I Woke Up Dead at the Mall (14 page)

Oh, this park.

We sat still and watched as night fell, like it always did. The city lights decorated the world like they always did—crazy warm yellow lights from the windows around Washington Square, and insistent blue-white shop lights. No wonder it was so hard to see the stars in the city sky. Too much furious competition. I forced myself to look away. Watch for Dad. Watch for Karen.

I smiled and chose to ignore the sizzling lump of worry in my heart. Lucky for me, I got the perfect distraction from all thoughts, worries, or concerns in the form of Lacey. She had been gone for hours, but then her voice sailed over to us.

“Hey!” She looked absolutely triumphant. “Wait till you hear what happened to me.”

I couldn't help myself. I loved Lacey's story. And she so obviously loved telling it.

LACEY'S GUIDE TO HAUNTING THE LIVING. ESPECIALLY THE ONE WHO KILLED YOU.

So here's the thing: Most people are not okay with the memory of killing somebody. Unless there's something wrong with them. But that wasn't the case with Jorge. He pushed Lacey because he was all sad and angry and hurt and kind of drunk.

He felt bad about it. Which was good.

Lacey found him at school. He was getting his stuff from his locker. People walked right by him like he was invisible, but then they turned to check him out as soon as they got past him. They whispered to each other as soon as they were far enough away from him. It was hard to tell if he knew they were doing that.

Lacey hoped that he knew, and that it upset him. A lot.

Okay, so it sucked that Lacey's friends didn't hand him right over to the police. But they obviously didn't like having a murderer in their midst. That was a start. It just wasn't enough.

Lacey saw her so-called friends coming down the hallway. They were three giggling little bitches who looked super-happy. The moment she saw them, her fury took over. They looked way happier than she had ever seen them when she was alive and bossing them around. Their giggles sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. How dare they giggle at all in a post-Lacey world?

No time to think (which was an overrated activity, in Lacey's opinion). Instead she just did what she really wanted to do: she shoved one of the girls. Hard. That spinning, whirling fury inside her was working perfectly. Girl One fell into the next, who fell into the next. It was Girl Dominoes, and it made Lacey happy.

Girl One pulled herself together and turned on Jorge. “Watch it, asshole!”

“What did I do?” he asked. Lacey had never noticed before how nasal his voice was. “You tripped. It wasn't my fault.”

Girl One came close to him and hissed her words. “Just remember. We know something that
was
your fault. So watch it.”

Jorge was practically choking with fear. Lacey clapped her hands in delight. Okay yes, she would still love to send him to prison for the rest of his miserable life. But it was awesome to see him suffer like this. Would he suffer forever and ever? How great would that be?

The girls strutted away. Lacey shouted after them, “Hey! Your butt looks flat in those jeans!” but there was no sign that anybody heard her.

Oh well. At least Jorge looked nauseous. And Lacey noticed that he was thinner than ever before. Awesomely awesome. That should make this next part even easier.

She followed him toward the stairwell. The perfect spot. The stairs were cruel, made of worn
stone with metal edges. They had a heavy iron railing on one side and cinder block on the other. No place for a soft landing. She was summoning all her strength, all her rage. How could she have gotten so lucky? This was more perfect than anything she could have planned. (See? Thinking really is overrated.) She needed to find the right angle to shove him. Wouldn't it be so ironic and all kinds of perfect if she broke his neck?

He reached the top of the stairs. But instead of stepping forward, instead of lurching forward into his doom, he crumpled and collapsed. He sat on the top step and covered his face with his hands. He cried like a little girl, all high-pitched and whiny.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

Lacey took a step back. His suffering looked so huge from here.

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “You
should
cry. I guess you can't help being a complete and total loser. You were born that way. Loser.”

He just kept crying, and eventually Lacey got sick of it. She turned to leave, but then no. Not so fast. She returned to Jorge one last time. She gave him a good swift kick in the head. It lacked the fury she needed to really hurt him, but he felt something. He paused from his girly crying to rub his head in confusion.

She crouched down next to him and said,
“Don't you ever, ever lift your hand to hurt another girl ever again, as long as you live. And the next time you're at a roof party—if anyone ever invites you to anything ever again
—stay in the living room
.”

He was staring into space, still rubbing the spot where she had kicked him.

“And I hope I just gave you a
huge
headache,” Lacey said as she left.

She went straight to Harry's grave. It was adorned with a simple headstone and a spray of fresh flowers. She told him the whole story and decided that somehow he could hear her and that he thought her story was perfect. She decided he was proud of her for kicking Jorge but not killing him. She decided that he would have hugged her and kissed her and told her she was amazing.

She felt good, like she had just eaten somebody else's dessert. Lacey was, after all, still Lacey.

We were not alone. Most of the time I kept my gaze on my apartment building entrance, looking up to our windows every now and then. Dark and still no change. Fine. I had nothing else to do, nothing better. I could wait. I just wished Dad would show up soon. Alive and well. And freshly divorced. I needed Nick here to reassure me. I wasn't really good at it.

So we three dead girls were hanging out in Washington Square Park, like you do, when I realized that some of the lingering crowd was, well, unusual.

“Look at that guy.” I pointed to an iridescent-looking businessman. He was wandering aimlessly around the fountain, almost like the mall walkers. But he was talking to himself nonstop.

“He's a ghost,” Alice explained. “But then again, so are we.”

“Look at me!” Lacey exclaimed. “I'm all bedazzled and stuff.” Sure enough, she shimmered in the night. So did I. So did Alice. So did a whole bunch of people in the park.

“When did they get here?” I asked.

“They were here already,” Alice said. “Before we arrived. In fact, some of them have been dead quite a long time. They're harder to see in sunlight. But at night you can see how different they are from the living. I mean, how different
we
are.”

She was right. During the day I never noticed them, as they were overpowered by all that light and life and beauty. Now they gathered around the park, like fireflies with a blue-white glow.

A middle-aged couple, brightly lit, walked hand in hand. At first, I thought they were wearing costumes, because they looked like extras from
The Great Gatsby
. She was a flapper, and he was a tuxedo dude. How the hell long had they been dead?

They didn't seem to notice us. They were caught in a conversation loop.

She:	It wasn't my fault.
He:	Yes, it was.
She:	It wasn't my fault.
He:	Yes, it was.

And on and on. Living people passed through the dead and even sat on them. A beautiful young (living) woman was sitting on a park bench, totally unaware of the disgusting pervy ghost whose lap she was on. She was talking on her phone while he laughed, enjoying the hell out of this situation. He had bad teeth and bug eyes.

“I've sat on these benches a thousand times,” I said. “I wish I could take a shower right now.”

“Hey!” Lacey shouted at the pervy ghost. “You! Move it! Leave her alone!”

The ghost flinched and muttered and slunk away. The girl continued her conversation, still oblivious.

We sat on a grassy knoll and watched the life and death surround us. I hugged my knees and tried not to worry about Dad or think about Nick (too much). (Welcome to my losing battle.)

“Those ghosts, they're stuck here,” Alice explained. “Forever.”

“Why?” Lacey asked.

“Oh, it's all too easy to get stuck here,” Alice said. “Sometimes people don't come back from their funerals. Sometimes people come back to haunt, but then they stay. Sometimes it's easier, it's comfortable, being stuck with what you know. Even if it's not very nice.” She took a breath and added, “Not everybody wants to move on, you know.”

“But
you
do. Right?” I confirmed with Alice. She nodded, but really I wanted something much stronger from her. After all, the girl had been dead for decades and she still hadn't moved on. (Let me add this to my list of things to worry about.)

A young woman sat down right next to us. She hugged her knees, just as I was doing. It took me a moment to see the halo light of death all around her. A fellow ghost.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hi, yes, hi. Hello to you! Hello!” she said with an upsetting level of eagerness. (Why had I said hello to her? I was
a New Yorker. I should have known better. Besides, I really wanted to keep my eyes trained on my building.)

“Did you come from the mall?” the girl asked. “Were you there? Were you? At the mall? Were you at the mall? You were. I can tell. You were at the mall.”

She was manic and painfully, skeletally thin. If I had seen her like this when I was alive, maybe she wouldn't have looked quite as frightening as she did tonight. Maybe I would have assumed she was a dancer. But seeing her in the blue glow of death in the night, she was particularly terrifying.

“Yes,” I said, and then tried to start up a chat with Alice and Lacey. But the skinny manic girl wasn't letting up, and she wasn't open to hints.

“I left. I left. I left the mall. I'm here now.” She repeated herself a few more times, and I tried to find a way to make a clean break from her. Lacey and Alice were no help, as they were staring at her protruding cheekbones and hollow eyes. I was hoping Lacey would come out with some smart-ass command to scare this ghost away.

But then the girl rose. “Okay. Break's over! I have to keep moving.” She began to jog in place. “I have to go. I have to go,” she repeated as she started to jog away. And then she added, “So close to my goal weight!”

“Wow,” Lacey said. “Some people take their crazy with them when they die, huh?”

Alice nodded vigorously. “This is the one thing that's worse than mall-walking. At least I could wake up. Eventually. But these people…” She finished her sentence by shuddering.

Back to my vigil. Watch for Dad. Watch for Dad. Focus. Where the hell was Nick?

Off to my left, I recognized the guy in the shabby suit. Oh no. He was the one who screamed at people. All this time I thought he had just been a (scary) dream. I stared at him a little too long and caught his attention. Now he was heading right toward us, revving up for a big fat scream.

“Look down!” I shouted to Alice and Lacey.

“Why?” Lacey just
had
to ask.

“Now!” I shouted back, and we were all staring at the ground. Mr. Scream went past us and found someone else to scream at when they made the mistake of looking at him.

“Well!” Lacey had her taking-charge voice on. “Why are we hanging out here? Why don't we go someplace?”

“I can't,” I said. “My dad will be back soon. I hope.” That sounded a little too pessimistic. “I came here to save him. I can't miss my chance.

“Yeah, well, good luck and all,” Lacey said as she stood up. “Me, I want to go find the homes of famous people and see if I can catch them naked.” She was so proud of this plan she let out a little giggle.

Minus Lacey, the park was amazingly quiet. My vigil continued, but my gaze drifted, just a little. I stretched out on the grass and studied the misty night sky. Then I turned onto my side and stared at the apartment entrance. Dad, where the hell could you be?

“Do you think Nick is okay?” I asked.

“Nick is the kind of boy who always manages to be okay,”
Alice said. I decided not to say, “Except for when he ended up shot to death at sixteen.”

I propped myself up on my elbow. “You've haunted before.” I said it as a statement, not a question.

Alice nodded. “Yes. It ended badly.”

“How?”

Alice seemed to be climbing over some kind of wall to get an answer. “I…I nearly got stuck. I couldn't stop screaming at Joe O'Hara.” I think she needed a moment to stop seeing or hearing it in her memory. “But Bertha grabbed me by the collar and took me back. I was so upset, I walked for twenty-three years. I missed World War Two.”

“We won't get stuck here,” I assured her. And me.

“No. We won't let that happen,” Alice agreed. “We'll let go when the time comes. And let's face it, Nick would never let us get stuck.” True.

We let darkness and silence wash over us.

“The sky is crazy beautiful,” I said.

“Try not to love it too much, Sarah. It will end badly.”