The Dead Girls Club

by Damien Angelica Walters

  “Let’s go,” Becca hissed, and slammed the basement door shut behind us.

  I tensed, waiting for her mom to yell, but she didn’t. We sat between the coffee table and sofa, ate our ice cream, and didn’t say anything. Her mom banged around in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets, before thumping up the main staircase.

  Becca dropped her spoon in her bowl. “I wish she’d stop. I hate her this way.”

  I hated her that way, too.

  Becca stalked over to the shelves and came back with a book I recognized from the picture on the front. Rachel said Ted Bundy was cute, which was gross because he was a killer and old enough to be our dad, but his eyes freaked me out.

  When Becca finished reading aloud the part about the bloodstained sheets on Lynda Ann Healy’s bed, she said, “You can’t ever tell anyone about her. Promise?”

  I knew she wasn’t talking about Lynda Ann Healy. “I told you a gazillion times, I won’t.”

  “Promise again,” she said. “Cross your heart and hope to die.”

  I made an X over my chest. “I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  She grabbed her bowl and told me to bring mine. We could faintly hear her mom’s television playing and didn’t speak while we rinsed our dishes. After, she grabbed the wine bottle from the fridge.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “Shhh.” She unscrewed the cap, spit in the bottle, and pushed it toward me.

  I stepped back. “I can’t do that.”

  “If you’re my friend, you will,” she said.

  “I am your friend.”

  She shoved the bottle in my direction again.

  “Fine.” I had to try three times, but I spit a little. My mom would kill me if she knew. It didn’t matter that Mrs. Thomas was the way she was.

  “Ugh.” She took the bottle back and spit in it twice more. “Want to go to the house?”

  “What about your mom?”

  “She’s probably asleep and won’t wake up, or if she does, it’ll only be to get more spit-wine.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I half wanted to go and half didn’t. Her mom was acting really strange tonight—I’d never been scared of her before—so maybe going wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But it was late and the house seemed safer when it was all four of us, not just two.

  “Oh, come on. I’ve done it by myself.”

  “You have?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  But she’d be too scared to go in the house by herself, wouldn’t she? Except sometimes when she was lying, her face said she was, no matter what her mouth said. This time, I couldn’t tell.

  “What if I promise to tell you more of the story?” she said.

  “Gia and Rachel will be mad.”

  “Not if you don’t tell them.”

  Five minutes later, shoes on, we were outside. The neighborhood was all shadows and cricket chirps and we walked fast. By the time we got to the house, we were panting. When Becca locked the door behind us, my arms went all-over goose bumps. The house was pitch-black. I waved in front of me and felt air on my nose but couldn’t see at all. There was nothing in the dark that wasn’t there in the light, but it felt different. It felt alive. It felt hungry.

  “Scared?” Becca said.

  “No,” I said, but my mouth was dry and papery.

  “Liar.”

  We fumbled through the darkness, Becca in front, groping the walls.

  I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Let’s go back,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s creepy,” I said.

  “It’s not that scary.”

  “Yes it is. I can’t see anything.”

  “We’re near the kitchen,” she said. “Once I turn the light on, it’ll be fine, and we’re together, so …”

  I squeezed again, trying to make her stop, but she kept moving. “Don’t you remember the house in Florida where Ted bashed all those girls in the head? They were together, too.”

  “They were sleeping, and there’s no Ted Bundy in Towson.”

  “How would we know?” I said.

  “Because there’d be bodies and missing girls.”

  “There was one last year.”

  “She ran away and they found her and brought her back,” Becca said. “Hold on, here’s the basement door. Don’t push so close; I’ll fall down the steps.”

  The dark turned the sound of her fingers moving along the wall into skittering mouse feet. I pressed my knuckles to my mouth, pushing my lips into my teeth. With a tiny click, a pool of yellow light appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

  “See? We’re fine,” she said.

  Even with the light, the basement was shadowy and gray, especially in the corners. It smelled even worse than it had the other day. I tried breathing through my mouth, but it tasted like wet, smelly socks.

  “Becca, it smells really bad.”

  “You’ll get used to it in a few minutes. It’s like when you poop. At first it stinks, and then you can’t even smell it.” She sat down, curling her fingers around my wrist so I had to, too. The floor was even colder now.

  “We didn’t check the rest of the house,” I said. “What if someone’s hiding upstairs?”

  “There’s nobody here except us.”

  “If there’s a killer hiding here and he gets us,” I said, pulling up my knees and resting my chin between, “it’s your fault.”

  “Have you ever thought about it?”

  “About what? Killers hiding in this house? I just did.”

  “No, I mean killing someone,” she said.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  She touched the tip of her tongue to the bow of her lip and scratched the house key back and forth across the carpet.

  “Right?” I said, trying to ignore the key. All I could think of was being buried alive, scratching at the coffin to get out and no one would ever hear.

  “No,” she said, setting the key aside. “I’m serious. Have you?”

  “No. That’s awful. I thought we came here so you could tell me—”

  “I have.”

  “No you haven’t,” I said.

  “Yes I have,” she said. “And I bet I could get away with it, too.”

  I snorted. “Ted Bundy couldn’t.”

  “I’m smarter than he was.”

  “But you’re not crazy. You have to be crazy to do that to people.” I swirled my finger near my temple.

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Her face went blank, like someone took a squeegee and wiped it away.

  “Becca, that’s not funny.”

  Her eyes were empty and reminded me of a house with no one home. She was only goofing off, but it gave me the heebie-jeebies. I pinched her arm. “Becca, stop, that’s freaky.”

  Her face rearranged itself the right way. “Pretty good, right? I practiced in front of the mirror.”

  “Why would you even want to do that?”

  “Why not? It’s fun.” Becca moved her jaw from side to side, looking at the ceiling. “Anyway, what Red Lady story should I tell you?”

  “It better be good, after all that.”

  “Okay,” she said, scooting closer. “So you already know when the people in the village buried the Red Lady, they didn’t kill her. That’s why the hole was empty. If she was dead, they would’ve found her body.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say.

  “Everything they did to her made her stronger. She was kind of a ghost, but not, and could go wherever and do whatever she wanted. After everybody in the village was dead, she disappeared.”

  “Where did she go?” I said.

  “No one knows. No one saw her for a long time. I think she was hiding so everyone would forget about her.”

  “Did they?”

  “Yeah, but she was there, watching and waiting, getting stronger than she’d ever been.”

  I darted a glance into the dim corners. Gnawed the edge of a fingernail. “But she couldn’t cast spe
lls anymore, could she? She still didn’t have hands, right?”

  “Right, or a tongue, but she didn’t need spells anymore. She could do things just by wanting to, and if she talked to you, she talked to you in your mind.” She tapped her head. “Maybe I’ll just tell you this story and not Gia and Rachel. I have plenty of others I can tell them.”

  I rubbed the heart between my fingers. She lifted hers and kissed it. “Best friends,” she said.

  “Forever,” I said.

  “So years later, there was this girl about our age, and she lived with her dad, her little sister, and their old dog. Even though her dad worked a lot, they were pretty poor, so she got picked on. Not calling her names, but throwing rocks at her and pushing her down so she got all bruised up. The leader was a boy who hated her.”

  I scrunched my face. “Why?”

  “Don’t know. He just did. The girl didn’t tell her dad and made her sister promise not to tell either. She didn’t want to be a crybaby. She didn’t even cry when the kids knocked her down, which made them even madder. That’s what they wanted most of all, to know they hurt her.” Becca tucked her hair behind her ears. “Then they got the idea to feed her dog poisoned meat.”

  I growled and brought a finger to my lips, teeth pinching the skin. She knew I hated when animals got hurt. Even Cujo, a rabid dog that killed people. “Did the dog …”

  “Yes, and the girls’ hearts were broken. The dog was pretty much their best friend. The kids laughed about it, said it was just a stupid old dog. For the first time, the girl cried in front of them. All they did was laugh even more and said they were going to kill her little sister next and then her dad.

  “So she asked the Red Lady to help her.”

  “How? And how did she know about her?” I said, my finger mushing the words.

  Instead of answering, she said, “The girl asked every night for two weeks. She promised she’d do anything, give her anything, to protect her sister and her dad. One night, when her dad worked late and her sister was asleep, she went in the backyard, and the Red Lady stepped out of the shadows.”

  I felt a sting and tasted blood. When I pulled my finger free, a tiny drop of blood welled to the surface of the ragged cuticle.

  “She had long, thick hair like yours, except hers went all the way to the ground. Her skin was bone white. Her lips were cherry red and her eyes were all black, like they were colored in with a marker. Like shark eyes. And you can’t look at them. If you do …”

  “What?” I said. “What happens?”

  “They’ll find you in the morning with a mouth full of dirt.”

  “Dead?”

  “Dead.”

  I hunched my shoulders all the way to my ears.

  “Instead of hands,” Becca said, “she had bloody stumps, and when she opened her mouth, more blood dripped out. Worst of all, when she walked she left a trail of blood, and since her hair was so long, it dragged through it.”

  “Ugh,” I said, but my voice barely made any noise at all.

  “It’s not her fault. The blood is the one thing she can’t fix. She’s always bleeding because of what the people did to her. And sometimes you won’t see her, but you’ll see the blood and know she was there. But then it goes away, disappears, so no one else will know she was there.

  “Anyway, the Red Lady waited to see if the girl would run away, but she didn’t. Even though she was scared, she was more scared of the kids. The girl told her what they did to her dog and asked if she could bring the dog back and keep her sister and dad safe. The Red Lady said, in the girl’s mind, she couldn’t bring the dog back—once an animal is dead, it’s dead forever—but she could keep them all safe if the girl was willing to pay her price.”

  I exhaled, long and low. “What was her price?”

  Becca leaned close and said, “Her eyes.”

  I swallowed. Hard.

  “That’s what the Red Lady does,” Becca said. “If you ask for help, you have to really mean it. She’ll know if you don’t. And she won’t help everyone. She decides who sees her, who she helps or not.”

  “What did the girl say?”

  “She agreed, and the Red Lady vanished.” Becca clapped once, and I jumped. “The next day they found the bullies buried in a hole, all the way to their necks, their mouths full of dirt. The leader was the only one alive. When they pulled him out, his tongue was cut out so all he could do was make weird noises. Then he died. When they did the autopsy, guess what they found in his stomach?”

  “What?”

  “His tongue.”

  “She made him eat it?”

  “Uh-huh. A couple nights later, the Red Lady came to see the girl. She was ready to give up her eyes, even if the Red Lady had to scoop them out, but all she did was say a few words, and the girl couldn’t see anymore. Just like that.”

  “Then what?”

  “Her sister and her dad were safe. The girl had to learn how to do things without being able to see, but she wasn’t dead. And sometimes she felt the Red Lady watching over her.”

  I shivered, and Becca giggled.

  “Would you,” I said. “If she was real, would you ask her for help?”

  Becca went still. “She is real.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  NOW

  I hang up the phone, cross off another wrong Lauren Thomas, and drum my fingers on my desk. I’ve winnowed it down to three possibilities: one never answers her phone, one has a disconnected number, and the number for the last belongs to someone else. I have their addresses, but I’m not going to play drive-by. It was a juvenile idea to begin with. A gut I-don’t-know-what-else-to-do reaction. So, what do I do? Not sure knocking on a door is any better—to be honest, they’re both less-than-brilliant ideas—but I can’t think of anything else. And something is better than nothing.

  I’m pulling up directions for the next address when Ellie tells me my next patient is here. I close Google Maps and check the filing cabinet, but the slot where Trevor’s file should be is empty. I flip through the files on either side and nope, not there either.

  Ellie answers after one ring.

  “Do you have Trevor’s file with you?”

  “I don’t think so,” she says, and I can hear her frown. “Why?”

  “It’s not in the cabinet. I’m sure I gave it to you last week so you could update his insurance information.” I try to keep the irritation from my voice, but I suspect I fail.

  “No, I remember, but I put it back,” she says, her words in a rush.

  “Could you please double-check?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I flip through the files again. I swear I remember giving her Trevor’s. But I also remember her returning it while I walked another patient up front. There’s a slight knock at my half-open door, and I look up to see Ellie there with worry heavy on her face.

  “I don’t have it up front,” she says, clutching her hands. “I’m so sorry. Can I help you look?”

  I wave her in, and she stands so close I can almost taste her perfume, floral and sweet. In her early twenties, she’s petite and usually wears her fair hair in a ponytail. A spring temp while our previous receptionist was on maternity leave, she became permanent once Trisha decided to stay home with her baby.

  Luckily, it takes only a few minutes for her to locate the file. Although Trevor’s last name is Andrews, she’d misfiled him in the Ws.

  “I’m so sorry. I must’ve been rushing and put it back in the wrong spot.”

  “No worries,” I say.

  As she leaves, she glances at my desk. I curse myself for not turning over my list of Laurens, but Ellie’s gaze doesn’t linger long.

  * * *

  My eleven o’clock patient cancels, leaving several hours free on Tuesday. Outside, it’s nothing but blue skies and crisp air, the kind of day that makes you want to play hooky. I nod as I pass Christina Bennett, the other psychologist here, in the hall and tell Ellie I’m off to the gym. Instead, I plug the first Lauren’s a
ddress into my GPS and turn as directed, ending at an apartment complex in Parkville, not far from Towson. According to my list, the Lauren whose number doesn’t belong to her anymore lives on the top floor. The label on her mailbox shows her name, so it seems she still lives here.

  Five minutes later I’m back in my car, scratching off another name. This Lauren was most definitely not the right one, nor was she happy to have anyone knock on her door, even someone supposedly visiting a neighbor for the first time who got the building number wrong. I’m equal parts frustrated and relieved. Two names left. Two possibilities. What if neither is the right Lauren? Then what?

  Lauren’s the obvious choice. But is she too obvious?

  And obviously whoever it is wants something from me. Money? We’ve got a little in savings, but we’re not rich. Instead of giving me the necklace, wouldn’t they have sent a picture along with a list of demands? Because if I throw the necklace away, it’s over and done with. Never mind that I haven’t. They don’t know that.

  I should return to the office, but my thoughts are Lovecraftian nightmares flailing for purchase, and I can’t focus. Ten minutes later, I’m in the old neighborhood. I park at the bottom of the street closest to the field, grateful my Jeep Cherokee is one of those SUVs you see everywhere and never notice. No identifying bumper stickers or window decals; I doubt my parents would even know it was mine.

  The field appears as it did last month, last year, last decade: a wide-open, neglected space depressed into the earth as though created by a giant’s foot. Big fence at the far end, closest to the road. The fenced-in backyards of single-family houses along one side. Lots of trees there, too. Too-tall grass slaps against my jeans. The whole thing seems smaller than I remember, the rises on either side shorter. But that’s always the way.

  The pathway near the end isn’t as well trod anymore, but the grass conceded defeat a long time ago. Beneath my feet, brittle weeds crunch and pebbles scatter. A small animal scurries away on my left. The field smells caustic and biting with cat spray, and I weave around several piles of dog feces hardened into brown-black fossils. I keep my shoulders squared, steps purposeful, but as I get close to the base of the hill I slow, searching the ground until I find a hefty stick.