Prom

Chit Chat

Amy drew in her breath and her hand tightened in the curls of hair. Beatrice’s head swayed in the dim light of her phone. The features were smushed by the plastic, but it was certainly Beatrice. The stump of her neck was capped with black plastic, like from a trash bag. There was no blood. And there was something above her lip that Amy couldn’t quite make out. She brought her phone closer. It was a handlebar mustache, drawn on in sharpie. In ordinary circumstances it would have looked playful. In these it looked sick. Obscene. The worst part was that Amy recognized that mustache. She had been drawing it on magazine photos of the celebrities she hated the most for years.

This was bad. Seeing ghosts, a thirst for blood, and now the head of the victim of a still-unsolved murder in a hiding place only Amy knew about. And her pills were gone. She didn’t remember taking them. Ddi they cause memory loss? She couldn’t remember.

Suddenly afraid someone was behind her, Amy jerked her own head around, scanned the attic. But there was still nobody there. She had to act fast, before anybody else got home. She put Beatrice’s head back where she had found it and walled it up with all the old teddy bears. Just to be safe, she found some old cartons and made a complete wall in front of the dollhouse, then draped the hold thing in an old quilt. Then she got out of the attic and closed the trap door.

She went to her room and collapsed on top of her bed. She tried to think. Beatrice had been killed about a week ago. Amy tried to remember where she had been that day, but couldn’t. She tried to imagine murdering Beatrice. She tried to imagine cutting off her head, wrapping it in plastic, hiding it. She couldn’t remember that either. But then, she obviously wasn’t well.

Could it have been the pills? She knew she never should have started with them. But the anxiety had gotten so bad lately. She had needed them. But the thought of psychologists filled her with terror. They were almost as bad as the police. So she had had to go through Andrew, and who knew what she had really gotten…

Andrew. She realized then. She had to talk to Andrew. He would know what to do. Her phone was still dead, so she raced to the computer and sat down. He was online.

She opened a new chat window. Andrew, I need to see you.

There was a long delay, much longer than usual.

I’m busy today.

She gritted her teeth. Typical. But she needed him. Too bad. I’m coming over.

An even longer pause. Then: Sorry, just got a call. I have to go out.

Bullshit, said Amy. I’m coming over.

But he had already logged off.