Less Dead

Fifteen-year-old Jessica Keeling's eyes stung as she forced them open. Milky eyes stared into hers, the eyes of a dead man. For a moment she couldn't breathe. She opened her mouth to scream, but instead tasted death. The smell of stale urine and dried blood filled her nostrils.
Her knees scraped against the cold, damp concrete as she scrabbled to her feet. Early morning sunlight filtered down to the bottom of the outdoor stairwell, providing enough light to see the brick-colored ribbon across the man's throat. She squeezed her eyes shut to block out the sight, but not soon enough. Not before she recognized him.
Shit! Could she have done this? Her stomach lurched at the thought. She tried to reach back through time to recapture the night, but her drug-splintered mind flashed only psychedelic fragments.
Her knees wobbled and she leaned against the wall for support. Jessica forced herself to focus on a dark smudge of dirt on the opposite wall a few feet away. Any place but on the body next to her feet.
Think, stupid! Where was she? Birds chirped overhead, the wind whispered through the trees, a bus rumbled close by. August humidity plastered her black dress to her moist skin. She looked skyward, a move that caused her to cry out and her head to throb.
Squinting into the sun, she recognized the glass towers that dominated downtown Houston. Damn! How did she get here? She didn’t want to think about what happened to the dead guy. What was his name? Peter something.
Jessica had a vague memory of meeting him at Numbers, a nightclub in the Montrose section of Houston. Mostly college kids went there because the gray square building was large, dark, and noisy—great for dancing, and listening to live alternative bands. Way off the chain, in her opinion.
Funny thing about memory, how some things come back but not others. She remembered being surprised that Peter had picked Numbers to meet. He was too old, for chrissake—old enough to be her father.
Her father. Damn it! He wanted to talk to her about her father. A tidal wave of anger burst over her and pounded the memory deeper into oblivion. Her father had left her. A deserter.
She didn’t believe Peter at first. How could she? The last time she had seen Daddy Dearest was eight months ago after they drove here from Pine Cove. First time they’d been back to the city since Mom died. Daddy Dearest dropped her off at a Starbucks on the corner of Westheimer and Montrose.
“Be right back,” he promised as he kissed her on the forehead. Those words burned into her heart as she waited, and waited. But he never returned and his promise left a taste in her mouth like coal dust.
Then Peter found her, after all these months, claiming to be daddy's friend, saying all the right words. Why didn’t dear ol’ dad come for her himself? She should have known it would be a scam, another betrayal. It was enough to make her spit.
Her anger gave way to more tears as she gazed down at Peter’s crumpled, blood-stained body. She remembered something else from the night before. Someone handing her a drink—against the rules because of her age—but she was with Peter so it must have been okay. Then her world swallowed into a black pit until she awoke to this surreal nightmare.