Page 43 of Not Quite Dead Yet

It was Jet’s fourth time driving the street tonight, and she still had no answers, no sign. Apart from that yellow sign over there.SLOW: Children, it said. Jetwasgoing slow, but not because some sign told her to. So slow that the truck came to a stop, sighing, settling back on its wheels.

Jet sighed too.

Maybe she should get out of the truck, walk the street instead of driving it, swap the smell of congealing fries for the crisp night air. Maybe she’d see it from a different perspective, in a new light. She pulled off onto the grass alongside someone’s pristine white fence. Pulled the handbrake but didn’t turn off the engine, not yet. The clock on the dashboard was her only way to keep track of time, without a phone, without a watch. It read 10:55. Which meant that, in one minute, it would be the exact same time as well as the exact same spot. The time and place the killer was when they turned off her phone.

Jet pulled the key from the ignition, got out, locked the door. Then she turned, one hand resting on the truck, and she watched the street. The middle of the road, where the last blue blip of her phone had floated, its final stamp on the world. It had guided her here and now she was lost.

Nothing happened. She counted to sixty, and still nothing happened. Just the wind whistling in the burnt-orange trees. Well, what had she expected exactly?

Jet kept going, following River Street, leaving her truck behind. Head spinning as she looked at the houses on eitherside: that white one there, with the triangular porch and the red car outside, must have been the house Ecker mentioned, where the elderly woman lived. Asleep and useless to Jet.

Her shoes slapped the pavement, the only sound on this too-quiet street. No more streetlamps beyond this point, just the faint glow of the moon hovering over her.

Her killer must have known someone who lived down this way, right? Or why drive straight here after breaking Jet’s head open? Could she ask the police for a list of all the owners’ names, Mrs Red Shutters and Mr American Flag?

Not just a flag outside that house, though; a jack-o’-lantern too, carved into the face of a skull. The bottom looked a little soggy, but it wasn’t rotting yet. It shared its death stare with Jet, and she shared hers back.

At this rate, all the pumpkins would outlive Jet.

The houses petered out again, making way for the cemetery. Strange shapes skulking in the dark, crosses and headstones like wonky rows of teeth, an angel weeping over them all. Jet kept walking, didn’t want to think about it too hard. This wasn’t the only cemetery in town; she might not end up here. But Emily was buried here, and there was something in that, wasn’t there? Sisters, together again. Jet much older than her older sister ever got to be. And, look, there was a fresh corner of grass, a patch waiting to be filled. There you go: Jet had thought about it anyway. Would anyone leave flowers for her? Jet liked sunflowers best.

The cemetery ended and the houses came back. More shutters, more dormer windows, and Jet skulking below. She came to a crossroads, four ways to choose. River Street continued if she picked the road ahead; she’d only just reached the halfway point, but her legs felt a little unsteady. Tired, just tired. She was allowed to get tired; it didn’t mean anything else. And the back of her head throbbed, a wet kind of pain.Jet had left those painkillers behind at Billy’s, hadn’t realized she’d be out so long.

She picked the road that branched off to the left, back toward town. She’d come all this way, might as well loop around to go pick up her truck. Better than having to walk back past the cemetery again anyway.

The world darkened as she followed the road, the moon blocked out, trees pressing in on either side of her. The bridge waited up ahead in an orange glow, flickering in and out from a faulty streetlamp. Middle Covered Bridge, the one all the tourists stopped to take a photo of, because it wasso Vermont.That was during the day; at night it looked like something from a horror movie, like you wouldn’t step inside unless the plot forced you to.

But no one was forcing Jet. She continued toward the wooden walkway that ran alongside the bridge, her steps echoing around the whole structure, reverberating in her aching head.

Jet stopped.

A rustle in the trees behind her, something moving, following.

She looked over her shoulder, couldn’t see anything.

Probably just a fox.

And that was when Jet realized: she wasn’t afraid. Sheshouldbe afraid: it was night, it was dark, she was alone, walking, without her phone or any way to call for help. But she wasn’t afraid, or her heart hadn’t noticed those things, forgot to drum out any warning.

And her heart was right: what was the point of being afraid anymore? The worst had already happened – the thing from your nightmares, the reason you didn’t go out alone in the dark or held your keys in your knuckles if you had to. Jet couldn’t get any more dead; it had already happened.

Was this what it felt like to be a man? Walking on this creepy dark bridge, not scared for a second that she wouldn’t make it out the other side, because it didn’t really make a difference whether she did or not. The night belonged to her now too.

A dead woman walking. And dead women had no use for fear.

Jet pushed the door open with her hip. ‘Want some fries, Billy? They’re cold.’

Billy stood three feet away, eyes wide and unblinking, phone in his hand.

‘Where have you been?’ he said, breathless, though he hadn’t moved.

Jet passed him the two leftover boxes of fries. He held them to his chest, almost dropping one.

‘From that burger place on Route 4. Near the police station. Haven’t eaten fries in about four years and it was a bit of an anticlimax, if I’m being honest. Maybe I should have found a McDonald’s.’

‘It’s late.’ Billy put the boxes on the table, one pack overturning, fries cascading over the edge. ‘I was worried. Tried to call but you don’t have a phone. What were you doing?’

‘I went to the police station, then I went to the burger place on Route 4, then I drove up and down River Street for a while, eating fries, looking for my killer. Walked it too. Pointless, didn’t find anything.’

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