All The Pretty Dead Girls

by John Manning

She dreaded going back to her grandparents’ apartment. Joyce said they had more to tell her—but Sue couldn’t bear to hear any more. Truth was, she was also terrified of what they might say. They had lied to her. She hated them.

  At that moment, she didn’t care to see either of them ever again.

  All these years, they’ve lied to me about my mother. Why? Why would they do such a thing? To spare me the knowledgethat my father was a rapist? That I’m a bastard, with a mother locked up in a loony bin somewhere? Were they ever going to tell me that she is alive? And why would they let me find out the truth from Joyce Davenport, of all people—that just makes it worse, so much worse. How could they have done this to me?

  Sue desperately wanted to believe that Joyce, not her grandparents, was lying, but there was no conceivable reason for Joyce to make up such a story. She’d told Sue to go back to her grandparents, who’d confirm the story.

  But Sue was in no mood for confirmations.

  She finally got back on the subway around four and headed back to the apartment. The train was packed full of people carrying boxes and bags, their cheeks flushed red from the cold, talking joyously to their friends. People wished each other “Merry Christmas.” But Sue couldn’t look at anyone, couldn’t bring herself to even glance at their faces. She stared out the dark window at the walls of the subway tunnel. She almost missed her stop, jumping through the doors just before they closed.

  Back home, she let herself in quietly. She could hear the television in her grandfather’s den—a football game—and she hurried to her room without saying anything. She shut the door soundlessly behind her, and locked it.

  One way to find out if Joyce is a big fat liar—and I don’t have to go to Joyce-Davenport-is-a-lying-cunt-dot-com for this.

  The Lebanon newspaper had a Web site, but its archive only went back as far as the launch of the site—a few years. Gritting her teeth, Sue went to the Web site for the Senandaga Reporter, and clicked on ARCHIVE SEARCH. Unaware that she was holding her breath, she entered “Mariclare Barlow” into the archive search engine, and clicked SEARCH.

  No matches found. Make sure you have the spelling correct.

  She swore under her breath. Idiot, they don’t print the names of rape victims in the newspaper.

  She typed in “rape victim Wilbourne College” and clicked again.

  Several links came up, and she clicked on the first one.

  LEBANON, N.Y.—A student at Wilbourne College was missing this morning after being raped on the campus late Friday evening, a spokesperson for the college announced today.

  The student was allegedly raped in her dorm room at Bentley Hall by an unknown assailant, according to several other students who witnessed the young woman emerging from her room bloody and in shock.

  “The college is cooperating with the local sheriff’s department as well as with the state police to not only catch the perpetrator of this heinous crime, but to ensure the safety of the other students at the college,” the spokesperson’s statement went on to say.

  Reports that the student had left Lebanon to return to her home in New York City were unconfirmed. Police list her as “missing.”

  The mood in this small college town is tense.

  “This kind of thing just doesn’t happen here,” said Marjorie Pequod, a local resident. “Lebanon is a small town full of Godfearing, law-abiding citizens. We just don’t have crime here—and everyone is on edge now, especially the women. It’s hard for anyone here to even consider that this was done by a local—the general consensus around town is that it was some kind of drifter, passing through town, who wound up on the campus.”

  “If the rapist is a local, we’ll catch him,” Deputy Sheriff Miles Holland stated. “We are working in concert with the state police to catch him. I am confident that we will catch him and bring him to justice.”

  The police are not releasing the name of the victim.

  Sue stared at the computer screen, reading the story over and over. The date was exactly right. Nine months later, Sue was born.

  Finally, she swallowed and went back to the list of search results. She clicked on the other links, but nothing much was new there, just a report that the missing student had indeed returned to her parents’ home in New York and that the assailant had not been found. There were promises that he would be found, but then nothing.

  The people of Lebanon appeared to forget the story.

  Sue decided to print the accounts of her mother’s rape. She closed the browser window as her printer started spitting out pages.

  I have seen my mother’s face in the window of her old dorm room, which people think is haunted. I have seen her face, screaming in the window, like she is trying to warn me about something. But warn me about what? And why? How is it possible that I see her face up there if she is still alive?

  The printer stopped. Sue grabbed the pages and shoved them into her backpack.

  She was getting out of there.

  She packed quickly. She knew her grandparents would soon be knocking at her door. They’d want to find out how her meeting with Joyce had gone. They’d want to tell her more things about her life—a life Sue no longer felt was her own. Her fear outweighed her curiosity.

  I don’t want to know anymore! I just want to get out of here!

  At the last minute, she decided to take the gun her grandfather had given her, wrapping it carefully in cloth and placing it in her backpack.

  She listened at her bedroom door. She could hear the television in the den, and her grandmother saying something to her grandfather. She slipped out into the hallway, and made her way to her grandfather’s home office. Once inside, she carefully closed the door behind her and hurried to the wall behind her grandfather’s massive oak desk. She swung the hinged painting of her grandmother aside, and stretched her arm up to turn the combination lock. As she spun the dial, she heard her grandmother’s voice in her head. Don’t tell your grandfather that I gave you this. There are important papers in here, and what if there’s a fire or something when you’re here and we aren’t?

  Sue heard the click, and turned the handle. The door came open.

  She reached back for the strongbox.

  If ever there’s a fire or something, Sue, and we aren’t here, you’ve got to come in here, open the safe, and take this metal box with you when you get out. It has all of our records in here—birth certificates and so forth, our wills—and they must be rescued. But don’t ever come in here unlessthere’s a fire, and you must never let your grandfather know you know the combination. It’ll be our little secret…

  Sue opened the strongbox.

  Inside were three manila envelopes. One had her name on it. Sue shook the contents out onto the desk top.

  A birth certificate. Hers.

  Sue picked it up and stared at it.

  Mother’s Name: Mariclare Madeleine Barlow.

  Father’s Name: Luke Morgenstern.

  They knew the rapist’s name?

  Luke Morgenstern…

  As realization dawned on her, Sue stifled a scream.

  “No,” she whispered as she stared at the document she was holding with trembling hands.

  The words of Bernadette deSalis came back to her.

  Lucifer Morning Star.

  59

  Ginny wrote it all down in her notebook, everything Sue had told her, about meeting with Joyce Davenport, going back to her grandparents’ apartment, finding the article about the rape online, and discovering the strange name on the birth certificate.

  “I’ve always known somehow that I was different,” Sue had said last night, her voice low.

  Ginny had just stared at her, not knowing what to say.

  “I knew I couldn’t stay in the apartment the rest of the weekend,” Sue continued, oblivious to the expression of shock on Ginny’s face. “I had to get out. I didn’t want to know more. My instinct was just to run away.”

  “And so you did,” Ginny said.

  Sue no
dded. “I wanted to go back to Lebanon. I wanted to see Billy. He was the only one I felt I could trust.”

  “And what were you thinking…about your parents?”

  Sue gave her an odd smile. “I did an Internet search and came up with any number of Luke Morgensterns. Was I thinking that Satan might be my father? Because some crazy girl who’d seen the Virgin Mary said he was? You bet your life that’s what I was thinking. That my mother was raped by the devil.”

  Ginny was speechless, but Sue just laughed.

  “And then I decided it was all too crazy, too much like a bad horror movie, for me to even consider. If I said anything to anyone, I was going to wind up in a padded room right next to my mother. So, I decided that I was acting crazy. There’s no such thing as Satan, right?”

  Sue fell silent.

  “I just wanted to get back to Billy.”

  “You drove back to Wilbourne that night?”

  Sue nodded. “I snuck out of the house. Of course, then the calls started on my cell phone. I never picked it up. Gran and Granpa were frantic. But I made it back to school.”

  “Did you see Billy?”

  Sue’s face darkened. “Oh, yes. I saw Billy.”

  60

  She called him when she was about an hour outside Lebanon.

  “Billy?”

  “Sue!”

  “Billy, I need to see you…”

  “I thought I’d never hear from you again! I’d given up!”

  “You’re the only one I can talk to, Billy. Please. Will you meet me?”

  He’d promised. Enthusiastically. He’d seemed so happy to hear from her.

  Even though he still saw Heidi, nearly every day…

  Driving back to Lebanon, Sue felt the urge just to give in to her feelings. Why not? If I want Billy, take him. If it means Heidi croaks, who the hell cares? I don’t know her. Get rid of the bitch so she won’t come around hounding my man anymore…

  Dear God, Sue thought. Now I sound like Joyce Davenport.

  “You have a bright and wonderful future ahead of you,” Joyce had told her.

  Sue sensed she might indeed—if she wanted it.

  Why am I so afraid? I have powers. I can do things. I shouldn’t be afraid.

  Other people should be afraid of me.

  She drove directly to town, not even bothering to stop at the college first. Billy promised to meet her at the Yellow Bird.

  “Sue,” he’d told her on the phone, “you don’t know how glad I am that you called. I’ve been thinking about you all the time. I really started to like you a lot, Sue, and then you stopped returning my calls…”

  “We can be together now, Billy,” she told him. “Meet me at the Bird. I need you. I need to be with you.”

  She sat in the booth she always took—the one nearest the front door. Marjorie recognized her, and brought her a vanilla shake without Sue even needing to ask for it. She took a sip and looked out the window, waiting for Billy. The snow was nearly all melted now. A bit of a warming spell had settled over the town after that early snowfall. Water dripped from the roof above. The sidewalks were wet.

  For a moment, Sue imagined she was just a girl—just a girl like she’d been when she first came to this place. Innocent. No worries. Just a girl meeting her boyfriend for a shake, and maybe a walk holding hands through town.

  Now—what was she?

  “Hello, Sue.”

  She looked up. It wasn’t Billy.

  It was Bernadette deSalis.

  “How did you know I was here?” Sue asked bluntly.

  The girl smiled. “Just like I think you knew that I’d be here, too.”

  “No,” Sue said. “I didn’t know you’d be here. I’m waiting for someone else.”

  “He’ll be along.”

  Sue eyed her cannily. “How do you know who I’m waiting for?”

  “Just like you know certain things, Sue. Please, may I sit down?”

  “Go ahead,” Sue said. “There are a few things I’d like to ask you.”

  “I imagined you’d want to eventually,” Bernadette said, as she slid into the booth opposite Sue.

  “What can I get you, Bernie?” Marjorie asked, approaching the table.

  Bernadette smiled up at her. “I’ll have the same thing she’s having, thanks.”

  After Marjorie moved away, Sue glared at the girl across from her. Bernadette’s dark hair was pulled tightly away from her face in a ponytail. Her eyes seemed to bulge. “How did you know my mother was alive?” Sue asked.

  “I told you, Sue. I know things the same way you know things.”

  “Well, apparently it’s a little different. You’ve seen the Virgin Mary, but my father happens to be Lucifer Morning Star.”

  Bernadette laughed. “I guess that means we were destined to meet.” Marjorie placed her shake in front of her. “And share vanilla milk shakes!”

  “So you believe I’m the devil’s daughter.”

  Bernadette nodded. “The Antichrist,” she said matter-of-factly, taking a sip of her shake.

  “This is crazy!” Sue’s voice was loud. Several people in the diner turned to look at her.

  “Have you ever read the Book of Revelation?” Bernadette kept smiling. “Believe me, Sue, I’m not here to convert you or anything. I’m asking you for a reason.”

  “Yes, I’ve read Revelation. For Dr. Marshall’s class, in fact.”

  “But not the full version? I suppose not. We can get you a copy…”

  Sue laughed. “Who’s we?”

  “Father Ortiz and I. You’ve met him.”

  Sue nodded. “Yes. He was sitting right where you are.”

  Bernadette leaned across the table. “Sue,” she whispered. “We want to help you. It’s not too late—it’s never too late—and you can thwart the plans of those who plan to use you.”

  “Who wants to use me?” Sue stared at her. “Why should I trust you any more than I trust someone else?”

  “Do you trust Joyce Davenport?”

  “As much as I trust you. Which is zero.”

  “The seeds of evil are in you, Sue,” Bernadette said, shaking her head. “But it’s through no fault of your own. You can reject your destiny. Even Christ had the ability to refuse his calling. He could have succumbed to temptation and not fulfilled his ordained role. The Antichrist will also have free will…”

  “I’m a freshman in college! I’m not the Antichrist!”

  A man in the next booth turned and looked at her, made a face, then turned back around.

  “This town has a long and ugly history, Sue,” Bernadette told her. “So does the college. And you’re in danger. I want to help you, because it’s not too late to change things. You know the truth about your mother now, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Sue managed to croak the word out.

  “Go see her.”

  “My mother…”

  “Get in your car and go.” Bernadette’s voice was urgent. “Don’t go back to the campus. It’s starting, Sue. You have to get out of town.”

  The bell over the door jingled.

  Sue looked up.

  Billy.

  Her heart raced.

  She wanted to jump and run to him. She wanted to fold herself into his arms and forget all this madness.

  Billy! It was so good to see him again.

  A wide smile crossed his handsome face as he spotted her. He beamed.

  “I’ll leave the two of you alone,” Bernadette said, standing, taking her shake with her.

  “Hey, Bernie,” Billy said as he approached. “What you doing here?”

  “Just saying hello to Sue,” she told him as she moved off.

  Billy sat down. “Did she upset you?”

  “No,” Sue said.

  Billy smiled again. “Goddamn, Sue. It is so good to see you. I’ve missed you. I really have.”

  She stared at him. “Have you?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Have you missed me?”

  “Yes,” she
admitted, averting her eyes.

  “So now we can be together again. That’s what you said, right?”

  She had said that. And she’d meant it. She’d wanted it. Needed it.

  But it wasn’t right. She cared about Billy. She might even love him. But what kind of relationship could she have with him now?

  “I really started to like you, too, Billy,” Sue said, looking again at him, at his soft, kind eyes. “I want you to know that.”

  His smile flickered, but didn’t fade. “Don’t say that in the past tense.”

  Sue looked away again.

  “You said you needed me, Sue. It seemed like something was wrong. Are you okay?”

  Her eyes misted with tears. “I’ve found something out about myself, Billy.”

  She moved her eyes back to his.

  Their gaze locked.

  “What, Sue?” he asked. “What did you find out?”

  “Look into my eyes, Billy,” she said. “What do you see?”

  She could see so much by looking into Billy’s eyes. She could see how much he loved her. She could see how much he had missed her.

  And now, she saw how much he feared her.

  “What do you see in my eyes, Billy?”

  In the booth across from her, Billy stiffened. His face went white.

  “What is it, Billy?” Sue asked.

  Her voice was calm. She knew the answer to her question.

  “Sue,” Billy said in a low voice.

  “Tell me what you see, Billy.”

  Suddenly, he gasped. He gripped the side of the table, unable to tear his eyes away from what he saw in her face.

  “Do you still love me, Billy?” Sue asked.

  She no longer recognized the sound of her voice.

  Billy let out a sound. He whipped his face away from her eyes, then jumped from the booth. Stumbling across the floor of the diner, he looked back at her.

  “You…” His voice trailed off. “You’re not Sue.”