I picked it up and high tailed it back to my car, imagining all sorts of creepy things lurking in the shadows, gnashing their teeth at me. Hopping quickly into the driver’s seat, I locked the door behind me. I felt the urge to squeal, all my senses on alert, my muscles jumping with anxiety. When it appeared that nothing was stalking me, however, I calmed and shifted into drive, steering the car back the way I’d come.
When my headlights hit Carly’s hatchback this time, it was from the front, the lights shining through her windshield. I saw Carly’s head behind the steering wheel. I wondered if she’d fought with Ethan. The way her head was bent, with her chin on her chest, it looked like she was crying.
I pulled up beside her and put my car in park again, getting out and walking around to the driver’s side. I leaned down and pecked on the foggy window, but Carly didn’t raise her head.
“Carly,” I said. “Roll down the window.”
Still she didn’t lift her head. I raised my hand to wipe away the moisture from the glass, but it was on the inside. As a last resort, I reached for the handle and pulled the door open.
“Carly, what—”
The words died in my throat when Carly’s body slithered lifelessly from the driver’s seat and rolled out into the parking lot.
The light from my headlights shone under the car, shining on half of her body. Everything I could see was covered in blood. Carly’s throat was laying open and the front of her shirt was missing, torn away to reveal that her mid section had been eaten away, leaving nothing but a gaping hole surrounded by jagged bits of flesh and entrails.
Saliva poured into my mouth as everything in my body rebelled against what I was seeing. Numbly, I took several steps backward until I could move no further, forced to my knees where my sandwich and everything else that was still in my stomach found its way onto the pavement.
I squeezed my eyes shut, no longer able to tolerate the sight of my friend lying there, mutilated, in the school parking lot. I knew I should get up, but my legs refused to work.
Tears streamed down my face as my body continued to heave. When there was nothing left in my belly and my ribs ached from exertion, I pushed myself to my feet.
With stiff fingers, I took my phone from my pocket and dialed 911. When the operator answered, I reported where I was and what I had witnessed. The bland woman’s voice assured me that a unit had been dispatched and was on their way to me.
I stood, dumbstruck, staring at Carly’s wide-open eyes and tear-stained face, unable to look any lower, unwilling to take in even one more detail of the horrific death she’d suffered.
When I heard sirens in the distance, I forced my rubbery legs into motion and I turned to walk around the hood of Carly’s car and make my way to my own. When I’d opened my door and flopped down into the driver’s seat, I looked out into the darkness, the cold fingers of shock working their way into my chest.
That’s when I saw her.
Standing at the edge of the row of pine trees that lined the school’s drive was Summer. Though she looked nothing like the Summer that I knew, she still looked familiar enough for me to recognize who it was.
Her long brown hair hung in thick matted tangles on either side of her pale face. Her complexion had a sallow look to it, easily detectable despite the blood that ringed her mouth. Her hollow eyes were yellowed and rimmed in darkness. It was from them that she watched me.
Her white hoodie was filthy, covered in blood and dirt, and her chest heaved beneath it. One sleeve was torn off, revealing the pale, dirty skin of her arm as it hung limply at her side. Her fingers worked in a grasping motion, almost thoughtlessly, like she wasn’t even aware she was doing it. She just continued to stare, watching me blankly, as my heart slammed against my sternum.
I was afraid to move. She seemed to be looking through me more than at me, as if she didn’t really know I was there. I didn’t want to risk changing that. My fear was overwhelming, but it hadn’t yet drowned out rational thought. True panic didn’t set in until I saw one corner of her bloody mouth tilt up in a vicious sneer. It was then that I realized that not only did she see me, but she recognized me. And her smile said I’d be seeing her again.
The sirens were drawing closer and, just then, the first cop car came skidding into the parking lot, blue lights flashing from the roof. I’d shifted my gaze from Summer for a fraction of a second to see the police arrive, and when I looked back, she was gone. Only the residual wave of some pine branches assured me that I hadn’t altogether imagined her being there.
Of course, once the official circus began, I was grilled relentlessly. I told several different law enforcement and medical examiner people everything that had happened, all but the part about seeing Summer. That was something, for better or worse, that I’d decided I’d best keep to myself.
For one thing, they might think I’m crazy, which wouldn’t do me any favors.
But also, I thought it might save more lives if Bo dealt with her. If she was as hard to kill as Lucius insinuated that she might be, a lot of people could get hurt trying to stop her if they started looking for her.
It was almost two hours later when I was finally allowed to get back into my car. The crime scene people had looked it over with a fine-toothed comb, searching for any evidence that I might’ve lied about my story. I could only assume that when they let me get in it, they’d decided I wasn’t the bad guy here.
As I was starting the car, one officer had the nerve to saunter up to my window and chastise me for driving without shoes. I gawked at him, mouth agape, as I fought the urge to flip him the bird and peel out of the parking lot. It’s not like I’d had a bad enough day already or anything.
Let’s throw caution and compassion to the wind and make it a pile-on-Ridley kind of day, I thought bitterly as I glared at his reflection in my rearview mirror as I drove away. Barefoot.
By the time I got home, I was jittery and shaken. The entire ordeal had been horrific beyond anything I could imagine. And considering what all I’d seen in the past months, that was saying a lot.
I shut off the engine, staring sullenly at the dark house. My mother was probably passed out, oblivious to the fact that I had even been out. She would have no idea that I sat in the driveway, afraid—deeply, profoundly afraid—or that I’d seen the interior of a friend’s abdomen. She would have no idea that lately I had been feeling like my entire world was crumbling, spinning out of my control, happiness and normalcy far out of reach.