Dead Girls Society by Michelle Krys
For Dad, who faced every day like someone had dared him to do it
Oh playmate, come out and play with me,
And bring your dollies three,
Climb up my apple tree,
Look down my rain barrel,
Slide down my cellar door,
And we’ll be jolly friends forevermore.
—Schoolyard chant derived from Saxie Dowell’s “Playmates”
I can’t sleep. I can never sleep. I lie awake, completely alert, my heart beating into the mattress. Pale moonlight slashes through the Creature from the Black Lagoon poster across from my bed. Mellow guitar riffs mingling with the honking sax tunes of street performers in the French Quarter, a few blocks away, slip in through my open window. It really shouldn’t be open. Mom wouldn’t approve.
The time on my alarm clock stares back at me in big neon numbers. One a.m. I wonder what Ethan is doing right now. He’s probably asleep. Or maybe he’s hunched over the desk in his bedroom, cramming for a test, dark hair sticking out straight around his ears.
Or maybe he’s texting Savannah.
He’s probably texting Savannah.
I give up on sleep and drag my laptop off my nightstand, logging in to every social media site known to man. Ethan is offline. So is everyone else I know. I guess some people have school in the morning.
I guess some people have lives.
Sighing, I click over to my email. One new message. I lean closer to read the sender’s name: The Society. Weird. Sounds like spam, but you know what they say: life is short, read spam.
I open the email. The whole screen goes black before a pixelated rose slowly comes into focus. Words flash across the screen:
Dear Hope Callahan,
You are cordially invited to participate in a game of thrills and dares. That is, if Mommy will let you out of the house.
Come to 291 Schilling Road at midnight tomorrow. Tell no one, and come alone.
If you dare.
The sounds of the neighborhood fade away, and all I can hear is the boom boom boom of my heart. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, the computer weighted like a bomb in my hands.
Who could have sent this?
My first thought is Dad. Whenever something bad happens in our life, it’s usually because of him. Maybe he pissed someone off, an angry loan shark who wants to leverage me for money or something. At least then I’d know he cared. But he’s been gone for over a year this time. It’s possible he doesn’t even remember he has two daughters anymore.
A practical joke, then? I imagine five girls huddled over a computer, passing around a bottle of wine one of them stole from her parents and giggling as they typed out this message.
But why me? Why pick on the sick kid?
Maybe it was Ethan.
As soon as I have the idea, I know I’m right. Ethan can always tell when I’m getting cagey, and I probably looked pretty desperate today. And who can blame me, after six weeks of forced isolation? So he thought he’d help me have some fun. It would be so like him to do something like this. I type a response.
Very funny, Ethan.
I hit Send, put my laptop on the nightstand, and go back to not sleeping.
The alarm clock in Jenny’s bedroom blares to life through the paper-thin walls, jolting me awake. Of course, the moment I finally fall asleep, it’s time to get up.
All night I tossed and turned, parsing Ethan’s email for every possible meaning.
We’ve been best friends for three years, the kind of best friends where nothing is weird between us—he farts in front of me, I tell him when I have my period. But lately things have been different. I’ve always thought Ethan was decently good-looking, but then he started to wear his hair pushed back from his face in this way that makes his cheekbones and jawline look cut from glass. And then I noticed how broad his shoulders have gotten from swimming laps, and the way the muscles in his forearms shift and flex when he moves. And then I noticed the cute way he chews on his fingernails when he’s thinking, and then it was like I couldn’t stop noticing all the cute things about him. Next thing I knew, I had a raging crush on my best friend.
And now there was this email.
Did he actually want me to meet him at this address? And what would he say when I arrived? Which naturally led to many sleepless hours of fantasizing about him confessing his undying love for me, then pressing me against a wall with a desperate kiss. It was all I could do not to call him at four in the morning and tell him I love him too.
I drag out my laptop, still warm from the thousandth time I checked my email last night in case Ethan had replied.