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Sadly, Rocket wasn’t the easiest being to get inforive le them out of him First, however, I needed to know about the suicide victi If I had to choose between me and the suicide victims, I’d have to choose the latter They could’ve been abducted They could still be alive and suffering Their safety had to come first in this situation Thenabout eneral sucked My oould probably suck even worse from my point of view It was hard to tell at this juncture

I took the stairs to the base the basement lately, as it had a few unused walls I turned on ot

"Could this place be any creepier?" Jessica asked, appearing behind h afraid to touch anything

"It is now," I said, refraining fro voice fluttered through the air toward nized the voice as Strawberry Shortcake’s – not her real nairl who’d drohen she was nine She’d taken up residence with Rocket and his little sister, Blue Bell My gratitude with respect to that fact knew no bounds, because before SS had taken to squatting at the asylum, she was better known as a crazy stalker chick arned me repeatedly to stay away from her brother, David Taft, a police officer in my uncle’s precinct And she often tried to scratchquality

Since Taft and I could barely stand each other, her concerns had never truly been an issue, but she’d seenskanks Her words After that, she decided I needed to date hi Chrissy from Three’s Company to push the issue

Jessica and I turned toward her SS wore her usual pink Strawberry Shortcake paja blond hair hung in tangles down her back as always, and her baby blues shih her luster had a general grayness to it, she was as solid to ave the departed away And the cold But more than that, their lack of emotion was a real tip-off – I couldn’t feel any radiating off the dead, as I could the living Even without those signs, there was soible about the departed thatthe living It just registered in the back of my mind when I met someone who’d departed I could always sense it From the day I was born, I knew there were two kinds of people: the living and the dead

What took er to comprehend was the fact that not everyone was able to see the departed My confusion had causedup Especially with my stepmother But that was a story – or, well, a dozen or so stories – for another tied Barbie doll with its hair chopped off in large chunks Which wasn’t creepy at all Poor Malibu Barbie All her Malibu friends would be horrified Taft told me his sister had always cut off her dolls’ hair A fact that kind of scared ht of a departed child in dire need of therapy cuttingto ease my mind as I fell into oblivion

"Why a down and wiping a se off her cheek She really was quite beautiful It pained iven the chance For the life to be ripped away fro just see to die soon"

On second thought, maybe she was better off Away fro suspicion she would have become a serial killer Or a tele I don’t"

"I hope you do You can live with us"

"She is adorable," Jessica said, kneeling beside me "What’s your naers And I especially can’t tell them my name is Becky Or that I’m nine Or that --"