Deadgirl

by B. C. Johnson

  A small shack sat on the rooftop—it took me a second to realize it was the stairwell down. A half-shattered wooden door hung twisted on bent hinges, revealing a triangle of shadow leading down into the building.

  Above me, Abraham crouched, a freakishly long and lanky human-shaped white light. The grey clouds above him roiled, like a storm, shot through with flashes, pregnant with lightning.

  Abraham looked down at me, just a monster made of light, and shook his head.

  “Here,” I whispered, my body almost empty, wasted. The biting cold left me, but there was no warmth to take its place. I felt the bones crunch in my twisted wrist, and my elbow felt like it had been dipped in smoldering glass. I offered Abraham’s inscrutable glowing face a thin smile. “Here, you’re the freak.”

  I emptied the last of my reserves. Behind me, all the way across the roof, the broken door ripped from its hinges, spun to correct itself, and flew at Abraham.

  Part of it smashed into his chest. A long splinter of wood the size of a hockey stick broke off the side and impaled him through the stomach. The glowing figure lurched sideways, clutched at the spear of wood, and crumpled to the ground. No scream. No metal-tearing shriek. He landed on the ground next to me.

  I was empty. I felt light…maybe what dying felt like. I’m not sure—I sort of screwed it up the first time. But I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and let it fade. Darkness swept over me, for a while.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Murder

  My eyes popped open.

  The grey storm clouds still swirled above me. I turned my head, slowly, feeling a bit more substantial. Like I might not just float away. Abraham’s lanky body still lay beside me, but it was moving. Wiggling. Still pulsing with that white light. Somehow dimmer.

  I don’t know how I still lived…existed. I guess there, in the Grey, we have nowhere else to go. Maybe we couldn’t use enough juice to die. Something there sustained me—I knew that—the aching cold always disappeared, temporarily, when I went there. It was there, in the other place, the real place, that we had to burn so hot to stay alive. I let out a long slow breath and turned back to the Abraham-monster.

  “I think I know how to beat you,” I said, finally. The solution had occurred to me only as my eyes opened. Something Puck had written, without even knowing it.

  How is that? A voice floated to me, maybe in my head, maybe not. It sounded tired. Abraham’s real voice, probably.

  “Can I ask a question?”

  The impaled, glowing form shook, and I marveled. It was unmistakably a laugh.

  I’m not going anywhere.

  “Were you going to kill me?” I asked him. Lying beside each other, broken, without the strength to stand, we made quite a pair.

  Can’t kill the dead.

  “What is it then?”

  We remove you. We undo the damage you’ve done.

  “Where do I go?”

  Nowhere. You cease to be.

  I didn’t talk, for a long while.

  “What about my soul?” I felt childish asking it, but nothing had ever seemed so important.

  Another long pause. Finally, the white-glowing form turned its featureless face toward the sky.

  Haven’t figured it out? You are your soul. Naked. A light bulb filament without the glass. Burning so hot and so bright because it can’t not. It burns or it ceases to be—like you.

  He sounded sad—I’ll give him that.

  “But…why?”

  Some people with great willpower who die in times of happiness…you couldn’t accept your death. And so you traded your soul. You used it…to live. Now, you take the bits of other souls to sustain yours. Fuel for the fire. And your’s is an inferno.

  “If I die? If I…fade away?”

  You’re gone.

  “Heaven? Hell? Whatever?”

  Not for you. Where does a burned up leaf go? The air, maybe. Maybe nowhere.

  I closed my eyes.

  “What are you? You sent by…God or something? You an Angel of Death, Abe?” I whispered, unable to disguise the wry laughter in my voice. I watched the brewing storm far above us with little interest.

  I don’t know. I was killed by one like you…forty years ago. I was his first murder. I think that’s how it works.

  “Puck?”

  No. Life isn’t that interesting.

  “This is revenge?”

  It’s…my duty. My job.

  I covered my eyes and let out a long slow breath. My cheeks were slick with tears. My breath came in hitches and jerks.

  “I’m going to kill you now, Abraham,” I said.

  I wouldn’t tell you these things if I thought differently.

  I reached over and touched his hand. I jumped a little—his fingers curled around mine, like two lovers holding hands. I took a deep breath and flipped us.

  Bright florescent light pierced my eyes, and I took a deep breath. Ice flooded into my lungs, and I jerked. It covered me, penetrated me. Defined me. I glanced down, not surprised to see my feet and calves had already faded. My thighs were turning transparent. I held up my arms…gone up to the elbows. No wonder they didn’t hurt so much. I laughed a sardonic, depressing chuckle. An upside?

  Maybe I wasn’t gonna kill anybody. Maybe it was over.

  I turned my head to the side. Human-looking Abraham lay beside me, his once white lab coat scarlet with blood. A wooden spike the size of a baseball bat stuck out of his stomach, and one of his long-fingered hands held it, cradling it like a baby. The other hand lay motionless beside mine…as soon as we had flipped over, he’d let go of my hand. He stared up at the ceiling, his skin paler than normal. He took shallow, raspy breaths. They were, I noticed, becoming stronger.

  “Abe,” I whispered. “Maybe you win after all.”

  Abe said nothing. I don’t think he had the strength.

  We breathed beside one another, mine growing fainter, his stronger. I tried to move or crawl, but I didn’t have the limbs or the solidity. I looked up at the ceiling—I lacked the courage to watch my body disappear. Or my soul, I guess, if anything Abraham had told me was true. I think it was.

  I’d never been a religious person. I guess being religious wasn’t terribly cool, and had gone out-of-fashion. But I’d thought about things. I’d thought about what happened at the end. The very end. Everyone does, once in a while, I suppose. We have to. At some point, we have to tangle with Death. The first bout is just a thumb wrestle—a question from a child.

  Mommy, what happens when we die?

  Not a fun question for mommies around the world. I remember when I’d asked my mom that very same question. I asked her with tears streaming down my eyes yet in a calm voice. I’d come from my talk with Dad about Scooter, our little beagle that had been run over by an old lady in a Volkswagen. He told me that Scooter had passed away—that he wasn’t around anymore. I thought that was a funny way of explaining that my little puppy, who licked the stray barbecue sauce off my face like it was communion, was now a red trail of guts thirty-feet long down Thistle Street.

  Mommy told me that Scooter the Beagle had gone to Doggy Heaven. That he could play all day with all the other white-robed, ghost puppies, and never had to take a bath or go to the groomers or go to the vet ever again. That he could just chill out.

  “Doggy Heaven sounds nice, Mommy,” I said to her, wiping the cold, used tears from my cheeks. “But it sounds kinda smelly.”

  She said it was, and that all the Doggy Angels preferred it that way. That made sense, I thought. Scooter always did have his cute little nose jammed in the worst substances he could find.

  I didn’t need any more explaining beyond that. If doggies went to Doggy Heaven, little girls went to Little Girl Heaven. There weren’t any mean boys in Little Girl Heaven, and there definitely wasn’t homework or chores or broccoli. The idea worked for me—I guess it works for all of us. It lends life a pleasant symmetry.

  My idea of Heaven evolved, as I did. Suddenly maybe Little Girl
Heaven had a few boys in it, the right kind, anyway. Okay, maybe it had a lot of boys in it. The homework and the chores thing pretty much stayed the same. It wasn’t a place I thought about often. I don’t think many fifteen-year-olds think of Heaven very often. Death doesn’t even have your address when you’re fifteen. Or at least, it only has the address of a small, unfortunate group. The rest of us float along, wrapped in a forgivable sense of immortality.

  But I always knew I’d go there, when all was said and done. That God or the Force or the Flying Spaghetti Monster could forgive the little transgressions and find a spot for me. He’d wag his finger at the time I’d stolen a Twix bar from the Food Mart. Or the time I’d punched Bobby Petrino in the nose for calling me a Cootie-Factory. He was mean, and he deserved it, and I felt the allegation to be a serious, slanderous one.

  He’d wag his finger, but the Pearly Gates weren’t padlocked.

  I guess they were now. I didn’t have Little Girl Heaven…I didn’t even have Doggy Heaven—which I always secretly hoped was right next door to Little Girl Heaven, and that there was some kind of policy on visitation rights.

  Now I’d fade away. I’d cease to be. Forever.

  I felt colder than I’d ever felt before.

  “Please.”

  That’s all I said. I didn’t have any more breath. I didn’t have lungs to draw more—they were gone. I was gone.

  My eyes began to go dark, even though they were open. I felt like I had been floating on top of a swimming pool, and I was slowly…sinking…down.

  …

  …

  “Lucy,” a voice said. It sounded warm. Loving. Maybe there was someone above…someone who—

  “Lucy…no…please.”

  That didn’t sound right. Floating in blackness, made of blackness, the sound faded. The voice did too.

  “I love you, Lucy. Please…please just…stop.”

  Dark.

  Oblivi—

  “Fuck it,” the voice said.

  I felt warmth at first. A soft but balmy breeze, caressing dry skin.

  Then it poured over me, like hot molasses. Thick and powerful and warm. Engulfing me and blasting away the darkness with a blinding ray of white hot light.

  I could see the ceiling above me—the white spongy ceiling tiles and the florescent tubes. I felt something pressed against me, burning like a bonfire. It flowed through me, and it felt like some drug had begun to wear off. Hands came alive, and I felt my fingers flex on their own. The shattered bones in my wrist and elbow corrected themselves with little painful pops, glorious pops, for even pain felt like…felt like feeling.

  The warmth penetrated me, burning my core and blasting away every ounce of the grave’s paralyzing chill. It was only when I sucked in a hot breath that my lips came alive.

  There were lips pressed against mine. They had been gentle at first, but now they parted, and mine did, too.

  Zack.

  I looked up at him, his tanned—but bruised—face. His azure eyes were closed, but I pictured them anyway. I felt my body respond to the kiss, and it found a comfortable, complimentary shape to his. We fit together. We always would have, if I had been smart enough to act.

  If I had just told her how I felt. If I had just…been a man. If I had just ignored my stupid friends and my stupid cowardice and walked over to her and said…I love you, Lucy Day. Or hell even…Go to the movies with me, Lucy Day. Hold my damn hand, Lucy Day. If I could have just told her. If I had told her a year ago. If I had grabbed her and kissed her and explained that there was no good reason we shouldn’t be together.

  The way she smiled that goofy, unabashed smile. Like a little girl, without conscious effort to smile right. The way her eyes flashed when she made a joke. Hell, the way she always put her pencil behind her ear, forgot about it, and then asked if she could borrow mine.

  And as I kissed her, as I felt her begin to solidify… My Ghost-Girl. The girl I’d…

  Oh God.

  Zack folded up suddenly, and pulled his face away from mine. I, me, Lucy flashed out of my stupor of borrowed thoughts and dreams and blazing heat…Oh God.

  Zack had never been so pale…no person I’d ever seen had been so pale. Blue veins glowed through his paper-thin skin, and his eyes were a pale powder blue. He gasped for air, his face twisted in a rictus of pain. Then he fell backward and crumpled against the wall.

  I touched my lips…and pulled my fingers away fast. They felt like stove burners cranked high. My whole body thrummed. I could feel sweat beading all over my skin. A runnel of perspiration slid down my back. I looked at the still, crumpled form and felt my mind shut down.

  Zack.

  I crawled to his side and put my hand on his chest. It pushed against my fingers, but only just. Like my dad had been, only ten times worse. Alive but…cold. Drained.

  “Lucy…”

  I snapped my head over my shoulder. Abraham jerked, coughed loudly, and pulled the huge splinter of wood out of his stomach. He tossed it across the floor. It left a little streak of blood on the tile.

  I stood up. The hole in his stomach…wasn’t. Just a hole in his shirt now, showing a bare patch of bloody but intact skin. He began to stand, too. His eyes burned with anger.

  I pulled off my jacket—it felt like a hundred and twenty degrees in that room—and tossed it over Morgan’s unmoving legs. I took a deep breath, looked down at the still form of my boyfriend, then up at Abraham.

  “You killed him,” Abraham said.

  “No I didn’t.”

  “You will.”

  I closed my eyes. I thought of Puck, then I thought of his journal. I thought of Isabelle, his Mors. And then how Puck had filled with rage. He thought of his little darling daughter, dying in his arms. A little daughter named Lucy—maybe life was that interesting—who had swelled up and died with nothing to save her. Of Puck’s darling Olivia at his feet. And how he had destroyed Isabelle.

  The memories. His memories.

  Abraham couldn’t be drained of essence. He was overflowing with it…he was a factory of it. And now, I was too. I could feel Zack in every molecule of my body, in every hair and drop of blood. His love for me. It burned like molten steel in my belly. It made the air around me vibrate.

  Abraham couldn’t be emptied. But he could be overloaded.

  Abraham began to pulse, trying to pour his poisoned essence into the air around him. I leaped at him, grabbed him by the chest, and thought of Zack. Or more, I thought what Zack thought. What he felt. The inferno he had dumped into me.

  Light welled around my fingers, blue light. Azure, the color of Zack’s eyes. It went supernova through my fingers, pouring through me, ripping into Abraham. Filling him. Overflowing him.

  It went quick. A sharp pulse of white light. Black smoke, thick and acrid, leaked out of his wide screaming mouth and the corners of his bright-white eyes. Another flash, too bright, and I shut my eyes against the intensity.

  His weight slumped in my arms.

  I opened my eyes.

  The thin, black-haired man was gone. His face was riddled with wrinkles, and his hair had gone stark white. He was even more slender than he had been, and it didn’t take much effort to hold him up. The real Abraham, I realized. What Abraham would have been, if some Phantom hadn’t drained him to death fifty years ago.

  Whatever power that had made him a Mors was gone. I didn’t know what he was…but he wasn’t that. I felt no sense of icy-fear spiking up my back. I felt nothing. Just pity. I let him go, and he stumbled back. His eyes were open, watery and red, as he slid down the wall.

  I fell to one knee. Whatever Zack had given me…was mostly gone. I felt a cool breeze over my skin. I’d experienced worse. I moved to Zack’s side. I moved to kiss his forehead…and stopped. I settled for touching his cheek.

  “Zack?”

  I tried to suppress panic.

  “Zack…please wake up.”

  I heard a noise behind me. I turned around. Old, withered Abraham was on his fe
et. He had a scalpel clutched in his hand, and his face glowed with hatred. I sucked in a breath, but that was all. It was too fast. Too fast to stop him. He was too close. I threw myself in front of Zack.

  Blam.

  Blam.Blam.

  The tiny room exploded with noise. It pierced my head, filling my ears with cotton and my head with ringing.

  I looked up. Abraham clutched his chest, half-turned, and crashed over an instrument cart and down to the ground. I looked for the source of the gunshots…the source of the sulfur smell stinging my nostrils.

  I looked up at my savior.

  Morgan. Sitting up in her bed, the sleeve of my coat in one hand, Ophelia’s black revolver in the other. The revolver I’d picked up from the hallway table and hidden in my coat. The one with the silver bullets.

  The last resort.

  The gun fell from her fingertips. She covered her face with her hands.

  The air rippled a little, and my ears popped, like I was descending from a high altitude. Abraham’s last bubble of fascination died. Whatever was keeping this a private show died with him.

  The door of the room swung open, and the world poured in.

  Chapter Twenty

  Broke

  “So what happened?”

  “Um. Well. The door flew open. Officer Sykes, you met him—”

  “Last week, I remember.”

  “Right, yup. Officer Sykes and two other cops threw the door open. They had their guns out…all that stuff. It didn’t matter. Abraham…that man. Morgan shot him, with his own gun. He’d left it on the hospital bed. I guess…I guess he put a lot of faith in the drugs he was pumping into Morgan and Zack.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Marian Crane said, tapping a pad of paper lightly with the back of her pen. She wasn’t facing me. She never faced me when I was talking. Just stared at the blank wall to the left of her desk. Like there were subtitles there or something, “Then what?”

  “Then the cops checked that we were all okay. Morgan was groggy…still is a little messed up actually, from the coma. They said she’ll be okay, the doctors. Just a side effect of the barbiturates. Zack is, uh, Zack’s, you know. He was fine.”