Saturday April 7, 2024 12:00 p.m.

Amber traced her fingertips along the dusty, velvet-covered seat cushion. She closed her eyes again for a moment. The headache from yesterday seemed to come back with a newfound ferocity. When she opened her eyes again, the seat was not an earthy gray tone, but a rich maroon. The girl was sitting in it again. Her skinny, white stocking-covered legs dangled over the edge while her feet in their black patent-leather Mary-Janes clicked together. At least they would have made a clicking sound if Amber would have been able to hear it. Amber remembered that her mother once got her a similar getup, with the little white sailor dress with the blue trim and red ribbon in the front. Of course, Amber ruined it the first chance she got while playing with her brother, climbing trees and doing things normal children did. The only problem was, they were in the tree trying to hide from an escaped convict nobody was looking for anymore because he was dead – not merely “presumed” dead, but actually “washed up on silt shore down the creek” dead.

“What are you doing here?” Amber whispered.

The little girl only laughed, her curls shaking. Amber couldn’t help but wonder what the girl’s laughter sounded like. She also wondered what it was that the girl had been doing when she was still alive that had amused her so much. Maybe the girl was watching a cartoon or some Shirley Temple movie. Maybe that was why her hair was curled that way.

The girl kept staring right through Amber. This was beyond frustrating. Amber hated nothing more than the fact that she seemed to be living her life with the sound muted. It was more useless than watching television. Maybe it was her futile attempts at listening to the dead that brought on these damned headaches. It had only been an hour since she last took two of her extra-strength pills. She had taken them consistently over the years, the toll it took on her liver and kidneys was caught almost too late. Now she was paying for it. Ironically, her sight would most likely go too. With her luck, she’d still be able to see the dead even if she was completely incapable of seeing anything else.

“What do you see?” These familiar words did not startle her so much as the way they sounded, reverberating freshly throughout the empty theater.

“Just the girl, Matt.” As soon as she looked up at the figure in a couple aisles up from her, she realized that it wasn’t from the headset. No wonder the words sounded so odd to her.

How had she forgotten that he was there? What did Matt say that guy’s name was? Daniel something-or-other, he was some sort of paranormal investigator. With his hat and coat getup, he certainly looked the part of some sort of detective. Daniel certainly had the look of a relic. She may have even mistaken him for one who walked among the ranks of the dead except for the fact that he had aged as much as his clothes did. Perhaps the one good thing about being dead was that things always stayed the same. Shirts were consistently clean and pressed. There was no such thing as a bad hair day even if the way you wore your hair dated you right to the decade when you passed.

The hat band was a dingy shade of cream when it most likely should have been or used to be at some point a clean shade of white. The rest of the hat was almost mangy with its sandy crushed felt. The coat was shoddy with the seams slightly frayed and had a few dirt and food stains down the front. Amber could tell that the guy practically lived in the hat and coat. She just hoped that he wouldn’t die in it. Then again, her sight wasn’t that good. For one thing, she was only able to see in the past and present. Hell, even the present held some difficulty in her attempts to perceive it clearly.

Now Daniel was pointing some sort of machine at the chair the little girl was sitting in. If any of this was happening in “real” time, it would have made for a disturbing scene in the dim light of the theater. Some unscrupulous assassin was going to take out a poor, helpless little girl. But of course, Amber knew better than to trust her eyes.

“I’m getting some sort of reading here.” Daniel clicked on a recording device which he dictated his findings to. “Readings spiked from a 0.2 to a 0.9 here. However, I haven’t found anything entirely conclusive yet.”

Amber felt a mild sense of indignation. Was this Daniel person just here to try to discredit her like the others? Did he honestly think she was just making all of this up to make money? For one thing, only getting a vague sense that the dead are still among the living was hardly a lucrative industry. It wasn’t like she was doing this for her health either considering her escalating headaches. Hearing Daniel’s low monotone voice wasn’t exactly soothing either despite his transparent attempts at being inconspicuous and inaudible. What exactly did those numbers mean? How could someone quantify in numbers something like this anyway? Then again, it wasn’t exactly like Amber could just stamp her foot on the floor and say, “Look, are you blind? She’s right there!”

There was a high pitched whine coming from the machine which lowered to a light crackling sound as it passed away from the spot where the girl was sitting. Amber looked at the girl again to see that she had not changed her position. She was as rapt in her attention at nothing in particular as ever despite their intrusion. Amber was curious and nearly asked Daniel what exactly his machine took readings of, but decided against it.

Amber closed her eyes again and turned around. This was obviously going nowhere. The girl seemed to have no awareness of anything outside of what was going on in her time originally. Amber hated to think that perhaps Daniel may be right and that the “energy signatures” were merely recordings of people and not the people themselves.

When she turned around again, the girl was gone, but out of the corner of her eye she could see something moving in the back. How did she get over there? More importantly, why would she move over there so fast? The little girl disappeared again behind the “employees only” door.

“It’s gone.” Daniel stared at his equipment a moment and then looked at Amber. “Did you see anything?”

“No.” She didn’t want Daniel to follow her, but there really was only one way to find out where the girl was going and why.