Sherry Ficklin - Losing Logan

“Oh, go ahead. I can practically see the hamster wheel in your brain smoking. Ask me whatever.”

“Do you eat?”

“No. Not hungry either. Which is good, since I can’t actually touch anything.”

“What are you standing on? If you can’t touch anything, what keeps your feet on the floor?”

He looks down at his sneakers and puckers his lips. “Good question. I don’t know.”

He squints and slips halfway down into my floor, only his upper half still visible. “Huh,” he says, then floats up so he’s hovering a few feet above the floor.

I wave my hands in front of my face. “No, no. Stop that. That’s too creepy to process.”

He shrugs and once again his feet are firmly on the ground.

“How do you get around? Do you just walk?”

“I can ride on things, in cars. I rode around with Kaylee for a few hours at first, in her Camero.”

Probably screaming at her too, hoping that she, that anyone, could hear him. Oh, lucky me.

“But,” he continues, “After I saw you leave the wake, I waited around to see everyone pay their respects.”

“That must have been strange.”

Uncomfortable, awful. Or, maybe in his case, a huge ego trip. The face he gives me tells me my first thoughts are closer to accurate.

“People wanted to say goodbye. I figured I should give them the chance.”

I nod. “I’m sorry.”

He frowns, “Why?”

“I dunno. For calling you a douche wrench at your own funeral.” For not caring that you died. I want to say the words, but I can’t get them out.

“Douche hammer. You called me a douche hammer.”

I shrug. “I knew it was some kind of tool.”

“Well, we weren’t exactly close.”

“And face it, you are a tool.”

I take a deep breath. The summer before middle school my parents took me on vacation to visit my uncle in Paris for the summer. It was amazing, but when I got back, Logan had a new group of friends. And I was the odd girl out. Then, a few months into school, my father got in a car accident and died. Mom pulled me out to home school for the rest of that year. I just couldn’t face anyone for a while. By the time 8th grade began, Logan and I were like total strangers. He was Mr. Popular. And I was nobody.

“I guess the million dollar question then Is - What exactly do you want from me?”

He squats near my feet, looking up at me. “When you saw me at the funeral, I was terrified. Because that meant that I was really dead, not just having some prolonged nightmare. But then I was relieved too because, I guess, I hoped that you could help me.”

“Help you what?”

He scratches his chin. “I dunno. Help me figure all this out. Help me just…not be so alone.”

I lean forward. “Why should I? Like you said, we aren’t friends.”

He rocks back on his heels. “We used to be.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Well, how about this. You’re going to have to pee some time. And when you do, I’ll be there.”

I make a face. “Fine. Where do we start?”

“Where all strange and possibly evil things begin. Wikipedia.”

I take a long gulp of my energy drink. My room is dark except for the blue glow provided by my computer screen. Sitting back in my desk chair, I stretch and roll my head to the sides and crack my neck.

“Anything?” Logan asks behind me.

I spin in my chair. “If I’d found something I would have said Hey. I found something.”

“You know, you’re really cranky for being the only person in the room who has a body.”I turn back to the screen and flip him off over my shoulder, “Keep flapping your lips and you’ll spend the rest of your afterlife haunting hipsters at Starbucks.”

“Oh, sure. Threaten the dead guy.”

I sigh and lower my head onto the keyboard. It’s after 4 a.m. and even after sleeping all day, I’m exhausted.

“Isn’t there someone else you can haunt for a few hours.”

He stands beside me, leaning over the desk. “Everyone is sleeping. Besides, it’s just depressing.”

I roll my face to the side to look at him. “Being dead?”

He frowns, not looking at me. “Watching everyone else be alive.”

I sit up, slapping my hands down on either side of the keyboard.

“Okay, I have a plan.”

I spin in my chair and accidently graze him. Well, graze is the wrong word. I move through him. A chill runs up my skin and goosebumps erupt across my arms like tiny volcanoes.

I pull back, rubbing my arms. “Well, that was disturbing.”

He shakes his head. “The plan?”

“Oh. Right. I think we should try going to the cemetery.”

He leans back, looking worried. “Why? You want me to try to climb back into my body?”

I think about that for a second. “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I mean, the goal isn’t to make you a zombie, right? Just to find your light or whatever.”

“My light?”

“Yeah, you know.” He stares at me like I’m an idiot. “When people die they see a light. Go into the light and all that.”

“I don’t remember a light.”

I fold my hands on my lap. “What do you remember?”

“About dying? Nothing. I remember opening my eyes and the police were dragging my body out of the water. I remember screaming and no one hearing me. Then I thought about my mom and suddenly I was in my house, standing beside her. She was on the floor, crying.”

That’s interesting. “How did you get into my room?”

He rubs his forehead. “I was thinking of you, how you saw me at the funeral. Then, I was just here.”

Convenient.

“Okay. I think we should go to the cemetery because, well, maybe there are other ghosts there who can help you. You can’t be the only person who ever took a wrong turn heading for the afterlife.”

He looks up, considering it. “And you think you could see them?”

“No, but maybe you can.”

He nods, “That makes sense.”

I stand up and head for my closet. “It’s a place to start, at least.”

Grabbing a pair of pants and a t-shirt off the hangars I turn to see him staring at me.

“Let’s do it.” He says, clapping his hands together.

I pucker my lips. “Yeah, well, I have to get dressed first so you should, you know, turn around. Or go outside. Or something.”

He slaps his hand over his eyes. I put a balled up fist on my hip. “Nice try Casper.”

With a frustrated sigh he vanishes and I hear him calling from my kitchen. “Prude.”

“Perv,” I call back, slipping into my jeans.

Once I’m fully dressed, I grab my car keys and head out. It’s a good thing Mom is working a double shift. She’d kill me if she knew I was heading out to the cemetery in the middle of the night. And if I tried to explain why, she’d have me committed.

“What are you thinking about?” Logan asks as we drive slowly up to the front gate of Stone Hill Cemetery.

I lean over the dash, looking at the towering wrought iron gate and the thick chains binding it closed. “You really want to talk about my feelings, Logan?”

He slides through the door without opening it and stands in front of my head lights. “Pathetic as it is, talking to you has kind of been the highlight of my week. So, yeah.”

I kill the lights and slam the door of my old yellow VW Beetle closed. “Aw, that’s kinda sweet. You know, in a not really sort of way.”

He rolls his eyes. In three long strides he steps toward the black iron bars and runs right into them. Stepping back, he looks stunned. In my mind something clicks into place.

“Ghosts can’t pass through iron,” I say, feeling smug. He turns and stares at me. I shrug. “I saw it on TV.”

He reaches for the bar and wraps his hand around it. As soon as he does his hand begins to smoke like its burning. He yelps, pulls his hand back and rubs it.

“I guess I can feel some things.”

I nod and walk up beside him. “Yeah, iron is like ghost kryptonite. Hey, we should dig up your body, then pour salt on it and light it on fire.”

He stares at me, his nose crinkled up. “Why?”

“To release your spirit.”

“I’m pretty released, thanks.”

“Still.”

“We are not desecrating my corpse based on something you saw on TV.”

I frown. “You have no sense of whimsy, you know that?”

He rolls his eyes and points to a stone wall. “There, we can get in over there. You’ll have to climb it.”

Of course I will. I run back to the car and grab a flashlight off the floorboard, tucking it into my back pocket. As I watch, he steps through the wall.

“All clear,” he whispers.

“You don’t have to whisper, no one can hear you.”

“Oh, right. I forgot.”

I shake my head. This has got to be the absolute top of the list of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. As a matter of fact, this might actually be the list. Clinging carefully to each stone, I climb up. Luckily it’s not very high, but my arms still feel like lead weights when I jump over the other side and land gingerly on my feet.

“Like a ninja,” I whisper as Logan smiles. It’s a warm, sincere smile, something I haven’t seen him wear in a long time—which is a shame because it looks really good on him.

“Where to now?” I ask, dusting off my hands on my jeans.

He shrugs and starts walking. Not sure what else to do, I follow him. We wander past the old, battered headstones toward the newer part of the cemetery which is in the very back. The paths are all old cobblestone, giant obelisks and weeping angels looking down on us as we walk. We pass by a small crypt and I shine the flashlight on the entrance. Over the gate, carved in stone is the phrase, Verum non est in morte.

“What does it say?” Logan asks from behind me.

I know the translation, not because I can read Latin, but because I’d asked my mother the same question as we were leaving my father’s funeral.

“It says, In death there is truth.”

Lowering my light, I shine it around, over the headstones. “Do you see anything?”

He shakes his head. “No. Nothing.”

I sigh, defeated. We walk on until we see a big yellow back hoe parked next to a fresh grave. Logan freezes but I walk closer, shining the light on the name etched into the stone.

Logan Wayne Cooper.

I turn, shining the light on Logan. “Wayne, really?”

He looks away, “My dad likes old westerns.”

“Huh.” I step around the grave, careful not to disturb the freshly mounded dirt or the stacks of fresh flowers. “I hear they take these flowers and give them to the old people at the nursing home,” I say, desperate to break the silence. He doesn’t answer. When I glance up his back is to me. The moonlight is hitting him at an odd angle, making him almost glow. It’s so beautiful that for a moment I’m transfixed by it. He looks over his shoulder at me and all I can think is how beautiful he is. Like an angel.

Then he opens his mouth.

“What are you staring at?”

I roll my eyes. “Just wondering if you’re going to do something or just stand there sparkling like an idiot.”

“What do you want me to do?” he asks, throwing his hands in the air.

I inhale slowly. “You said you thought of me, and then you were just there, in my room, right?”

“Yeah.” He turns, walking toward me.

I shift from one foot to the other. “Well, maybe you should think of…I dunno…heaven. Or whatever.”

“Heaven?” He snorts.

“Don’t get an attitude with me, there buddy. I’m standing in a cemetery at five in the morning next to a fresh grave talking to a dead guy. My tolerance has its limits.”

“Fine.” He grumbles. He closes his eyes takes a deep breath and…

Nothing.

He opens one eye. Then his face falls. “This was a stupid idea.”

“Your face is stupid.”

He stomps away, tugging on his hair. Then he spins back, pointing at me. “You know, you are such a joy to be around. I can’t imagine why you don’t have any friends.”

That hurts. “I have friends,” I whisper.

“Oh, I forgot. Gay Carlos tolerates you. That doesn’t make you his friend. It makes you his hag.”

The pain from his words is so quick and so sharp it feels like he slapped me in the face. I recover quickly, the pain feeding my already growing anger.

“Listen up you pompous ass waffle. Number one, don’t you ever talk about Carlos that way again. He’s worth ten of you. And two, you can take your afterlife drama and shove it. Don’t come to my house, don’t ever bother me again. I mean it. You are on your own.” Turning my back on him I march out of the cemetery, scale the wall, and drive home, fighting back tears of rage the whole way.