The Dead Girl in 2A

by Carter Wilson

  She gives a sharp exhale, the kind reserved as a precursor to giving really unpleasant news.

  “Water Tower Place mall bad.”

  The words hit me immediately. “Wait, Raymond Higgins? Are you saying Raymond is Ray Higgins?”

  “I told you it was worse.”

  “He killed twenty-three people. And you’re saying he’s one of the four of us?”

  No, I think. It can’t be.

  “Yes,” she says. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  Confusion dizzies me. I knew there was something strange about the name Raymond popping up in different places, but it never consciously occurred to me that Raymond Higgins was one of the four of us.

  And Eaton. I think of Eaton.

  Eaton arranged my flight to Denver. The flight for which Landis knew my seat assignment.

  Eaton, in whose apartment I had a sudden, violent memory of my past.

  Eaton, who I suddenly felt unspeakable rage against.

  Eaton.

  What the fuck?

  Elle interrupts my thoughts.

  “I didn’t go to the police,” she says. “I was too freaked out. I mean…shit…I had helped deliver flyers to Raymond’s dentist office. I had surveilled him and his family. I didn’t see any signs at all. He just…snapped. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I didn’t even confront Landis. But it was the moment I knew I had to get out. I knew I had to warn you and Clara.” She turns to me, and for a second, her eyes catch just enough ambient light for me to see her fear. “The last thing I did for Landis was help arrange for you and Clara to sit next to each other on the flight. I had her upgraded. Then I followed you both out here. I’m trying to help, Jake. I swear. The thing is, I just don’t really know how to do it.”

  I stare out the windshield as we wind up Interstate 70 and deeper into the mountains. I’m trying to process the things Elle is telling me and reconcile them with my own experiences, but it’s pretty damn hard to move on from the idea I could be some kind of time bomb.

  “Does the name Alexander Eaton mean anything to you?” I ask.

  “No. Should it?”

  “He’s the reason I’m out here, the memoir guy. Just this morning, he told me he was at the scene of the Water Tower Place shootings.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. Seems like a hell of a coincidence,” I say.

  “Or not a coincidence at all. You think he’s somehow involved in everything?”

  “It’s a possibility,” I say. “All three of the others on the list seem to have snapped at some point. Something must have gone off in their minds. I’m wondering if that happened to me this morning.”

  After I say this, Elle signals and takes an exit for some town called Idaho Springs. She pulls into a dark and empty parking lot next to a diner that looks permanently closed. With the car off, she turns her full attention to me.

  “What did you do, Jake? What happened this morning?”

  “I didn’t really do anything,” I say. “It’s more of what I felt. I… After this Eaton guy tells me this story about being at the Water Tower Place shootings, I kind of blacked out.” Well, that’s not exactly true, is it? “Actually, I had a memory.”

  “What kind of memory?”

  “One from the time I can’t ever remember. When I was young.”

  “What was it?” she asks.

  For all I’ve been sharing with Elle, I don’t think I’m ready to talk about what I remembered. About the glowing orange numbers, the screaming boy, the bed soaked in blood.

  “It was…violent. That’s all I’m going to say.”

  She nods, giving me my space. “And you think this memory was…I don’t know…the same trigger experienced by the others?”

  “No. Afterward…after the memory hit me, I threw up. Almost as if I was concussed or something. And Eaton was asking me if I was okay. Then suddenly…” I can feel my chest tightening just recalling the anger.

  “Suddenly what?” she asks.

  “I wanted to kill him,” I say. It feels so foreign hearing my voice mutter those words. I turn to Elle. “Really, actually, no bullshit kill him. I had this rage come over me that I’ve never felt in my life. He didn’t do anything wrong. I was just struck with an urge…no, a lust…to beat him to death.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “I had to leave his apartment just to restrain myself. The feeling went away slowly, but it did go away. But for all I know, it’s going to come back. And with what you told me about Raymond Higgins, what if it comes back again, and next time, it’s directed at many people? Or even my family?” Or even myself, I think. Like Clara and Kate. Suicide.

  “I don’t know,” Elle says.

  “I don’t want to become another Raymond.”

  There’s no turning back. I feel it deep in my bones.

  Eight months ago, I finally started taking the pills after vowing not to. All I wanted to do was fix my daughter by fixing myself, and now I fear there’s no gluing either of us back together.

  Thirty

  Eight months ago

  Jake Buchannan sat on the carpeted living room floor with Em, playing checkers.

  “You’re turn, hon,” he said.

  “Oh, okay.”

  He seemed to startle her out of a mini-fugue, and she immediately moved a piece one position rather than capturing the obvious piece Jake had left vulnerable to her. A few months ago, Jake had to put in real effort if he wanted to beat his daughter in checkers. Now…

  He slid his piece one space along the board, rather than capturing two of hers. If she noticed this tiny act of mercy, she didn’t indicate it. Her head was lowered as she stared at the board. A minute passed, maybe longer.

  “It’s okay, sweetie, take your time.” He wondered if she was lost back in her fugue.

  Then Jake saw the tear fall on the checkers board, landing smack in the middle of one of his pieces.

  Em looked up, her left eye welled with tears, her right eye pulled narrow by the bandage they replaced every day.

  “I’m scared, Daddy.”

  Jake scooted over and held her. “I know. It’s going to be okay.”

  “It’s not,” she said.

  It was the first time he’d heard her say this since the accident a month ago.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “Because I don’t think right any more. I can’t… My brain just doesn’t go where it’s supposed to when I try.”

  “We just have to train it again, like the doctor said. Then you’ll be good as new, maybe even better.”

  “No,” Em said. Jake heard anger in that one word, not sorrow. Then she took her hand and swept all the checkers pieces off the board and onto the carpet, a gesture of finality. “I won’t be better. I’m different, and I don’t like it. I looked at pictures from kindergarten, and I didn’t even remember being there.”

  The idea of her not remembering the past was an especially exquisite torture to Jake.

  “It’ll come back, sweetie. It just takes time.” His words sounded hollow, for they were things he’d told himself for years.

  “And I hear you and Mom arguing, saying how you’re worried about money.”

  “Oh…oh, Em. I’m sorry. That’s not okay for us to—”

  “I feel broken.” There was such a distance in her gaze, as if she suddenly saw the raw truths behind all the false comforts children are told. “And nobody can fix me.”

  It was the last sentence that did it. He would think of it often in the upcoming months, certainly once a week. Every time he put a little blue pill in his mouth.

  Nobody can fix me.

  He heard her voice later that night as he sat alone in that same living room. Em was in bed, hopefully not having the same dreams he often had, the dreams of exploding airbags, crunching
metal. The blood. The long shard of glass impaled in his daughter’s face.

  Jake heard her voice that night as a fourth pour of whiskey numbed his mind to the point he didn’t care Abby had gone to bed without him. The routine was becoming too common. The arguments, the fear. The guilt.

  I feel broken.

  And I broke you, Jake thought. I fucking broke you because I wanted you to hear a song. And it’s not just you. I broke our family.

  Jake knew he was going down a treacherous path of self-destruction, self-pity, and blame. None of it was helpful. In fact, the only thing that seemed to soothe him these days was a children’s book, one he read in moments of solitude.

  He rose, stumbled over to his study, and pulled the slim volume off the shelf. Abby had never seen it, and Jake had never told her about it. But keeping it on the bookshelf among hundreds of the other books wasn’t really hiding it, was it?

  Standing there, Jake read it again, flipping the pages, soaking in the illustrations, and as he did, it even seemed to clear the fog of whiskey in his mind (if only a little). The book had a hold on him. He couldn’t explain it, and he didn’t really want to. He just liked how he felt after reading it. As if he understood things a bit more.

  Like the universe was contracting tighter around him, making more sense.

  In all the chaos and hurt and struggle, the strange book from the strange doctor was a rare source of comfort. Hope, even.

  Now, the voice in his head was no longer his daughter’s. He heard Landis.

  More than anything, you want to grow. To provide the best for your family.

  Yes.

  Jake didn’t even remember if Landis had said these words, but that was what Jake heard. Landis had promised memories of a past, but moreover, a vision of the future. An ability for Jake to become a better version of himself, a chance to unlock abilities dormant inside him and, by doing so, help him become a better provider.

  Help him fix broken things. Like Em.

  Still, the only thing Jake had ever done was read that book. Over and over and over again. And goddamn if it didn’t make him feel a little exceptional, a little more aware of his place in the world, at least in brief moments.

  Without thinking about it, Jake reached his hand over the tops of the books on the same shelf and felt around in the empty space until his fingers found the plastic bottle. The little pills gave a soft rattle as he brought the bottle in front of his face.

  Jake unscrewed the cap and took out the piece of paper.

  One pill, once a week. Same time. Don’t take on an empty stomach.

  That was all it said.

  Jake tipped the container into his palm, and a few of dozens of tablets poured out, each half the size of a Tic Tac. He tilted his palm back toward the open top until only one pill remained in his hand.

  I’m broken. Em’s voice was back. And no one can fix me.

  Maybe not yet, Jake thought. But what if I could fix myself? It’s like what they tell you about oxygen masks dropping in an airplane. You have to put on your own mask before helping others.

  He took another sip of his whiskey, large enough to finish what was in the glass. He held it in his mouth, which was already numb enough that the alcohol barely tingled, much less burned.

  He was out of ideas except one.

  Take the pill. Just one time. It’s so tiny… How much of an effect could just one have? See what happens.

  The book made him feel good. Jake had a sense the pills would too. Maybe even better.

  What he had vowed never to do was now what he saw as his only option.

  But that was before the accident, Jake thought. Things change. Life has twists and turns.

  He started to think about it a little more. Think about what if the pills were actually poison. Or if mixing them with alcohol made them deadly.

  But Landis was a doctor. Doctors prescribe medication all the time.

  Then Jake stopped all these opposing thoughts and forced his mind blank.

  Deep breath through the nose.

  I just need a little more help, he thought. A leap of faith.

  Just this once.

  Jake pushed the pill between his lips until it swam into the whiskey in his mouth. With no more thought, he swallowed.

  It didn’t taste like anything at all.

  Thirty-One

  Jake

  Elle and I soak in the silence of her car. She doesn’t know how to help; I don’t know what to say.

  Then a thought hits me. “Did you ever see Raymond’s book?”

  She nods.

  “What was it about?” Maybe there was something in Raymond’s book that gave clues to the horrible act he committed. If so, that could help me figure out if I’m headed down the same path.

  Elle takes her time to gather her thoughts.

  “It was pretty messed up,” she begins. “It was about a mouse.”

  “A mouse? That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “A mouse that lived in a graveyard. It had dug a massive system of underground tunnels that connected each casket and had chewed through each of them. I only read the book once, because it actually made me nauseated. Dizzy, even. I’m telling you, there’s something about those drawings.”

  “Believe me, I know. So what did this mouse do?”

  Elle gives her head a single shake. “This goddamn rodent would spend night after night going to any fresh casket and worming itself through the corpses’ ears and into their brains.”

  “Do mice do that?”

  “This one did. In their ear, straight into their brains.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “It gets worse. It would reach their brain and then start eating it. Eating it.”

  “Jesus, why?”

  “Because each time the mouse ate a bit of brain, it would live a part of that person’s life. As if the person’s memories were transferred to it. Somehow that made the mouse smarter. Made it something more than just the nasty little creature it was. I think the mouse just wanted to be human, but it never happened.”

  I can’t imagine why anyone would conceive of these books, much less take the painstaking hours to construct the elaborate, apparently hypnotic illustrations.

  “How did the book end?” I ask.

  “The mouse ate too much one night. Got himself fat and stuck in one of his own tunnels. He died. Last page was a worm coming along and eating the mouse’s brain.”

  I try to find meaning in this, knowing what Raymond Higgins eventually did.

  “Circle of life,” I say. “Maybe the book convinced Raymond he could become something greater than he was by taking away from other people.”

  She turns her head to me. “Or the drugs he took drove him insane and homicidal. Maybe that’s not the intention of the program, but what ends up happening anyway. Which is why Landis wants to test it on others before himself.”

  I’m about to respond, to ask her if she ever talked to any of the others, and if so, if they ever reported any of the feelings I’m having. The good feelings. The sense of place, and of being.

  But I don’t ask, because our attention is commanded by the sudden swirls of red and blue light flooding our car.

  Thirty-Two

  The Book of Clara

  10/12/2018

  I’m here.

  The Maroon Bells.

  Morning. It’s cold. A crisp wind swirls, chilling me. A thin dusting of windblown snow stripes the two peaks, making them look like massive bar codes. I had no intention of buying any clothes during this trip, but I realized I needed something warmer than what I’d arrived with, so I found myself in an Aspen boutique. If I was concerned about my bank account, I would never spend seven hundred dollars on a leather jacket. But living expenses are for the living and won’t long be a concern of mine.

&nbs
p; I’m sitting on a rock, writing next to a lake, the sky menacing above me. I am not alone. A few families walk the trail nearby; a little boy tries to skip a rock and fails. A man holds his little girl on his shoulders, gloved hands wrapped snugly around her ankles. They pay me no attention, nor should they. Just a woman on a rock in one of the most beautiful locations anywhere. Journaling. Meditating. At peace, likely.

  I’ve decided to drown myself. To be precise, I’m going to slit my wrists and throw myself into this lake.

  So, Dear Reader, I suppose this is the end of the Book of Clara. I have remembered all that I can, and looking back through it, I can’t say for sure what the sum of my life totaled. More than others, less than most, I suppose. Yet most people’s life goal is not death, so in that, I still have one major accomplishment ahead of me.

  One more day, I’ve decided. Tomorrow morning. I will come back here, to this place I’ve never been but that feels so familiar. Look up at the mountains, those peaks I’ve seen countless times in photos. The aspen trees on fire with the colors of October. And the lake. The cold water, black under the cloudy skies, a keeper of secrets. The kind of water in which nothing floats, and all sinks.

  Goodbye.

  Thirty-Three

  Jake

  “This isn’t good,” Elle says.

  We’re still parked in the empty lot in Idaho Springs. I didn’t even see the police cruiser snake in behind us until the flashers lit up the night.

  “They’re probably just wondering what we’re doing here,” I say.

  “Maybe,” Elle says. “Maybe not.”

  The dashboard clock reads just after ten. If there’s a moon out there somewhere, it’s swallowed by the mountains. Or eclipsed by the cruiser lights.

  Now, a new light. Flashlight beam. A rap on the driver’s window. Elle lowers it, and a rush of cold mountain air invades the car.

  “Evening.” The disembodied voice is somewhere behind the beam, which fixes on Elle’s face.

  “Hello, Officer.” Elle’s voice is smooth, calm.

  The beam sweeps and lands on my face, blinding. I squint against the glare, and the harshness of it starts to piss me off. I remain silent.