A Fate Totally Worse Than Death Read online

  “It was foggy that night with Charity,” brooded Brooke.

  The foghorn gave two low blasts, as if agreeing with her. The three passed under a streetlight, watching their shadows grow from gnomes into monsters.

  “How could we ever kill someone named Charity?” Tiffany wondered aloud.

  “Or someone as nice as Drew,” added Brooke.

  “Shut up!” hissed Danielle. The waves crashed below. “We’ve already been all over that! It’s too late to change our minds now.”

  They walked in silence. Danielle felt her pocket for the suicide note she’d composed for Drew. She’d typed it at lunch in the computer lab. The themes were the same ones she’d chosen for Charity’s—devastating disappointment in love, indifference to life, apologies to family—sprinkled with Drew-specific details. She felt proud of the skillful job she’d done and smugly fantasized showing it to her raisin-faced English teacher, who’d marked her last essay “Sloppy thinking and execution.”

  “Look!” whispered Brooke. “There he is!”

  Danielle tore off her dark glasses, exposing the huge bags under her eyes. She made out the bench, then Drew on it. Alone.

  “Perfect,” she said. The invitation had worked. She’d typed it right after the suicide note, addressed it “My love” with some distaste, stressed the vital importance of the meeting, then typed, rather than signed, Helga’s name. Then she’d printed it out in italics to give it a more feminine look.

  “Remember,” she coached the others, “we just happen to be here, too.”

  “Where’s Helga?” asked Brooke.

  “I put 8:45 on her invitation,” explained Danielle. “If she’d gotten here before us, they might have taken off together.” She turned to Tiffany. “You put it in her locker?”

  “Through one of the vents. Number 1228.”

  Danielle looked about. No cops or drunks. She was pleased to note that the bench was partially screened by bushes and away from a streetlight. Less welcome was the sight of the waist-high fence tracing the cliff. It had been removed for repairs the night that Charity had fallen. It was now back in place, chain link instead of wood. They’d have to get Drew over it.

  The three approached.

  “Hey, that’s Drew,” spoke Danielle, pleasant surprise in her voice.

  Drew looked up, studied the wheezing, limping, spectacled figures before him, and wondered if the three witches had leapt from the copy of Macbeth in his pocket.

  “Hi, Drew,” said one of them.

  “Tiffany?”

  “Yeah.”

  He peered up at her. “What’s with the cane?”

  She shrugged. “I sort of twisted my ankle.”

  “And why the sunglasses? At night. In the fog. If I’m not prying.”

  She inhaled, rushing oxygen to the excuse-fabricating portion of her brain. “I had an eye test today? They tell you to wear dark glasses afterward? To keep out the light for a while?”

  He looked at Danielle. “You too?”

  She nodded. “We both go to Dr. Schlossburg,” she lied.

  Brooke edged forward, feeling left out. “I go to him, too,” she spoke up.

  “Fascinating,” Drew pronounced. “So what are you guys doing here?”

  “Just walking,” replied all three.

  The sound of the waves rose up from below. Danielle scanned the distance for Helga.

  “Not afraid of Jack the Ripper?” asked Drew.

  Footfalls approached. Brooke clutched Danielle’s arm, forgetting that they were the murderers. An old lady walking a dachshund emerged from the fog, stared at them in surprise, then continued into invisibility. Her footsteps faded, then disappeared. A new set approached.

  “Helga,” said Drew.

  She came near, in tight jeans and a white wool sweater, then recognized the Hun girls and stopped. Drew saw her face stiffen. He stood. “Well see ya,” he said to the Huns and took Helga’s hand.

  “Hold on,” spoke Danielle. “The program’s hardly started. And we’re the ones who arranged it, by putting those invitations in your lockers.”

  Drew and Helga stared at each other, then at Danielle.

  “What is this?” said Drew.

  “Just a little meeting,” Danielle answered. She gave a long, rasping cough. “A chance for the truth to come out at last.”

  “And what truth is that?” Drew asked doubtfully.

  A wave rammed into the rocks below. Danielle turned her gaze upon Helga. “That you’re the ghost of Charity Chase. That we’re here tonight to offer you Drew—if you’ll spare our lives.” She paused, then made up her mind to seek more. “And reverse what you’ve done to us.”

  The foghorn bayed. Brooke and Tiffany strained forward, faces taut, awaiting Helga’s answer.

  “What are you talking about?” demanded Drew.

  “Ask Helga,” Danielle replied.

  “I don’t understand,” Helga stammered. “My school counselor in Norway warned me that life here might seem strange for the first few months—” She broke off, at a loss for words. “Tell me! What is it I’ve done to you?”

  Danielle snorted. “Don’t waste our time. We all know exactly what you’ve done.” Even though Drew would soon die, she was loath to list the catalog of ills in his presence. If Helga did so, and mentioned Danielle’s breasts, she’d jump off the cliff herself.

  “And who,” asked Helga, “is Charity Chase?”

  Danielle sighed.

  “The human you inhabited, of course,” snapped Tiffany. “Before you came back to earth as a ghost.”

  Drew shook his head. “Not this again!”

  “I’m not a ghost!” shouted Helga.

  A jogger’s loud footfalls, approaching the group, suddenly veered away at her words.

  “Get real,” said Danielle. “We know all about you. I’ve told Drew, too. There’s no one to pretend for. As they say in Norway, ‘the jig is up.’”

  Helga faced Drew. “What does this ‘jig’ mean? I don’t know what they’re talking about!”

  “Sure you don’t,” Danielle said snidely. Her manner was that of a cop on the beat, wise to the ways of this world, and the next. “So tell us why you picked this bench to sit on whenever you came to the park. The same one Charity sat on before she died.”

  Helga eyed it in wonder. “This bench?” She seemed to scramble for words. “I never thought about it. Really. I suppose I like the view from here. But often I’ve sat on the other benches.”

  “Sound convincing?” Danielle addressed Drew, as if he were the jury.

  He considered her point and glanced at Helga.

  “And then there was your house,” Danielle continued. “The school records showed you at two forty-four Gardenia Court. An address that doesn’t exist.”

  Helga’s brows writhed. “Two forty-four?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But I live at two eighty-four. The typist must have made a mistake. Perhaps because of the small amount of money you give to schools in this country, forcing the office to use volunteers.”

  Danielle smiled. “Ever hear of the term ‘in denial’?” she said to Drew. “Have you ever actually been in her house?”

  His eyes widening was his only reply.

  “When we tried to cut your hair,” Danielle went on, “you practically killed us all. Without ever laying a finger on us.” She disallowed Helga’s objection. “And then, after you promised there’d be justice, you said, ‘That’s why I’ve come.’”

  “It’s true! That is why I’ve come. To learn about the American legal system. I hope to become a lawyer one day. That’s why I’ve not reported you yet. I’m studying the laws of assault first, so that I can advise the dean.”

  “Knock off the acting,” Danielle barked. “You came to get justice for Charity.”

  “Who is this Charity? Please answer me!”

  “Which explains why you’re killing us.”

  “I’ve done nothing!”

  “Using yo
ur magical powers.”

  “It’s all false!”

  “Hidden in that telltale pale body.”

  “All Norwegians have fair skin!”

  “That never sunburns.”

  “Or freckles,” added Brooke.

  “Because I put on sunscreen every day! As I absolutely must!”

  “Which explains why you ditched biology when everyone had to prick their fingers. There’s not a drop of blood in your body!”

  “I have never ditched class! I had a dentist’s appointment that could not be scheduled after school. I told the office and my teacher of this.”

  Danielle smiled in mock admiration. “And I thought I was the champion liar.” She coughed, her lungs sounding waterlogged.

  Helga faced Drew. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  Fog climbed over the cliff and coiled around them.

  “She’s a ghost!” warned Danielle. “They’re experts at messing with mortals’ minds. Don’t be fooled!”

  Drew studied Helga, indecision in his eyes. He took up both her hands, and seemed to be judging them for warmth. “Let’s talk it over,” he said. “By ourselves.”

  The foghorn called. Drew and Helga started to leave.

  “Not so fast.” Danielle’s voice quivered. “Like I said, you’ll be joining Charity. In the format she’d want. As a spirit.”

  Drew turned. “What are you talking about?”

  Danielle glanced around, then pulled from her jacket pocket the revolver that Jonathan had bought. She pointed it squarely at Drew. “Jump.”

  Tiffany gaped. Brooke covered her ears. Dumbstruck, dry-mouthed, Drew and Helga gawked in terror at Danielle.

  “Drop her hand,” she said.

  Drew complied.

  “Now climb over the fence and jump off. And join Charity, who wasn’t a Hun. And who wasn’t even pretty.”

  Drew struggled to make his tongue form words. “And what…” he babbled in a strange soprano, “what if I won’t do it?”

  Danielle had been afraid of this. She’d never fired a gun, and the soundtrack on the Gun Safety video she’d checked out from the library had been garbled, or perhaps was in Norwegian.

  “Then I’ll shoot you first, and then you’ll go over.” She tried to steady her wavering gun arm. “The suicide note I wrote leaves it open.”

  “Suicide note?”

  “Just like Charity’s.”

  Drew’s disbelief surpassed itself. “You killed Charity?” he stuttered.

  “We all did.”

  Brooke lowered her eyes.

  Danielle caught the faint scuff of footsteps. “Jump!” she hissed.

  Helga’s head turned. She heard the footsteps, too.

  “Yell and I’ll shoot you, too,” Danielle swore, forgetting that Helga was a ghost. She aimed at Drew’s heart. “Now!” she ordered.

  Drew backed up to the fence and raised one leg to the rail. He glanced at the dizzying 300-foot drop. Then, crouching low to minimize his target, he pushed off against the fence like a swimmer and dove at Danielle. At one and the same instant, a wave cracked like thunder on the rocks, the foghorn sounded, and Danielle’s gun went off. The bullet rang against a metal fence post, then found flesh. Not Drew’s, but Helga’s.

  Helga screamed. A man dashed up, saw Danielle in Drew’s grasp on the ground, and expertly disarmed her. Helga clutched her wrist. Drew sprang up, rushed over to her, and pushed up her sweater’s sleeve. Brooke and Tiffany clustered around her, staring in shock at Helga’s wrist. A trickle of blood flowed from the wound.

  The other girls’ features froze at the sight. The foghorn moaned.

  “Oops,” said Tiffany.

  CHAPTER 15

  ………Someone knocked on the open door.

  “May I enter?” chirped a voice.

  Danielle lay on the hospital bed, her wan, withered body limp as seaweed cast up on a rock. Laboriously, she lifted an eyelid. The white-haired woman who came into the room was unfamiliar.

  “I believe I’ll shut the door, if you don’t mind, so that we can be alone.” She did so, then surveyed Danielle’s lodgings.

  “A private room. How lucky you are. And everything so clean and modern.” The woman’s voice was soothing, her manner that of a doting grandmother. She put down her purse and a bag, then sat in the chair beside Danielle’s bed.

  “I read about you in the paper, of course.” Her face took on a slightly stern cast. “I must say I’m glad that the off-duty policeman chanced to be walking his dog at that hour and halted matters before harm was done. But I’ve not come here to lecture you.”

  She viewed the plastic jungle of tubing supplying Danielle with food and medicines. On the bed’s other side stood a respirator, which every few seconds pumped a breath into Danielle’s lungs through a tube running to her mouth.

  “You’re plugged in all over, aren’t you?” she said. “Pneumonia must be quite awful, I’m sure.” The respirator sucked in air, then fed it into Danielle. Her chest rose. The visitor glanced at her hair, white at the roots, then becoming garishly blond. Next she regarded Danielle’s skin, pale and webbed with wrinkles like scalded milk. Though Danielle was not yet seventeen, she looked as old as a great-grandmother.

  “My, how you’ve changed,” she murmured softly. “But then, don’t we all? Take me, for instance. Two months ago I had a stroke, couldn’t talk, needed a walker—and now look at me.”

  Danielle attempted to do so, the motion of her eyes substituting for speech.

  “Do you remember me, Danielle?” asked the woman. “I’m Mrs. Witt. From the nursing home.” She smiled. “I remember you.”

  Danielle, amazed, pushed her eyelids higher.

  “I’ve just been to see the other girls. The doctors aren’t sure yet whether they’ll live.”

  Danielle’s lips bunched briefly, contorted, then relaxed, unable to produce any words.

  “But it’s you whom I remember best.”

  She stood, looked over Danielle’s get-well cards, then picked up a paperback entitled Revenge of the Vampire Cheerleaders.

  “If it amuses you, I suppose.” She shook her head, then put the book down. “Though I’m sad, I’ll admit, that youngsters feel their lives so dull as to require such artificial shocks to keep them going. Ghosts and other such nonsense.” She sighed. “Real life is so very dramatic just as it is, don’t you think?”

  She glanced at Danielle, then at some flowers in the room. “What could be more dramatic than death? Or more a part of life?” She inspected a cluster of carnations and broke off a wilted head.

  “A friend of mine died just last month,” she confided. “You met her at the nursing home. Estelle Beale. She was my roommate the first time that you came.”

  Danielle dimly recalled a red-wigged woman and the empty bed she’d left behind.

  “We’d actually known each other for years. Our husbands were chemists at Cliffside Research. She suffered agonies waiting for death.” Mrs. Witt leaned down. “Then one day her husband gave her a shot of something that lifted her straightaway to heaven.”

  She raised the blinds and sampled Danielle’s view.

  “Death, however, is not always a blessing. Take Charity’s, for instance.” Her voice changed in texture. She turned toward Danielle. “Did you know that she was my granddaughter?”

  Mrs. Witt’s gaze bore into Danielle, whose blue eyes widened with comprehension.

  “I thought not,” the woman spoke for her. Her cheekbones shifted. She seemed to be pushing back tears. “Such a lovely child. So intelligent. And sweet-natured.” She was silent, letting the words and their subject linger in the room a few moments.

  “How she’d have loved your Community Service. She took pleasure in cheering people in need. As I was, when you were assigned to me.” She sat down, pulled her chair close, and leaned forward, her face nearly touching Danielle’s.

  “You were right,” she whispered. “I couldn’t speak. Or write. But I could see. Quite well. And I
saw how you were treating me.” Her mouth became grim. “And I could hear. Which is how I found out that you and your friends were behind Charity’s death.”

  Danielle’s irises danced, the only sign of life in her sagging face. The respirator noisily inhaled.

  “When I learned what you’d done, I asked Estelle’s husband for an extra-large dose of his potion, in case I should ever need it myself. He brought it, along with a hypodermic needle. But it wasn’t for me. It was for you. For you and your two friends.”

  Her voice was calm and matter-of-fact. She watched her words’ effect in Danielle’s agitated eyes.

  The potion was extremely concentrated, or so he said. You might be interested to know that it came from his work on aging agents. Something to do with chemical warfare. The dose was apparently large enough to handle all three of you, though slowly. The faster the heartbeat, the faster the aging accelerates, if I remember right.”

  Her thoughts whirling, Danielle recalled the near paralysis she and the others had suffered during the heart-quickening attempt to cut Helga’s hair.

  Mrs. Witt leaned back in her chair, taking in Danielle’s helplessness.

  “I didn’t tell your friends all this. Why, you might ask, am I telling you?” She paused, as if waiting for a reply. “There you have the answer. Your silence.” She smiled. “You’ll never speak again. Or write a word. Or take a step. My symptoms disappeared, as sometimes happens with strokes. You won’t be so lucky.” She leaned close to Danielle again. “The doctors have perhaps feared to tell you that you’ve only a day at most left to live.”

  Danielle’s eyes darted wildly.

  “Not that I’m so cruel as to wish you alone in your hour of need. Far from it. I’m here to be your companion. Just as you were mine.”

  With a grunt, she raised her heavy black shoes and brought them down upon Danielle’s bed. Noticing that the TV was off, she took the remote, flicked it on, passed the music video station, and settled on the world news.

  “There now,” she said. “That’s much better. But wait! I almost forgot. How foolish.” She reached for the bag she’d set by her purse and opened it with fanfare. “For you!”