Alice McBeth

[Alice]

Prelude

Alice ran down the street. Her breathing was hard and unsteady and there was a certain feeling in her chest that she couldn't shake. Alice was scared.

Of what though? Just a couple of hours ago everything had been so perfect. So normal. So what was she running from now? The question burnt within Alice's mind, within her very soul, and she dreaded the fact that she actually knew the answer to it. She was running because of - from - him.
After she had come what seemed to be a good distance from the horror, she threw herself onto one of the benches that had been placed conveniently by the lake in Albury Park, near where Alice lived. There Alice sat for several moments trying to calm herself down and breathe more normally. She looked into the tranquil waters of the lake. And then she remembered...

They had used to play here. Her and him. In the lake, they would jump in without warning, fully dressed sometimes and on other times they brought bathing suits. No matter what the season had been: spring, summer, fall. They did not mind sharing the lake with their friends that were flowers, sun rays, and leaves. For nothing like those could make the lake any less marvelous; it was just... amazing. And he would go to her home and beg her to come with him to swim in every weekend. Sometimes they got naughty and went a little in the middle of the week as well. It had been such an unimaginable time. And she had loved it.

But not anymore.
Alice shivered, as the memories brought a little tear to her eye. It trickled downward and fell down at her lap. Alice caught the teardrop in the palm of her hand a second before it landed, then, with one unexpected strong gust of Autumn wind, the tear flew away and the spot on her hand became dry and soft again. Alice inhaled deeply. She looked around the park. No one was in sight, so she stood up again and began down the path that the city had had laid down how many years ago. She wanted to be rid of this place, of the lake and all the memories she shared with it. And she wanted to be rid of him, especially.
Somewhere in the back of Alice's mind, as she trudged on home feeling sick in her stomach, she still felt, even as she turned down the corner of Elm and began down her own street, that she was being followed. Like she had been before. And she felt even worse knowing that she might even know who it was that was following her...

Alice ran up the steps, pressing her key home, and burst into the house, shutting the door behind herself. And as soon as it closed, her knees buckled beneath her and she sucked in a breath of relief. She was safe here.

***

Chapter One - Adjusting to the Facts

It was Friday and it had been Alice's night to cook at her house. She lived in the subdivision that took up Best and Oak with her mother and younger brother, Nathan, and she and her mother split duties with each other so when someone else was busy the other could step in and do her chores for her. Mrs. McBeth was working late tonight, so Alice, drained as she still felt, stumbled down the stairs from her bedroom where she had fled immediately after coming home and started into the kitchen.

Nathan was sitting at the dining table trying to read a book. His pronunciation was fuzzy and his pauses stretched a good distance as he read, "Sleepy... lil'... oa-wl..."
Alice moved over to the refrigerator and took out all the ingredients for a half decent salad and a frozen chicken casserole that had only been half eaten the previous night. She popped the casserole into the oven after removing its plastic cover and then took the cutting board over to the table with a knife and began chopping carrots while she loomed over Nathan and watched him turn pages in his book.

Finally, when Alice felt the sick feelings from before starting to come back to her, she asked the question, "Is the book a little too hard for you?" Which she shouldn't have, given that in almost a mechanized reply, Nathan's head shot up and he said very plaintively, "No."
This response did not have Alice's sick feelings come walking back, but instead they came running. Up and down and through herself. He - the person that she thought had been following her - always said no, in that same nonchalant, easy-going voice that Nathan had used. Because he had never thought anything was too hard. Because for him, nothing had been. And now Nathan was beginning to sound exactly like him! Not that Alice had any problem with her brother feeling confident about himself or anything, but the way he reminded her so much of-

"Alice," Nathan's voice came again. Alice risked a smile and resumed chopping up carrot slices, trying to look casual.
"Mmhmm?" she replied.
"I was just... I was just wondering," slurred Nathan, the six-year-old picking at an invisible hair on his chin. "Is there something bothering you? You seem awfully... awfully..." he sat and pondered for a moment, and then finished lamely, "awful."

Alice smiled, and this time it came more naturally. "Northing's the matter, Nathan. Alice is just frustrated that Mommy won't be home until late tonight, so her dinner might get cold," she lied. "Why don't you run upstairs and pop into the bathtub with some of your toys, hm? And Alice will come upstairs and get you when dinner's all ready to eat."
Nathan looked thoughtful for a moment, then closed his book, grinning. "Okay!" He said in beatitude, for Alice hardly ever let him bathe with his toys, and zoomed from the table and up the stairs as fast as his little legs could allow.

Alice exhaled. She had been holding her breath ever since Nathan had said "no" to her in the way that he did, and the feelings had started coming back to her. But now that Nathan was gone, she felt it safe to breathe. Finding a bowl from the cupboard, Alice finished with the salad and put it into the fridge to sit for the next half hour that the casserole would take warming. Then she went into the living room. Plopped onto the couch. The coffee table was directly in front of the sofa, like in most families' homes, and the morning paper from various days of the week and even from a couple of months before were scattered all around it.
Alice stared down at the most recent one, and she felt something similar to a snake crawl through her chest. Her breathing fastened as she stared at the headline:

"Local Boy Drowning: A Terror to Visitors of the Albury Park"

And then, Alice began crying again.