Dead in the Water

by Chrystal Vaughan

  Dead in the Water

  By

  Chrystal Vaughan

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  Cover Art:

  Michelle Crocker

  http://mlcdesigns4you.weebly.com/

  Publisher’s Note:

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the work of the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is coincidental.

  Solstice Publishing - www.solsticepublishing.com

  Copyright 2014 Chrystal Vaughan

  Dedicated to Emily Valentine and the Judith Kids.

  Judith loves ya.

  Other works by Chrystal Vaughan:

  Sideshow

  Eva

  September 15, 2013

  I’m starting journal number one in the series I like to call “Evalyn Dunbar: The Weird Chronicles.” I decided to start writing in a journal for myself so I don’t expect anyone to read it but I want to, like, look back through them and laugh at what a dork I was. Am.

  But in case someone does read it, in the event I’m dead or something, I’m Evalyn Dunbar (duh) and I spend most of my time being alone. That’s because of how strange I am. My mom says words like “unique” and “different” and my dad doesn’t say anything, he just pretends I’m normal. He’s even weirder than me.

  Being sixteen sucks the big one. Today in chemistry class, Jesse Williams started to come sit by me at the lab table but stupid, Barbie, slutbag Natasha Milligan tossed her blond locks and saggy boobs in his direction and he went over to her table instead, slavering like the dog he is. He did smile back at me like in apology, but I don’t care. Jesse used to be my best friend back in grade school but ever since about sixth grade, right before junior high, he’s been a real jerk.

  Jesse’s mom and my mom have been best friends since they were little kids. In this town (that’s Brookings, Oregon to be exact) people come here and stay forever. There is no escaping. So Jess and me were doomed to be friends since we were born. Which had been a great fate up until it wasn’t anymore.

  So that was just the start to my rotten day. It only gets worse when you’re Eva Dunbar. The kids used to call me Evil Dumbear when I was younger, but then they started being afraid of me. Now they strive for indifference. It’s pathetic, really.

  I read online that I’m supposed to write a description of myself in any journal-type thing. Ok fine, here goes. I spend a lot of time online because I’m by myself up in my room, but mostly I read, write, and draw. Also, I’m sixteen, as I said, I have medium-length black hair, regular blue eyes (instead of piercing, pale, dreamy, or any other lame adjective), pale skin because I never go outside, and I’m like a stick figure so I’ll never have any boobs or a butt. I like to wear oversized sweaters, hoodies, and jeans. Um, and I'm a spirit writer. I guess that covers it. I’ll write more tomorrow.

  Jesse

  Jesse watched Eva's eyes darken with hatred as she stared daggers at Natasha. He wanted to think it was because she was jealous but she never talked to him anymore so he doubted it. There was just something about Natasha that Eva had always hated, since they were all in grade school together. He tuned out Natasha's nasal voice, bitching about Eva, and watched as Eva studiously ignored him, like she'd turn to stone if she looked in his general direction. Her rich, black hair curved down her pale cheek and over her delicate shoulder, hidden as it was under thick layers of hoodie material. Jesse sighed and turned back to the lesson. If he failed chemistry, his parents would take away his Jeep and he'd be forced to take the bus to school and work.

  He had good intentions but his mind drifted back to when he and Eva had been inseparable. There was a time when he thought he was in love with her. Scratch that, he had known it. Eva was all he could think about. His brother Aaron finally grew tired of his mooning about, over her, and told him he should "hit that and get over it" which, to his dismay, sounded half wonderful; the hitting it part. He envisioned a future with Eva though, not just a moment, and at twelve the idea kind of scared him, both the sex and the future. In confusion, he'd backed off of spending time with her and kept to himself for a while. Now, five years later, he could see in hindsight that what he'd done was stupid but he didn't know how to fix it, other than playing childish games like trying to make her jealous with hoes like Natasha. He never did seem to get a break, a time to talk to her alone, and he was too embarrassed to go to her house, facing not only her on her own turf, but also her parents who he saw on a regular basis at his house. He avoided them, too. He could tell they were puzzled why he wasn't a friend with their daughter anymore, just like his parents were. But what could he tell them?

  Jesse sighed. Natasha was whining that he didn't listen to her. She was so freaking annoying. Natasha was one of those girls who thought her boobs and her willingness to put out were all a guy needed in a girl; that, and the occasional bottle of rum from her dad's liquor cabinet. Maybe it worked on most guys; hell, it must have if all the guys in the locker room were telling the truth. Of course, she had told him a little bit about what went on in her life, in her house. He kind of felt sorry for her, but not sorry enough to listen to her jabbering.

  Mr. Riggs, the chemistry teacher, was still going on about the periodic table of elements and alkali metals. Jesse began to feel as though this day would never end.

  Eva

  September 18, 2013

  So I didn’t write more tomorrow. I mean yesterday, or whenever it was. Sue me. I was busy with something else. Here is where I have to tell you, nonexistent reader, about what it is that’s wrong with me. I have this thing that happens where I can be drawing or writing a poem or whatever angst-y, teenage crap I’m doing at the moment, and something sort of takes over my hands and my brain goes on vacation. I don’t remember these “episodes” as my mom calls them but when I come back to myself, there’s like some new writing or drawing on the paper. That’s why I write and draw so much. It’s never fun to have one of these things hit me when I don’t have any paper. So I’m always carrying around a notebook and pens like a complete nerd.

  When I was really little, like one year old, my mom gave me a box of those giant crayons. You know the ones, the super huge ones like toilet paper rolls in your chubby little fists? Anyway, then she taped butcher paper on the floor in our kitchen and I went to town. I don’t, of course, remember any of that stuff. But it must have freaked her the hell out the first time I started writing or drawing something from somewhere else. She doesn’t like to talk about it, but I’ve eavesdropped enough to know that it was a scary picture of a guy cutting off another guy’s head with some kind of machete or sword or something.

  After that first time, I went to the doctor a lot. My parents must have thought I was born to be a serial killer. Anyway, the doctor said I was fine but then it happened again. Only this time, I was drawing on my butcher-paper floor and my dad saw me have a spirit-writing episode. Pretty creepy I bet. I ended up writing a suicide note from some boy named Rodney Gaines. It was signed and everything, even though I was only a little kid and couldn’t even spell my own name.

  Anyways, they took me to more doctors, and more doctors. Funny how the writing stuff never happened in a doctor’s office. I guess people don’t die very often in there. I’ve never been to a hospital but I have a feeling that would be a bad idea. The doctors didn’t suppose I have like multiple personalities or something. I guess I did all their stupid puzzles correc
tly. They kind of just shrugged it off and my parents gave up on the magic of modern medicine to fix me. They just made arrangements with my school to be able to have me go to the nurse's office if it happens there. It has, twice; that's why kids are scared of me. They think I'm a freak, and it's catching, or something. Idiots. They don't totally know what happens because the teachers have all been warned about my "epileptic seizures" and the warning signs, and they are all quick to shuttle me out of the room until it's over only to send me to the nurse and call one of my parents. But the other kids know enough. They seem to know it's something more than a medical condition and they punish me in a million small ways for my difference.

  I didn’t figure out it was spirit writing until I was older and I got my first cell phone. I was kinda spoiled cuz it was a smart phone and had Internet on it. My parents are pretty clueless about that stuff, so I got to pick, and I got an iPhone. I started researching what was wrong with me and I found this (I have the computer now, so it makes it easier to look crap like this up):

  From Wikipedia: Automatic writing or psychography is writing, which the writer claims to be produced from a subconscious, and/or external and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.

  I like that, “claims to be.” As if I’d do this for fun. Ok, so usually I just hide away the stuff that whatever is using my hand writes or draws, but from now on, I’m going to scan it in and paste it into this journal.

  September 22, 2013

  Nothing, so far. I think they (whoever ‘they’ are) are waiting for something. Maybe Halloween. It’s usually worse around then. Gotta lotta homework today. Stupid Mr. Clausen gave us Macbeth questions, due by tomorrow. As if the weird girl needs any help dwelling on death. The kids already think I'm a witch or something.

  September 23, 2013

  No writing, yet. The last time was a picture that came through of a hangman’s noose in an attic. But I tucked it away. I don’t even tell my parents when it happens anymore because it just stresses them out. No wonder I’m an only child. They didn’t want another freaky kid in their house. Can’t say I blame them.

  Today in chemistry, I tried to think of ways to burn off Natasha’s hair so she wouldn’t be so freaking smug anymore, every time Jesse sits with her. Unfortunately, I’m failing chemistry so I wasn’t able to come up with anything.

  September 28, 2013

  This is what I wrote last night, or what something wrote using my hand. I scanned it in to keep the scratchy handwriting.

  So evidently something wants me to drown. Or something is drowning; I’m not sure which. This kind of thing used to really scare me but I’m sort of use to it now. I don’t know what this means or what, if anything, I’m supposed to do about it. I don’t swim, so I’m safe on that score, and I take showers not baths so…whatever you are, if you’re like reading over my shoulder, can you maybe give me a hint? I’m not good with this esoteric crap.

  October 2, 2013

  Worst day, ever; gym class was ridiculous. I hate dressing down for gym and the jerk-wad gym teacher, Mrs. McGhee, made me take my hoodie off. All the girls were making fun of my pasty, scrawny legs and arms. I had to throw my hair up in a knot on top of my head because she made us run laps around the gym and it was hotter than hell in there. I don’t know why we couldn’t go outside. It was fall for gods sake, not the dead of winter. The precious delicate flowers won’t die of frostbite. I swear if there ever was a zombie apocalypse, I would come back here and bite off McGhee’s head as my first act of the newly reanimated. To top it off, I keep finding notes in my locker with quotes from the witches in Macbeth on them. I wish I was a witch. I'd catch those losers and make them sorry.

  I still don’t know what the word ‘drowning’ was supposed to mean. Usually I don’t care; I just stack up the papers with the words or drawings on them and hide them in a box under my bed. But I was reading where some people actually try to do this kind of thing on purpose (*idiots*) and then figure out how they can help the spirits or ghosts or whatever these things are. Maybe if I do that, they’ll help me out? I don’t know. I’m just tired of being tired of my freakiness. I’m like a Goth girl without even meaning to be. I’d give anything for tanned skin, blond hair, and curves. Or friends.

  October 16, 2013

  Been super busy with school. Oh, and guess what? Jesse Williams came over to my HOUSE! I was blown away. Of course, he did get stuck on the same learning team with me in English class so that’s why he came over; for schoolwork. But it was just the two of us, and my parents weren’t home thank god. I, of course, looked like crap. He came over last Saturday afternoon and I was still in my pajama pants and ever-present hoodie. I hadn’t even brushed my hair or my teeth and I was totally depressed. The night before, when I was trying to read the new Neil Gaiman book, I came to myself a while later and found my notebook open on my bed and this drawn in it:

  Cheery right? This was not the first time I’ve had a recurring theme, unfortunately. Another time, I had the same word show up on my notebook for like weeks. It just said “BALLS” over and over again in really heavy black printing. I figured it was the spirit of some pervert.

  This one was really fun with the whole drowning thing. NOT. I understand dead and drowning, whatever you are. I’m curious what the little mark is in the corner under the head with no nose and mouth, and the swirly tornado thing is really weird.

  Ok but back to Jesse coming over. So I’m a total mess right, but he’s all perfect and blond and tall and sexy. I swear high school boys shouldn’t be allowed to have muscles and look like movie stars, especially around freaky girls like me. It’s just inhumane. He’s standing there all-delicious and I’m like, “Hey, Jesse, what are you doing here?” like a total jerk. And he just smiles at me with perfect white TV commercial teeth and he’s like, “Hey, Eva, you want to get started on our MacBeth questions?” Because our sadistic English teacher Clausen has decided we have to write our own questions for the horror that was MacBeth. So I muttered something intelligent like, “yeah sure whatever,” and turned around and went inside the house.

  Jesse followed me inside and we went up to my room. He’s been to my house a million times before but never since we started high school so it was kind of strange. I wonder how different it looks to him, and he must have been thinking the same thing because he asked why the stairway walls were painted blue now instead of pink. I paused on the stairs and just kind of gave him a blank look. Why the hell would they still be pink? Did he think I was still eleven years old? He sorta blushed and stopped asking questions about my décor. I’d actually lobbied to get them painted black to match my mood swings but my parents refused.

  So we got up to my room and it was totally trashed. I’m all embarrassed and I started throwing clothes and books and crap into a corner, when he came up next to me and started helping. He actually grabbed one of my bras with a pile of clothes before I could stop him! I was mortified. Not that my bras are anything to brag about but jeez I don’t want Mr. Tall, Hot, and Blond to be touching my undies. For the second time in two minutes, he was blushing again.

  I hadn’t put my notebook away from the night before and it was still lying open on my bed. I made a dive for it but his long arms passed right by me and snatched it up. It was suddenly like we were ten again, with him holding my notebook up in the air and me jumping around wildly like a freaking Chihuahua trying to grab it from him. I lunged upward to make a final desperate grab for it, but ended up throwing myself into him and sliding full length down his side, and that whole nostalgic childhood feeling was gone in an instant. He caught me by my waist to steady me, and held me pressed against his side for the longest time; it felt like. I have read those trashy romance books where the boy and girl stare deep into each other’s eyes, but never in a gazillion years would I have imagined it happening to me, with Jesse Williams of all people. He arched a perfect eyebrow at me and I let my arms fall from where they’d landed, clasped around his neck. I’m pretty sure
I was the only one blushing by that point.

  I pushed myself away from him like he was suddenly a poisonous snake with three heads and just kind of stood awkwardly in the middle of my bedroom. It sort of seemed like a bad idea to have him there, at that moment, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it now.

  He still had my notebook. I waited patiently while he thumbed rapidly through its pages in a shocking display of disregard for other people’s privacy, as if he hadn’t stopped coming over years ago, and had the right to help himself to my stuff.

  So he’s looking through these pictures and I’m thinking he probably assumes I’m just the strangest person ever, and the worst artist, too, cause those pictures are kind of preschool-ish. But hey, if you were dead and had to use some living girl’s hands, a girl who actually can’t really draw either, then they’re pretty damn good considering those little restrictions. Jess goes, “Eva this is really disturbing. Why do you write this kind of stuff?”

  “Jeez, Jesse, why don’t you mind your own business? I guess I can write or draw whatever I want. You’re not the art police.” What a witty comeback, right?

  “I just worry about you. You don’t talk to anyone at school. You cover up in giant clothes all the time, and you hide behind your hair. You don’t even come sit with me at lunch or anything. And now this...drawing.”

  What? Ok so we were going to do this right now. Fine. “You know what, Jesse? I don’t think I can do homework with you today, or ever. I’m going to ask to be switched off your team.”

  “What the hell would you do that for?” he demanded.

  “Because you freaking jerk, you can’t just stop being my friend and then be all but hurt when I don’t come chasing after you to talk to me!”