Alex awoke suddenly, thrashing in her bed. She found she was covered in cold sweat and breathing heavily. Had it just been a nightmare, some kind of terrible fever dream?
Moments later, her bedroom door swung open, and her father poked his head in. "Alex, you need to get up. It's already—are you okay?"
She must have looked dreadful, based on his expression. "I've been better."
He stepped in and placed a hand on her forehead. "You have a temperature. I think you'd better stay home today." Alex nodded weakly. She wasn't going to argue with that. "What are your symptoms?"
"I've got the chills," she replied. "Runny nose, sore throat...and body aches."
"No cough?" he asked. Alex shook her head. "Sounds like the flu. I'll get you some medicine." Her dad kissed her gently on the forehead before leaving the room.
Alex retrieved her phone from her bedside table, and dialed Lucas's phone number. He didn't pick up, and she received the same fake-out voicemail message that she had last night. Well, it seemed that much hadn't been a dream, at least. And if Lucas wasn't picking up, that meant...
Her father returned with the flu medicine, and told her to get some rest, and to call him at work if she needed anything. Soon, he had left for work, and Sarah had gone out to catch the bus just down the street. Within a half hour, she was alone in the house again.
She knew she should get more rest, but the events of the previous day kept playing through her mind, and it was now impossible for her to get back to sleep. She retrieved her laptop from the desk in front of the window, then returned to her bed where she sat cross-legged, the covers draped over her like a cloak, and began researching.
She started by performing a web search for the phrase monster in Ellison Park, but didn't come back with anything that seemed relevant. She tried replacing monster with other words including creature, demon, ghost, and even undead. Still nothing.
What was that thing? she wondered. Just then, the image of the woman she had seen on the roof of Weisman's Drug Store rose in her mind. She remembered Lucas saying that it looked like she had seen a ghost.
What if it was a ghost? she thought. The ghost of Heather Cole. It hadn't looked anything like the woman she had seen in news articles, but it had been distinctly female, and was right in the spot where Heather had died. And if she was right, did that mean the thing that had killed Lucas was also a vengeful spirit? If so, whose ghost was it?
Another puzzle piece fell into place in her mind; the girl who had asked her to deliver that note to another student. Rachael Allen's reaction to the letter suddenly made sense if it had come from, say, a friend who had been dead for some time, especially if that note was delivered by a relative stranger a few days before Halloween.
Halloween. All Hollow's Eve. Also known as All Saint's Eve, the fall equinox, and Samhain. According to ancient traditions, it was the night upon which the barrier between the world of the living and that of the dead was at its thinnest, a night when spirits were free to roam the physical world. That was where the tradition of costumes had come from; in the old days, people wore gruesome masks and costumes so that any malicious ghouls or goblins that might do them harm would be scared away... or mistake them for one of their own. Perhaps there was some truth to all the superstitions and old wives tales after all.
Alex broadened her search to ghosts in Arcadia City. Unsurprisingly, this returned a lot more results, and it was difficult to sift through them all to find anything useful. Most were urban legends about the Sisters of St. Mercy Hospital, a supposedly haunted abandoned hospital deep in the inner city, or the ghost town of Blackhaven somewhere in the nearby woods. She couldn't find anything about the school or Ellison Park being haunted, though. On a whim, she decided to try searching the term other self, but the phrase was too generic. Nothing she found seemed to relate to otherworldly creatures or weird, doll-like doppelgangers.
Alex sighed, closing her laptop. It had been a long shot anyway, trying to conduct paranormal research over the internet. No, she realized, she would have to figure this out on her own. She wasn't exactly sure when she had decided that it was her responsibility to do so, but she couldn't just ignore it, not after what had happened to Lucas. She might be the only person who knew or could do anything about it.
She retrieved an unused notebook from her desk drawer, and opened it to the first page. She wrote the word Doppelganger across the top, then drew a simple sketch of her other self, making notes on its appearance in the margins. On the following pages, she drew pictures and made notes about the woman on the roof of the Weisman's, which she labeled the Fallen Angel, and the creature from Ellison Park, which she decided to call the Glutton. It wasn't much, but it helped to organize what little she knew.
She decided it was time to take a break, as she became aware of a rumbling in her stomach. Of course, she had slept through dinner last night, and the last meal she had eaten was lunch the previous day. She didn't have much of an appetite, but decided she should probably get something to settle her stomach, at least. Still wrapped in her blanket, she walked down to the kitchen to make herself her favorite comfort food, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
As she finished preparing her snack, her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. There was a text from Cynthia.
what u up to?
Alex sent a response.
Home sick :-(
Another message, moments later.
oh rly???
Alex stared at the message for a moment, bemused. It was hard to gauge her tone from a text, but it seemed like Cynthia was implying something. Then another message came.
u and lucas just happen 2 be sick on the same day huh?
The reality of what had happened suddenly came flooding back on her, and Alex felt like she was about to cry again. Of course, it had been less than twenty-four hours. Lucas's body had surely been found by now, but word of it wouldn't have gotten to the school yet. Still, the thought that he might still be lying there on the ground in the middle of the park, his body crumpled, blood congealing in a pool around him, with that horrible expression on his face... the thought made Alex sicker than she already felt.
After a moment, she texted Cynthia back.
CALL ME.
By the time the phone rang, she had finished her snack, which had failed to make her feel any better at all, and was sitting on the couch with her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking back and forth.
"What's up?" Cynthia asked. Alex could hear the sound of lockers closing and voices speaking in the background. She had called between classes. Had she been texting during class?
"Cynthia, I really need to talk to you," Alex said. She tried to sound casual about it, but her voice came out strangled and high-pitched.
Cynthia noticed, and took a serious tone. "What's going on?"
"Not over the phone," Alex whispered. "Can you get out of class?"
"Yeah, okay," Cynthia replied. There was no hesitation in her voice. Alex felt a pang of guilt for asking her friend to cut class, but she really needed someone to talk to right now.
"I'll be there in about thirty minutes."
Alex sat on her living room couch, still wrapped up in her blanket, with Cynthia seated in the recliner on the other side of the coffee table. She told Cynthia everything.
She did her best to remain calm, but found herself stuttering and babbling when she tried to describe Lucas's body, or the creature that had killed him. For her part, Cynthia remained mostly quiet, only nodding or prompting her to continue until she was done. Alex knew full well that she sounded like some kind of lunatic, but Cynthia seemed to be listening very intently, taking the entire matter surprisingly seriously.
"...and that's when I got your text," Alex concluded, staring at her hands. There was a long, awkward silence then, and when she finally glanced up, she saw Cynthia leaning back in the recliner with her feet propped up on the coffee table, stroking her chin thoughtfully.
"Man, that is some straight-up bruja shit," Cynthia proclaimed finally. Alex nodded. She was familiar with the word. Bruja was Spanish for witch, but Cynthia tended to use it as a generic adjective to describe anything supernatural, a habit that she had apparently picked up from her grandmother.
She stared at the floor pointedly. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"
Cynthia frowned and shook her head. "I don't know...my abuela used to always tell me about Dia De Los Muertos, and how the spirits of the dead would come back for the day. She would go to the cemetery and build little private altars for her parents and her brother who passed away when they were young. She said she would talk to them, and sometimes they would talk back. She said she could hear their voices, just like if they were standing right next to her. Mom and dad always said it was just silly superstition, that none of it was real, but she was so insistent. You could tell when you looked in her eyes that she really believed it." Her dark eyes met Alex's, an intimate stare. "I'm seeing that same look in your eyes right now."
Alex took a deep breath, relieved at her best friend's support. "Dia de Los Muertos...that's today, right?"
"Sort of," Cynthia agreed. "Really, it's a three-day thing. Last night was All Hallows Eve, today is All Saints Day, and tomorrow is All Souls Day. But yeah, usually it's just kind of bundled together and called Day of the Dead, and celebrated on November first." She waved her hand dismissively. "Anyway...nobody else saw any of this, right? You said the park was empty?"
"That's right," Alex confirmed, not sure where Cynthia was going with her line of questioning.
"And you didn't leave or drop anything there, right?"
The question caught Alex off guard. "Uh, no. I don't think so."
"Okay, so no witnesses, and no evidence you were there. There's text messages about meeting up, but I don't think there's any way they could possibly know you actually went in the park and saw what happened."
Alex shook her head, confused. "Any way who could know?"
"The cops, dummy," Cynthia replied. "If anyone finds out you were the one who first found the body, you're gonna be a suspect. So if anyone asks, you waited for Lucas at the entrance for a while, then gave up and walked home. End of story."
Alex was stunned. "You... you really believe me?"
"I mean, I don't know what you saw, but you obviously saw something," she said. "You're not the kind of person that would just make something like that up. Besides, you've been telling me about weird stuff like this for years. I guess it was just a matter of time before you got involved in something yourself."
Alex wasn't sure how to respond to that, so she said the only thing she could think of. "Thanks, Cynthia."
She wasn't sure which one of them got up first, but the next thing she knew, they were both standing, and Cynthia had her arms around her in a warm embrace. Alex squeezed her back tightly, and they stood there holding each other for quite some time in silence. When she finally loosened her grip, Cynthia looked at her sweetly and patted her on the head.
"Those pajamas are ridiculous, by the way."
The police did come by later that night. It was sometime after six when she heard the doorbell ring. She came out of her room to listen from the top of the staircase as her father opened the door.
"Good evening sir," said a short, stout man with graying brown hair. He had a very serious demeanor, his face a hard and unmoving neutral expression. "I'm Detective Prescott with the Arcadia City Police Department. Are you the father of an Alexandra Gray?"
"Yes."
"I'd like to have a word with her for a moment, if that's alright."
"I'm sorry, what's this about?" Thomas Gray's tone was controlled, but there was a slightly defensive edge to it. He was not the sort of person who took well to surprises, and this was certainly not a situation he could have expected.
"I'm afraid one of her classmates was found dead early this morning in Ellison Park, one Lucas Wong."
"And you think my daughter had something to do with this?" His tone shifted to distinctly indignant, bordering on angry. He was jumping to conclusions. Alex decided she should intervene.
"No, sir. I just want to ask her a few--"
"Something happened to Lucas?" Alex called down as she descended the staircase. Both men turned their attention her way.
"I'm afraid so," the detective said gravely. "It appears he was beaten pretty severely. We believe it may have been a mugging gone wrong."
Alex was genuinely surprised. She wanted to know how they thought his leg had been so badly torn up if it was just a mugging, but couldn't ask without revealing she knew more than she should. Instead, she just slowly slumped down into a sitting position on the bottom step and stared down at the floor, deliberately avoiding eye contact with either the officer or her father.
Detective Prescott cleared his throat loudly, then produced a small notepad and pencil from his pocket. He stepped forward into the foyer some ten feet away from where Alex sat. "You're Alexandra, I take it? How long have you known Mr. Wong?"
"Not long," Alex replied, still staring at the floor. "I mean, I guess I've known him for a while, but we just started talking and hanging out a little over a week ago."
"This is that boy you went out with on Saturday?" her dad asked, his tone softened. Alex nodded silently in response as the detective jotted something down on his notepad.
"And what was the nature of your relationship with him? Were the two of you dating?"
That made Alex pause. "No." At least, not yet, she thought. But she wasn't about to explain her love life in intimate detail with a forty-something-year-old police office. Especially not in front of her father. "Just friends."
"And did you see him at all yesterday?"
"Yes. We hung out at lunch. Then later, he texted me and asked if I wanted a ride home. We were going to go to a party later anyway. He told me to meet him at the park."
"And did you?"
Alex was shaking now, and it was hard to keep her voice even. "No. I waited for him at the entrance, but he never showed up. I even texted him to ask where he was, but I never got a response." She knew that if the police checked Lucas' phone, it would corroborate her story. "I wound up just walking home."
"You didn't tell me that," her father interjected, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "No wonder you got sick." The tone he was using with Alex was such a stark contrast to the way he addressed the detective, it made him sound like a completely different person. Alex had seen this before. He had entered his Papa Bear mode, his protective parental instincts completely overtaking him. Usually, she considered this kind of behavior embarrassing, but at the moment, it just made her feel guilty for lying.
"So you didn't go looking for him?" Detective Prescott continued.
Alex felt a knot forming in her stomach as she tried to answer the question. The detective's tone didn't sound accusatory, but in her own mind, the words implied a different question; So you didn't check to see if he was still alive? A chill rand down her spine, and when she spoke, her voice came out shaky and broken.
"I... no. I didn't think to... I mean, I just figured he forgot or something. I didn't think..." She trailed off, and felt real tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes, and furiously wiped them away. She was not going to start crying again, especially not in front of a perfect stranger.
"That's enough," her father interrupted. "She's told you all she knows."
The detective's professional facade faltered slightly at the sight of Alex's valiant attempt to fight back tears. "It's alright, Alex. It wasn't your fault."
"But if I had been there..." Alex protested out loud.
But if I hadn't run away... her thoughts echoed. Her story may have been a lie, but the guilt she was feeling was definitely genuine.
Her father sat down next to her on the stairs, wrapping an arm around her shoulder even as he shot the detective a withering glance. Alex remained silent.
"If you had been there, you might well be dead, too," Detective Prescott said gravely. "It's for the best that you weren't. I'm very sorry for the disturbance, I'll leave you both be now. Thank you for your time."
"Good night, officer," Thomas said tersely, rising from his crouched position to close the door behind him. He then returned to Alex's side, his stern scowl having vanished, replaced with a sympathetic but uncertain expression. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I..."
Alex buried her head in her father's shoulder, holding him as she could no longer fight back the tears. It seemed that both the police and her father believed her story, but somehow, Alex felt anything but relieved.