Eleanor
I’ve watched plenty of horror movies. There aren’t many I haven’t. I figure I know pretty much everything I need to know about the villains and the underdog who saves the day and the side characters, at least one of which is usually dense. Being in one is an entirely different situation, especially considering who the supposed "bad guy" is. In case you're wondering, it's my cousin. Who's dead. But isn't that rather typical? Harper died about a week ago in a car crash and has been wreaking havoc ever since. I have no idea how to stop her.
I've considered trying to find one of those exorcist people you see in movies, but I'm broke and when I asked my parents, they told me it was probably just a way of me "dealing with my grief" and offered to get me a therapist. I don't need a therapist (well, maybe I do but not because of that). I'm not sure what I expected, and I also can't blame Harper, because pretty much everyone I'm related to sucks, but I wish she'd leave me out of it. It's like two in the morning, and I need to go to sleep, but it's kind of difficult when I know that at any minute Harper could appear and decide to break something else. Last night it was this turquoise antique lamp, and I got pissed off. She just laughed at me with this weird, ghost-like laugh that she's probably been practicing because I can tell it's quite improved from the first time. She told me that she was going to get her "other friends" and I haven't slept since.
I suppose I might as well try to go to bed, so I slip underneath the covers, keeping the light on because I’ve seen Lights Out way too many times to think that it would be a good idea to turn it off. I can hear little whispers in my mind and Harper’s shriek keeps echoing and I have to convince myself that it isn’t real, which only makes me more terrified that it is. Harper was always my favorite, she was the only relative I could stand. I could never imagine her doing anything like this to me, but I don’t know what dying can do to someone. She could be a complete psycho now. I wish that I could talk to her, to see what the hell was going on, but whenever I ask her a question she does that ghost laugh and disappears. Or at least I assume she disappears because I can’t see her in the first place. Only hear her, and watch as she rummages through the kitchen drawers and closes the blinds and tips over my mom’s plants, which I am inevitably blamed for. Images of Harper with cobwebs in her hair and black eyeballs dance through my brain as I fall asleep.
The next morning I wake up at one in the afternoon, but even after almost eleven hours of sleep, I’m still pretty tired, mainly physically. I didn’t have any weird visions in my dream, no messages from Harper or scary images, which I did expect. I can’t remember dreaming at all. The first ten seconds of being awake, despite my limbs feeling heavy and my mind still half asleep, are fairly blissful. I don’t think about Harper or her death or anything else, but the moment I start thinking about how I’m not thinking about those things, I start thinking about them. My room is dim, the only light coming from a lamp I have a few yards away. My blinds are closed, with no gaps that anyone could peek through. I triple checked it last night. Who knows, I could look outside and see Harper and her “friends” staring right up at me. I’m not taking any chances.
I drag myself out of bed and pull on a hoodie. My room is abnormally cold, but I’m not surprised. Don’t ghosts do that? Normally I’d open my blinds, but I’m still not too sure if that’s a good idea, so instead, I just put on a thick pair of socks and pad downstairs. No one is in the kitchen, and I grab a handful of blueberries and pop one into my mouth. It’s disgusting, all dry and crummy and tasteless. I spit the blueberry into the trash and throw the rest of them away before checking the living room. Nobody is there either. I hurry back upstairs and knock on my parents' bedroom door. After waiting for a beat and hearing no response, I slowly open the door and check the room, then the bathroom. Both places are empty. Okay, this is getting a little weird. I call for my mom and run downstairs, then to the basement, making sure I look anywhere they could be. My parents aren't at home, so where could they be? Not at work, and if they were going somewhere, they would have told me, or at least left a note. Something is going on here.
My phone is charging back in my room, and I unplug it, then call my mom. I can hear her phone ringing somewhere downstairs, so I hang up and call my dad. His phone rings from my parents’ bedroom. I’d like to think that the two of them just went off to the store real quick and in the hurry forgot to bring their phones, but I know it’s not true. I decide to call my best friend, maybe she’ll pick up and I can explain everything to her. But I hear her phone ringing in my ear for a while, before it goes to voicemail. What the hell? She always picks up. Always. This has to be Harper’s doing. I mean, what else could it be?
“Harper?” I yell loudly, hoping that wherever she is, she hears me. “I’d really appreciate it if you could just leave me alone right now. I get it if you’re angry, but let’s be real here. I haven’t done anything to you. If you’re gonna haunt someone, haunt the people who have.” I stand in the middle of my room, waiting for what seems like hours. I don’t move, just listen as hard as I can. Nothing happens.
“Godamn it.” I decide to go outside, maybe walk to the dog park or something, so I throw on a pair of sweatpants, grab my phone and keys, then go downstairs to find my shoes. They are freezing, so I reach for another pair, at this point more pissed off than anything. My boots are cold as well. Cursing, I grab my converse again and pull them on, ignoring the cold sting. The door slams behind me as I leave and a strong gust of wind almost knocks me over. Who knew one ghost could be so powerful? Or maybe it’s not one. Maybe it’s Harper and her friends, the ones who she mentioned earlier. Parents love to complain about the people their kids hang around, but they should be grateful, at least their children’s friends aren’t demonic ghosts.
I pull my hood up over my head and trudge towards the park. The freezing wind pushes and pulls me around, going right through my hoodie and sinking into my skin. Usually, the cold doesn’t bother me very much, but this kind I can feel inside, like a cold that’s creeping into my bones and nestling right in there, refusing to move. I shiver and sink further into my hoodie.
The sky is a dull gray color, casting a depressing light on everything below it. All of a sudden the wind stops. It just ceases to blow. I stop as well, staying right where I am, all stiff and anxious. Finally, after a bit, I glance around, waiting for something to happen. But nothing does. The whole world just seems to stand still. The trees are no longer slowly swaying from side to side. No birds flutter through the air calling to each other. No stray cat lurks in the shadows, watching the pigeons through narrow eyes. Everything looks as if someone has put a monochrome filter over the world.
So I start walking again. I walk and walk and walk, then run and run. Then I walk again. I don’t realize how far I’ve gone until I get to the edge of a forest, the one that’s like five miles from my house. The leaves on all the trees are gray, so are the branches and the trunks, all the way down to the ground. The dirt is gray and the raspberry bush is gray. That’ll sure be a disappointment to the ten-year-olds that come here almost every day to pick the best ones. Except there aren’t any ten-year-olds. No other kids, either. Or their parents or their dogs. There’s no one.
My legs ache and my breaths are short, and I feel incredibly nauseous like I need to throw-up. My vision goes all red and fuzzy and I feel like I’m spinning in circles. My legs buckle underneath me and I’m falling, falling, and falling way past where the ground should be. I’m underground now, and the dirt is suffocating me. My lungs are filling up and termites are crawling around me and I scream, but I can hear anything because my ears are clogged, and then I can’t scream because there’s no air left to scream with. I try to claw my way up but I don’t know which way is which and I can’t move because the ground is crushing my bones to flour and my body is liquid which I know isn’t right. I’m trying to suck in oxygen but all I get is dirt and then my lungs have definitely collapsed, or burst, or whatever lungs do when there isn’t any air to use, but there is a pressure that feels like a million trucks have been dropped on top of me. My consciousness is slipping away and I desperately grab on but my palms are sweaty so I can’t hold any longer and then the darkness seems so comforting. Like I just spent a whole week without sleep but then here’s this soft, cool mattress with fluffy pillows and weighted blankets that is pulling me in and so I let it.
There’s a soft light shining through my eyelids and they flutter open. I’m in a dimly lit room, lying down on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. The walls are an off-white color. When I touch them, they feel both soft and solid at the same time. It’s not like anything back at home.
Home. I stand up in a hurry and look around me for an exit. There is none, though in one corner of the room there is a slight shimmer on the wall as if it’s coated with glitter. I move towards it and reach my hand out. It goes right through, and I can feel a space on the other side. So I take a deep breath and step through. It feels as if I’m walking through water for a second, then I reach the other side.
And I’m back in my room. Confused, I look behind me, and all that’s there is my window. Nothing seems to have changed. My dirty clothes are in a pile where I left them. My computer is on my desk, charging. I breathe a sigh of relief. It was all a bad dream. I’m in my house now, and my parents are no doubt downstairs. Harper isn’t here anymore. I feel great, my mind is light and joyful. I didn’t actually go to an empty park by an empty, gray forest and almost suffocate underground. I let out a little laugh. I’m back, and everything’s okay. I hear my mom say something to my dad in the kitchen, so I run downstairs to say good morning or afternoon, or whatever time it is. In the kitchen, I see my dad making some kind of sandwiches, three of them all laid out. One for me, one for him, and one for my mom.
“Hey,” I say, trying to sound as casual as possible. Neither of my parents respond, even to acknowledge my presence. “Hi,” I say again, this time louder. Again, there’s no response. I clear my throat as loud as I can and shout, “Hello!” There is no reaction. I step closer and am shocked. Both my parents' eyes are red and puffy as if they’ve just been crying. But why?
“There’s no use, they can’t hear you.” I hear a voice behind me. It sounds like- wait, that can’t be. Harper?
I turn around. “Harper!” I run towards her and hug her tight. “How the hell are you here? You’re supposed to be… well, dead.” I look at her shiny blonde hair and skinny arms and oval face and I start to cry because she’s here and oh my god I missed her.
But Harper’s expression doesn’t change. “I’m still dead. But so are you.”
“What? No, that’s not possible. How? What?” This has got to be a joke. I can’t be dead. I mean sure, it makes sense. The empty house and wind and the ground that tried to suffocate me. The shimmery gray room and the fact that my parents can’t see me. But it just doesn’t seem to click in my brain.
“I’m sorry, Lil. I didn’t mean to, and if you think about it, it wasn’t really my fault.”
“You killed me?” Um, what? Of all the ways to die, it’s because of my dead cousin. That’s messed up.
“Not exactly. Look, I can explain, okay? But you need to come with me.” She takes my hand and starts to pull me somewhere but I shrink away from her grasp.
“No. No, Harper. This isn’t okay and you’re going to explain right now because I sure as hell am not dead and this isn’t funny, whatever you’re doing.”
“Lil, come on. You have to come and it’ll all make sense and I’m sorry that this past week has sucked for you and that you got dragged into this but you need to come.” She looks at me all pleading but I refuse to agree.
“Harper, I don’t think you get it. I have no idea what’s going on and this is not okay and you are going to tell me what’s happened right this second before I go anywhere with you.”
She frowns at me but I don’t budge and finally, Harper lets out an aggravated sigh. “Fine, okay? Fine. You’re dead, but that's only maybe ten percent my fault. When I died, I didn’t know what to do, but I didn’t want to leave you. I thought maybe if I scared you enough… I don’t know. I thought that something would happen and I’d feel better but it was also kind of thrilling because I just wanted to be a part of life as much as possible. When you died, you died because someone else killed you. It wasn’t someone living, but they got mad at me because they thought you knew too much about something that I can’t say so they decided that you had to die and everything that’s happened since, well, think of it as a waiting room. But we need to go now or else worse things will happen to everyone here.”
I feel even more confused than before. “What did they think I know?”
“Something about death that living people aren’t supposed to. Will you come with me now?”
“Where are we going?”
“Nowhere.”
“What?”
“We’re dead, Lil, there’s nowhere to go. I love you so much and I wish this weren’t happening but we don’t have much time left if we want to avoid anything else happening to other people.”
“What’s gonna happen, when we go to nowhere?”
“Nothing. Nothing can happen. That’s it, we’re gone.”
I look back at my parents in the kitchen and I think about my life and how little happened. I realize then how much of a loser I am, dying before my sixteenth birthday. I’ll never get my driver’s license or an actual job. I’ll never go on that trip through Europe I planned with my best friend last summer. I won’t be able to get married and grow old. I won’t even be able to say goodbye. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to stop dilly-dallying and actually do something but it’s too late.
“Lil. We gotta go.” Harper wraps me in a warm hug that smells like coconut and cotton-candy and warmth and sunshine and summer days. She takes my hand and tells me to close my eyes. So I do.
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