Pretty Little Dead Girls

by Mercedes M. Yardley

“Okay. So when I saw you with that guy, I knew you needed me. Because you don’t seem to realize what he has inside him, what has taken up residence inside of his head and pushes its face to his eyes so it can see. His eyes, they truly are windows, and when I look into them, I see what is looking out at me. It is plain to see, but you seem so unaware.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly,” Teddy said. “So I told my wife I was going to come over here and tell you to get out. To leave. It’s not safe for you, Bryony, and I don’t think you know who that guy is.”

  “He’s Peter.”

  Teddy took a deep breath. “I don’t think you know what that guy is, then. He’s a killer. I saw it in his eyes; I saw it in the way he looked at you. I know that look, Bryony, and he’s going to be the end of you. You have to leave this place.”

  “But my father—”

  “Stop wanted you to live. More than anything else, right? More than anything else, Bryony.”

  Bryony ran her hand through her hair. The stars on her bracelet shone in the moonlight.

  “I will bury him for you,” Teddy said gently. “I know you wanted to be here, but if you stay, you will not survive. What about your husband? If you stay, you will never see him again.”

  Eddie. He had disappointed her, surely, but had she not disappointed him in the past? She hoped they would have the opportunity to disappoint each other in the future. She had to get back to her husband.

  Teddy reached into the backpack at his feet.

  “Here,” he said, and tossed Bryony a pair of white running shoes.

  “What are these for?” she asked him, holding them in her hands. She looked at Teddy, who shrugged a bit, as if he too were baffled. The shoes were worn and sturdy and somehow felt like salvation.

  “My wife told me to bring them to you tonight. She figured you didn’t have time to think about what to pack, that you just hopped on a plane. They’re hers. She said you would need them. You have to leave this place. Can’t you hear the desert screaming for you? It has gone mad. It’s time.”

  It’s time. It’s time. It sounded like her father’s voice in the wind.

  Run, Star Girl.

  CHAPTER FIFTY THREE

  Please Live

  Bryony nodded, and clutched the shoes to her chest like a talisman.

  “Thank you so much, Teddy. It can’t be easy to come here and say this to me. In my heart I think I always knew Peter was what you say, but I don’t want to believe that, you see. It means I have been foolish, which I have, and that Eddie has been blind, which he has. It means I should have run a long time ago, and I didn’t, and now I am sorry. It means when he saved me, he didn’t do it because he’s a good person, and I so dearly want him to be a good person. Please thank your wife for me, and kiss your beautiful girl, and take care of my father for me. Place him in the desert, and let him tamp it down and hold it back. I fear I shall never return here. Never again. I have nothing to come back for.”

  Teddy leaned through the window, kissed Bryony on her cheek and ran his hand over the stitches on her face.

  “I wish I could help more than this, but I can’t. Please live, sweet girl. You give all of us so much hope.”

  He smiled, and then he was gone, and there was nothing outside except for the sound of the sand shifting and blowing over the rock.

  Bryony studied the shoes and realized she hadn’t gone running since the day she was attacked and very nearly killed. She slipped them onto her feet and tied the laces, remembering when she and Stop worked on tying her shoes every night.

  “It’s important to tie your shoes,” her father had told her. “Tie them well and you can keep your shoes on your feet. You don’t want them to slip off when you are walking or climbing trees or skipping rope. You don’t want them to fall off when you run.” The words were Heavy With Meaning, but Bryony was only five and didn’t understand words Heavy With Meaning, but she did understand things that were important to a little girl.

  “And my teacher will be so proud of me!” Bryony said.

  “And your teacher will be so proud of you,” Stop agreed.

  Now she looked around her bedroom one last time. It was full of color and whimsy and bells and chimes and wonderful flying things that hung from the ceiling. There were stars. Stars on the walls and stars on her dresser. Notebooks with stars and plastic stars and stars made out of crystal. It was a beautiful place, and many happy years were spent here, but it had come to an end. It was too dangerous, and she had skirted the issue too long, and her luck was running out, if it hadn’t already done so.

  “Bye, Daddy,” she whispered. “I love you. I’m going to do my best.”

  Then she slipped out of the window, landing as quietly as she could in the sand outside. She ran quickly to the car, grateful that it was still the same old small town where everybody simply left their keys in the ignition, and hopped inside.

  She was going home.

  CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR

  Ideally

  Peter woke up with a start. Something was wrong. What was it? What was it?

  He was somewhere unfamiliar, and this realization had him on his feet beside the bed in no time. Had he been caught? Had he been taken? He would rather die before being taken, and he didn’t remember a struggle of any sort whatsoever.

  A quick scan of the room jogged his memory. Ah, yes. This was Stop’s house, the home where Bryony grew up, and he was sleeping in the bed of a dead man, but being who he was meant this didn’t bother him any. Stop had seemed like a good and decent man, and heaven knows his daughter adored him, and the fact that he had disliked Peter on sight, well, it only said good things about him, too.

  Downstairs Bryony would be sleeping, curled up on her side with, he imagined, her fingers close to her mouth like a child. She had fallen asleep in her clothes, but if she had the time to choose whatever she wanted to wear, would she be wearing a white nightgown to complete the look of innocence? Would she be sleeping in one of Eddie’s shirts because she missed him? Her father died and that man couldn’t even make the effort to be here. He was undeserving, especially when he knew the consequences of being lax. And there would definitely be consequences. Perhaps after Bryony’s death, Peter should finish off Eddie, who would no doubt be grateful for it. Although, actually, Peter most likely wouldn’t get the chance, since he could see in Eddie’s posture he was trying to make himself smaller and smaller so the world wouldn’t miss him so much when he took his own life after his bride’s death. Ah, Eddie, so sweet and so misguided. Hang around for a while, Peter thought. Let me do the deed for you. It will give us all what we want.

  Peter stood there musing, and suddenly his eyes darted to the side in reflex. There it was, the sound, the sick, grating sound that woke him. It was the sound of an engine trying to turn over, and as he recognized it, a grim smile crept onto his lips, cementing itself to his face in defiance. After checking on the exhausted woman in bed, holding her hand and stroking her hair while she slept, Peter tinkered with the car just enough that it wouldn’t be able to start.

  Why would he do such a thing, one would suppose?

  Peter is a predator, and a predator needs his prey in order to fully feel complete. If said prey is intent on slipping off and dying alone in the middle of nowhere, well, it leaves the predator with nothing to show for his concentrated effort. Peter had spent a considerable amount of time on this—his perfect kill.

  Why else had he taken the time to know Bryony and her friends and even her grouchy husband, for crying out loud.

  He had killed those close to her. He had insinuated himself into her life discreetly, in such a way she would be certain to miss him at least a little if he ever decided to slip out of it.

  That might be the greatest triumph of all.

  Would she weep if she never saw him again? Good thing they’ll never have to find out.

  He walked to the window and peered outside. He could see Byrony’s pale hair in the driver’s side window. App
arently it was time.

  Ideally, he would have liked her stitches to have been removed. He would have liked her grief to fall from her body like a silk robe. She should have been healthy and happy. He wanted to bleed her innocence from her. He wanted to watch the levels of her joy run out of her veins and they could have smiled at it together, her head on his shoulder as they calmly watched the blood flow. “You have released me from this parasol of horror that has always followed me. I could never truly rest, but thanks to you, Peter Culpert, I shall finally experience true peace. I am ever so grateful.”

  “You are very welcome,” he would answer back genteelly. “I have never had the pleasure of killing a victim as fine as you. It is a joy.”

  “I wish you many more victims,” she would say. Her voice fading, but she would continue to be her polite and caring self until her last breath.

  Our brave, brave Bryony! Her hand would slip and fall to the ground, and the blood would be a beautiful pool of life, and their hearts would swim in it like quietly delighted fish.

  Peter would kiss her on her unearthly white brow. “Goodbye, my girl. From the stars you came and to the stars you will go,” he would say, and—

  No, that sounded too scripted. Perhaps this:

  “Goodbye, my girl. Return to your rightful place in the stars, where you will watch over all of mankind throughout the eternities—”

  Ugh, that was even worse. Peter leaned his head against the coolness of the window and closed his eyes. Nothing so grand it seemed unbelievable.

  “Goodbye, young woman. I hope that—”

  Not a chance.

  “Your time on earth was short, yet in that brief time you managed to touch many lives.”

  Yech! Peter’s eyebrows furrowed. He wanted to say something meaningful, even profound, but he didn’t want the last thing she heard to be a formal eulogy. Or did it sound more like something from a fortune cookie? What to say, what to say.

  He had it.

  As Bryony’s hand slipped to the ground, he would pick it up and gently kiss her fingers.

  “Goodbye, Star Girl,” he would say.

  Perfect. Perfect. That is exactly what he is going to say.

  He opened his eyes and looked for Bryony. The driver side door was open, and she was nowhere to be seen.

  Peter cursed and reached for his knife.

  Obviously this situation was going to be less than ideal.

  CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE

  Clouds

  The car wouldn’t start, and Bryony knew this was unusual. Didn’t it start perfectly only today? Hadn’t it been a good and serviceable vehicle? Now, suddenly when she needed it most, it chose to let its internal parts rust and die and spew fluid hither and yon?

  She didn’t think so.

  Bryony peeked up and saw a man in the window of her father’s room. At first her heart skidded to a stop—Daddy!—but then she remembered her father was dead, and the man silhouetted there was Peter, and she had been warned against him within the last few hours by two people who cared for her.

  And she was a kind girl, a tender girl, but she was also a smart girl when her eyes were opened, and her father and Teddy succeeded in opening her eyes. Peter didn’t move from the window, and his body language told Bryony he was most likely off in a world of his own, so she used this to her advantage. She opened the car door as quietly as she could, slid out, and hit the ground doing what she did best.

  The wind tore through her hair and left a confused wake behind her. Her feet pounded against the hardened desert sand, and her lungs prepared themselves for the effort they would soon be feeling.

  She was alive. She was alive.

  Bryony had never run through the desert before. It was too hungry, too eager to trip her up and throw itself on top of her in a flurry of dunes. This was freedom, though, this was joy. She ran from the house, hoping to make it to the edge of town where she would hide in the old library until she could figure out what to do. Call Eddie, most likely. Call Syrina and Rikki-Tikki. Call a cab, call a priest, call for Simply-Tim-The-Police-Officer-Soon-To-Be-President, call for her father, whatever she needed to do.

  The ground trembled beneath her, but she caught her stride. It was an easy, loping run. She paced herself, giving herself enough energy to sprint at the end if she needed to. She was afraid that she would need to, that somehow there would be a tornado or some other piece of desert related insanity that would come after her. There is an ancient evil out there, and when it wants you, it wants you. She knew this, and ran evenly. Breathing in, breathing out, trying not to cough on the dust dancing through the air, and woo-hooed its way down the rollercoaster of her throat and into her lungs.

  She could do this. She would do this. She was her daddy’s girl.

  Clouds gathered above her and the air grew dense with moisture. Thunder rolled in the background, and Bryony remembered riding on her father’s shoulders as a girl. She held an umbrella over both of them, and Stop splashed through the puddles with the boundless energy of a young man trying his hardest to keep his daughter from missing her absent mother.

  “The thunder scares me, Daddy,” she had said.

  “The thunder isn’t what you have to worry about, honey. It’s the lightning, and sometimes even the rain.”

  “Why the rain?”

  “Well,” he said, “out here the rain doesn’t get to come very often. So when it does, it’s angry, and feels like it wants to get back at you for not letting it come. It falls on your head and your hands and your arms, and it hurts. It feels like something hard is being thrown at you. That’s not all. It is angry at the desert, and it beats at it with its fists. The desert isn’t used to being challenged, you know, and for a while it is overwhelmed. It doesn’t know how to fight back against this horrible, hateful rain, and it floods. When that happens—”

  “Yes, Daddy?”

  “When that happens, all of the desert animals have nowhere to go. They get washed away in the mud and the rain, and all they want is to be somewhere safe. That makes sense, doesn’t it, my girl?”

  “Of course, Daddy. Can’t they just go home to be safe?”

  “No, sweetheart. The rain has made everything wet and unwelcome and cold and unfriendly. Their homes are no longer safe. But in the distance, they see something strong and tall that isn’t bowed down by the rain, so they all head straight for that.”

  “And what is this tall and strong thing, Daddy?”

  “Oh, Bryony. It’s us. Don’t be caught in the desert rain, because all of the terrified, furious animals will head straight for you.”

  That was many years ago, but Bryony remembered it clearly as her muscles stretched and worked. She had a good five miles to go, and she could make it that far if she was careful, but she was tired, and scared, and most of all, she was lonely.

  Eddie, why didn’t you come? she thought. Why aren’t you here? I fear we have made a terrible mistake, you and I. I fear it might be our last one together. Oh, how I would love to make more mistakes with you.

  There was a growl of thunder, and there was no masking its anger. The earth rolled under her feet, once, twice. She nearly tripped, but caught herself and continued on. She wished the houses were closer together, but it’s not the way it was, for this town had been planned for people with herds of animals and coops of chickens and whatever it is that one calls a group of peacocks. These animals need lots and lots of room, and the homes were spread quite far apart on the dusty, bumpy stretch of desert sand they called the Main Road. Besides, Bryony learned early on it isn’t worthwhile to wish for things that would never be.

  She looked up at the clouds. How sinister, how unkind. How dark and hateful they seemed to be.

  “Why?” she wanted to ask them. “Why do you loathe me so much, when I have always enjoyed watching you roll across the sky? I always found shapes in you, and chose to see the most beautiful things I could so you would be happy. Why can’t you just love me in return?”

  The clouds didn
’t answer, being the aloof, scattered things they are. They are wistful and wishful and really don’t care much about the concerns of those who prattle on beneath them. They are very different from stars, which are quite concerned with the antics of earth. Stars choose you, and watch over you, and are interested in what you say and to whom you say it. They are inquisitive. They are compassionate. They would most certainly come to the aid of the Star Girl if they could, for she certainly is one of their own born to the flesh.

  “Yes, yes, let us help you!” they chimed, for it is well known that stars do not twitter as much as chime like small bells. “We long for your life! We want to continue to watch you and Eddie and your friends, and see what people give to your children for their birthday, and we want to know which lucky animal will be your first pet and we want you to grow flowers. Lots and lots of flowers. Do not be afraid, Bryony. We are with you, forever and ever, and although we may be weak, there are many of us, and if we all gather together—”

  The stars were hushed even in the midst of their exultant cries, for the clouds, you see, had grown weary of them, and rolled in ominously. They linked their arms together and formed a barrier against the stars, and with all of the lights of heaven effectively shut out everything became horribly, horribly dark. Bryony’s heart cried out in what might have been, and in fact was, despair.

  “No,” she thought. “No!” And her footsteps faltered for just a moment before she forcibly pulled herself together and ran on. But in that brief second of silence where she was afraid and unsure, she heard something. It was a second set of footsteps, fast and fleeing through the night, and they were coming from her home, and they were right behind her.

  CHAPTER FIFTY SIX

  The Knife

  The thing that must be remembered about Peter is that he, too, is a runner. Whereas Bryony planned to keep a little extra energy in her tank so as to make it the entire five miles, Peter had no such plans. He was sprinting, because he did not need to make it to the edge of town: he only needed to make it to the girl.