Sparrow Hill Road 2010 By Seanan(20)

It's too late now. It's all over except for the dying. But I'm still here, and he's still here, and as long as that's the case, I'm going to be here for him. I owe him that much. I owe all of them that much.

Tommy swallows with obvious difficulty, and opens his eyes. They aren't quite focusing anymore. He won't really see the other racers, or the road, or the blood that's dripping over everything, like the red flag signaling that it's time to leave the finish line. But he'll still see me. We're in the same place right now, he and I. "R-Rose?"

"I'm here. I'm right here, Tommy."

"I think I messed up, Rose."

It's a beautiful night, big white moon and too many stars and the desert around us like an ocean of gold. It's a beautiful night, and Tommy--a boy whose last name I never learned, a boy who did this for a girl I've never met--is bleeding to death with my hand against his cheek. "Yeah," I say, not looking away from him. "I think you did."

***

"You don't know how long it's taken me to track you down." She pulls a rusted chair with a ripped green vinyl cover from one of the nearby tables, moving it to the edge of the salt circle and sitting primly down. Resting the book on her knees, she smiles at me. "I mean, at first I wasn't even sure that you were real. It took me years just to find someone who could really prove to me that you existed. I appreciated that day. It told me that I wasn't crazy. I mean, I spent three years chasing truckers and visiting psychics and going into every diner I saw to ask if anyone in there knew who you were or had seen you or knew where I might find you." She leans forward and smiles at me, smiles like a rattlesnake getting ready to strike. "You have a lot of friends, Rose. A lot of people looked me in the eye and lied for you. I was impressed by that."

"Who the hell are you?" I step toward her, as far as the Seal will let me go. She doesn't flinch back, just keeps smiling that rattlesnake smile. She knows she has me pinned. "I don't know why you want me, lady, but I'm not a good housepet."

"Oh, I'm not going to keep you. Don't be silly." She looks genuinely amused as she settles in her seat. "Keep you. What a ridiculous idea."

"Then what--"

"I'm going to exorcise you. I'm going to read aloud the words of a thousand ancients, and I'm going to rip you from this world one thin thread at a time, until you're nothing but a thin scream clinging to the memory of pain. And then I'm going to call you back into this world, and I'm going to do it again. And again. And again. Until, when the sun rises, I finish the exorcism and send you to the hell you deserve, you murdering little slut."

Her expression doesn't change as she speaks, not once. That may be the most terrifying thing of all. She's talking about murder, about killing me for the second time in my existence, and she isn't batting an eye. I'm not a person to her. I'm a thing to be exterminated.

"What-what...what are you talking about?" My heart is hammering and my mouth is dry as cotton. That's the worst thing about this damn Seal--all the downsides of being alive, and none of the benefits, no sex or coffee or cheeseburgers. Just raw terror and every nerve in my body sounding the alarm. "I don't know who you are, or who you think I am, but I assure you, I am not your girl."

"Your name is Rose Marshall. You were born in Buckley Township, Michigan, in 1929--that was a hard one to confirm, by the way. There was no birth certificate on file for you at any of the local hospitals. There was an announcement in the paper, though. I suppose it was a slow news week."

"I was born at home," I whisper.

"Ah! Well, that explains it, then. You made the news again in 1945 when you decided to drive yourself to the senior prom and confront your boyfriend, who had failed to pick you up. It's not really surprising. You were only a sophomore. He probably didn't want to be seen with you." This time, her smile is cruel as well as venomous, human snake that knows exactly what she's doing. "Poor little Rose. I suppose you didn't know he'd broken down on the way to your house--and by the time he got back on the road, you were so much cooling meat."

"Lady, why are you doing this? What do you want from me?"

She keeps going like she hasn't heard me--and maybe she hasn't, not in any meaningful way. You don't learn to draw a Seal like this on a whim, or in a weekend. You don't track down the dead for nothing. Whatever strange engine drove her here, she's not letting it go that easily. "Only you couldn't stay dead, could you, Rose? You couldn't rest in peace. That would have been too easy for a spoiled bitch like you."

I've been called a lot of things, and some of them I even deserved, but "spoiled" has never been one of them. My eyes narrow, and I speak before I think, spitting out my words: "You don't know anything about me."