G is for Ghosts

by Rhonda Parrish

  When Julie passed out, I woke up, gasping for air.

  I suppose before I go any further I should tell you about the missing girls.

  Jennifer Staples was first, like I said. She had straight black hair—ridiculously shiny—and teeth as straight as newly erected fence posts. She was a cheerleader for the football team and had been the co-captain of the volleyball team the previous year. At first people thought she’d run away, although her parents always said that was ridiculous. Girls like her didn’t run away.

  Kim Fitzgerald was next. Blond. Short and petite but cute as could be. She was smart, taking all AP classes and working as the editor-in-chief of the yearbook. She wore glasses and had this pretty nerd-girl vibe that all the boys loved. They all wanted to go out with her, but they were too intimidated by her brains.

  Next was Julie Ross, who wasn’t rich or particularly popular like the other girls. She wore leather jackets and short denim skirts. She smoked—pot and cigarettes. But she had one thing in common with Kim and Jennifer. She was drop-dead gorgeous. They all were.

  Of course, when I look at pictures of them now, in my old scrapbooks, they look so incredibly young. But at the time, they were all older than me, and I thought they all looked like women.

  I felt the same way about Candace Wardlow.

  That’s why I wasn’t surprised when she went missing two days after our race.

  Mom and Dad didn’t even bother talking to me about it. With the other girls, Dad had at least asked if I knew them. But they knew the answer with Candace. They were so preoccupied with their own messes that they weren’t paying much attention to me.

  Mr. and Mrs. G listened, though.

  “Coach asked me to race in the meet,” I said. “It feels weird.”

  We were sitting on the porch while Mr. G rototilled a patch of the garden. The machine was loud, but not so loud that she and I couldn’t talk.

  “Life is strange sometimes,” Mrs. G said to me. “I know this isn’t how you wanted to get your chance. But think about your teammates. You have to do your best for them. And if you think of it like you’re doing the race for Candace, then maybe that will give you a different perspective.”

  I told her I guessed so, but I didn’t really think that way. I wasn’t sleeping well. Every night was some kind of nightmare—inhabiting one of the girls as an attacker threw a cloth of some kind over their heads, stinking of chemicals, before they fell unconscious.

  I was listless, tired. Even though I started the summer puttering around the house and garden with Mr. and Mrs. G, I started asking them if I could watch TV all day instead. They had a cavernous basement, the walls lined with books and records and old VHS tapes. No matter how hot it was outside, it was always cold in that basement. I’d lie down there on an old couch, wrapped in a blanket, and watch old movies.

  “You think she’s okay?” I heard Mr. G ask Mrs. G about me.

  “She’s a teenager,” she said. “She’s stuck with a couple of old folks all day. She should be out having fun with friends.”

  “Does she have any friends?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Mr. and Mrs. G were my only friends. And, yes, I did wish I had girls my age to talk to. Or boys. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the nightmares and the looming dread that girls were going missing. And that I was growing up enough that I might be next.

  My times lagged at practice. But everyone’s did. The whole team was depressed, worried about Candace, wondering if they should cancel the meet. Coach finally said Candace would want us to race.

  The night before the big meet, you’d think I wouldn’t sleep because of anxiety, but I didn’t really care at that point. I had no chance of winning, so why should I be worried? I drifted off easily, and that night I dreamed I was Candace. And the dream I had was of our race—the competition where I came in third behind her and Libby. Candace stood at the edge of the water, ready to dive in. She was aware of me in the row next to her, more afraid of me, actually, than Libby. She gave me a sideways glance, and I can’t tell you how strange it felt to look at myself through someone else’s eyes. I could see the woman I was becoming, see the strength of my potential. Candace was intimidated by me. I would be a better swimmer than Candace, definitely better than Libby. Candace only hoped that she could hold me off one year. Then she’d say goodbye to swimming, go to college, do something else with her life. But she wanted this last waltz—one last meet where she was the best.

  She dove into the water, stroked underneath, pushed to the surface, and blasted away with her breast stroke. It felt different to swim in her body. I could feel the difference in our technique, and I knew—in the dream—that I was the stronger swimmer than her.

  I just hadn’t realized it at the time.

  As Candace slammed her hand into the wall at the finish, she looked over underwater to see me finish only seconds behind her—so close to Libby that it could have been called either way. Candace slid up out of the pool, gave me a polite, respectful nod, but inside she was celebrating.

  I woke up in the morning ready to race. And when I lined up next to all the other racers, I was laser focused. They were all older than me. All veterans like Candace and Libby.

  But none of them stood a chance.

  I finished two body lengths ahead of my closest competitor.

  Mom and Dad hadn’t bothered to come to the meet—things had really deteriorated by then—but they both looked disappointed in themselves that they’d missed it. Dad held my ribbon and looked at it for a long time. Mom’s voice broke and she said to my father, “We can’t go on like this.”

  “I know,” he said. “As soon as we solve this case, things will be different.”

  “That could be years,” Mom snapped, slamming her hand down on the table. “We came here for a better life.”

  “How was I supposed to know a serial killer would pop up as soon as we got here?”

  “You’re never home,” she said. “You’d rather be working than spending time with us.”

  “I’m trying to keep these girls safe.”

  Mom gestured to the newspaper on the table, the lead article about the fear consuming the community about the disappearances.

  “You’re doing a bang-up job,” she said.

  I thought this comment would make Dad mad. This was about the most hurtful thing she could probably say to him, and I expected him to shout, throw something, maybe even smack her. But he just looked hurt, like a scolded puppy. When I picture him like that—handling such harsh criticism so calmly—it’s hard to imagine him snapping and killing anyone. But of course I saw that side of him later, too.

  “Speaking of work,” he said calmly, “why don’t we talk about what’s going on at your job?”

  I left them to fight. I snuck out by the cornfield—the stalks taller than me now—and found Mr. and Mrs. G sitting on their porch. The sun had just disappeared, and in the gloom of twilight, fireflies were swimming through the air.

  I sat down on their porch and sobbed.

  “I think my parents are going to get a divorce,” I said.

  Everything felt like it was about to change. Swim season was over. School was going to start in a week. Mom and Dad were on the verge of splitting up. And the dreams I was having were getting worse and worse.

  Mrs. G just rubbed my back and let me cry.

  Two days before school began, Mom told me she was moving out. I could come with her if I wanted to. She said she was going to be staying with a friend, and when I asked about who the friend was, she explained that it was Mr. Barnes, her boss.

  “Are you having an affair with him?” I asked, the question so ludicrous I didn’t take it seriously myself.

  But she wouldn’t deny it, and suddenly I realized what was going on.

  “Things are complicated,” she said. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

  I flew into a rage—the kind of rage I had exp
ected my father to go into. I yelled at her. I cried. I told her to get out. There was no way in hell I was going to move in with her and her boyfriend.

  I was staying with Dad.

  She left me alone, told me to lock the doors behind her. Dad was gone who knew where and for how long, and I was alone for the first time in months. The emptiness of the house felt claustrophobic, and I almost ran outside along the cornfield to Mr. and Mrs. G’s house to spend the night there. I wonder how things might have turned out if I had.

  Instead, I paced the house and cried and tried to watch TV and finally drifted off to sleep on the couch waiting for my father to come home.

  In the dream that night, I was Candace. A bag was over my head. Whatever drug had knocked me out was wearing off slowly. I lay on carpet on a hard floor—concrete, not wood—and my muscles wouldn’t work. The air was cold. I was awake, but I couldn’t get up.

  “I think she’s awake,” I heard a voice say, muffled, like my head was underwater.

  “I doubt that,” another voice said, this one deeper, calmer.

  “Listen to her breathing,” said the first. “It’s changed.”

  The bag was pulled off my head. The light was harsh. Blurry.

  A face came out of the brightness—distorted, rippling. The features were out of focus, like looking through glasses that were the wrong prescription. Candace felt she had seen the person before but couldn’t place from where.

  “There, there,” a voice said peacefully, placing a chemical-soaked cloth back over my mouth. “Go back to sleep, Sweetie. You’re not going to want to be awake for this.”

  The rag was over my mouth, but I tried to focus. The person’s feature’s blurred in and out of visibility. The face took the shape of some of the fathers at swim practice. Then it was my father. Then the image before me solidified, taking on a sharp unmistakable vividness.

  Mr. G.

  I woke up, gasping for air, clawing at my neck and my face to find no bag over my head.

  Instead, Dad was there, telling me it had just been a bad dream. I sobbed and hugged him. I’d hardly seen him lately—had felt so distant from him—but knowing Mom was leaving him gave me renewed affection for him.

  “Tell me about your dream,” he said, his voice so calm that I realized how much I missed him in my life.

  “I’ve been having dreams about the girls,” I said. “Candace and Jennifer and the others.”

  “Oh, Kara Bear,” he said, using a nickname for me he hadn’t in years. “I’m sorry.”

  He hugged me for a long time, letting me calm down, then he asked me to tell him about the dreams. I said at first they were just dreams of the girls doing ordinary things, brushing their hair, listening to music, or, in the case of Candace, swimming. But then I dreamed that someone had thrown a bag over their heads, the fabric stinking of chemicals like paint thinner.

  His eyes narrowed, and I grew frightened of the change in his expression.

  “You dreamed that?” he asked, and when I nodded my head, he told me to tell him more. What the girls were wearing.

  Jennifer was in pajama pants and a large Minnie Mouse T-shirt.

  Julie was wearing jeans and a red blouse.

  Kim wasn’t wearing anything—she’d been taken in the bathtub. She’d been reading paperback book that fell into the water as she thrashed against her attacker.

  “What was the book?” Dad asked.

  I closed my eyes, saw the book sinking in the water as I was dragged out of the tub.

  “Of Mice and Men,” I said, and my dad recoiled as if he’d been watching a horror movie and the killer jumped out from behind a doorway.

  Dad paced around, visibly shaken. I’d never seen him like this. His whole body vibrated with energy. Fear seemed to seep out of his skin and fill the air like an invisible poison gas.

  “Did you see who did it?” he asked. “Who took them?”

  “It was just a dream, Dad,” I said.

  “Did you see him!”

  I didn’t want to say that as the blurry face came into focus, it resembled different people I knew. I didn’t want to tell him that he was one of those faces. So I just said, “Mr. G.”

  He stared at me, his eyes so intense I had to look down.

  “It was just a dream,” I said again.

  He picked up the phone and asked to speak to my mom. The person on the other end was saying something and Dad snapped, “I don’t care about your fucking apologies. Put my wife on the phone.”

  He told her to come home and stay with me for the day. When she arrived, dawn was breaking and sunlight was seeping in through the windows. I sat on the couch, my arms wrapped around my legs, almost catatonic, as my parents fought in the other room.

  “She knew details that no one can know,” Dad said from the other room, trying to keep his voice low, although I could still hear. “Like the book.”

  “I bet the book is required reading for all the seniors,” Mom said. “Who reads Steinbeck for fun? Kara probably saw some of the girls reading it at the pool.”

  “The book was found in the bathtub,” he said. “Water was all over the floor. No details of the crime scene were ever released. How could she know that?”

  “The family probably talked about it,” Mom said. “Word gets around in a town like this.”

  “I need to get a warrant,” Dad said.

  “Don’t try to pin this on those poor old people.”

  “Jennifer was wearing a necklace when she went missing. I’ll tell Judge Spicer that Kara saw it. He owes me a favor.”

  I’d heard enough. I ran into the kitchen and started shouting at my dad.

  “It was just a dream!” I said. “Leave Mr. and Mrs. G alone!”

  Dad tried to hug me but I batted his arms away.

  “Just keep her here,” Dad said to Mom. “Don’t let her go over there.”

  “They’re going to wonder where she is,” Mom says.

  “Don’t let her go over there!” Dad shouted, and he ran out the door.

  All day Mom and I paced the house, waiting for some word from Dad, looking out the windows for some sign of police cars screeching down the road. The window over the sink in the kitchen faced the direction of the Gardners, but two other houses obstructed our view. We couldn’t see much.

  Finally, in the late afternoon, a string of police cars came down the street, their lights off, their sirens silent. Dad’s unmarked car was with them, as was an SUV with K-9 stenciled on the side and a big van that I knew had a bunch of crime scene stuff in it. Mom went out on the porch to get a better look. When I joined her, I saw Dad and a bunch of cops knocking on the door. Mrs. G answered, looking confused. Dad showed her a piece of paper, and she opened the door for Dad and his colleagues.

  Mrs. G glanced our way—I wasn’t sure if she saw us—and Mom said, “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

  I couldn’t stop shaking. Something about this felt all wrong. Mr. and Mrs. G were innocent. I knew that. But I thought my dad might do something to put an end to the investigation. He and Mom had been fighting. She’d said they couldn’t go on like this. What if he could end the investigation right now? Save his marriage?

  I pictured him taking the necklace he mentioned out of his pocket and hiding it somewhere. I’d seen enough TV shows to know cops did that kind of stuff—plant evidence when they didn’t have it.

  In the scenario I imagined, it didn’t occur to me to wonder how Dad would have gotten the necklace if it was supposed to be missing.

  Sometime after dark, a neighbor knocked on our door and started chatting with Mom. She’d seen the police cars, of course, and they knew my dad was a cop, so naturally they thought Mom would know what’s going on. She didn’t let on that she knew anything, but she joined the neighbor on the front porch to watch. More police cars were out there now, with cops going in and out of the house. Soon a few other neighbors joined and Mom was preoccupied by hosting all these onl
ookers on our porch.

  I realized this was a good time to sneak away.

  I opened the backdoor quietly, then hurried through the grass into the cornfield. Instead of walking along the path, I stepped into the rows. The night was humid, the rough leaves of the corn growing wet with dew. I found a place where I could see over the Gardners’ waist-high fence but remain hidden. The backyard was blazing with floodlights and activity. A generator providing electricity for the lights chugged noisily. Men were digging up the garden while another officer stood back holding a German Shepherd on a leash.

  I started to cry, seeing Mr. and Mrs. G’s garden torn up like that. The plants had all been ripped out of the ground and discarded into a pile. Larger pieces of plants were visible in the darkened soil. Dad was standing on the porch, overseeing what was happening. I glared at him, hating him for what he was doing to the people who’d been more like parents to me lately than he had.

  One of the diggers called to him. With gloved hands, the man held up a clump of dirt the size of a volleyball, with a mop of roots hanging from it. He turned the mass this way and that, and I made out what looked like an eye socket and an open mouth full of soil. With dawning horror, I realized that what I thought had been roots hanging were actually tangled strands of hair.

  The large pieces of plants still in the garden were body parts—limbs and fingers and ribs that had already been unearthed.

  I slapped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. It made sense to me in a rush. The girls had been buried in the garden, fertilizer for the plants and vegetables I’d been eating all summer. Mr. G had been rototilling a new section of the garden right after Candace’s disappearance, not because the soil needed tilled but because he needed to hide the spot that had been freshly dug.

  All summer, I’d been eating vegetables that had been grown from plants whose roots intertwined the remains of the missing girls. And the dreams…