The Dead Girl

by Ariadne Eldritch

  "Susan's here," Anson said. He held up his right hand and the glow intensified.

  That's when Anson lunged at Alyson. I squeaked—yes, squeaked—but Alyson wasn't there. She was abruptly behind Anson and then my brother was gone.

  Poof.

  Wait—

  And Alyson was grabbing a different bag from the closet and transferring the clothes from the black one into it. "Look at the side emblem on that bag, Olivia. Look!" she threw the bag Anson had been stuffing at me.

  I let it fall to the floor. But I could see the spinning globe and the words stitched in white, SOUL AUTOMATIC CORPORATION.

  Where did Anson get a bag with S.A.C.'s logo on it?

  Alyson was standing in front of me, taking my arm. "We've got to get going, Olivia. We can't stay here. Do you understand?"

  I watched her eyes. "Where's my brother? What did you do with Anson?" I was barely keeping the hysterical shrieking from my voice.

  "Not now Olivia! Don't you see? Anson works for my dad!"

  I did not want to hear that. I let loose and the Long temper came out. I reached out and grabbed Alyson by the shoulders and shook her. "Where. Is. My. Brother? I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what you did to Anson."

  But Alyson didn't react in irritation, or even anger. She just gave me a lopsided smile. "He's on the roof. He's fine—though afraid of heights. He—"

  The temperature in the room abruptly dropped. Not like an air conditioner turned on—but more like we stepped into a freezer. My bottom lip trembled and I pulled my hands away from her.

  "He's using his power on the house," Alyson said as she moved back to the closet and took out Anson's old pea-coat. She tossed it at me. "Take this."

  The banging on the door downstairs ceased. Uh oh. I wrapped the coat around me. Alyson ran out of the room for a few minutes as I moved from the other side of the bed to the door, shaking and shivering the whole time. I could see my breath!

  Shoes! I needed shoes! There—by the dresser.

  Alyson came back. "Let's go," she said as she grabbed my arm.

  "Where to?" I asked and my teeth clacked together.

  "Somewhere warm," Alyson muttered. "And some place your brother isn't likely to look."

  There were a million places he wouldn't look—Anson rarely took a second look at my social calendar. Or had he? It was dawning on me pretty fast that I really didn't know Anson.

  Not real well, anyway. And maybe that really wasn't Anson—maybe it was some kind of pod person.

  Alyson hoisted the duffel over her shoulder and grabbed me just as I heard the door open and a very angry Anson yell out. "Olivia! Get away from her!”

  But Alyson was looking at me. "Tell me where."

  "Mercer's house."

  I only hoped she remembered Mercer from school. Oh, and I hoped that Mercer remembered Alyson. ‘Cause our old buddy was about to get a surprise when we popped half-frozen into his living room.

  The Warehouse

  Okay.

  So—we didn't end up at Mercer's.

  It took about three seconds of standing in the drizzling rain, staring at the huge, concrete mausoleums to realize we were in Bonaventure Cemetery.

  Argh!

  Alyson stumbled backward against a large tree as I fought to keep down my nausea. Let me be clear right now—teleporting is not fun. It sucks.

  After bending over at the waist and waiting for my eyes to adjust to what light there was coming from several spaciously placed lamp posts, I realized I was standing beside two white marble slabs.

  Zing—another idea came to me and I pulled the phone out of my pocket and opened it to shine the light on the marble like a flashlight.

  Johnny Mercer's grave.

  "Alyson—"

  "I know, I know," she said to my right where she was still leaning hard against the tree and breathing quickly. "Wrong Mercer. Sorry—you meant Mercer Polaski, right? That nerdy kid in Mr. Parson's class?"

  "Yeah…" I looked at my phone and saw I’d recieved a call, and there was a voice mail.

  The mail was probably from that unknown number that called earlier. It had to be. I pressed the message button to call voice mail and put the phone to my ear.

  It was surreal, really. Standing in the middle of Bonaventure Cemetery, in the dark, surrounded by Spanish moss and graves and being slowly soaked by rain.

  It was an accented female voice. She sounded a lot like Heidi Klum. "This is Helios, answering your call for help. Please meet us at the Atlanta Diner as soon as you can. Help will be given."

  I pulled the phone back and stared at it—and then I hit replay and handed the phone to Alyson. I could just see her face in the light of the screen. She looked confused before handing it back to me. I saved the message and closed the phone.

  "You want to meet with this Helios?" I asked her.

  She nodded and lowered her head. It looked like the only thing holding her up was the tree. I figured if we didn't get somewhere soon so she could rest and eat—she was going to fall over.

  And not get back up.

  Alyson stirred and stood up. She staggered the two steps toward me and I felt her hand on my shoulder. "Yes—but I'm not sure I know where the Atlanta Diner is."

  "Well it's obviously in Atlanta." That sounded lame, but I was cold, and frustrated, and wanted desperately to kick my brother's butt for putting us in this situation. Why did he have to go all evil overlord like that.

  And since when was Anson a legacy that could control the temperature?

  Not that I really knew if he was evil—or if Alyson was evil. And what had he meant that I shouldn't have let a legacy touch me?

  I put my hands to my head. What was I supposed to do now?

  "You don't understand, Olivia," Alyson said. "I can't go where I've never been before."

  "One more time?" I narrowed my eyes at her—the water was starting to pool in my hair and run down my face. Though I couldn't see her face really well, I could hear her own frustration in her voice. "You mean if you've never been there, you can't even try to teleport there?"

  "No." She paused. “I don’t have the concurrent point. And if I guess…there’s the possibility I’ll transport into something. Like rock.”

  Oh damn. I might not really understand the science part of what she was saying, but I got the teleporting into rock nightmare. I swallowed. I started to shake. "Well we can't stay here in the rain—and I'm not crawling into one of those big tombs." Ew god no. "Is there anywhere in Atlanta you know? Some place we can go and then maybe get directions to the Atlanta Diner?"

  Alyson stood completely still in the shadows. "I have dreams—"

  "Eh—wrong. I'm not gonna get my butt teleported into a dream, Alyson." Not that I really thought that was possible—but with the direction my life just turned—why take a chance? "We need a physical place."

  Light flashed off one of the trees nearby and I heard an engine. We both crouched low and moved behind the tree. I saw the lights and familiar markings of a Savannah police car.

  "They followed me."

  "No, silly. This place gets patrolled all the time—ever since that book and movie came out. Vandals. And if we don't get out of here and get caught we will end up in jail."

  The light moved then and moved directly onto Alyson's face. She held up her right hand.

  "Don't move!" came a voice amplified by a bullhorn.

  But Alyson was already grabbing my arm.

  And the cemetery vanished.

  Nausea returned with a vengeance, and I absently wondered if Alyson felt the same thing—or was it different for her?

  Suddenly we were somewhere—and it was the smell that got me first. It reminded me of the time my uncle's cat died inside the wall of the basement—the thing had actually dug a hole in some rotted drywall and gotten caught in the wall—and never got out.

  I looked up and saw—pipes? Alyson let go of my arm and I put my hand to my nose. The smell was intense. I blinked a few times and
tried to get an idea where we were.

  It was colder—which would be right if we were actually in Atlanta. Atlanta was always a bit colder than Savannah. Most of the time. There was light from a few suspended lamps above us—but the bulbs were dim. They weren't strong enough to light up the whole area. The floor was concrete, and wet. Lots of trash too.

  My first thought was warehouse. Dirty warehouse.

  "Alyson?" my voice echoed, which only added to the impression I was in a big building. "Where are we?"

  But Alyson was on her feet and shuffling past me, her expression frozen, her eyes wide. I was not liking the looks of this. She looked scared.

  I stood and followed—unsure what else to do. I was shaking—being wet and cold—and felt and heard my teeth chattering. I followed Alyson to a closed metal door. She just stood in front of it for several seconds—her hands balled into fists at her sides.

  I moved around and faced her, putting myself between her and the door. She looked like she was fighting something inside, seeing the door but not seeing me. I'm no body-language expert—but it looked to me like she was terrified of going through that door.

  "It's ugly—" she muttered and closed her eyes. "I didn't want to come back here. Why did I come back here?"

  "Where is here?" I said. "Alyson—are we in Atlanta?"

  She nodded, but kept her eyes closed.

  "Where in Atlanta?"

  "I don't know. South of Atlanta I think. I didn't understand anything—"

  Okay—not feeling my toes.

  "He's right—I know Anson's right. I'm dangerous—you shouldn't be near me, Olivia. This is wrong—so wrong. I wasn't—I didn't used to be this way—" The duffle bag was still on her shoulder as she opened her eyes and put her hands over her heart. "I was different—"

  "Different?"

  But she didn't answer me. She just looked past me to the door.

  I looked at her and then turned and looked at the door. It was tall—about six feet. Rusted in spots. There were holes in it too—kinda like those fake bullet holes you can put on your car.

  Only—these weren't fake.

  "Alyson, when were you here before? How long ago?"

  But her eyes were closed and she wasn't paying attention to me. I grabbed her arm. "Alyson Cooper—how long ago were you here? What were you here for? What is that smell?"

  "I wasn't going to do that!" She pushed me away and charged at the door, putting both her hands out in front of her and shoved it open. It gave with a tired grating noise and I stood where I was as Alyson disappeared inside.

  The smell was worse now—and coming from that room.

  Something else came from that room.

  Flies. Hundreds of them. I could feel them in the air around me and hear the buzzing noise. I squealed as I batted at them and stepped away from the door. But Alyson didn't come out and soon the only thing I could hear was my own heavy breathing.

  "Alyson?"

  I straightened my back and took a single step into the darkness, groping out in front of me. I knew the smell of rotting meat—or at least that of chicken when mom left it in the trash too long and I have to light incense and open the windows to air the house out after school.

  But this was something different. Metallic—like sticking my nose up to a wet pole. And it was dark in there.

  Everything in me said run—get the hell out of where ever it was we were. But Alyson was inside that room—and I didn't want to be alone.

  I had the feeling there was something really terrible in the dark. Everything was wrong.

  With a gulp I stepped through the doorway and reached out with my right hand to my right—light switches were usually on the right hand side. Unless the electrician was a boob like my cousin Roman. My hand moved over more cold, sticky metal but I did touch something that felt like a switch. Instead my hand connected with something that felt like a metal square with a hand. It was kinda big—which I assumed meant it was a big light.

  So I grabbed the handle and pushed it up.

  I really wished I hadn't done that.

  Lights came on—two of them hanging from a low ceiling. The room was maybe a 15 by 12—about the size of my bedroom—with a wooden table along the right wall. Metal things decorated the top of the table. Sharp, dark stained things.

  And the flies—the ones that hadn't made their escape when the door was open—buzzed and whirled about the room. I put my hand over my mouth and gagged at the smell and batted again at the escaping bugs with my other hand.

  A chair sat in the middle of the room—and I could see a pair of bloody handcuffs on the floor behind the chair. Blood was all over the chair itself—dried and caked. And it pooled on the floor.

  And there were bodies.

  Or rather—the halves of bodies.

  There were maybe four of them—four anonymous people. Anonymous because none of these people had heads. Or arms. In fact, they didn't have any parts above the waist.

  There were just hips and legs—just lying all over the floor. The floor covered in blood.

  Everything hit me at once—and I puked. I literally emptied out whatever was in my stomach. I just kept heaving until my stomach ached.

  This wasn't my life—couldn't be my life. I wasn't supposed to see shit like this—bodies and blood—this was movie stuff. Not real stuff.

  That's when the shaking really started.

  Alyson stood in the middle of the room, near the chair. She just stood there, the duffel bag still on her shoulder, whisps of her hair plastered to the sides of her face and forehead. Water dripped into the blood on the floor.

  When I had control of my stomach—or at least fooled myself that I had control—I moved forward gingerly—not wanting to step on someone's lower half, or their blood. “A-Alyson…"

  But she didn't answer. She just looked at each of body pieces, her lips half parted.

  "We need to get out of here," I heard myself say. "This looks like one of those mob hits you hear about—the kind in the movies. And if they find us here they're going to blame us. So we need to get out of here now—"

  "No one's found them," Alyson said in a quiet voice. "I didn't want to be here."

  Realization dawned kinda slow—after all I'd just lost my nutrition for the day, and if we continued to linger in this hell hole I was going to lose my patience—but Alyson had been here before. She could only go to places she’d visited before. She had been in here.

  In this warehouse.

  "Alyson—when were you here? Were you in this room?" I stared at the handcuffs on the floor. "Were you in that chair?"

  She shook her head. "I can't remember—"

  "But you teleported here. Which means you were here before. Did you see this happen? Is that it? Did you see this happen and that's how you ended up in the cemetery trying to get away? Is there a legacy that can whack peoples' bodies in half? Oh God…Alyson is that what your dad can do?"

  Alyson shook her head. "I don't remember—"

  Something banged in the building. I jumped and turned to the door. Was someone else here? How long had these half bodies been in this room? From the looks of things—I'd say a long time.

  "I didn't see it," Alyson said abruptly.

  "Shhhh," I hissed. "I think there's someone else in the building."

  "It was wrong, Olivia. I can't remember what happened, but it was wrong. All very wrong. I wasn't—" She balled her hands into fists. “Did he do this?“

  “No idea. Right now, don’t care. We have to leave. You think you got enough juice to get us out of here?" Or maybe I should find a door. Yeah, let's find a door.

  With a sudden surge of bravado I didn't really feel, I grabbed her hand. She didn't fight me and I paused us at the door. After a quick look around I led her out of the room and back to where we appeared. There was another door on the other side and I could just make out a sign above it that said EXIT.

  But exit into where? Outside? Another room of horrors?

  Alyson follo
wed me to that door and I pushed at it. It wouldn't budge, which cemented for me that this was the door outside. "Locked," I muttered.

  But Alyson moved forward and reached out to touch the handle—which abruptly disappeared. Handle, lock, everything. Suddenly there was just a hole in the metal itself.

  I made a note of something. "You touched that—I thought you didn't have to touch that to make it disappear?"

  She nodded absently, not really looking at the missing lock or at the door, but some point in space. "I couldn't see the whole lock—so when I can't see something or know exactly where it is, I have to touch it."

  Right.

  I pushed the door out and heard the sound of rain hitting concrete. Great—it was raining in Atlanta too.

  There were lights outside and I could make out a parking lot and inhaled fresh air. There were no cars visible—but I didn't trust anything at that moment. There was a room full of body pieces behind me.

  Alyson followed me as I stepped outside and then hugged the building's metal side. It was definitely a warehouse—but where? Who knew? I wouldn't be surprised if we weren't somewhere in Alyson's subconscious at this point.

  I was looking away from Alyson when another flash of lightning showed a van near the edge of the building. It looked like a company van. White, something on the side and no windows.

  "Alyson, look at me."

  She did.

  "Can you drive?"

  She nodded quickly. "Yes."

  Grabbing Alyson, I pulled her to the van. The rain had slackened up a bit as we neared and I jerked on the passenger door. To my surprise it opened. With building hope I stepped in immediately started coughing. Ugh—cigarettes.

  I moved my wet butt into the driver's seat and started looking for a key. There should be a key, right? Didn't the company driver always leave the keys like under the matt? Stuck up in the sun visor?

  "Olivia…"

  I jumped. I hadn't realized Alyson had actually stepped into the van with me. But she was there in the back. She was pointing at the van's floor.

  There was something dark and brown pooled in different places, several rolls of duct tape and two packs of cigarettes.