by Amanda Frame
Backstabbers, all of them.
I waited for her to make some mention of the girl, but she never did. I thought she was a girlfriend, maybe, but no. I did find out that Brian went to Cypress High, so I searched there often, but there were hundreds of kids. I knew I could pick her out easily if I just saw her face. It was burned into my memory.
I stood in the middle of the girls’ bathroom next to the cafeteria, listening to them talk shit about each other while they walked through me. I ran my hands through my dark brown hair and pretended to examine the status of my makeup in the mirror. I was wearing no makeup, nor did I have a reflection. All I knew was that I was wearing the same faded blue jeans with a hole in the knee and light blue turtleneck sweater that I was wearing on January fourteenth, thirteen years ago, the day I died. Every once and a while if I focused hard enough I could change the color of my shirt a few shades or fix the hole in the knee. I had even tried making my pixie-cut hair longer a few times, but it didn’t work.
“Oh come on Becca, you’re serious?” I heard a familiar voice say.
“I swear to God, Anna!” Another girl laughed.
“You’re full of shit.” More laughter.
I looked towards the swinging bathroom door and saw the girl. Anna, I assumed, based on the overheard conversation. My heart leapt and I faded out enough where if I didn’t move, she probably couldn’t see me. Well, that was a big probably considering she shouldn’t be able to see me in the first place.
I crouched in the corner of the bathroom by the handicapped stall, observing. They were much harder to see now, just ghostly traces and whispered words, but I didn’t want to scare her.
I almost lost track of her when I was forced to avoid a Stalker that was a little too close for comfort, praying on the troubles of stressed out students. I needed to find out where she lived. I followed her all the way home, since her friend drove her to school.
Her parents were home so I didn’t bother going inside. I needed to get her alone so I wouldn’t terrify her when she saw me, and also so that she wouldn’t look crazy when she began talking to thin air, assuming she could still see me and was willing to talk.
I had been close to the physical for too long and was getting exhausted. I wanted to talk to her today, but it wasn’t going to happen. But I knew where she lived now, so I could come back another day.
When I finally made it back to the hospital, I noticed that the water surrounding the ICU was almost completely gone. If I didn’t take care of it, it would soon be overwhelmed by Stalkers.
I wasted two days doing that. It was always an exhausting task. Then I went back to the school to see if I could get more information on Brian before I gathered the courage to talk to Anna. It was empty. School had let out for the summer.
I kept going to her house to try to talk to her, but she was never alone. I was beginning to get really frustrated. Finally, the fifth time I visited, her parents weren’t home and she was getting out of her car. Perfect timing. This was it.
Only it wasn’t. Her friend was with her. I groaned. Whatever, I was going to do it anyway.
I went inside to wait for them and double-checked that no one was home. The house was empty. I waited in the living room, close to the Echo, so that she wouldn’t see me as soon as she walked in. I didn’t want to scare her.
I was exhausted. Fading in and out like this all day for close to two weeks was draining me. I let myself rest for a moment; the furnishings of the living room faded almost completely as I settled back in between the two worlds, the purgatory where I existed as my whole self. Neither here nor there.
My rest was cut short when I spotted a Stalker outside. I pressed up close to the physical, protecting myself from the creature who couldn’t follow me there. The couch came into focus and I ducked behind it out of habit, even though it didn’t exist where the Stalker was anyway.
I heard the startled squeal of a young girl and stood to face her.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” I said, I held up my hands and backed away, trying to look non-threatening. Her wide eyes examined my face; she was clearly confused and nervous.
“Anna? Are you okay?” the redhead asked. I recognized her as the one from the bathroom conversation. Becca.
“Yeah…” she said, still looking at me, expression unchanged.
“What…what are you doing?” Becca said, noticing her staring at nothing, and waved her hand in front of Anna’s face.
“Just…” Anna said to her. “Can you go get us some sodas?”
“Oh, nuh-uh. You’re looking at something, aren’t you!” Becca tried to follow her gaze but obviously couldn’t see me.
“Anna, you’re scaring me!” she pulled on her arm, trying to get her attention.
“It’s that woman I told you about,” Anna half-whispered to Becca. I was surprised.
“Wait…the ghost lady?” Becca said, glancing in my direction nervously. I laughed out loud, her dramatic whisper made me sound like I floated around in a long white nightgown and howled in the shadows.
“What is she doing?” Becca whispered again, grabbing Anna’s arm with both hands and pulling her close. I chuckled.
“Nothing. She’s—” Anna grinned “—laughing at you.”
“What? Seriously?” Becca scoffed, standing up straight, “Why?”
“Who…what are you?” Anna asked, ignoring Becca and addressing me.
“I’m Liz. I…I need your help. Please. I don’t know why you can see me but I’ve never come across anyone else here who can so…please just hear me out.”
“Okay, but like, what…” she started, trailing off. “What are you? Are you dead? A ghost? What’s going on? This is just too much.” Anna said, scrubbing her hands over her eyes. “It’s just one more thing, every day, there’s just something else.”
“What’d she say?” Becca asked, wide-eyed.
“She wants…just give me a sec, okay?” Becca sat down on the couch with a huff, crossing her arms impatiently. She kept glancing over to Anna and then back in my general direction, hoping to see something.
“So… it’s complicated. I guess you could say I’m dead…”
“So you are a ghost!” Anna interrupted, and I heard Becca inhale sharply.
“Well…sort of?” I said, impatient to get on with the important part of the conversation.
“How can you be sort of a ghost?” Anna asked, confused.
“Well, my body is…alive…sort of,” I continued, exasperated, not knowing how to explain. How could she possibly understand without me retelling my entire life story? Or death story, I guess.
“But…”
“My body is on life support in the hospital. But me, I’m… in a different place. There’s this place that people go when they are in my situation. It’s really complicated to explain and I don’t want to scare you…” I began.
“Wait, are you in the Void?” Anna asked, looking like she had some kind of epiphany.
“The what?”
“The Void—well, that’s what John calls it. He’s…gah, doesn’t matter. Is it sort of empty but full of monsters?”
I was shocked. “How…how do you know about that?”
“I’ve been there. It was by accident at first…but why were you at Brian’s house? Do you know what’s happening to him?” She sounded so desperate, it struck a chord with me. I felt the same for different reasons.
“I’m not entirely sure. I’ve never come across something like his situation. I think the Stalker is somehow where I am.”
“Stalker? Oh, a Leech. Somehow where you are? I thought you were in the Void, where all of them are.”
I let out a deep breath. It was getting hard to keep myself pressed up against the physical for this long so I needed to get this conversation going. It took another ten minutes to give a rough explanation of neither existing in the world she did, nor the world that the Stalkers did, but somewhere in between. I told her that I believed it had something to do with still b
eing connected to the physical plane. She was rapt the whole time. She interjected that she thought she could see me because she had a connection to what she called “the Void”.
“So what do you want from me?” Anna asked.
I steeled myself for my next explanation and attempted to tell it as calmly as possible. I needed her to sympathize. “My time on this earth was supposed to end thirteen years ago. My parents have kept my dead body alive for too long. I need them to let go. I need to move on.” I tried to not let my doubt show. I had spent so long trying to figure out how to get back into my body, but ten years ago, I had finally begun to come to terms with the fact that it was impossible. But then I saw Albert’s body get stolen. And though I was furious and upset that someone would violate him like that, it also renewed my hope that I could do the same to my own body.
I couldn’t, though. There was something different about the boy who had soaked into Albert like water into a dry sponge. Now, instead of hoping to accomplish the same as the boy, I longed for Albert’s demise, who had faded very soon after his connection to his body was severed. He was peaceful when he went, and I was envious of the look of serenity that had come over him. I was torn between fury, jealously, and grief for a long time, even though I had known Albert such a short while. The boy killed Albert’s soul. It wasn’t his intent, but that was the truth of it. But it had been the old man’s time for over a week already and he wanted to move on. I just wished it hadn’t been forced upon him so unexpectedly.
“You mean you want them to…pull the plug?” Anna whispered the last part, trying not to sound insensitive.
“Well…yes. Although it’s a bit more complicated than that,” I responded matter-of-factly.
“How I am supposed to convince them to do that? They don’t know me. It’s not like I can tell them you told me that that’s what you want.”
I took a deep breath. I knew this. My parents were skeptical atheists. I didn’t think there was any way she could convince them.
“I was hoping that…you would do it.” I didn’t know how to say it delicately. So I just said it.
“Me?” she asked incredulously. “You’ve got to be kidding. You just want me to walk into a hospital and pull the plug on someone like it’s no big deal? How would I even get into your room? How would I do it without it being murder? Have you even thought this through?”
“I have no other solution. You could disable the alarms on the machines—I know how to do it—and I am pretty sure I know how to turn off the equipment. I could be on the lookout, tell you if someone was coming. Hopefully no one would notice until I was…well, dead.”
“There is no way I wouldn’t be caught! This is insane. There have to be so many things in place to prevent people from doing that in the first place!”
Meanwhile, Becca sat up straight on the couch, mouth agape, staring at Anna. Chances were she was putting two and two together on at least a few things we were discussing.
“What if I help you?” The thought struck me. I might have a bargaining chip. The life raft she was hoping for. “With Brian.” I didn’t even know if I could. Or how. But I would try if it meant I could finally rest in peace.
She paused. A good minute went by, her eyes unfocused. They blurred with tears.
“How?” she asked, finally looking up at me.
“I…I don’t know exactly. But I’m on the same plane with the Stalker who’s draining him. You don’t have that advantage.”
I was terrified that she would accept my terms. But I also prayed she would. I was done with this life, had been for a long time. Souls didn’t belong where I was. There was an afterlife beyond this. I could feel it at my fingertips. It was warm and welcoming, like sitting in front of a fireplace on a perfect Christmas day. Pure serenity.
I deserved it. I had waited long enough. I was willing to do anything, I decided. Absolutely anything. My potential savior came in the form of a naïve high school girl. My fate was in her unfortunate hands.
CHAPTER 51
ANNA
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?” Liz responded, surprised. Becca cut off my response when she stood up suddenly and gripped my arm.
“Anna. I’m not totally sure what you just agreed to, but I think I got the gist of it. Think about this. Please. You could be getting yourself tangled up in some serious shit right now.”
“I am responsible for fixing this, Becca! I messed up Brian. I did! I can’t let him end up like Jackie!”
“It was an accident! This might have happened anyway, regardless of if you were involved or not. You don’t know for sure it was all you,” she pleaded.
“Yes. I do. You don’t understand how it works.”
“Then explain it to me! I want to be here for you Anna, I’m worried about you.”
“I can’t! I don’t want you mixed up in this any more than you already are.” She threw up her hands in defeat, tears in her eyes. I shifted my focus to Liz. If I kept looking at Becca the guilt was going to overwhelm me. I should have never told her anything.
“We should all go talk to John,” I said. “He definitely needs to be in on this.”
“Who’s John?” Liz asked.
“He’s my neighbor. He can travel to the Void too. He knows way more than I do; he was stuck there for a while.”
She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes, looking suspicious. Did she think I was lying? “You’re going to have to do that on your own for now. I can’t hold myself here any longer. I have to go. Can we meet again soon?”
“Uh, yeah. How about day after tomorrow? Around this time. My mom won’t be home and I will have had time to talk to John.”
“Okay. Can we…” She faded out of existence before she could finish the sentence. I shrugged. We managed to come up with a meeting place so she could finish her sentence then.
“So?” Becca asked, arms crossed, looking pissed.
I filled her in on what she hadn’t deduced already. She was looking more and more worried by the moment. I could tell how badly she wanted to argue but she knew I had made up my mind.
She had to go home and I had to go see John. I promised I would fill her in, but I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t leave out some details.
I headed over to John’s after shoving some food in my face and waking myself up with a soda. I took another can with me. I had a feeling this was going to be a lengthy conversation.
~
“No,” he said.
“Wait, what?” I was confused. “What do you mean ‘no’? She can totally help us! And you’re not the only one who gets to weigh in here. I think we should take advantage of her offer.”
“It’s too risky. You could get caught.”
“So, what? We just let Brian go nuts? I can’t do that.”
“Anna…”
“This is bullshit! This isn’t like you! What the hell, John?” Ever since I’d told him about Liz, he had been acting weird. I thought he would at least consider it.
“You know if they catch you, you’ll be charged with murder!”
“She’s already dead. She can’t go back.”
“Not in the eyes of her parents. Or the law.”
“I’m not letting this go. I’ll do it without you if I have to.”
John lowered his head and rested the bridge of his nose on his fist. He was clenching his teeth, the muscles in his jaw taut. He met my eyes after a long moment, then looked away.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
“You’ll do what?”
“I’ll pull the plug. She doesn’t have to help us. I’ll just do it.”
“What? You’re confusing the hell out of me. You just said that was the risky part. Why would you want to do that and not let her help us?”
“I just…I don’t want her help.”
“Why? You’re not making any sense.”
“I don’t want anyone else involved. You’ve already involved Becca.”
“This is different and you know it! Can�
��t you just talk to her?”
“Just leave it alone, Anna,” John said. He wouldn’t make eye contact.
“Whatever. You’re being so freaking ridiculous right now, you know that?!” I grabbed my soda and stormed out. This did not go as planned.
I thought I had finally gotten one step closer to saving Brian. I guess I was wrong.
~
“Then make him talk to me!” Liz pleaded. This was such a disaster.
“Maybe we can come up with a plan and then it will convince him,” I offered.
“It would be better to have three minds working on this. And no offense, but you don’t seem to know much about Stalkers.”
I scoffed. “Maybe not, but I’m here in the human plane and I’m the only one we’ve got right now, so maybe you can just fill me in.”
It was taking me a while to get used to talking to Liz. Her image was wobbly and transparent, her voice sounded far away and echoed slightly. Sometimes she would be more opaque than at other times. It looked like it took a great effort to stay visible to me.
“I have thirteen years’ worth of knowledge. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Well, you said the Leech is attached to Brian, right? Is there a way to…unattach them?”
“Probably.”
“How?”
“In normal circumstances, and let me stress that this is not a situation I have ever encountered, so I don’t know if the same rules apply, Stalkers have to be close to the person they are feeding off. Just getting it away from him might be enough, but I don’t know what would happen after that. It doesn’t have a physical body in the…what did you call it? Void? It doesn’t have a body there. There’s a chance it might die if it doesn’t have a host to feed off.”
“So can’t we just lure it away?”
“And then what? And how?” Liz asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Well…okay, I don’t know.” My shoulders slumped. She was right, I didn’t know enough. We needed John.