The Afterlife of Lizzie Monroe

by Kelly Martin

  Cheyenne stood up and smiled. "Just some advice from me to you. Woman to woman. You really should be gone by the time he gets back. I know you were playing this little Lizzie Monroe/Daniel sick role play." She made a disgusted face. Lizzie thought she made one too. "Whatever freaky thing he had with you, it's over. He's moved on and so should you. Next time, pick a better guy to spend your time with. I love my brother, but he is, seriously, the biggest man-whore I've ever met."

  Lizzie's face reddened. She knew what a whore was and hated to think of Shane as such. Surely, Cheyenne didn't expect her to pay him.

  "He'll have a coronary if you're still here when he gets back. Guys are like that, you know?"

  No, she didn't know. "Where will you be?"

  "Gotta meet up with Drake." She huffed, using her thumbs to do something else with her phone. "He wants to go see where the church burned down. Guess I shouldn't tell him Shane did it, should I?" She laughed. "You can see yourself out. Just be careful. My mom's home until 9 a.m."

  With that, Cheyenne slammed the door behind her. Leaving Lizzie completely stumped. Didn't Cheyenne just say she didn't like Drake? And now she was going to see him, at the burned church…

  Her church…

  Oh, that couldn't be good.

  Chapter Eight

  Shane sat on a rock and watched Preston pace like an idiot. "Dude, you're acting like this is the first time you've ever got in trouble. I know for a fact, it's not. Stop pacing."

  "I just don't like it." Preston didn't stop walking. He wrung his hands together like he was squishing a bug. "Maybe we didn't think this through."

  "Obviously." Shane rolled his eyes.

  "Because if we did, we wouldn't have done it."

  "I would have…"

  Preston didn't hear him. "What were we thinking?"

  Shane knew what he was thinking, a little fun, a little fire, and a little sticking it to his old man by burning the church down he married his mom in. Not that his father could ever know Shane did it, but it was the principle of the thing. A lot of good that did him… the 'principle' got him a spazzing out semi-friend and a nearly paralyzed dead girl in his room. Perfect.

  Letting out an annoyed breath, Shane jumped down from the boulder and grabbed Preston by his shoulders until he looked him dead in the eyes. "Preston, I'm only going to say this once. No one can know what we did. No one. I'm eighteen now. Technically an adult. Not even in high school anymore. I'll be sent away and I don't want to end up where my dad is, if you catch my drift. Yeah, it was stupid and we shouldn't have done it, but we did and now we have to keep our traps shut about it. Understand?"

  "You don't get it." Preston's big blue eyes pleaded. Shane had never seen him so wild eyed — which was saying a lot with Preston. "I had a dream last night. A dream about Lizzie Monroe."

  ****

  Lizzie watched the place where her toes were under the covers and became very annoyed. Why in the blue blazes couldn't she move her legs? Well, she knew why, but she was getting pretty flustered by it. So far, Shane had left her, and his sister had gotten the WAY wrong idea and thought they'd had relations when they hadn't. And she'd left to meet up with this Drake guy, who she said she didn't like, at the church — at HER church — which was burned to the ground.

  That didn't set well with her.

  In the thirty minutes since Cheyenne left, she'd worked her arms until she could get them over her head. It wasn't easy, but like her father said, nothing worth anything was.

  She was determined to make her legs work. It was horrible enough being stuck in a room, but to be stuck in a bed, in her old wedding clothes and not with her new husband was unacceptable.

  Then again, she had nothing else to wear, and Cheyenne's clothes weren't very appealing. Still, she had to try something.

  With the moving pictures on the box across the room a faraway roar, Lizzie focused on her legs. First her toes. She prayed, willing them to move. She visualized them wiggling, moving. In the box, she'd moved them. At the beginning, she'd kicked and clawed, she'd moved a lot.

  Now that she was out, they gave her nothing. She supposed she'd been stagnant too long. To be honest, she didn't realize she'd stopped moving. It just happened. She'd given up even before she'd been placed in the box, now she had to learn how to have a goal again.

  The covers moved. Her big toe fluttered.

  Not much, but enough to make her sit up straighter and nearly laugh out loud. She covered her mouth so Shane's mother couldn't hear her, but couldn't keep the sound down. Her toe had actually moved! Hallelujah!

  "Lizzie, focus. Now get them all to move."

  Lizzie didn't know how long it took her to make her feet roll around on her ankles, and she didn't care, to be honest. Watching them move with ease made her feel better. Maybe there was hope for her yet. At this rate, she'd be walking by tomorrow, maybe even today.

  "Shane!" an unfamiliar female voice called from the door, making Lizzie freeze. Who in the world… "Shane! Are you in there?"

  Lizzie tried very hard to keep as quiet as she could. Cheyenne was gone so that only left Shane's mother in the house. Lizzie froze, got very still, and prayed with everything she had for the door not to open.

  "Shane, I'm leaving for work… The store called and asked if I could work over for Sharon, so I'm going to. Extra money and all. Shane?"

  Lizzie wanted to answer, but knew she'd get the wrong idea just like Shane's sister.

  "Okay, I'm leaving." She sounded so sad. "See ya later. There's money on the table for a pizza or something for supper. Bye. Be good."

  No son was there to tell his mother he loved her. Lizzie heard the footsteps on the wooden floor give and the steps creak as his mother descended them. It broke her heart. Mothers should know their children loved them just like her mother did — or at least she hoped so, even after she found her daughter dead. Lizzie probably should have thought that through.

  Lizzie's eyes closed automatically and she swallowed hard. In no way had she thought her suicide out. If she had… she would have never done it. If she had… she would have stayed with her mother.

  Unwilling to lie there and feel bad about it any longer, she tossed off the black covers, picked her right leg up, and swung it over the side of the bed. She maneuvered again until she got the left in a similar position with her feet dangling close to the floor.

  She could do this… she could. All she needed to do was stand with a little help from the table next to the bed, and her legs would remember what to do.

  Easy.

  "You can do this," she whispered. Now or never. She grabbed the small table with drawers next to the bed and gripped it within an inch of its life. As she stood, her old joints creaked and protested having to work, and her muscles — ouch — her muscles hurt. It reminded her of when her legs fell asleep sitting in church for long periods of time… only a thousand times more.

  With both hands aching from grabbing the table, Lizzie shuffled her feet until they were under her. There, she'd done it. "Good job," she told herself before her legs gave way and she ended up in a lump on the floor.

  ****

  Shane froze and stared at Preston. Now that he actually saw him, he noticed what was wrong with him. The boy was spooked. "It's not your dad asking about the fire that has you so flustered. You aren't scared of Lizzie Monroe, are you?"

  "Her? No. Her ghost? Maybe."

  The shaking of his voice gave him away as well. This guy was scared of a dead girl who wasn't even dead. Not that Preston knew that, and Shane wasn't in a position to tell him. "You honestly believe in ghosts?"

  "No one has proven to me they don't exist."

  "That doesn't mean they do."

  "Doesn't mean they don't," Preston said defiantly. His eyes were wide and his nose flared when he talked. Must have been some nightmare last night.

  "Preston, come on…"

  "You don't believe in them?" Preston surprised him with that question. Shane didn't even have to think of a
n answer

  "No." And he didn't. End of story. "And I definitely don't believe in the ghost of Lizzie Monroe." Mainly because the real un-dead Lizzie Monroe was laid up in his room.

  "Drake saw her once, you know? Lizzie's ghost." Preston sat down on a boulder next to Shane. He fiddled with his fingers and his leg shook nervously as he spoke.

  "He never mentioned it to me."

  "Well, he wouldn't, would he? He doesn't want you to think of him as a wimp."

  Shane nodded slightly. He agreed with that. Drake drove him crazy, but he always seemed to want his approval for some weird reason. For his part, Shane had never really cared what Drake thought of him. "What did he see?" he asked, very curious. He knew it couldn't have been Lizzie's ghost because there was no Lizzie's ghost.

  "At the barn, you know, where she killed herself. He said he went in and said the little rhyme thing you're supposed to say."

  He knew it. "'Lonely Lizzie, full of strife. In the barn she took her life…'"

  Preston nodded. "'Go there now and count to three. Lonely Lizzie you will see.' Yeah. That one. Anyway, Drake said he went in there one night before they started padlocking it. He said he stood at the beam and said the rhyme. He turned around and there she was. Said it freaked him out, and he ran."

  "Doesn't seem scary."

  "You didn't see him afterwards. He was white as a sheet, man. He said she threatened him. Said he only had a few more years to live, and then I dream about her after we torched her church? Dude, that's messed up."

  It would have been easy for Shane to laugh in Preston's face, because, face it, it was comical. One, there were no such things as ghosts, and two, because there was no way Lizzie was one. But Preston looked bad. Clammy, white, and sweaty. "And you just dreamed of her the once?"

  "It was all night, man. And it was so real. We were at the church, watching it burn. Then we heard screaming…"

  Shane didn't tell him that's exactly how he remembered it. The flames… the screams… the girl.

  "Go on," he urged, suddenly very interested in his story. He wasn't one to believe in dreams or their meanings, but the guy seemed to be relatively convinced about all of this. After all, if you'd asked Shane yesterday morning, he never would have believed in zombies either.

  Preston bit his lip above the metal stud. "I don't know. There were screams and we went to the basement. I didn't run like a baby in my dream. Lizzie was there, burning to death in her casket."

  Funny how Preston's dream mirrored so well what really happened, except Preston's didn't have the girl coming home with him. "It's just a dream. Nothing more. We all have them."

  "It felt real. We heard those screams last night, right?"

  Shane could see where this was going and he wasn't happy about it. "Yeah…" he drawled out.

  "What do you think it was?" It was a serious question.

  I think it was a seventeen year old dead girl screaming in her grave… "I think it was coyotes."

  "Coyotes?"

  "Yeah." It was Shane's turn to get up and pace, and anyone who knew Shane knew he didn't pace. It wasn't his style. Calm, cool, and collected were his style. Not all tense like he had been since last night. Preston, of all people, was rubbing off on him. "I mean, which is more likely? That a few coyotes were around or that the ghost of Lizzie Monroe was screaming at us?"

  Preston gave a short little laugh, enough to bring some color to his cheeks. "You're right. I don't know what I've been thinking."

  "You've been thinking I'm in deep crap with Shane for burning the church down. So guilt-ridden, you are seeing dead girls and freaking out in rock quarries."

  "I guess, but, man. It was so real. Reckon what did happen to her? Lizzie Monroe is buried in that church. In a wall. What did the fire do to her?" He looked sick to his stomach.

  "Does it really matter?" Shane asked, scrambling to come up with some sort of lie to cover his and Lizzie's tracks. Cheyenne knew about the girl in his room. That was one person too many. "She's dead. It's not like she could feel it if the fire got her, right?"

  "That's kinda morbid." Preston laughed sadly and patted Shane on the shoulder.

  Preston had calmed down. That was a good thing, but it couldn't be a routine thing. "We can't afford to have it happen again. It will blow over. No one will care about the church or who burned it down in a few weeks. Least of all Lizzie Monroe."

  Preston smiled nervously, but not as nervously as before. "Yeah, Lizzie is too dead to care."

  What Preston didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

  Chapter Nine

  June 1862

  She ran to the barn, flung the door open, then slammed it behind her. She paced the dirt, sobbing in her hands. This couldn't be happening.

  Lizzie couldn't stop pacing. What was she going to do now? He was gone and never coming back. It wasn't fair. God wasn't fair.

  She never heard the door behind her open or her mother step in. "Lizzie?" Mother asked from behind her. "I'm so sorry."

  Her mother walked toward her with her arms out to comfort her, but Lizzie didn't want comforting. She wanted her mother to go away so she could deal with her grief by herself… in her own way.

  She turned her back and paced toward the other open barn door. A warm summer breeze blew in, whipping her brown hair around her face. She angrily pushed it aside. The world shouldn't be this warm or pretty. Not even the warmest breeze could warm her frigid bones. "I need to be alone, Mother. Please."

  "Let me help you," her mother said a few feet behind her. "I know this is difficult, and it's not fair. But you can't let it defeat you."

  Yes she could. It already had. Lizzie stood straighter but with her back still turned toward her mother. "Daniel's family doesn't know. I hate to ask this, but… can you go tell them? I don't think I can do it and they need to know. They don't need to keep wishing for a miracle that isn't going to happen."

  "Of course." Lizzie heard footsteps coming toward her and she tensed, hugging herself tightly. "Elizabeth, I love you. You're a strong woman. You'll get through this. It'll hurt for a while, probably a long while, but eventually you will move on. I promise." She wrapped her hands around Lizzie's waist and kissed the nape of her neck. "Grieve all you want. I'll leave you be."

  Lizzie let out a shaky, tear-soaked breath as she heard her mother walking away and the barn door shut behind her. With a broken heart, she fell to the floor, anguish and anger convulsing through her body.

  It was there that she saw her father's old knife hanging above the horse's stall. Her mind went on instinct as she stood, wiped the dirt from her dress and inched toward it. Mother was wrong. She couldn't live without him. There was no way. It hurt too much, and she didn't ever see it stopping.

  They didn't even have a body to bury properly. She'd heard horror stories of mass graves on the battlefields and couldn't breathe when she thought of Daniel rotting away in one. Handsome Daniel. He'd always taken pride in his appearance. Always properly dressed, even when she saw him tending the family farm in his tan pants and suspenders. And his smile. That smile melted her heart.

  That boy… her boy… was thrown away like slop to hogs. Just a body. Like the countless others who had died in the war. Others who had families, kids, mothers, fathers, lives… now they all had something in common. They were all dead, under the ground. Tossed in there with others like they never mattered. Like they didn't have a life or a family. That was it. That was the end of his life. It wasn't fair. He was just twenty.

  She grabbed the knife with trembling fingers.

  She needed Daniel. There was no other person who would love her like he did. She needed to see him again, be with him, love him.

  Like an act of self-preservation, her mother's face flashed in her mind and Lizzie hesitated with the knife inches from her wrist. Her mother would be devastated to find her dead. It would crush her, and she hated hurting her mother that way.

  Lizzie hoped Mother would understand that it had nothing to do with her. She was
seventeen and able to make her own decisions, and she chose to be with Daniel… forever.

  "God," Lizzie said the word bitterly. "You took my Daniel away from me, so I have no choice. None. I know I have no right, but please let this be alright. I need this to be alright. I need to be with Daniel. I need to see him. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen."

  Lizzie held the cold steel of her father's knife against her wrist, shaking with each word she could barely get out. No matter what she prayed, she knew it wouldn't be alright. Nothing would ever be alright again.

  She regretted that her mother would find her, but she couldn't dwell on that. Life had taken away her one love, the one person she wanted to grow old with. The one person she couldn't live without. If life was going to be so cruel to her, she wanted to be that cruel back.

  Determined, she rolled up the long sleeves of her dress, first the right hand then the left. She fell back against one of the beams of the barn and slid to the packed dirt floor. While sitting in the shadow, the late afternoon sun shone in through the open barn doors to her right toward the forest. It was almost mocking her. Taunting her. Smiling when it should be frowning. It should be raining, thundering, anything but sunny and happy. Nothing would ever be happy again.

  She'd never be happy again.

  Sobs wouldn't stop shaking her body as she thought about Daniel, alone and dying. Daniel who had thought of her in his last breaths. She ran her fingers over the brass ring he'd given her, or rather Frederick had. Daniel had never had the chance. Their engagement ring. A ring she'd never take off as long as she lived, and beyond.

  Had Daniel been scared? Had he been hurting? Such silly questions, of course he had. He'd been shot. He'd lain dying in the middle of a war, dying with thousands others.

  If she couldn't have him in life, she'd have him in death.

  Finally, all of her tears dried up. She sat stone-faced, staring across the barn at some imaginary thing she couldn't focus on. "Forgive me," she said without any emotion as she ran the knife deep in one wrist then the other. It fell from her hand and she leaned her head against the beam, feeling the life run from her. She got light-headed, and her limbs grew heavy. Wetness saturated her leg. Blood.