Afterlife of Alanna Miller

Part 8

EIGHT

Writing this s**t down helped Caitlin, so I guess it can't be that bad. I don't want to leave it anywhere Chris can find it, though, so I figured if I emailed it to you and deleted it off my computer, she'd never see it. And if you've found a way to check your email in the afterlife...I miss you, Alanna. Every damn day.

Tonight I went to the morgue again. I was looking for you – I knew I was there to identify you. It smelled like formalin, just like the dissection labs at uni, and the cadavers seemed to be the only other people there. There was no one else – just me. No police or staff in scrubs. Sometimes they're there and sometimes they aren't. No idea why. But this time was different again.

Until I got to the coolers where your body was stored. There must've been half a dozen of them crowded around you on an examination table, all wearing scrubs and not saying anything. Just staring and doing things to your body and you were fighting them and screaming. The smallest one had a knife between your legs and she was making incisions. They didn't bleed, of course, because from your blue skin I could tell you were dead, but you were still screaming. She was spelling out my name on your thigh – and I moved to get a better look and I realised she'd already written Chris's name on your other leg. Carved into your skin just like Caitlin.

There was another body on the other examination table – two tables, two bodies, but the other one was covered and ignored. And then it sat up and shoved the plastic sheet off and it was Caitlin. Her skin was as pale and bluish as yours, but her eyes had hell in them and she lifted up a g*n. She shot the people around you, one by one, and they fell on the floor, blood oozing from the head shots. And then she slid off the table and walked over to you. She whispered something and touched your face and you reached up and touched hers for just a moment before your arm flopped back on the table and you were dead again.

I must have said something because she turned to stare straight at me. And she lifted her weapon, aimed it at me, and I woke up.

I bet there's dream interpreters who'd tell me all sorts of things about what it might mean. That you're dead and that Caitlin would kill the people who hurt you. That maybe she's dead, too, and she's out to kill me. Or maybe I don't eat enough bran. Or dairy. Or something.

I know what it means, though. It means I'm probably going crazy and not going to get any more sleep tonight unless I take some pills to knock myself out. So that's what I'll do.