Page 30 of Not Quite Dead Yet

‘Oh my god, Jet, no! Jet!’

Knuckles on glass. Over and over. The dog screeching louder.

‘Jet!’ Billy screamed. ‘Jet – can you hear me?! Oh my god!’

That break in his voice, raw and grating, like earlier when he walked away from the house and thought Jet couldn’t hear him, crying down the street.

Billy darted back into the frame, past the camera, his jaw set as he eyed the front door.

‘I’m coming, Jet!’

He backed up and kicked out at the lock. The door buckled but didn’t break.

Billy doubled back, five, then six steps, then he charged at the door, shoulder first.

The wood splintered and the door crashed in, Billy rolling in after it, leaving it wide and gaping.

‘Jet! No, no, no! Can you hear me?! Jet!’

The video ended, cutting out his screams.

The next was fifteen minutes later, the paramedics arriving, spiraling red lights on the ambulance. Jet dragged the cursor, speeding through it. She’d watched this one most. One cop car, then two, black and white and red and blue. Jack Finney, removing his hat and holding it over his heart, the chief of police tripping on the front step as he hurried inside.

Fast-forward.

The paramedics coming out again, squeaky wheels as they rolled a stretcher onto the drive.

Jet on top of it, some kind of orange brace around her broken head.

A lifeless arm falling as they turned, finger trailing in the dirt.

‘I’m going with her!’ Billy screamed, and Jet mouthed hislines with him, memorized after the sixth time. He reemerged, coming out different too. His white-and-brown-check shirt stained red instead, his own glistening handprint over his chest, a smear under one eye. ‘She can’t be alone!’ they said together: Billy yelling, Jet whispering. ‘I’m coming too! So is the dog! No, no, Dad. I’m not leaving him. Jet wouldn’t want that!’

Jet smiled sadly, pressing pause, freezing them all in that moment of chaos.

She turned to her notebook, wrote:DNA probably fucked from the rescue, so many people in and out.

Jet shifted, and so did Reggie, the empty chocolate packet crinkling under her elbow.

‘Enough,’ Jet told herself. If she knew it off by heart, then she knew it too well, had watched it too many times. Watching wouldn’t undo it, wouldn’t bring her back to life, and she had a job to do.

There were other motion alerts, earlier that day. Probably nothing important, but Jet thought she should check them at least; it all happened on the day she was murdered.

One at 8:33 p.m. – when they were out at the fair. Jet settled back and pressed play.

Five dark figures. Misshapen and inhuman. Teenagers. Three witches, a werewolf, and a skeleton, ambling up the drive, elbowing each other and giggling.

‘Look at the size of this fucking house!’ the skeleton said, exposed jaw dropping open.

‘It’s the Masons’ house,’ a witch said, switching her broom to the other hand. ‘My mom doesn’t like them. Says they flaunt it.’

Jet snorted. The witch wasn’t wrong.

‘How do you afford a house like this?’ said Skeleton. ‘Is he a cartel leader or something?’

‘Stop watchingOzark,James, it’s becoming your entire personality. And no. He tears down houses and builds giant new ones, like this. Mom thinks it’s ugly.’

Jet liked this one.

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