“Andy?”
He didn’t look up. He was writing on his laptop. He paused to wipe away a tear and then resumed. I knew I was invading his privacy, but I had to know what he was writing, so I moved closer, shifting behind him, and peered over his shoulder. I read, my eyes savoring every word.
My sweet Echo. I love you more than life itself. I want to hold you in my arms. I want to kiss you. I want to tell you everything that I’d always wanted to tell you but was afraid to because I didn’t want to scare you away. Now I know I should have spoken those words; I should have stood on a mountain and shouted them to the sky, should have told you a thousand times, I love you, I love you, I will always love you. Now, it’s too late, and every waking moment is a nightmare for me.
A tear ran down my cheek.
“It’s not too late,” I said.
He didn’t hear me.
“ANDY!”
I was screaming now, repeating his name over and over.
He can’t hear you, said the troublesome fear voice in my head.
He can, too! He will!
I took a big breath and screamed his name again.
“ANDY!”
“Andy?”
It was like my voice had a reverb—I was hearing it twice. It was haunting. The echo—my namesake—contained a deeper, foreboding tone. Andy looked up. Right into my eyes. I gasped. My insides flooded with relief and my whole body tingled.
“Oh baby, I’ve missed you so much!”
He blinked.
“Andy?”
The reverb voice again. His bedroom door opened all the way and his father Hank entered. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. Andy wasn’t looking at me at all; he was looking right through me—at his father.
“What are you working on?” said Hank.
Andy deftly closed his laptop before his father could read the screen. Hank looked over at the bulletin board and fingered the clippings on it. My eyes followed him and I felt a creeping nausea as I read the headlines:
Local Girl Found Murdered
Lake Washington Teen Dead
Girl Killed, Burglary Suspected
There were a dozen more articles fighting for space on the board but I couldn’t look at them. Except for one. The one featuring my yearbook picture—the one I loathed—staring out with a surprised gaze, a forced smile plastered on my face. I’d hated that picture since the day the yearbook came out. I thought I looked particularly clueless in the photograph, like a girl who didn’t have the faintest notion of what she was going to become. Like she feared life. Now that photograph seemed eerily prescient, as though I had known something terrible was going to happen to me all along.
“It’s not going to do you any good to dwell, Andy,” said Hank.
He reached up and pulled out a pushpin from one of the clippings. It fell from the corkboard and fluttered to the floor. Andy jumped up from the bed and grabbed it.
“I’m not going to just forget her!”
“Nobody’s asking you to.”
“That’s funny, because it sounds like that’s exactly what you’re asking me to do! She’s not even in the ground yet and you come in here like this! Jesus, Dad!”
“Don’t talk to me like that.” Hank’s eyes hardened.
“I’ll talk to you any way I want. You don’t get it, do you? I loved her!”
There it was, like a sledgehammer to my gut. The past tense. I was past tense, gone. Truly and wholly gone. The concept, in all its ugly finality, was beginning to sink in.
If I wasn’t even in the ground yet, that meant they hadn’t had my funeral. Seeing as I’d apparently been murdered, they were probably doing an autopsy. I pictured my body on a marble slab being cut up, and an involuntary shudder slithered through me.
Andy was so close I could smell him. I reached out with my hand and tried to touch his face, but I couldn’t make contact. I was an ethereal being, transparent, without form or substance. He couldn’t feel me. I spoke to him, praying that somehow he would hear my voice.
“Oh baby, I’m so sorry. I miss you…”
I closed my eyes and begged the universe that I might dream myself away from there, away from that room, from the awful truth. I wanted to dream us both away to a place, our place, down by the river, the soft grass on a spring day, holding hands, staring up at the clouds, listening to the wind rush through the tall, leafy reed grass, giggling at everything and nothing, lost in the moment, content in the simple pleasure of each other’s company.
I heard soft crying. It was me. I heard my fear voice again. It felt like a cold hand on the nape of my neck and sent shivers sweeping down my spine. The voice said, You have to let him go.
I can’t.
You don’t have a choice.
What if the voice was right? What if I didn’t have any choice but to leave Andy and forget about him? It was unthinkable. Andy and his father argued. My head swam. Their voices sounded muffled and distorted, as though they were the ghosts and I were human. I felt faint, deprived of oxygen. My knees grew weak and my heart rose in my chest. Andy’s eyes narrowed and a wisp of what could have been fear flashed in his eyes. No, no, no! He was staring right at me when he screamed.
“Get out!”
It was like a cold slap in the face. Stars exploded in my head. I was jolted backward by my own revulsion and whooshed out through the wall and landed on the lawn below. I heard Andy scream again.
Get out!
The words reverberated in my head. He was talking to his father.
Wasn’t he?
I held myself against the cold. I had to face facts. I was dead. Dead as the nail in a coffin.
RULES
I tried to think back, tried to remember what had happened in my house, but every time I tried to go there, a blinding flash of pain jolted my brain. And the harder I tried to remember, the more intense the pain became. To say this sucked would have been the understatement of my lifetime. Or whatever. I was getting really pissed off. What did I ever do to deserve this? I’d followed all the rules—I was supposed to be having a wonderful life! And so I ran with rage, without direction, but not without intention. I wanted to meet my murderer head on and choke them until they confessed why they did this to me.
Who would want to kill me? And why? What the hell did I ever do? My anger and confusion made me run faster. I ran through a fence, a car, a man walking his dog. I was like a powerful wind blowing furiously through the night.
I stopped, expecting to be tired, but I hadn’t even broken a sweat. I wondered if I even sweated anymore, now that I was a ghost. Did my pits stink? I ran again, this time just racing away, my feet a blur. I blasted through a thicket of saplings and onto a street. I saw headlights. A car roared by me, dangerously close, but the driver didn’t even notice me. Why should she?
I had driven my mom’s car only a few times, practiced in the school parking lot on Sundays with Dad as my copilot. He was scared out of his wits but pretended I was doing a great job as I lurched and braked, lurched and braked in a clumsy, fearful rhythm. We did it over and over until I finally got the hang of it. Now, I thought, what had been the point? Thanks, Dad, for teaching me how to drive. I’m sure it’s going to come in really handy now that I’m dead.
I sat down smack in the middle of the road. I was trying to kill myself all over again. Cars roared through me with no more effect than a puff of wind.
I began to cry. With each tear came another thought, another image. Losing Mom and Dad. Losing Andy. Never going to prom. Never graduating. Cars whooshed over me and I didn’t even bother to look up. Instead I just stared at the pavement. I had no idea what I should do. In my mind I was wandering aimlessly, like an animal lost in the forest. And then it hit me and I stood up. I knew exactly what I had to do. I was going to find out who killed me and make them pay. I vowed I would find my killer if it was the last thing I did on earth.
But the question was, how? Where to start? I walked around Kirkland, up and down the streets
where I’d grown up. Every memory brought up buckets of tears and I cried inside for what seemed like hours. I wondered if time passed the same for me now that I was … dead. Did ghosts tell time? What was I capable of? What could I do and not do? I had so many questions and gradually came to understand that the only way I could even begin to comprehend myself, to get answers, was to return to the place I’d found so horrible, Middle House.
With grim determination I backtracked down Market Street, not bothering to run, but still moving incredibly fast, reaching Juanita Drive in minutes. I turned left and headed up to Holmes Point Drive. I jogged and closed my eyes, taking great leaps through the air.
Cole was waiting for me in the same spot where I’d left him, as if no time had passed at all. He was tranquil and his eyes were full of compassion. He moved to an old carved-stone bench and sat down, motioning for me to join him. I did.
“Welcome back.”
I was too numb to speak.
“What did you find?” he said.
I couldn’t stay mute. I had to let the truth out.
“Um … my parents are alive.”
“Good.”
“And I’m … dead.”
He let that hang there for a few seconds.
“Yeah, I know. Echo, I’m so sorry.”
* * *
I stared at a nearby towering Douglas fir tree. Its bark glistened and pulsed with life. My vision was incredible. It was as if I could see each individual fiber of the bark. My senses were enormously acute. I could feel life vibrating from everything around me. It was ironic. All this life, and there I was, deceased.
Cole gently placed his hand on mine. I wondered how I could feel a ghost hand on my own ghost hand. I wondered about a lot of things. Even though it felt good—his touch was so tender—I pulled my hand away. Andy. I wouldn’t betray him, not even in death.
I looked at Cole. His eyes were crystal clear and steady. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I spoke, my voice halting and tentative.
“You knew, didn’t you? You knew what was going to happen when I went home.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“It’s the learning. You needed to find out yourself. In your own way. We all had to do it.”
I nodded. It made sense. The other kids could have talked to me until they were blue in the face and I wouldn’t have believed them. I had to go and find out on my own. But I still yearned for answers.
“There are some things … I want to try and understand.”
“I know. You must have a million questions.”
“Why don’t I remember anything? I mean dying, or being killed, murdered, I guess. When I think about it, try to search in my mind, all I get is a massive migraine.”
Cole opened his mouth like he was going to answer my question, but he closed it as he glanced to our right.
One by one, they emerged from the shadows. A clutch of the Middle House kids. Now I saw them for what they were. Ghosts.
Zipperhead was the first to speak.
“When people die a normal kind of death, like from sickness, and they’re surrounded by their loved ones, they pass from their mortal life on to the next one smooth-like, no problemo.”
Cameron, the dark-skinned boy with the goldfish, piped in.
“But when you’re murdered, killed in cold blood, it’s radically different.”
The black cat from the dining hall darted out and stopped two feet in front of me. It stood on its hind legs. I watched as the cat morphed into Lucy, my Middle House roommate with the long hair. I felt faint.
“Being murdered, it’s appalling. It happened to all of us at Middle House. The experience is so traumatic that your soul’s consciousness is shattered like a pane of glass into a thousand fragments.”
Pigtails Darby appeared and shook her head as she pushed Lucy aside.
“Well, that’s all very poetic, Lucy, but how about someone just tells it like it is?”
Darby moved closer to me, again in my face.
“This business takes time, and a hell of a lot of effort, to bring back the memory of your death. You can’t just demand it or force it! It sucks, but it’s a process, got it?”
She had her hands on her hips and looked like she wanted to slap me around just to make sure I got her message.
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
I remembered Miss Torvous using that word. Processed. If this was being “processed,” I didn’t like it one bit. I stared at the Middle House kids who now surrounded me. I looked them in the eyes one by one. Zipperhead, Lucy the cat girl, Fish Guy Cameron wearing his glasses, Pigtails Darby, Snow Hair Mick, and freckled Dougie. I didn’t know what the hell had happened—but whereas they were menacing before, now they all, even Darby, kinda, looked so damned friendly. My lower lip was puffing up and I could hear the tremor in my voice as soon as I spoke.
“Why were you all so m-m-mean to me?”
Darby clamped a beefy hand on my shoulder.
“All newbies get hazed. It toughens you up. It’s not like it’s a picnic being a ghost. You gotta have balls!”
Great. Now not only did I have to adjust to being dead, but I was supposed to grow a set of balls, too. It was all too bizarre. I’d gone and died. Maybe, I thought, I’d already gone to hell.
CONFESSIONS
Now that I knew the other kids were ghosts, I noticed things about them that I’d been ignoring before. Their skin was different: pale to be sure, but it was more than that. They almost glowed, as if lit from within by a pastel moon. Mick, the wet-feet kid, pulled a candy bar from his pocket and bit off a hunk. I realized something and was thinking out loud.
“My god, I ate like a pig and didn’t even feel full. Because I’m a…”
“Say it!” snapped Darby.
“No…”
“Go on; don’t be a pussy—just say it!”
“I’m a … ghost…”
The word hung in the air and echoed through my brain.
Zipperhead grinned, then spoke. “Being a ghost has some perks. We can eat all we want. Cheeseburgers, fries, cupcakes, candy, ice cream—you name it.”
Darby patted her thighs.
“Yeah. Just like regular teenagers but ten times as much. We get to eat like horses and we don’t gain an ounce! I used to worry about my stupid weight all the time. But not anymore. I’m a BBB. A big, beautiful babe. And anybody who says different I’ll kick their butt to the curb!”
No one stepped forward to contradict her. I looked at my body and shook my head in disbelief.
“So … I’m going to be like this … the same hair … same weight … as when I was…”
“It’s cool. Go ahead and say it,” blurted Dougie. “You were killed. Murdered. Snuffed out.”
I kept looking down at my body. A memory rushed into my head. I remembered being in a Krispy Kreme donut shop, wolfing down two maple-glazed crullers. My eyes were red from crying. I’d been in a fight with Andy. That was my therapy, the donuts my meds.
Before my untimely demise, I had been stressed out—about almost everything in my life, not only Andy—and I’d taken to pigging out on Krispy Kreme donuts and had gained two pounds, up to 114 from 112. Great.
“This is totally harsh. What did I ever do to deserve this?” I said.
What I got back from the group was a bunch of dirty looks.
“You didn’t DO anything!” said Cameron. He was suddenly angry as hell, as was Darby.
“You think any of us did something to deserve being murdered?” she said. “Jesus!”
“Sometimes bad things happen to good people,” said Zipperhead. “There’s no accounting for it. Shit happens, and then you die.”
I’d heard that depressing statement so many times before but in this moment it was oddly comforting. I felt a little relieved, as I’d been telling myself that I could have only wound up like this if I’d done something terribly wrong. Of course they were right. I was innocent. I was starting to feel better
, but the reality that my old life was gone was overwhelming.
I wanted to take off running again but I knew it was too late for that. There was no outrunning this afterlife. I’d been flung into purgatory. I looked at my Middle House roomies. They read the question in my eyes. I wanted to know how they had died, if any of them knew. They didn’t say anything, so I gave them a prompt.
“How did all of you…?”
Mick said, “Missing from my stepfather’s yacht, presumed drowned. Body never found. So far.”
I had an “aha” moment. Drowned. That would explain the wet footprints he left behind wherever he walked.
Zipperhead said, “Pushed from a sixth-story balcony.” He pointed to the zipper scars on his head. “These babies … were the result of my head saying ‘howdy’ to a couple of wrought iron fence spikes.”
“With a head like that, how could they miss?” said Dougie.
“Tell the rest of it,” said Cameron.
“Oh, and the wrought iron fence was struck by lightning. While I was impaled.”
Zipperhead rubbed the scars on his head and the action caused sparks to fly. It was the strangest thing I’d ever seen. I had a feeling there was more to come.
Dougie and Cameron lost it, shoving each other as they hooted and hollered with laughter.
“It was an electrifying experience!” said Dougie.
“Oh, I’m so going to die from laughter,” Zipperhead said sarcastically. Then he continued explaining to me. “The docs tried to save me, but my brain was mush. I died on the respirator.”
“Okay, okay, check this out,” said Darby.
She pointed to herself. Her visage changed as bullet holes appeared—four in her chest and one in her forehead.
“Shot five times. Mistaken identity, had to be. I mean, who would ever want to shoot me, huh?”
Dougie and Zipperhead started to laugh but Darby stifled them with a hard look, then got back to schooling me.
Bad Girl Gone Page 5
