As Dead as It Gets (3 page)

“What?” Kasey appeared from her bedroom and plunked down onto the sofa. “Kendra?”

The cameras turned from the front of the Charnows’ house to show the side yard, which was cordoned off with bright yellow crime-scene tape. A bunch of neighbors milled around as busy-looking police officers walked from the house to the street and back again.

Mom sat next to me. “You’re kidding me…and on Christmas.”

I was watching a woman in the background who had to be Kendra’s mother. She had short reddish hair and dark circles under her eyes, and leaned heavily on the arm of the man next to her.

Then they cut to footage of Kendra’s bedroom. There was crime-scene tape blocking the doorway, but they showed her unmade bed, her open window, and her dresser.

“Wait.” I grabbed the remote and skipped back to the shot of the bedroom. The end of the news camera’s pan settled on the surface of Kendra’s dresser. What you were supposed to notice was that her purse was still there, with her wallet sitting next to it.

I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.

Because what I noticed was the single yellow rose.

C
OULD
L
YDIA REALLY BE BEHIND THIS
? Did she hate me so much that she was going after not just me but random people I knew, too?

And then it hit me: Kendra had been in the Sunshine Club.

Yet another girl who’d survived when Lydia died.

Maybe it
wasn’t
just me Lydia was coming after—maybe she was planning to hunt all of us down, one at a time.

Unless someone stopped her.

Well, it won’t be me.
The thought was like a command from my subconscious. I was done playing with ghosts. Done thinking I knew how to fight them.

But who else would—who else could?—if I didn’t? I was the only person who could even see Lydia.

It’s still not my problem.

Only…the longer I thought about it, the more it kind of
looked
like my problem.

“Police are searching the densely wooded areas nearby—both the Pelham Nature Preserve and Sage Canyon are within a mile of the Charnow home,” the reporter said. “Unfortunately, though, rescuers have told us that it could take days to canvas the area—and last night’s rain washed away a lot of important information.”

Pelham? That was the nature preserve where Jared and I had been. Where we’d run into Kendra the day before her parents reported her missing.

They cut to an overhead shot of the area, taken from a news helicopter.

In the upper right corner of the screen, among the trees, was a bright splotch of white. At first I thought there was something wrong with the TV, but when the camera moved, the position of the white light moved, too. So, its source was actually there in the forest.

“What
is
that?” I asked.

“What’s what, honey?” Mom asked.

It was a small, glowing spot of light—like someone was aiming a really powerful flashlight directly at the screen.

I’d never seen anything like it before…except for the brilliant white light in my car. Which came immediately before Lydia’s yellow rose showed up.

Because of my “special” relationship with Lydia, I could see, hear, and interact with her in ways that I couldn’t with other ghosts. So it was possible that she could appear as a bright glow in photos—and on TV—when regular ghosts didn’t. I didn’t actually have any idea—I’d never gone out of my way to photograph her.

The helicopter spun to reveal the thin line of the highway. The light glowed on, about halfway between the main hiking trail and the road.

“What?” Kasey asked. “What are you looking for? Did you see something?”

The camera panned a little farther to reveal a billboard bearing the logo of a car dealership.

“I thought I did, but I didn’t,” I said, getting up off the couch and going to my room.

A few minutes later, I came back to the kitchen and found both of my parents huddled protectively near Kasey, who was on the phone with one of her dozens of friends.

“What’s up?” Dad asked.

I held up my car keys. “I think I’ll go for a little drive.”

Kasey gave me a worried look. “Don’t you want to talk to anybody? Did you call Megan?”

“Why would I call Megan?” I asked, leaning against the doorway.

“She knows Kendra. She was in the—”

“Kase,” I said. “Trust me. Megan’s not waiting for my call.”

My parents looked stricken.

“It’s fine. Don’t look at me like that,” I said. “I’ll be home in a while.”

“Where will you go?” Dad asked.

“Just…out,” I said, leaving before they had a chance to ask me not to.

As I drove past the entrance to the nature preserve, I saw that the lot was choked with police cars and news vans. So I kept going, about a half-mile farther, until I came to an abandoned diner. I parked my car behind the building and backtracked on foot toward the billboard I’d seen on the news, staying close to the trees until I was directly below the sign. Then I plunged straight into the woods, my phone in my hand to keep track of my location.

I stepped over exposed roots and low, rough brush, dividing my concentration between not falling and looking for Kendra. The cold cut right through my sweater and bit into my skin. Added to that were the chills I got when I took the time to wonder what Lydia could do to someone who couldn’t see her, someone she caught off guard.

Kendra might already be dead.

I kept my eye out for Lydia, but I also had my camera strapped around my neck. Every once in a while I’d take a volley of photos and search them for any sign of the bright light.

Nothing.

Finally I came to a small, rocky cliff and paused, unable to go farther without climbing down. I lifted the camera and fired off a few shots.

Bingo.

The photo showed the white light directly in front of me, glaringly bright.

“Lydia?” I called.

My only answer was the distant chopping of helicopter blades.

Silent night,
I thought.

“Boo.” Lydia had materialized a few feet away from me, eyebrow cocked.

At the sound of her voice, I hurried away from the edge of the cliff.

“Merry Christmas, Alexis,” she sneered. “Get lots of presents? I’ll bet you did. I’ll bet it was
super awesome
. So tell me: did you stop for a single
minute
and think about me or my family? I’ll bet anything you didn’t. You’re completely wrapped up in yourself, as usual. And I’m just a rotting corpse in the ground.”

But I did. Before I fell asleep last night, I thought about
your mother sitting alone in the darkness, and it made me cry. Sometimes it feels like all I do is cry.

“I
wish
you were just a rotting corpse.” I put my hands on my hips. “Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Kendra,” I said.

She gave me a flat stare. “What am I, a bloodhound?”

Then she vanished.

I sighed and walked back toward the cliff, turning around and carefully edging my way down, scraping the bejeezus out of my hands and balancing precariously on wobbly rocks and slick piles of gravel.

When I reached the bottom, I started to go to the right.

Lydia appeared in my path. “She’s actually behind you,” she said, tossing her hair. “Better hurry. She looks dead.”

Then she gave me a nasty glare and disappeared again.

Just as Lydia had said, Kendra was about thirty feet away. She lay on the rocks, her eyes closed and her leg canted at a sickening angle; she must have fallen and broken it.

For a second, I really did think she was dead.

I lifted her wrist and felt a faint pulse, but when I gently patted her cheek, her eyes remained tightly shut.

I pulled out my phone and prepared to dial 911.

I was trying to look up my GPS coordinates when a filthy hand lifted off the ground and rested on my arm.

“Alexis…?”

“Kendra!” I said. “Are you okay?”

“I need water.” Her eyes fluttered from the effort of opening, and her mouth made a futile swallowing motion. “Please.”

I had a bottle in my backpack. I pulled the cap off and tipped it toward her cracked lips. “Just sip,” I said. “There’s plenty. Don’t try to drink too much at once.”

She took a couple of small swallows, then stared up at me. “I’m tired.”

“Don’t worry. You’re safe. I’m going to call the police,” I said. “They’ll come save you.”

She nodded stiffly, but I could tell by the glimmer in her eyes that she was still afraid.

“What happened? Why did you come out here? Was it—” I cut myself off before I could say
Lydia
.

“I was…trying to get away from something.” Her eyes grew hazier, more distant. “I was…trying to get away from…”

“From what?” I wanted to coax the name out of her. I didn’t want to say it myself, because if I was wrong—

Kendra’s eyes suddenly went wide with fright. “From
you
, Alexis.”

I blinked.

Trying to get away from
me?

Then, before I knew what was happening, Kendra’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she was unconscious again.

I grabbed my phone, about to call for help. But suddenly I wondered how this would look. The police might believe I’d just gone out to hike, and take pictures…but would my parents?

Would Kasey?

Not a chance.

I backed a few steps away, trying not to slip on the mossy rocks. And a thread of fear wove up through my heart, like a snake being charmed.

I couldn’t face the police. I couldn’t spend another day trying to avoid my parents’ searching gazes, lying my way through the explanation everyone would demand.

Someone would save Kendra, I would make sure of that—but I didn’t plan to be there when it happened.

If I weren’t me (oh, to be some average girl living in an average place with average problems! The magic of it!), if I were some other person looking in on me and my messed-up life, I think the obvious questions would be—why did I bother trying to keep so many secrets?

And why didn’t I ask for help?

Like Carter said after the whole Sunshine Club disaster—why didn’t I turn to him, or my parents, or anyone? After all, there’s strength in numbers, right?

It’s more complicated than that.

This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve dealt with ghosts before. And when you’re dealing with murderous spirits, more isn’t merrier. It’s not like Scooby-Doo. The amount of people you have on your side doesn’t matter. You can’t physically fight a ghost, so there’s no point in having an army of friends standing at the ready.

That just means there are more people who potentially could get hurt.

So I could go to my parents, yeah. But would they try to help me figure out what was going on? Would they help me get to the core of the situation?

No. They’d call Agent Hasan, the government agent who’d come in twice now to clean up our supernatural messes, and then they’d have Kasey and me packed into the car and on the road to some no-name town in North Dakota before lunch.

But that wouldn’t work.

I’ve learned something in my months spent inadvertently spying on ghosts: if you notice them, they notice you. If you’re aware of a ghost, it becomes aware of you.

And when a ghost is aware of you, you’re that much more likely to have ghost trouble. The kind you can’t drive away from. The kind that ends in pain and misery…or death.

Especially when the ghost hates you as much as Lydia hated me.

That night, while my family was sitting down to a festive Christmas dinner of delivered pizza, the local news report ran an update on the rescue effort. Kendra had been located and taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital. She hadn’t been able to say anything because she was in a coma.

Her whereabouts had been called in by an anonymous tipster from an old pay phone at an abandoned diner near the woods.

“It’s awfully strange,” my mother said. “But I’m so relieved they found her.”

I was relieved, too—

Relieved that they found her, relieved that she was alive…

And relieved that she couldn’t talk.

I’
M PRETTY SURE TAGGING ALONG
with your little sister to her popular-people New Year’s Eve party dumps you off the deep end of the loser scale, but there I was, anyway.

I tried to hold my head high as I followed Kasey through the immense front door of the equally immense Laird house. She was immediately swarmed by a pack of chattering girls who pulled her in the direction of the fittingly enormous couch. Dear devoted Keaton, spotting her from across the room, cut short his conversation and made a beeline for her.

I commandeered a chair in the corner next to the snack table, set down my unfashionable, un-party- appropriate bag, and went into
Alexis Doesn’t Want to Be Here
mode, talking to people only when they talked to me, nursing a cup of punch, and watching my fingers slowly grow oranger and oranger from all the cheese puffs I couldn’t seem to stop eating.

A shadow fell over me, and I looked up. The first thing I saw was the hair—dark brown, just past shoulder length. Then the skin, perfectly gold, even in winter. Then the eyes, dark and knowing—and maybe a little bit tired.

“Megan,” I said.

My best friend, whom I’d seen maybe four times since October, did a double take when she saw me. She took a halting step back, which made me notice how she still limped on her left knee.

The knee I’d destroyed.

“Wow—your hair,” she said. “I didn’t recognize you.”

I tried to smile. It didn’t really work.

“When did you do that?” she asked. “What does it
mean
?”

I reached up and touched it self-consciously. Megan, who’d never given my pink hair a second glance, seemed utterly horrified by my white hair. She was looking at me like I’d announced I had a bomb strapped to my chest or something.

“It doesn’t really mean anything,” I said. “Mom took me to the salon a couple of weeks ago, and I told the lady to stop when it looked like this.”

Megan pursed her lips, almost in disapproval.

“I just sort of…liked it.” I knew how lame that sounded. The truth was, the white hair looked blank and empty, which felt like a good reflection of my life at the moment. Going back to my pink hair would have felt like putting on a costume.

But I couldn’t say that to Megan. Not when she was looking at me almost like a stranger.

“So, uh…what have you been up to? Did you get my texts?”

She glanced around, as if people would be watching us. But no one was. “Yeah, sorry. I’ve been busy.”

“How’s your new school?”

“It’s not new,” she said. “I’ve been there for two months.”

Yeah, but she’d never returned my calls when I wanted to ask her about it. So it was new to me. Jared went there, too, which meant I knew a little about Sacred Heart Academy itself. But he was a senior and she was a junior; they didn’t have any classes together. Therefore I knew absolutely nothing about how Megan was doing.

And she wasn’t talking, so apparently that wasn’t going to change.

“I got a car for Christmas,” I said, grasping now, trying to provoke some kind of response.

It didn’t work. Megan’s eyes flickered to meet mine briefly, then flickered away. She gazed at the wall over my head, at the floor, at the front hallway—everywhere but at me.

“Great,” she said.

She didn’t even care what kind it was.

“Megan.” My voice was thin and strained and so pathetic that I hated myself. “What’s going on? Did I do something wrong?”

Her nostrils flared. “No, of course not.”

“Then why won’t you—”

“I can’t believe Carter and Zoe are together,” she said, studying her bracelet. “It’s so weird.”

I had to make a conscious effort not to squeeze my cup until it collapsed.
“What?”

Finally, she looked directly at me. “He and Zoe Perry are kind of a thing now. It happened a week or two ago, I guess.…You didn’t know?”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t know.” I took a sharp breath in and leaned back away from the table. Even though part of me had expected it to happen eventually, I hadn’t known it would feel like this—like being punched in the soul.

“Sorry,” Megan said. “I just figured you’d been to some of the parties and—”

“I don’t go to a lot of parties,” I said.

“But…you have a new boyfriend, right?” she asked. “That guy from my school?”

“Jared,” I said. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Her lips pressed tightly together, and she looked around for an escape. “I’m sorry, Alexis. Truly. But I…I have to go. Maybe we’ll run into each other later.”

I nodded and forced a painful half smile, feeling the muscles in my jaw pull tight as she walked away.

Then, as if on cue, I glanced up at the door and saw them enter together: Carter and Zoe, her hand clenched around his. I was inordinately relieved that at least he’d cut his blond hair short, so she couldn’t reach up and touch his soft blond curls the way I’d always done.

A few short months ago, Zoe had been a shining, golden girl—all sweetness and smiles. Needless to say, that was
before
she took the oath and joined the Sunshine Club.

She’d come through the experience a little less sunny than most of the members, to put it mildly. For starters, she’d cut her long blond hair and dyed it dark magenta. And she’d ditched the preppy clothes—or rather, thrashed them. Everything she wore was like a torn, wrinkled, ripped version of its former self.

With a jolt that felt like a zillion watts of electricity, Carter’s eyes met mine, and he snatched his hand out of Zoe’s. It felt like he’d done it for me, to protect me from having to see them together.

Part of me was grateful, but part of me—a much bigger part—felt like the knife, once it had pierced the surface of my heart, might as well go all the way through.

I checked the time on my phone. Eight thirty—still three and a half hours till midnight. I stared at the numbers for a moment and then sat back.

Megan seemed to be slinking around the edges of the party, staying as far from me as she could, and Kasey was planted in the center of a group of kids, a glittery gold party hat stuck on her head, and her eyes squinting shut as she laughed at something. I watched her, aware of how relieved it made me to see her having fun, being goofy. It was everything I wanted for her.

So I relaxed—minutely.

A figure came and stood in front of me,
almost
obscuring my view of my sister.

I sat up straight.

“Yawn,” Lydia said. With a flat smile, she swept her hand across the surface of the table. It passed through most of the dishes but caught on my punch cup, which clattered to the floor, spilling bright red liquid all over the pale floor tiles.

The room fell silent, and everyone looked at me.

“Whoops,” Lydia said.

A few seconds later, Pepper Laird came over with a roll of paper towels. The captain of the cheerleading squad kneeling to clean up my mess. I imagined it wouldn’t be long before Kasey’s invitations didn’t automatically include me anymore.

“Sorry,” I said, trying to help clean up, but more concerned with keeping an eye on Lydia.

“Sorry,”
Lydia mimicked. “Still kissing up to the cheerleaders.
Oh, Pepper, please forgive me.
You make me
sick
.”

She disappeared, and I looked around frantically. There were easily a dozen former Sunshine Club members here. I didn’t want any of them to end up comatose like Kendra.

“No big deal,” Pepper said, but I could tell she was annoyed. She stood up, her hands full of sopping-wet napkins.

This whole night was a mistake. I grabbed my bag. “I’d better go. Thanks for letting me come. Sorry about the mess.”

Pepper had to get to the trash can before she got dripped on, so she couldn’t protest even if she’d wanted to, which, frankly, I don’t think she did. I got up and headed for the door, with Lydia walking backward in front of me.

“Leaving so soon?” She drew up all of her energy and bumped into a kid who was perched on a barstool. He grunted in surprise as he almost fell off, then steadied himself and shot me an irritated look.

“Pardon me,” I said. I turned around to look for Kasey. I had to tell her I was leaving, but I couldn’t risk going back through the crowd.

As I got to the front hall, the guest bathroom door opened and Megan came out. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes,” I said. “I have to go. Um…could you do me a favor and tell my sister?”

Megan’s forehead wrinkled. “Why don’t
you
tell her?”

“Megan’s looking well,” Lydia said. “Too bad she wasn’t the one who died. Then you might be the tiniest bit sorry.”

As she said that, she swung her arm at Megan’s forehead. I flinched as it went through and came out the other side.

“Oh, no…not another migraine.” Megan winced and rubbed her temple. “So listen. There’s this thing I’ve been doing at school—on Tuesday afternoons—it’s like a club.…”

I listened, trying to keep an eye out for Lydia.

“And I was thinking, if you want to come with me sometime, maybe…”

“Yes,” I said. “What time? Where?”

She half laughed. “Don’t you even want to know what it is?”

“No. I don’t care.”

For a moment she looked as if she regretted mentioning it at all. “Tuesday, four forty-five, at the Sacred Heart Community Hall. The entrance is on Poplar Street.”

“Great,” I said, glancing around.

Oh, jeez. Lydia was studying the giant tropical aquarium in the dining room.

My mere presence put every living creature around me in danger, regardless of species. I felt like a ticking time bomb. “I have to go,” I said. “Never mind about Kasey—I’ll just text her.”

“I can tell her if you need me to,” Megan said. I heard a razor-thin edge of judgment in her voice.

“No, don’t worry,” I said. “Bye.”

But as I reached the front door, I heard my sister shout my name. She was pushing through the crowd to get to me.

“You’re leaving?” Kasey asked. “What happened?”

I looked around before I stopped. Lydia was gone.

“Nothing,” I said. “Do you think maybe Keaton could drive you home? Otherwise I’ll come back and get you at one o’clock.”

“What?” Immediately, she was suspicious. “Where are you going, Lexi?”

“Nowhere. Away.”

“Why?” She pursed her lips, clearly not looking to take any of my nonsense.

“Because you’re a coward and a freak, that’s why,” Lydia said, popping out behind me.

“I just…” I gestured around the room, which seemed overpoweringly jammed with bodies. “There are too many people here.”

My sister followed me all the way out to my car, exhaling loudly through her nose to convey how annoyed she was. I pulled my gray hoodie over the shirt she’d made me wear—black and gauzy, with ruffles around the neck—and slipped into the driver’s seat.

“When is this going to end?” she asked, her voice breaking. “When are you going to let it go?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Now get back inside. It’s about to rain.”

Kasey stared at me, on the verge of protesting. Then she stormed back up the front walk.

I watched her go, thinking,
You have no idea how lucky you are.

The Sunshine Club ended up being an evil cult designed to feed on its members’ free will and life energy, but it started out as a scheme to become beautiful and popular. And maybe the craziest thing was—it had actually worked, kind of. Sure, the paranormal perks were gone, but the charm, the poise—all of the things that grew better with practice—that stuff stuck.

As for the club’s evil supernatural roots, for the most part the other girls had managed to convince themselves and everyone around them that the whole thing was just a mild case of mass hysteria. The longer they told themselves that, the more they believed it. And why not? Let’s be realistic—the alternative was crazy.

A few of us didn’t make it out unscathed—me, Zoe, Megan, Lydia. And poor Emily Rosen was being home-schooled and treated for PTSD. But for the lucky ones, that magic too-good-to-be-true popularity pill wasn’t actually too good to be true. It was just…true.

Of course, all that could change. Their perfect lives could end in death and destruction if I didn’t find a way to stop Lydia.

I kicked off my ballet flats and pressed my bare foot against the brake pedal, relishing the feel of its hard rubber ridges beneath my toes.

“Oh, snap. Did I wreck your party?” Lydia materialized in the passenger seat. “Is Alexis scared? Is she running home with her tail between her legs?”

“Shut up,” I said, on edge but relieved that she’d followed me instead of staying inside.

She made a pouty face. “Waaaaah. Lexi wants to be alone. Lexi hates herself. Well, join the club. I hate you, too.”

I turned the key and buckled my seat belt.

Lydia made an irritated noise and faded out of sight.

Until she’d attacked me—and then Kendra—I’d thought she wasn’t a very powerful ghost. But now I had to be constantly on guard. Because apparently it’s not hard for a weak ghost to get strong—

And dangerous.