by Ryan Schow
“I’m coming now,” he said, his voice charged with urgency. She could hear he was moving, and it sounded like he was moving fast.
“Do you have a gun?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Bring it,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Make sure it’s loaded.”
6
Sabrina huddled in the closet behind doors of frosted glass. Ten minutes passed. Maybe fifteen. Everything in her wanted to get dressed, but if she was dressed and found, they’d want to know why she was leaving. What would she say?
It was easy to put on the dress, she thought. Best to wait until the last minute.
Just in case.
She’d been in hiding, thinking she could actually ride it out until Brayden arrived, but then she heard women’s voices in the hallway.
The bedroom door opened.
“I think she came back here when she saw the child,” Disney said. “I swear, her face was the color of ivory. She had no idea.”
“Lennox is a buffoon,” the Polish wench grumbled. “You really think he kept her in the dark until now? About the rejuvenation ceremony?”
“It’s the only explanation.”
“And you said this was her first offering party?”
“Lennox has done this before. He’s famous for pulling this type of shit,” Disney muttered, like she couldn’t believe it. “It’s his way of making other people suffer as much as he’s suffering.”
“Poor girl,” the woman said.
“Lennox or Sabrina?” Disney asked. The women laughed in unison at the joke.
The door shut and Sabrina heard their voices fade away. She stood and was about to step into her dress when the same voices returned. Still naked, she hunkered back down. The door opened and Disney said, “It was a black dress, right?”
Polish nightmare said, “Yes.”
Uh oh…
Clamping her hand over her mouth, she pushed herself into the deepest corner of the closet to mask the noises her body might make: fearful breathing, her boisterous heart, perhaps the jolt of an involuntary sob, if it came to that. The women were three feet from her. Searching for her clothes.
Wanting proof she was still here. Somewhere.
Beneath her breast, her heart was rocking away at an inhuman pace. With her dress half balled in her hand, she pressed herself against the wall. Sweat gathered under her arms. Her brow moistened. How would she explain herself if she was found?
“It’s not here,” Disney said. “The dress or her purse.”
There was a tremendous exhale of breath, a long labored sigh that was Poland basically saying she really didn’t need this right now.
“Looks like we have to alert security,” Poland said, gruff, disgusted. “And you need to get back to the party. The child is ready.”
That would explain the screaming, the shrill cries that to her were reduced to a muffled ruckus happening in another room down the hall. At that point, her imagination was working overtime. Was there a way to save both the child and herself from this disgusting life? From this awful fate?
She didn’t want to think the way she was thinking, but she was sure they were sticking the child with their designer ice picks by now. Surely those monstrous Satanists were lapping up the blood, rejoicing in their newfound health, celebrating their sacrifice to Him.
The Dark Lord.
Lucifer.
No, she thought sadly. There was no escape for the child. And if luck turned its nose up at her, she was bound to suffer the same outcome as the child. People who trafficked and murdered children probably had no conscience when it came to killing someone like her.
Just as Disney was leaving, Sabrina’s cell phone beeped out a text alert. Sabrina’s heart stopped. She froze. Terrified. She was in the closet, behind the frosted glass and hidden in the shadows, but it wouldn’t be enough if Disney opened the door.
Sabrina would be found.
First there was silence, but then the ruffling of things. Was Disney searching the purses for the phone? Was she rifling through the nearest pile of men’s slacks? Sabrina couldn’t draw a breath. She dared not try. Disney was in the room, looking for the source of the noise. Looking for the phone.
Her phone.
Surely it was Brayden. Was he here already?
Behind the frosted glass, a shadow began to form, blurry at first, but then the fine outline of a girl. A naked girl. Disney.
A hand went on the knob, turned it slowly. Sweat drifted down Sabrina’s lower back. It rolled in a warm line from her armpits and the crooks of her knees where they’d been tucked in a crouch for what felt like an eternity. Slowly she stood, the creaking in her joints an imagined, yet painful thing. She hadn’t thought she’d feel this stiff, this shaky, or this scared, but she felt all those things.
The moment Disney’s head popped into the closet, Sabrina punched her on the hinge of her jaw as hard as she could, staggering the girl. Pain flared in her wrist, but Sabrina crashed through the closet doors punching her three more times until she fell to the floor, unconscious.
Shaking her hurt hand, Sabrina gave the girl a solid kick. She didn’t stir, much less complain. Her wrist flared. It was either sprained or broken, but she couldn’t worry about that now. She had to get out. Bursting out of the bedroom door, she ran right into the Polish nightmare. Poland’s eyes flew open, her nostrils flared as wide as a horse’s, then her eyes narrowed into slits.
With all her might, Sabrina kneed the big woman in the vagina then ran past her for the front door the second the woman buckled. In the dining room, she heard the infant shrieking a sharp and righteous wail, the sound of it bloodcurdling and otherworldly. Horrified, desperate, she wanted to save it. Could she risk it?
There were men in the other room. Monstrous men like Douglas Stonewick whose stock and trade was torture porn and ritual sacrifice.
No, she couldn’t save it and this broke her heart.
Grabbing the front door handle, dying inside at the thought of leaving the child, she glanced one last time over her shoulder but saw Poland coming after her. Everything locked into motion. She swung the door open and burst naked through the front door right into the trio of guards who were looking at Brayden’s car now parked haphazard in the driveway.
A pair of big hands grabbed her. She started kicking at the man’s shins and knees.
Brayden’s car door flew open and he rolled out of the car, gun drawn, all kinds of hell in his eyes. Like he was ready for war. One of the guards must have gone for his gun because the next thing Sabrina knew, gunfire was erupting and pieces of the house were raining down all around them.
“Let her go right now or I swear I’ll plug all three of you fatheaded shit birds!”
He looked kind of funny rushing S.W.A.T. style up the driveway in cotton boxers and a t-shirt with a pair of wool slippers on. Especially with a loaded gun and that crazed look on his face. God, she thought in that second, what is that? Force of will. Safety.
Two of the guards backed off, but the third had a hold of her arm. He was not a man easily shaken.
“Let her go, buttfuck,” Brayden screamed, sheer insanity in his eyes. “NOW!”
The door opened and Poland appeared behind her right as the guard was letting go of her arm. Holding her dress in front of her boobs, she ran with Brayden to the car, got in, then buckled up as he hit reverse and smoked the tires backing out. Reverse became Drive and his slippered foot stomped on the gas again, the back end breaking loose as they roared out of there.
“Why are you naked?” he asked, looking but not looking.
That’s when she started crying. When they were clear of the neighborhood, he found a business park, turned into it, found a place to park back by a walled-in dumpster.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“As much as I love the fact that you’re naked in my car, I can’t imagine you’re too comfortable right now. Jesus, I can’t hardly breathe. I almost shot that guy.” Running his hand over his sca
lp, he said, “I was going to shoot him.”
She got out of the car, not covering her bare butt as she climbed out, slipped on the dress then crawled back into the car. Everything in her was grateful for Brayden, how he’d surely saved her life, but she couldn’t find the words. Her mind was gummy, spent. How the hell was she supposed to process what she just escaped? What she left behind? She couldn’t. One thing was for sure, though…her life was officially over.
Her mother died for nothing.
She thought about her father and how his life was over, too. And she thought about Tavares and how he must have suffered in those final moments. Before she knew it they were driving again and she was shaking out more tears, suffering more misery than a girl her age should know. When they got to his house, he walked her inside, quietly. It was late. So late it was early. The house appeared empty, his roommates still out according to Brayden. He took her to his room where she laid down and he laid beside her.
She didn’t know him well, but he held her that night, both of them drifting off. Sometime in the middle of the night she woke up screaming, her face soaked with tears. He asked if she needed anything and she just said: “You, holding me. That’s what I need.”
When she woke up the next morning, he was getting ready for the day.
In a suit.
“What happened to your face?” she asked. In the darkness, she hadn’t noticed how beat up he looked. Was his nose broken? He looked like he’d been in a car accident or something.
“Do you want me to take you somewhere?” he asked.
“I have nowhere to go.”
“You can stay here if you want. I’ll tell the guys. They’ll love having you here.”
“Can I just hide away in here today?” she asked, feeling ugly and dirty.
“Of course. I get off at five tonight.”
“You’re working?”
“For the FBI. It’s a long story that I’ll tell you when you tell me your long story and then maybe we can commiserate together over take-out and a stiff drink or three.”
She nodded her head automatic, wondering if what she’d survived—all of it—if there was even a way back to human.
“Would you really have shot those men?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
She got out of bed and hugged him tight, not letting go. “I’m sorry I judged you when I first met you. That was a different me. I wasn’t yet broken or…exposed to things like this. I just…I just didn’t know you.”
“We all need someone, sometime,” he said. Then: “I’ll make us breakfast. I’ll bring you yours and a few bottles of water for the day.”
She nodded unconsciously, unable to meet his eyes, then lifted her messed up hair back over her head. For a second she thought she saw something in his eyes—immense attraction—but then it was gone because the absolute shittiness of the situation didn’t call for sexual chemistry as much as it called for patience and understanding.
“Did someone beat you up?” she asked, her curiosity getting the best of her.
He drew took a labored deep breath, like he was remembering something bad, then said, “Will those people come after you?”
She looked away then whispered, “Yes.”
“The pistol’s in the nightstand. There’s at least twelve rounds in a box as well.” Before she could say anything, he said, “Are you going to kill yourself?”
She shook her head, no.
“Good. I couldn’t take that again.”
A few minutes later, tucked under the comforter with the TV on for noise, he brought her breakfast, three bottles of water and a couple of granola bars for later. She didn’t eat that much, but then again, she starved herself most of the time to stay skinny for potential roles anyway.
Roles that would never come again.
After he left—as she ate her big bowl of oatmeal—Sabrina realized her life was over. Pulling the pistol out of the nightstand drawer, on a full stomach, she pressed the barrel up to her heart, slid her finger over the trigger and dreamt of a different life.
Dropping the gun, she collapsed into a fit of tears and knew that as bad as it got, and this was about a mile beneath her hitting rock bottom, she could never kill herself.
She couldn’t do something like that to her father.
Enchanted Cornhole and the Temporal Fart
1
So after Sebastian got done showering with the malnourished, apocalypse-proof future me, they both walk out into the bedroom where I’m curled up in bed not wanting to time jump into the future just yet. I’m sort of pouting, to be honest.
The thing about Sebastian is, even though future me is me, he’s still acting like he and future me aren’t making a love connection and this worries me. But I’ve got bigger concerns at this point. The past was rough. Berlin…ugh. Being dropped in a war zone and killed two or three times before getting the hang of surviving the end of World War II and the nightmare that followed is, you tell yourself you’ll never do that again.
Ever.
Yet here I am. My death an absolute certainty according to future me. The fate of the world and everyone I love resting squarely in my hands. So what’s my response? Give my hard-earned lover to the girl who failed to save the world…future me who now gets to reap the rewards of my hard fought victory for Sebastian, who’s now looking like he’s got cold feet?
God help me!
With my drapes drawn, future me walks around naked. Flaunting her stuff, although for me, I’ve never been that way, so maybe after what she’s survived, something once chaste in her has cracked. Hopefully it’s only temporary.
“You should put on some clothes,” I tell her, “save your nudity for when your ribs aren’t sticking out.”
She frowns at me. “Don’t be such a bitch,” she says, tired, not mean.
“I’m just saying—”
Sebastian’s lost in space. Not at all on this planet after hump-hump-humping me, then showering with future me, then seeing us bickering like we’re not the same person. He must be so disappointed that neither of us are still Raven.
“You’re about to enter an insane world where a nuclear holocaust pretty much makes getting dicked damn near impossible,” future me says. “Which means I survived it and honestly, I just want a break, maybe a chance to see a prettier version of the world until it all goes to shit again.”
She says this while looking at Sebastian, who’s just sitting there in a towel.
“Unless I change things,” I say. “When we were Raven, we changed things by getting rid of her and becoming us. I can do it again. We can do this again. Not change bodies, but alter the future.”
“What are you talking about?” Sebastian finally says. I don’t have to read his mind to know he’s devastated about Raven. He’s wondering how this all happened. If this is some kind of con. If he’s being gas lit.
“Look who’s finally coming around,” future me says. Looking at me, then pointing to the bump in his towel, future me says, “Why’d you have to drain the boy’s plumbing? I soaped him up in the shower and…nothing. Nice gun, no bullets.”
Feeling cut out of the convo, Sebastian tries to put on his clothes without removing the towel, but it falls and he looks embarrassed, and me and future me are both checking him out and grinning.
Looking back at each other, talking like he’s not even there, I say, “Do you really expect him to just get a boner and take care of you with everything you said? His entire freaking paradigm has shifted. He’s trying to deal with not only us, but a totally new reality.”
“Are you going to be okay, Sebastian?” future me says.
“Yeah. No. Jesus, I don’t know. I just…I think I need to get back home.”
“Is this too much for you?” future me asks. Whatever hardened her, whatever’s made her almost bullish in her approach to him, it happens on this trip into the future I’m about to take.
“You’ll need to give me a return…marble, or whatev
er that is we travel with, so I don’t get stuck this time.”
“Stuck?” Sebastian says.
“Oh, yeah,” future me says, grinning as she puts on my bra and my underwear. “We didn’t tell you, did we?”
Sitting up, I find myself getting a bit angry. “Don’t,” I warn her. I know exactly what she’s about to say.
“He should know,” future me says, pulling on a silk robe. “God this feels so good. Do you know how long I lived out of those clothes? It felt like an eternity!” She’s running a hand over the silk, over her breasts and hips; she’s completely luxuriating in the fabric.
“Can’t you see this is already too much for him?” I ask.
“I don’t want to know,” Sebastian says.
“We’re old as fuck, Sebastian. We just don’t look it.”
“Stop it!” I snap, and she just laughs. “What the hell happened to you? To us?”
“Do you know what it’s like to get radiated to death? No. Usually there’s no coming back from that. But we do. Slowly, over weeks, a month. Our worst transformation was a freaking cakewalk compared to what I survived. What you’ll survive if you fail like I failed.”
“So don’t send me. Especially if you say you couldn’t stop it anyway.”
“You don’t get it, Savannah.”
Sebastian is just sitting there, dressed but held hostage by us, his eyes wobbling a bit in his head, trying to process this nightmare. He’s wondering how he’s going to come out of this. He’s looking at both of us and blinking fast, like it’s an illusion. Like we’re an illusion.
It’s sad seeing him like this. Seriously, I feel crushed looking at him right now. I just want to swallow him in a hug, then erase his mind.
Make all this go away.
He’d survive. Whatever relationship we could have had wouldn’t fare as well, but he would survive just fine. Eventually. When later he convinced himself none of it was real.
“What don’t I get?” I ask future me. “Tell me, or I’m not going.” Looking at Sebastian, I add, “He’s mine right now, so I want some gosh damn answers.”
