Last Time She Died Page 5

  Even only remembering it, she swore she could hear the tires squeal.

  A bright light blinded her, even behind her closed eyelids. She startled into a sitting position.

  Lightning streaked in front of her, lighting up the interior of her car. Just before the exploding tree hit her, a silhouette shifted against the darkness.

  The dream sometimes ended in different places. It stopped when the car did, sometimes right after her dream-self whipped her head into the steering wheel, or as early as when the tree bits slammed into the car. But it always stopped before her dream-self was out of the car.

  She waited for her dream-self to scramble across the seats—and Alexia’s lap—reach for the door handle and crawl through.

  Dream-Alexia stayed slumped over the wheel. The strange shadow still lurked just outside the car.

  It was all wrong.

  The shadow took shape and morphed into Cali.

  Alexia clawed at the handle, knowing it shouldn’t open, but hoping, since everything else was different, she could escape. The door creaked open and she bolted out of the car toward her friend while her dream-self didn’t move.

  The world shifted, knocking her painfully to the ground.

  She couldn’t see the car, but Cali stood above her, teary-eyed, staring down.

  It was warm, no longer the dark, cold evening of the accident, though it was still raining. Taking in her surroundings, she saw the vehicles were still there. Farther away than she expected, and they were fading away. Literally dissolving from the road in front of her. The ground softened against her back.

  Alexia’s attention snapped back to her friend who loomed above her, with tears running down her quivering cheeks. She tried to reach for her, but her arms wouldn’t move. Lying on her back, Alexia tried to call out to Cali, but she couldn’t speak.

  Cali’s mouth moved, but Alexia couldn’t hear anything. An earthy, damp scent overwhelmed her. Cali held something silver in her hands that shimmered in the streetlights. A necklace or bracelet, maybe, but Alexia couldn’t be sure. An odd sensation ran through her, and Cali shuddered in unison. She stopped talking, shaking her head. Alexia felt an ache in her chest as she watched her best friend weep, but she remained still and silent. Imprisoned in her own body.

  Finally, Alexia heard Cali’s voice as she whispered, “I still miss you every day,” between sobs.

  Kneeling over Alexia’s chest, but somehow not touching her, Cali laid the silver object down. Alexia was able to see it was the ‘best friends forever’ necklace Alexia had given Cali for Christmas in third grade, the summer after Cali had moved to Jaydee.

  “Happy birthday, Lexi,” Cali whispered as she dropped her head in her hands and cried so hard, she shook. She stayed there, trembling, for another minute. After a deep breath, she put the necklace inside a small box and set it down again. It sat above Alexia’s face as if she were under a pane of glass. She tried to reach out, but she still couldn’t move. Blinking hard, she tried to refocus on the scene, but her brain couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Everything was above her.

  Alexia woke up in a pool of sweat and weeping. She’d gotten so used to her dream that any change would have upset her, but this was too much. She’d felt pain radiating off Cali but was helpless to do anything. She never thought she’d have wished for her dream to just stay the way it’d been.

  Alexia tossed back her covers, grabbed her phone, and headed downstairs. Rehashing her dream, over and over, Alexia typed, deleted, and retyped several texts before deciding to call Cali.

  The door creaked just before she hit call and Cali's trembling voice broke her concentration completely.

  “I had to see you.” Cali’s voice froze Alexia in place. “I have been having these weird-ass dreams about you and I think—I don’t know. I wish things could go back to the way they were, I wish I could see you like I used to, and we could do things on a whim and be free again. I hate this.”

  Lowering herself, she sat crossed-legged on the floor. Alexia dropped onto the arm of the couch. The puffy swollen circles under Cali’s eyes were still as red as they had been in Alexia’s dream. Cali was wringing her hands, which held her small phone. As she talked, she nervously flipped it open and closed. She put it in her pocket and pulled it back out several times before leaving it there.

  “I wish I could know that everything was okay, but I don't feel like I know anything for sure anymore. I don't understand why everything has to change. I hate that things are like this now. I miss what we were, I miss who I was. I hate being sad all the time. I hate it.” Cali paused and sucked in a shaky breath. “Do you ever feel like this? No, of course not.” Cali’s voice was strained and her words were hard to understand. “That isn't how it works. I wish you would just tell me to get over it, and that I could just get over it.” Cali stopped talking and pulled her phone from her pocket again. Letting out a heavy sigh, she answered. “Dustin?” Cali’s mouth formed a hard line as she listened to whatever her boss was telling her. She wiped under her eyes with her sleeve. “Yeah. No, it’s fine. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Cali closed her eyes and rolled her head back and forth over her shoulders before dropping her eyes to the ground in front of her. Alexia didn’t understand why she wouldn’t make eye contact. Cali’s words and vulnerability kept Alexia silent.

  “Lexi,” Cali finally said. “I have to go to work. I’m sorry I couldn't stay longer, but I'll come back. Someday you'll just have to put up a sign saying, 'Cali not welcome!' It may be the only way to keep my rambling drama away from you.” She laughed halfheartedly. Standing slowly, Cali walked out the front door. When she looked back the tears she’d been holding in while talking to Dustin again streamed down her cheeks. As she stood outside the door, her tears mixed with raindrops, which Alexia hadn’t even known were falling. Cali made quiet sobbing sounds as she closed the door behind her.

  Alexia felt the fog that had frozen her clearing. She hadn’t said goodbye. She hadn’t said anything. The whole encounter had left her shaken. Springing up to catch Cali before she drove away, Alexia swung the door open. She was greeted with an empty porch and heavy rain. The door had just closed, but Cali was gone. Looking again in disbelief, Alexia grabbed her phone and dialed Cali. Alexia had never seen her looking so sad.

  There was no answer. The next call went straight to voicemail.

  Grabbing her keys to follow Cali, Alexia rushed outside. The door slammed shut behind her just as the wind started to howl. A thick, yellow cloud swirled around Alexia, gagging her with the putrid smell of rotten eggs.

  Alexia sat hard on her front steps. The saffron dust churned around her, leaving her dizzy. For a moment, she swore she heard laughter. She clutched her temples between her palms and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Whatever swirled around her was unlike anything she’d ever seen. It looked like fog, but as it spun around her, it grazed her skin like tiny sand particles were trying to grind her into nothing. It smelled so strongly of sulfur; she was choking. Trying to see through it burned her eyes and her face was wet with snot and tears.

  She stood to get back into her house. She tried to peek through the dust to see her stairs. The fog thickened.

  Darker.

  Colder.

  Harder.

  She couldn’t see anything but yellow. Floating within the cloud, the laughter was unmistakable.

  “It’s you,” she heard from inside the cloud.

  The swirling yellow mass started to slow. A raindrop broke through and landed on her forehead. More rain found cracks to fall through and the swirling almost stopped. The dense air, full of yellow particles, hovered around her, no longer stinging her eyes. It shimmied away from the falling rain, pressing into her, but no longer spinning.

  A bright light appeared in front of Alexia and its brilliance shattered the saffron-yellow dust completely with a sound much like someone getting the air knocked from their lungs. As the smell dissipated, her head stopped pounding
. The shining light grew larger and took the shape of a man. He looked over his shoulder at her with his intense blue eyes.

  It was the same man she’d been dreaming about. The man she couldn’t remember once awake. She didn’t know how long he’d been in her dreams. It felt like he’d only shown up recently, and like he’d always been there. Both couldn’t be true. She choked out a confused sound.

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  Looking around, Alexia wasn’t even sure where she was. She stood in a meadow surrounded by trees. Scents of cut grass drifted on the warm breeze. Where her home had been were two towering trees with intricately built stairs creating a doorway between the trunks. At the top of the steps, a room with dark panels welcomed her. She fought the urge to explore the room and focused on him.

  “You don’t remember,” he finally said, turning his head.

  “Remember what?”

  A breeze lifted around the man. It floated through his wavy dark hair and lifted it lightly off his forehead. Alexia didn’t feel the breeze at all as it played around the man who had invaded her house.

  “You. You don’t remember who you are, or what has happened. Why?” He walked the opposite direction of the stairs to a grouping of smaller, flowering trees as he spoke. He disappeared behind a thick tree trunk.

  She swayed and when her mind cleared, her yard was empty. The setting sun warmed the patches of skin it touched. She didn’t remember going outside. The steps leading to her door were wrong. Wooden, and beautifully carved, they beckoned her. She blinked and they went back to the painted concrete they had always been.

  Looking around to confirm that no one was nearby, Alexia headed back into her house. A sparkly ribbon on her coffee table caught her eye. With slow steps, she approached and lifted the tiny box. Knitting her eyebrows, she tentatively cracked it open. Slipping through her fingers, the charm clinked as it fell from the box and clinked on the tile floor.

  The half-heart of her ‘best friends forever’ necklace twinkled up at her. A tiny shaft of light streamed in through the window, illuminating it.

  “Cali?” Alexia asked the empty room.

  There was no answer, but Alexia hadn’t expected one. She bent down and picked up the small, silver charm.

  “What the serious fuck is going on?” Alexia mumbled to herself.

  She stood in her living room examining the necklace. It was the same as the one she wore around her neck. She closed her hands around the two matching charms. The one around her neck felt cold and gritty. The identical half-heart from Cali warmed with her touch.

  ***

  Cali’s eyelids were heavy as she laid on the couch slumping onto Dustin. The movie she’d picked wasn’t holding her interest. On the cusp of sleep, Cali jerked awake.

  She was no longer on her couch.

  She sat in the passenger’s seat of Lexi’s old blue car. Her heartbeat ratcheted up and drowned out the heavy rain outside.

  “Lexi?” Cali gasped.

  Without acknowledging her name, Lexi stared out the windshield. The song whispering through the speakers made Cali smile. But only for a minute.

  Lexi wasn’t singing along. She sang along to everything on the radio, even the commercials. This was her favorite song and her lips were pressed together in a thin line.

  White-knuckling the steering wheel, Lexi took quick, shallow breaths. She wore her gray work shirt and her purple-striped hair hung in messy clumps down to her shoulders. It still had the tell-tale bump in the back like she’d just pulled the hair tie out. Her pale face shone with sweat.

  Lightning struck a tree across the street with a deafening crash. In the bright flash, Cali could see as shock rounded Lexi's eyes. The car violently jerked before starting to spin.

  Slamming into the window, Cali screamed and clutched her head. The smell of flowers tickled her nose and when her vision cleared, she sat in an open meadow filled with colorful blooms. Tall trees swayed lazily in the breeze. Tesla jumped out from behind the trunk of one and ran toward her. His shaggy brown fur glistened in the sunshine.

  Tail wagging, Tesla bounded away. Intrigued, Cali followed. Tesla stopped and sat between two trees, panting, with a toothy smile. Five intricately carved steps, matching the wood of the trees, bound two of the trunks together. The room beyond the staircase was dark and Cali struggled to see inside. The walls were an inviting dark wood paneling. Swirling patterns in the wood drew her up the first soft, warm step. The wood welcomed her bare feet, but with each step, a weight in her stomach expanded.

  Reaching the third step, Tesla started to growl behind Cali. Hackles raised; he bared his teeth as a yellow mist rolled down the stairs. Cali jumped, retreating toward the terrier. The wind picked up, and with it, soft rain fell. It broke up the mist and carried the scent of sweet flowers. The trees rustled and Cali could hear birds singing.

  Tesla crouched low, barking at the sky while Cali’s hair whipped across her face. She followed Tesla’s gaze and the clouds above her churned, turning a dark shade of yellow. The wind spun around reaching out to the growling little dog. Up close, Cali swore she saw a face in the cloud, and it smelled strongly of sulfur. The face hissed and Cali watched the terror grow in Tesla’s eyes. Tendrils of yellow reached out and seared Cali’s arm where they touched. The terrier yelped as the cloud grew arms, then hands, and lifted him. They both flew quickly from view. The rain turned to painful hail and Cali ran, trying to keep up with the saffron cloud that carried Tesla away. Cali gave chase until she collapsed, panting, scared, and cold.

  The world around her began transforming. The yellow cloud vanished. Cali was back in front of the two tall trees. Down the stairs ran two women.

  “That wasn’t—” A voice floated from the stairs.

  Cali recognized it instantly and moved toward her. It was Lexi. She wore the stained gray t-shirt from Tom’s Diner. Her wavy hair, longer than Cali had ever seen her wear it, cascaded past her shoulders. Her thick, auburn locks shone in the bright sunlight. Hunched over on the second step gasping for breath, Cali’s best friend raked a hand through her hair. Her expressive eyes were wide with terror.

  “What did we just see?” Lexi wheezed.

  Next to Lexi, the other woman stood with her back to Cali.

  Lexi started toward Cali. The other woman turned around. Sucking in a breath, Cali backed up until she ran into a tree and toppled to the ground.

  It was her. A second Cali. She wasn’t wearing the glasses Cali had to, but it was her.

  “You know what we saw.” The clone looked in shock at her open hands. “There is only one thing that can happen in that room.” She sounded just like Cali, too.

  “Who are you?” Cali yelled at the two women. They ignored her as they stepped off the stairs, turning back to each other. “Who are you?” she repeated.

  When they ignored her again, Cali stood and crept toward her double.

  Neither noticed.

  She reached out, her hand stopping millimeters from the clone’s face. They were still talking to each other, but Cali wasn’t listening.

  The world around her darkened and she swayed, feeling lightheaded. The clones faded away in front of her fingertips.

  Everything spun and twisted out from under her again. When the world stopped spinning the meadow, now darkened, was barren. The tall trees were gnarled and black. Lightning streaked across the sky and Cali could hear Tesla crying out in the distance. A yellow path ripped through the air and sent waves of terror through Cali. The wind whipped the rain into a painful storm, beating Cali as she ran for shelter under the dead, tangled limbs of the twisted trees.

  The rain coursed down sideways, cutting into her cheeks. Cali cried out in pain and covered her face with her hands as she ran. Caught on a mangled tree root, her ankle twisted painfully. Before she could free her foot, the earth ripped open and she fell into blackness.

  Sparks of white light lit up behind her eyes with the pain of the impact. She forced herself to stand, and although
wobbly, she could move.

  She looked at the room around her. It was empty, though to call it a room was generous. It had a dirt floor, worn walls with empty holes where the windows should have been, and the holey roof sagged. The cover of old, tall trees kept most light away.

  Lexi stood alone on the other side of the space.

  Cali tried to call out to her, but she was mute. Lexi stared at her wide-eyed. Her lips moved, but there was no sound. Cali tried to close the gap between them but felt as if her feet were part of the floor.

  They raised their hands toward each other, and Cali could feel tears staining her cheeks.

  The space between them seemed to expand. Lexi was still soundlessly moving her lips. Then, Lexi looked over her shoulder and it was like her eyes were seeing something Cali couldn’t. Lexi looked back toward Cali. Not at her, just in her direction. Lexi’s eyes darted back and forth as she glanced over her shoulder and back to the room. Her skin melted off her face, her eyes sunk into her skull leaving black pits, and the tears streaming down her face turned to blood.

  Cali was alone. Rain began to pour, quickly flooding the strange room. A bright bird landed on the tree outside one of the window-like holes. It sat, unfazed by the water pouring all around it. Its long curly tail changed colors in the shifting light. It opened its beak and released a horrible shriek. With the bird’s cry, the rain turned crimson. Blood red water flooded around Cali’s knees. The bird let out another cry.

  The screaming of Cali’s phone alarm brought her back to the couch, slumped on a snoring Dusin. She looked at the time, absorbing the sound for a moment. Slamming the ‘silence’ button, Cali stared at the ceiling. Tears cascaded down her face washing the dream away.

  She dragged herself into the shower, turning on the hot water. Leaning her head against the cool tile, she began to sob as the steam surrounded her.

  When the tears ended, Cali straightened her shoulders, wrapped a towel around herself, and looked in the mirror.