The head made a tearing sound as Lucy ripped it off. Like the scrape of Velcro.
Lucy’s eyes lit up and her grin spread across her face as she held Kent’s head up high.
I uttered a long howl of terror, of disbelief.
I shut my eyes.
I couldn’t bear to see his lifeless head, frozen forever in an expression of shock and horror. I couldn’t bear to see Lucy’s gleeful grin.
“Let’s switch!” Lucy’s shrill scream rose into the night air like a wailing siren. “Let’s switch! Come on—let’s switch!”
I kept my eyes closed. I never wanted to open them again.
“Let’s switch!” Lucy shrieked. “Come on, Nicole! You switch heads with Kent—and then I’ll switch with you!”
Her high laugh made my entire body shudder.
A few seconds later I heard a car door slam.
I opened my eyes in time to see two men climb out of a black car and come running across the grass. Two gray-suited men.
The Shadyside police officers.
They came charging up beside me. Each of them took one of my arms. Their grip was gentle but firm.
My heart pounded in a wild, unnatural rhythm. My breath caught in my throat. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t shout out my fear, my terror.
I searched for Lucy and Kent. But they had vanished.
Hearing another car rumble up Grandma Carla’s driveway, I turned. The car was filled with people.
All four doors opened at once. I saw my parents climb out and gaze my way. Then I recognized Lucy’s parents.
Not dead? The Kramers—not dead?
And then Kent climbed out of the backseat.
They surrounded me quickly, all talking at once.
The two gray-suited men stepped back as my mom threw her arms around me, hugged me, hugged me so tight, weeping, her shoulders trembling. I could feel Mom’s hot tears on my face.
“Nicole, Nicole,” she whispered my name, pressing her cheek against mine.
When she backed away, Dad hugged me, too.
The two gray-suited men stood tensely at my sides.
Blinking away my own tears, struggling to lift the confusion from my mind, I stared at the Kramers and at Kent.
Not dead.
Not murdered.
All of them alive.
And then I saw Grandma Carla in the middle of the group.
“We’re so sorry,” Mom was telling her. “We’re so sorry Nicole came up here and troubled you. We thought Nicole was okay. We really thought she was over it.”
Over it?
What was Mom talking about?
“Nicole has been okay for nearly a year,” Mom told Grandma Carla. “No wild nightmares. No hallucinations. No identity problems.”
I shook my head, trying to clear it. I desperately wanted to understand Mom, but I couldn’t.
I turned and saw Dad talking to Kent. “Kent, that was so good of you to tell us Nicole had slipped again,” Dad was saying. “And so decent of you to follow her here. We’ve had these two doctors from the hospital on her trail.” Dad pointed to the gray-suited men. “But we never would have found Nicole without you.”
Hospital workers?
They weren’t police officers?
Kent muttered something, his eyes on the ground. I couldn’t hear what he said.
They were all talking at once. It was so hard to understand.
I turned to see Grandma Carla shake her head fretfully. “Poor Lucy has been dead for three years,” she said sadly. “That horrible, horrible car accident . . .” Her voice trailed off. She let out a long sigh.
“Nicole started having the hallucinations right after Lucy died,” Mom explained to her. “She started seeing horrible deaths. They were all in her mind. But they were so real to her.”
Grandma Carla tsk-tsked, shaking her head sadly.
My mom continued: “After Lucy died, Nicole started talking to her, imagining that Lucy was still with her. And sometimes . . . sometimes . . .”
Mom’s voice caught in her throat. She swallowed hard. “Sometimes Nicole even imagines that she is Lucy,” she told Grandma Carla.
“She just can’t accept the fact that Lucy has been dead for three years,” Dad added sadly.
“You’ll get her the help she needs,” Grandma Carla replied softly. “She’ll be okay. I’m sure.”
They continued talking. Their voices blended into each other. Became just sound to me.
I didn’t really care what they were saying. I felt happy now.
I felt happy to see them. Happy and relieved that I didn’t have to run anymore. Happy that everyone was alive and okay.
So happy that I didn’t even put up a fight as the two gray-suited men led me to their car.