Deadgirl

by B. C. Johnson

  I didn’t feel tired. In fact, I felt more awake then I had been in a while. Well, that and sleeping meant being taken to the beach, where a monster wanted to eat me. I’ll pass thanks.

  I thought of Puck, that weird, oddly playful, old mute. I knew he was fine—he’d seemed a hundred times more capable than me. But what about the man in the car? Had the paramedics arrived in time? I felt like I was bashing my head against a wall for answers. I closed my eyes and tried to calm down.

  I grabbed the book from my nightstand—Sabriel—and dug into it for at least the third time.

  I read until morning.

  The next three days went by in a blur. School was beginning to feel normal again—people were beginning to feel normal again. Fewer looks of confusion and worry, less hugging. Just normal Lucy, back to normal school, doing normal stuff. The morning of the first day, Morgan had flashed me a look she had earned—a look that said, “Okay, Luce, take your time, but I’m not forgetting.” I nodded at her, and that was it.

  I did my schoolwork, I did my homework—well, at least in their normal percentages. Zack stayed mostly at his group during lunches, but every once in a while he’d float over and say hi. The flirting in Spanish had ratcheted up a few blissful notches, and we were getting in trouble daily with Mr. Halloway.

  My only reminder of my incident was one Ms. Marian Crane. Old Nosy. She scooped me out of one of my classes daily and took me back to her office for counseling. She asked me run of the mill, getting-to-know-you questions. She asked about my parents, my family, my classes. What I wanted to be when I got out of college. What I wanted to study in college. My favorite part about high school, my least favorite. If I showed interest in boys—or girls, which I’m pretty sure she only said to show how hip she was—did I hear voices, you know, the usual. While I knew her intentions, I was having a hard time relaxing in her office. I just kept wondering when she was going to lay me out—when the dreaded questions were going to hit. Questions I didn’t want to answer. Questions I couldn’t answer. But she never asked. I left her sessions feeling gradually more relieved. Maybe she just wanted to check to see if I wasn’t on drugs or joining a cult or something.

  I still hadn’t eaten—my calendar marked off more days than I liked. Still, I wasn’t hungry, and I had a morbid urge to see how far it could go. Not an anorexic urge—as far as I could tell, I wasn’t losing an ounce of weight. I checked on my scale a few times, and I hadn’t changed a bit. Too bad, really.

  I spent the nights reading or surfing the internet or playing solitaire or watching old TV shows. Sometimes all of those things, sometimes none. But I never slept, and I never allowed my eyes to close for too long. The grey beach had been a strange place at first, but after the second appearance of the light-thing, it was off-limits. I had no desire to see it ever again.

  On the third night, I felt the cold returning.

  The scorching heat had been fading steadily, something I’d written off as acclimation. Thursday, just after school, it disappeared completely. I pulled my jacket around myself, but I felt no warmth.

  Morgan asked me to come over to her house after school—the only place she was allowed to be outside of class. I wanted to go with her, but I canceled last minute. I thought of Kent, and I thought of the black ring around his wrist and the things I’d taken.

  After school Thursday I ran up to my room. I pulled up Google and typed in a name I had no business knowing—Kent Isaac Miller, Anaheim, CA.

  The first page that came up was a class reunion website, and then a recent article in the Register. I went to the OC Register site first. It was a tiny piece, just a blurb near the back of the paper that had been faithfully reprinted in the Local News section. Still, the headline caught my eye—CAR ACCIDENT TURNS MEDICAL MYSTERY.

  I took a deep breath and began to read:

  ANAHEIM—A local high school History teacher who crashed into a telephone pole early Tuesday morning also suffered from frostbite, doctors at St. Elias Hospital say.

  In the early hours of Tuesday morning KENT MILLER, 33, who teaches History at Kennedy High School, allegedly lost control of his vehicle and collided with a telephone pole on the corner of Broadway and Gilbert in West Anaheim. An unknown bystander—

  I stopped reading. I took a long breath. I blew out frost. Not good.

  An unknown bystander made a call to Miller’s wife, MARIA MILLER, 34, who called 911 with the location of the accident. Emergency services arrived to aid the wounded man and brought him to St. Elias Hospital’s emergency room.

  “It was a girl,” Maria Miller said. “A girl called me and said my husband was hurt. I didn’t get her name. I don’t understand why she didn’t just call 911, or how she knew which number was mine.”

  How had I not looked this up before, I wondered? Had I just been ignoring it? Had I just hoped something as weird as that accident wouldn’t attract some sort of attention? I could feel my heart slamming in my chest and my pulse throbbing in my ears.

  After being treated for minor lacerations and a sprained shoulder, doctors found what looked to be frostbite on his wrist. Frostbite, or congelatio, is damage to the skin and nerves caused by extreme cold. No such condition could have existed either during the accident or during the car ride, police say, and upon questioning, Miller had no idea where it came from.

  Doctors are keeping Miller at St. Elias, Chief of Medicine, Arnold Tierez, explained, while they run tests and try to discover the source of the strange injury.

  Miller is in stable condition.

  I glanced up at the date on the article. The Wednesday morning paper. Kent Miller might still be at St. Elias. It wasn’t that far—if I grabbed my mom’s bike it would probably only take me an hour to get there. But an hour there, an hour back…what explanation did I have for a two-hour bike ride?

  Why did I want to go see him? To make sure he was okay? To ask him—to see if he remembered me? I didn’t have a good reason, but I felt like I had to do something. Bring him flowers, or apologize. Then again, anyone at the hospital, including his wife, would guess immediately that I was the person who phoned in his location. And he seemed okay. Stable. Just a minor case of ghost-induced frostbite.

  “I’m not a ghost,” I whispered. I slammed my quite-solid fist on the table and rattled my keyboard.

  “See,” I said to my room with a puff of white breath.

  It was the first time I’d said the word. The first time I’d allowed myself to think about it. Was I a ghost? Did I even want to start thinking down that road? Stop being a wuss, Lucy. Nothing wrong with objective assessment.

  I didn’t fit any of the usual ghost symptoms. Not that I was an expert or anything. I couldn’t float, I was quite solid, most of the time anyway, and I had no binding reason to stay if I had died. I’d read enough ghost stories to know that ghosts had a reason for living. Or, unliving. Insurance policy information, unrequited love, buried treasure, unfinished book, sole knowledge-possessor of some terrible secret.

  I had none of those things.

  I’m just a 15-year-old high school student, I thought to myself.

  I wasn’t class president. I wasn’t even in choir or band or sports. Nothing. I had a crush on Zack, but I didn’t fool myself into thinking we were one for the ages. We weren’t Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, or even Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy. Hell, Ron and Hermione had one up on us.

  So maybe I wasn’t a ghost.

  Beyond that, I didn’t have many ideas. Vampires drank blood, plus I had no problems with daylight. Zombies ate brains. And not to toot my own horn, but I was at least thirty-times better looking than any zombie I had ever seen.

  My toes were frozen. I wiggled them in their slippers, letting my thoughts drift away. Maybe I wasn’t anything. Maybe something strange had happened. Just a hiccup in the system. God made mistakes, right? Or rather, God’s system? There had to be a bureaucracy in there somewhere. A heavenly DMV if you will. Maybe someone just didn’t sign the right form someplace and I wa
s just a goof up. A misplaced comma, a one not carried.

  I sighed and shivered.

  It was getting bad again, that I was sure of. I couldn’t fool myself into thinking it was going to go away this time. I’d had to take it before. I’d had to rip warmth out of someone. Could I do it again?

  I thought about the strange daydream I’d been having since that Monday. Just a picture at first, then a stuttering grainy video of a little boy running through corn fields. Wearing a pair of overalls and tiny dirty sneakers. Laughing wildly but still running, sucking in huge gulps of air between his giggles. I couldn’t place the image—it looked like something out of a movie, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  When I tried to summon the image that time, it flickered and went white. Nothing.

  I rubbed my temples. I stood up. I went downstairs. I could feel that edge of madness again, the hysteria I’d felt in Morgan’s apartment. It made me want to laugh or cry or jump up and down. I suppressed it. I tucked it away. I swallowed it and shut my mouth.

  I clicked on the TV and paced in the living room.

  “Lucy?”

  “Hey, Mom,” I said, biting my lip. “How’s it going?”

  Mom walked into the room, paging through a newspaper. She sat down on the couch and glanced up at me. She hid her look of concern poorly.

  “Is everything okay, hon?”

  I had to look crazy. Pacing, the nervous look I could feel on my face. The short, quick breaths. I just hoped she didn’t notice the frost. I glanced at the thermostat on the wall and wasn’t surprised to see a “78” in the tiny window.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Just nervous.”

  “What about?”

  I twisted my lip. Wow, honesty. Where did that come from?

  “About…Friday,” I said. “I wanted to ask you about Friday.”

  Mom sat up. “What happened Friday, hon? Is there more—”

  “No,” I said, then shook my head. “Sorry, sorry. I actually meant, this Friday. Not last Friday.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I just thought—”

  “Yeah, no, not that. I kind of wanted to ask you if I could go to a birthday party. Friday.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Oh, well yeah, I guess tomorrow.”

  I was so glad that my mouth was faster than my brain. Not only had my mouth managed to deflect my mom’s current questions, but it actually got the party-permission thing out of the way. Zack had mentioned Benny’s party every day since he had invited me, and I’d told him I’d find out every day. After last Friday, I didn’t know how lenient my parents might be. It could go either way, I knew. The grounded forever protective route or the go out and be normal, we’re totally cool route.

  The look on my mom’s face told me she hadn’t decided which way yet, either.

  “I’ll have to talk with your dad,” she said. “But for now it’s a tentative maybe.”

  I nodded, but my heart sank. Dad was more liable to throw up the shields and lock me in my room forever to keep me safe.

  “Do you mind if I go for a bike ride while you deliberate?”

  Mom twisted in her seat. She glanced at the clock.

  “Luce, it’s after seven,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  It was dark outside. Really dark. Stupid daylight savings time, ruining my strange, illogical plans. Would I really go to the hospital? I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. And then there was the cold to consider.

  “I just want to get some exercise,” I said.

  “What about dinner?”

  I frowned. What about dinner?

  “I ate a huge lunch—”

  “Lucy,” Mom said, and to my surprise, stood up. She walked over to where I was pacing and put her hands on my shoulders.

  “I know what’s going on, Lucy.”

  My heart stopped. Packed its things. Ran away. I felt a lump of lead in my mouth and a cold chill down my spine.

  “What?”

  “Lucy,” Mom said. She turned to be side-by-side with me and slipped her arm around my shoulders. “You can’t do this to yourself.”

  “Do…do what to myself?”

  “You aren’t fat, Lucy,” Mom said, and looked me up and down. “You look fine, honey. There’s no reason to starve yourself or start turning into a bike nut.”

  I laughed. It just burst out of me before I could slap my mouth closed. Of everything I had expected to come out of her mouth, that hadn’t been it. I popped my fingers over my mouth and tugged my lips together. I tried to calm my eyes, bring them under control.

  “What?” Mom said, leaning back, a little annoyed. “What’s so funny?”

  “N-nothing, Mom,” I said. I turned and hugged her. “I just… It’s hard for me to be comfortable with my…fatness. You just made me feel a whole lot better is all.”

  “Oh,” Mom said.

  She drew up, and I could see the pride welling up. She’d been the perfect mom, and she’d solved the problem. She practically glowed with satisfaction. My lips quivered, and I remembered how much I loved my mom. I hugged her again and let her go.

  “What was that one for?” she asked.

  “Just for being you, Mom,” I said.

  She looked confused yet pleased, so I left it at that.

  “Make a plate for me,” I said. “I promise to eat the whole thing. I just need to get some fresh air, if that’s okay.”

  She nodded. “Okay, hon. Nothing wrong with being healthy just…just don’t overdo it, okay?”

  “I promise to stay off of Oprah, Mom. You have my word.”

  I waved my hand at her and bounced out the back door.

  I raced down the street, pumping as fast as I could.

  The harder I rode, the faster the cold set into me. But I didn’t stop. The wind against my face couldn’t compete with the icy chill spreading through my muscles. My bones. Every part of me felt sluggish. Frost poured out of my labored lungs.

  The only upside was that I had yet to sweat a drop. Hurray for hypothermia.

  The road flew past me. I zipped through the yellow pools of the streetlights, flying up to the curb whenever I feared smashing into a parked car. I was getting weaker—the pumping of my pedals came slower and slower, and the crisp wind in my face was dying. I was coasting more than I was riding, and it took all of my strength just to balance on both wheels.

  The bike creaked to a stop, and I fell over.

  Everything became dark, and I could feel the sharp wet crystals in the wind. Just like snow.

  No. I stood up. I thought of the little boy running through the cornfield, but nothing came. I tried to picture him as hard as I could, and for a moment the wind stopped. A fluttering of something warm blossomed in my chest and then was gone. Whatever it was, I’d used it up. I tried to picture the little boy, but this time there was nothing.

  My tank was empty. But I had a little strength left.

  I looked up from the ground and laughed. Of course. I’d fallen over in the parking lot of St. Elias. I picked up my mom’s bike and shoved it into a long stretch of bushes. I ran through the parked cars without a look back.

  The hospital wasn’t very big.

  I pushed through the swinging glass doors out front and entered what looked like every hospital I’d ever been in. Short, hard gray carpet where there wasn’t blinding white tile. Taupe walls. Long corridors of doors with tiny placards. Disinfectant stink. Fake plants in little wicker pots. A small round nurse or secretary at a half-circle desk.

  I walked up to her and tried not to sound out of breath.

  “H-hello,” I said, and my teeth chattered. A swirl of frost accompanied the words. “I’d like to know which room Kent Miller is in?”

  She glanced up at me from behind half-lidded eyes and fiddled with the keyboard at her desk.

  “Family?”

  Oh crap. I’ve seen enough hospital shows—that really shouldn’t have caught me off-guard. Luckily my quick mouth saved my idiot-brain once again.


  “No, I’m actually in his History class. I’m one of his students.”

  Wow. Good work, mouth. You get a raise or something. Maybe I’ll up the cheesecake ration or something.

  “Oh,” the little nurse/secretary said, perking up considerably. “That’s so sweet of you. Yeah, let me look it up. If I could just get you to sign in here…”

  She pointed at a clipboard, and I scooped it up and scribbled Allison Belle on the visitor sign in portion. The signature was shaky in my frozen hand, but readable. Ally Belle was my alter-ego as a little girl. Sometimes she was a superhero, sometimes a princess, but it was the name I always ran with. Nowadays I mostly used it as my junk email name.

  “Looks like Room A6. Just down this hall,” she said, pointing to my right. “And on the left. I think his wife is there right now, just so you know.”

  I glanced down at the sheet. Just over my name, written in a measured, steady hand was the name Maria Miller. The sign in time was two hours ago, and there hadn’t been a sign out time. I glanced up the visitor roster to see she’d signed in and out at least five times throughout the day.

  “Thanks,” I said. She handed me a visitor’s badge, and I clipped it to my shirt.

  Needless to say, my steps down the hallway were measured. What should I do? The wife might have a hard time believing my high school student story, especially if Kent was awake to ruin my identity. Then again, if Kent was awake and he recognized me from the crash, it would be even worse.

  Why did I come here?

  As I reached for the door, the naked, blinding urge to run hit me. It was pure panic, flushing me with adrenaline and telling me to run or die. Run or die.

  My eyes shot around the hallway, but I saw nothing. No one but the secretary at the little half-circle desk. For the first time that night, sweat began pouring through my skin despite the icy freeze. I watched my arm in fascination as a drop of sweat crawled halfway down my elbow and then turned to ice.

  I was breathing too hard. My nostrils flared, and the urge to run hit me again. Despite my better judgment, I threw open the door and leaped into Kent Miller’s room.