B.C. Johnson - Deadgirl

I laughed. It just burst out of me before I could slap my mouth closed. Of everything I had expected to come out of her mouth, that hadn’t been it. I popped my fingers over my mouth and tugged my lips together. I tried to calm my eyes, bring them under control.

“What?” Mom said, leaning back, a little annoyed. “What’s so funny?”

“N-nothing, Mom,” I said. I turned and hugged her. “I just… It’s hard for me to be comfortable with my…fatness. You just made me feel a whole lot better is all.”

“Oh,” Mom said.

She drew up, and I could see the pride welling up. She’d been the perfect mom, and she’d solved the problem. She practically glowed with satisfaction. My lips quivered, and I remembered how much I loved my mom. I hugged her again and let her go.

“What was that one for?” she asked.

“Just for being you, Mom,” I said.

She looked confused yet pleased, so I left it at that.

“Make a plate for me,” I said. “I promise to eat the whole thing. I just need to get some fresh air, if that’s okay.”

She nodded. “Okay, hon. Nothing wrong with being healthy just…just don’t overdo it, okay?”

“I promise to stay off of Oprah, Mom. You have my word.”

I waved my hand at her and bounced out the back door.

I raced down the street, pumping as fast as I could.

The harder I rode, the faster the cold set into me. But I didn’t stop. The wind against my face couldn’t compete with the icy chill spreading through my muscles. My bones. Every part of me felt sluggish. Frost poured out of my labored lungs.

The only upside was that I had yet to sweat a drop. Hurray for hypothermia.

The road flew past me. I zipped through the yellow pools of the streetlights, flying up to the curb whenever I feared smashing into a parked car. I was getting weaker—the pumping of my pedals came slower and slower, and the crisp wind in my face was dying. I was coasting more than I was riding, and it took all of my strength just to balance on both wheels.

The bike creaked to a stop, and I fell over.

Everything became dark, and I could feel the sharp wet crystals in the wind. Just like snow.

No. I stood up. I thought of the little boy running through the cornfield, but nothing came. I tried to picture him as hard as I could, and for a moment the wind stopped. A fluttering of something warm blossomed in my chest and then was gone. Whatever it was, I’d used it up. I tried to picture the little boy, but this time there was nothing.

My tank was empty. But I had a little strength left.

I looked up from the ground and laughed. Of course. I’d fallen over in the parking lot of St. Elias. I picked up my mom’s bike and shoved it into a long stretch of bushes. I ran through the parked cars without a look back.

The hospital wasn’t very big.

I pushed through the swinging glass doors out front and entered what looked like every hospital I’d ever been in. Short, hard gray carpet where there wasn’t blinding white tile. Taupe walls. Long corridors of doors with tiny placards. Disinfectant stink. Fake plants in little wicker pots. A small round nurse or secretary at a half-circle desk.

I walked up to her and tried not to sound out of breath.

“H-hello,” I said, and my teeth chattered. A swirl of frost accompanied the words. “I’d like to know which room Kent Miller is in?”

She glanced up at me from behind half-lidded eyes and fiddled with the keyboard at her desk.

“Family?”

Oh crap. I’ve seen enough hospital shows—that really shouldn’t have caught me off-guard. Luckily my quick mouth saved my idiot-brain once again.

“No, I’m actually in his History class. I’m one of his students.”

Wow. Good work, mouth. You get a raise or something. Maybe I’ll up the cheesecake ration or something.

“Oh,” the little nurse/secretary said, perking up considerably. “That’s so sweet of you. Yeah, let me look it up. If I could just get you to sign in here…”

She pointed at a clipboard, and I scooped it up and scribbled Allison Belle on the visitor sign in portion. The signature was shaky in my frozen hand, but readable. Ally Belle was my alter-ego as a little girl. Sometimes she was a superhero, sometimes a princess, but it was the name I always ran with. Nowadays I mostly used it as my junk email name.

“Looks like Room A6. Just down this hall,” she said, pointing to my right. “And on the left. I think his wife is there right now, just so you know.”

I glanced down at the sheet. Just over my name , written in a measured, steady hand was the name Maria Miller. The sign in time was two hours ago, and there hadn’t been a sign out time. I glanced up the visitor roster to see she’d signed in and out at least five times throughout the day.

“Thanks,” I said. She handed me a visitor’s badge, and I clipped it to my shirt.

Needless to say, my steps down the hallway were measured. What should I do? The wife might have a hard time believing my high school student story, especially if Kent was awake to ruin my identity. Then again, if Kent was awake and he recognized me from the crash, it would be even worse.

Why did I come here?

As I reached for the door, the naked, blinding urge to run hit me. It was pure panic, flushing me with adrenaline and telling me to run or die. Run or die.

My eyes shot around the hallway, but I saw nothing. No one but the secretary at the little half-circle desk. For the first time that night, sweat began pouring through my skin despite the icy freeze. I watched my arm in fascination as a drop of sweat crawled halfway down my elbow and then turned to ice.

I was breathing too hard. My nostrils flared, and the urge to run hit me again. Despite my better judgment, I threw open the door and leaped into Kent Miller’s room.

Inside the room there were three people. Kent Miller sat up in the hospital bed, looking groggy but awake. Maria Miller, a thin but very ugly woman, sat at the little chair by his side. A man in white I first mistook for a doctor stood in the corner of the room.

He was tall and thin with a gaunt, stretched out face. He didn’t look over thirty, and yet he surely wasn’t under forty. His smooth face belied his age, and his eyes were so dark they looked black. A white lab coat hung from his frame, and underneath it, a white t-shirt and a pair of white Dickies slacks. It didn’t surprise me to see a pair of white sneakers capping off his legs.

When I looked into his eyes, I felt my blood drain.

The primal, gut-wrenching fear had a source. It was staring me in the eyes, and I knew if I didn’t run I was going to die.

Chapter Nine

Fear the Reaper

My foot pivoted—that’s as far as I got. I grabbed the door and tugged as hard as I could. It didn’t budge.

I spun back toward the man-in-white, who stared at me with those coal-black eyes. He didn’t look happy—I half-expected a maniacal grin to spread across his face. Perhaps a soul-sucking evil laugh. He didn’t move though, except to pull his hands from the pockets of his lab coat. They were long and slender and fine—the hands of a piano player or a surgeon. He folded them together and let them fall to his belt-buckle.

“Good evening, little miss,” he said, in a voice like dark chocolate. “Please, sit.”

I looked around the room, adrenaline scouring my veins. I tugged at the door again, but if anything it was stuck harder. I turned back to him, my hand still gripping the door handle with white-knuckled strength.

I looked at Kent Miller and his wife, Maria. Both of them seemed awake, but neither was talking. Or moving. Their eyes drifted lazily across the room, like they were following the path of an errant butterfly.