Dead Girls Society

by Michelle Krys

  So take your dollies three, climb down my apple tree,

  Climb up my rain barrel, out through my cellar door,

  And we’ll be jolly friends

  No more no more no more.

  —Schoolyard chant derived from Saxie Dowell’s “Playmates”

  I wake to a soft thump thump sound.

  I’m lying on my back in a dark so penetrating I might as well not have opened my eyes at all. Everything hurts—my head has its own heartbeat, my body is so cold it’s almost numb, and my lungs are tight from breathing in the close, musty air. I try to cry out, but my jaw feels soldered open and bitter with strain. It all comes flooding back.

  I’m in the coffin.

  My heart lurches into my throat, a surge of adrenaline racing through my body. I tug at the cloth and feel it tumble wetly out of my mouth.

  “Help!” I cry. But the close air and lying on my back make my voice come out in a gravelly, harsh whisper.

  I frantically pat all around me, meeting walls on all sides. No. No, no, no, this can’t be happening.

  But it is. I’m in a coffin. I’m buried alive.

  A dark weight presses on my chest. My lungs cinch, and I cough, breaths jerking in and out with my panic.

  No, I can’t panic. That’ll only make it worse, it’ll only make me use up what little oxygen is down here faster. I need to breathe slowly.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Dirt landing on the coffin.

  I’m gulping, gulping for air. Can’t breathe. I blow out a pressurized breath, swallow hard.

  Be calm, be rational. Don’t think about what a screwed-up, hopeless situation you’re in.

  Help. I need help.

  I reach for my purse, but it’s not there at my side. Lyla, I remember with a flash of horror. She took it in the car. She has my phone. She has my inhaler too.

  I hit the lid of the coffin. I’m going to die down here. She’s going to get away with this. Mom, Jenny—they’ll never know what happened to me. I always knew I would die young, but I never thought it would be like this. In a violent way, the victim of a crime.

  I think of Hartley, swinging from her neck in the factory, a piece of dead meat. We left her there. We drove away while she was dying in that place. God, God, God. How could Lyla do it?

  “Help!” I call again, but it wouldn’t matter even if anyone could hear me. I’m alone out here, with her. No one is coming to save me.

  An overwhelming sense of déjà vu descends on me, and I’m suddenly eleven again.

  I woke up feeling sick. Mom was working at a correctional facility, a brand-new job she’d gotten only weeks before. She was thrilled to have landed a job where she could put her social work degree to good use, plus it paid twice what she was used to and came with benefits. She didn’t want to take a day off unless she really needed to. I told her to go, that I was fine. I didn’t want to be the reason she got in trouble at work, and besides, if she stayed home, she’d make me sleep and refuse to let me play on the computer or do anything else remotely fun.

  But by lunch I knew something was wrong. There was a tightening in my chest that wouldn’t go away no matter how many hits of the inhaler I took, and I was starting to panic.

  I called Mom twice, but there was no answer. She was in a meeting, I later found out. I considered calling 911, but I felt stupid, embarrassed. So I hunched over the porcelain and fought to work up the mucus blocking my throat. If I could just get it out…

  I coughed and hacked until my face felt hot and tingly. My legs went out from under me, and I barely missed clipping my head on the side of the counter. My cries for help echoed off the bathroom tile.

  It was four hours before Mom came home from work and found me pitched over on the floor with my face smeared into a congealing puddle of puke. I couldn’t get up.

  She let out an animal wail I would never be able to unhear.

  I don’t remember much after that. Just flashes of maybe-memories. A paramedic cursing while he tried and failed to establish an IV, the ambulance bumping over pitted cement. A doctor’s gentle touch, and the unmistakable look of pity in a nurse’s eyes as she gave the pain meds that rushed like cold jewels through my veins, bringing me one step closer to the lurking darkness. The quiet beep beep beep of the ventilator breathing for me. The glitter of the stars through my hospital window, a shimmering blanket lulling me to sleep.

  No one said anything. No one had to.

  I was dying.

  Mom climbed into my bed, her arm pressed along my arm, her leg pressed along my leg, and she held my hand. She sang her lullaby and told me she loved me, and her tears mingled with my hair. She told me it was okay, that I could let go. And with her by my side, I did. I relaxed my shoulders and opened myself up to my fate, waited for the cold hand of death to take me.

  But I didn’t die. I woke up the next day, and the day after that, and the doctor called me a miracle. A grim determination formed in Mom’s eye. She quit the jail, got a job at CVS that paid shit but was flexible with hours. She was different. She wasn’t going to let this thing take me without a fight.

  Mom, where are you now?

  I squeeze my eyes against a rush of tears. Mom isn’t going to save me this time. No one is going to hold my hand, no one is going to sing me to sleep.

  But instead of making me panic worse, the realization makes my resolve sharpen to a blade point. I won’t go like this. I’m going to get out of here. It’s not over yet.

  I suck in a shuddery breath, then flatten my palms on the lid of the coffin. If it’s locked, it’s all over. The thought brings on a fresh wave of panic. But the hinges creak when I push, small puffs of dirt billowing into the coffin. I choke back a cough, but hope flutters somewhere deep in the numbness of my chest. It was midnight when we arrived at the cemetery. If it’s still dark outside, and if I move slowly, opening the lid more and more as she adds dirt to the top of the coffin, maybe she won’t notice I’m trying to escape. And then when she’s gone and she thinks she’s gotten away with it, I’ll dig through feet of dirt without breathing….

  I shake my head, forcing the bad thoughts away. I can’t think about the futility of it all right now. I have to move. I have to get out of here.

  There’s no way I’ll be able to lift a coffin lid weighted with dirt and somehow slip out from this position. I need more leverage. I need to get off my back.

  It’s small in here, too tight, but I twist and shuffle and roll until I’m facedown. I never thought being tiny and frail would be an advantage, but it is now, when the cramped, narrow space would have prevented almost anyone else from moving inside.

  With my damp hands flat against the bottom of the lined casket, I draw my knees up under me until I’m crouched in a ball, the coffin lid pressed uncomfortably against my spine. And then slowly, so slowly, I push up, bearing the weight of the lid on my back. It’s heavier now, after just a few minutes, but it’s working. It’s opening. All I want to do is push up as fast as I can while the dirt is still loose, get the hell out of here. But I can’t go too fast or Lyla will notice.

  I huff for air, a damp sweat wetting my brow.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  I heave up, supporting the thousand-ton weight of the lid and all the dirt covering it on my back. It’s heavy, so heavy. My spine burns, thighs trembling with the effort to keep the lid open. My knees dig into the hard bottom of the coffin. If I don’t roll out now, I’ll collapse, and the lid will close. And if that happens, I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to get it back open again.

  Sweat trickles down my temple. I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for the sound of dirt landing so I can move. My legs quake under the strain, muscles shredded. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t wait anymore.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Now.

  I shuffle to the side. I lose my careful balance, and the lid pushes me down, but I grunt and push up hard until it’s open again, the sharp edge of the coffin lid digging into my
spine. Great heaps of dirt shift beneath me, and the thumping suddenly stops. I’ve moved too quickly. She’s seen me.

  No, she can’t have seen me. That’s impossible. I’m too far down, six feet under.

  But she saw the dirt shift.

  My thighs sway, shudder, my lungs and heart and cells screaming with the effort of keeping still, still, still.

  Dirt sifts down, tinkling softly at my knees. I gulp dry, stinging air, begging my body to stay strong, to do this for me, for once in my goddamn life, to come through.

  Please. Please don’t notice me.

  The sounds above me continue, but I don’t dare move yet. If she so much as suspects I’m trying to escape, she’ll stuff me right back in the coffin and make sure I don’t get out this time.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  The air is so close. So stale. How long can someone last underground? How long can they last underground with CF, BPD, a touch of asthma, and while very possibly having a panic attack?

  Minutes turn into hours. Or days. I don’t know. Pinpricks flash over my face, my body telling me it’s running out of oxygen. The thumping has stopped. She might still be around, but I don’t have a choice anymore. I have to act now.

  My back still supporting the lid, I pull my shirt up and hold it in a tight fist at the crown of my head, making a little pocket of space where the dirt won’t be able to get into my mouth.

  The air is warmer and closer now, and even though I was cloaked in complete darkness before, it somehow feels blacker by degrees.

  It’s now or never.

  I take a deep breath, say a prayer, and slip out of the coffin, into the small gap created when the dirt shifted into the coffin. The lid scrapes down my back as it closes with a dull thud.

  I’m instantly surrounded by dirt. It seals against me like cellophane. It wears me like a second skin. It gets in my mouth and my eyes, despite the shirt. A scream builds in me that could wake the dead, but I don’t breathe. Can’t.

  My foot catches hold of the coffin lid. I lever myself onto it and, using every ounce of the feeble strength left in me, push against the weighted dirt until I’m standing on top of the coffin. Still not enough. Still no air.

  It can’t be much farther if I’m six feet under. I take a final breath beneath the shirt and let go, stretching both hands above me. Dirt sucks against my face, stinging my eyes and getting in my mouth even as I keep both tightly closed. The urge to breathe becomes unbearable. I’m going to die. Suffocate, mummified in dirt.

  I claw up, up, up.

  Dirt packs deep beneath my fingernails, the cold of it making my fingers brittle and unusable. I keep working. Force myself to keep working.

  My head breaks the surface. I take a huge, gasping breath, sagging onto the ground with my body still buried. I did it. Oh my God, I did it. I have a sudden, wild desire to scream at the sky.

  But I’m not free yet. I dig and twist and turn and grapple at the solid earth around me until I land in a heap next to the plot, desperately gulping for air. My inhaler. I can almost taste the chemical mist in the back of my throat just thinking about it.

  I smear dirt from my eyes. Ethan. I have to contact him. I have to call the cops. I have to—

  A twig snaps behind me.

  I freeze.

  “Why do you have to make everything so damn hard?”

  My blood turns to ice, and I scuttle from the voice like a crab. Lyla leans against a twisted cypress tree, her arms draped over the handle of a shovel. “I thought I needed to watch out for you. Make sure no one rushed to your rescue, like they always do.” She laughs to herself, shaking her head. “But I didn’t expect you to save yourself.” She pushes off the tree and tests the weight of the shovel in her hands. “I have to admit, it’s kind of impressive.” She swings the shovel back.

  I roll out of the way as the blade wedges deep into the ground. A rush of energy shoots through me, and I clamber to my feet, stumbling over myself to get away. Lyla tries to heft the shovel out of the hard-packed earth, but it’s stuck. She tries again. There’s a sucking noise as it comes free.

  Hard wheezes are forced out of my mouth in time with my limping, pathetic steps.

  “Don’t bother running, Hope,” she calls after me. “You won’t get away.”

  My shoe snags on a tree root, and I crash to the ground. I push up on my forearms, catching my breath. Lyla swings the shovel, the metal swishing loudly in the quiet graveyard. My fingers are cold and clumsy as I grab a broken tree branch and haul myself to my feet. I spin to face her.

  Lyla sees my weapon and laughs. She crosses to me in three big strides, the shovel dragging behind her. I swing the branch back. She catches it midair, snatches it from my hand, and throws. It clatters dully as it lands somewhere far away.

  Something primal comes awake inside me. I kick her in the stomach. She grunts, and I spin away, grabbing the discarded shovel. I grip the handle tight.

  She spits into the dirt, her chest rising and falling fast.

  “Go for it,” she says. “I’d love to see you try.”

  Her words are barely out before I swing the shovel, quick as lightning. I hit her leg. She buckles and falls into the dirt. I swing to strike again, but she lunges at me. I stagger back, and it throws me off balance. I trip, landing so hard the wind is knocked out of me. She wrests the shovel from my grip, and then she’s on her feet, her normally perfect ponytail limping by her left ear.

  I push up and run. Lyla hobbles after me, stalking me through the maze of gravestones like a predator.

  My breaths are hard and ragged as I stumble forward. My mind screams at me to run. Run faster, faster, faster. But I feel myself slowing, all the energy sapped out of me. I catch my breath against the side of a mausoleum—just one second—then I’m off again. But I’m clumsy now, my legs made of boneless gelatin. I trip, landing hard in overgrown grass. I haul myself up, only to fall again. I can’t get up.

  Lyla’s disappeared. I crane my neck, wildly searching for her. A heavy silence has descended over the graveyard, the trees still in the hot, sticky air. Breaths wrench in and out of my lungs. Loud, too loud.

  She leaps out from behind a tree. I shriek and have just enough time to roll behind a headstone before the shovel connects. The clang of metal against stone reverberates through the ground into my bones. Lyla stands above me, the shovel flashing in the pale light.

  I haul up every last reserve of energy inside me, drag my knee to my chest, and shoot my leg out fast and hard.

  I hear a crunch as it connects with her injured knee. Lyla howls and buckles, screams, “Youbitchyoubitchyoubitch.” I drag myself over the uneven ground, fingers numb and caked with dirt, and somehow stumble to my knees. I turn in a circle, my vision blurring at the edges, lumbering away from Lyla, but there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. The car is too far away. She’ll find me before then, and she has the keys.

  Lyla screeches behind me, rocks in the dirt. I uselessly circle the graveyard. The plot I dug my way out of is somehow at my feet.

  I worked so hard to get out, but now I’m climbing back into the hole, burying myself in the loose dirt, until just my nose and mouth stick out. She’ll find me. She isn’t stupid. But there’s nowhere else.

  I hear her flash past, muttering, cursing. I’m so cold, so tired, my chest weighted with lead, but my pulse thrums every time she whizzes past.

  Leaves swish under shoes. Twigs snap. She stops above me, pants for breath, and I can almost see her standing with her hands on her hips, surveying the graveyard. I don’t breathe. Can’t. The dirt weights my chest, and I take in tiny puffs of earthy air. It’s not enough.

  She strides away then, metal dragging over dirt.

  I don’t hear anything for a while. Minutes, then hours. I don’t know how much time passes, but it feels like forever.

  And then I hear it. Another voice. A quiet whimper. Someone else is here.

  I push up out of the ground. Dawn breaks over the graveyard, the sky awa
sh with new-baby pink. A bent and wrinkled woman in a cream skirt suit kneels in front of a headstone ten feet away, a bushel of brightly colored flowers clutched in her hand. Her lips form an O when she sees me, as if she’s seeing a ghost.

  I can’t be sure it isn’t true.

  The final bit of tension leaves my body, and I sink to my knees.

  A steady beeping sounds somewhere nearby. My temples ache, and there’s a fire-hot burning in my throat. I blink my eyes open. Harsh sunlight streams in through a window. I’m lying in a hospital bed. Wires are taped all over my chest, and there’s a tube in my throat.

  The vitals monitor beeps faster as my heart rate speeds up.

  Lyla. Oh my God, where’s Lyla?

  There’s a rustling to my left, and then Mom’s at my side. Dad and Jenny hover behind her, their big eyes full of fear.

  Dad?

  “It’s okay, Hope,” Mom says, smoothing my hair. “We’re here. You can breathe. The machine is doing its job.”

  I fumble for the tape that holds the tube in place, desperate to yank the thing out so I can talk, but Mom pulls my hands away and yells, “Nurse!”

  A young nurse with a swishy blond ponytail runs into the room.

  “She’s trying to pull her tube out,” Mom says.

  I want to explain, but the damn tube makes speaking impossible.

  The nurse sees Mom struggling to restrain me and disappears. She’s back a moment later, and she’s brought friends. An orderly takes over for Mom while the nurse injects something into the IV in my hand. Cool liquid rushes through my veins.

  “We’re giving you something to help you relax,” a young woman in a white lab coat says.

  The room gets fuzzy.

  Ethan, I think.

  And then everything goes black.

  Dad, tucking my hair behind my ear. The ping ping ping of Jenny playing a game on her phone. Hushed voices. An overhead page. Squeaky wheels clattering down the hall. Plastic rustling. A cold bell pressed against my chest. A murmured “Good.” Eyes weighted with a thousand tons of lead, too drugged to open.