The Girl Who Wasn't There

  Nick Clausen

  The Girl Who Wasn’t There

  CONTENT

  Get a Free Book

  PART ONE

  Day 1

  Day 50

  Day 51

  Day 54

  Day 57

  Day 58

  Day 60

  Day 61

  Day 78

  Day 80

  Day 81

  Day 84

  Day 87

  Day 95

  PART TWO

  Day 1

  Day 2

  Day 3

  Day 4

  Day 5

  Day 10

  Day 11

  Day 18

  Day 20

  Day 21

  Day 23

  Day 28

  Day 76

  Day 89

  Day 91

  Day 97

  Day 98

  Day 99

  PART THREE

  Day 107

  Day 103

  Day 104

  Day 107

  Day 108

  Day 113

  Day 114

  Day 115

  EPILOGUE

  About the author

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  The exciting beginning of the zombie apocalypse.

  What happened to set it all off?

  Who was responsible for the disaster?

  And could it have been avoided?

  Find all the answers in Day 0.

  Whether you already read the Dead Meat series or haven’t begun yet, this thrilling prequel will satisfy your craving.

  Get it now for FREE at

  nickclausenbooks.com

  PART ONE

  ANDY WISLER

  DAY 1

  It happens on a perfectly ordinary grey Tuesday afternoon in late March. They’re on their way home from school. Andy is pushing his bike and Rebecca is walking next to him on the sidewalk, skipping along to some annoying song playing on her phone.

  “We have to make a quick stop at the library,” Andy says, stopping by the intersection next to the red brick building. “I need a new book.”

  “I don’t want to,” Rebecca says, shaking her head. “I’ll just keep walking and you can catch up.”

  Andy steps in front of her, cutting her off. “No. Mom says we should always go together.”

  “You’re the one who doesn’t want to go together. I don’t want to go into the stupid library.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t feel like it. Books are so boooring!”

  “It’ll only be a minute. And could you please turn that off?”

  Rebecca doesn’t pause the song, instead she crosses her arms. She’s wearing her thick, purple winter jacket, which makes her look even more stern. “You go ahead into the library,” she says, smiling falsely. “But you can’t make me go with you.”

  Andy frowns. “Are you going to wait out here then?”

  “Perhaps,” Rebecca says, glancing up at the sky.

  “Perhaps?” Andy repeats. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means: Perhaps I’ll wait, perhaps I won’t.”

  Andy feels irritation arise. They’ve been down this road so many times before, and he knows exactly how it’ll end. Whenever Rebecca is like this, there’s no way of bending her will. Neither prayers nor threats can make her obey. Still, he points at her and says, putting on his sternest demeanor: “You’ll wait here until I get back.”

  Rebecca doesn’t reply; she just stands there, avoiding his eye, humming along to the music.

  Andy stares at her menacingly for another moment, attempting to intimidate her into staying put. Then, he crosses the street and parks his bike by the bike rack. As he darts a glance back across his shoulder, he sees Rebecca on the other side of the street, one arm raised to wave sarcastically at him, the way old ladies wave in the movies.

  Later, Andy will think back to this moment a thousand times. He’ll come to wish he had waved back at Rebecca, even though he knew she only waved to annoy him. But an ironic wave of goodbye would still be a lot better than no goodbye at all.

  Then again, if Andy had known what was to come, he would have simply never gone into the library. He would have walked right back to Rebecca, and they would have gone home together and nothing bad would have happened.

  But Andy doesn’t know the future.

  And he’s angry with Rebecca at that moment.

  So, he scoffs and turns his back to her, then marches into the library.

  As soon as the glass doors slide shut behind him, Andy’s anger dissipates like fog in the sunny morning air. He’s entered the world of books, and he can’t be angry here.

  Not many people are at the library this afternoon; in fact, he seems to be the only one. It’s a small-town library with only a few librarians, and they’re only here every other day.

  Andy unwraps his scarf and inhales the scent of the books. Ever since he learned to read, Andy has loved books more than anything, and he feels the old excitement bubble up now at the mere thought of the countless universes lurking between the pages. In those universes he can get lost for hours on end. And there is no one bullying or annoying him, no one making demands or yelling at him.

  Andy goes down row B and lets his gaze glide across the spines, searching for one that looks intriguing, when, suddenly, the tip of his shoe bumps into something.

  He looks down to see a book on the floor. He picks it up. It’s an older one with an anonymous, red leather binding. There is no text on the spine, nor on the front cover. Only a title engraved into the leather in scratched gold letters:

  THE WENDIGO

  Andy has never come across the book before, and he’s never heard the title mentioned either; he has no idea what a wendigo is. There’s something intriguing about the name, though; it sounds somehow ominous.

  He leafs briefly through the pages and skims the text. The story seems promising, so he brings the book to the terminal and beeps it through.

  A cold gust of wind leaps at him the moment he steps outside the library again, biting his cheeks and forehead. His gaze immediately seeks the other side of the street, where he last saw Rebecca, but he can’t hear her music playing, and she’s no longer to be seen.

  Of course she’s gone. That little brat.

  Andy looks in both directions just in time to catch a glimpse of purple, as Rebecca turns down a side street a couple hundred yards away. Andy grabs his bike and takes up pursuit.

  Apparently, Rebecca is intent on jerking him around, as she is walking the opposite way from home. Her plan, no doubt, is to give him a good scare by making him believe she’s gone home, then, when Andy shows up to find the house empty, he will panic.

  But I saw you, you sly devil, Andy thinks, a triumphant smile tugging at his lips. You’re not fooling me.

  Thanks to his bike, Andy is a lot faster than Rebecca, so it takes him only a moment to reach the street where she turned, and once again he’s just in time to see her turn down a new side street.

  Andy decides to play along.

  Rebecca obviously thinks she has the upper hand, since she doesn’t know Andy is onto her. So, he rides along at a comfortable speed, following along every time she makes another turn, making sure to stay far enough behind so as to not be seen in case Rebecca decides to look back. She doesn’t look back, though, not even once—which proves to Andy just how confident she must be in the fact that she fooled him, and it makes him chuckle to himself.

  Then, she suddenly turns into the driveway of a random house, goes to the front door, opens it and disappears inside.

  What the heck?

  Andy speeds up and reaches the house. He has no idea who lives in the
re, and the names on the mailbox don’t make him any the wiser. He looks up at the house, but can’t see anyone in the windows.

  Andy just stands by his bike for a moment, brooding.

  Could it be a trick? Did Rebecca spot him after all and is now trying to throw him off?

  No, he doesn’t think it likely she would walk into a strange home just to mess with him. She might be devious, but she’s not stupid.

  Which means, of course, that Rebecca must know the people who live in the house. Probably someone from Rebecca’s class.

  So, that was her plan all along. Go to one of her friends’ house and let me rush home alone, totally worried about where she might be.

  Andy bites off his glove and pulls out his phone. He types a quick text.

  You can come out now. I saw you.

  He keeps an eye on the front door, but it doesn’t open for several minutes. And Rebecca doesn’t text him back.

  Soon, Andy begins to lose patience. He’s also freezing. He puts his bike on the stand, goes up to the front door and knocks on it, loudly.

  The door is opened, and a girl from Rebecca’s class looks out at him with an expression of mild surprise. Andy can’t recall her name—maybe Freya or Faye or something like that.

  “Hi,” the girl says, as she apparently recognizes Andy. “What do you want?”

  “You can tell Rebecca to come out now,” Andy says, sniffing. “I’m taking her home.”

  “Rebecca isn’t here,” the girl says, her tone innocent.

  “Yeah, she is.”

  The girl shakes her head, causing her bangs to swing. “No, she really isn’t.”

  “Well, I saw her go in.”

  “When?”

  “Just a minute ago.”

  The girl—her expression still serene—shrugs. “I haven’t seen Rebecca since class today. Honestly. It’s just me and my mom home.”

  Andy is growing annoyed with the girl and the way she’s covering for Rebecca. Rebecca probably instructed her to play oblivious, and the girl is doing a pretty good job pretending.

  He stretches his neck and sees Rebecca’s jacket on the rack. “I can see her jacket,” he says, pointing. “The purple one.”

  The girl looks back briefly, then says: “That’s my jacket.”

  Andy opens his mouth to answer, but is suddenly struck silent, as something falls into place. He never really saw the girl in the purple jacket up close, did he? No. And come to think of it, he couldn’t hear any music playing, either. And the way she walked without glancing back …

  Andy realizes the girl is still looking at him with patient bemusement.

  “I, uhm … I’m sorry,” he mutters, backing away. “I think … eh … there’s been a misunderstanding …”

  He turns around and hurries back out to the sidewalk, finds his phone and calls up Rebecca.

  She doesn’t answer. After the fourth ring it goes to voice mail.

  Right, don’t panic now, he tells himself, putting the phone back into his pocket. She’s obviously just gone home, and she knows the way. We’ve walked it together a million times. Nothing happened to her, she’s just—

  Andy is so distraught he goes to cross the street without looking. A yellow van comes out of nowhere, its horn blaring angrily, and Andy leaps back onto the sidewalk, almost tripping over his bike, as the van rushes past. It slows down, and for a moment Andy is sure the driver will jump out and yell at him. But the van only slowed down in order to make a turn at a crossing. It holds and waits for a break in the passing traffic, only one of the brake lights glowing red.

  Andy is just about to jump on his bike, when he hears something.

  It’s a knocking.

  He looks towards the van. It could have been the engine. But it could also have been someone knocking from the inside of the van.

  Then the brake light goes out, the van revs up, rolls out into the crossing, turns and disappears out of sight.

  Andy rides home as fast as he can, panting and sweating under his clothes despite the cold spring air, a nagging sense of dread growing steadily larger in the pit of his stomach all the way.

  If Mom finds out Rebecca has walked home by herself, she’ll blow a fuse—and Andy will be the one blamed. Mom has instructed him several times that since he’s the older one, Rebecca is his responsibility whenever there are no grown-ups around.

  Never mind the fact that she can be a pain in the butt and fight me every step of the way just because she’s in a foul mood! But oh, no, it’s still only my fault if something happens to her!

  But there’s still hope he can avoid a scolding: if he’s lucky, Mom won’t be home from work yet, which means she’ll never know Rebecca and Andy split up.

  Of course, Rebecca might tell on him as soon as Mom gets home—it would be just like her, ratting him out to get him into trouble—but Andy can always deny it, which at least would give him a fifty-fifty chance that Mom will believe his side of the story.

  Andy reaches the house, drops his bike in the driveway—which is empty, meaning Mom isn’t home yet—and runs to the front door. It’s locked. Andy stares at it for a moment, confused. Then he scrambles for the key in his bag and lets himself in.

  The first thing he notices in the hall is that the purple jacket is not on the rack. Still, he calls out: “Becca! You here?” then holds his breath and listens. Only silence from the house. Dad always works late, and Cindy is probably out with her college friends.

  Andy pulls out the phone and calls up Rebecca once more.

  Four rings. Then voice mail.

  “Pick it up,” Andy hisses and tries again immediately. He knows it won’t do any good, but he does it anyway.

  This time, there’s only a single ring before it goes to voice mail. Which means the call has been declined. Or that the phone was shut off. But why would Rebecca do any of those things? Just to mess with him? It’s not completely unlikely, of course—her being somewhere nearby, sniggering at his call—but Andy doesn’t think so. Rebecca has never taken a prank this far before.

  His heart by now is pounding away in his chest, and the anxious feeling in his stomach has grown into full-fledged fear. He checks the time. It’s been more than half an hour since they split up by the library. Would Rebecca really still be mad at him? And if so, where could she be?

  Maybe she’s still just wandering around town. Or maybe she’s lost and can’t find her way home. But then why would she turn off her phone? Maybe it ran out of battery.

  Andy decides him standing here dialoguing with himself won’t do any good. Mom could be home any minute, and when she finds out Andy has come home without Rebecca, she won’t just blow a fuse—Andy is afraid her head might simply explode.

  So, he goes out to look for Rebecca, locking the front door behind him, as he knows Rebecca has her own key.

  Andy rides around town for almost an hour. He checks all the places Rebecca might be: the school, the mall, the park, the playground, even the library. She’s nowhere to be found.

  Finally, he goes back home. He’s really scared now. His last hope is that while he was out looking, Rebecca has come home on her own. That this has all been a mean joke on her part. That she has just been wandering around the streets, biding her time until she was certain Andy was freaking out. He tries to imagine the situation play out. The front door will be unlocked, and he will barge in, call out her name, and she will come striding out casually from the living room to greet him, put her hands to her sides and ask: “What took you so long?”

  “What took me so long?” Andy will burst out. “How about you? Where have you been? I’ve looked all over town for you!”

  And Rebecca will smile her most devilish smile and say: “I took another road.” Or: “I met Anna from class, and we talked for a while.” Or simply: “That’s not any of your business.”

  Andy has a well-developed imagination, and the conversation is so vivid in his mind, he actually has himself convinced that’s how it will play out—he’s
even smiling to himself as he parks his bike in the driveway the second time. He leaps up the steps and grabs the knob.

  His smile withers.

  The door is locked.

  And when he lets himself in using his key, he finds Rebecca’s jacket still not on the rack.

  Then suddenly, standing in the empty, silent house, Andy hears something knocking. The sound is coming from his own heart. But it’s also coming from the yellow van. It’s growing louder and louder inside of him, until it feels like his ribcage is going to break open. That single, red brake light is glaring at him in his mind’s eye, burning him with its evil, monstrous stare. His thoughts begin arguing.

  She’s gone.

  No, she can’t be.

  Someone took her.

  No, that’s not true.

  She’s not coming home.

  She is coming home!

  Stop being a baby.

  Shut up!

  Stop pretending.

  Shut up!

  Andy breathes out heavily and realizes he’s seconds away from crying, which makes him even more scared. He clears his throat and swallows hard.

  Andy knows there’s only one thing left to do now, and he dreads it more than anything. It will wipe out the last hope. It will break the illusion that Rebecca still might show up on her own in a minute or two. It will make it real.

  At the age of thirteen, this is the hardest thing Andy has ever had to do—and that includes the time he crashed on his bike and dislocated his shoulder and had to have the doctor pop it back in. The pain, which was already intense, grew to unfathomable dimensions for a few seconds, and the shock of it almost caused him to faint, scaring him out of ever trusting any doctor ever again telling him that “it’ll only hurt a bit.” But just like then, he has no choice now. The difference is, this time he knows what’s coming. Which makes it even worse.

  He takes out his phone and makes the call.

  Dad answers right away: “Hey, Andy, what’s up?”

  “Dad,” Andy says. His mouth is dry. His voice is trembling. “I think … I think Rebecca is missing.”