Bad Girl Gone

by Temple Mathews

  “It took a lot of pain, but now I can remember it happening. I can see the moron with the gun, his face like a pit bull. I still haven’t found the shooter. He was a stupid gangbanger, and when I find him, I’m going to haunt him so bad he’ll want to shoot himself five times. In the face. Although, when I think about it, that would be kind of hard to do.”

  “I’m … so sorry,” I said.

  Darby looked like she was about to spit out some harsh words but instead just nodded at the ground.

  * * *

  Hearing them all vent about their own murders was freaking me out. I had so many questions spinning around in my head that I felt like if I opened my mouth to speak, the words would fly out like bats from a cave. I tried to stay silent but I couldn’t.

  “This isn’t fair! I can’t be dead! Who killed me?!”

  “Things will come back to you—memories, in bits and pieces,” Cole said.

  I shook my head.

  “What does being a ghost even mean? I mean, what am I, exactly?”

  “You’re just like us,” said Lucy. “You’re an in-betweener.”

  “And in-betweener?”

  She continued.

  “You’re not alive, obviously, but you haven’t moved on yet, either, to the final place, the eternal place, where you wait for rebirth. You asked about Tawny, how she moved on? Well, she did it by finding her killer and paying him back. That’s what Middle House is all about. It’s where we go, where we wait until we resolve our issues.”

  “And once we do that, we get to move on, with the Afters, to await being reborn,” Mick said. He looked hopeful.

  I thought about being reborn. The concept calmed me, but only for a moment. The image of Andy entered my brain. I couldn’t shake it and knew I never could. I wanted no part of any kind of existence without him.

  “It took me three months to find out who killed me, but I remembered,” said Dougie. “I was just cruisin’ along, not trying to remember, you know, when all of a sudden I heard a random door slam, really loud, and bam—it just came to me. The door slamming triggered a memory. I remembered being locked in a freezer. By my freakin’ uncle. Slowly freezing to death while screaming for help and pounding and clawing on a six-inch-thick steel door ’til my fingers bled? That is a messed up way to go, I can tell you that right now.”

  I felt so sorry for him.

  “What a horrible way to die.”

  “There ain’t exactly no good way, missy,” said Darby.

  “Your uncle. Did you haunt him, or kill him, or what?” I asked.

  “Not yet—he’s out of the country. He, like, imports processed meats and bails out of town for weeks at a time. We’ll get the SOB one of these days. My dream is that we get him so good that he confesses, to my whole family.”

  The others nodded. Cameron patted Dougie on the back.

  “We’ll nail him—you can take that to the bank, bro.”

  Cameron drew in a long breath, then shared his story.

  “I was hit at the base of my cerebellum,” he said, lifting his hair to reveal a hideous hole. “It was a powerful blow, right there to the nape of my neck, probably by a hammer. I was working on my aunt’s roof. It might have been her—everyone said she’s crazy; she has eleven cats.”

  Lucy sneered. “And the problem with that is?”

  Cameron ignored her and continued.

  “It might have been my cousin Cindy, my aunt’s freaky goth daughter, who had a thing for me, which I didn’t particularly reciprocate.”

  “Particularly?” I said.

  “Well, not after the first time. She had dog breath. I just wasn’t into her. It might have been her crazy-jealous boyfriend. Who knows? I never saw it coming.”

  Now Lucy told her tale.

  “Mine was poison. People said it was my mom, but I think it was her best ‘friend,’ Centa. Mom and Dad were taking a break and I was staying with Centa. Mom was there, but I just kept getting sicker and sicker and Centa’s a Christian Scientist, so we just prayed. And … here I am.”

  I looked at them, this group of kids who’d all met untimely deaths. I felt so incredibly sorry for them for a moment that I forgot about my own troubles. I hugged myself and as I felt the touch of my fingers on my arms, something occurred to me.

  “Hey, if I’m a ghost, how come I can feel myself?” Then I reached over and touched Cole. “How come I can touch you and feel you?” I bent down and picked up a rock. “And how come I can touch this and feel this?”

  “Ghosts can touch and feel each other, but not the living. The living can’t see or hear or feel us,” said Cole.

  “And we can touch stuff and move it around,” added Zipperhead. “And sometimes when stuff touches us, we barely feel it, it passes right through us. Weird, I know.”

  Even though I didn’t really comprehend, I nodded. This was all going to take some getting used to.

  “We better get a move on, guys,” said Cole, looking at me. He meant I should go with them.

  “Um, do we have something important to do?” I asked.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. We have an appointment.”

  “With who?”

  “My stepfather,” said Mick. “Mister Joshua Everett Mowrer. Are you in?”

  “Don’t bring her,” said Darby. “She’ll just get in the way.”

  “It’s up to Mick,” said Zipperhead.

  “If you want to come, it’s okay with me,” said Mick.

  “Call me crazy, but I’m not going anywhere unless I know where we’re going and what we’re doing,” I said.

  “We’re going haunting,” said Dougie.

  Cole patted me on the shoulder affectionately.

  “That’s all you need to know. Let’s go. Stay close to me.”

  They took off into the night. I hung back, wondering what I should do. Then it hit me. I had to follow them. To find my killer, I was going to have to watch, listen, and learn.

  REVENGE

  The group moved incredibly fast; we weren’t flying, actually, but running so swiftly it felt like I was riding a mini hurricane. We whooshed through the streets, phantoms unseen by humans. Only an occasional dog or cat or squirrel took any notice. I tried again to remember what had happened to me.

  I saw a hallway at school, then an image of me driving my car, fast. Someone was chasing me. I was on the verge of remembering when my brain throbbed with pain. I reeled and clenched my jaw. Come on, Echo, remember! Darby was watching me. I was expecting another tongue-lashing but her eyes softened a little.

  “You’re trying to force it, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  My head felt like someone had hit me with a rock.

  “And it hurts like a sumbitch, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So don’t go there; back off. Think of something else.”

  I did. I thought of Andy. The two of us in his bedroom one afternoon when his dad was gone. We kissed. And touched. It was heaven. My headache subsided. Darby was watching me.

  “Better?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey. You’ll find out who did you in. And then maybe if you don’t piss me off too much, I’ll help you kick their stupid ass,” she said.

  She was the meanest of the mean at Middle House, and now I was starting to like her a little. Cole was right. She was going to be a powerful ally. She lifted up into the sky and flew. The others followed. I was running fast, but fear kept me earthbound. Until Cole turned around and waved me up. Even though I’d felt myself lift off the ground a while ago, I had no freakin’ idea how to fly. What was the first step? I ran faster, my legs a blur, and began to imagine myself airborne, and then it happened—I lifted up into the sky and flew. I soared over Kirkland, looking down at the lights below. It was like a dream. I almost felt joyful. But the reality of my situation intervened. I suddenly hoped this whole thing was a dream. But it wasn’t. I was D.E.A.D.

  * * *

  We arrived at the Kirkland M
arina, circling overhead. Cole took my hand and helped me land.

  “Um … thanks. That was…”

  “Amazing?”

  “I was thinking awesome, but yeah.”

  He smiled at me. I was feeling a little bipolar. Hey, I’m dead, but by the way I can fly and he is really cute. I told myself to knock it off. I had to get a grip and somehow find a way back to my old life with Andy.

  The parking lot was mostly empty, except for a few boat trailers and some pickup trucks. Mick climbed the marina clock tower.

  “Nine fifteen. He should be here any second.”

  After a few moments, a Mercedes-Benz pulled into the lot and parked. A tall man stepped out. He was slender and had that “I know I’m handsome” smugness about him. I immediately disliked him.

  “There’s the asshole now,” said Mick. “My beloved stepfather.”

  “He’s the one who…?” I said.

  “Murdered me? Yeah. I’m about ninety-eight percent sure it was him.”

  “So what the hell have we been waiting for?” said Darby. “That’s good enough for me. Why are you being such a wuss, Mick?”

  “Because he wants to be one hundred percent certain, that’s why, and he’s right,” said Cole.

  I watched as the man, Joshua Mowrer, popped the trunk of his wine-colored Mercedes and lifted out two blue gym bags. They made a clanking sound as he dropped them on the pavement. He locked the car with a chirp and picked up the bags, his shoulders sagging under their weight. The mooring docks were gated and he let himself in with a key. The mesh fence tickled my stomach as we slid right through it.

  Mowrer walked to a forty-foot cabin cruiser, the Well Earned. He climbed onto the yacht with the gym bags, which he set down on the rear deck. We floated onto the yacht, joining him. He looked at me and I flinched. But of course he couldn’t see me. It was a miserable feeling, knowing that the living couldn’t see us. Mowrer tossed a guilty glance back at the parking lot, making sure no one was watching him. He thought he was safe. No one alive was watching him. But we were.

  He fired up the yacht’s powerful engines and chugged out of the marina.

  “Come on,” said Cole. “Let’s enjoy the ride up front.”

  He took my hand—again I noticed his gentle, not entirely unpleasant touch—and led me to the bow of the cruiser, which was steadily thrusting into a stiff headwind. The wind felt different as a ghost. It didn’t buffet me like when I was alive. Instead it passed right through me, which I had to admit was unique. I closed my eyes for a moment to get a better feel for the sensation. It was like I was flying into the stars. After a few seconds, I felt a tug on my jeans, down near the heel of my shoe. I blinked my eyes open and looked down. I had risen upward like a balloon and Cole was holding the hem of my jeans, making sure I didn’t float away into the blue-black sky.

  “Whoa!” I said.

  “You’re okay,” he said.

  “How do I get back down?”

  “Just kind of push, with the core of your body.”

  I did, and landed back on the bow.

  “Thanks.”

  Cole was giving me that look that boys do when they’re about to bust a move on you. But that wasn’t going to happen. I inched away from him and his lips.

  “What are we doing out here?” I asked.

  Cole turned and indicated Mick’s stepfather back in the raised bridge, piloting the wheel.

  “He comes out here two or three times a week to the same spot and just drifts. It’s like he’s keeping an eye out for something, and we have a pretty good idea what it is.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Mick’s body.”

  That was a creepy thought. And it reminded me of my own body, lying somewhere. It occurred to me that I had to somehow make sure that they didn’t cremate my body. I’d never discussed it with Mom and Dad, but I wasn’t so keen on having my body burned to ashes and kept in a vase.

  Mowrer pulled back on the throttle, briefly put the cruiser in reverse, then neutral, effectively stopping. He cut the engine and we drifted. An ivory moon was out and bathed the lake’s surface with a dull glow. Mowrer dropped a heavy anchor over the side.

  “Let’s just do him now and get it over with,” said Darby.

  “No,” said Mick. “We wait. Like always.”

  Darby sighed and spit over the side of the boat. It passed through the water without a ripple.

  Mowrer moved right next to me, and I couldn’t stand the feeling of being so close to him so I rushed to the right. The boat caught a swell. To steady himself, Mowrer suddenly lurched left and—whoosh! I collided with him. But instead of passing entirely through him like I would any other solid object, I entered him.

  I was bombarded with fast, ugly images from his brain. He was a sick and twisted man, his crowded thoughts a whirlwind of repulsive memories. I saw Mick’s face. Mowrer was remembering how he killed Mick by hitting him in the head with a pipe wrench—it was so horrible, playing in slow motion in the sicko’s brain—and then tied Mick to something and dumped the body over the side of this boat. I was nauseated. I had to get out of the freak’s brain. I lunged sideways with all my might. With a weird sucking sound, I was out. I turned and looked at him standing there, puzzled and abhorrent in the night. I wanted to punch him in the face.

  Mowrer recovered from our experience, then shook his head and went below. Mick was staring hard at me.

  “Did you … go inside him?”

  “Um, yeah.” I nodded numbly. He saw that I was shaking.

  “You all right?”

  “It was bizarre. I thought his thoughts, right along with him. He definitely killed you, Mick. I saw it all.”

  “I knew it,” said Mick.

  “All right, time to parrrrtay!” said Darby. She punched me lightly on the shoulder. “Maybe you’re more than deadweight after all.”

  I was still stunned over the experience of rattling around inside Mowrer’s brain.

  “Does that happen a lot? Going right into people? I mean, do you guys do that?” I asked.

  “No. I once heard about a kid who could do it. But nobody I’ve ever met at Middle House can enter the living,” said Cole.

  “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know for sure. But I’ll help you find out. Trust me. It’ll take some time.”

  There was that word again: time. Ticktock. Even though I was dead, I felt like I was running out of time.

  Cole went over to Mick, who had followed Mowrer and was watching him through the porthole. Down in the cabin, his stepfather peeled off his clothes and struggled into a wet suit. Mick spoke evenly. “He was rich, some stock market loan thing, but he got greedy and lost it all. I guess he must have known he was going down, because he bought an insurance policy on me.”

  “He killed his own son? For money?” I was incredulous.

  “He’s not my real dad. My real dad died. This creep just swooped in and took over my mom and all her money.”

  Mowrer emerged from below and outfitted himself in full scuba gear. He tied off a long yellow rope on a deck rail and tied the other end to the blue gym bags. He had a mesh bag full of zip ties on his diving belt.

  He tossed the gym bags over the side. They sank quickly, emitting a burp of bubbles. Then he masked up and grabbed a waterproof light and plunged into the water.

  “Here we go,” said Mick.

  Mick, Darby, Cameron, and Dougie all jumped in the water without making a splash. Lucy climbed on top of the pilothouse. Her long hair flowed in the breeze.

  “I’m gonna pass.”

  Right. Of course her feline side hated water. I didn’t blame her. The lake was cold and black and the prospect of leaping into it was daunting. But Cole had me by the hand and pulled me with him as he jumped over the side.

  WATER

  I held my breath. Panic jolted me as we slipped right through the surface without so much as a ripple, then dropped down and down. It was only slightly slower than mov
ing through thin air. Cole saw me holding my breath.

  “You don’t have to do that, Echo. We can breathe down here. Ghosts can breathe anywhere, even buried underground.”

  Great. What a lovely thought. I was so conditioned to holding my breath underwater that my pulse was racing, but I went ahead and sucked in a breath through my nose. It worked! I could breathe just fine. Echo Stone. Fish girl. Again, weird.

  “Why are we down here?” I asked.

  My voice sounded weak and far away but Cole could hear me loud and clear.

  “Mick wants to see his body.”

  Mick’s stepfather dove down until he was almost at the bottom, around 120 feet. He swept the powerful diving light back and forth slowly through the murky depths. Silt and seaweed swirled around. Chinook salmon, cutthroat trout, and yellow perch darted about, avoiding the light. Mowrer kept up his sweep. He looked frustrated. I heard Zipperhead’s voice.

  “Oh god, I found what he’s looking for.”

  Zipperhead was moaning and rubbing the scars on his head, creating dim sparks that lit up briefly then quickly dissipated. But it was enough to draw Mowrer’s attention. He trained his light toward Zipperhead. And there it was. A body, tethered by a chain to a cinder block, floating ten feet from the bottom of the lake.

  The creatures of the lake had nibbled and chewed and ripped bits of flesh from poor Mick’s face and arms, which were floating skyward, as though reaching for help. I felt sick as I looked at his empty eye sockets.

  Mowrer swam quickly to the body and used the zip ties from his net bag to secure more weights from the blue gym bag to Mick’s decaying corpse. Eventually he attached so many weights that Mick’s body sank all the way to the lake bed. To finish the job, Mowrer found heavy rocks and stacked them on top. Now Mick’s body would never be found.

  But Mowrer was going to have a rude awakening. Because Mick’s body had been found. By us. We lifted ourselves effortlessly to the surface and hopped back onto the yacht.

  “Man, I never thought I’d ever look that disgusting.” Mick shuddered.

  “Forget about it,” said Zipperhead. “Just concentrate on what’s about to go down.”

  Mick nodded. The Middle House kids now stood in a line and held hands. Cole took mine. They spoke in unison.