As Dead as It Gets (4 page)

I
DROVE AWAY FROM THE
L
AIRDS
’ upscale neighborhood toward the empty highways that led out of town, stretching the speed limit in my rush to get away from civilization.

On the seat next to me, my phone lit up with a text message. The word mom flashed onscreen. I figured I’d better reply before I ended up grounded, so I pulled onto the shoulder.

K SAID YOU LEFT PARTY ARE YOU COMING HOME?

NOT YET, I texted. GETTING COFFEE.

A second later, her reply came through.

:-/

“What’s wrong?” Lydia asked, fading in. “Tired? Dejected? Suicidal? Don’t let me stop you if you had any, you know,
plans.
”

I took a deep breath, shut off the engine, and stared out the window. I was surrounded by farmland, no cars or houses in sight.

What Lydia had done to Kendra erased any doubt in my mind that she needed to be eliminated. But even a week after Kendra had been found, something still kept me from going to Lydia’s house and facing her parents. I kept coming up with excuses—places to go, rooms of the house that needed scrubbing, distant school projects that needed urgent attention.

The girls from the Sunshine Club were in danger, and I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it. But the only reason Lydia had any power over me was that I gave it to her. All wrapped up with a pretty bow.

“Lydia.” I steeled myself and tried to sound assertive. “I’m only going to have this conversation with you once. This has to stop.”

“Or what?” she sneered.

“Well, let’s see. I got rid of the hundred-year-old evil ghost that possessed my sister and tried to kill our dad. I got rid of Aralt in a room full of twenty-two people who wanted to kill me. So, no offense—but I think I could take you.”

She tossed her hair. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, leave me—and all the other girls—alone, and I’ll leave your power center alone.”

Her mocking smile disappeared.

To a ghost, a power center isn’t something you joke about. They’re automatically driven to protect it, to prolong their existence—whether they have something worth existing for or not.

Kind of like the rest of us, I guess.

Lydia glared at me, arms crossed. “You wouldn’t dare. Don’t forget, you’re already responsible for my death. That would be like killing me twice.”

Her words sent a spike of dread up my spine, but I was determined not to let her sense it. “
Please
believe me,” I said, “when I say it would be my absolute pleasure.”

She pouted. “Lighten up! I was just having
fun
.”

I wondered what part of putting Kendra into a coma or almost steering me into a murky canal seemed fun to her. I reached for my key. “Forget it,” I said. “I’ll just go to your house and do it right now.”

“No!”

“Then
leave
,” I said. “You have
five seconds
. Leave all of us alone. Forever.”

She gave me a disgusted look. “You are extremely oversensitive, Alexis.”

“One,” I said. “Two—”

She disappeared.

A magnificent silence filled the car.

I closed my eyes and soaked it in for a minute before I reached down to start the ignition. The engine made a sound like it was going to turn over—but then it whined and died out.

“No,” I said. “Come on. Not tonight.”

I tried again. Nothing.

The first drop of rain thumped like a drumbeat on the roof of the car. Then another, and another. Soon it was pouring.

I couldn’t call my parents. I didn’t have a boyfriend. My best friend seemed reluctant to even acknowledge my existence. I was stranded.

Then I remembered that there was one person who might care—who might come if I called him.

I stood out in the sheeting rain and flagged Jared down—which may not have been necessary, considering the only thing besides me and my car was miles of farmland, furrowed in deep rows, with a low, dense winter carpet of clover. He parked his Jeep nose-to-nose with my car and got out, wearing a yellow poncho. He hurried over and offered me an umbrella.

“What’s the use?” I yelled over the storm. “I’m already soaked!”

We opened our hoods and he hooked up a pair of jumper cables between the cars. When he turned his car on, I tried mine again. This time the engine rumbled and came to life.

Jared disconnected everything, neatly rolling the cables and stowing them in his trunk. Then he came back over and watched me close my hood.

“Thanks a lot,” I yelled. “I didn’t know who else to call. ”

“Anytime,” he yelled back.

There was a pause.

“What are you doing so far out of town, anyway?” he yelled.

I shrugged and yelled, “Nothing, really. So…I’ll call you this week or something?”

He hesitated, then pulled me into a loose, tentative hug and backed away, giving me a little wave as he walked to his car.

I sat in my driver’s seat, soaking my upholstery but absolutely powerless to do anything about it. According to the clock, it was nine fifteen. The cold began to seep through my clothes and chill my skin.

My cell phone rang. Jared. With shivering fingers, I flipped it open.

“Hi,” I said. “Thanks again.”

“No problem,” he said. The rain still roared in the background, but at least we didn’t have to shout to hear each other. “So…I was just wondering if you wanted to come over and have some hot chocolate or something. Dad’s out of town, and I just didn’t feel like going to any parties tonight.”

I knew he didn’t mean
Dad’s out of town, wink wink
. Mr. Elkins was hardly ever home even when he was in town. That didn’t automatically equal debauchery.

“Well…thanks.” For a moment, I was tempted. I really did like spending time with Jared. But then my loner instincts kicked in, and before I could stop myself, I was saying, “But I think I’ll just go home.”

“All right,” he said. “Make sure you get into some dry clothes.”

I said I would, and we hung up. Then I wrapped my hands around my steering wheel and stared out at the road, determined not to think about the note of hurt I’d heard in his voice.

I tried to cheer myself up by remembering that I didn’t have to go
straight
home—I could go get coffee, like I’d told Mom.

But the rain came down in torrents, and suddenly I realized that I wasn’t remotely interested in sitting in a coffee shop, having everyone stare at me in my soaking-wet clothes, wondering why I was alone on a major party holiday. Only slightly less awful was the prospect of facing my parents and having to explain why I’d left the party early.

But where else would I go?

I was about to give up and start for home when I heard a sound—a convulsive, high-pitched sound. Was it…crying?

A woman crying? Or maybe a girl? It was hard to be sure, with the wind and rain and my rumbling engine.

I used my hand to clear a circle in the fogged-up window, and stared out at the field.

I didn’t see anyone, but the sound wasn’t in my imagination, that much I was sure of—it was so distinct that I could hear each individual sob.

A voice in my head said,
Get out of here.

But there was some part of me that needed to defy the voice—or at least second-guess it. As much as I hated Lydia, what I hated slightly more was the idea of being so fearful of her that I let it change me into a person I didn’t want to be.

And I didn’t want to be a person who ignores a cry for help.

My body ached with dread at the thought of what—or whom—I’d find…but I got out of the car.

Standing in the rain again, I could hear the crying as clearly as if the girl were ten feet away.

I pocketed my phone and walked closer to the crumbling soil at the edge of the field, looking out across the clover.

She was obviously, like,
right there
.

“Hello?” I said.

It wasn’t a terribly dark night; rather than blocking out the moonlight, the clouds diffused it into an allover glow, with a few stars twinkling through the clear spots.

If somebody were moving around out there, I’d have seen her already. Which meant she wasn’t moving. She was hurt.

I took a step out into the dirt. “Hello? Who’s there?”

The crying stopped, as if the girl hadn’t known anyone could hear her.

“Are you okay?” I called. “Where are you?”

The answer was a pitiful sob.

“Are you hurt?” Three more steps in. I stayed aware of the clear path waiting behind me. “Tell me where you are! I’ll come help you!”

Silence again.

What if it wasn’t really a person crying? What if it was Lydia trying to get me to wander out into the darkness? Maybe this was how she’d lured Kendra out of her house in the middle of the night. Looking at the situation objectively, it didn’t make sense at all that there would be a real person out there. Would they find my car the next morning with a yellow rose on the dashboard?

I took a few more strides forward, blinded by the cold raindrops and my fresh disgust. “We had a
deal
! I guess now that you’ve let your end go, I can—”

I was about to turn and leave. But a fresh burst of sobs hit my ears, and I forced myself to stop and reconsider.

There had been plenty of situations in my life that didn’t make sense—objectively. Just because I didn’t know who was out there didn’t mean it wasn’t a real person.

If she dies…whoever she is…it will be your fault.

Again.

So I kept going. I went cautiously, slowly. Ten feet. Another ten.

By this time, I was a fair distance from the road, and there was no sign of an injured girl—except for the crying. She still cried, and she
still
sounded like she was ten feet away. But I’d called out to her multiple times, and she hadn’t said so much as “Help
.
”

If I could hear her, surely
she
could hear
me
.

And surely…she would have said something…

If
she was a real person.

Forget this.

I stopped and made an abrupt about-face. But as I started back in the direction of the road, I heard the crying again—

Now it was in front of me.

Whatever was out here…it wasn’t a girl. Not a human girl, anyway.

“Stop it, Lydia!” I yelled. “Go away! Leave me alone!”

The wailing ended abruptly, like it was a recording and somebody had switched it off.

Just keep going. You’re almost there—

A laugh. A brilliant, sparkling, musical laugh.

So close it sounded like the person was right next to me.

As a flash of lightning lit up the night, I flinched and hunched over, waiting for the clap of thunder. A moment later, I realized that it had never come.

That wasn’t lightning.

It was the white light.

I turned and ran blindly, managing to go about four feet before tripping over the cutoff stubble of whatever had last been harvested from the field. I went flying and landed flat on my stomach, my face splashing into the wet green leaves, but I scrambled up and started running again.

Almost immediately, something clotheslined me, hitting me hard in the throat. The explosive shock of pain buckled my knees and left me doubled over and gasping.

The laughter came again, only now it seemed to be surrounding me, coming from every side. I gagged against the pain and tried to catch my breath, managing to suck in a shallow stream of air as I struggled to get to my feet.

But I’d only taken a few steps when the whole world started spinning like a merry-go-round with me at the center. I tried to take another step, but I couldn’t seem to keep myself from walking in a spiral over the mad obstacle course of the uneven ground. Every turn I made to correct my path went too far in the other direction. I lost my footing and dropped to the muddy ground, trying to find stability on my hands and knees.

Still, the world looped around me. And when I looked up at the patchy clouds, the rain seemed to be falling in circles. The stars wobbled, swelling and contracting, as the sky itself moved in waves overhead.

The laughter never stopped. It didn’t sound brilliant and sparkling anymore—it was hard and glinting and cruel.

Finally, I gave up trying to move and clung to the ground. But even then I seemed to slip forward, like I was falling downhill—or being dragged. My chin scraped against a rough, broken root as my hands groped through the delicate clover for something solid to hold on to, but they only grabbed clumps of muddy earth.

Wherever Lydia was trying to take me, I didn’t want to go.

I curled into a ball and covered my face with my arms.

I give up.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, the laughter stopped.

For a minute I lay there curled into a ball, hearing raindrops padding on the soft green leaves around me.

Then I sat up, on the alert for the slightest hint of Lydia’s demonic laughter, ready to throw myself back down to the ground.

I glanced up. The clouds were at rest in the sky overhead. The rain came down in soft sheets instead of spirals.

So I started back for the road on my shaky legs. Once I got some momentum, I upgraded to a slow jog, navigating the slick terrain as fast as I dared.