The Girl Who Wasn't There

by Nick Clausen

  “It’s just Doris. It’s a puppy I brought with me from the creature’s house.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  They drive for some time without speaking. Andy feels Rebecca looking back a few more times, then she stops. As they get out of the forest and the shadows, the moon and stars light up the open landscape around them.

  “I didn’t think anyone would come for me,” she suddenly says in his ear. Andy can tell she’s almost crying. “That’s why I ran. I thought you had all given up on me.”

  “I didn’t give up on you,” Andy says firmly. “Never.”

  “Then why didn’t the police come for me?”

  “They said there was nothing more they could do. And Mom and Dad, well … they believed it, I guess. But I didn’t. I knew we could still find you and get you home.”

  “Is that why you came alone? On Cindy’s scooter?”

  “Yeah. Mom and Dad don’t even know I’m gone.” He breaks into laughter. “Imagine their faces when we show up!”

  Rebecca is quiet a little while. “How did you figure out where I was?”

  Andy begins explaining, and once he starts, the whole story comes out. Everything from the book to the woodpeckers to New Mom to Anatomy of the Human Eye. He even tells about Lisa.

  Rebecca listens while he talks. Andy can’t recall she’s ever listened for so long without interrupting him.

  When he’s finished, she simply says: “So, ghosts are real then.”

  “I guess so. At least this one is.” Andy can feel Rebecca’s arms tremble. “Are you cold?”

  “Yes, very.”

  “It’s only ten more minutes to town. Hang on a little longer, Becca. Can you do that?”

  Andy expects her to scoff and says something like: “What do you think?” or “Of course I can, I’m not a baby.” That’s what the old Rebecca would have said.

  Instead, she answers meekly: “Okay.”

  Andy feels a stab in his heart. What was it the wendigo did when it caught someone? It broke down the person’s mind and spirit, sucked the life force out of them, until they weren’t even a human anymore.

  Andy really hopes the wendigo didn’t suck too much life force out of Rebecca. He really hopes she’s still Rebecca.

  The sky has started to lighten, and the moon and stars have lost some of their shine, when they finally see the town up ahead. The night is turning into morning, and very soon the traffic will set in.

  They have just passed the town limit, when the scooter gives a jolt.

  Andy looks to the dashboard. A red light next to the fuel-indicator is blinking.

  “Oh, crap.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s out of gas.”

  The scooter jerks again and loses speed. Andy pulls onto the sidewalk just as the engine dies and they come to a halt.

  “We have to walk the rest of the way,” Andy says, putting the scooter on the stand, before helping Rebecca down. It’s only now he notices she’s barefooted. “Where are your shoes?”

  “I had to leave them,” she simply says, cupping the bundle on her stomach.

  “You want me to carry you?”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  They begin walking down the sidewalk. It feels unreal to Andy, strolling alongside Rebecca again. She limps a little.

  “So, what was its name?” she asks, glancing at Andy.

  “The wendigo?”

  “Yes, you said you knew right away when Regan found the name.”

  “Here, let me show you …” Andy finds his phone and types in the name.

  Rebecca reads the name, then frowns. “What a strange name.”

  “I know. But try to sound it out.”

  Rebecca does so. “Ambroos van de Goor …” At first, she doesn’t seem to get it. Then she squints her eyes and repeats it. “Van de Goor … it sounds a lot like ‘wendigo.’”

  “Exactly!” Andy says, smiling. “I guess it made up its own name, trying to pass off as a human being. It must have had a social security number and everything, since it could take a book from the library.”

  “Maybe it was a human being once,” Rebecca says, her tone distant, as Andy can tell she’s thinking back on something.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “There was a picture of a girl at its house.”

  “A girl? What girl?”

  Rebecca shakes her head. “I don’t know. Someone the crea … the wendigo loved. I’m pretty sure she’s dead now.”

  Rebecca falls silent, and her eyes seem to stare at nothing as they walk on.

  Andy glances at her once more. “Did it … did it hurt you, Becca?”

  Rebecca keeps looking straight ahead. “It burned the soles of my feet with a cigar and dripped something in my eyes which made them sting.”

  “That monster,” Andy whispers, feeling shivers run down his spine, and anger well up in his chest. He looks at Rebecca again. “I can tell your eyes are kind of pink—can you see all right?”

  “Not really. Everything is blurry.”

  “I’m sure it’ll pass.”

  “It did so in the beginning, but not anymore.”

  Andy clenches his fist. He feels so bad for Rebecca, but he also feels furious at the police, at Mom and Dad, at himself, at everyone for not finding Rebecca sooner. Now she might have permanent eye damage due to what the wendigo did to her.

  “What about your hair?” he asks.

  “It made me dye it.”

  “Did it do anything else to hurt you?”

  Rebecca is silent for a long time.

  Andy begins to think she won’t answer.

  Then, she says very quietly: “It kept calling me Alice.”

  “Alice?”

  “Yes. I told it over and over my name was Rebecca, but it just kept calling me Alice.”

  “Why would it do that?” Andy asks, frowning.

  Rebecca keeps looking forward as she says blankly: “It wanted me to forget my real name.”

  Andy notices her face tremble slightly as they walk on. He can see thoughts going through her head, and he can tell how badly it has affected Rebecca’s mind being trapped by the wendigo for that long.

  “But you didn’t forget your name, did you?” he asks tentatively.

  Rebecca hesitates just a second, then shakes her head. “No. I wrote it down.”

  “Good. That was clever.”

  “It also … it also killed an old man,” Rebecca goes on. “I saw it.”

  Andy swallows. “Who was he?”

  “I don’t know, some guy who came by looking for directions. It beat him to death with a shovel.”

  “Holy crap,” Andy mutters, then thinks of something to change the subject: “How did it catch you? I mean, how did it get you into the van in the first place? ’Cause you were in the van, right? When I heard you knocking from the inside?”

  Rebecca nods. “I was, and I saw you through the crack between the doors.”

  “How did it happen? Did it just scoop you up outside the library?”

  “No, I went to the park.”

  “The park? Why?”

  “I wanted to give you a scare. You know, because I was mad at you.”

  Andy shakes his head. “Well, that’s just typical you, Becca. You should have stayed and waited for me like I told you.”

  He sounds a lot more accusatory than he meant to, and he immediately regrets saying it.

  “I know,” Rebecca says, breaking into sudden tears. “I know I should have waited, and I’m sorry, Andy, I’m so sorry!”

  She stops, turns and puts her arms around him.

  Andy is so surprised to see Rebecca cry, at first, he just stands there, dumbfounded, as she holds him in an awkward, sideways embrace.

  Then, he puts his arms around her. “It’s okay, Becca.”

  “It’s not okay, it’s my fault, I should have stayed!”

  “No, it’s my fault,” Andy says, tears coming to his eyes now. It breaks his heart to hear Re
becca blame herself, but at the same time, it makes his own guilt easier to bear, and it enables him to say what has been on his lips ever since he saw Rebecca again: “I’m so sorry I left you, Becca. If I had never gone into the library that day, none of this would have happened. Can you ever forgive me?”

  Rebecca tries to say something, but it drowns in sobs, and Andy just holds her as she cries uncontrollably into his chest. He hears someone whisper soothingly, and realizes after a while it’s himself.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay now. You’re back. You’re safe now. It’s okay.”

  Finally, Rebecca’s crying dies out, and she wipes her eyes. “I’m so glad you came for me, Andy.”

  Andy smiles, discretely blinking away a single tear. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t have been there earlier. You’ve been really brave.”

  Rebecca looks down. “My feet are really hurting. I think I’d like you to carry me now.”

  “Sure, hop on the Andy Express.”

  That’s what he used to call it when Rebecca was very little and wanted a piggy-back ride.

  He kneels down, allowing Rebecca to climb onto his back. They haven’t done this for years, but luckily, Rebecca isn’t very heavy.

  Andy begins walking, and they move through the still sleeping town, the streetlights casting their yellow glare from above.

  “What do you think will happen to it?” Rebecca asks. “The creature, I mean.”

  “It’ll be arrested for sure. As soon as I give its name to the police, they’ll track it down and put it in jail. Or maybe they’ll even kill it once they find out it’s not human.”

  “Good,” Rebecca just says.

  “Look, we’re almost at the library,” Andy says, nodding ahead. “Ain’t that weird? It was right down there we spoke and saw each other last, right before you disappeared.”

  Rebecca doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she says: “Do you hear something?” A note of tension in her voice.

  Andy stops and listens. He does hear something. It’s a rumbling ga-dunk, ga-dunk, ga-dunk, growing both louder and faster, and it’s coming from behind.

  Andy turns and feels his stomach drop.

  The yellow van is approaching fast, tilted to one side and flapping away on the flat tire, but still going very fast.

  “Oh, shit!” Andy exclaims. “It’s coming!”

  “We’ve got to run, Andy!” Rebecca screams into his ear—quite unnecessarily, as Andy has already spun back around and is running as fast as he can, Rebecca bopping up and down on his back.

  The street ahead is empty; there are no side streets, no driveways or other places to turn, and no people to call for help, either. Andy can’t do anything but run straight ahead.

  Rebecca shouts something, but Andy doesn’t register the words. He can hear the yellow van gaining on them fast. He darts a look back and sees it now driving with two of the wheels up on the sidewalk. Behind the dark windshield he glimpses the pale face staring out at them, and he realizes with a jolt of cold fear that the wendigo is going to run them both over.

  There is still nowhere to get off the street, only fences and hedges, but they have almost reached the library now, and if he can just make it another twenty feet or so, he can cross the street and run into safety behind the bike rack on the parking lot. But the sound of the van is so close now, Andy has no choice but to make a dash for it, so he turns out onto the street. The turn proves a little too sharp, however, and the already spent muscles in his legs give way, causing him to stumble and fall to his knees with a painful thud.

  “Watch out, Andy!” Rebecca screams.

  Andy looks up at the last moment, just as the sharp headlights swallow up everything in his visual field. It’s too late to lunge forward, too late to go back, too late to get out of the way.

  Andy does the only thing he can; he throws Rebecca off.

  Then the van hits him.

  * * *

  Rebecca lands halfway onto the sidewalk, scraping her palm and hurting her knees, but hardly noticing either.

  She immediately turns her head to look back at Andy. And she sees it all happen. Just like the time the creature killed the old man, everything turns to slow-motion.

  The van isn’t going quite as fast as it did, but it’s still moving at a considerable speed when it collides with Andy and sends him flying across the asphalt.

  He rolls over several times before coming to rest on his back, his legs and arms splayed out to the sides, his head tilted sideways so Rebecca can see his face. His glasses are hanging from one ear, his eyes are closed and his mouth is open. A dark stream of blood runs from the corner of his mouth. She stares at his chest. It’s not moving.

  He’s dead, a thought tells her from somewhere very far off. Andy is dead.

  She can’t take her eyes off Andy’s face; everything else disappears around her. She just stares at him, willing him to open his eyes, to begin breathing again, to make him lift his head or move a hand. But Andy just lies completely still, not breathing, not opening his eyes and not moving anything.

  Something stirs under Rebecca’s shirt, and she vaguely remembers the puppy.

  Somewhere nearby she hears the sound of a car door opening, slow steps coming across the sidewalk. The tall, gangly, naked figure of the creature comes into view. It stops next to Andy. Stands there for a moment, staring at him, in the middle of the empty street.

  Leave him be, Rebecca thinks, trying to turn it into words, but failing.

  The creature bends over, scoops Andy up and carries him back to the van.

  Rebecca’s thoughts are broken. She feels distant and dizzy, black dots are dancing in front of her eyes and she blinks to try and keep herself awake, but it’s a losing battle.

  Call for help, she thinks, but still can’t find her voice. She couldn’t call out any more than she could take flight. She can’t even get up or turn her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees how the creature opens the back doors of the van and puts Andy’s body inside.

  When the creature comes to take her, she can’t do anything to fight it. She feels the cold hands grab her and lift her up, and then the blackness comes rolling in, rushing over her like a wave of tar, drowning out the last of her conscious mind.

  Rebecca faints.

  * * *

  Andy wakes up very gradually from a very deep sleep.

  At least, so it feels.

  But something is different. He feels so much lighter, like his body has turned into warm air. And when he opens his eyes, something is different with his vision as well.

  He stares at a dim sky with faint stars overhead, but everything appears like he’s looking through a window wet from rain.

  He sits up, realizing where he is, but remembering nothing about how he got here. He’s outside the library, in the middle of the street, and it’s either late evening or very early morning, judging from the dark skies overhead.

  Even though he recognizes the surroundings, they look simultaneously very strange, somehow more fresh and vibrant, almost like he never really saw them before. Everything is shimmering slightly, the road, the houses, the library, even the air around him.

  “I must be dreaming,” Andy thinks—or maybe he actually speaks it out loud, because the words seem to reverberate around him for a few seconds, before drifting away.

  He gets to his feet, amazed at how easily he can move—it’s like he simply forms the intention to move, and then it happens without any effort on his part. He feels weightless, like he is mostly part of the air around him, like he isn’t really there.

  “I’m not really here,” he think-speaks, listening to the words, trying to understand them.

  He looks at his hands, turning them over slowly, studying them as they flicker and blur in front of his eyes, the edges constantly trying to bleed out into the air, as though his body is reacting to an unfelt breeze, almost taking off.

  “What a strange dream this is.”

  The words float around him for a while
, then dissipate.

  Then, new words appear: “It’s not a dream.”

  Andy turns around—at least he thinks he does, but it feels more like the world around him revolves, spinning like a giant disc—until he faces the library, from where the new words seemed to come. The darkish building is swimming before his eyes, and a bright figure comes floating towards him, touching the ground but not really walking. It’s a girl, wearing blue, her long, dark auburn hair floating around her head and constantly moving as though she were underwater.

  Andy tries to focus, tries to look at the girl more closely, but discerning her features is like pinning down a piece of soap you dropped in the sink.

  “Who are you?” he asks the figure with his mind.

  “I’m Lisa,” the girl replies, hovering in front of him. “You remember me, Andy.”

  That’s not true, Andy doesn’t remember anything. He didn’t even remember his own name until the girl mentioned it just now.

  But then he does remember, very vaguely.

  He remembers having talked to a girl named Lisa sometime very long ago in a distant place far from here.

  “I do remember you,” he says in his head and out loud. “You’re the dead girl at the library.” Suddenly, more memories return, and they turn into speech. “You died right here outside the library.”

  “So did you,” the girl tells him, her voice betraying no emotion. It’s funny how the words sound, like birdsong in the air. “We’re both dead.”

  Andy bursts into laughter. Somehow, that seems like the appropriate response to someone telling you you’re dead. Of course he isn’t dead. Dead people don’t speak, don’t hear, don’t experience anything.

  “I’m not dead,” he tells the girl. “I’m just dreaming. You’re in my dream.”

  “Look closer, Andy.”

  Andy stops smiling and looks closer. He notices something behind the girl, something in the sky above the library. The background is changing, turning into something else. It’s a bright purple sky with foreign planets drifting around; then it shifts again into something else. This time it’s a desert, and then it’s an old castle, then an open flowery field, an active volcano spewing lava, a battlefield strewn with dead soldiers, a schoolyard full of children.