We All Fall Down

by Natalie D. Richards

  My stomach drops like a stone.

  These are my shoes from the party.

  The memory blasts through me. I’m sitting on a plastic chair. I’m holding my hands over my mouth. I’m dripping blood onto my beautiful shoes.

  These are the sandals I wore to the party.

  I suck in a breath. My head spins. No, they have to be someone else’s. The shoes I wore are gone, pushed deep in the hospital bag with hard plastic handles and letters that read Personal Belongings. Bloodstained clothes don’t seem like belongings, though, so I pushed them into the trash can in our garage, under our rotten food and used tissues.

  I threw away these shoes, so they can’t be here. Not unless someone dug them out of the trash before the truck came. No one would do that.

  A hand falls heavily on my shoulder, and I yelp. Melanie. It’s only Melanie.

  “Geez, Jumpy.” She looks at the shoes and scoffs. “I’m not sure they’re cute enough to steal. Kind of dirty.”

  “They’re mine.” My voice sounds faraway. “I lost them.”

  “Oh. Maybe your friend found them and wanted to surprise you.”

  My body goes cold. I blink at the sandals, feeling a million miles away.

  There has to be an explanation. Theo didn’t have these, and Theo would never…

  Would he?

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Ugh, I’m starving,” Melanie says, struggling to fold her waders.

  Her vinyl pants crinkle, reminding me to take off my gear. I move like someone else is controlling my limbs. Pull here. Bend now. Tug this part. All the while, my veins flutter with adrenaline—liquid panic. It will grow until my ribs hurt, until I won’t be able to breathe. Until I’m rocking and shivering in a full-blown anxiety attack.

  My gaze is drawn to the bridge. Theo’s long gone, and the so-called haunted bridge doesn’t look haunted at all. Couples walk back and forth. Do I really believe there’s some supernatural presence up there?

  My shoes stare at me, testing me. They do not feel like ghostly business. The earring…maybe. Even the purse. But this pair of shoes isn’t floating in a river of mud or sticking in my father’s shoe. These sandals were placed here. Side by side, lined up just so.

  This feels human.

  And I can only think of one human who’s been here to do it.

  “I’m going to order subs,” Melanie says, tapping at her phone, blessedly ignorant of my chattering teeth and panting. “You want one?”

  I nod, not trusting myself to speak. Seeing Theo in my mind’s eye, climbing down from the bridge, shirt still off and eyes on the river. I imagine him setting them up.

  A rush of blood roars behind my ears. I feel dizzy.

  No. Theo would not do something like this. He wouldn’t. He cares about me. He kissed me, for God’s sake.

  And once upon a time he hit me too.

  I gaze at the bridge where Theo and Denny were working. They’re gone now. On lunch break. I try to remember hearing them leave, but I was caught up in cement pillars and impressive project scores.

  Melanie’s laugh makes me jump. “Well, are you going to leave them here?”

  I don’t know what to say or do. I feel her watching, and I remember her phone call earlier. I am forty-eight hours from this presentation, and I can’t be crazy. Not with her.

  “Get your shoes, already,” she says.

  I take the sandals.

  The sun shines the whole way back. My shoes bang against my thigh with every step, but I don’t look. Birds sing. Melanie talks. I don’t listen, because I’m thinking of something else she said back there. Occam’s razor.

  The simplest answer is usually right.

  Theo

  Gabriel is still researching when I get to the library. He holds so still when he reads that I wonder if he’s fallen asleep. But when I clear my throat, he gives me a dirty look and tells me to organize my research while he finishes up.

  My research was all phone based and only loosely research based. After a few random searches, I got sucked into a bunch of cool photo galleries of bridge graffiti. And then bridge stunts. And somehow that led to card tricks. From what I can see on the table across from me, Gabriel read twenty-five books and took a thousand pages of notes.

  The way I figure, there are two kinds of people in the world when it comes to studying. People like Paige and Gabriel, and then all the rest of us.

  One therapist back in junior high gave me a list of careers good for high-energy individuals. That was when I got the idea of being a fireman or a paramedic. It didn’t seem like a job where I’d spend much time at a desk. And I’d help people for a change.

  Before all this, maybe I could have done that. Maybe I would have.

  Gabriel looks up from his book, pulling my attention back to the here and now.

  “Are you medicated today?” he asks me.

  “What the hell kind of question is that?”

  He shrugs one shoulder. “Considering the three prescription bottles in your uncle’s truck, it seems like a valid one.”

  “You’re a snoopy little shit, you know that? They could have been his.”

  “Not unless Denny is a nickname for Theodore. Also, you mentioned it in the library when we met. You seem really fidgety.”

  “Well, for the record, I am medicated—today, yesterday, and every day. Thanks so much for asking. Maybe you’d like to talk about my broken childhood next?”

  “Not particularly.” He flips his notebook closed. “So, who’s going first?”

  “You. Tell me what you found. Did you look into that suicide?”

  “Like I said, that’s not what this is about. It happened, but the guy had problems.”

  “But he chose to kill himself on the bridge. There could be a reason for that.”

  “He didn’t have any history on that bridge. You’re thinking of the rumors.”

  “Rumors usually start with some piece of truth, right?”

  He pushes back from the table, looking angry. “Why are you so obsessed with that one tragedy? Things have been happening on that bridge a lot longer than the sixteen years since he died.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “We’re not looking for a tragic guy. We’re looking for a tragedy involving the bridge and locks. Do you know what I mean?”

  Suicide by jumping feels about as on-the-nose as we can get, but Gabriel’s not buying it. Since he’s the one with a stack of dog-eared books next to him, I slouch back into my chair.

  “Okay, I give. What’s your theory?”

  “There was a train collision. A passenger killed on the other side of the bridge, a girl a few days from getting married.”

  “But it wasn’t on the bridge?”

  “It’s still possible. The train was traveling across the bridge right before it happened. Can’t be sure if they had a lock on the bridge, but since they were together in high school, it seems likely.”

  “Okay, what else?”

  He pauses, looking like he’d been saving this one. “There was a couple who definitely had a lock on the bridge. It was, like, twenty-five years ago.”

  “What?”

  “AT and JS. Adam Tilton and Janice Sorenson.”

  “All right, what about them?”

  “Janice disappeared. She and Adam were both biology majors, fell in love over the microscope, you know? They broke up in early senior year, and she became obsessed with the bridge. Wrote this big article for her sorority newsletter about how all the couples with locks on the bridges were doomed.”

  “You found the article? Show me.”

  “I can’t. The college confiscated the newsletter and no copies have turned up. There was a little write-up in the community paper though, because Janice was expelled.”

  “For being hung up on a guy?�
��

  “Apparently for inciting campus-wide panic. She published scary stuff that had happened. Couples who had broken up, some random folks who had died. Cancer and accidents—it happens, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know.” I scoot forward. “That was probably when all the rumors started, right?”

  “Seems like it.” He shifts into motion, taking the notebook from the floor and flipping to a page. “Anyway, according to the article, Janice didn’t do well after that. She moved to Rhode Island for some weird reason and wasn’t heard from again.”

  “What happened to Adam?”

  Gabriel shrugs. “Adam’s still in town. He works at the DuPont factory, cutting sheets of plastic.”

  “Speaking of cutting.” I slouch lower on the couch. Hearing voices is one thing, but there’s no low-drama way to tell someone you passed out cold because you cut off some locks and heard a bunch of strange voices. Still, he’s trying to help, so I tell him.

  Gabriel listens in that stone-still way of his, finally sitting back, arms folded. “You know what this means?”

  “That the locks are involved. I know.”

  “We already figured that. What’s new is that this is the first time your actions have started one of the incidents.”

  I start to respond, but stop cold because he’s right. Every other time, the bridge started the haunting. This time was different. I cut the lock, and the bridge made me pay.

  “Okay, so we cut off the rest of the locks?”

  He shakes his head slowly. “I think we need to talk to Shaun or Jerry.”

  I lean back, tipping my wooden library chair back on the two back legs. “Please tell me Shaun and Jerry aren’t the douchebags who run the ghost tours.”

  “They aren’t douchebags. And Shaun agreed to meet with us.”

  “Okay, then I’ll go with the con artists who run the ghost tours. Worst of all, their tours skip the only haunted place in this shitty town.”

  “They’re not con artists. Shaun has a master’s degree.”

  “Master’s in what? Witchy woo-woo or chain rattling?”

  “I don’t see why you’re being so illogical about it. If you had a money problem, you’d go to a banker or an accountant. If you needed to write a paper, you’d talk to an English major, you know?”

  I let my chair drop back to the floor with a thunk. “Fine. What do the ghost experts say?”

  “Not much yet. I texted them. Shaun thinks you’re dealing with an energy haunting.”

  “Like a poltergeist?”

  He looks at me as if I likened the energy haunting to a bowl of macaroni and cheese. “No. Nothing like a poltergeist. Poltergeist comes from the German word Polter, which means noisy, and Geist, which means ghost.”

  “Um, isn’t that pretty much exactly what this is? Playing music, making voices.”

  “No, a poltergeist has big physical manifestations. Doors opening and closing, glass breaking. Objects flying around the room. Poltergeists are pretty hard to ignore.”

  “So are ghosts that knock you out when you touch their locks, but whatever. Not a poltergeist. Paige hasn’t just heard voices; she found a purse. And earrings. Both of which were from the party. So what’s that about?”

  He cocks his head. “She’s found actual physical items.”

  “Yes. Items she lost are coming back to her. Do ghosts do that?”

  “I’ve never heard of an episode like that on the bridge. Are you sure she’s really finding things, not just seeing them?”

  “Can you think of a reason for her to lie?”

  “Guess not, but either way, none of this sounds like a ghost, if you think about it. Ghosts are usually reliving a moment from their own life, but even ghosts with some other purpose wouldn’t know the details of what happened to you and Paige.”

  “Nothing happened to Paige and me. I made it happen.”

  “Regardless, something is feeding on the negativity there. Energy haunting makes sense.”

  “And the other voices I heard? What do they have to do with me?”

  He shrugs. “From what you said, it didn’t sound like they were ‘happily ever after’ memories either. Still negative energy. This is why I think we need Shaun.”

  “Why? Is he going to offer a bridge exorcism for fifty percent off?”

  Gabriel closes his notepad and sits very quietly. I get the impression that I’ve hurt him, which means I’ve definitely hurt him. I’m not big on impressions. I’m more of a club-me-over-the-head-with-the-abundantly-obvious type.

  “I heard something too, you know,” he says softly.

  “Yes. Some woman. And you said yourself that she was nice to you. Which first off doesn’t really line up with all the bad energy you’re talking about. And it also doesn’t line up since you don’t have a lock on that bridge.”

  He stares at the table and doesn’t move. The stretch of silence is sending bursts of energy dancing in my fingers and legs, but something holds me still. I wait for him to respond.

  “There is a lock with my initials.”

  “You found a lock?”

  “That’s why I told you not to touch the locks. I was looking at them, and I found one. An old one. Small and blue. It had my initials. Just mine. And there was a date.”

  “What date?”

  He looks at me, his eyes red. “My birthday.”

  The words send ice up my neck. I don’t remember the lock he’s talking about, but I can imagine it. Something you’d buy for a baby. Only one kind of person would put a true love lock on a bridge for a baby. A mother.

  “You live with your grandfather, don’t you?” I ask softly.

  “Yes. And I lived with my uncle before that. My mom died when I was three. Heart problem.”

  “Is that who the voice is?”

  He shrugs. “Yes. No. If it were my mother, she would still talk to me. I believe that. I have to believe that. You know what I mean?”

  I nod, and Gabriel shakes his head. He looks close to tears and really pissed about it.

  “I don’t know what the hell it was,” he says. “A memory of her, maybe. Some piece of her energy that was left behind. And I hate that it’s all mixed up in this.”

  “Maybe it’s not. Maybe part of the energy is positive.”

  He sniffs and pulls back his shoulders, looking a little taller. “Maybe. All I know for sure is that if there is power in those locks, it’s not all bad. You can’t destroy them all, because you might be taking something good too. You need to find the source of the problem.”

  My phone rings, and I startle at the noise. I accept the call without looking, holding up a hand in apology to Gabriel as I slip outside.

  “Hello?”

  “Theo?”

  Paige’s voice warms away the rest of the ice left by Gabriel’s words.

  “Hey, you. How was the river today? I’m with Gabriel again and I’ve got to say, this kid is—”

  I cut off, abruptly aware of how weird it is that she’s calling me this late. She takes a breath that shudders on the other end of the line. Is she scared?

  “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Did you find something else?”

  A beat of hesitation drags on the other end of the line. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because you sound upset. Are you upset?”

  “No. I did find something. Just like you guessed, but how would you guess?”

  She sounds weird, and I’m too tired for weird. “What did you find?”

  “My shoes. The sandals I wore to the party.” Her voice is small and quiet, and my fingers itch, remembering her face in my hands, her forehead against mine. Her little ballet flats tucked under her legs. Then I think of other shoes, brown sandals strapped across her pale, freckled toes. I saw blood drip onto those sandals.

  “The brown ones.�
�� I close my eyes and take a deep breath that smells like rotting wood and damp grass. “Strappy and tall.”

  “You remember the shoes I wore to the party?”

  Her tone bites a little.

  I open my eyes and stare at a stack of posters advertising a tag sale at the Presbyterian church. They’re dated for last weekend. We could have gotten cheap Christmas lights at that thing, I bet.

  “You were drunk,” she says, yanking my attention back. I didn’t imagine her snippy tone. She’s pissed. “How could you remember that kind of detail, Theo?”

  “I wasn’t drunk when I picked you up, and remember I was in full-on obsession mode.” Her harsh laugh is short and hollow, nothing like her. “What’s going on, Paige? Are you all right?”

  Her breath is shaky, and I wish I was there. I’m shit at this in general and hopeless as hell over the phone.

  “I’m fine,” she says. “Or not fine. I don’t know. I have to go.”

  “Wait, I haven’t told you what we found. I met up with Gabriel, and he has a theory about all those locks on the bridge.”

  “A theory.”

  “Yeah, he thinks we might be experiencing an energy haunting, which makes sense in a way. I mean, as much as a haunted bridge can make sense.”

  I hear her breathing, but she doesn’t speak for a long while. Just before I ask, she adjusts the phone.

  “I have to go,” she says.

  Her voice is flat enough to turn my stomach. She’s slipping into her anxious place, where she imagines shadows around every corner. Except this time, she’s right. There are shadows waiting for her. Waiting for both of us.

  My free hand clenches. “Paige, wait. I promise you, I’m going to find a way to figure this out. This drama is going to end. You just have to hold on a little longer.”

  “Hold on for what?”

  “For…I don’t know. For this to end.”

  “I really need to go.”

  The line clicks, and I pull the phone from my ear in disbelief. There’s nothing but a blank screen and dead air.

  Paige

  I don’t know if it’s paranoia or reality. That’s the problem with anxiety disorders. My fear feels as real as any truth. So, is it true? Is Theo behind all of this?