The Other Side

by Joshua McCune

  All the emotions did, hers in particular. Too often it was a mixture of fear, anguish, or, worst of all, that one the cripple had, which popped up in all the scenes with her family, that Silver, or that annoying little talker girl.

  Black Hair looks at me with clear expectation. He wants to talk about these nightmares of mine.

  I head for the toilet. “Can you give me a sec?”

  He spins around, retreats to the door. I recover my sharpened ravioli lids from beneath the mattress, wedging them between my fingers. I keep my hands relaxed so they remain concealed.

  I flush. “Who is the black man with the scar on his face?”

  Black Hair returns. “Oren. What did you think of him, Melissa?”

  “He takes what he wants at any cost. He is not afraid.”

  “In a world of cowards, that must be nice.”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you feel?”

  I chew at a blister on my lip. It’s all I can do not to look at his throat. I must focus elsewhere. I settle on his shoes. “These nightmares, they are the girl’s memories?”

  “They are your memories, Melissa. They will grow stronger. The ones Praxus fed you will dissipate. You will return to normal.”

  “Whose normal? Yours? That’s what you want, isn’t it? Somebody you can protect, somebody who needs you. Somebody to make you feel important. Because you don’t feel important, do you?”

  He chuckles. “That Melissa never needed me.” He loads a family portrait. “Tell me about your dreams.”

  I slump onto the bed. “There’s no point fighting it, is there?”

  “The faster you cooperate, the faster you’ll be free.”

  I sigh. “The first one was a long time ago. Melissa was eight or nine. The principal stood in the door of her classroom. A visit from him only ever meant one of two things. Fortunately, somebody hadn’t died. Melissa’s mom was going to war.”

  “Olivia,” Black Hair says.

  “Yes, Olivia. Mom. Melissa stood on the curb and watched her go.”

  “How did she feel?”

  An image pops into my head. The girl and her family in a field of black crosses, everybody dressed in bright colors. A knot forms in her throat. I cannot breathe. Her tears swell in my eyes. I force them back.

  “Are you okay, Melissa?”

  “Terrified,” I say through gritted teeth. “She felt terrified.”

  “And you? How do you feel?”

  “Strange, uncomfortable.” Good, ambiguous terms.

  He checks his tablet. “What happened next?”

  I tell him everything. Black Hair interrupts to supply names of people and locations, which I subsequently use to show my progress toward reformation. New memories blindside me along the way. I cry her tears at the more painful recollections, laugh when appropriate. By the end, my eyes sting from her weakness.

  Black Hair has edged closer to hear, the tablet set aside long ago.

  I finish with the dream of him. “Melissa and you were on that stone tower—”

  “Shadow Mountain Lookout,” he says.

  For a second I’m in a bivouac, and he’s cuffed to a chair. A beautiful woman lies on a gurney nearby, pale and lifeless. Tears streak his face, and he is brittle with pain. A blink, and I’m back in chains and he’s staring at me.

  “Your mother had just died,” I say, as if trying to get the facts straight.

  He swallows. “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Doesn’t matter. What were Melissa and I doing there?”

  “You were showing her the stars. . . .”

  “But she already knew them, didn’t she?”

  “She did. She liked the feel of your arms around her. She felt safe in your arms.” I let her sorrow creep over me. “That’s all we ever wanted. We just wanted to be safe, James. I just wanted to be safe, James. But there was nowhere safe.”

  He gets up. I clench my hands into fists, exposing the sharp edges of my talons. He crosses that invisible line that I marked in my head yesterday. “You will be safe, Melissa.”

  I spring from the bed, slash at his throat. Come up a foot short. He doesn’t so much as flinch. He indicates my chains. “Adjusted them before you woke. It’s okay. This is not unexpected. But I think we made good progress today, Melissa.”

  I glare at him. “You set me up.”

  “If you hadn’t been so determined to conceal your intentions, you’d have been less cooperative. Tomorrow will be better.”

  I won round one, but round two I must grudgingly concede. Round three, however . . . “Yes, tomorrow will be.”

  But first I must get through today. We are at war, she and I. Her memories continue to attack in sharp bursts. I exercise at max intensity to combat the onslaught. Push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks with my shackles. When I’m desperate, I hit my healing rib, screaming at the fire that spiderwebs through my chest. Pain helps fight thought better than anything.

  But I grow tired.

  She does not.

  I wake with the name Baby on my lips, the smell of mountain air in my nostrils, and a lightness in my heart. The crank lamp is at full brightness. Morning, I suppose. Black Hair is nowhere in sight.

  Between exercises, I look for him. The light dwindles, but he does not show. Perhaps he is out of tricks, perhaps he is afraid of me or, as I realize mid push-up, he knows his presence is no longer needed. . . .

  The Silver appears in front of me, her glow dim. He said you won’t have to worry about things like Georgetown, stupid TV shows, or insurgents. He doesn’t mean it, Melissa.

  My arms give out. I collapse to my stomach and cry. I’m not sure whether they are the girl’s tears or mine.

  “James!”

  He does not answer.

  I am repulsed by the desperation that infects me, but I cannot keep from calling again. “James!”

  He does not answer.

  The third time I break off before his name can escape my throat. I smash my fist into my rib. No! I will not let them defeat me. I roll onto my back and crunch the girl’s frailty into oblivion, envisioning ways in which I will kill him, should he make the mistake of ever freeing me. Then the next memory hits, and I am empty again.

  He lied to me.

  Today is not better.

  Nor tomorrow.

  Days pass. Black Hair remains a ghost, though the lamp continues to taunt me brightly each morning. I tried to stay awake last night, but he must have waited till my body surrendered before entering the room. He must be monitoring my CENSIR on a regular basis, but if anything, this realization only makes me feel lonely, abandoned.

  Makes me feel weak and insignificant.

  Like the girl.

  “No!”

  I hurl ravioli cans, smearing walls with sauce that reminds me of blood. But blood no longer excites me. It only orders up memories of Georgetown and the slaughter slab and more tears. But I hurl them anyway.

  Maybe my tantrums will force them to restock.

  I perk to every creak, every groan that echoes from beyond the walls. I coil with anticipation, but the sounds fade into imagination too fast.

  Sometimes between futile outbursts and futile exercises, I call for Black Hair. “James!” Other times I curse his existence. Sometimes I want him to sweep into the room and hold me to him and lie to me that everything will be all right. Other times I want him to hold me to him and lie with me so that I can catch him unaware and claim one final victory.

  I imagine him there on my mattress and slice him apart with my talons, but I am interrupted by a vision of him with a sword jammed into his stomach. Me holding the hilt. Then I’m crying again. Slicing and crying, slicing and crying.

  When Black Hair’s not tormenting me, it’s the girl’s dysfunctional family or that needy silver dragon or that annoying little bitch with her yes, yesses and no, nos. Their names dance on my lips, but I’ll be damned if I’ll slip and give them sound, too. More push-ups, more sit-ups. More pain. Always mor
e.

  “I’ll be damned.” I laugh and cry and this time I’m sure they are my tears.

  I am damned.

  That night, I hear explosions. As I lurch up, that stupid yellow car flashes through my mind’s eye. The car horn blares. Closer, in the infinite blackness around me, the red-haired boy whimpers and the cripple offers bullshit words of comfort. The girl stifles sobs.

  “Go away!” I yell. “Go away!”

  For once, the hallucinations listen. For the most part. The car horn dies. The boy and the father go silent.

  The explosions, however, louden.

  The earth trembles.

  Shelves rattle, cans tumble to the floor.

  A flashlight beam sweeps my way, and I flinch, expecting a gunshot and Major Alderson behind it. Except this time, I make no move to avoid it.

  But there is no gunshot. The flashlight comes closer.

  “Melissa, are you okay?”

  I don’t recognize this memory.

  The crank lamp flares on. A boy around my age smiles at me. He wears a Confederate-flag bandanna. A rectangular piece of paper protrudes from it, taking up the space between his left eye and ear. Something’s written on it, but he’s too far away for me to read the words.

  “I’m Darryl, though everybody calls me Double T. Talker Talker,” the boy says, his words made of rapid-fire twangs. “James asked me to check on you, and I figured things got a little strange and you might be having some questions. If I do say so myself, given the circumstances, you are doin’ mighty fine.”

  He gives me a slow once-over, and I wonder if this is the first time he’s ogled me. Or just the first time while I’ve been halfway conscious.

  “Where is James?”

  “Old John didn’t like the way you and him were treating. Thought you might be getting him soft, which is the last thing we need right now, ain’t it?” He glances at his tablet, grins at the sight of my shredded mattress. “How ’bout you? You still got the itch in ya?”

  I shrug.

  “Divine intervention, this thing.” He flicks his bandanna, eliciting a dull, metallic echo. I squint, notice that it bulges in a circular pattern along his brow line. He smiles, a crooked thing. “We all wear them. Well, not the berserkers. Those are Oren’s elite—”

  Another explosion detonates. More cans fall. I cringe, pull my knees to my chest.

  “Don’t sweat it, we are straight impenetrable down here,” Double T says. “Army’s just blowing the sin outta the mountains. Idiots don’t know nothing about nothing. Old John says even if they knew our position, they’d have to go bunker nuke on us to reach this far down. Could you imagine? Nukin’ your own country?”

  I wait for the next explosion, shudder. “I don’t feel safe here. Is there somewhere else we can go? I bet you’ve got somewhere safe you could keep me. I’d be very appreciative.”

  “Rules are rules. A few more days before you’re right, though James thinks it might be taking longer with you.” He whistles. “Mind merging with a Green like Praxus without a CENSIR to slow the flow.”

  He pulls a strip of beef jerky from his jeans, offers it to me. “Old John says it’s my nicotine patch. Gets me through the tough bits.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.” He rips off an edge with his teeth, grins between bites. “Something about the texture. Nothing to compare with tripping the Green fantastic, mind you.” He takes another bite of meat, speaks through it. “How’re your memories? Any coming back? James told me to ask for your mother’s name.”

  “Don’t recall.”

  “You know your name?”

  I don’t answer.

  “Can’t say I’m surprised. It’ll just be blankness for a while. That’s the way it always goes. The dragons blare their music into you so you can’t hear nothing else. Bam, bam, bam.” He snaps his fingers in fast succession. He claps loudly, taps his CENSIR. “Then the music dies, just like that. All you wanna do is get it back. But they’re not there to give it to ya, so you gotta get it yourself.” He starts snapping again, though I don’t think he’s aware of it. “It’s that itch. Oh, and you wanna scratch it so bad. Keeps us sharp, Old John says.”

  He notices his fingers, reddens as he clamps them into a fist. He stuffs the last of the jerky into his mouth. “Just got out of a second stint of detox myself.” He beams. “Two weeks without an incident. Old John says it’s best for us recent graduates to work the rooks because we’re wearing the same shoes, only a little more worn in.”

  “It’s nice that he trusts you with breaking me in, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Well, what if you get an itch?” I hold up my manacled hands. “I’m completely vulnerable.”

  He shakes his head, adamant. “You got nothing to sweat from me.”

  I sigh with exaggerated relief. “You know, I think we can be friends, Double T.” I soften my voice and smile. “Very good friends.”

  Blushing, he pulls out another stick of jerky, thrusts it at me. “You best be having this. Old John says the lady drive goes through the roof during detox. The man drive, too, but that’s always there, ain’t it?”

  He chuckles, blushes deeper.

  “That so?” I say, grinning.

  He rubs the back of his neck, lets out a whistled breath, glances toward the door. “Old John’s right dubious about you. Says you caused problems in bear country. Says you’re dangerous.”

  “Isn’t that why you’re here?” I ask. “For danger?”

  He checks his tablet, and I see some of the blood drain from his face. “You got the itch.”

  “I got a lot of things.” I recover several ravioli lids from beneath the mattress and fling them at his feet. He dances out of the way as if they’re bullets. Laughing, I arch my back. “I am very dangerous. James couldn’t handle me? Can you?”

  He looks over his shoulder, back to me. Sweat beads his brow. “Goes against the rules.”

  “You’re in charge, right?” I ask. Batting my eyelids, I gently rattle the manacles to remind him.

  He hurries toward the door, trips on the leg of a cot. For a moment I fear he’s going to chicken out, but instead he closes the door. He returns with a goofy grin. “You are trouble, aren’t you?”

  “With a capital T,” I say, emulating his accent. “Double T.”

  He chews on some more jerky. “No, no, no. I can’t. James would kill me. Told me he would if I tried anything.”

  I roll to the left half of the bed, pat the open area beside me. “I won’t tell anybody if you don’t.” I lick my lips. “Come on, Double T, I can see that itch of yours growing.”

  He sets the tablet on a desk and crawls in beside me, his gaze locked on the foot of space between us as if it’s a crocodile moat. I look at the square of paper that sticks out from his bandanna. The words written on it are upside down.

  Me, Darryl Thompson, aka Double T.

  I am a St. Louis Cardinals fan.

  And something else I can’t read.

  He glances at me and I smile, which sends his focus back to the shredded sheets. I reach for his face. He flinches as I grab the square of paper wedged in his bandanna and pull it free.

  I am a vegetarian.

  I flip the paper over. It’s a close-up picture of him, complete with bandanna and goofy grin. There’s a hand on his left shoulder, but whoever it belongs to has been cropped out.

  He’s looking at me all sheepishly. Coward.

  “You should smile more,” I say. I give him back the picture.

  He tucks it back into his bandanna and grimaces. Or maybe it’s a smile. Hard to tell.

  I move closer. He tenses.

  “I’ve never done this before,” he whispers. His breaths come in short, pathetic bursts.

  “Neither have I.” I pry the jerky from his fingers and take a bite. Doesn’t help the itch. “I’m a vegetarian, too.”

  He scooches over an inch, stops.

  Another explosion.

 
The bed trembles. Not as much as him.

  I grab his head between my hands and pull him to me. I press my body to his and kiss him with the full force of my desire.

  His cowardice quickly gives way to lust. God, he has all the skill of a blowfish. A blowfish with breath that stinks of cured meat.

  I force him onto his back, throw one leg over his hips to straddle him. I rise up onto my knees, draping my chest over his. Calloused hands fumble beneath my shirt. I kiss him harder, reach beneath the bed for the ravioli lids I didn’t discard. I grab two for each hand, slide them between my fingers. I poise my hands on either side of his neck, clench them into fists.

  I clamp on to his tongue, twist hard, taste a rush of blood. He lurches forward with a scream stifled by my teeth, and I drive my talons deep into the soft spots of his neck. Scarlet life pumps over my knuckles, sprays my face. His fingernails dig into my skin for a second, and then it’s over.

  I rock back and tug out my talons. I shove him off the bed before he can further stain it. He flops about, gurgling and gasping, but soon enough Double T is done talking.

  I search his pockets for a key to my manacles, discover only a handful of jerky strips, a Velcro wallet, and a miniature Swiss army knife with a dulled blade shorter than my pinkie.

  Using a length of sheet and two unopened ravioli cans to weight each end, I fashion a crude grappling hook. Thirty or so tries later, I catch the leg of the desk and pull it toward me. I crank the lamp, then turn my attention to the tablet.

  Password protected.

  I check Double T’s wallet for clues, find four more pictures inside, each encased in a plastic sleeve. Cropped to hone in on single faces, they display the rest of his family. On the back of the first three, he’s written their names, their relationship to him, their birthdays, and the day they died.

  Mom and sis long ago in a Botched drone strike in Knoxville, according to the note beneath their death date. His father three weeks back in Chicago—the Blitz on the Bears. Sic semper tyrannis is written beside his birthday, the letters thick and dark, as if retraced several times.

  The final photo shows his older brother in an All-Black outfit. Besides resembling Double T, he looks vaguely familiar, though I can’t say why. According to the back, he’s apparently still alive. At the bottom is a phone number and more retraced words. NEVER CALL.