B.C. Johnson - Deadgirl

“It was a girl,” Maria Miller said. “A girl called me and said my husband was hurt. I didn’t get her name. I don’t understand why she didn’t just call 911, or how she knew which number was mine.”

How had I not looked this up before, I wondered? Had I just been ignoring it? Had I just hoped something as weird as that accident wouldn’t attract some sort of attention? I could feel my heart slamming in my chest and my pulse throbbing in my ears.

After being treated for minor lacerations and a sprained shoulder, doctors found what looked to be frostbite on his wrist. Frostbite, or congelatio, is damage to the skin and nerves caused by extreme cold. No such condition could have existed either during the accident or during the car ride, police say, and upon questioning, Miller had no idea where it came from.

Doctors are keeping Miller at St. Elias, Chief of Medicine, Arnold Tierez, explained, while they run tests and try to discover the source of the strange injury.

Miller is in stable condition.

I glanced up at the date on the article. The Wednesday morning paper. Kent Miller might still be at St. Elias. It wasn’t that far—if I grabbed my mom’s bike it would probably only take me an hour to get there. But an hour there, an hour back…what explanation did I have for a two-hour bike ride?

Why did I want to go see him? To make sure he was okay? To ask him—to see if he remembered me? I didn’t have a good reason, but I felt like I had to do something. Bring him flowers, or apologize. Then again, anyone at the hospital, including his wife, would guess immediately that I was the person who phoned in his location. And he seemed okay. Stable. Just a minor case of ghost-induced frostbite.

“I’m not a ghost,” I whispered. I slammed my quite-solid fist on the table and rattled my keyboard.

“See,” I said to my room with a puff of white breath.

It was the first time I’d said the word. The first time I’d allowed myself to think about it. Was I a ghost? Did I even want to start thinking down that road ? Stop being a wuss, Lucy. Nothing wrong with objective assessment.

I didn’t fit any of the usual ghost symptoms. Not that I was an expert or anything. I couldn’t float, I was quite solid, most of the time anyway, and I had no binding reason to stay if I had died. I’d read enough ghost stories to know that ghosts had a reason for living. Or, unliving. Insurance policy information, unrequited love, buried treasure, unfinished book, sole knowledge-possessor of some terrible secret.

I had none of those things.

I’m just a 15-year-old high school student , I thought to myself.

I wasn’t class president. I wasn’t even in choir or band or sports. Nothing. I had a crush on Zack, but I didn’t fool myself into thinking we were one for the ages. We weren’t Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, or even Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy. Hell, Ron and Hermione had one up on us.

So maybe I wasn’t a ghost.

Beyond that, I didn’t have many ideas. Vampires drank blood, plus I had no problems with daylight. Zombies ate brains. And not to toot my own horn, but I was at least thirty-times better looking than any zombie I had ever seen.

My toes were frozen. I wiggled them in their slippers, letting my thoughts drift away. Maybe I wasn’t anything. Maybe something strange had happened. Just a hiccup in the system. God made mistakes, right? Or rather, God’s system? There had to be a bureaucracy in there somewhere. A heavenly DMV if you will. Maybe someone just didn’t sign the right form someplace and I was just a goof up. A misplaced comma, a one not carried.

I sighed and shivered.

It was getting bad again, that I was sure of. I couldn’t fool myself into thinking it was going to go away this time. I’d had to take it before. I’d had to rip warmth out of someone. Could I do it again?

I thought about the strange daydream I’d been having since that Monday. Just a picture at first, then a stuttering grainy video of a little boy running through corn fields. Wearing a pair of overalls and tiny dirty sneakers. Laughing wildly but still running, sucking in huge gulps of air between his giggles. I couldn’t place the image—it looked like something out of a movie, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

When I tried to summon the image that time, it flickered and went white. Nothing.

I rubbed my temples. I stood up. I went downstairs. I could feel that edge of madness again, the hysteria I’d felt in Morgan’s apartment. It made me want to laugh or cry or jump up and down. I suppressed it. I tucked it away. I swallowed it and shut my mouth.

I clicked on the TV and paced in the living room.

“Lucy?”

“Hey, Mom,” I said, biting my lip. “How’s it going?”

Mom walked into the room, paging through a newspaper. She sat down on the couch and glanced up at me. She hid her look of concern poorly.

“Is everything okay, hon?”

I had to look crazy. Pacing, the nervous look I could feel on my face. The short, quick breaths. I just hoped she didn’t notice the frost. I glanced at the thermostat on the wall and wasn’t surprised to see a “78” in the tiny window.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Just nervous.”

“What about?”

I twisted my lip. Wow, honesty. Where did that come from?

“About…Friday,” I said. “I wanted to ask you about Friday.”

Mom sat up. “What happened Friday, hon? Is there more—”

“No,” I said, then shook my head. “Sorry, sorry. I actually meant, this Friday. Not last Friday.”

“Oh,” she said. “I just thought—”

“Yeah, no, not that. I kind of wanted to ask you if I could go to a birthday party. Friday.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Oh, well yeah, I guess tomorrow.”

I was so glad that my mouth was faster than my brain. Not only had my mouth managed to deflect my mom’s current questions, but it actually got the party-permission thing out of the way. Zack had mentioned Benny’s party every day since he had invited me, and I’d told him I’d find out every day. After last Friday, I didn’t know how lenient my parents might be. It could go either way, I knew. The grounded forever protective route or the go out and be normal, we’re totally cool route.

The look on my mom’s face told me she hadn’t decided which way yet, either.

“I’ll have to talk with your dad,” she said. “But for now it’s a tentative maybe.”

I nodded, but my heart sank. Dad was more liable to throw up the shields and lock me in my room forever to keep me safe.

“Do you mind if I go for a bike ride while you deliberate?”

Mom twisted in her seat. She glanced at the clock.

“Luce, it’s after seven,” she said. “I don’t know.”

It was dark outside. Really dark. Stupid daylight savings time, ruining my strange, illogical plans. Would I really go to the hospital? I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. And then there was the cold to consider.

“I just want to get some exercise,” I said.

“What about dinner?”

I frowned. What about dinner?

“I ate a huge lunch—”

“Lucy,” Mom said, and to my surprise, stood up. She walked over to where I was pacing and put her hands on my shoulders.

“I know what’s going on, Lucy.”

My heart stopped. Packed its things. Ran away. I felt a lump of lead in my mouth and a cold chill down my spine.

“What?”

“Lucy,” Mom said. She turned to be side-by-side with me and slipped her arm around my shoulders. “You can’t do this to yourself.”

“Do…do what to myself?”

“You aren’t fat, Lucy,” Mom said, and looked me up and down. “You look fine, honey. There’s no reason to starve yourself or start turning into a bike nut.”