Out of the Shadows (21 page)

“Ma’am?”

When the woman spoke, I blinked and realized I had been standing at the curb, staring ahead at nothing, my arms clutched tightly across my chest, hugging myself. A little startled, my head snapped in the direction of the voice, and my eyes came to rest on a woman of average height, although there was nothing average about her. Her shoulder-length black hair framed her smooth caramel-skinned face, and she held a cup of coffee in one hand, a golden police detective’s badge clipped to the waistline of her pressed pantsuit. She exuded an aura of authority that commanded a sincere respect.

As this officer stood in the bitter morning cold, looking at me expectantly with a kind-yet-concerned expression, I felt inexplicably drawn to her. My nerves became frazzled, and I fought to hold back a deluge of emotion.

“You going to cross?” she asked, one eyebrow raised, motioning toward the walkway with her steaming beverage.

I looked up and saw that the traffic signal had shifted from red to green, and surrounding pedestrians were pushing past me, in a hurry to get to nowhere.

There he was.

Now standing at the other side of the street was the spectral boy, looking at me with pleading eyes. I shivered and no longer wanted to cross.

I turned back to the police detective. “Sorry, I was…” I made a twirling motion with my index finger next to my head, “…you know… just thinking.” I felt the sting of tears peek out from the bottoms of my eyelids as I fought to keep them repressed.

The cop smirked softly. “Well, maybe you can stop to think when you’re not in the middle of a crosswalk.”

I sheepishly smiled and nodded. “Right, sorry.” A single tear escaped and rolled down my cheek. I quickly wiped it away, stepping off of the sidewalk and onto the asphalt of the white-striped pedestrian lane before any more embarrassment could befall me.

“Hey,” she called to me, her hand grabbing my arm, carefully turning me back toward her, her tender eyes filled with worry. “You all right?”

Not really, ma’am. Today is the one-year anniversary of when I almost died in a horrible car accident in which I was responsible for the death of a man in the other car, and now I can see the ghosts of the dead wandering around the city, including a little boy who follows me everywhere, but he can’t talk to tell me why, and I’m just so sad all the time now.

“Mmhmm,” I managed, an unconvincing grin plastered to my face. If it weren’t for the subsequent tear that rolled out before I could wipe it away, she might have bought the ruse.

The detective kept hold of my arm and looked around cautiously. I assume she was making sure a predator of some sort wasn’t pursuing me. “Do you need me to call someone for you?” she asked, the absolute sincerity of her concern making me feel even worse.

“No, I’m fine,” I said, managing to delicately free my arm from her grasp. “Really. It’s just been… one of those mornings.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed as she searched my face for signs of dishonesty before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small business card, handing it to me. “Here. If you need help or anything, you call me.”

I looked down at the simple white card:
Detective Carla Bailey
. As I slipped it into my pants pocket, I did my best to remove the anguish from my face. “Thank you, Detective, but I’m really fine.”

Bailey smiled half-heartedly, clearly not believing a word I said, and she nodded. “Ok.”

I walked briskly across the street, trying to ignore the tragedy of the dead boy’s current existence, and I continued on my way to work.

As I approached my monstrous office building within the heart of downtown, I reached out for the door handle and froze. My hand backed away a few inches, and I stood there staring at my own visage in the glass. Even though I could not see him, I knew the boy was right behind me, his dead pleading eyes yearning for me to turn around and… well, I wasn’t really sure what he wanted.

But as I stared at my thin reflection, my blonde hair wispy in the frigid morning air, I saw an empty shell of the woman I once was. It reminded me of the dozens of deceased that cross my path each day, and I wondered if it would have been better to have died in the accident.

I took a deep breath, a small foggy plume escaping my dry lips. I slowly spun around and saw the boy, not far away, a deep sorrow reflected within his dull eyes. He did not move. He did not try to speak. He stared.

As our eyes truly locked for the first time, a mysterious force compelled me to utter, “I’m sorry.” Without knowing why, I cried. Either an inconsolable heartache for the boy or a pathetic pity party for myself, I stood in front of my office and sobbed, my puffy face buried within my gloved hands.

After I finally pulled myself together, I realized the dead boy was still staring at me, pedestrians passing through him. Something about that made me angry, and I wanted to scream at them for violating his space. But they didn’t know any better.

“Hey, Melissa,” a woman called out.

I glanced over my shoulder to see a co-worker holding open the door for me.

“The quarterly’s in five minutes. You coming?”

“Be right there.”

I turned back to the boy, unsure of what else to do, so I took a deep breath and nodded at him. When I turned around to head in to work, panic filled his face, and he reached his hand out to me, begging for me to stay.

I froze again, waiting for more, my own eyes just as wide as his.

He slowly lowered his arm, turned, and began walking away.

My heart pounded, and my breath caught in my seized throat. Was I supposed to follow him? I felt that an invisible force was pulling me to him, my soul already following the boy while my body remained.

One of the biggest office meetings of the year began in less than five minutes; I figured I could pursue these irrational ghostly adventures after work.

But what if the boy – this sad ghost of a person that I had seen nearly every day for the past year – was leaving forever, walking away from the answers I hadn’t thought I wanted?

Once again, I was torn between the living and the dead.

The dead boy continued down the sidewalk, moving farther away from what could be my only chance at answers. I looked through the glass doors leading into my office building, observed the obedient employees waiting patiently at the bank of elevators at the far end of the marbled lobby, and I imagined them walking to their cubicles illuminated by dreary fluorescent overhead lights.

Missing the meeting would likely mean my termination, but as I watched my co-workers enter into that soul-sucking life, I felt my own spirit following after the shaggy-haired child. Spreadsheets and phone calls would fill my day if I entered, and my passions would remain squelched.

“Wait!” I called out to the kid, running away from my stable life at the firm, entering into a world of irrational madness and adventure. He turned a corner up ahead as I weaved in and out of rush hour pedestrians.

I collided with an older man, almost knocking him off his feet.

“Watch it, bitch!” I heard him yell rudely as I continued.

My heart pounded in my chest as I gasped to intake the freezing air into my abused lungs. Even though the boy only walked, he maintained a large lead on me. After all, he didn’t have to dodge the mobs of people wrapped in scarves and coats and briefcases.

My body rattled with panic at the thought that I would not catch up to him. On the street corner ahead, a man dressed as Santa Claus rang a small golden bell asking for monetary donations for his tiny red bin. With each piercing
clang
of that bell, my brain shook in my skull, throbbing at my temples, the swirling nausea building within my stomach and threatening to push itself up through my body.

The boy continued, never looking back. He turned corners and walked through busses, never stopping to check for traffic. Onward he pressed, as if testing my commitment to follow him.

I foolishly dashed into the street in an attempt to gain some ground. A searing screech filled the air as a yellow taxicab slammed on its brakes and skidded to a halt, its horn blaring. I could hear the muffled obscenities coming from the foreign driver within, but I pushed forward, weaving around speeding cars, a cacophony of horns echoing between the surrounding skyscrapers.

And then I got hit.

By the time I realized I had been struck, I was rolling up onto the frosted hood, smacking into the windshield as the driver quickly hit his brakes, sending me soaring forward and scraping across the black slush-covered pavement.

A second later, my world was engulfed in blackness.

*     *     *

My eyes flutter open. Potent ammonia permeates my aura. My senses are twisted; I see the beeping, taste the harsh light, and smell the cork ceiling slats. Suddenly, excruciating pain surges through my body and my senses are realigned once more. I am numb and have little control of my pained muscles. I am in a hospital bed, an intravenous tube sending droplets of clear liquid into a large vein in my arm.

Why am I here? Oh yes – I remember hearing classical music, the semi in front of me beginning to swerve, slamming my brakes as hard as I can, horns honking as my car veers into oncoming traffic, swerving, screaming, not quick enough, fierce collision as metal torques, soaring through the air, up down up down up I’m spinning, my car crashes down onto the highway. I remember seeing blood, sparks, twisted metal. Now, I hear a nurse talking.
“Someone from the other car didn’t make it. He had massive internal hemorrhaging and when…”
but I block out the rest, having difficulty coming to grips with the fact that I’ve killed a man, I’ve killed a man, I’ve killed a man…

“I’ve killed a man,” I mumbled.

“Miss, are you all right? Can you hear me?”

“I’ve killed a man,” I mumbled again, my eyes focusing on the large group of people hovering over me.

Above, I saw the gray sky and felt the chill of the pavement under my back. I was lying in the street, exactly where I had fallen after being struck by the taxicab.

“Did you say… you
killed
a man?” one of the gentlemen asked hesitantly.

My brain was confused, and I slowly sat up, feeling the nauseating dizziness take over my body. Suppressing the urge to vomit, I slowly scraped myself from the ground.

“Ma’am, your head,” a woman said, handing me a tissue.

I felt a sticky warmth on the side of my face. I dabbed my head tenderly, and sure enough, a few inches above my temple, a large gash had forced a trail of blood down my cheek, although it didn’t seem to be life threatening.

“Miss, I don’t think you should be moving,” the tissue woman advised.

My mind swirled with overstimulation. I looked around, trying to get my bearings.

“Miss?”

“No, I think I’m fine,” I replied.

I noticed a nearby man on his cell phone, eyeing me suspiciously. “Hello, officer?” he said into the phone. “There’s been an accident. A car hit a woman, and…” he trailed off, noticing my stare. I saw his gaze shamefully flicker away from me, and I swore I heard him say, “…says she killed a man.”

The boy!

There he stood, past the gawking crowd, eyeing me plainly, as if suggesting it were time to stop dilly-dallying and get moving.

I tried to step toward him but immediately noticed the discomfort in my ankle – probably a sprain. Most of my muscles were aching, and the wound on my head stung fiercely.

I hobbled slowly toward the specter when the man on the phone called out to me, “Miss, don’t leave! You should wait for the police to arrive!” But I ignored him; it was my own fault I’d been hit, so I didn’t plan to press charges against the driver. Instead, I continued toward the boy, who had turned away from me again, headed down the sidewalk to some unknown location.

As I limped up onto the concrete, I vaguely heard the man on the phone utter urgently, “She’s leaving! Should I do something?!” But my focus was squarely on the ghost, back on track once more.

I cringed and clenched my teeth through the throbbing pain as I made my way through on-looking crowds. I wasn’t far behind him now, and the closer I became, the more I felt that some great epiphany would present itself to me, and my life would once more be filled with passion.

Now, more than ever, I knew I
had
to discover what the boy needed me to know!

I turned one last corner and stopped; he was gone! I frantically looked around, wishing I had a name I could call out. To have come this far only to lose track of him was maddening!

I jumped slightly, feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket. Assuming it was my boss wondering where I was, I ignored the call.

There!

Across the street, I spotted the shaggy hair heading into the subway station below. I quickly crossed and followed him down the steps onto the train platform. We stood, side by side, in silence. I knew he would not be able to answer any of my questions, so asking them would be futile, not to mention I’d look crazy to everyone else. For now, I would go where he led me.

We boarded the next subway that roared into the station, heading southwest out of the city.

*     *     *

My body flickered with anticipation as we exited the train and entered a suburban neighborhood outside of the city. As we walked, I felt the urge to reach down and hold the boy’s hand, letting him know that I would do whatever I could to bring him peace. But I honestly wasn’t sure if he had the power to allow physical contact. The dead walked on the ground, so
some kind
of force allowed them to stay rooted in our world.

The trees were skeletal and bare, and a light dusting of snow remained on the grass from last week’s precipitation. Despite the dreary atmosphere, I felt warmth and hope, like the two of us were marching toward redemption.

He looked up at me, his dull hazel eyes locking with mine for a moment, and I knew he was letting me know that we were almost there – wherever that may be.

Feeling my phone vibrate once more, I retrieved it; the screen was shattered, and as I pushed a button to answer the call, I realized it was broken beyond repair. Despondently, I slipped it back into my pocket.

It wasn’t until I took another few hobbled steps that I realized the boy was no longer at my side. I stopped and spun around. There he was, standing a few feet behind me, staring at the wide one-story complex before us.

Northridge Elementary School.

My heart sank with the vivid reminder that this wasn’t just a dead person with me. It was a
child
. Suppressing the lump in my throat, I swallowed a few times and took a deep breath to calm myself. I saw the empty playground behind the tan-brick school and wondered how many times this boy had swung on those swings, how many times he’d fallen off the monkey bars and scraped his knee, how many young girls he’d picked on because he wasn’t sure how to properly tell them he had feelings for them.

A tear rolled down my cheek.

I took another calming breath. “Is this where you went to school?” I asked him.

This time, when he looked at me, I noticed an incredible sorrow in his face that was almost unbearable, like he were pleading with me to do something for him, and yet I didn’t know what.

He raised his arm and pointed at the building.

“Is there something in there you want me to see?”

He looked at me once more, and then slowly, like the end of a melancholic song fading into silence, he disappeared.

I stood alone now, not having any idea what it was that I was supposed to find within his old school. It was still morning, so classes were sure to be in session, which was good and bad. Good because the hallways would be relatively clear; bad because the school was filled with people. I wondered if waiting until after work to follow the boy (assuming he would have presented himself to me then) would have offered a better opportunity to sneak in through a window or something.

But here I was, so in I went.

I stepped inside onto the speckled tile floor and looked around at my options. The front of the building was one long hallway that ended on each side with a wing of classrooms. At the center of this hallway was the main office, flanked on either side by display cases presenting awards, trophies, pictures, and other school paraphernalia.

I headed left down the hall and past the office. As I continued, I passed the spacious gymnasium that seemed to double as the cafeteria, as a few janitors were setting up long tables with attached benches. The building felt cheery and warm, and if I closed my eyes, I could make out young laughter from the past as smiling children galloped through the halls.

I approached the small library on my right and felt a tingling sensation pulling me toward the book-lined walls. I crossed the threshold and stopped, waiting for the revelation as to this place’s purpose.

“Can I help you, Miss?” came a young woman’s voice from behind the counter.

I noticed a slight look of concern on her face when I turned and presented myself to her. “Can I take a look at the yearbooks from the past couple years, please?”

“Um, are you a parent of one of the students?” She pushed her thin glasses up onto the bridge of her nose, waiting for my explanation.

“Well, no. I know this seems odd, but I just need to find out a boy’s name that used to go here.”

“I’m sorry. The books in the library are for teachers and students only.”

I was growing agitated now, knowing that somewhere in this building was something that the boy wanted me to see, and the only thing I could think to do right now was find out his name and hope it led to something.

“Please,” I tried again. “I just really need to see a yearbook, and then I’ll be on my way.”

“Ma’am, are you all right?” the librarian asked suspiciously.

“Yes, I’m fine!” I snapped, perhaps a bit too harshly. I was growing tired of everyone asking me if I was all right. “Look, it’s really important that I find out this boy’s name. You don’t understand the situation.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“What? No, please, I’ve been through so much to get here!”

The young woman stepped away from the counter now. “I’m going to call security if you don’t leave right now!”

I pounded the counter with both fists, a surprising burst of anger bubbling within me, but I took a deep breath and slowly backed away, holding up my hands to show I meant no trouble. “I’m sorry. I’m leaving.”

I stormed down the main hallway back toward the entrance. I was so frustrated by the lack of direction. If the boy wanted help so badly, why couldn’t he have stuck around to show me the way?!

I passed the main office and froze in front of the trophy display cases. I stared breathlessly at the picture from last year’s school basketball team. There, in the center of the team photo, was the smiling face of the dead shaggy-haired boy.

My eyes grew wide and my heart pounded once more, my palms growing clammy. Without thinking, I ran into the main office and asked the receptionist, “Could I see a list of the names of the boys from last year’s basketball team?”