Still of Night

by Jonathan Maberry

  Marcy still, at this point, had not turned. Dahlia could still get the heck out of there.

  But . . . she had reacted. She’d stopped sobbing. She was listening.

  Ah, crap, thought Dahlia, knowing she was trapped inside the drama now. Moving forward was inevitable. It was like being on a conveyor belt heading to the checkout scanner.

  “Marcy?” she said again. “Are you hurt? Can I . . . like . . . help in some way?”

  An awkward line, awkwardly delivered.

  Marcy did not move. Her body remained absolutely still. At first that was normal. People freeze when they realize someone else is there, or when they need to decide how to react. But that lasts a second or two.

  This was lasting too long. It wasn’t normal anymore. Getting less normal with each second that peeled itself off the clock and dropped onto that dirty bathroom floor.

  Dahlia took another step closer. And another. That was when she began to notice that there were other things that weren’t normal.

  The dirt on Marcy’s red blouse was wrong somehow.

  The blouse wasn’t just stained. It was torn. Ripped. Ragged in places.

  And the red color was wrong. It was darker in some places. One shade of dark red where it had soaked up water from the floor. A different and much darker shade of red around the right shoulder and sleeve.

  Much, much darker.

  A thick, glistening dark red that looked like . . .

  “Marcy—?”

  Marcy Van Der Meer’s body suddenly began to tremble again. To shudder. To convulse.

  That’s when Dahlia knew that something was a lot more wrong than boyfriend problems.

  Marcy’s arms and legs abruptly began thrashing and whipping around, striking the row of sinks, hammering on the floor, banging off the pipes. Marcy’s head snapped from side to side and she uttered a long, low, juddery, inarticulate moan of mingled pain and—

  And what?

  Dahlia almost ran away.

  Almost.

  Instead she grabbed Marcy’s shoulders and pulled her away from the sinks, dragged her to the middle of the floor. Marcy was a tiny thing, a hundred pounds. Dahlia was strong. Size gives you some advantages. Dahlia turned Marcy over onto her back, terrified that this was an epileptic seizure. She had nothing to put between the girl’s teeth to keep her from biting her tongue. Instead she dug into the purse she wore slung over her shoulder. Found Dad’s knife, removed the blade and shoved it back into the bag, took the heavy leather sheath and pried Marcy’s clenched teeth apart. Marcy snapped and seemed to be trying to bite her, but it was the seizure. Dahlia forced the sheath between her teeth and those perfect pearly whites bit deep into the hand-tooled leather.

  The seizure went on and on. It locked Marcy’s muscles and at the same time made her thrash. It had to be pulling muscles, maybe tearing some. Marcy’s skirt rode high on her thighs, exposing pink underwear. Embarrassed for them both, Dahlia tugged the skirt down, smoothed it. Then she gathered Marcy to her, wrapped her arms around Marcy’s, pulled the soaked and convulsing enemy to her, and held her there. Protected. As safe as the moment allowed, waiting for the storm to pass.

  All the while she looked at the dark stains on Marcy’s shoulder. At the ragged red of her shirt. At the skin that was exposed by the torn material.

  There was a cut there and she bent closer to look.

  No. Not a cut.

  A bite.

  She looked down at Marcy. Her eyes had rolled up high and white and there was no expression at all on her rigid face. Those teeth kept biting into the leather. What was this? Was it epilepsy at all? Or was it something else? There were no rattlesnakes or poisonous anythings around as far as Dahlia knew. What else could give a bite that might make someone sick? A rabid dog? She racked her brain for what she knew of rabies. Was that something that happened fast? She didn’t think so. Maybe this was unrelated to the bite. An allergic reaction. Something.

  The spasms stopped suddenly. Bang, just like that.

  Marcy Van Der Meer went totally limp in Dahlia’s arms, her arms and legs sprawled out. Like she suddenly passed out. Like she was . . .

  “Marcy?” asked Dahlia.

  She craned her neck to look at Marcy’s face.

  The eyes were still rolled back, the facial muscles slack now, mouth hanging open. The leather sheath slid out from between her teeth, dark with spit.

  Except that it wasn’t spit.

  Not really.

  The pale deerskin leather of the knife sheath was stained with something that glistened almost purple in the glare of the bathroom fluorescents.

  “Marcy?” Dahlia repeated, shaking her a little. “Come on now, this isn’t funny.”

  It wasn’t. Nor was Marcy making a joke. Dahlia knew it.

  It took a whole lot of courage for Dahlia to press her fingers into the side of Marcy’s throat. Probably the toughest thing she’d ever had to do. They taught how to do it in health class. How to take a pulse.

  She checked. She tried to listen with her fingers.

  Nothing.

  She moved her fingers, pressed deeper.

  Nothing.

  Then.

  Something.

  A pulse.

  Maybe a pulse.

  Something.

  There it was again.

  Not a pulse.

  A twitch.

  “Thank God,” said Dahlia, and she realized with absolute clarity that she was relieved that Marcy wasn’t dead. Dahlia fished around for the actual pulse. That would have been better, more reassuring.

  Felt another twitch. Not in the throat this time. Marcy’s right hand jumped. Right hand. Then, a moment later, her left leg kicked out.

  “No,” said Dahlia, fearing a fresh wave of convulsions.

  The twitches kept up. Left hand. Left arm. Hip buck. Both feet. Random, though. Not intense. Not with the kind of raw power that had wracked Marcy a few minutes ago.

  It was then that Dahlia realized that this whole time she could have been calling for help. Should have been calling. She shifted to lay Marcy on the floor, then dug into her purse to find her cell. It was there, right under the knife. Directly under it. The knife Dahlia forgot she’d put unsheathed into the bag.

  “Ow!” she cried, and whipped her hand out, trailing drops of blood. Dahlia gaped at the two-inch slice along the side of her hand. Not deep, but bloody. And it hurt like hell. Blood welled from it and ran down her wrist, dropped to the floor, spattered on Marcy’s already bloodstained blouse.

  She opened the bag, removed the knife, set it on the floor next to her, found some tissues, found the phone, punched 911 and tucked the phone between cheek and shoulder, pressing the tissues to the cut.

  The phone rang.

  And rang. And, strangely, kept ringing. Dahlia frowned. Shouldn’t the police answer 911 calls pretty quickly? Six rings? Seven? Eight?

  “Come on!” she growled.

  The phone kept ringing.

  No one ever answered.

  Dahlia finally lowered her phone, punched the button to end the call. Chewed her lip for a moment, trying to decide who to call next.

  She called her mom.

  The phone rang.

  And rang. And went to voicemail.

  She tried her aunt Ivy. Same thing. She tried her dad. His line rang twice and the call was answered.

  Or—the call went through. But no one actually said anything. Not Dad, not anyone. After two rings Dahlia heard an open line and some noise. Sounds that she couldn’t quite make sense of.

  “Dad?” she asked, then repeated it with more urgency. “Dad? Dad?”

  The sounds on the other end of the call were weird. Messy sounding. Like a dog burying its muzzle in a big bowl of Alpo.

  But Dad never answered that call.

  That’s when Dahlia started to really get scared.

  That was the point—after all those failed calls, after that bizarre, noisy, not-a-real-answer call—that she realized that something w
as wrong. A lot more wrong than Marcy Van Der Poop having a bad day.

  She turned to look at Marcy.

  Marcy, as it happened, had just turned to look at her.

  Marcy’s eyes were no longer rolled up in their sockets. She looked right at Dahlia. And then Marcy smiled.

  Though, even in the moment, even shocked and scared, Dahlia knew that this wasn’t a smile. The lips pulled back, there was a lot of teeth, but there was no happiness in that smile. There wasn’t even the usual mean spite. There was nothing.

  Just like in the eyes.

  There . . .

  . . . was . . .

  . . . nothing.

  That’s when Dahlia really got scared.

  That’s when Marcy suddenly sat up, reached for her with hands that no longer twitched, and tried to bite Dahlia’s face off.

  — 7 —

  Marcy let out a scream like a panther. High and shrill and ear-shattering.

  She flung herself at Dahlia and suddenly the little princess was all fingernails and snapping teeth and surprising strength. The two girls fell back onto the wet floor. Dahlia screamed too. Really loud. A big, long wail of total surprise and horror.

  Teeth snapped together with a porcelain clack an inch from her throat. Marcy bore her down and began climbing on top of her, moving weirdly, moving more like an animal than a girl. She was far stronger than Dahlia would have imagined, but it wasn’t some kind of superpower. No, Marcy was simply going totally nuts on her, throwing everything she had into attacking. Being insane.

  Being . . .

  Dahlia had no word for it. All she could do or think about was not dying.

  The teeth snapped again and Dahlia twisted away, but it was so close that for a moment she and the crazy girl were cheek to cheek.

  “Stop it!” screamed Dahlia, shoving at Marcy with all her strength.

  Marcy flipped up and over and thudded hard onto the concrete floor. She lay there, stunned for a moment.

  Dahlia was stunned too. She’d never really used her full strength before either. Never had to. Not even in jujutsu or field hockey or any of the other things she’d tried as part of a failed fitness and weight loss program. She’d never tried to really push it to the limit before. Why would she?

  But now.

  Marcy had gone flying like she was made of crêpe paper.

  Dahlia stared for a second. She said, “Hunh.”

  Marcy stared back. She hissed.

  And flung herself at Dahlia as if falling hard on the ground didn’t matter.

  Dahlia punched her.

  In the face.

  In that prom-girl face.

  Hard.

  Really damn hard.

  Dahlia wasn’t sure what was going to happen. She didn’t think it through. She was way too scared for anything as orderly as that. She just hauled off and hit.

  Knuckles met expensive nose job.

  Nose collapsed.

  Marcy’s head rocked back on her neck.

  She went flying backward. Landed hard. Again.

  Dahlia scrambled to her feet and in doing so kicked something that went skittering across the floor.

  The knife.

  She looked at it. Marcy, with her smashed nose and vacant eyes, looked at it.

  With another mountain lion scream, Marcy scrambled onto hands and feet and launched herself at Dahlia. For a long half-second Dahlia contemplated grabbing that knife; it was right there. But this was Marcy. Crazy, sure, maybe on something, and certainly no kind of friend. Still Marcy, though. Dahlia had known her since second grade. Hated her since then, but that didn’t make this a grab-a-knife-and-stab-her moment.

  Did it?

  Marcy slammed into her, but Dahlia was ready for it. She stepped into the rush and hip-checked the little blonde.

  Marcy hit Dahlia. And Marcy rebounded. As if she’d hit a wall.

  Any time before that moment, such a clash, such a demonstration of body weight and mass, would have crushed Dahlia. It would have meant a whole night of crying in her room and eating ice cream and writing hate letters to herself in her diary.

  That was a moment ago. That was maybe yesterday. This morning.

  Now, though, things were different.

  Marcy hit the edge of a sink and fell. But it didn’t stop her. She got back to her feet as if pain didn’t matter. She rushed forward again.

  So, Dahlia punched her again.

  This time she put her whole heart and soul into it. Along with her entire body.

  The impact was huge.

  Marcy’s head stopped right at the end of that punch. Her body kept going, though, and it looked like someone had pulled a rug out from under her feet. They flew into the air and Marcy flipped backward and down.

  Which is when a bad, bad moment got worse.

  Marcy landed on the back of her head.

  The sound was awful. A big, dropped-cantaloupe splat of a sound. The kind of sound that can never ever be something good.

  Red splashed outward from the back of Marcy’s head. Her body flopped onto the ground, arms and legs wide, clothes going the wrong way, eyes wide.

  And Marcy Van Der Meer did not move again.

  Not then. And, Dahlia knew with sudden and total horror, not ever again.

  She stood there, wide-legged, panting like she’d run up three flights of stairs, eyes bugging out, mouth agape, fist still clenched. Right there on the floor, still close enough to bend down and touch, was a dead person. A murdered person.

  Right there was her victim.

  Her lips mouthed a few words. Maybe curses, maybe prayers. Maybe nonsense. Didn’t matter. Nothing she could say was going to hit the reset button. Marcy was dead. Her brains were leaking out of her skull. Her blood was mixing with the dirty water on the bathroom floor.

  Dahlia was frozen into the moment, as if she and Marcy were figures in a digital photo. In a strange way she could actually see this image. It was framed and hung on the wall of her mind.

  This is when my life ended, she thought. Not just Marcy’s. Hers too.

  She was thinking that, and the words kept replaying in her head, when she heard the screams from outside.

  — 8 —

  For a wild, irrational moment Dahlia thought someone had seen her kill Marcy and that’s what they were screaming about.

  The moment passed.

  The screams were too loud. And there were too many of them.

  Plus, it wasn’t just girl screams. There were guys screaming too.

  Dahlia tore herself out of the framed image of that moment and stepped back into the real world. There were no windows in the girls’ room, so she tottered over to the door, her feet unsteady beneath her. The ground seemed to tilt and rock.

  At the door she paused, listened. Definitely screams.

  In the hallway.

  She took a breath and opened the door.

  The bathroom was on the basement level. This part of the school was usually empty during class. Just the bathroom, the janitor’s office, the boiler room, and the gym.

  She only opened the door a crack, just enough to peer out.

  Dault was out there, and she froze.

  Dault was running, and he was screaming.

  There were three other kids chasing him. Freshmen, Dahlia thought, but she didn’t know their names. They howled as they chased Dault. Howled like wildcats. Howled like Marcy had done.

  Dault’s screams were different. Normal human screams, but completely filled with panic. He ran past the bathroom door with the three freshmen right behind him. The group of them passed another group. Two kids—Joe Something and Tammy Something. Tenth graders. They were on their hands and knees on either side of one of Marcy’s friends. Kim.

  Kim lay sprawled like Marcy was sprawled. All wide-open and still.

  While Joe and Tammy bent over her and . . .

  Dahlia’s mind absolutely refused to finish the thought.

  What Joe and Tammy were doing was obvious. All that blood, the tor
n skin and clothes. But it was impossible. This wasn’t TV. This wasn’t a monster movie.

  This was real life and it was right now and this could not be happening.

  Tammy was burying her face in Kim’s stomach and shook her head the way a dog will. When tearing at . . .

  No, no, no, no . . .

  “No!” Dahlia’s thoughts bubbled out as words. “No!”

  She kept saying it.

  Quiet at first.

  Then loud.

  Then way too loud.

  Joe and Tammy stopped doing what they were doing and they both looked across the hall at the girls’ bathroom door. At her. They bared their bloody teeth and snarled. Their eyes were empty, but there was hate and hunger in those snarls.

  Suddenly Joe and Tammy were not kneeling. They leaped to their feet and came howling across the hall toward the bathroom door. Dahlia screamed and threw her weight against it, slamming it shut. There were two solid thuds from outside and the hardwood shook with what had to have been a bone-breaking impact. No cries of pain, though.

  Then the pounding of fists. Hammering, hammering. And those snarls.

  Far down the hall, Dault was yelling for help, begging for someone to help him. No one seemed to.

  Dahlia kept herself pressed against the door. There were no locks on the bathroom doors. There were no other exits. Behind her on the floor were three things. A dead girl who had been every bit as fierce as the two attacking the door. A cell phone that had seemed to try to tell her that something was wrong with the world.