There’s a kind of heaviness she has never felt before. The world isn’t weighing down on her from above, smothering and suffocating. Nor is it the pull of gravity and its claws yanking her hanging limbs down. It’s a heaviness without direction; the overwhelming weight only settles and squirms within. Blooming from her center and extending to the tips of her fingers… she can only feel the pressure, not the battered limbs they’re supposed to affect. Where is she?

    Next there’s a ground. She can feel her body again, though it does not feel like her body, and she does not know what a body should feel like. It’s easier to focus externally. Gradually, she processes the details of the world still coming into existence beneath. The surface is hard and uniform, with a sharpness spread across. Concrete. She drags her hand across it slowly and a distant memory of tumbles and scrapes tugs against her consciousness. It doesn’t smell like a familiar park or a busy city street. Those would be too familiar. It’s all the discomfort of concrete without the learned appreciations. She isn’t in the normal world.

    A great sound erupts to the side and finally she remembers how to open her eyes. Light doesn’t filter in so much as it screams forth a shattered glass symphony. She blinks rapidly, but it feels like trying to get her eyes to adjust to a truck’s headlights 5 inches away. The loud noise does not wait for her. It is something awful and squelching. Each movement the source makes results in another noise added onto the echoing layers of the last. It’s like an orchestra at the bottom of the ocean, a bassist shifting up and down the deep tones with a vibrato. She wants to find a beauty in the eeriness, but her eyes finally adjust and she only feels terror.

    It’s a writhing thing: amorphous and shifting. She understands why she thought it sounded like squelching: tentacles draw near. Instead of an inky darkness there’s an inpermanent glean, like holograms dancing in and out of existence. She isn’t given the luxury of it being an illusion, though. The tentacles curl closer and it feels worse than tangible. Like her essence being yanked out, leaving an overwhelming fatigue behind. She needs to run but her eyes fall shut seeking sleep.

    Then there’s another presence. The tendrils rear back like they’ve been burned. It reaches out with a heavy sloshing, and she hears a woman shout. In the commotion, she starts to feel awake again and pulls herself back until she hits a wall. The noises halt. Her eyes focus back on the creature as it fades into the air. Left standing is the tall figure of the woman she heard, holding a Bo staff.

    “What the f was that?” she asks the new person.

    The woman looks down at her, examining her features before answering, “By my assessment, a poltergeist.”

    “Like in the TV?”

    “It’s a ghost that’s gone all monstrous. Looks like it was trying to absorb you.”

    “Uh. What?” She looks down at her ripped jeans and dusty shirt seeing no external wounds. She’s pretty sure that ghosts aren’t real. “Am I okay?” She might be hallucinating or something, or at least that’s what she hopes.

    “I think you're as okay as you can be for a dead person.”

    “What??”

    Frantically, she looks around. The feeling of concrete earlier was from the parking lot beneath her. There’s nobody in it but the two of them. She doesn’t see any vehicle parked in it, either. Behind her back, there’s a brick wall belongs to a larger building. It appears to be a liquor store, closed up and abandoned by society. In the distance, a highway softly rumbles with the occasional traveler.

    The woman seems to register the dazed expression on her face and tries to clarify, “You didn’t know? Do you not remember dying?”

    She shakes her head no. She doesn’t remember anything coherently. Especially not how she got here. She can’t be dead. Something’s wrong.

    “Well, allow me to be the first to tell you: you’re a ghost. Congratulations. Let’s get out of this dreary place and see to getting you to the next life.”

    “I’m not dead. I think you’ve got something mixed up. Ghosts steal people’s keys and move chairs and stuff.” She stands up to walk next to the stranger. Like the tentacles she saw before, this must be some weird dream. Although, she can’t tell what her subconscious is trying to say. Once someone told her that everything you see in a dream is something you’ve seen before. She feels like she’s never seen any of this before. Especially not the mysterious woman.

    The woman certainly looks like she’s part of a dream. Her dark hair is braided tightly to her head, with a single cord of hair loose and resting on her shoulder. It blends with the dark fabric of her shirt. The top is striped with faded gray lines. The rest of her ensemble is made up of that same material, kind of sturdy like a uniform. She feels overheated and dehydrated just looking at the garment. Even more so, the top has a tall mandarin collar fastened down the middle with simple white ties like from a qipao that extended down the center of her chest. Draped over her shoulders is a thinner latch with a long cape cascading down. It’s all dark and stuffy.

    She sighs, “I’m not mixed up. I promise that you’re actually dead. Get those ideas out of your head, too. Ghosts usually don’t engage with ouija boards and salt circles, and all of those tropes.”

    “Sure, whatever. I still think I would remember dying.”

    “Wouldn’t you also remember your family? Loved ones? Graduation? Job? I don’t know your past life, and clearly you don’t either. Isn’t that the point here?”

She understands that. It does feel like there’s something missing. She misses these memories and she can’t even say that they’re good enough to miss. But, if the memories are death, her feelings change. It’s not a terror or disgust she feels. It’s just a numbness in her core. And that’s scary enough that she’d rather believe she’s not dead.

“Are you a ghost? Or are you some kind of grim reaper?” she asks the exasperated woman.

    “Grim reaper? Of course not. Where did you get that idea?”

    “Sorry, I played a lot of Sims,” she tries to laugh it off. Casually, she looks over the rest of woman. She’s tall. Definitely someone she’s never seen before. Her deeply tanned skin shines in the light where her inky black hair absorbs it. Maybe it is a dream.

She laughs a little before continuing, “Maybe it’s the black cape. Regardless, we’re not going anywhere with the death part of your whole situation. Allow me to instead start with introducing myself. My name is Angel. I am not an angel; this is not Heaven. If you believe in that sort of thing, I think it comes next. I’m a ghost as well, so I don’t know exactly what it’s like. For those of us yet to move on, our souls roam around in the world we left.”

“Yeah. Still not very convinced of that whole ghost thing. Can you talk to people? Like, humans—The live ones, I mean—The living.”

“That depends. When you’re a ghost, there’s this magical sense to the world. If your soul is strong enough, it does a variety of unexpected things. Similar to that awful tentacled creature you encountered. Sometimes the things we can do are good, like helping the living and each other. I use my own capabilities to rid us of those awful monsters.” Angel gives her Bo staff a twirl as she walks. It reminds her of a colorguard advancing down the field.

“You mean that thing that attacked me used to be a person?”

“I avoid thinking about it,” she replies curtly.

“Why do you fight them? Don’t you want to go to the afterlife or whatever it is?”

It takes Angel longer to think about that one. Eventually, she says, “Enough about me. I haven’t even heard your name. Tell me about your old life.”

She can’t, though. “I don’t remember it.”

“Your name? Your life?”

“Neither.”

“Oh, that won’t do. You remember playing the Sims but not your own name?” Angel slows her pace to consider the information. She decides on a course of action in a few moments. “I suppose that is part of why you think you’re not dead. How about we go into town and check the newspapers for ideas on who you are. I also have a few companions that keep a close eye on recent deaths. If someone knows about you, we may just jog your memory.”

She can only nod and go along. She’d be lost and supposedly absorbed if not for Angel.

“In the meantime, I need something to call you,” she says. “Let’s just use your shirt.”

“But that’s the name of a band.” She looks at the wonky yellow smiley face with a lacking enthusiasm.

“It’s your name now. Nice to meet you, Nirvana.”

    She doesn’t recognize the town either. It’s certainly more bustling than the abandoned lot they came from. Somehow, though, it makes her feel more isolated. The cars drive by quickly; dogs do not bark; busy people on busy sidewalks simply walk right through her. It’s almost like she’s— well, like she’s a ghost. If it were a dream, it’s too realistic. Besides, aren’t dreams supposed to revolve around the dreamer?

    Angel keeps looking back at her with a deep expression. She seems just as confused about Nirvana. It makes her wonder what a normal experience for a ghost is supposed to be like. “When you died, did you just remember everything? Did you wake up immediately after and just know?” she asked.

    Their walking halted for a moment before Angel started again, this time faster. “I’m sure it’s not a very satisfying answer, but I don’t prefer to dwell on it. Come on. We’re gonna do some research, and I’m gonna have some people help.”

    There’s a surprising amount of ghosts at the library. As Angel shows her around, she sees a jarring blend of clothing from the different eras and cultures. “Why are there so many Japanese ghosts here?” she asks.

    “There was an internment camp here. Ghosts don’t tend to travel much, bound by the states of their former life. Some did come here to engage with the little community we built, once the war had simmered down.”

    Nirvana hasn’t thought about what would happen to ghost communities after wars and natural disasters. “Are you Japanese?”

    “Okinawan.”

    “Were you alive when…?”

    “Let’s go over there.” Angel ignores the topic.

    They examine a map first, right next to an old man that’s been haunting the town since it was first established. The abandoned liquor store turned out to be pretty far out from the main streets of the city. There’s a suburb on that side of town that it may belong to. Maybe that’s where Nirvana died?

“I think this lady would like to talk to you.” Angel leads her to another old and faded ghost.

‘This lady’ turns out to be amongst the oldest known psychologists in America, and practically leaps at the chance to interrogate Nirvana. It is unclear whether or not she can help her with the memory situation, but she doesn’t see any harm in trying.

Angel stays conspicuously at the edge of her vision while going about her work. Nirvana would make eye contact and she would look back down at her papers or book, or suddenly become very engaged in the conversation nearby. It probably makes sense, watching over Nirvana to make sure nothing bad or new happens, but it feels oppressive. Angel doesn’t seem to be a person that lies and forces smiles to make people like her, but she’s also got this responsibility to her community that keeps her unreadable. Is she here for Nirvana’s protection or just in case something else needs to get whacked by a heavy stick?

The ghosts pass in and out of the area freely, skimming the shelves like dead leaves cascading down the sidewalk on a windy day. When she focuses, she notices that many do not interact with the environment. A couple sits in the corner, one holding the book, both reading; the more translucent ghost occasionally reaches for the pages, forgetting for an instant that they cannot touch them. One man floats around the room without speaking to anyone, just phasing through tables and shelves at random. A group of children try to prank the living, combining their efforts to move a book one inch at a time to a new position. The coolest kid will move the book two inches and the rest will laugh and smile and cheer. The gap in capabilities between some of the ghosts in the room is astonishing. There’s one girl in particular dressed modernly that seems so completely opaque that Nirvana keeps fooling herself into believing she’s alive. However, the girl is talking with another ghost, holding hands and giggling.

Eventually she finds herself in a group with the not-living girl, whose name she’s learned is Jeanette, and her partner, Matilda. They’re talking to the psychologist ghost about amnesia and history, trying to avoid the awkwardness of talking about someone (Nirvana) while they (Nirvana) sit there and stare at you.

The conversation goes on a tangent, so Jeanette turns to Nirvana and tries to talk with her a bit. “You’ve been around here for almost a full day, right? How are you feeling about this town?”

“It’s been busy, that’s for sure. I almost died but like, double? I don’t really understand poltergeists.” Nirvana has been avoiding thinking about a lot of things.

She nods, acknowledging her troubles. “Poltergeists are pretty confusing. The way I see it, they have some reason to want more power, so they try to absorb the ghosts around them. There’s been some awful cases of poltergeists that have ended many, many souls in the past. I think you’re very lucky that Angel showed up.”

It feels like everything’s always coming back to Angel. “What’s her deal anyway?” Nirvana asks. “Is she the only person in the city that deals with poltergeists?”

“She’s certainly the best.” Jeanette lets out a kind laugh. “If someone ever contacts me for an exorcism, I consult Angel first on whether there’s a clear danger in the home.”

“Exorcisms????”

“Oh! I didn’t tell you that I’m a psychic consultant.”

“Oh my f’ing god.” Nirvana processes the new information and it all starts to make sense. “You’re not a ghost. You can just see them.”

They both went silent, and so did the ghosts nearby. Then, Nirvana started laughing. At this point, why not? Of course there’s psychics in here. Psychics with very intimate relationships with the dead, apparently. She laughs and laughs until Jeanette joins in. The moment tumbles from their hearts. Even though she’s dead and the other definitely isn’t, she starts to feel like she’s part of a community.

    The phone rings and the room goes still. Ghosts look back and forth at each other and the phone in a widespread game of chicken. “Should someone… get that?” a voice asks.

    “It’s not like anyone is calling a ghost.” another rebuts.

    “Most of us can’t even lift the receiver.”

    The room continues to stare.

    Angel sighs and gives a look that says I guess I have to do everything myself. Lifting the old landline with ease, she answers, “You’ve reached the Winthrop County Library.”

The other end says something, and Angel turns away, turning off the customer service voice and whispering back a response. When the call ends, she signals for Nirvana to follow, and leads her out of the room.

Angel takes her down an old staircase in a hidden corner of the library. The basement appears to be some kind of records room. There’s a row of old computers and aisles of filing cabinets. A distressed sign on the wall invites its patrons to consult a nearby guidebook to properly navigate the archive. Angel flips it open to the middle, and dust escapes into the air.

    “What are we looking for?” Nirvana asks.

    “Wallace found a listing for something that happened at that liquor store I found you by.”

    As she flips through the heavy pages, Nirvana tries to remember the liquor store. It wasn’t very remarkable, boarded up like it wanted to be forgotten. It probably wouldn’t be a fun place to have died, but that’s not the kind of circumstance she could control. She imagines dying there, alone in the abandoned lot. Images of the highway and bright lights plague her mind. A voice tries to form in the penumbras of these glimpses, but hearing it is as hopeless as putting together a puzzle after dumping most of the box into the ocean. As she tries to recall it, the heavy guidebook slams shut and breaks her concentration.

“Found it.”

Together, they peel through a stack of newspapers all concerning one week in 1995. Angel finds the one she was looking for, and hands it over to Nirvana.

The headline story reads:

Local Teen Dead in Hit and Run

A local teenager was critically injured in a car crash on April 14. The name of the deceased remains undisclosed until further in the investigation. The sheriff has given no official statement on the accident. At this time, there are no known leads. The crash seems to have occurred roughly 1.1 miles from local establishment, Randall’s Liquor. Whether the accident is connected to the store is unknown. Individuals with information are requested to call the County Sheriff Office posthaste.

“I don’t get how this helps us. Someone died pretty close to that store in 1995?” Nirvana feels, somewhere deep, that there’s a connection. She doesn’t want to know how, though. It’s too confusing.

Angel regards her with silence. Then, mechanically, she finds another folder with the same title filed under the next week. When she finds the page she’s looking for, she hands it to Nirvana.

Few Developments in the Miriam Rachel Canaan Case, Sheriff Says

Miriam Rachel Canaan died after a car crash on Friday, April 14. Local law enforcement has not named a driver involved in the incident. While most details are still off-limits for the public, Sheriff Miller released some new information. “She would have died around 3 AM,” he says. “The Canaan family did not know she was out so late.” He also confirmed that the crash may have been closer to Randall’s Liquor than previously believed.

Friends from Aberdeen High describe Miriam as an inspired young lady with a passion for music. “She always carried around a portable CD player,” classmate Heather James says. “Our tastes weren’t the same, and we had such different hobbies, but I’ll miss seeing her smile in the bleachers.”

A memorial service will be open to the public on April 25 from 7 to 9 pm at Songbird Memorial Park.

    “Nirvana? Do you recognize anything?”

    “Heather James… I think that’s the bitch that killed me.”

The sun's scorching glare broke through the window and woke her up before the alarm could whisper its piercing song into the dead air. Miriam thought long and hard about staying in bed the rest of the day. It would be so nice just to skip. But gradually, she remembered. It was the last Friday of her senior year. She had a mission for herself.

    “You’re up early,” her sister observed over breakfast.

    “Big day," she responded simply, taking a piece of toast to go and putting her large headphones on. The last CD she'd put in was In Utero. It was good for most of the walk to school, but halfway through “Heart-Shaped Box” she started having doubts. Today she was going to tell Heather James that she’d been in love with her since freshman year. She needed an anthem. Pausing to switch out the disc, she waited for the familiar blare of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to energize her steps.

    She walked slowly past the chain-linked fence separating her from cheerleading practice as Kurt Cobain screamed nonsense at her from the grave. The chorus blasted and the cheerleaders lifted each other up, tossing and catching to the beat they could not hear. At the center, Heather James smiled so bright, twirling through the air. Some went to football games to see Aberdeen High’s star quarterback, but Miriam went for this view. For Heather.

    She waited by the gate for practice to end. Heather and her friends came out hardly even sweating. These were the popular girls at school, after all. They wouldn’t be caught dead as anything other than stunning. Just standing next to them was immense pressure. “Um! Heather, can I talk to you for a moment?” Her voice came out like a squeak, some kind of pathetic whine. She wouldn’t blame the cheerleaders if they just kept walking.

    But they didn’t. Heather stopped and examined her for a moment. There was a smugness she didn’t quite understand. “Only if it’s quick,” she said. “We have to change before homeroom.”

    Miriam registered the hostile gazes of Heather’s friends. She could hardly say anything with them there. She tried, desperately, to come up with an excuse. Eventually, she deflated and said, “Oh, don’t worry about it. I can ask you another time.”

    Her friends started walking, but Heather hesitated. “Are you going to the party at Kyle’s tonight? Maybe we can catch up there.”

    Miriam knew this was a rare chance. “Yeah, totally! I’ll see you there.” She’d never been to a party before, but Heather didn’t need to know that.

As they walked away, Miriam heard the edge of a conversation she really wasn't supposed to be a part of. "Why did you do that?" one of Heather's friends asked.

"Isn't she the girl?" 

"Don't worry, ladies, I know what I'm doing. "

The trio disappeared around the corner.

Miriam knew it was a bad idea. Even still, she found herself outside of Kyle McCarthy’s house maybe half an hour after the party was officially supposed to begin. She had spent the rest of her day convincing her sister to cover for her if their parents wanted to know where she was. Of course, her sister hated the idea way more than her, and Miriam didn't even tell her what kind of things she'd heard Heather's friends say.  She needed to let herself feel some hope. If she thought through the situation, even the slightest, she'd spend the rest of her life at home in the basement. She'd never have the nerves to fall in love, to get rejected, to mess up confessions, to see them succeed. She'd be the first person denying her the same kind of love that everyone wanted so badly.

Besides, as she had tried to assure her sister, if Heather rejects her sooner, that's just as quickly she could move on.

Maybe she didn't think about the whole party part of the encounter. All around were classmates she only knew by name or affiliation with sports and academics. That was only if they were lucky. They held red solo cups and chattered loudly over average chart music.

She stuck to the walls, counting dots on the ceiling. 45... 46... she heard classmates walk by and notice her presence... 52... 53... they whispered about why she was there... 67... 68... why’s the local lesbian hanging around… 71… 72… Then Heather approached.

“Hey, there! I didn't know if you would actually come.”

“Yeah.” She pressured herself to say just about anything that wasn't stupid. “I thought I should celebrate with the rest of us before graduation hits.”

“Fun, fun. Say, do you want to come with me and Kyle's older brother to go get more drinks?”

She had to stop herself from saying please.

They left through the back door. Heather said it was because she was avoiding her ex.  Kyle tossed his brother (Adam, she learned), the keys on the way out. She felt it was a bit odd that Heather didn't bring her friends, but she wasn't complaining.

She didn't know where exactly they were going. Once they passed the only Walmart in Aberdeen, she saw that they were heading towards town. Then, Adam took an exit towards a lone establishment. Randall's Liquor, the sign shouted, neon red and flickering. And, oh. She should've realized what they meant by drinks.

It's cool, she tried to reason with herself. I'm cool. Everyone had to believe she's cool. So apparently Adam was 21. It started to make sense. Heather certainly didn't need him to drive, so there was the reason he was here. He went off into the store, leaving Miriam alone with Heather.

As soon as he disappeared into the store, Heather kicked her chair-seat back and faced Miriam. She shuddered and avoided appreciating how smooth the whole maneuver was. She leaned forward and the stench of beer clung to her breath. Miriam ignored it all.

“So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

And. Well.  Miriam knew that that was her chance. It was maybe the last before Heather went to a big out-of-state university and did whatever it is that the head cheerleader does after graduation.

“I'm in love with you,” she blurted out suddenly.

Oh no.

Oh nooooooooooo.

Miriam’s first mistake was letting herself hope. She thought she deserved to be in that car, with that cheerleader, at that party. She thought she deserved her smile, and, likewise, she thought someone would want to see hers.

“Hm,” Heather paused. Miriam carefully met her gaze. The tipsiness that clouded her eyes waned into coldness. Ocean blue turned to icy violence. “I suspected that may be the case.”

Why did she have to tell her?

“I’m sorry,” Miriam tried to backpedal. “I, um, don’t expect anything from you… I just wanted you to know. Sorry.”

Miriam hated this silence more than the whispers and glares. Heather’s mouth turned into the shape of a smile with the bite of a wolf, and the ice in her eyes turned scalding. “Get out of this car.”

She could handle walking home. It could be much worse, she reminded herself. But still the tears fell. She knew this wasn’t the time for weakness, so she scrambled backwards and reached for the door blurry-visioned and afraid. As she crashed out the back door, Adam was walking back with a few cases.

“Miriam? What’s wrong?”

Heather’s voice called out from the car, “Don’t worry about her, Adam. She’s leaving.”

Something in her did not question Heather’s harshness. The rejection was, despite all hopes, the most likely outcome. All her years of high school had so deeply ingrained intolerance into her that some level of hatred was just expected. She was the head cheerleader. Miriam was just some outcast. This reaction was surely natural.

“What happened, though?” Adam asked, placing the cases in the car.

“I don’t know, she just like started coming on to me all of the sudden.” Miriam started walking swiftly. If she lingered more, she’d have to hear the rest of the conversation. Heather would keep talking. Adam would be disgusted. She didn’t want to hear it.

But she could, anyway.

“Did that fag touch you?”

Miriam started running. She didn’t hear Heather’s response.

The truck started. She kept running.

It followed.

Headlights.

Concrete.