Dead Girl Walking

Two

Chapter Two

Two weeks later, here we are. No leads on who killed me, where the rest of me is, or what exactly happened. No one knows why my head was found there, just my head, found on a dirt path leading to a family park.

For a while, they investigated Marcus. Said it was suspicious he came to the station, already knowing that it was his girlfriend that was found. It wasn't suspicious to me, he was only trying to help out. Marcus was proved innocent when they found the school's and his home's security footage. He left our junior prom at eleven, stopped at a gas station to get a KitKat, and returned to his home at eleven-thirty.

And I was seen leaving prom at eleven-fifteen, a security camera picking me up walking towards the Shady Oak's Path, at eleven-forty. The killer wasn't Marcus, unless he snuck out of his house just as he returned, dodged all security footage on the way, and then killed me. But that wasn't sensible and Marcus wouldn't do that. I know Marcus was not the killer. Or was he? How could I ever be so sure?

The police searched just about everywhere for the rest of me, in hopes of giving me an autopsy and then finding out how I died and who killed me. They could also more accurately determine my time of death, because now it was a vague estimate that I was killed somewhere between eleven-fifty and two A.M. But that wasn't for sure at all, they only had my head to come to that conclusion.

Before they found the killer, they must find my body. But, they couldn't. They dug up the entire Shady Oaks Park, checked septic tanks, the river, peoples' homes, attics, the entire school building- everywhere I could be. Every inch of every corner was searched and there was no trace of me in any of it. Just my head on that path.

Who would've even wanted to kill me? I had no grudges, no enemies. Past Kam was a friendly girl, dating a popular guy at school, good grades, and a star volleyball player- best on her team. Maybe someone was jealous of her, wanted Marcus, wanted what she had?

Present Kam was full of nothing but rage. Actually, maybe that was a lie. I was made up of so much more of rage, but anger presented itself most definitely. Despair, shame even. Why did I feel shameful? Why was I always wearing that hot-faced feeling of shame? Was it because I felt guilty for not returning home to my parents, guilty for sleeping in the bed they expected I would wake up in? And why was I angry? It wasn't because I died, we all have to. It was the way I was killed. The way people weren't doing more to find out what happened.

Sure, the police were searching. But was Marcus doing? Sitting in his bedroom, playing video games? Maybe I could go check, maybe it was Marcus who killed me. Why else would he be so unfazed?

And where was Mom? Taking pills in her bedroom, like she did all those years ago? And why was she crying before she knew I was dead? She didn't come into my bedroom, no, of course she didn't. I would have woken up sooner. Woken up from my lifeless rest.

So who was it? Mom, Marcus? No. What was I even thinking? They wouldn't have killed me, they loved me. Right?

Maybe I'm going crazy. I mean, what else would anyone expect? I'm a dead girl, sleeping in the same bed I did as I was alive. I'm dead. My head was found, but it's still intact with the body I live in now. I'm still wearing my same clothes, and they don't have blood on them.

Blood. There was so much blood on that Shady Oaks path. They didn't need to do that to my parents, to make them confirm who I was. They could have checked my blood. They didn't have to do that to Mom.

Who was I? Was I still Kam? Had I looked in the mirror since I died, taken a shower, had I done anything? These past two weeks, I've been laying down in my bed, asking myself a single question. Why?