who even cares? What’s she going to do? Come and haunt me or stick dirt in my mouth? I’m not scared of a story.”

  And that’s all she was. The rest was just my imagination. If I believed in her—or said I did—Becca would keep talking about her. She’d never let her go. I just wanted it to be over. I wanted my best friend back.

  “She might,” Becca said, meeting my gaze. “You never know.”

  The floor above creaked. All four of us jumped. There was a second creak, then a third.

  “Did you lock the door?” Becca whispered.

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t know everybody was here. I just shut it all the way.”

  Becca moved toward the steps. Rachel grabbed her arm, but she shook her off. Her feet made tiny noises as she crept up.

  “Come up,” she said, after what felt like an hour. “You need to see this.”

  I went first, my ears pulsing. I wasn’t sure if I was afraid to see whatever she wanted us to or to see her still mad or maybe both. Gia was snuggled up tight behind me. In the kitchen, Becca was crouched near the entryway to the hall.

  “Look,” she said, pointing.

  There was a wide streak of dark red on the linoleum. I peeked down the hall, but there was nothing there. It was only in the kitchen.

  Becca fingertipped the mark. “It’s wet.”

  “Is it…” Gia said.

  “Yes. It’s blood.”

  Rachel pulled her cheeks down. “Like in the stories. She was here?”

  “I guess so,” Becca said.

  “It’s your fault,” Rachel said to me. “You started it. You said she was just a story.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “That’s probably not even real.”