By: Suzy Jackson

We always texted each other when we got home. That’s why I didn’t think anything of it when my phone buzzed after midnight, alerting me to an incoming text. I knew that was about the time Lizzy would be returning to her apartment three towns over. I could picture her pulling into the closest parking space to her door and rushing to the entrance to punch in the security code. That eternity between the safety of her car and the safety of her home would feel like testing fate, an open invitation for evil to come calling, heart pounding, ready to defend herself if necessary with the car keys woven between her fingers. One decisive thunk of the deadbolt and she’d be inside. The typical sigh of relief of a single woman making her way home safely at night. Every female knows the feeling. She’d text me once she was all the way inside her unit and after saying hello to her cat who would be protesting loudly at her audacity to spend time away from her, even a few hours.

Lizzy and I had been best friends since fifth grade. I came across her crying because our bitchy 10-year-old classmates were making fun of her bucked teeth. We made each other laugh like no one else could. Now 15 years later, after puberty and braces, Lizzy was gorgeous and we still cracked each other up on the regular. We didn’t get together as often as we used to. But when we did, there was a lot of laughing until I snorted and she had tears running down her face.

I went to college and majored in English and now wrote for the local paper. Lizzy went to cosmetology school and was killing it as an esthetician to the rich ladies in Hightown.

“Kelly,” my roommate demanded. “You left the freezer open when you went out. I had to drink the ice cream with a straw.”

“Had to,” I replied with a sheepish smirk of apology to Gina my roommate. She was an easygoing school teacher who put up with a lot of spaciness from me with good humor.

“I’m almost done grading papers then I’m turning in. Parent-teacher conferences tomorrow night. Ugh. You can change the channel.”

The TV was blaring commercials, one for a weight loss injection, one for a memory enhancing drug and one of those ubiquitous ads for Famous Last Words®. I thought all of these ads were a sham. A human folly to want to retain youth and live beyond your time. A magic shot or pill or even an implant that lets you leave a parting thought for posterity. 

That last one always got me thinking. Some genius invented an implant in your brain that enabled you to send a dying message with your last spark of life, with that last neural transmission right before your brain shut down or your spirit left your body or whatever you happen to believe. Somehow AI is able to tap into and interpret a person’s brain waves in real time. I wondered how many people’s last words would be “Oh shit!” But the last earnings report from the tech company responsible was in the billions.

Some people were using it to share a description of their mortal transition, to shed some light on what it’s like to wander down the tunnel into the infamous white light. Some used it to let family know they were at peace. You chose a single recipient. I didn’t know any real person who had used it and it creeped me out. 

I gladly changed the channel to one of those singing competition shows. It was good mindless entertainment. My brain had been on overload all day with a deadline for the paper on a story about a local bank’s online accounts being hacked by a teenager. It was the talk of the town and I needed to get every detail right. After blowing off steam over a dinner with Lizzy I was exhausted. My eyelids felt like two 20 pound bags of cat litter and I fell asleep on the couch even before I read her text.

At 3:20 am, the TV still glowing with reruns of Friends I awoke to the sound of my phone vibrating on the coffee table. Gina had thrown an afghan over me and turned the volume way down on the TV before she turned in. I needed to set the alarm on my phone and get into my own bed. What I saw on my phone screen turned my world upside down.

“Greetings from Famous Last Words®. Please confirm your receipt of this message from Elizabeth Murphy.” Lizzy. Oh god. I had no idea she had gotten the implant. Was she trying to tell me?

I swiped my phone screen open and there it was – Lizzy’s dying message to me:

“Janky Guy.” That was it, two words. She knew only I would understand this. It was an inside joke. Janky Guy was what we called guys who were a little off, especially when they flirted too aggressively and gave off a creepy vibe. There was a guy, was that tonight? Oh god. Lizzy. This can’t be happening. My head was a jumble and my fingers shook so hard, I could barely press the button acknowledging receipt of the message. As soon as I did, my phone screen was full of clouds and beams of light– like heaven. I tried to call Lizzy, to see if this was some freaky glitch in this technology, but it went straight to voicemail.

I felt numb and ineffectual, so I sobbed myself to sleep. I awoke four hours later with a jolt of grief-fueled adrenalin. That “I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening” feeling that propels people into going through the motions, taking care of practical matters, before the pain shuts you down completely. I vowed to dig deeper into what happened to Lizzy. 

A blip of denial forced me to drive by her place to make sure I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing up. Sure enough, her apartment entrance was wrapped in yellow crime scene tape and the parking lot was abuzz with official vehicles. The whole scene read foul play. I saw white tape on the ground near her front door. She never made it inside. I vaguely wondered if her sister would come to get Mr. Whiskers the cat.

As a reporter, I could ask questions. Maybe one of my contacts knew something. By now, I was convinced Lizzy had left me a clue. I made a few calls and found out there was a press conference scheduled for that afternoon.

Somehow I made if through the hours leading up to the press conference. I had a few gut-wrenching conversations with some of our friends and her sister. Everyone was left wondering, who would do this to Lizzy? Who indeed. Janky Guy.

At 3:55 p.m. a sizable crowd had gathered in front of the police station where a podium stood at the ready. The sun stabbed through the afternoon sky creating light flares everywhere I looked. A droning insect collective hummed a warning. I saw several colleagues and had my smartphone ready to hit record, my dark glasses hiding swollen eyes. Bring it.  

The police chief, a detective and the mayor stepped up to the mic. The crowd and several TV cameras leaned in. I saw a few of Lizzy’s family members huddled to the side.

“Good afternoon. It is with deep sadness we announce the passing of local resident , 29-year-old Elizabeth Murphy. Our initial investigation indicates unnatural circumstances.”

The words washed over me like I was watching a movie and I forgot to hit record on my phone. Some reporter I was. I scanned the crowd instead. That’s when I saw him. The guy from the bar last night who tried to buy us a drink. He tried to make it a game. If you can guess who I am, I’ll buy you a drink. There was something desperate in his demeanor. But we just wanted to catch up with each other, so we brushed him off gently but firmly. That’s how you have to do it, we’ve learned.

The police chief went on, “We have a full team assigned around the clock in the investigation. So far we have no leads and no suspects. We urge anyone who saw anything suspicious, even if it didn’t make sense at the time, to contact local police. The Murphy family is requesting privacy at this difficult time.”

I would need to tell them about the message Lizzy sent. But for now I couldn’t let Janky Guy out of my sight. I pushed through the crowd toward him. He saw me and started running in the opposite direction.

I tried to flag a cop, but the press was a blockade around them. I sprinted until my chest burned and legs throbbed, closing the gap between me and Janky Guy. He turned and looked back at me. He looked distraught and there was something familiar about him–and not just from the bar last night. As I closed in on him, he turned back toward me once again…before running into the street, smack in front of a speeding autonomous taxi.

A week later, I wrote the article about Janky Guy’s death. I was able to subpoena his long and rambling Famous Last Words® and published it in the article:

“I will never stop loving you, Lizzy. You were the only one who knew I existed, even when I was a scrawny little dweeb. You could relate to being bullied. You laughed at my jokes in science class, then you laughed when I asked you to the ice cream social, crushing my heart. So I transformed myself for you, Lizzy. So much so that you didn’t recognize me in the bar. I became strong, ripped as they say. I saved that text you sent me back then saying you liked me as a friend. The pain I have is like being in a burning building with the only option to jump out of a 10th story window. So I took you with me. I wonder if you will love me now, in the beyond.”