Pseudocide: Sometimes you have to Die to survive: A Twisty Journey of Suspense and Second Chances

by A. K. Smith

  I almost fall off my stool; my fingers grip the counter to steady myself. I was so into thinking about the baby and eating, I didn’t even pay attention to the television mounted behind the counter. Filling the television screen, there is a photograph of Eric. In slow motion, the light in the restaurant dims, I hear the news anchors voice.

  “A shooting rampage in this small Pennsylvania town left 29 people dead, 25 students and 4 adults. Two missing students are believed to be dead. Friday’s shooting became the second-deadliest school related shooting in U.S. history.”

  I have to get out of here. My legs are shaking. Breathe. Focus. As I exhale, a sheen of sweat emerges from my pores. Wetness pools under my shirt. I don’t want to pass out. Hudson touches me and the darkness fades.

  “Hannah?”

  Yes, I’m Hannah, not Sunday.

  “May I have a sip of your water?” I say, trying to control the tremor in my voice. Hudson has to hear it.

  Hudson holds his glass in his hand, eyes still glued to the television. He passes it to me. “Sure, Hannah, are you okay?”

  The glass shakes in my hand, the water inside the glass looks like a wave. I attempt to take a sip. “Yes, I think maybe too much junk food on the bus. I’m going to take a walk, I’m not really hungry right this minute.” Afraid to stand up, I force myself to exhale the tight air in my chest. Using the little grit I possess, I dig in my backpack, grab a ten-dollar bill, and force my mouth up in a smile. “Would you mind ordering me a cup of soup to go with some Saltine crackers?”

  Hudson takes the bill from my hand, studying my face. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look white as a ghost.”

  “I’m fine.” I am no longer an Oscar-worthy actress. “I just need to move, walk around, and get some air. I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”

  Back on the bus, Hudson doesn’t utter a word. When he’s about to speak, he stops. He stares at me. I pretend not to notice. Does he recognize me from pictures blasting on the news?

  The soup is still in its container, cold by now. I open the Saltines, and for the baby, I force a bite.

  “Hannah, I think I figured it out,” he says.

  My heart accelerates. I suck in my breath, almost choking on the Saltines.

  “I don’t mean to get in your business, but did you know someone from that school?” he asks.

  “What?” I answer quickly, the dry crumbs of the bland cracker stuck in my throat. I’m coughing Saltines everywhere. I take a sip of water, calming myself down. “No, did you?”

  “No. I didn’t know anyone. But when you saw the shooter, you started shaking and turned white as a sheet.”

  The shooting was real. I know it really happened, but seeing it on the news reinforced reality. Nothing about this minute, this hour, this day, makes sense. For a minute in time, I was trying to be someone else, somewhere else, a false existence. Sunday Foster is missing as the news anchor stated, but soon, if all goes to plan, I’ll be declared one of the casualties.

  Faking my death, was my PLAN. Yes, it’s what I wanted, but not like this. It was just supposed to be MY tragedy down by the beach. This is a nightmare. Most of all, I need to know if Jack’s alive or dead. My heart tells me he is alive, but I need to be certain.

  I need to get online.

  Hudson is patient, adding nothing else, waiting for my response.

  “It does shake me up: some high school kid takes a gun to a school outing and shoots kids on a river. I mean, they need to do something. It happens too much. I mean, why? I can’t believe no one noticed he was going to snap.”

  “Someone had to know he was sick or violent. They mentioned radical terrorism; maybe ISIS got to him. Usually, they will find some clue on his social media. Some manifesto.” Hudson bends down and fiddles with his backpack, digging for something.

  “ISIS, they mentioned ISIS? Why?” I can’t imagine Eric writing a manifesto.

  “Something about a magazine his parents turned over to the police.”

  I think about the zombie death game Eric played with Amir. Was that a sign? Radical terrorism? Should I have noticed something? Eric had an American flag. Why an American Flag? None of it makes sense.

  Thinking about Eric makes me want to throw up again. I just thought he was a lost kid, a bullied nerd. Who was I to judge? I mean, what about his parents? No one knows what goes on behind closed doors: trust me. I think about Amir again, wondering how he is holding up. He plays the zombie killing game, as well. Did Amir ever suspect what Eric was up to? I can’t imagine what Amir must be thinking and going through right now. It makes me cringe, imagining him being picked on. After all his help, I’m not there to help him. For a minute, I wish everything was like it was a month ago, me sitting by the creek, Amir throwing rocks and everyone alive at school.

  I know the best thing is that Amir thinks I’m a casualty of the shooting. I know it will hurt him, but Amir can’t know I’m alive. Amir is tougher than he looks. The Saltines are smashed in pieces all over the tray table. In pieces, that’s me. I eat the ones I can and clean the rest up and throw them in the bag with the soup.

  Hudson has an iPad mini and the bus has Wi-Fi. I can’t take not knowing. I need to know about Jack. I need to see the names of the victims.

  “Can we look up the story on your iPad?”

  “My battery’s dead, but I just checked the Wi-Fi on my phone. It’s not working.”

  “Okay. I don’t really want to think about it anyway.” I force my lips to smile, my stomach broadcasting nausea and a dull pain thumping in my head. “Tell me more about Vegas.” I need to think about anything but the shooting. I need Hudson’s soft low tone and cheerfulness to take me away from the horrific images circling in my mind.

  We pass an old cemetery and it makes me think of Hannah’s grave. The real Hannah Williams. Hudson notices my fixation on the roadside graveyard.

  “Rod Stewart’s first job as a teenager was a grave digger in Highgate Cemetery in London. Can you imagine doing that?” Hudson lines up little chocolate doughnuts on a napkin on his tray table.

  “No, I can’t imagine.” I turn quiet, picturing the green grass and slanted hill of the West Virginia cemetery Amir and I had visited. Amir. At least I knew he was okay, since he didn’t go on the school trip. I put on my headphones. Hudson offers me a doughnut and his phone playlist to listen to music.

  Music has a smell. I’m listening to Sweet Home Alabama and I’m taken back to Jack’s kitchen, Marcia baking homemade bread mixed in with the odor of dryer sheets from the laundry, the scent of the family I coveted.

  As the bus pulls into St Louis, Missouri, an American flag billows in the wind. A flash of a flag wrapped around a gun, washes away the smell of my good memory, and ignites anxiety deep in my chest, tiny beads of sweat form under my hair. Eric had an American flag wrapped around his gun. How could he be an ISIS follower? It makes no sense. For a moment, I smell the smoke of the gunfire. I practice breathing slow small breaths as I take the earbuds out and unplug them from Hudson’s phone. Sweet Home Alabama will never smell the same again.

  “Are you done listening to music?”

  I nod.

  “You’re looking funny again,” he says, “maybe you need some more food?” Hudson takes his phone and puts it away, and offers up a bag of mixed nuts.

  “Sure.”

  “Another stop’s coming up. Do you know why it’s called the ‘Gateway to the West’?”

  “No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  Hudson laughs and chatters away as he proceeds to tell me a funny story about him and his mother touring the St. Louis Arch. His warm eyes glisten with sparkly happiness as he describes his mother. I can’t relate, but maybe someday, with my child, I’ll understand.

  “The Gateway to the West” stop (Hudson’s trivia fact of the day for St. Louis) allows the passengers two hours and ten minutes for dinner.

  “Want to grab a real meal in the restaurant?” Hudson asks.

  I hesitate
because I want the company but there are things I need to do. Alone. “I’ll catch you back on the bus. I need to make some calls.”

  Hudson shrugs, “Okay “

  I am on a hunt to find a newspaper and locate a store where I can buy a tablet. I don’t have any credit cards, which actually makes me laugh out loud, thinking about HE and SHE surviving without credit cards. However, I have three prepaid credit gift cards for emergency situations. My money is hidden in my shoes, and some in the backpack. I carry it with me on and off the bus.

  A tablet isn’t an emergency, but it seems like a good investment. I can follow the news, look for jobs, and create my fake resume. There will be no digital footprint on my tablet unless someone confiscates it, and it will be Hannah’s tablet. I hate to admit it, but living for two days without any technology is strange. Wi-Fi spots are everywhere, so I don’t need a service contract, and I have my relic burner phones in the back pack that I can activate if I need to make a call. But who would I call? I can’t call Amir or Jack. Jack. Saying his name is like a knife in my gut. Please be alive and okay.

  The area around the bus station does not look touristy. The air smells foul with trash strewn on the ground, graffiti on the walls, and boarded-up buildings down the street. I hug my backpack closer. I need to find a store where I can buy some type of tablet. The Greyhound bus worker told me there’s an Office Depot less than three miles away, and a city bus is coming in ten minutes. Perfect.

  “Can you hurry? I’m trying to catch the bus back to the station,” I ask, sizing up the slowest clerk in the world, at Office Depot.

  “Too late, it just pulled out,” he says matter-of-factly in a monotone voice. He continues slowly taking the stickers and security band off my Kindle Fire and activates the code. I want to grab it from him and yell, HURRY but I can’t. There is only one thing on my mind.

  My heart races, I’m laser focused on the new tablet in my hand as I sit on the curb, outside the store. I need to know about Jack, now. Thank God, Office Depot has Wi-Fi.

  I completely forget about the bus, transfixed by every news report I read.

  Eric is dead.

  He shot himself as the police tried to apprehend him.

  Jack, my sweet and loving Jack, is not listed as injured, dead or missing. Thank you, God, I silently pray. I read the list of names five times, and tears of joy and relief roll down my face. I’m elated for a minute and then, with my head in my hands, I cry for the kids who are on the list: the Dream Team, the Hard Liquor Boys, our National Honor Society advisor and English teacher, Mr. Alexander, and two Ohiopyle whitewater instructors. My grief racks my shoulders, my face slick with tears. A keening sound startles me. I stop crying and realize it is me. I’m making that sound. I try to stop to avoid drawing more attention to myself as I gulp for air. Sunday always held it together, but Hannah: she’s a basket case.

  I need to stop. Now.

  My head between my knees I’m trying to catch my breath. I smell something sweet and can feel someone is there.

  An older, pretty blonde woman bends down beside me, gently touching my hunched-over shoulder.

  “Honey, are you okay? Do you need help?” She inches forward. There is true kindness in her eyes. Even through my swollen eyes, I can see something resembling compassion. For a split second, I think: yes. What if I spit out the whole story? Tell her everything, and go back to Jack. Can I go to Ed and Marcia’s house? Would they help me?

  No, HE would never allow the pregnancy. I can’t imagine the explosion that would erupt or how I would be able to get away from them and raise the baby. I’ve gone too far. I wouldn’t know how to explain any of this. What if they think I had something to do with the shooting?

  Hannah and Sunday fight with each other in my head.

  Call Jack.

  Jack is Sunday’s, not Hannah’s. I want Jack’s arm around me. I am Sunday. No one but Hudson knows Hannah.

  I must be losing my mind, but who can blame me. I can’t explain any of this. The brown hair, the escape to the greyhound bus, leaving the scene of a school shooting. They’ll think I had something to do with it. I can’t go back because of the baby. The life inside me deserves an environment of love.

  I bring out the actress, wipe the tears off my face and attempt a smile. “I’m fine. I just need a cab to get back to the bus station. I missed my bus.”

  The kind woman cocks her head and looks me in my brown contact eyes, “The bus station? Like the Greyhound station down the road?”

  “Yes, my bus leaves in ten minutes.”

  She pulls a tissue out of her purse, passes it to me, and offers me her hand. “I’ll give you a ride.” She steers me to her car, not taking no for an answer. A gold cross twirls from her rearview mirror. She seems genuinely concerned.

  Wiping my face with the tiny pack of pink baby powder scented tissues, I clean myself up in her front seat and in minutes she pulls up in front of the bus station.

  The woman meets my eyes once again. “Can I help?”

  I study this compassionate stranger with small wrinkles around her lavender-blue eyes, sitting in her red Prius with a stack of grocery coupons in the cup holder.

  For some reason, I want to assure her I’m okay.

  “No, I’m just missing my boyfriend. He broke up with me. I’m going back home to California because he doesn’t love me. He wouldn’t even take me to the bus station. I thought he was the one.”

  She seems satisfied with my reply, then puts her hand on my arm, the one that is cut. I hold back my yelp. “Just remember this. If you love something, set it free; if it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it was never meant to be.”

  “Thank you.” I open the car door wanting to believe every magical word she says.

  The bus is starting to smell like rotten eggs and gasoline, plus the toilets are gross. I don’t feel like talking right now, and Hudson somehow gets this and has EarPods in. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his chin drop. For the next ten hours, I try to sleep. When exhaustion takes over, nausea wakes me up. We don’t have another long break until morning, when we arrive in Denver, Colorado.

  The sun wakes me, and my contacts feel stuck to my eyeballs. It’s a clear day with turquoise-blue skies and I can see the stunning Rocky Mountains out the dirty bus window. The enormous jagged rocks jutting up to the sky are beautiful and massive. I realize that what I’d always hoped for, actually existed. Big skies and beautiful mountains. This was a far cry from the green hills and city streets of Baltimore with space to roam. It feels like the further West we travel, the bigger the sky gets. More space to breathe.

  “So, this is Denver? It’s so beautiful,” I say.

  “It’s a great city, but you should see the mountain towns. Madeline Albright’s first job was a bra clerk at a Denver department store.” Hudson lifts his eyebrows with a cocky grin.

  I can’t help but laugh. “Who knows this stuff? And who is Madeline Albright?

  “Who is Madeline Albright? She was Secretary of State from 1997-2001.” Hudson pops a mint into his mouth and offers me one.

  “Of course you would know that.” I say, as I plop the mint in my smiling mouth.

  The battery is dead in my Kindle Fire. I’m hoping to find a place to charge it in the bus station and clean up in the bathroom. My colored contacts are killing my already red, bloodshot eyes, but of course I can’t take them out. I put my sunglasses on.

  Every seat in sight has a half-asleep traveler. Tablet charged, I sit in a corner on the floor. I have some time to myself. Hudson proclaimed he is tired of sitting, and left to go walk outside. News reports, there’s dozens of them. Sunday Foster is presumed dead, lost in the river. Everyone else has now been accounted for. I hate that I secretly wish someone else would be missing, so it wouldn’t just be me, but I’m sure their families have comfort in knowing the truth. If I had parents who cared, the pain of not knowing if your child was alive or dead would be awful. Jack, Ed and Marcia. Maybe someday they w
ill forget all about me. I feel terrible I caused them a shred of pain.

  My junior year school picture, which I hate, is on every news site. The only positive thing about the picture is, my hair appears long, straight and very blonde, and my eyes are vibrant blue, even though they look far too big for my face. I’m sort of smiling, and I look happy. Real happy, not fake happy.

  Jack had stood behind the photographer, making faces. I worry about people recognizing me, but when I look in the bathroom mirror, I barely know myself, and I’m certainly not smiling.

  Cutting my hair brought out curls and thickness, I never realized existed. My short, dark hair has a certain messiness, my face is thinner, and the dark circles under my eyes look even darker reflecting off my dark brown eyes. The girl splashed across the internet, has morphed into another person entirely, she no longer exists.

  Hannah Williams, a sad, curly-haired brunette liar, is eighteen, pregnant, and free.

  Chapter 13

  Blood, Truth, and Facebook

  The cramping starts around 8:30 p.m.: a sharp pain in my stomach and my pelvic area. I try to ignore it, pushing the discomfort out of my mind. At around 11:00 p.m., I’m in severe agony. I nudge Hudson, sleeping in the aisle seat, to let me out to go to the bathroom.

  I’m bleeding. Bright red. We don’t have another stop longer than five minutes until we reach Las Vegas. Exhausted, in pain, and dirty like a little kid playing in the woods, I fight like a soldier to stop the tears from coming. Suck it up, Sunday. I make pads out of rough toilet paper folded five times. No, suck it up, Hannah. What should I do? I want to give up. I want to talk to Jack. For once in my life, I just want things to go my way, and again, it isn’t happening. The bus pulls into Las Vegas at 2:45 a.m.

  Hudson bounces awake, his mouth spreading to a wide grin, excited about arriving in his new home. In goes the gum, and the offer to me. He barely notices my struggle, his positive energy bouncing off the windows. I force a smile, take the gum, and tie my hoodie around my waist. I’m a pro now at masking reality.