The bowling alley wasn't totally a bust. Owen had talked to the elderly gossipers that liked to hang out at the place. One of them mentioned something about a "nice girl" that had gone missing at some point during the last few years, and a few others agreed. They went on for a while about how nice and polite she was, though none of them seemed to remember anything useful or concrete about her. Owen can't even confirm the girl that they were talking about was Emily.
If Harris was curious about why Owen wanted to talk to a bunch of old people, he didn't mention it. He'd just gone and paid for their game, and then waited patiently until Owen was done. Neither of them mentioned the conversation from last night.
The next half hour involved the absolute worst game of bowling that Owen had ever played.
He couldn't focus. His mind is fixated on the mystery surrounding Emily and the chat he had with Harris last night. Owen hadn't thought too much about it at the time, since he was only semi-conscious, but in hindsight... it's really weird. Suspicious, even. Normally, when your half-asleep friend tells you that you've been talking to dead people, your immediate reaction is not to ask him if the ghost is hurting him. Right? That's a little odd.
And what was up with Emily's reaction to Harris before they left the science lab? Not to mention the scars. Is it possible for two people to have the exact same weird scar on different parts of their bodies? What did the scar have to do with Harris's phone call to this "Rhea" person? Why had Harris just accepted the fact that Owen was talking to a ghost, without questioning it? Does Harris know Emily?
Did Harris kill Emily?
_____
"Do you know anyone named Emily?"
Harris chokes. The two of them had given up on bowling and walked over to the food court to get a bite to eat. In Owen's opinion, it was as good a time as any to get more information. He maybe should have waited until Harris was finished chewing, though.
"You don't remember us talking last night?" Harris asks after recovering from his near death-by-burger.
Owen makes a split second decision. He shakes his head "no," eating another fry to hide the guilt.
"Oh. Ignore that, then, you were pretty out of it. As for Emily..." Harris breaks eye contact, frowning. His eyes have that thousand yard look in them, the one Owen has only ever seen in pictures of war soldiers or battle-weary movie protagonists. "I'm not really sure. I think... I think I may have known an Emily at some point."
The longer he seems to think about it, the more unsettled he appears. His burger is still in his hands; his mind is far away from it. It's like he wants to remember someone named Emily, but the memory isn't coming. Odd. It's not the reaction Owen is expecting, and he almost wants to ask if Harris is okay.
Before he can, Harris's phone buzzes on the table. He glances at it, before doing a double take and setting his burger down to wipe his hand with. Owen spots "Rhea" appear in the notification bar before Harris picks it up.
"Sorry, man, we gotta cut this short," he says. He sounds pretty distracted. Owen can't tell if it's because of the text or because of the question about Emily. Regardless, Owen closes his box of fries and starts cleaning up the table.
"Everything okay?" he asks.
"What? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely." This is an obvious lie, but Owen doesn't comment. "You don't have to clean up the table, you know, that's kinda what the waiters are for.
They've had this discussion dozens of times. Owen still shrugs and says, "I know." It just feels weird not cleaning it up. He hates leaving messes for other people to take care of. He grabs his unfinished box of fries while Harris inhales the rest of his burger. Harris insists on paying, like he always does, because he's a nice guy. Owen lets him, like he always does, because the both of them know that Owen's money is a little tight.
Neither of them mention Emily on the way back to Owen's house.
_____
Owen finds himself in the school library Monday morning before school starts. He's flipping through a copy of the yearbook from two years ago, scrutinizing each picture for Emily's face. He's already looked in the entirety of last year's book with no luck, so hopefully he finds something in this one...
Bingo.
The image is of three students in a classroom. They seem to be paying close attention to a teacher who's not in the image. The boy's face is partially obscured by a curtain of red hair. One girl seems to be gnawing absentmindedly at a silver sphere in her lip. The third student has been angrily scribbled over with a brown marker.
Despite the vandalism, Owen can see a portion of a hoodie sleeve that resembles the purple one Emily wears. The caption of the picture has the names of the students and informs the viewer that they're hard at work in some math class. One name has been crossed out.
There are a total of four pictures in the book that have been similarly colored over, and each of them is accompanied by a name that has been hidden with the marker. There's also an index entry that's been scribbled on; if this is Emily (and he's about 99% sure it is), then her last name starts with an "H." Good to know.
_____
Owen stops and stretches halfway through the fourth yearbook. When was the last time he moved? He's not really sure. A glance at the clock tells him he's been sitting here for about 45 minutes, and he still has roughly 10 minutes until school starts. He can work with that.
This is the third book in a row with pictures of Emily scribbled out, all of them with the same brown marker. This picture in particular has caught Owen's interest because...
...Harris is in it, too.
Well, Harris and another girl. She's tall with thick cornrows cascading off her head and framing her face. In the picture, she's bent over a bit to rest her arms around Emily and Harris's shoulders, and she has a small smirk on her face. The Harris in the picture is beaming with a face that's definitely a bit rounder than it is now, but there's no mistaking him.
"Harris Espino, Rhea Mossman, and..." the discernable section of the caption reads. The marker swallows the rest of the line.
Owen sits back in his chair. That has to be the Rhea that Harris was speaking with on the phone on Friday night, the Rhea that cut their time at the bowling alley short... she knew Emily, too. The picture looks to have been taken in the bowling alley, which means they were close enough that they hung out outside of school. Harris did know Emily before she died. Had he lied on Saturday... or did he genuinely not remember her?
_____
It's colder here, for some reason. Owen has walked this hallway route plenty of times before without any random temperature changes, so Emily must be around. He hasn't spoken to her since Harris dragged him out of the science lab Friday afternoon.
It's weird. His lungs feel... tight. Tense. Is Emily doing this, somehow? She's never been able to physically affect him before. Sometimes he shivers when the air around her gets particularly cold, but... it's never been this cold, either.
He peers around a corner, and there she is. She's wedged into another corner between a wall and a group of lockers, though her back is to Owen. She's hugging her knees, with her feet hovering about a foot above the ground. Her short hair is floating and writhing in the air, making her look like she's submerged underwater, and her clothes are shifting ominously as well.
"Emily?" he asks quietly. He steps closer to her. The already cold air drops another few degrees as he approaches. That's not good.
"She tried to kill me," Emily says quietly.
"What?" Owen stares. Does that mean Emily remembers someone killing her? And is that a bloodstain on her forearm? Her face is hidden from him, but she also has a horizontal cut on the far side of her cheek that runs into her ear. Rivulets of scarlet slowly make tracks down from it.
"A girl. After you left. She was kinda scary, and she had a machine thing that beeped and got louder the closer it got to me."
Owen swallows around a lump in his throat. Tries to speak. Can't. He takes in a shuddering breath.
"I tried to get away from her, but she just followed me with that stupid machine. And she... had this other metal thing. Like a bar, almost?"
Owen struggles to suck in air. His lungs feel like they're being filled with something that's not air. The hallway around him starts swimming and swirling together. His numb fingers release the yearbooks he's holding as his hands start to rub at his throat.
"She kept poking me with it." She slowly straightens and turns towards him. Her voice is somewhere between pleading and angry, and her fists are balled at her sides. Owen involuntarily staggers backwards from her.
Her throat is a mangled mess. It looks like it's been hacked at with something sharp.
"She couldn't see me, but she knew I was there."
Emily floats ominously closer. Owen's back hits the lockers, and he claws at his throat. Blood spills out of her injury onto her front.
"She said 'Gotcha!' and she kept poking me and it HURT."
The last few words are distorted. Her face is inches from his, and Owen can't breathe. He involuntarily staggers backward from her. He's tired. So tired, so lonely, he doesn't want to do this anymore, and there's something in his lungs and he's choking and he just wants to sleep forever, why did he have to die...?
Darkness.
Disclaimer: This is work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
