We walked along the back road for an hour before we reached a two-lane highway, and then walked another hour before a car picked us up. We told the driver we didn’t care where he was going, we just needed a town, and he dropped us at a gas station on the edge of a town called Forest Dell. We cleaned up in the restroom, changed into our cleanest-looking clothes, and I spent some of our precious money on two bags of peanuts and bottle of vitamins. We drank from the hose before the owner drove us off, and while we waited for another ride I studied the worn map I kept in my bag. Dillon was close, relatively speaking. A few hundred miles, but a mostly straight shot. We found a trucker willing to take us to the highway junction, and hitched another ride from there to just outside of town. Brooke was quiet all day—not depressed but simply solemn, lost in thought. I fed Boy Dog beef jerky from my pack and watched the wide, flat country roll by.
When we reached Dillon it was night again, the sky black and the stars half-shrouded in wisps of cloud. The light from the moon turned the clouds a pale gray, and they were so transparent they seemed to hang behind the moon instead of in front of it, like the cold, slate wall of a closed universe. The driver asked if we had a place to stay, and I assured her we did, because the last thing we needed was a Good Samaritan calling Child Protective Services, trying to “help” us. We were eighteen years old and legally independent, but we didn’t look it and we had no ID to prove it. The woman drove away, and I looked around at the nearest buildings: a low barn, a closed barbershop, an old drive-in movie theater. There was a high wooden wall around it, but the wooden screen was even higher; it loomed above the rest of the area like a pale giant. There was no movie playing on it, and white paper hung from it in wrinkled tears.
“We can stay there.”
Brooke stood still, looking at her arms as if she’d never seen them before.
“There’s probably an old concession stand inside,” I said. “Or a ticket booth at the very least. If we can’t get inside we can sleep in the lee of it—it’ll block the wind.”
“John,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“John Cleaver?”
I looked at her more closely. “Who are you now?”
She smiled, more widely than I’d seen in weeks. “John, it’s me. I mean, it doesn’t look like me, and I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but … it’s me inside.” She ran toward me, and wrapped me in a hug. “You’re back,” she murmured. “Or I am.”
I felt a cold fear wash through me. “Who are you?”
“This body has everyone Nobody ever killed. Every memory, every personality, right up until she left Brooke’s body. This is Brooke’s body, isn’t it? I totally recognize it now.”
I shook my head, seeing the truth, not knowing if I should shout for joy or turn and run away forever.
Not this. This was too much.
“It’s me, John,” said Brooke. “It’s Marci.”
5
I backed away from her.
“I know this is weird,” said Marci.
“Weird is the least of what’s wrong with this.”
“It’s so … dark in there,” said Marci. “In here, I mean; in Brooke. There’s so many of us, all trapped, all together but all alone. I remember when Nobody came to me that night—”
“Please don’t.”
“It was the night of the dance. You took me home, and you kissed me again, and it was the most perfect night of the world and I never wanted it to end, but then I went into my house and there she was. Some kind of big, black blob. Soulstuff, I guess they call it. It was behind me and around me and I fought it with everything I had but I couldn’t make it stop, and I couldn’t get away—”
“Please don’t.” I was crying now.
“She came in through my mouth, and my nose, and even my ears,” said Marci. “You know what it’s like, because she tried to take you, too, before your mom saved you. I know that because Brooke knows that. I didn’t have anyone there to help me, so she came inside and … then I wasn’t me anymore. I was just watching. It took her a while to get control, but I was lost right then. Right at the beginning. That was the worst part, really—being in there for days and hearing her talk to you, and I screamed to try to warn you, but nothing worked, and you never knew, and then she decided she wanted Brooke instead, and there was nothing I could do to stop her from killing us.” She paused. “They’re all in there, you know, just like that. Some of them can hear us, some of them can’t. Maybe Brooke is listening—”
“Just stop!” I shouted. “Please just stop. I didn’t want to hurt you, and I didn’t want you to die, and I’m sorry I didn’t see it coming sooner but please just…” I didn’t know what to say. Marci was everything I’d ever wanted, but she was gone, and her absence defined my life. Having her back again like this, in my best friend’s stolen body, was as wrenching a change as losing her had ever been.
“I’m sorry,” she said, walking toward me, reaching out to hold me. I backed away, crying harder, swatting weakly at her hands—but when I touched her I thought of Marci’s hands, and the peace I used to feel when I was holding them, and I closed my eyes and broke down in sobs. Brooke’s body caught me and held me, soothing me like I’d soothed her last night.
Boy Dog whined at the stars, and I cried until my tears ran dry.
“You’ve changed,” said Marci, stepping back to look at me but still holding my shoulders. I looked into Brooke’s eyes and wondered how many girls were looking back out, trying to talk to me, screaming in the darkness. And how many were just lost, buried like Marci had been, waiting to wake up and look around and wonder where they’d been?