Bad Girl Gone

by Temple Mathews

  “Bye, Lucy. It was nice meeting you.”

  “I’ll see you later,” she said, stretching out on her bed.

  No, you won’t, I thought as I left her and followed Cole carefully down the hallway. The floorboards creaked. My heart was racing and I trembled, hoping Miss Torvous didn’t come bursting out to confront us. But Cole didn’t seem nervous at all. He moved casually; no big deal—we were just escaping, that’s all. I had to admit he was pretty damn slick.

  Cole led me to a side door. We paused in front of it, and then he pushed the bar—I cringed, waiting for an alarm bell to sound, but everything stayed quiet. I heard nothing but some faraway laughter, and suddenly we were outside, free.

  I got my first good look at the building. It was a huge château, an old, five-story Romanesque stone affair with two soaring cylindrical towers and a steep-pitched slate roof. Perfect, if you like horror movies. I swore the building was glaring at me, so I didn’t feel like lingering. I looked up at the high stone walls surrounding the place and wondered how we were going to scale them. Cole took my hand and led me to a bulky wrought iron gate. It was like he was magic or something, because as soon as he barely touched it, it swung open. I smiled and looked into his eyes. They were beautiful. I was so happy I could have kissed him, but I squelched the urge and rushed through the gate—freedom!—and across an expanse of lawn. Looking back, I expected Cole to be right behind me, but instead he just stood by the gate, still as a statue.

  “Are you coming?” I asked.

  “Some things are best discovered alone,” he said.

  I’d started to feel safe around him. I was sorry he wasn’t coming with me.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said.

  “I doubt that very much,” I replied. I didn’t want to be cruel, but no way in hell was I ever coming back to this awful place. I took one last look at Middle House, then turned and hurried into the night. At the top of the long sloping driveway, I looked back again. He was still there, watching me leave.

  * * *

  I looked to my right and saw what I hoped was Lake Washington glinting in the moonlight. In moments, I was up on a road and started jogging. It didn’t take me long to recognize that I was on Holmes Point Drive. My heart leapt and my body flooded with hope. I wasn’t that far from home!

  For all I’d known, I could have been in a totally different state or even country, but fortune was smiling on me, because I could actually walk home from here. I hiked up Holmes Point Drive to Seventy-Sixth Place and then hung a right on Juanita Drive. Whenever I saw headlights, I ducked into the bushes. The last thing I wanted was to be snagged by the Kirkland cops for a measly curfew violation.

  Moving through the chilly night, I enjoyed this thrilling familiar feeling. I used to sneak out at night with my friend Dani Cooper. We once arranged a classic “freedom sleepover.” Her parents thought she was coming to my place and my parents thought I was going to hers. We got dropped off in front of each other’s houses, then hid our backpacks and met in front of the junior high school. It was weird to be there at night, the breezeways empty of kids, the old buildings looking dark and foreboding. Our goal was to crash the cheerleaders’ slumber party and we had to traverse downtown Kirkland to get there.

  I remembered my skin tingling with excitement as we moved from shadow to shadow, avoiding the streetlights, darting around like secret agents. We felt totally vulnerable and yet somehow invincible, too. We ran wild, laughing and shrieking. We were flying high. It was a total rush.

  But we never made it. We got caught by the cops, who apparently had nothing better to do than nab a couple of teen girls out after curfew. When my parents came down to bail us out, my mom was beyond pissed off and my dad did his best to act angry, but I think he was secretly proud of me for attempting such a bold maneuver.

  And now here I was again, out at night, gliding dreamlike through the streets, determined not to be seen, let alone caught by the cops or anyone else. I jogged along Juanita Drive all the way past the beach where I first learned to swim. Traffic was sparse so I only had to slip into the shadows every few minutes. When I got into Juanita proper, I took a right on Ninety-Eighth. That would take me all the way to Kirkland and home sweet home.

  I felt fantastic. Sights and sounds and scents leapt out from the night like I was on some mind-altering drug. I heard crickets and frogs, my senses heightened beyond imagination. I felt so amazingly alive. And it was all because of this strange but helpful and kind of cute boy (okay, really cute) whom I’d left standing by the gate back at Middle House. I should have talked to him, at least said something nice, and thanked him. But what would have been the point? I was never going to see him again.

  * * *

  I was so amped up I wasn’t even tired. I increased my pace from jogging to outright running. I ran until my calves were screaming, but I didn’t care—the pain only made me run harder. I was running faster than I’d ever run in my life. The night slashed by on either side of me.

  But then my head started to feel strange. The exertion was starting to get to me, I guessed. I was getting dizzy, moving into blackout territory. I didn’t care. I had to get home. I had to see my mom and dad. I had to prove to everyone, most of all myself, that they were alive and well.

  But deep inside, I was worried, and it was making me have flashes of ugly, violent images and sensations. Misshapen shadows lunged at me. My head felt like it was going to burst from the pain. I had a stabbing ache in my heart. I shook it all out of my skull and held on.

  “Stop!” I screamed.

  I gasped for breath. Then, with great resolve, I increased my pace, even though I knew at any moment I could have passed out. My parents were alive, and I was going to prove it. I thought about maybe even going back to Middle House and showing off my parents, shoving that fact in the faces of all those freaks.

  I pumped my legs. Ninety-Eighth turned into Market Street. I cut over to First Street to get off the main arterial. Then I was on Nineteenth. Then Eighteenth. I lived on Twelfth Street, so I was almost home. Every few seconds, I felt like I was jerking forward, like in a movie where dozens of frames have been cut out. I knew my brain was so lacking in oxygen that it was playing tricks on me. I should have stopped and caught my breath. But something was tugging me forward like a puppet on a string and I rocketed ahead. Fifteenth Street. Fourteenth. I saw headlights sweeping the street ahead of me and looked back. A cop car was right on my ass. I darted into an alley on Thirteenth Street. I’d made a horrible mistake—the alley was a dead end. I ducked into a shadow and flattened myself against a garage door.

  I held my breath. The cop car cruised by slowly, pulled into a driveway, then backed around for another pass. It was moving agonizingly slow, tires crunching on gravel, the sound tormenting me. The cops must have been toying with me, I thought, trying to put a scare into a dumb teenager. The cop riding shotgun, a woman, had her window down and gazed vaguely in my direction. My stomach was in my throat. I knew she was looking right at me. I tensed, ready to run my butt off. But her eyes looked distracted by something, like she was deep in thought, and miraculously they kept moving. I could hear the crackle of their radio. The voice of a dispatcher pulled their attention away and they sped off, tires kicking up bits of gravel.

  I exhaled. Wow. I had an angel looking out for me tonight. I was alone again in the quiet darkness. I shook my head in disbelief and smiled. Not busted! I took off running, racing down to Twelfth, where I cut a right. I was in luck as I passed by the house on the corner, ready for the Siberian husky, Wesley, to bark his damn head off and chase me like he always did. He was in the yard, but tonight he just raised his snout and gazed as I went by, and kept his yappy mouth shut. I kept running.

  And then, in the distance … there it was. My house. My home. I was elated. I ran closer, then stopped in my tracks, my world knocked off its axis. I was having a hard time letting it into my brain, but my house looked dark and unfamiliar … like a death mask, the front door a n
ose, the two black windows on either side of it eyes that had faded away. Something horrid had happened in our house. Death hung in the air like a fog. Maybe I was wrong—jumping to insane conclusions. Maybe Mom and Dad were just sleeping. But why wasn’t the porch light on? They always left it on. Pinpricks crawled across my arms as I walked forward, edging closer to the truth. I blinked, not wanting to believe what I saw. I felt like someone was tightening barbed wire around my stomach. My house was striped with yellow tape screaming CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS.

  CRIME

  I ran to the front door, my brain buzzing, but it was locked. I pulled the hidden key from the fake rock, then unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  “Mom! Dad!”

  An unforgiving silence greeted me. I reached to switch on the lights but stopped myself. I didn’t want a prowling cop car to drive by and see me inside with the place lit up. I got the emergency flashlight from the hall closet, turned it on, and began my search, scanning the entryway at the bottom of the stairs. A lamp was overturned, the burgundy shade torn. A glass-top table was shattered. Family pictures had been knocked from the walls and lay broken on the floor. “Daddy?”

  I found his golf trophy picture on the floor and touched it gently. I swept the beam of the flashlight around and found more broken pictures. It looked bad, really bad. And it got worse. There was blood on the wall. The unthinkable was entering my brain, eating its way in like some hideous insect.

  “No…” I whispered. “I don’t believe it.” My voice sounded distorted, like it was coming from someone else. “This isn’t happening.”

  * * *

  I found a pool of dried blood. My knees buckled. This was it. This was where it had happened. I could feel it and smell it. The crime scene. This was where the murder had occurred.

  “Oh god…”

  Who had the blood belonged to? A voice screamed inside my head. Mom or Dad!

  I wanted to be brave. To be strong. But tears spilled from my eyes. I sobbed. A piercing ache in my heart overwhelmed me. I wanted to be swallowed by the earth. My crying echoed through the house, but I finally stopped and set my jaw. Why was I jumping to conclusions? I needed more information, so I raced upstairs.

  “Mom! Dad!”

  In their room the canopy bed was a mess, the sheets, blankets, and pillows strewn everywhere. But no blood! I looked in their bathroom, their closet. But they weren’t there. I kept shaking my head in denial. The shitstorm that was congealing into the truth was tearing at my heart. I grasped my mother’s bathrobe and clung to it, inhaling her scent. The sense of loss was twisting me inside out.

  I kept hoping, kept believing that they were still alive. But everything pointed to the contrary. I’d been placed in Middle House because they were gone. Mom and Dad were gone. Dead. Murdered. All I could think about was how I wanted to join them, wherever they were. I was contemplating ways to accomplish this when I saw a light go on next door on the second floor. It was him! Andy! I ran to the window, opened it, and shouted.

  “Andy!”

  He didn’t hear me. He was wearing headphones. I waved my arms and wiggled the flashlight beam back and forth. But his head was buried in his laptop. I turned to go to his house—I was going to run into his arms and cry. But I saw lights sweep across the bedroom wall. Outside, a car was pulling up across the street. At first I thought it was a cop car, but then I recognized it. It was Mom’s blue Camry! Two people were sitting in the front. I sprinted down the stairs before I knew it, moving inhumanly fast. I blasted through the front door I didn’t even remember opening.

  The falling rain chilled me as I tempered my pace and walked toward the car. I had to make sure it was actually them—I didn’t want to sneak up on some strangers and scare them to death. Twenty feet from the car, I heard crying. Coming from the woman in the driver’s seat. Fifteen feet, a man’s voice. Sounded like my dad. I drew closer, trembling with anticipation. I knew it! I knew they were alive. I walked in a cautious arc so I could clearly see through the front windshield.

  My father, so handsome, gray around his temples, a receding hairline but good, strong, refined features, was consoling my mom, who was behind the wheel. I noticed suitcases piled in the back seat. My mom was a beautiful woman but right now she looked horrible, her face blotchy, her eyes red from weeping, her hair unkempt. She was crying hard, her chest rising and falling with every sob.

  “Mom, it’s okay!”

  She was crying so loud she didn’t hear me. They must have thought I’d run away! My heart was lifting up in my chest. This would all be over now. My family’s collective nightmare would come to an end and we would hug each other so tightly we wouldn’t be able to breathe.

  “Mom…”

  I stepped toward the car. My father was hugging my mother now, wiping away her tears. I could see that he was crying, too. He looked out the window but I couldn’t tell if he saw me since he gave no sign; there was no recognition in his eyes. Maybe I looked like some crazy girl wandering the night.

  “Don’t cry, you guys! I’m okay,” I said.

  Mom abruptly started the car. They must have wanted me to get in. They probably couldn’t wait to get away from our house and the scene of the horrible tragedy that had occurred here, whatever it was. As I reached for the back door, intending to climb inside—the Camry shot forward, the tires chirping against the asphalt.

  “Wait!”

  My eyes bugged out. What the hell was going on? Mom didn’t stop; instead, she sped up.

  “WAIT! I’M RIGHT HERE!” I screamed.

  It didn’t seem possible but in their grief, they didn’t see me. The Camry sped down Twelfth and turned left. They were heading out for the main drag, Market Street. I gritted my teeth. No way was I letting them get away. I started running, racing, trying to catch up. I tore down an alley, moving so fast I surprised myself. Then I bolted into the street, right in the middle, and the headlights of the Camry were in my eyes. I squinted at the brightness and waved my arms.

  “Stop! It’s me! It’s Echo! I’m okay! I’m alive!”

  I smiled through tears of joy, knowing they would stop and get out and run into my arms for the best family hug we’d ever have in our whole lives. But something was terribly, terribly wrong. The Camry was. Not. Slowing down. WTF?

  “No! Stop! Mom! It’s me!”

  The lights kept coming. I knew I should jump out of the way but I couldn’t.

  “I’M ALIVE!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

  I spread my arms out, Christlike, as the world shifted into an altered, blurry state of slow motion. I wasn’t going to move. They were going to hit me head on. I didn’t want to die, but something was forcing me to stand still, my feet glued to the pavement.

  “Look at me!” I screamed.

  Then the impossible happened. My mom’s Camry, with her and Dad in it, passed right through me. It felt like a whoosh from a gale-force wind, and the experience filled my mind with a myriad of sights and sounds and memories and a hundred other sensations from my past. In one second that felt like a lifetime, it was over. I turned slowly and watched my parents speed away into the night. My body felt like it’d been pummeled. Then the horrible truth occurred to me.

  You were right all along, Echo. Your parents are alive. But you’re not.

  At that moment, I wished I was dead. But I knew … my wish had already come true.

  LOVE

  I ran as fast as I could through the backyard and into the adjacent park. I had to get away, from here, from the memory, from everything. I thought maybe if I ran fast enough, I could run through this nightmare and come out on the other side awake and alive.

  I ran into the deep, old woods. I hastened my pace, wanting to put distance between me and the pain. I couldn’t be dead! I ran and ran. At one point, in a clearing, I lifted my arms and I could feel myself rising off the ground. I stopped, and floated back down. It was a hard truth to swallow, that I was deceased, and I refused to embrace it. There had to be some way ou
t of this.

  A fleeting hope raced into my brain.

  “Andy!”

  Andy would help me! I took off running again, flying out of the forest back toward our houses. Now I knew the truth. The reason I’d been able to run so fast wasn’t because of the adrenaline, it was because I was lighter, my corporeal being having been left behind. My life was over. Sixteen years, gone in a blink.

  No! I screamed to myself. I’m alive!! I’m not dead! I can’t be!

  I needed Andy, needed him so bad then that my heart ached more deeply with every beat. I ran like crazy and reached his house in a blink. I stood in the side yard looking up at the light in his window. The nagging fear voice in my head spoke again.

  You’re only setting yourself up for more pain.

  I wondered how I was going to get up to his room. As though obeying a thought command, I found myself climbing the side of the house like a gecko. This isn’t real. This is a dream. But I knew it was real, that this was my new normal. I shuddered with revulsion—it felt so weird to be climbing like some freaky creature, but I was spurred on by the belief that I was going to go and hug my one true love, cling to him like he was the last person on earth. I reached his window.

  Somehow I was able to hold on to the side of the house, as though my hands and feet had a sticky substance on them. I stared in at Andy. His eyes were bloodshot. He’d been crying. My heart sank. I saw the open bathroom window to my left. I slid over and climbed in, taking care not to knock over the stuff on the sill.

  My feet felt light on the carpet as I moved down the hallway. Andy’s door was partly open and I slowly pushed my way in. I didn’t want to frighten him. Fear spoke. He won’t see you.

  “Andy?”

  My voice was barely a murmur. I waited, my heart thudding. He didn’t look up. He still had the headphones on. I could hear the music. It was “Love Me Anyway,” by Manon Denat. It was our song! My heart was melting. I took another step forward and in my peripheral vision I could see his bulletin board, crowded with newspaper clippings and Internet printouts. But there was no time to stop and gaze anywhere else but at his amazing eyes. I waved my hand to get his attention and spoke louder this time.