Almost Angels

**Contains smidgeons of murder**

"I dare you!"

Meryl couldn't resist a dare. She never could.

She opened the car door and ran out into the cemetery.

It was a night in a million. Not fog, but low clouds hovered around the gravestones. So satisfyingly spooky.

There were no stars, but the overcast sky above was bright with moonlight. Meryl could see her way just fine and hid behind a tall stone that read Margaret Lesko 1840 to 1913. A woman who died over a hundred years ago and her stone yet survived.

"Here I come," said Lucas.

Meryl held her breath to keep from laughing and put her hand over her mouth. What she'd meant to do was jump out when Lucas ran past, throw her arms around his muscular shoulders, and wrestle him to the ground. Then they'd kiss, and then…

She heard his footsteps running across the grass. He called her name while headed in the wrong direction. She was going to wail, "Lucas," in a horror story voice, but several male voices interrupted from somewhere, and she held it in.

"Who are you?" 

No! 

NO! 

A gunshot.

~*~

Moonlight shined through the kitchen window onto her mother's table. A vase of dead flowers with a little card on a stick lost its color in the pale light. A pile of used tissues surrounded a box of Kleenex used to prop up her senior picture.

Mom? She called out. No answer. Mom?

She opened her mother's bedroom door. Both her parents were asleep in bed. She kissed her mother's cheek, still wet from tears. Mom stirred and smiled without waking.

~*~

Meryl walked through the halls of the high school, looking for Lucas. Her friends were just up ahead. When the bell rang, everyone disappeared into the classrooms. Meryl drifted into first-hour Social Studies and sat at her desk. Sue Ann shivered as she walked past and put her jacket back on. The words Imports and Exports were written on the board. Lucas's seat was empty.

~*~

Lucas's parents and siblings stood outside the hospital room. Meryl tried to see inside room 314A, but a team of medical personnel surrounded the bed. Machinery breathed and pulsed lights. Lucas? She called. No answer. She could have gone inside, but she didn't want to interrupt the doctors.

I love you, Lucas, she whispered.

~*~

Autumn, and the trees had turned. A mildly wild wind rustled through the colorful leaves, backdropped by a steel grey sky. Meryl strolled through Charlton Park, kicking the leaves on the ground. During the summer months, roses filled the gardens, and on Saturdays, brides, grooms, and their guests filled the park with ceremonies. Now, the roses were supplanted by burning bushes and mums. Some weddings were still performed in the park during this time of year, but not today. It was Thursday and chilly, and no one else was here. Not even a dog walker.

She walked to the playground and sat in Lucas's swing, the one he used when they came together. Here, they had slid down the slides and got silly dizzy on the old-fashioned merry-go-round.

I dare you to slide headfirst!

Lucas had taken her up on the dare, and she followed after him. Then they slid down the slide together in each other's arms. A police car drove slowly through the park, looking them over because they'd been making so much noise. It was only eight o'clock, but dark settled early this time of year.

~*~

The police station was downtown. Meryl walked past the desk clerks and the stairs where they kept the bodies waiting to be identified by their loved ones. She wouldn't think about that. She sat down in the chair in front of Detective Greta ONeal's desk. The pictures of four men sat on top of paper files. Meryl shuddered.

That's them, she said. But there were only three. Who is this fourth man?

When Detective ONeal left her seat, Meryl read the report. It seemed Lucas had interrupted the execution of the fourth man who'd been able to run away before Meryl got there. The fourth man was under protection as a witness to this crime and others. He owed a great deal of money to an organization of criminals.

~*~

There was a jewelry store on the corner, a few blocks away from the police station. Meryl looked through the window at the rings, the same window she and Lucas had looked through together. The diamond with the golden heart was gone. It had been a small diamond. A quarter carat, maybe, but Lucas had asked which one was her favorite, and she'd told him she loved that one. Someone said Lucas had bought a ring. Had he? Where was it? She looked at her hand, surprised to see it on her finger. She didn't remember Lucas giving it to her.

It belongs to her. She should have it.

Who said that? Lucas's mother? Meryl always had the feeling Mrs. Kessler didn't like her.

Lucas would have wanted her to have it.

Yes, Mrs. Kessler’s voice.

They had slipped it onto her finger at the funeral home and buried her with the ring. She glanced over her clothes and found herself not wearing the clothes she died in but the dress she'd worn for her senior pictures. 

…The same dress she'd worn to her funeral. So, confusing to be dead, at first. All her friends were there. Everyone from the high school she knew and didn't know. Every one of her relatives. Poor Grandma. She didn't understand. Her parents were so sad. And Lucas's parents…

~*~

Meryl ran out from her hiding spot behind the stone toward the sound of the gun. Lucas lay as still as the grave markers surrounding him. Blood ran from his head to his face! The man holding the gun was surprised to see her running toward him at full speed, yelling for Lucas. Unafraid, he lowered the weapon and smirked, nearly laughing.

What have we here?

He hadn't expected her to jump at him the way she did, and it knocked him to the ground. As he fell, she wrested the gun from his hand and shot. After that, one of the other two men put their hands around her neck and choked her life away.

As she faded, she saw a bright light open wide above her head, and the gunman rushed toward it. Before he got there, a shadow whisked him away. The light waited for her, but Meryl stayed behind with Lucas. The red and blue lights came too late for her but not for him. She rode to the hospital in the ambulance.

~*~

Meryl sat on Lucas's hospital bed with her arms around him. His mother sat in the chair closest to the bed. His father sat beside her, and his two younger brothers sat in the room's wide window seat. No one spoke as the machines whistled and pumped.

There's little to no activity in the brain.

He may never come out of the coma.

He will never breathe on his own.

Spend as much time as you like with him. You tell us when.

Lucas opened his eyes and smiled when he saw Meryl. The machines set off alarms. A doctor came in and checked Lucas' vitals, then shook his head at the family. He disconnected all the machines and left the room so Lucas's family could say goodbye.

Meryl cried while his family suffered through the realization that all hope was lost.

His mother was the last to leave the room.

The worst was watching Lucas work out that he was dead.

“I’m here,” she whispered.

A bright light opened wide above them as they held each other.

Shall we go? Lucas asked of the light.

Do you think they'll let us stay together?

They kissed and decided to stay a little longer.

We can always come back to the hospital and jump up into someone else's light, they reasoned. We shall see. 

~*~

After Lucas's funeral, he wore a suit instead of a hospital gown. They found they could revisit any place they'd already been, including the movie theatre. Every night, they kissed their mothers on their cheeks as they slept.

~*~

It was years later, in October, on the road beside the cemetery, long past dark. A pair of headlights came into view and headed their way.

I'm going to scream this time, said Meryl.

I dare you!

I will! 

When the car was close enough, Meryl and Lucas stepped in front of it. Meryl screamed.

Tires squealed and screeched, and gravel flew as the car came near to losing control and then stopped.

"Did you see that?" the driver screamed.

"I saw it!" the passenger screamed back. "The ghosts of those murdered teenagers that haunt this road every year. I think I even got it on video! If you're alright, then let's go. There's no signal out here, and I can't wait to post this."