After Me (10 page)

Unfortunately, when we got off the bus and saw Dougie and two other guys standing beside a car parked down the street, I knew it was gonna be awhile longer before we’d get to have our talk. And I also knew I wouldn’t need to convince her of my super zombie strength, because she was about to see it for herself.

“Let’s go the other way,” she said. “The bus stops again on the next street. Maybe we can catch up to it and get back on.”

“No, I got this.” When she started to argue, I took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “You wanted to know everything, right? Well, you’re about to witness some of it.”

She looked from me to the boys walking toward us. “You sure you can handle all three of them?”

“Positive,” I said, although I was just guessing. “Make sure you stay far enough away that you don’t get caught in the crossfire. Okay?”

She nodded and we started walking again.

“’Sup, slut?” Dougie said when they were about fifteen feet away from us. “Teaching your little white trash friend how to make some extra cash?” He and his two friends looked at Annalee and laughed. “Good luck finding anybody desperate enough to hit that.”

Oh, no he didn’t just say that about my best friend.

The red filter reappeared over my vision. I stopped walking and glanced slowly from him to his two friends, then I took a step closer and looked Dougie in the eyes.

“You shoulda brought more backup, asshole.”

Chapter Fifteen

I
had always laughed at movies where the good guy whips five or six thugs at a time, but I knew without a doubt that I could’ve easily handled three or four more besides Dougie and his two buddies. And I didn’t even need them to dance around stupidly while they waited their turn to get their butts kicked.

Dougie grabbed my left arm and twisted it hard enough to dislocate it. I laughed in his face and punched him in the gut with my right hand, laughing harder when it lifted him off the ground several inches. All the wind came rushing out of his mouth in one big
oof,
and he fell to his knees with his arms wrapped around his belly, his eyes bulging like an astonished trout.

The other two guys were startled enough by what I did to Dougie to make them freeze for a few seconds, then I guess their clueless male egos took over because they each grabbed one of my arms and tried to pull me toward the car.

“Let’s go, bitch!” the taller one said. “We got a little party planned for you. Pete, go help Dougie up.”

“Nah, Pete,” I said. “Don’t bother.”

I jerked my arms free and grabbed both of them by the back of the neck, then I banged their heads together the way countless goons had met their fates in cheesy action flicks. When I pulled them apart, their rolling eyes convinced me they were no longer conscious, so I threw them on top of Dougie who hadn’t yet regained the ability to speak. I waited a couple of seconds for the red to fade from my vision, then I bent over the pile of bodies on the sidewalk.

“Gonna have to pass on that party invite,” I said. “And if you get any brilliant ideas about trying something like this again or bothering my friend here in
any
way, the next party you go to is gonna be a kegger in Hell. I took it easy on you this time, but this is your last chance. Better remember that, asshole.”

Annalee had watched the whole thing from about ten feet away on the edge of somebody’s lawn, so I waved her over. She looked around like she was checking to see if there were any witnesses to the brawl, then she ran over.

“Let’s get out of here before somebody shows up and we have to explain what happened,” I said.

“Hold on a second.” She bent over the pile so Dougie could see her face. “I’ve hated you since kindergarten, Dougie Shaw. You’re nothing but an ugly bully with toxic breath, and watching you get your fat ass kicked by a hundred-pound girl was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Open your mouth about this to anybody, and I’ll tell the whole school how she creamed you. Oh, and here’s my white trash contribution.” She did a little pirouette on the hand sticking out from under Pete’s shoulder.

Dougie managed a groan, although he hadn’t gotten enough wind back to make it very loud. The two morons on top of him must’ve been hampering his respiratory recovery.

I took Annalee’s hand and ran down the street as fast as our laughter would allow us to run. When we turned the corner and reached Karen and Brad’s yard, we fell on the grass, still laughing.

“Guess I don’t have to worry about scaring you off with my mutant strength,” I said when I could speak again.

Annalee rolled over and rested her head on her bent arm. “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. You were like a female Chuck Norris.”

“Nah, Chuck Norris doesn’t bother with less than six at a time. Smaller groups just beat themselves up out of embarrassment at being so pathetic.” We laughed some more, then I said, “Seriously, I’m glad that didn’t freak you out, ‘cause there’s a lot more that’s even freakier. Sure you want to hear it all?”

She nodded. “I’m sure. Besides, it’s not like I can pretend I didn’t see that and go around wondering whether you’re from Venus or you’re Superman’s long lost sister.”

“Nope to both, but you’re getting a little warmer.” We heard a siren approaching and got up. “Somebody must’ve seen the pile of assholes and called the cops. We better get inside.”

We ran to the door but slowed to a walk inside so Karen wouldn’t wonder what was going on. She was on the phone when we went through the kitchen and just waved at us as we went by. I grabbed two Cokes and a can of Pringles for appearances before we went upstairs to my room.

“You think they’ll tell the cops who did it?” Annalee said after we shut the door.

I set the Cokes and chips on my nightstand before flopping across the bed. “Not if they don’t want to be the biggest joke around. And even if they do, the cops are gonna have their doubts when they see me. I’m sure I can convince them that Dougie’s lying to get me in trouble because I turned him down. Do you know the other two guys?”

She took off her backpack and sat cross-legged on the bed. “I think the tall one was Dougie’s older brother. Never seen the other one before.”

“I’m guessing they’ll quit while they’re ahead and make up a story to tell the cops,” I said. “But even if they’ve got some stupid idea about trying anything else, they’re not gonna want any connection to me or you. Either way, they shouldn’t tell the cops anything about us.”

Annalee sighed. “I hope so. But maybe we need to get our stories straight in case we get asked about it.”

“Okay,” I said, “we can say Dougie tried something with me a couple of days ago and got a knee to the nuts, so he brought his brother and a friend to get even with me today. Somebody drove by and yelled at them to leave us alone, then we ran. That’s all we know.”

“They’ll want a description of the car and the person who yelled. Our descriptions should match.”

I gave her a playful shove. “Look at you with your devious little brain. Okay, we’ll say it was a guy in a black SUV who looked like Chuck Norris.”

A knock on the door interrupted our laughter, then Karen stuck in her head. “Sorry I was on the phone when you got here. Mind if I come in and meet your friend?”

“Come on in.” I sat up and introduced them.

Karen smiled at Annalee. “I’m so glad you and Gwen hit it off so well. Do you… um, have a lot in common?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Annalee kept her gaze on her hands in her lap.

Karen sat beside her on the bed. “Gwen tells me you love to read. What’s your favorite book?”

Annalee looked up, her face brightening. “Oh, there are so many I love, but if I had to pick one I guess it would be
To Kill a Mockingbird
.”

“I love that book,” Karen said. “I’ve read it at least four times.”

“Yeah, it was pretty good,” I said. “I finished it last night.”

Annalee looked at me in surprise. “You just got it yesterday. How’d you read it that fast?”

“Oh, I…” I looked from her to Karen and back. “I’ve always been able to read fast. Guess it’s one of those idiot savant things you hear about sometimes. You know, like Rainman.” I poked Annalee meaningfully in the arm. “Hey, we should probably get started on that project now. It could take us all night.”

“Okay, I can take a hint,” Karen said. “I’ll call you when dinner’s ready. Nice to meet you, Annalee. We’ll have a book chat sometime when Gwen is more willing to share you.”

Annalee smiled. “I’d like that, Mrs. Sherman.”

I followed Karen to the door and whispered to her before I closed it. “Thanks for knowing what to say to her.”

“Glad to help. You girls have fun gossiping. Oh, I mean working on your project.” She winked at me before walking down the hall.

“Huh, she knows we don’t really have a project,” I said after I shut the door. “How cool is that?”

“Yeah, she seems really nice,” Annalee said. “Did you finish the book already for real?”

I nodded and sat on the bed again. “I’ll explain that to you when I’m done with the big stuff.” I handed her one of the Cokes and the can of Pringles. “Maybe you’d better eat something before I start. We don’t want you to faint from lightheadedness or anything like that.”

She put the chips aside but popped the top on the Coke. “I’m not hungry. Start whenever you’re ready.”

I opened my mouth to begin, but another knock on the door interrupted me. “Who is it?”

“It’s me!” replied Nathan’s excited voice. “I gotta tell you something!”

I sighed. “Come on in.”

“Guess what I just heard!” He ran in but stopped when he saw Annalee. “Oh, hi. I’m Nathan.” He turned back to me, his eyes wide. “My friend Bobby said the police are out in front of his house over on Plaza Drive. Three guys from Bay Harbor just got beat up by some Cuban gang. They told the cops there was a whole carload of them cruising around looking for people to mug.”

I looked at Annalee and we did our best to keep a straight face, but it was a lost cause. We fell back on the bed and laughed so hard that she almost spilled her Coke.

“What’s so funny?” Nathan looked confused and a little miffed. “It just happened a few minutes ago, so it’s lucky you didn’t run into them on your way home from the bus stop.”

“Yeah, lucky for us,” I said, still laughing. “Thanks for letting us know, Nateman. We’ll be on the lookout for those gangbangers for sure.”

He left muttering something about girls being from outer space.

“Guess we don’t have to worry about them opening their mouths,” I said. “At least to the cops.”

“Yeah, Dougie’ll probably lie and say he stood up to the whole gang.” Annalee was still giggling. “You think he’ll say anything to you tomorrow?”

“Who knows, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not like I have to explain anything to him like I do to you. You ready to hear it now?”

She took a sip of Coke as if for strength. “Go.”

I pulled my feet under me and took a deep breath—solely out of habit since I didn’t breathe anymore.

“Okay, nobody else knows any of this. My real name is Jada Gayle, and I was murdered two weeks ago because I was stupid enough to get mixed up with an online predator. Instead of sending me to Hell where I probably belong, they told me there was a hold placed on my Afterlife Account. To clear it, I have to stay here and pretend to be a homeless girl named Gwen until I find and eliminate the scumbag who killed me. I’m what they call
transdead
, which means not quite dead or alive. That’s why I have super zombie strength. Here—feel.”

I took her hand and put it over my heart.

“See, no heartbeat.”

Her expression had been confused at first and had slowly grown into shocked surprise by the time she felt my chest. “But… that’s not possible. It’s some kind of trick.”

I sighed. “I figured you were gonna need more proof.” I reached over to pick up a pen from my computer desk, then I turned to face her again and jabbed the pen into my dead heart. “See, no biggie.”

I barely managed to grab the Coke before she fell over in a faint.

Chapter Sixteen

“O
h, crap! I finally get a best friend and then scare her to death.”

I pulled the pen out of my chest and threw it aside, then I turned Annalee onto her back and patted her cheeks, probably a little too hard.

“Annalee, please wake up! I’m okay—look at me!”

Her eyes fluttered before they opened and focused on my face. “Gwen, what hap—oh my God!” She sat up and put her hand over the hole in my shirt. “Did you really just stab yourself with a pen?”

“Yeah, that was really stupid of me. I’m sorry, I should’ve known it would freak you out.” I held her hand in both of mine. “I’m fine though, okay? I didn’t even feel it.”

Her gaze remained on the hole in my shirt. “There’s no blood. Can I… see what it did to you?”

I pulled the neckline of my shirt down far enough for her to see where the pen had punctured my chest below the collarbone. The hole was already starting to close up and disappear. She touched it tentatively, as if she needed proof that it was real and she hadn’t imagined the whole thing, then she looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

“You must’ve felt so alone until now. I’m glad you trust me enough to tell me, and I promise I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

With everything that had just been dumped on her, I couldn’t believe her biggest concern was how I felt and how she could make it easier for me. And I also couldn’t believe I’d been given the chance to have a friend like her after all the stupid things I’d done when I was alive.

I pulled her to me in a tearful hug. “I guess you’re wondering why I can still blubber like a baby if I’m supposed to be dead, huh?”

“Well, I guess it
is
kinda strange,” she said when we let go.

I sat cross-legged on the bed in front of her. “Okay, here’s the whole story, starting from when I found myself in Death Detention.”

I told her all about Afterlife Admissions—finding out that I had to be a Transdead Trustee and what I had to do to clear my account, the guidelines Flo had given me, and the stupid addendum to my assignment that I didn’t find out about until later.

“I guess that’s why they made me have a crush on Lew and why I have to deal with stuff like being part of a family and having a real friend. Pretty lame, huh?”

Her forehead creased. “You didn’t have a family or friends in your other life?”

“Yeah, but they’re pretty much what got me into trouble in the first place.”

I could tell she didn’t understand what I meant, but I was so used to keeping my feelings about Cassie locked up inside me that I didn’t know if I could talk about it, even with her.

“Look,” I said, “why don’t I tell you the basics about my life, then you can ask me questions about anything I don’t explain well enough.”

She squeezed my hand. “Whatever’s easiest for you. I know this has to be hard for you to talk about.”

God, she was so understanding. I swallowed the lump in my throat and struggled not to cry again.

“Okay, I’ll start with my parents, Vanessa and David Gayle. Two of the most vain, spoiled, selfish people in the world. Both of them came from rich families, but all they cared about was making more money. Well, until David decided to take up getting drunk as a hobby. Then they spent half their time fighting and trying to run the other one off. As you can guess, neither of them had any time for me, their little tax deduction.”

Annalee shook her head. “So all that stuff about living on the street and having a prostitute for a mother wasn’t true?”

“No, that’s just the fake identity they gave me,” I said.

“So… should I call you Jada now?”

I kinda wanted her to, but I figured we’d better stick to the story. “No, you might forget and call me that in front of somebody. Just keep calling me Gwen.”

She nodded. “Okay. But I think Jada is a really pretty name.”

“Thanks. Anyway, I grew up with a flock of nannies and housekeepers taking care of me until I got to middle school and met Cassie.” Tears filled my eyes as soon as I said her name, and I had to stop for a second. “She’s the only real friend I ever had besides you. Her mom was the greatest—a lot like Karen. She kinda took me in because she knew Vanessa and David didn’t have time for me.”

“I’m glad you had somebody who cared.” Annalee squeezed my hand again.

“Yeah, I was actually happy for a little while,” I said. “Then Cassie got leukemia.”

“Oh, no. How old was she when she died?”

I couldn’t stop my bitter laugh. “Oh, she beat the cancer. That’s not what killed her.”

“What do you mean?”

I looked away and stared out the window. This was the real test of whether or not I could talk about the thing that had changed my life forever. I’d never talked about it to anyone before, not even the dozens of doctors and therapists Vanessa had sent me to. Ever since Cassie’s death, I’d locked myself away in a dark place where I didn’t feel anything at all, and I realized now just how many memories I’d blocked out because of the gut-wrenching pain I felt every time I thought about them.

“It took almost two years of chemo and radiation and surgeries, but Cassie finally went into remission. She got the good news from her oncologist the day before my fifteenth birthday. It was the best present I could have gotten. God, I wish I’d convinced her that’s all I wanted. She’d still be alive if I’d done a better job of making her believe me.”

I sobbed into my hands as the memories of that horrible night came rushing back to me. And the most vivid memory of all was how much I’d wanted to die afterward. How I’d shut down and cut myself off from everybody after my suicide attempt had failed. Without Cassie, there’d been nobody I could talk to, so I just went away. My body was still there, but the rest of me was curled up in a dark place where it didn’t hurt to live.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t do this.”

I had every intention of stopping right there, but then I felt Annalee’s arms go around me and remembered that I had somebody again. Somebody who understood the loneliness of not having a family you could depend on for help. Somebody who knew what it felt like to get your heart broken by one of the two people in the world who were supposed to love you more than anyone else.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You don’t have to talk about it if it’s too hard for you.”

I turned so I could look in her eyes, because I knew the understanding in them would make it easier for me.

“Cassie wanted to go shopping for my birthday present. She said she had something special picked out and wanted me to go to the mall with her to get it, and afterward she wanted us to get chocolate chunk cookies at Sharon’s Bakery like we used to do all the time before she got sick. Her mom dropped us off at the mall, and Cassie’s dad was supposed to pick us up when it closed at nine.”

Annalee pushed the tear-soaked hair out of my eyes. “What happened?”

“Cassie’s dad got called to the hospital to deliver a baby right before it was time to come get us and her mom was gone somewhere too, so we had to call my house. I figured Vanessa would send our housekeeper to pick us up, but for some ungodly reason, she sent David. I should’ve known better than to get in the car with him!”

Realization dawned on her face one feature at a time. “He was drunk?”

“Yeah.” My tears dried as anger quickly took over. “Just like he was every night. But I was so stupid and pathetic that I was actually happy because he remembered it was my birthday and said he wanted to take us to get ice cream on the way home. So I ignored all the warnings in my head and got in the car with him. Ten minutes later, he and Cassie and the driver of the car we broadsided were all dead. I made it out with a broken arm and a concussion. Lucky me, huh?”

“Oh my God.” She hugged me again. “I’m so sorry, Gwen.”

“Yeah, me too.” I pulled away, my old detachment returning with the details of the story. “I don’t remember a lot of what happened after that. A bunch of doctors and counselors who never stopped talking and Vanessa getting more and more embarrassed by her nut job daughter until I finally got disgusted myself and decided to take one of those bloody baths you see in the movies all the time. Just my luck Vanessa picked that night to come home early and found me before I had a chance to bleed out.”

Annalee’s eyes were huge. “You tried to kill yourself?”

“Sure, why not?” I said. “I wasn’t really living anyway. Why not make it official and let Vanessa turn my room into that home gym she’d been wanting? I think it was pretty damn thoughtful of me.”

“What happened after that?”

“Vanessa had me committed to a nice upscale facility for crazy rich kids. They put me on a balanced diet of Prozac and hospital haute cuisine and forced me to talk about my feelings in group therapy every day. Lucky for me it was easy to play them all like a bunch of gullible violins.”

“How did you fool them?”

“Oh, I went through the whole process for them. See, they’re stupid enough to give you pamphlets and literature about the goals of therapy. First I pretended to be in denial, then I was angry, then I fell into depression, and then—hallelujah and praise Freud—I began to see how much my dear, devoted mother loved me and needed me. That enabled me to make all kinds of positive revelations about myself.” I paused to laugh. “Too bad I was faking everything just so they’d let me out of there.”

“What happened when you got out? You didn’t try to kill yourself again?”

I sighed. “No, they made sure I stayed on the happy pills that kept me from caring about anything enough to try again. By the time I finally quit taking them, I was so used to feeling nothing that it was all I knew. That’s what got me into trouble with the sicko who killed me.”

“You said before he was an online predator. Did he trick you somehow?”

My laugh dripped with bitterness. “Yeah, but not until I’d been tricking him for weeks—or at least I thought I was. Maybe he was planning to kill me all along and I was the sucker.”

I hadn’t really thought much about the events leading up to my death until then, but it started to make sense that I had been the victim from the start. And that made my anger grow like a flame that suddenly gets a dose of oxygen.

“You know, now that I think about it, I’m sure he
did
plan it all along. I thought he just got mad when he finally realized I’d been playing him, but I bet he knew what I was doing and was stringing me along until I took the big bait that would get me alone somewhere so he could rape and kill me.”

“He raped you too?” A look of horror overtook her face. “Oh, God…”

I shook my head. “No, I got the last laugh and made him mad enough to kill me before he could get his jollies. Man, I bet he was pissed when he realized I was dead.”

She was starting to look way too pale, so I took one of her hands. “Listen, don’t sweat it. I didn’t feel anything after he hit me in the head with the gun.”

Tears spilled over onto her cheeks. “I don’t know how you can talk about all of it so casually. And how’d you ever get mixed up with somebody like that in the first place? What did you mean about playing him?”

I sighed and lay across the bed on my stomach because now I didn’t want to see her face while I told her just how stupid I’d been.

“Remember what I said about the pills? When I got out of the hospital, it was like I couldn’t feel
anything
anymore. Happy, scared, angry, sad—nothing. I went through the motions at school and had lots of pretend friends, mainly because it gave me an excuse not to be at home and have to see Vanessa. The truth is I was bored out of my mind and desperate to find anything that would make me feel
something
. One night when I was online in a chat room with some girls at my school, I got a private message from a guy inviting me to a Sugar Daddy room. I was curious, so I went to see what it was like, and it was full of older men looking for some hot young thing to play around with online. All of them claimed to be super rich and were willing to send gifts and money in exchange for messages, pictures and videos. Pretty pathetic, huh?”

“Disgusting,” she said. “Why would you have anything to do with that?”

I traced the pattern on the comforter with my finger. “Because when I realized how easy it was to find pictures and videos on the Internet to send them and how much fun it was to yank their chains with badly written schoolgirl sex scenes I copied, I felt this incredible
rush
that I was making total fools out of them. I didn’t know why, I just knew I was finally feeling something again, and I was hooked like it was some kind of drug. At one time I had four of the pathetic losers sending me money and jewelry and things like sold-out concert tickets. I didn’t want any of it. It was just the excitement of doing it that gave me the thrill.”

I sat up again and turned to look at her. As hard as it was to see the confusion on her face, I had to make her understand.

“I swear I hated all the nasty stuff. That’s why I never wrote them anything myself or sent any pictures that were really me. It was just that rush I felt every time I got one of them to send me a present and knew I’d cheated them. It felt so good to make them pay for something they weren’t really getting. They thought they were such big shots with their CEO salaries and their cars and their fancy offices, and I hated them all!”