Death

"September 23rd, Journal Entry One.

I'm Liz Parker, and five days ago I died. After that things got really weird."

It had been a long shift for Maria DeLuca and Liz Parker as they bussed the tables at the Crashdown Café in Roswell, New Mexico. The girls had worked in the restaurant owned by Liz's parents since they started High School and the busiest time of year was always in September as the Crash Down festival approached.

Roswell was famous for the supposed crash of an alien spaceship in 1947 and the town survived on the rumours that surrounded the event providing them with a vibrant tourist trade. Hence the name "Crashdown Café" and Maria's mother's business which sold alien themed merchandise.

This afternoon the café was full. As well as the usual townspeople that frequented the only eating establishment in town there were several 'space cadets' on an alien hunt. In fact it was so busy Liz had almost had no time to notice Max Evans and Michael Guerin sat at one of her booths. Almost that is. She couldn't help sneaking a glance at Max's floppy brown and deep brown eyes as she set two burgers at the table next to them.

"One Uma Therman and one Will Smith," Liz stated proudly, "Can I get you anything else?" The two customers, one male, one female, were obviously space cadets. With their kooky clothes and admiring glances at the burgers with kebabs sticking out of them to look like antennae Liz could spot them a mile off.

"No thanks," the male customer said. Liz could sense his excitement at actually speaking to someone who lived in Roswell and decided to have some fun.

"Are you here for the Crash Down festival?" she asked hoping to open the lines of communication. She wasn't disappointed.

"Yes we are. Can I ask, are you from here?"

"Just four generations," she said proudly.

"And have you ever noticed anything…well, anything strange round here?"

"Well," Liz said trying to sound as though she was considering a vital point, "There have been some things, and I suppose I could show you this," said reaching for a photo in tucked into the front of her apron. " As long as you promise that you won't tell anyone about it."

The male customer almost leapt out of his seat leaning over his girlfriend and trying to snatch the photo from Liz's hand. The girlfriend was just as eager grabbing his hands so they could look at the picture of a blurred, malformed figure set against a backdrop of desert rocks together.

"Oh my God! Where did you get this?" he gasped.

"Does anyone else know about this?" his girlfriend breathed.

"My Grandmother took it after straight after the crash just before the government cleaned it up. And no, no one else knows about it. Just me and now you."

'And everyone else who has bought this print from the UFO centre across the street,' Liz thought to herself as she turned and walked away from the table desperately trying not to laugh as they poured and exclaimed over the snap.

She walked straight into Maria who was heading over to the condiments stand at the back of the diner where they kept the coffee. Maria took her arm and steered her with her also smirking. "I heard that," she mock scolded her best friend, "and you are sooooo bad. Poor little space cadets!"

"Well, I had to do something to brighten up their Roswell experience!" she defended herself.

"You're right. All that's here is dust, rocks and cute waitresses, hardly a prime vacation spot for normal people. And it seems someone else is interested in the cute waitresses Roswell has to offer. Max Evans keeps staring at you – again!"

Liz whipped her head round quickly a blush already rising to her face. She caught Max's eye over Michael's head before he quickly looked and Liz felt a tingle of pleasure run through before she realised that he was probably staring to see if she was getting the Tabasco sauce she had promised them ages ago before she got caught up with the tourists. She should hurry up really. Two empty bottles of the sauce stood on the table already and Liz made a mental note to talk to whoever had cleared the table last about removing garbage and restocking. Feeling like an idiot she leaned on the counter and turned to Maria as she poured coffee into mugs for the two men she was serving who seemed embroiled in some kind of argument.

"Na-ha," Liz shook her head, "There is no way that Max Evans would be looking at me. I mean come on, Maria, look at me."

"Oh but your so cute with the cheek bones and all," Maria said taking a second to pinch Liz's cheeks and push some stray strands of Liz's dark brown hair back behind the alien antennae the waitresses were required to wear. "And he is looking at you. And why wouldn't he? I admit the green polyester dresses and alien faced aprons leave a lot to be desired but even so you're still working it girl."

Liz dared another quick look but this time Max wasn't looking. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the guys at Maria's table getting more heated in their discussion. She best not keep Maria too long.

"He is not and besides even if he was I am going out with Kyle."

"Big whoop!" Maria scoffed, never Kyle Valenti, Liz's long-term boyfriend's biggest fan. "I'd bet you'd rather have the sultry, brooding, oh so dreamy Max Evans any day. I know I would."

"Now come on, Maria, that's not fair. Kyle is loyal and dependable and treats me right."

"Sounds like a poodle," she retorted as she walked with her coffee towards her table.

Turning her back on the scene to reach for the Tabasco sauce Liz was only vaguely aware of the raised voices coming form the front of the diner. She was just stepping out from behind the safety of the condiments counter lost in fantasies about kissing Max Evans as she heard everyone in the diner give a collective scream and see plates crashing to the floor as everyone dove down behind their seats.

Liz looked on bewildered, barely registering that one of the men at the front of the diner was brandishing a gun, before she felt something hot rip into her stomach causing her to collapse on to the floor.

"Liz!" Maria screamed, scrambling from behind the table she had hunkered under.

In the confusion most of the diners were unaware that one of the waitresses had been shot as they gawped at the men fleeing from the scene. Only Maria and the two space cadets were focused on trying to reach Liz as Max leapt out of his booth.

"What are you going to do?" Michael said grabbing hold of his friends arm, but as he already knew the answer his voice was tinged with anger and hysteria. He was fearing more for his own life and Max's than that of Liz Parker.

"Let me go, Michael," Max commanded shoving past him, "and keep them back."

Michael stood in front of the space cadets and tried to shield them from watching as Max raced over to Liz, threw himself on the ground next to her and popped open the press studs keeping her dress together. Michael couldn't help Maria's view though. Thankfully it was mostly obscured.

Max didn't even register that he was seeing Liz semi naked for the first time. All he could focus on was the round hole just below her belly button and the blood seeping form it. "Look at me, Liz, you have to look at me," he begged placing one hand on her forehead and the other on her wound.

Liz was floating but at the same time leaden down. She knew she was hurt and she knew it was bad because she couldn't open her eyes and keep focussed but her body wasn't screaming and protesting like she always thought it would in extreme pain. Instead she felt mellow, like she was sinking into a cloud. She could hear someone calling her and at first she didn't want to open her eyes, she wanted to keep on sinking, but the voice! The voice was delicious, like smooth chocolate syrup and she couldn't resist opening her eyes and staring straight back into Max's.

All of a sudden her body did feel the pain. It was shooting through her and ripping her in two like it had when the bullet first pierced her skin but this was different. It was like the bullet was melting inside her, becoming part of her tissue and blood. She could feel her skin actually knitting together around the entrance wound and that hurt more than the initial impact. Except this time it was different. This time she felt safe.

With Max touching her forehead she felt images begin to pour through her brain. A fourth grade birthday party for some kid that had now moved away. Her in a dress her Mom had made covered in hideous cupcakes. Oh how she had hated that dress. She looked so ugly in it. But there was Max standing over by the gifts looking at her and suddenly she felt like the prettiest girl in the room.

Then she was back at the start of third grade nervous about going into a class that didn't have Maria in it and again she saw Max, stood with his sister Isabel. New to the town, lost and alone with only each other, Liz felt her heart go out to them as third grade Max's eyes sought hers and pleaded for her to see him.

Liz didn't know whether these were her memories or Max's memories but she could see them clear as day. Maybe they were a mixture, a bringing together of the two to finally make the whole finished picture.

With a wrench it was over. Liz felt herself jerk to full consciousness with a gasp as she blinked and tore her eyes away from him. She reached to her stomach with her hand but there was no wound, no scar, only some blood which clung to her fingertips.

"You're fine now," she heard Max say softly as Michael was yelling at him to throw him the keys.

Max whipped quickly around and tossed them to him before turning back to Liz.

"What just happened?" she asked him as he reached above her and grabbed a ketchup bottle from the shelf above. He smashed it against the worktop and smeared it over her stomach before dropping it on the floor next to her.

"You dropped the ketchup and fell when you heard the shot," he said glancing back over his shoulder to where he could see Michael starting his Jeep directly outside the café.

The space cadets and Maria were closing in on them and he gazed into her eyes one last time. "Please don't say anything," he begged before leaping to his feet and darting out of the café.

Liz just had time to jump to her feet and pull her dress closed around her to see Michael and Max driving off in hurry before Maria was beside her.

It had taken no time at all for Liz Parker to die and Max Evans to bring her back to life but it felt like a million years.