The Lost Girls

by Sonia Hartl

  Until I came back to the town where it all began.

  “I need some air,” I said.

  I went out to the fire escape adjacent to Rose’s bedroom and took a seat, dangling my legs through the rusty steel bars. Rose had turned the balcony into a little oasis, with box gardens tied to the balcony spires and huge pots overflowing with bright flowers bursting with color. The back alley didn’t offer much of a view, just the tin roof of the apartment across the way, broken bottles, and a few stubbed-out cigarettes that had blown into a pile of dead leaves, but this was the first place where I felt like I could breathe since I had died. If we managed to pull this off and actually kill Elton, then what? Would I just go back to aimlessly wandering, taking part-time jobs and living out of shitty motels? I couldn’t stand the idea of going back to that.

  The window opened behind me, and Rose joined me, leaning against the rail on her elbows with her back to the alley. “What a day.”

  “It’s been something.” I rested my forehead against the metal bars, letting the minutes tick by as I sat in the comfortable quiet with Rose and kicked my feet into the crisp fall air. “What did you want to do with your life before you met Elton?”

  “What did I want to do with my life? Or what did I think I was going to do?” Rose smiled down at me as a light breeze blew the hem of her polka-dot dress. “Because those are two very different questions.”

  “Humor me and answer both.”

  “Things were different in 1954. Girls didn’t have a lot of options. I probably would’ve either gone to nursing school or married Mike Baxter and had a bunch of babies, even though I didn’t really like kids all that much.”

  “Kids are gross.” And terrifying. I shuddered at the idea of having any floppy-headed babies of my own. “Was Mike Baxter the guy in the car? From your photo album?”

  “Yeah. Our parents were friends, so they just expected us to be together. My boyfriend, my friends, my life was all just put upon me, and I was drowning in their expectations.” She blew out her breath. “Once I made it clear that I wanted to make my own decisions, they stopped caring. My family did not tolerate rebellion. I’d become a lost cause in their eyes.”

  “Is that true? Or just what Elton told you?”

  “A little of both.” The corner of her mouth tilted upward. “He has a particular talent for exploiting insecurities. Though I’d like to think the rebellion was all my own.” She held on to the balcony railing and tilted her head upward to face the sun. “As for what I wanted, it would’ve been nice to have my own flower shop one day. Nothing grand, but I love to garden. He promised me I’d have whatever I wanted once we left town. That never happened.”

  “He promised me a bookstore. I never got that, either.” I’d forgotten about that until Rose mentioned the flower shop. That’s how thoroughly my dreams had died. The bookstore I always wanted had just become another thing in a long line of broken promises.

  “Maybe when this is all over, we could start those businesses on our own?”

  “Maybe.” But we both knew those were empty words. Banks didn’t give loans to sixteen-year-old girls. Vendors didn’t do business with sixteen-year-old girls. The world expected us to shoulder adult burdens but treated us like children when we needed something in return. Those were lessons we learned the hard way.

  Ida joined us on the balcony, carrying a human hand that had been sprayed with a clear rubber sealant, posed as if it reached upward. Bone and muscle crunched against the balcony spire as she thrust the hand against it by the wrist. “Did I miss bonding time?”

  “What is that thing?” I asked.

  Ida looked between me and the hand. She took some seeds out of her pocket and poured them into the open palm. “Birdfeeder.”

  I made a face. “And you couldn’t just make a wooden house because …?”

  “Rose has her flowers, you have your books, and this is my thing.” Ida adjusted the hand, pulling the fingers down to make better perches for the birds. “Don’t judge me.”

  “Fair enough.” I nudged her leg with my elbow.

  The sun began to set behind the horizon, bringing the temperature down with it. Despite the difficulties we had ahead, we had this moment of calm. The three of us shouldn’t have been friends. We shouldn’t have even existed in the same time. But in these girls, I found something I hadn’t had in a really long time. Something that felt a lot like family.

  Chapter Eight

  A few nights later, I put on my polo with the Taco Bell logo, which always smelled like stale beans no matter how many times I washed it. Rose and Ida left me alone to get changed, as if my uniform was obscene and deserving of privacy. Which wasn’t far off. My shifts at Taco Bell sucked away my will to live. An extra-impressive feat, considering that I was already dead. I twisted my terrible hair into a knot, pulling it through the back of my hat.

  The bus stopped a block away from Taco Bell. Jimmy would be thrilled to see me. The 10:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. shift was truly a special time. Jimmy would share his coffee breath, I would share my general disdain for humanity, and if we were extra fortunate, a college freshman would throw up in the dining room. Just to keep us on our toes.

  Bar-rush customers were the absolute worst.

  “You’re in drive-thru.” A greasy lock of hair stuck to Jimmy’s shiny forehead. He gave the order to my chest, as covered and shapeless as it was in my uniform. One of these days I was going to slit his throat. “Glad to see your cramps are gone.”

  I grabbed a headset from the backroom. “Glad to see you still haven’t managed to take a shower in the two months we’ve worked together.”

  While Jimmy was technically my superior, I could not abide by giving respect to a man who had amassed an enormous collection of boogers under register four.

  His expression turned sourer than the pit stains on his uniform. “Lose the attitude, or I’ll find another deadbeat dropout to replace you.”

  “I’d like to see you try.” I flashed my teeth, but he didn’t even flinch. Guess Jimmy didn’t have a lot to fear from death, either. “How about we just don’t talk for the rest of the night. We’ll make it game. You can pretend I’m smiling at customers; I can pretend you aren’t holed up in your office because you want to look for porn on your phone. It’s a win-win.”

  His upper lip, beaded with sweat, curled in disgust. Occasionally he tried to put on the boss hat and exert some authority. It was amusing at best. “You’re lucky I don’t have the staff to fire you tonight.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls.” I walked away before I did something regrettable. Like tear off his head. Jimmy irritated me on a normal basis, but after running into Elton and stressing about my heirloom, I was in no mood for even a casual amount of shit.

  Stewart and Toby, the two line cooks, said hi to me, and I ignored them. After two months of working with me, they still hadn’t gotten the hint that I didn’t like to play those getting-to-know-you games. I stuck to my corner, rung up orders, and did the bare minimum until I could leave. That was really the most that could be expected of me, considering what I got paid.

  Living in a college town meant every night had a bar rush. No one got sick in the dining room, but we did have someone pass out face-first in their Nachos BellGrande. Never a dull moment. Once we slowed down, Jimmy sent the line cooks home. The lobby closed hours ago, and I clocked out to take my dinner break with only an hour left on my shift.

  Jimmy came up behind me, closer than I found comfortable from people I actually liked. I took a step forward just to put a few more inches between us, my stomach bumping up against the drive-thru ledge. I could smell the cheap whiskey on his breath and the discount TV dinner in his blood. His poor eating habits were the only thing that had saved him thus far.

  “How come I never seen your parents pick you up or drop you off?” He touched the end of my hair. “Seems like they don’t care much about you.”

  Of course Jimmy was the type to think making me feel bad about
myself was a form of flirting. “They like me enough to give me space. I’m giving you two seconds to walk away.”

  “I think you’re lying. You know what I see under all that attitude?” He ran a finger down the sleeve of my shirt. “A scared little girl just begging for attention.”

  “One.” I could taste his death in the air. The anticipation of the kill hummed in my veins.

  “I could care about you if you were a little nicer to me.” His finger reached my elbow, and he hissed in a quick breath from the chill of my skin.

  “Two.” If it weren’t for the promise I made myself when I’d first been turned, Jimmy would’ve been dead already. When he chuckled under his breath, I faced him with a barbed-wire smile. “Time’s up.”

  I grabbed him by the throat and dragged him over to the large sink in back. His eyes popped out of his head, and he scratched at my hands with his dirty fingernails. Little nicks in my skin that healed quickly. I sunk my teeth into his neck and gagged. His blood tasted like garlic salt and whatever kind of meat paste made up the McRib.

  Since I didn’t need to feed, I tore his neck open and watched as his blood swirled down the drain. The stainless steel turned a glossy red that would easily wash away. Nice and neat. Bubbles of air gurgled out of his windpipe. Though not drinking the life out of Jimmy made for a prolonged and painful death, I couldn’t bring myself to feel any amount of remorse. He struggled beneath my grip, kicking his toothpick legs in vain, unable to scream.

  Once the last trace of life left his body, I dropped him on the floor and kicked him out of the way. A slow clap had me whirling around. Ida stood beside the chicken steamer, the remnants of her own dinner glistening on her fangs. She gave me a wide grin. Blood dribbled down her chin and dripped onto the floor. She carried a dead-eyed human head under her arm like she was on her way to Gothic volleyball practice.

  “For all the grief you give Rose about bringing kills home,” I said, nodding at the head.

  “I’m making a little something for the kids in the neighborhood, and clearly, this guy isn’t alive anymore.” Her voice held a note of exasperation, like I should’ve understood the difference. “I didn’t realize you were the type to kill for sport.”

  “I’m not.” I dug the toe of my shoe into Jimmy’s flexible spine. “This one thought it would be cute to put his hands on me in the drive-thru.”

  “Right. Your kill code.” Ida had exchanged an amused smirk with Rose when I tried to explain the nature of my kills to them the previous night. Those two had no such moral grounds and killed without restraint or remorse. Ida licked her teeth, closing her eyes with a happy sigh as she took her last taste of whoever had been on the menu tonight. “Do you need help disposing the body?”

  “Nope.” I hauled Jimmy’s corpse into the office and dumped him in his sticky chair, then erased the security tape. “That should take care of it.”

  I’d have to quit, just to avoid questions from well-meaning coworkers, but at least I clocked out a solid five minutes before time of death. The police would scratch their heads over how Jimmy had gotten his neck ripped off by a wild animal in the middle of a Taco Bell, they might even wonder where I’d gone after I clocked out and why I didn’t return, but they’d never suspect a five-foot-three-inch girl with bad hair and apple-dumpling cheeks could be so deadly. I was my own best cover.

  “Guess you’re out of a job now. That sucks.” Ida looked around, jumping when some of the water popped out of the chicken pan like a deep-sea tentacle. “Or does it?”

  “It’s fine. I can always get another job.” After I stole a new identity off an out-of-towner at one of the bars. Fast-food jobs were endless and plentiful. But now that I didn’t have to rent a room at the motel, I’d be okay for a bit. “Are you here by yourself?”

  “Yeah. I got hungry, and Rose is buried in research.” Ida scratched the back of her neck. “She told me to fill you in on what we found, but I probably shouldn’t do that here.”

  “Good point.” Taco Bell wasn’t exactly the ideal place to plan a murder.

  We left the back door open and headed toward downtown. Halfway down the street, Ida stopped walking and faced me. “Just as a heads-up.” She held up the head she had tucked under her arm and grinned, promptly dropping it again when I didn’t return her smile. “Anyway. Rose stresses out every time you lose your shit, so try to act like you’re keeping it together.”

  “I lost my shit one time.” And I had a feeling I’d never live it down.

  “Be that as it may, she thinks you’re one bad bit of news away from walking, and we can’t afford to lose you. We’ve waited thirty years for this.”

  “I’ll keep it together, okay?” While I got that I didn’t have as much time invested as they did, we all had the exact same things at stake. “I’m a partner in this, not someone you’re dragging along. Don’t treat me like I’m a child you have to subdue.”

  “Noted.” She let it go, for which I was grateful.

  We arrived back at the apartment to find Rose sitting on the couch, sifting through the papers she’d spread out over the coffee table. Most looked like official documents, birth certificates, bank statements, and personal rep papers. She jumped when we came through the door. “You’re home early.”

  “I quit,” I said at the same time Ida said, “She killed her boss.”

  “For the record, that’s not my boss.” I pointed to the head under Ida’s arm.

  “I’m not worried about the head,” Rose said as Ida deposited it in the refrigerator. “We have bigger problems. Frankie neglected to tell us what happens if we destroy our heirlooms.”

  “Something happens?” I took a seat next to Rose on the couch. As far as I knew, we only needed our heirlooms for the transformation. Of course, I got most of my knowledge from Elton, who probably wasn’t motivated to tell me too much about them.

  Ida leaned against the refrigerator. “Do you know why you needed an heirloom?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t appreciate the way she asked me that, the way a patient teacher would ask a student falling behind to slowly recite the alphabet. “It’s how we retained our humanity.”

  Heirlooms kept us tethered to our living selves while we died by preserving who we had been at the time of death. All that we could’ve or would’ve become died with us. Not only did we physically stay the same, we never mentally aged, either. We became little more than solid-mass ghosts, wandering the world in constant stasis.

  “That’s part of it.” Rose picked at the pimple on her chin. The one she died with and would be stuck with for all eternity. “But we retained our humanity through memory. When people die, they move on to something else. Obviously, we don’t know what, but we do know their memories don’t go with them. Our heirlooms remembered for us.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t quite know the whole of it, but I didn’t see why that made a difference.

  “You need to lay it out more plainly,” Ida said to Rose. “If we destroy our heirlooms, we’ll lose our living memories. That’s what Frankie didn’t tell us.”

  “Wait. What?” I didn’t have the happiest childhood, but my memories were all I had of my life. I was the only one keeping me from being forgotten forever. If my memories died, it would be like I’d never been here at all. “How is that possible?”

  “The dead aren’t supposed to know their living histories,” Rose said. “We cheated the system, and if we want to end Elton, that is what we’ll have to give up.”

  “We’ll still have our memories from after we died.” Ida wouldn’t meet my gaze, opting instead to scrape her nail against some peeling plaster next to the refrigerator, letting the little flakes rain to the floor. “But the people and places we knew before will be wiped away. All we’ll have left is our immortality.”

  Rose frowned at the mess Ida was in the process of making. “It’s fair if you want to take a moment to think about what you’ll be giving up.”

  I opened my mouth to make a joke about my memories not bei
ng all that great, anyway, but I was suddenly hit with the little things that never meant much to me before, but probably would if I no longer had them. The feel of ice cream melting on my tongue. The rare times my mom did something nice for me, like that time she called in sick to work so she could take me to see The Muppet Movie in the theater. The first time Stacey sat at my lunch table and made me feel like I wouldn’t always be alone. All of it gone. I’d only have my memories of living with Elton and my night shifts at Taco Bell.

  How depressing.

  I’d been unhappy in my life. My mom mostly paid attention to me when she wanted to use me in her war against the mothers of my classmates, who then turned around and hated me, or feared people enough to pretend like they hated me, and I didn’t have any grand plans for my senior year. But I also had Friday night Skee-Ball with Stacey, and Pizza Tuesdays, and Pete of Pete’s Pets always let me snuggle the kittens, even though he knew I’d never buy one. I might not have been big and important. I was never going to be prom queen or in the Ice Capades, but it was my life, and it was worth remembering.

  “Are you okay?” Rose put her hand on my arm, and I breathed in her clean-cotton scent.

  “There’s about a thousand ways I could answer that question,” I said. “Did either of you suspect that you’d have to give up your memories for this?”

  “No.” Rose hugged her midsection. “I had no idea that’s what it would cost, and I’ll understand if you don’t want to go through with it.”

  If we did go through with it, what would Rose do with her pictures? Would she keep that living tomb of regret she carried with her from town to town? I didn’t have any pictures. Only my memories, but even some of those had started to blur over the years. I remembered the bad times. Those were always easiest to recall. And maybe I kept those memories closest so I wouldn’t have to feel anything about the good times. It made immortality infinitely more tolerable when I could convince myself I hadn’t left anything behind.