Page 68 of They Say a Girl Died Here

“It was you.” Anna stared at her, the girl she’s seen as a friend, laughed until she’d cried with, helped bring life into the world with. A girl. A woman. Her own trauma bias had stopped her from seeing Melissa’s guilt. Her lungs felt like they were filled with sand, tightening, wheezing. How could she have gotten it so wrong? “You murdered Lila.”

“It was an accident.” Melissa stared at her, defiant. “She told me she couldn’t meet up because she was studying. So I followed her and saw she was with Jamie. She was always with Jamie or some of those cheerleader girls. Always telling me we’d meet up and then canceling.”

“Anna doesn’t need to know any of this.” Dr. Burdett’s gravelly voice, no longer a comforting sound. Anna glanced at the hall table. Could she get to the knife? If she could, what would she do with it? Go for Melissa and bank on the doc not really wanting to shoot her? The way he was pointing the gun at her suggested otherwise. Still, she took a tiny step forward.

“I want to tell her.” Melissa came a little closer, the knife now equidistant between her and Anna. Could Anna maybe grab the knife and Melissa and then use her as a shield to get herself and Caroline away? “And she wants to know. Isn’t that right?”

“I do.” Anna nodded. Anything for the extra time, and it was true, she did want to know.

“Anyway,” Melissa continued, “I forgave her. I always forgave her.” Her voice was hurt. “When Lila got home, I persuaded her to sneak out and come hang in the barn to help me with my softball. Leave her phone behind and be just us. It was going great until she told me that she was planning on running away with Jamie. I got upset. I asked her if I could go with them.” Her mouth trembled as if she might cry, a flush creeping up her neck. “You know what she did? She laughed. Not mean, but worse than that. Like she couldn’t help herself because it was such a surprise that I would even think that was a possibility, let alone say it. She was shocked. And then she could see I was upset. I couldn’t hide it. And she kept talking and talking about how she was sorry, but she shouldn’t have come over and she wasn’t even really my friend, not really, not like I wanted, and that I should find someone who was into the same things as I was and she couldn’t even list a single thing I liked. And she was my best friend. She made me sound like a stalker. And that made me mad and I saw red, and then as she turned to go, I swung the bat so hard…” She looked down at the softball bat in her hand, her voice trailing off. Anna remembered how Melissa had lunged at that guy in the bar, ready to cut him. That sudden rage from nowhere. No impulse control.

“I thought she was dead,” Melissa said quietly. “’Cause the back of her skull was a mess. But I didn’t kill her.”

Anna looked to the doc, her eyes wide. The girls died from strangulation—Was it him? Melissa read her thoughts. “Not the doc. He came later. I panicked and woke my dad and asked him to help me hide the body or whatever. I was hysterical. Lila was my best friend and I’d killed her. Dad called my uncle Zach. He wanted him to come arrest me, can you believe it? Said it was for the best. Had to think of the poor girl’s family. Even my own dad chose Lila over me. But my uncle had promised my mom he’d look after me and I’m his only niece and I was crying and sorry and then lying there between us Lila made a noise and I swear on everything holy I nearly shat my pants.” She hiccuped a laugh as if the shock was fresh. “She wasn’t dead at all. Just making this weird sobbing, mewling sound, and her mouth was moving, and it was worse than anything in a horror movie. She couldn’t get any words out, like she didn’t know what words were anymore. It was horrible and fascinating at the same time, you know?”

She was lost in the memory, and with the doc staring at Melissa too, Anna took a bigger step. She was level with the table now, the decorative bowl right there. Even if she couldn’t see the knife, she could probably reach it.

“I was frozen,” Melissa said softly. “But not Uncle Zach. He got down on his knees and squeezed the life out of her right there on the barn floor with his bare hands. Like putting an animal out of its misery. That was horrible too. Then he said we had to get rid of all the evidence. For a moment I couldn’t even think, but he shook me so hard. I think maybe he slapped me too. He was terrified. So we stripped her naked and then I said we should add something weird to make it look like a serial killer, ’cause it wasn’t like she’d been raped or anything, and that would raise questions. It was my idea to cut the square of skin out of her back. I didn’t want to do anything where I had to look into her eyes. I couldn’t stop crying looking at her. Touching her. Even dead, her skin was so soft and perfect.” She let out a long, rattling sigh. “Uncle Zach made sure the doc was going along with it and that all eyes pointed at Jamie. We put her on the McArthur farm because the crop was so bad no one was working it, so there would be no passing witnesses.” She smiled then, suddenly glowing, as if lit up with fervor, her lingering guilt and trauma pushed back down. “That soon changed. The land gave back to us. The McArthurs had a bumper harvest.”

Anna could hear another car parking outside. If she was going to move, it had to be soon.

“You think because you murdered Lila the crops were better?” Anna stared at her.

“Because we killed her and put her on the land. Offered her up as a sacrifice. Took her skin so her wet flesh could join with the earth as one. Feed it.” There was more than fervor in Melissa’s eyes. There was desperation too. A need to believe in something other than her own guilt. “It was a miracle. A message from God.”

Anna shook her head. “It was a murder, plain and simple. Nothing else.”

“Lila’s body brought the McArthur land back to life. And after Bonnie died the same thing happened and our own farm recovered. Three years apart. And now here we are another three years later, and we’re going to do it again. You don’t see the Lord in that? He’s working through us. Another three years passed. And the Lord brought you to us. Another sacrifice.”

Anna looked at the doc. “You can’t believe this bullshit?”

“I can’t deny the strangeness of it.” The doc glanced at the floor. “No other farms have done so well. We know from the Bible our Lord can be demanding.”

“You’re as crazy as she is. Trying to find some good in the terrible things you’ve done. This has nothing to do with God.”

“Tell that to the McArthurs,” Melissa said. “And we’ll see what happens when we put you on the Millers’ farm tomorrow. You’ll feel the power of the Lord working through your dead flesh when the land regenerates. And you know what?” She looked at the doc and Anna realized that Melissa was cracked. The guilt of the murders had maybe driven her there, or maybe whatever had made her mother join a cult was in her blood too, but Melissa was crazy. “You and the sheriff wanted no more killings, but I was always going to do it. Sacrifice Anna. I was planning to do it on my own tonight, but the Lord gave her to us through the sin of curiosity. Made it so we have to kill her.”

Melissa lifted something she was carrying in her other hand and pulled it down over her head. Anna’s eyes widened. It was a Terrifier clown mask, all pale skin and black mouth and yellow teeth.

Clown.

“You were the clown?” Anna asked, incredulous. Everything about Melissa had been a lie.

“Got it from that cheap party store that closed down a couple of years back. When the first movie came out, it was my Halloween costume. It was me who told Lila to watch that movie. I wanted her to love it. Don’t think they even finished it.”

“For Christ’s sake,” the doctor said. “You kept that too after what you did to Jamie back then? As well as the scarf?” He glared at her and asked the question on Anna’s lips. “And Jamie’s death? Was it as Anna suspected? Did you go back and finish the job this time?”

“I was doing the Lord’s work.” Her voice sounded different, muffled. There was no Melissa anymore, just a monster with a clown face.

If Anna was going to move it had to be now, before the sheriff got inside and while Melissa was distracted by Dr. Burdett. She lunged forward, reaching behind the bowl, grasping for the knife handle. Her fingers found nothing. She scrabbled some more. No, no, no. All she felt was the wood of the table. Shit, where was it? She’d put it there. She had.

In her confusion, her eyes on the table, distracted, she didn’t see the flash of the baseball bat until it was too late. Searing white pain consumed her as Melissa smashed it down onto her hand. Anna shrieked as stars danced in the corner of her vision and bones in her fingers and hand shattered.

“You were going to hit me with a bowl?” Melissa stood over Anna as she slid down the wall, cradling her hand. “That’s the best you have?” She started to raise the bat again, and Anna curled in on herself, flinching.

“You’ll never get away with it,” she said, desperate. “There’s no Michael Cairns to blame this time.” Where had the knife gone? Where?

“No, but there’s my dad,” Melissa said from behind the mask and lifted the bat over her head, and Anna wanted to sob with the unfairness of it. It was too late. She’d failed for the last time.