Between Life & Death

by E K Bennett

  "I look great, Sam," I tell her. "I don't know where all these hidden talents come from, but you're seriously amazing."

  She smiles. "Thanks!" she says, then gasps and takes something out her bag. "I almost forgot; here's some lip balm."

  I roll my eyes and take the little tube. "What are you trying to say?"

  She raises her eyebrows. "That you bite your lips like candy, and they're probably all dry. No one wants to kiss sandpaper lips."

  "Oh, God," I groan, blushing. "You're so embarrassing."

  "It's what I do, who I am, my friend."

  I shake my head and put the lip balm in my pocket. "Seriously, though," I say, "I don't know how you it. When people look at you, i doubt they can even tell that you're so interesting. You're amazing at doing makeup, you know all this shit about ghosts, and you're super smart. People probably just see the girl with purple hair and label you as a punk or whatever."

  She shrugs. "I guess that's why I like things that glow in the dark so much. There's more to it than meets the eye."

  She takes all her stuff and leads the way to the living room. I sneak one more look at the mirror and there's something different than before. Besides the makeup and shiny hair, my eyes are the color of blood.

  ~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

  I can't concentrate during the movie, due to the pounding headache that started a few minutes after we got to the theater. I pick up on a few of the jokes and laugh accordingly, but the buzz in my head is killing me.

  "Are you okay?" Josh whispers halfway through the movie. "You haven't even touched the popcorn or your drink. And don't tell me you don't like popcorn, because you practically ate an entire bowl on your own during Blaire Witch the other night," he jokes.

  I smile half-heartedly. "I'm fine. Just a headache."

  "Do you want to leave early? We can if you want," he offers.

  I shake my head. "No," I reply. "We have to stay; it's just getting good."

  But I'm barely paying attention anymore. Now he thinks you're a fatass. If you didn't eat so much damned popcorn, we wouldn't have this problem. The voice is like knives scraping the inside of my skull.

  Great, my voice of "Logic" is here to make my life even more hell. It's hardly even Logic; all my stupid conscience has been doing lately is ridicule me. Made me feel like shit.

  "You really don't look so good," Josh says a few minutes later.

  "I'm fine," I snap, then catch myself. "Sorry..."

  He shakes his head. "It's fine. Why don't we get some air? You look like you could use it."

  "Fine," I sigh and stand up.

  I feel claustrophobic when he holds my hand walking out of the theater.

  You just ruined the entire date.

  I take a deep breath and try to ignore the voice.

  "Do you have aspirin?" I ask Josh.

  He shakes his head. "We could walk over the drugstore, if you want."

  At this point I’m desperate. My head is pounding.

  We leave the theater and start walking down the street towards the nearest Walgreens.

  You're just wasting his time. You're wasting everyone's time- Sam's, Josh's, your parents', mine.

  "I'm sorry," I tell Josh. "I'll pay you back for the ticket, I promise."

  Josh just shrugs. "It's cool, we can just rent it when it comes out on DVD."

  I smile. "How are you nice all the time?" I ask.

  "No one's nice all the time."

  Pretty soon you'll die, and everyone can finally live their lives happily without you.

  "You are," I reply.

  "Nah, I just like you."

  Don't you just wish Lotty could kill you already? Then Josh could stop lying to you all the time.

  We reach the store and go in through the sliding doors. The bright lights do nothing for my headache, but I don't say anything.

  "Well no one's outwardly nice to people they don't like."

  I suppose I'll have to do it.

  I stop abruptly. "Okay, my conscience is driving me crazy," I say, surprising myself.

  "What?" He gives me a weird look.

  "At the hospital, you said that everybody argues with themselves," I tell him. "You said it was normal. Well lately my conscience has been sort of turning the world against me. Like negative thoughts all the time. And it keeps saying things like 'you're going to die' and just now, 'I'll do it myself.' I mean, I know I'm going to die, right? That's Lotty's plan. But what does that have to do with my conscience?"

  "It threatens you?" he asks, still looking really confused.

  "I don't know...I guess!" I sound so crazy right now. I'm ruining everything.

  We pick up the aspirin and I insist on paying for it. I take two and we sit on the curb outside.

  "Just forget it. I sound so insane right now."

  Josh shakes his head. "This is the weirdest date ever," he says, then laughs.

  The amusement in his eyes makes me laugh, too. "I definitely agree," I say between gasps of laughter. I don't know why it's so funny, but I don't want to stop laughing. The aspirin is already kicking in, and it dulls the buzzing in my head.

  Our laughter dies down finally and i pull my phone out from my pocket to check the time. "Maybe we can make the next movie," I say, getting to my feet. I flip open my phone and see five missed calls, all from my mom.

  "Shit," I say. My mom hardly ever calls me, and she might be kind of crazy, but I doubt she'd ever call me in the middle of a date unless I was in huge trouble for something.

  "What?" Josh asks. My stomach turns.

  "My mom called me a bunch of times..." I go to voicemail and listen to the message.

  "Double shit," I mutter. "Miranda's in labor and my mom's picking me up."

  35. She's a Goner

  "Are you okay?" I ask my mom when she pulls up. "You're white as a sheet."

  "I'm going to be a grandmother," she mutters, sounding trancelike.

  Josh stands next to the car awkwardly, like he needs permission to come with. "Should I...?"

  I roll my eyes and pull him in. "Come on," I tell him with a smirk.

  My mom's totally in shock, like she's been in denial or something.

  "I just can't believe it," she keeps on repeating. The minutes it takes to get to the hospital drag on for what seems like days.

  We find a spot to park by the doors and practically sprint to the front desk. The receptionist tells us to stay in the waiting room while my mom goes to help Miranda.

  "Her name's going to be Abby," I tell Josh excitedly.

  "That's pretty. Is she named after anyone in particular?" he asks.

  "No, I don't think so. I mean, I have a great aunt Abigail, but she smells like Vaseline and butterscotch."

  I gaze into the mirror hanging on the wall across from us absentmindedly. "You know," I tell Josh, "I could have sworn that before we left for the movies, I looked in the mirror and my eyes were blood red."

  I tilt my head and stare at my reflection. Josh's voice grows distant the longer I stare. "Wait, what?" he asks.

  I get up to get a closer look at myself. "My eyes were red..." I mutter. "Wait, come here."

  He gets up and stands close to the mirror, too. "They still are," I whisper. "Don't you see it?"

  He shakes his head. "You're eyes are blue, Lyd. Listen, maybe you should sit down..."

  I ignore him. "Is it just me, or is my skin...gray?"

  The longer I look at the mirror, the less I look like myself. My hair is darker than it should be, my eyes are filmy and red, and my skin is loose and dull looking.

  I think we should get a few things straight, says my conscience, but my lips move in the reflection. As if it's a totally different person.

  "Is this even a mirror?" I ask quietly.

  "I think we should sit back down," Josh says. His voice is full of sadness that I can't place. He's finally realized it- I'm truly insane.

  I ignore him, though, and keep looking at my reelection. Or whatever the hell it is.


  I'm not your conscience, it says. But I know everything. I knew you were going to die before Lotty even did. I knew Lotty was strong even when she was alive, and now she's even stronger. But I'm even stronger than her, and smarter too. You do know why she hasn't showed up in a week, right? Because she's ashamed. Lotty is dumb, which is why she's dead. If she had just listened to me, I would be alive even now.

  The voice is raspy and forced, something I've never noticed until now.

  I tried to train her; each time she killed someone I got stronger. I was strong enough to take her soul that very night that she was killed, but she didn't listen to me when I told her to refrain from killing anyone else. That's what Lotty was planning on doing with you, love, but I seem to have scared her off, as far as I can tell.

  Memories of the dream I had about Lotty's death flood through me. As she died, she was being screamed at.

  "The white lady," I whisper so quietly that I can barely recognize my own voice.

  The image in the mirror shifts, and I'm staring at the tall, graceful White Lady. Terror radiates from her superior stature in the mirror and I take a step back.

  "Lydia?" Josh asks, tugging on my arm, but I won't budge.

  Lotty just didn't get it. She wouldn't be able to handle the process like I can. You see, there's a way to come back after you've died. All you need is a child and a lot of negative energy. The younger the child, the better, but you'll have to do. Aging will go twice as slow, so we'll be together for maybe another two hundred years.

  "Josh, I want to leave," I say. "Now."

  "Well then let's go," he urges me. Everything around me seems blurred around the edges, and my feet won't comprehend the concept of moving. The White Lady smiles and I cringe.

  And by "we," I mean your body and I. You wanted to die anyway, right? Well this will be better. Your heart will still beat but I'll rip out your soul.

  It'll be quick.

  And easy.

  We'll both be happy, she says.

  "I don't want to die," I say out loud.

  It's for the best.

  Then the glass from the mirror shatters and a force knocks me to the ground, leaving me breathless and gasping for air.

  "Holy shit," Josh exclaims and tries to get me standing, but I push him away. People are rushing over and asking all sorts of questions, but I definitely can't answer them and Josh doesn't have a clue.

  I feel like I'm being strangled all over again, except this time it doesn't stop. I cough and scream in pain as one of my lungs rips open, and blood starts filling the other. Nurses have gathered around me and are lifting me onto a stretcher, but I know I'm a goner. My vision gets fuzzy and they wheel me down the hall. My mom is in one of the rooms with Miranda, and she glances out the window on the door.

  I guess of all the things that could have been said as the last words I would ever hear before my soul got ripped from my body, "What the fuck" isn't exactly what I would have imagined. But coming from my mother's mouth, it sounds kind of fitting.

  I close my eyes and wait for that infamous "white light."

  It doesn't come.

  36. She Dances

  It takes a few minutes for my heart to stop beating, but when it does I'm still lying on the table with tubes in my arms and up my nose, completely aware of the flatline. I don't feel any different despite the fact that my body is dead, and I’m still in it. My soul hasn't wisped away in to heaven or hell. There is no "light" to go to. No world to chill in after death. I'm just sitting in my body, like it's a straightjacket keeping me from going anywhere.

  Mom's literally fighting the doctors as they try to lead her out of the room, and another set of nurses has to pry Josh's hand apart from mine and escort him out, too. Everything around me is slowly losing color, like paint dripping down a wall. Then sounds slip away and people disappear, until I'm left on an operating table in an empty room devoid of color. Only one person stands over me, tall and terrifying.

  "Thank you," she whispers in my ear. "Your lungs are a bit shredded, but that's nothing I can't fix. The doctors will think you're a miracle."

  I can't move, I'm stuck in a dead body like a bug in a web, the White Lady a spider about to suck out my blood for it's next meal. I just have to watch while she puts her freezing hand on my chest, where my dead heart lie empty.

  "You can tell Lotty that I don't need her anymore. And she can rot, just like I did for the past four hundred years."

  A shock goes through me and that's it. I'm dead.

  ~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

  Like a tape on rewind, everything around me comes back in fast-motion. My vision is grayscale, and I'm sitting in the corner of the empty hospital room.

  I feel like someone just stole my identity or something. I've been robbed, and no one knows it. This strange state of death is foreign and uncomfortable, and as crazy as this sounds, I think I'm in a mirror.

  Looking around, everything is backwards, like the text on the posters about handwashing and flu symptoms are all reversed, the door is on the opposite side of the room, and across from the operating table is a mirror above the sink that isn't a mirror at all. I step up to it and look in, expecting to see a black and white version of myself, but it's more like a window- like one of those one way mirrors where you can look through it and the people on the other side don't even see you.

  But everything on that side of the mirror is living. The mirrors seem to separate this world from that one. In this world, I'm all alone in a painfully silent and empty hospital room, but the other world is full of color and people and doctors running around to keep the white lady alive after her heart starts beating again in my body. Checking heart rates, feeding chemicals through my tubes, packing away the electric paddles that they think are what brought me back to life.

  When we die, we go into a mirror? Is that it?

  It just sounds kind of silly.

  I pound on the glass as if maybe I can get through, but a shock resonates through my body (or soul, considering my body's on the other side of the glass) and I fall back, cringing uncomfortably.

  "You need energy," a voice says behind me. The voice has the same whispery quality that Lotty's had before, but this time the whispers don't drive me insane. In fact, I don't even mind them.

  I turn toward the voice and find a group of children standing by the door. They almost glow, as if their insides are made of light. Their outsides, on the other hand, are gruesome.

  They look very familiar, one boy with dirt on his hands and face has a bloody cut on his throat, and a girl with curly hair wears a ripped, lacy dress along with a bloody gash on her forehead. These are the children that Lotty killed, and they're stuck in this silent state.

  "Don't bother with that world. The Witch will realize that she was wrong and she'll leave your body," says the girl. "hopefully you'll be able to stop Lotty in time to get back to it before it rots."

  "What do you mean, she was wrong? Why do you call her a witch?" I ask.

  "The Witch, or White Lady, was killed during the sixteen hundreds for supposed witchcraft and sent here, with every murdered soul in existence. Ever since, she's been searching for a host to bring her back to life, but didn't find one until Lotty came along. By then the Witch knew all about soul transferring, and began strengthening Lotty by convincing her that we needed to die."

  The boy steps forward. "The more people you kill, the less you have to live for. Once you live for nothing but the death of others, you're basically dead to the world anyway. The Witch was going to rip Lotty's soul from her body, just like she did for you, but she was killed."

  I wonder how they know all this, but I assume they've been here a while and have had plenty of time to figure it out.

  "Yeah, but how did I get into this mess?" I ask, sounding kind if whiney. But hey, I'm dead so why does it matter?

  The kids look at each other, as if they're talking silently.

  "It was kind of your sister's fault," says a boy with a bashed in head. L
otty's brother.

  "Come on," he waves for me to follow him and the group out of the room. "Lotty was looking for a new host, and when your sister called her on the Ouija board, Lotty had found one."

  "But my sister's not a kid," I reply. I'm hoping he doesn't say what I think he's going to.