“Will we butcher it down there in the field?” she asked, suddenly uncomfortable with the silence. “Or take it back to the truck?”
“Take it back,” her father replied. “Don’t want Mister Big Hat to catch us in the open with him, Jilly. Make for a bad birthday.”
Jill followed the shape of her father’s back down into the valley, watching where his big boots fell on the rocky slope so she could step where he stepped. The air was cold, but the ground still radiated heat; Jill knew from other trips that it would be another forty-five minutes before she began to shiver. They took a winding track down the hill, her father picking the path seemingly at random, but Jill imagined that each turn, each footfall was deliberate and precise, as though he could see obstacles before they became obstacles, as though he were forever one step ahead of the land, outsmarting it, guiding her through.
He only spoke once in the minutes it took to reach the flat of the valley. Without turning around to look at her, he said, “I never could have made that shot when I was your age. Neither could my father. You’re very good, Jilly. I knew you’d be.”
But it hadn’t sounded like praise. It sounded like a headline, a mere reporting of fact. So Jill did not reply. Instead she adjusted her grip on the rifle, staying careful not to pass the barrel across her father’s body. That was the first rule.
When the sun dipped below the rise to their right, Jill Cicero would be fifteen years old.
At last they reached the bottom, and the golden landscape around them had already begun to turn dull orange, running dull gray at the corners. Her father led her to a patch of thick, coarse field grass, beckoning with a jerk of his head. His eyes peered down into the grass as though it were a lobster tank, and he was picking dinner for a difficult guest. “You didn’t see where he fell, did you,” he said over his shoulder.
Jill’s face flushed, and she shrugged under the heavy straps of her backpack. “No, Dad.”
“You looked away.”
Jill said nothing.
“If I hadn’t been looking, we might have lost him. It would have been a waste. We don’t do that in this family, do we, Jilly?”
“No, Dad.”
Her father angled his head, and werelight flashed off the lenses of the field glasses around his neck like a second pair of eyes. “You’ll do better next time,” he said. “Look—there he is. In the matted-down grass, right there.”
Jill took two steps forward and—yes, there was her pronghorn. The creature was lying on its side, its pale belly showing and its neck bent back around at a strange angle. In the near-darkness, its broad brown snout looked nearly the same color as its curving keratinous horns, and its eye was glassy and bulging, like a large black marble. She could see the hole her bullet made, glistening on the broad, tan shoulder. There was surprisingly little blood.
“He’s young,” her father said.
Jill felt a knot form beneath her sternum. “Younger than me?” she asked.
“Have to be,” came the reply. “Pronghorn don’t live but ten years, usually. Fifteen, sometimes, and that’s in captivity. You couldn’t have known. Not at that distance.”
“I didn’t want to shoot a young one,” Jill murmured. She stared down at the beast, the rifle in her hands suddenly dragging her toward the earth, heavy as wet sand. “Ten years…”
“You couldn’t have known,” her father repeated.
Then the pronghorn stirred—Jill heard the sound of a gasping breath, its horns gouging a shallow furrow in the clay dirt.
“It’s still alive!” she whispered, half-horrified, half-amazed.
“Not for long.” Her father stretched out one arm, pointing in the gloom. “See your bullet hole? Center of mass. He won’t get up from that.” His eyes glittered coldly at her. “He’s suffering, though. We don’t want him to suffer.”
His hand reached down towards his belt, came back balancing his old .22 pistol on his outstretched palm. “Like I taught you,” he said.
Jill stared at the little gun, then back at the pronghorn laying in the bent grass. Suddenly that single black-marble eye seemed to be staring straight at her. Two more moist gasps burst like bubbles in the air, and she felt her stomach turn in on itself like a collapsing soufflé. She took a step back. “I don’t think I can,” she murmured.
Her father frowned. “He’s going to die anyway,” he replied, his voice hard and authoritative. “You made sure of that. And we’re going to be careful cutting him up. We’ll use every bit of meat we can from him, we owe him that. But he’s hurting now, Jilly. That’s not what this is about for us. He didn’t want to play this game, but we didn’t ask his permission, did we?”
He pushed the pistol toward her. “We finish what we start in this family,” he reminded her. “That’s the reason we’re allowed to do what we do. The only reason.”
Silently, Jill nodded. He was right. He was always right. She held the rifle out to him, and he traded it for the pistol without another word. The metal had been next to his hip, and felt strangely warm in her hands as though it were alive. Her father stood aside, and Jill walked up to the high grass and began to wade through. Soon she reached the pronghorn’s side, and she knelt down, reaching out with the hand not holding the gun to gingerly touch its flank.
The fur under her fingers was thick and coarse, and the skin beneath was very hot, as though there was a fire blazing under it, eating away at the creature from the inside out. She stroked the pronghorn’s fur, trying to tamp down the upwelling of feeling flooding her mind, wondering if the animal could register the affection and take any comfort from it or if it knew she was the predator that had felled it and would think she was merely toying with her prey before the kill.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to it. “I’m sorry you’re hurting like this. I didn’t mean for this to happen. But I’m going to make it better, all right? I’m going to make the pain stop.”
The pronghorn’s flank heaved under her hand, but then the creature lay still, save for one tawny ear that flicked idly, swatting at nothing. Jill mustered her courage and took hold of the pistol in both hands, pressing the barrel between the animal’s eyes. She held her eyes open, bracing for the report. She would not turn away this time. She would not let herself look away.
“I’m so proud of you, Jilly,” murmured her father’s voice from above her.
She pulled the trigger, and this time the shot seemed to make no sound at all.
* * *
Lutz was wrong. Dying hurt like a bastard.
Jill would never remember the fall, the feeling of the weight of her body dropping away, of the icy winter air whistling past her legs, her bathrobe opening up like a rose in mid-bloom, lopsided and ethereally beautiful in the milk-thin moonlight.
But she remembered hitting the sidewalk like she remembered her own name.
The impact blasted away her other senses, forcing the tactile feeling of her body destroying itself to surface like a beach ball held under water. There could be no moment of shock, no merciful numbness, no brief respite: The agony rushed over her—just the pain, instant and complete, a finely woven net tightening and tightening across her entire body. The warmth blazed ecstatically within her, but even this offered no salve; it only prevented her from slipping into the balmy grip of unconsciousness, trapping her in a cage with her suffering. She couldn’t breathe—every time her body tried, her chest would make a horrible sucking sound, and something sharp would stab into her lungs like a row of long teeth. Her heartbeat was no longer a beat at all. It was one long note, like a drumroll, constant but weak, a murmur deep in her chest.
Slowly, slowly, Jill’s vision began to clear. She was lying on her back, each limb spread out at some madman angle around her, staring upward. At first the world above her was only a smear of dull liquid red, but then moonlight asserted itself, strong as a battering fist, sliding through the red of her half-closed eyelids like a thin, white knife. There was the long black finger of the streetlight, point
ing accusingly into the sky, and there, at the border of her sight was the faint, blue, antiseptic glow of a police call-box. All’s well, the steady light seemed to say. In the far distance, she could hear the noise of traffic, the noise of downtown coming alive.
She remembered, somewhere through the white haze of pain, that tonight…
…was December 31st. New Year’s Eve. The world was starting over without her.
A dark shape fell across her prone form: she could see the fringe of her father’s rabbit-fur cap before she saw his face. His features were still in shadow, but she could see his eyes, slate gray, staring impassively down at her from beneath the heavy brow of the bomber cap. She had not heard him approach. Perhaps he had always been there.
You looked away, Jilly, he said without moving his mouth.
“No,” she wanted to scream. “No, I didn’t. I wouldn’t. You taught me better than that…”
You looked away, he said. The shape above her sighed, cocking its head. It made the earflaps of the cap pop out at strange angles. You were going to kill him.
“I was.” Through the pain, another sensation pushed through—of her right fist chopping at the closet wall in the darkness, cracking the plaster. How silly that all seemed now, her dreams of violence. Her fantasy hunt, conjured in the dark. “But I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t have anything. Dad, what was I supposed to do?”
You didn’t want to play this game, did you, Jilly.
“Of course not.” Pain surged through her, bending her spine up into the air as her body took one sucking, shuddering breath. “He certainly didn’t ask my Goddamn permission to—”
You looked away, her father said. You’re looking away now.
Then his shadow began to melt away, to scatter into ribbons, into nothing.
We finish what we start in this family, he intoned, but his voice was worlds away. That’s the only reason we’re allowed to do what we do.
He was gone. He had never been there at all. It was only Kait standing over her now, her face a splash of alien features under the curtain of her brown hair. She was still holding the cellphone to her ear, but as she stepped closer to Jill, her trembling hand dropped slowly to her side. Jill’s head twisted towards her, sending bolts of fury scattering down her spine as vertebra slid and ground against vertebra, and for a moment the two women regarded each other. Jill felt like she would sink into the concrete, that the earth would close over her, the black and red clouds at the corners of her vision converging to engulf her at last. Kait’s face flickered between emotions. Her lips twitched curiously, rubbing against her teeth, and her eyes never left Jill’s—though Jill could tell she wanted to shut them, shut them against the horror below her, to blink the other girl away like a stray eyelash.
“Lutz,” she murmured. “Lutz… What did you do?”
And Lutz made Jill answer, her shattered jaw opening and shutting like a puppet’s, each word sending rivulets of blood and spit streaming from the corners of her lips.
“Heart-Brecker,” she—he—they said. “This… is… incredible.”
Kait paled and stepped backwards one pace, and Jill felt a flashbulb of anger go off somewhere in the back of her mind. Don’t look away, something crazy inside her said. He’ll know if you look away. And you want him to love you, don’t you, Heart-Brecker. You’d do anything for just a little piece of it, wouldn’t you? Well, keep your eyes on the fucking prize. What’s the matter—you’ve never seen anything die before? They say the first time’s the hardest, but that’s only if you can stop at one…
As if in response, Kait knelt beside her, the knees of her jeans scraping the concrete, leaning over Jill’s prostrate form. Now their faces were only a foot apart—Jill’s breath turned to steam in the December cold, obscuring her view of the other girl. Jill wondered if Kait could smell the doom on her breath. If she could hear the plants screaming in the distance, coming closer and closer, closing in from every corner of her mind.
“You were never going to really understand,” Lutz was saying—her voice, her mouth, her words. “I couldn’t think of anything else. I thought… if I could just show you, maybe I could get it through your thick skull.”
“Well, you could have warned me,” Kait mumbled, her voice shaking from the cold. “I never thought…. I never guessed you would—”
“I improvised,” Jill replied, a shrug in her voice. “Anyway, I thought you liked surprises. Happy New Year’s, Heart-Brecker.”
Kait chewed lipstick for a long second. The streetlight fizzed again, flickered on, flickered off once more. She swallowed, wiped something invisible off her chin. Then: “Tell me,” she said, her lips trembling. “Tell me… what it’s like. Please…”
“Oh, you’re not gonna believe it,” Jill choked out. “It’s… It’s like floating in cool water. And the water just gets cooler and cooler, but you never get cold. You just get numb to it after a while. All feeling just… slides away. It’s relaxing. Like going to sleep in your own bed.”
“But you do feel something,” Kait yelped, sliding a few inches back from Jill. “You promised me—”
“It’s all abstract,” came the calm reply. “Of course there’s a sensation to it. It’s entropy. Matter turning into other matter. It’s heat flashing away into the black. But there’s nobody else here to feel it but me.” Lutz rocked Jill’s head back and forth a quarter-inch, a maneuver that nearly sent her spiraling into madness. “Nobody home,” they said together, grinning with bloodstained teeth.
“Nobody home,” Kait repeated slowly.
Jill nodded. “I can feel her slipping away now,” she gurgled. “She’s starting to shut down. Little bags of tissue in her gut stopping their churning, one by one. Like a countdown.”
“But she doesn’t feel anything?” Kait asked.
Jill bared teeth in a grisly grin. “I wouldn’t let her suffer.”
“All right.” Kait’s eyes flicked away and back, away and back. Her knuckles tapped the ground beneath her. “All right. Then…” Suddenly she reached out her hand, placing it on the side of Jill’s neck. “Let me feel it,” she said.
Jill’s mouth could not drop open in shock, but the real Jill—buried under layers and layers of Lutz—felt the world freeze for a split-instant. “Are you sure?” she said. “I mean… Heart-Brecker, are you sure you want to—”
“I have to know,” she said firmly, her mind made up. “I have to feel it for myself.”
The blooming warmth within Jill flickered down, shrinking in on itself like a balled-up T-shirt. Cowed, uncertain. Almost… frightened. But when Jill spoke, her voice betrayed nothing.
“Of course,” she said. “Just like we’ve practiced, then.”
We finish what we start in this family.
Then Lutz shrank away, and Jill lunged like a hand bursting from a grave—
* * *
Who is this?
…
Who is this? Please, I can feel you there—
You know who this is, Heart-Brecker.
…
…
Lutz?
Do I sound like Lutz to you.
No. No, this is wrong. Something’s wrong.
Nothing’s wrong. This is exactly what he wanted. This was always the plan.
No, this has to be a mistake! Hold on, I’m going to fix this. I’m—
…
Why can’t I leave?
…
Jill, why can’t I leave?
So you do know my name.
What are you doing to me? Let me go!
How can I let you go? I don’t even exist.
Please—I can fix this. He doesn’t know. I—we—can help you.
…
Jill, you’re hurting me.
Yes.
I can feel—oh, God. You’re dying. You’re dying. I can’t—I can’t—Don’t look away, Heart-Brecker.
What’s happening?
You did this to me.
No. No, I would never… I nev
er thought he would…
Did you honestly believe he was going to let me live?
…
…
You’ve got to let me go. I can still help you. I can stop this.
Don’t lie to me, Heart-Brecker.
STOP CALLING ME THAT.
…
Jill.
…
Jill, please. I’m scared.
Lot of that going around.
I don’t want to die.
Lot of that going around too.
What do you want?
…
…
Jill?
You can’t save me.
You don’t know that—
Shut your fucking mouth. I’m already dead. And unless you want to feel it when I eat that bullet, you’re going to do exactly what I tell you.
…
Heart-Brecker?
Please don’t call me that. I’m Kait. Kait.
Don’t you like it when he says it?
I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.
You’re a heartless, body-snatching bitch, Heart-Brecker.
…
…
Yes.
…
What do you want me to do.
Here’s the deal. Swear to me you’ll never do this again. No more pets. No more girls. No more dances. No more bodies. You never take anybody ever again. If you do, I’ll know. I’ll know, and I’ll make you pay for it.
Lutz won’t like it. He’ll never agree to—
Fuck Lutz. I’m talking about you.
I never wanted this to happen. I never wanted to hurt anybody.
…
All right. I swear it.
…
Now please let me go.
…
Jill?
…
…
I’m going to let you out, Heart-Brecker.
Thank you—
But I’m never going to let you go…
* * *
Jill was standing up slowly. Jill was dying on the concrete.
Jill was wiping away tears, feeling a hand that was not her hand brushing a cheek that was not her cheek. Jill was staring up at the open window on the seventh floor. The curtains billowed out into the night like ghostly arms, and beyond them stood Lutz—or a shadow of Lutz, watching the sidewalk below. Jill was watching the cellphone in her hand ring, go to voicemail, and ring again. Then she dropped it, heard it crack as it struck the concrete by her feet. Jill was turning away, feeling herself turn, sucking cold air into strange, distant lungs. Jill was staring up at the moon, feeling her ribs stab into her lungs again and again and again. But there was no more pain to feel. She would never remember the fall. She was an ember from the fire, a piece from the shattered whole. A seed. A breath. A thought.
The Unwelcome Page 26
