Between Life & Death

by E K Bennett

  A familiar girl was talking to someone, but I couldn't see anyone else there. The girl's voice was sweet and soft, innocent. She was wearing an old, raggedy dress and had dark, coffee colored hair with big, calf brown eyes. So familiar...

  "Lotty, dear! Come inside for a minute!" an old, but regal, voice rings out. Oh my god, I was staring at Lotty! But she looked so...alive...

  I followed her into the dark, three roomed cottage where a couple sat at a small kitchen table with a withered old woman holding a box.

  "I made you something, for your birthday!" the old woman chided. Lotty looked only half pleased, as if she had other things on her mind. She took the box.

  "A new dress!" she said, holding up a lacy black dress that looked achingly familiar.

  "And brand new stockings!" the younger woman added, I assumed she was the mother.

  Lotty hugged her family and took a step back to admire the dress which, I concluded from the condition of their home, was a special treat and probably very expensive to make.

  Her grandmother beamed at the little girl proudly and put a hand on her arm. "Why don't you go try it on so you can show it off to all your little friends?"

  A strange, sick expression crossed over Lotty's face; one of anger and regret. But the expression was gone as quickly as it came, replaced by a smile almost as sickening as the previous look. She nodded her head and went to change. I took a step outside as it slowly got darker and the sun began to walk out on me. I shivered.

  After several "Ooh"s and "ahh"s, Lotty skipped outside and into the direction of another house. She went to the back, where several children were playing. As soon as Lotty stepped into their game, everyone stopped to look at her. No one moved, they all just stared at the little girl in the black dress, hands behind her back and rocking back and forth in her Mary-janes.

  One girl stepped forward, she was the oldest. She looked about 12. "We hear you turned nine today, Lotty."

  She nodded.

  "Planning on coming to kill us tonight, Lotty? Is that why you came?"

  Lotty said nothing, just held their gazes, big eyes wide and moist with tears.

  "She's not gonna do it, Molly! Lotty's too good for us, right Lotty?" a younger girl added in.

  Lotty frowned.

  "Yeah, she'd rather kill innocent people, you know?" a third girl laughed.

  "I just..." Lotty's voice shook. "wanted to show you my...dress."

  Her voice broke on the last word. The oldest girl suddenly gave her a look of sympathy.

  "We're sorry, Lotty! Here, we're going swimming, would you like to come with us?"

  At first hesitant, Lotty squared her shoulders and nodded. Then, the group started up toward the lake, chattering and giggling happily.

  Lotty stopped at the edge of the lake when everyone else waded in. "You coming, Lotty?" someone asked.

  "Chicken?" They asked. Everyone started shouting names at her and egging her on.

  The sky was violet now, and daylight slipped away. Finally, Molly splashed at Lotty, leaving lake water dripping down her enraged face. In less than a second, Lotty was pulling the knife used to cut her birthday cake out from the folds of her dress and diving into the water after the girl. Everyone screamed but i don't think Lotty could hear them. She was grabbing hold of Molly's leg and raking the knife up and down the calf, splitting her stockings and unleashing pools of blood into the murky water.

  Molly screamed and splashed, spluttering as she tried to come up for air. Lotty tried to pull her forward to go in for the kill, when someone tackled her under the water. I felt a strange sensation, like I was being pulled toward her and underneath the water. Suddenly I blinked and there was a small hand wrenching a knife out of my tiny fist.

  I was afraid they would stab me, so I kicked their stomach and pushed up to the surface where Molly still screamed and the girl with the knife gasped for air. A hatred burned in me so hot, that all wanted to do was to plant that knife so far into her chest that it came out on the other side. I lunged but something caught my neck and pulled me back and under; an arm. I kicked and screamed and watched the dark bubbles soar up above my head and break through the surface.

  I fought my way back up and remembered a tall woman in a white dress, and thought of how I needed to help her. "One more!" I screamed, and two more people shoved me under, but I punched one in the chin, then shook off another.

  "She's mad!" one screamed.

  "What do we do?"

  "Help Molly, she's losing blood!"

  "Use the damn knife!"

  I tackled the girl with the knife and knocked it out of her pudgy hands, sending it soaring to the sandy floor. I had to go get it. I looked to the shore, where that beautiful young woman that I longed to impress stared at me in horror, her head almost vibrating as she screamed in rage. Shivers danced up my spine like electricity.

  I took a deep breath and dove down, when a pair of hands grabbed my hair and pulled me up, then wrapping around my throat. I thrashed and kicked, choking on water and air and everything that my life had become in the past two years and then I was back under water, a lovely black boot pinning me to the cloudy mud at the bottom of the lake. It knocked the air that didn't exist out of my chest, and it hurt to move my arms. I wanted to stop. I wanted the lady to stop screaming in my ear.

  The weight on my chest was too much. Finally I opened my eyes and parted my lips, letting the lake fill my lungs like balloons. I could see the knife a foot away from me, and Sylvia picked it up. She floated over, lifted the boot off me and stabbed my dead body. Everyone lined up, everyone I killed, and they took a turn breaking me.

  I didn't even get to go to my funeral. Because they never found me.

  16. They Discuss

  I'm surrounded by white, a bright light shining in my eyes. It takes a while for them to adjust to the pristine hospital room. It smells like they always do; like alcohol and rubber gloves. The only different thing about it is that I'm the one who's in the hospital bed, hooked up to a machine that makes me cringe. I can guess by the light shining directly through the window that it's early morning.

  It takes me a while to even realize why I'm here. Eventually, though, the sharp pain in the back of my head reminds me that Miranda threw our cement bookend at the back of my head yesterday...At least I think it was yesterday. How long have I been in here, anyway?

  Yet there's part of me that wonders if I'm leaving out some of the story. There's something nagging me, telling me that I should remember an important detail...

  A man strolls in, wearing a pair of scrubs and a white jacket with a stethoscope around his neck. He has a few gray hairs and smile lines around the corners of his mouth. I guess you have to smile a lot if you work at a hospital. How else could you make it through the day?

  "Hi, Lydia," the guy says. "I'm Doctor Shultz." He shakes my hand. "I hear you were in a pretty bad accident."

  "Yeah..." I reply awkwardly, my voice cracking so it's barely heard, since I just woke up. He just chuckles and I try to smile back to hide my annoyance.

  He lifts his clipboard a little and says, "Well, good news! You're not concussed. I'm really surprised, you got cut pretty deep, and there's quite a bit of bruising around the area, but no brain damage or anything. No skull fissures. We gave you some stitches and a couple staples, so I assume you'll be set to leave tomorrow if you're ready."

  "How long have I been here?" I ask.

  "Just since yesterday afternoon."

  "Cool. Um, when are visiting hours?"

  "Eleven to eight," he says. "But your mom's downstairs getting some breakfast. Your dad stayed all night and your mother showed up at about six this morning so he could go get some sleep. She was here all evening yesterday, too, it took your dad some serious convincing to get her to go get some rest last night. Are you hungry?"

  "A little, I guess," I say. "What time is it now?"

  "Eight-thirty."

  I purse my lips distractedly. I swear I'm forgetting something
really important.

  "Well, I can grab a nurse and tell them to get you some food. But before I leave, do you mind me asking what happened? It's kind of a procedure, since you're under 18."

  I stare at him for a second, then nod slowly, straining the stitches in my head. I wince, but say, "I was arguing with my sister and she threw a pillow at me, but I ducked and it hit the bookshelf above me. A bookend on the top shelf fell on my head."

  He nods, then says, "I'm not saying I doubt you, Lydia, but if it fell, wouldn't it have hit you on top of your head? The injury was in the back."

  "Yeah, but I ducked. And bent my neck I guess." What was he? Some kind of detective? Like get off my ass.

  I don't know why I'm defending Miranda. She's kind of an angry bitch, but I guess she is really pregnant, so maybe she didn't mean to hurt me and it's just hormones. I wish I knew what was going on. I wish Miranda or Sam or anyone could just show up and tell me what's going on.

  Dr. Shultz just nods and smiles. "Okay, thanks Lydia. Now I'll go grab a nurse and see if they can find you something good to eat...I hear they've got mac n cheese downstairs somewhere."

  And with that, the doctor leaves me alone with nothing but an empty white room and an even emptier, bruised mind.

  ~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

  There's a knock on the door and I put down my magazine (my room doesn't have a television) as my mother, who hasn't taken her eyes off of me since she came back upstairs with a plate of rubbery bacon and a wet fried egg this morning, goes to open it. I told her the same story that I told the doctor, but she still seemed pretty pissed Miranda. I expect to see the doctor come in, but instead I see Sam, Josh and Adam all pile into the room. Sam's got a vase of white daisies to match my blatantly white room, but I don't care because none of my friends have jobs, therefore none of them have money to buy me flowers with. So however they came up with the cash, I'm grateful.

  "She's awake!" Sam cheers and goes to hug me.

  "How does it feel?" Josh asks.

  I purse my lips. "Painful. They had to stitch and staple me, I'm still really grossed out."

  They all smile and shuffle their feet like all hospital guests do. Except for Josh...I guess he's used to tragedy after all his family has seen. After another moment of silence passes, Adam finally speaks up.

  "Lyd, can we talk to you..." he glances at my mom. "Privately?"

  My mother raises an eyebrow at me. "Anything you guys have to talk about can be said around me," she says in her no-nonsense voice.

  "Not really!" I protest. "Come on, you've been stuck in this hospital for hours, why don't you go out to lunch or something?"

  "What? No, I can't leave you here alone," she argues.

  "What am I gonna do, Mom? Run away?" I lift up my arm with the I.V. in it.

  She sighs heavily. "Well who will I go to lunch with? I don't want to go alone..."

  "I dunno. Ask Grandma. Or Doctor Shultz."

  She rolls her eyes but gets up anyway. Adam waits a few seconds until she's out of hearing range before he speaks again.

  "I'm sorry, Lydia."

  I cock my head to the side. "For what? Throwing a bookend at me...? Because you were..."

  He cuts me off. "No, for being an asshole about...Lotty."

  Everyone seems to be really cautious around me. Like at any moment I might blow up on them, like yesterday. I can't say I blame them.

  "But...why?"

  Everyone's really quiet for a minute. Finally Sam pipes up. "Because it was her!"

  "What? Okay guys, making the girl with the head injury feel crazy isn't really helping things here. Can we be a little less vague here?" I say.

  "Okay, so the bookend? It was at the other end of the room from you and Miranda. There's like no way she could have thrown it at you, and we have no reason not to believe her word that it wasn't her. Bryan wasn't in the house. We were in your bedroom. So who was it then?" Sam's pacing the small room.

  My agitation is slowly shifting into anger. "You know, I'm beginning to think this Lotty shit is all wrong. I think...ugh. Can we just give it a rest? My winter break is already being limited by my damn head, I don't want to spend the whole of it ghost hunting. Okay?"

  "But Lydia," Adam says. "I've spent the whole year thinking you guys were full of shit. But I honestly think you're on to something here!"

  "Yeah," Sam interjects, "some ghosts feed off of negative energy. And your fight with Miranda wasn't exactly positive."

  "Well..." I stutter.

  "Guys." Everyone stares at Josh, who has kept quiet this whole time. "I agree with Lydia..."

  My face perks up.

  "Sort of," he finishes.

  My jaw drops. "Well what's that supposed to mean?"

  Josh ignores my rudeness and carries on. "I've been to a lot of places. And as I'm sure Sam knows already, a lot of cultures believe in different aspects of death..."

  Sam nods.

  "Well," he continues with a patient and slow tone, as if he's breaking some sort of bad news to me, "I think we should stop all this. Not because this 'Lotty' you guys talk about isn't real, but because...I think Lotty's more than a ghost. I think she's a demon."

  "A what?" I shriek.

  "A demon?" Sam gasps, her face white.

  "Well up until now, I believed just what you guys did. That Lotty was a child who passed away young and wanted company, or help crossing over, or something. But I had my doubts. Like, the image you saw in the mirror? That's not your average ghost. And now that she's tried hurting you, I get the feeling that this is more serious than a little girl wanting a friend."

  Everyone's silent. What if he's right? Suddenly my stomach feels on edge, and everything in the room looks hazy. I don't understand how any of this could be real.

  "There's a lot of signs," Josh says. "I mean, maybe it's too early to get a priest involved, but I don't want it to get to the point where it's too late...maybe if we just let all this go, she'll go away..."

  "Fine," I say curtly. The tension in the room has edged up about nine notches. "I need some sleep. Thanks for the flowers."

  I roll over and wait for them to leave.

  17. She Breaks

  I'm awake, but I don't open my eyes right away. I want to hear what they're saying.

  "You're lucky as hell that they aren't involving the police, young lady!" My mom's voice whisper-shouts.

  "It was an accident!" Miranda's voice comes next, in that same hushed tone from across the room. "Of course I didn't want to hurt her!"

  "I'm just saying. I understand that you're having the baby soon, but that doesn't mean you have to get your little sister involved in your fights! This is a new low, Miranda."

  "But I didn't..." Miranda starts to protest, but I guess she just gets frustrated and gives up.

  "I feel bad," she says quietly. I believe her, even if it wasn't her fault.

  "And you should!" my mom snaps. I guess she isn't convinced.... "They had to shave the back of her head, for God's sake!"

  Something inside of me snaps, like I’ve been hanging on a bungee cord over an entire city. And suddenly I'm hurling toward the ground, full speed ahead. I shoot up in my bed, sending the heart rate monitor into panic-mode, and reach up to feel the stitches. Tears spring to my eyes, and my head hurts from sitting up so fast.

  "That DICK!" I nearly scream, sending my mom flying out of her chair and to my bedside in a split second. She doesn't yell at me, probably because i'm currently being hospitalized, but she doesn't look pleased by my language. But I don't give a fuck.

  "He's all happy-go-lucky that I'm not concussed, yet he just forgot to add in the little detail that I have no hair?" I clench my teeth together to keep from crying. I've never been obsessive about my hair. But I've cared about it enough to know that I like it on my head.

  "Well, it's just the back of it...sweetie..." my mom tries to comfort me.

  I just swat her away and grind my teeth. "Shut up! It's not like you can talk, you actually have hair!
This is fucking ridiculous!"

  "Hey!" She snaps. "I will not be talked to like that, young lady! Sick or not, I'm still the adult here. Now I don't want to hear that word again, or--"

  "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking fuck on a God-damned-fucking duck, mother! I don't have hair!" I'm nearly screaming. Smoke might as well be coming out of my mom's ears, she looks so pissed. But I'm so mad right now that I can't see straight. Who the hell is she to tell me what to do or say?

  "My entire Winter break is ruined because I won't be able to do anything, my head hurts, I won't be able to go anywhere! I mean, I'm half bald for God's sake! You expect me to be calm, Carol?" I don't know why I call her by her first name. But I'm too angry to care. Everything's going wrong in my life. First Lotty, now this. I'm going insane.