As Dead As It Gets

I swallowed the lump and blinked before I could look up at her. “Why?”

“Why not?” She shrugged. “If you need a reason…it’s bad for morale to have one of our staff sitting all alone by the trash cans. Take one for the team, all right?”

So the next day, when the bell rang for lunch, I walked past my usual table and took a spot between Marley and Demetrius. Not only was there enough lively debate to disguise the fact that I didn’t have much to say, but there also seemed to be a healthy appreciation for people who were willing to be the audience. And even though I kept looking, I didn’t catch a single suspicious glance thrown in my direction, the whole hour.

In other words, it was actually…kind of great.

THE DAY OF ASHLEEN’s FUNERAL, I faked a sore throat and didn’t go. Not that my parents would have pressured me to. Even Kasey didn’t say anything. The truth is, it was simple cowardice: I couldn’t face Mrs. Evans and Ashleen’s brothers.

For several days after, there was calm. No bright lights. No weird dreams. No new girls went missing. Kendra was still comatose, but the doctors said she could wake up any day. Of course, they’d been saying that for six weeks—but at least she wasn’t getting worse.

As the early part of February passed, I started to have that weird feeling that I’d imagined everything. School went on as usual, things were stable with Jared, and I avoided making eye contact with Carter. I ate lunch with the yearbook kids every day, and Kasey dialed back her wide-eyed vigilance.

After school one Monday, I decided I deserved a break. A little fun in my life, for once.

So I set aside the whole afternoon to organize the kitchen junk drawer.

I divided the extra paper clips, thumbtacks, and rubber bands into little tin containers with clear lids, tested all of the pens and highlighters and threw away the ones that didn’t write well, and then turned to the stack of takeout menus, random pieces of mail, and old maps that Mom stowed in there.

We’d lost almost everything when our house burned down—except what was in the cars. Such as, my pack-rat mother’s collection of old maps. She had a glove box full, and after the fire, in her sentimental longing to hang on to anything from our old lives, she’d stashed them away before Dad and I could cull them.

Today is not your lucky day, old maps.

My cell phone rang, and I thought about answering it, but it was across the room and I was blissfully elbow-deep in promotional key chains, mechanical pencils, and magnets. So I let it go to voicemail. I knew there weren’t any yearbook shoots that day, and Mom or Dad would just call the house phone if they needed me.

Then the house phone rang. I checked the caller ID. It was Jared.

I debated for a moment, then heard the siren song of the new drawer organizer Mom had brought home as a pick-me-up gift when I was sick (or should I say, “sick”), sitting on the counter waiting for someone to place it in a drawer and fill its compartments with tiny items. I could call Jared back later. So I left the receiver in the cradle and went back to organizing.

I stood facing the kitchen wall, with my back to the world, going through the stacks of papers.

One of the maps of Surrey was so old that it must have been printed when my mother was in high school. Silver Sage Acres and Megan’s neighborhood weren’t even on it.

“Well, you can go,” I said, trying to fold it up. But its seams were so old and soft that I couldn’t figure out which way it went. So I just folded it in quarters and took it to the recycle bin.

As I dropped it in, I noticed something: on the back of the map was an aerial photograph of Surrey, with the elevation changes marked in faint white outlines that radiated out from the hills.

And there was a small, gleaming white spot on it. Like the bright white light from TV and my photos—only in miniature.

Which made sense—it was a photograph, after all.

Leave it, Alexis. Forget it.

But I reached down into the bin to grab the map back out—

And that’s when I heard it:

Vzzzzzzzzzz

I swung around, my hands gripping the edge of the counter.

Vzzzzzzzzzz. The sound continued on steadily. I started toward the foyer, hoping I could leave it behind by leaving the room. Or the house, if necessary.

“Hello?” I called. “Who’s there?”

As I stepped around the corner—

“Me,” Lydia said.

To say I jumped out of my skin would be an understatement. I screeched and slammed backward into the wall, bruising my back on the light switch.

“Jeez, Alexis,” she said. “You scare easy.”

For a good five seconds, I could only glare at her. Then I sidestepped around her and stalked to my bedroom, grabbing my camera, my jacket, my purse, and my car keys.

“Where are you going?” she asked. “Can I come?”

I turned to look at her.

“I’m bored,” she said. “Besides, you’ll probably end up demanding my presence eventually.”

My most i

“Fine, whatever,” I said. “Come on.”

I went straight out the front door and locked it behind me, without another word. Then I started down the sidewalk to my car. Lydia was already waiting in the passenger seat.

I cross-referenced the map with one that had actual streets on it, and followed that (no thanks to Lydia’s horrific navigation skills) to a neighborhood built in the 1950s. The spot where the light was supposed to be was just a run-down brick house with white trim. The hair pricked up on the back of my neck as I pulled into the gas station across the street and looked around.

Kids were trickling down the sidewalk, alone or in pairs.

“Is there another high school around here?” I asked.

“Redmond,” Lydia said. “I almost had to go there after we moved, but my mom gave the lady at the school district a bunch of free haircuts so I could stay at Surrey.”

“What’s so great about Surrey?” I asked.

“It’s where my friends are.” She shrugged. “Of course, I didn’t know how many less friends I’d have once we moved to our crappy new house and Mom stopped stocking the fridge.”

“That sucks,” I said.

“Yeah, well…I found Aralt. So it didn’t matter anyway.”

“And look how well that worked out,” I said.

She snorted. “Tell me about it.”

I watched a girl stride along, looking totally relaxed and carefree, wearing oversized hipster headphones. A familiar stab of envy went through me. I’d been that girl once, but I’d never be her again. The closest I’d ever get to that kind of happiness was standing there, surrounded by gasoline fumes, watching somebody else enjoy it.

Then, as she passed the brick house, the girl stumbled and almost fell. She caught herself at the last second and kept walking, glancing around self-consciously.

“What exactly are you looking for?” Lydia asked.

I considered not telling her, but it wasn’t like she could say anything to anybody else, right? So I explained about the bright light, and all the times I’d seen it—in my car, on TV, at night in the field, at Jared’s house, in my photographs, and finally on the old map.

“Wow,” Lydia said. “All that, and you thought it was me?”

I shrugged.

“Well, I can tell you it’s not,” she said. “In the first place, too much work.”

“The light seems related to Kendra’s and Ashleen’s disappearances,” I said. “So if it’s here, I want to know why.”

“So is it? Here?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I just want to observe for a minute.”

What I didn’t want to tell her was that I was afraid of the light. Specifically, I was afraid of attracting its attention and ending up surrounded by the horrible laughter again.