She looks at me but doesn’t move.
“Shaina!”
The front door crashes open. My mother screams.
Terror closes its scaly fingers around my throat.
“Get out of my house,” Father shouts.
Shaina backs away from the door now, pulling her arms in tight to her chest.
“You must be the husband,” says an unfamiliar Southern voice, deep and cold like an arctic sea. “I don’t know what you see in him, Diamah, really. And he has you living in this shack in the middle of the woods? What on earth is here that you can’t leave behind again? Ah, let me think, your offspring, right?”
Shaina draws in a shaky breath. I push the window up an inch to see if I can hear anything from outside.
There were at least seven men in the car, and now several more are sauntering out of the darkness towards the house, all of them in similar dark ensembles of tight tees and jeans. In the distance, motorcycle engines announce that even more strange men will be arriving soon.
I tear my eyes away from them and search the trees for signs of movement. “Please,” I whisper, my voice fogging up the glass. I have spent my entire life afraid of the moving shadows, and now I want to see them more than anything.
“She’s not here,” my mother says, her voice wavering. “I sent her away.”
“Now why would you go and do a thing like that,” says the stranger, “after giving me your word that you would be back by dawn.” His voice drawls lazily over his words, patient and calculating. A heavy sickness coils down into my stomach at the sound of it.
I abandon my post by the window and crouch down beside my bed. I motion for Shaina to do the same, but she seems to be frozen in place.
“Get out, now,” my father says. “There’s nothing for you here.”
“Perhaps,” says the man. “Or perhaps you need a little motivation, Diamah. A little taste of what we’re going to do to your sister and her little precious baby girl if you keep wasting my time.”
“Look, I will go with you,” my mother says. “I will do whatever you ask. But please, don’t drag anyone else into this.”
“Diamah,” says my father, his voice soft and crushed. “What did you tell them?”
“It’s amazing how loose a woman’s tongue will get if you wiggle under her skin in just the right way,” says the man.
“Please…” Sobs break my mother’s voice again. “Take whatever you want from me—just leave my family alone.”
“It doesn’t work that way, love,” the stranger says. “Restrain that sorry sack and search the house.”
“NO!”
Shaina darts down beside me, terror ungluing her feet at last.
Hard thumping starts up in the living room, followed by grunts and cries of pain from my father. Sharp shattering drowns out his voice.
A guttural, animalistic scream rips out of the strange man’s lungs. “Son of a bitch!”
More shattering.
“What are you doing here?” my mother asks. Her tone suddenly changes, the fear melting away into anger and confusion. “Did you tell them I was running? Are you why they’re here?”
A sick, ripping sound comes from outside my window, followed by painful choking that dies into gurgles and then into silence.
I rush back over to the window and peek out into the night, hoping my father has somehow gotten control of the situation. The grass outside my window is slick with bright, shining blood.
I fall back to the floor and cover my mouth with both hands to still my panicked breaths.
“Shit!” another strange voice cries. “They got Terence!”
“You said you had the situation under control,” shouts the first man.
“I did! I don’t know where they’re coming from. We must have missed them.”
“No. You missed them. Get out there! I have work to do!”
Something heavy hits the grass right underneath my window.
Fear squeezes my lungs as I crawl over to the window and pull it shut. But not before a slurping noise slides under the sill.
With my heart pounding in my ears, I peek out and see a shapeless mass devouring a skinless man twitching under my window with only the dark jeans left to identify him.
Acid and bile hit the back of my throat, and I cling to the shaggy carpet in front of me, doubling over, nose to my knees.
Shaina watches me with watery eyes, her jaw slack and trembling.
Breaking glass reaches our ears. Our father howls in pain, a sound so unlike him it causes my insides to freeze.
Something heavy and solid hits the living room wall hard and cracks against it.
I crawl back over to Shaina, and we hold onto each other as the unknown tears our home limb by limb.
Several pairs of boots take to the gravel, and men shout into the night.
The living room falls suddenly mute.
We stay huddled together for several more minutes. Then I straighten my spine and turn to the window.
I don’t want to, but I’m back over there and looking out before I know what I’m doing.
The grass below my window is wet and slick, but green. No trace of blood anywhere. No skinless body. No dark, cloudy mass.
Something falls to the living room floor with a soft thump, breaking the thick silence.
Did I imagine that scene outside of the window? I couldn’t have. When I turn away from the emptiness outside, I find Shaina unlocking our bedroom door and sticking her head out into the hall.
“Don’t!”
She looks back at me. “Someone needs to go check.” She eases her tall frame out of our bedroom and into the darkness.
I drop down to the floor and watch the door with wide, anxious eyes. “Shaina!” I whisper as loud as I can.
My heart sends a painful rush through my veins each second she’s gone.
Then her soft cry of pain echoes down the hall.
I shoot to my feet and out into the hall, just in time to see her fall limp against the debris in the living room, a misty orange light billowing out of her parted lips and into the mouth of a large man caped in darkness, crouching over her.
Strangled tears lodge themselves in my throat, allowing only a whisper of air to escape.
He raises his head at the near inaudible sound, and moonlight from outside flashes white across his teeth as he rises to his feet, grinning like a mad man.
“Don’t be afraid, darling,” drawls the strange man. “Don’t cry.”
“Run!” shouts a voice from outside. “They’re coming back!”
The man’s head snaps to the side, like an antelope that just spotted a lion in the weeds. He takes off across the living room, running low like a panther, and dives outside the broken window just as a hoard of shadows filters into the room, moving independently and together at once. An engine starts up, and some of the dark mass melts out of the window and after the strange man.
The others spread out along the walls, creating a barrier between me and the outside.
I stand paralyzed at the end of the hallway, watching the shadows slide along the wall like snakes.
One shadowy figure departs from the wall and drops behind the overturned sofa. A man in dark jeans shoots up and runs for the broken window like a man possessed. The shadow descends on him and rips the skin clean from his body before bifurcating him into a thousand bloodied pieces that hit the floor like rainwater.
The shadows melt back together and slide as one unit towards the gaping hole where the front door used to be. One of the shadows reaches for me, its gestures solemn and apologetic.
The moment they fade from sight, I rush into the room and collapse by my sister’s side. Blood stains her cheek. Blood stains her pajamas. She’s soaked in it.
I grab her shoulders and shake her. “Wake up! Shaina, please wake up!”
I press my ear to her chest, soaking my nightshirt with blood in the process. Her chest and breath are as still as the night.
Tears burn
behind my eyes as I lift my head to find my mother and father. My mom is three feet away, her long black hair fanned out around her head like a halo, also motionless, but covered in significantly less blood.
Why is there so much blood? Where is it coming from?
I rise up on shaky legs and turn around in a full circle, scanning the room from top to bottom. And there is my father, in the middle of a mess of broken glass that used to be our coffee table, no skin, just matted dark curls and khakis stained in blood.
The blood and bodies dissolve before me like a cloud dispersing, and I’m back in Renali’s office, staring at the blue wall, my face wet with tears.
Renali’s own eyes are wet and shining.
Hard shivers seize my shoulders.
Renali bounces the end of her pen against her bottom lip.
My throat is sore from crying or screaming or talking for too long, I don’t know.
“Did I say anything,” I finally ask, my voice scratchy.
“Yes.”
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“The important thing to ask, Tatum, is if you believe yourself.”
I sit up and blood rushes too fast to my head.
“Tatum, we need to talk about what you saw.”
Blood and shadows and orange mist fill my vision. I stumble to the door and out into the hall, my temples pounding with memories better forgotten.
This was a mistake. This isn’t going to help me. How could that possibly help me? If anything, reliving that horror makes everything so much worse.
I’m either crazy or I saw something crazy. In both scenarios Tessandra is right to keep me locked up in the row house like a child—to protect me from the freaky shit that attacked our bungalow or to protect me from myself. In both cases my family is still dead. Someone killed them. Something.
A light touch lands on my shoulder, and I spin around and smack Renali’s hand away as a reflex.
“I’m sorry.” I swallow back a wave of tears. “I can’t do this. I never should have done this.”
Sympathy softens the usual hard amber of her eyes. “Tatum…”
I run from her office, and the two people in the waiting area give me looks I don’t quite register.
“Tatum!” Renali calls after me.
Bright sunlight stings my eyes. Why is it so bright outside? It feels wrong for the sky to be so bright and clear and cheerful. It’s a slap in the face from the universe. It doesn’t care about my loss or what I went through that night and the years that followed. Or even now. It doesn’t even register. My life doesn’t cause the slightest ripple.
Renali steps outside, and I turn my back to her and start walking, towards nothing and nowhere. I wrap my arms tight around myself and dig my nails into my ribs, hard until it starts to hurt. Harder, until I can feel my nails biting into my skin.
The pain keeps the tears at bay, but it makes nothing better.
I had to live through it all over again for no reason. Because it still doesn’t make any sense. Things are only more confusing. I just have more unanswered questions.
My head throbs from the effort it’s taking to hold the images back. They play on a loop in the back of my mind. Arguing. Crashes. Ripping. Shadows. Screams.
Arguing. Crashes. Ripping. Shadows. Screams. And blood. So much fucking blood.
Chapter Ten
By the time Kalin finds me, face up on the floor in my room, staring blankly at the ceiling, the need to cry has dried up, and I have a few tiny promising bruises along my ribcage.
“Oh my god…” She sits down on the floor beside me. “It didn’t go well, did it?”
I say nothing.
“I figured when you didn’t come back to the shop. Tessandra was so worried about you, but Renali said you needed some time alone.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Look, I’m not going to drag you to the club tonight—”
“I want to go,” I say, my voice flat. I need the distraction. I need alcohol. I need to numb everything.
Kalin bites down on her lip. “Are you sure?”
I tear my eyes away from the ceiling. “What do you skanks normally wear when you go out?”
She tries to smile, but it comes off more pained, like she stepped on a nail. “I’ll show you.” She gets up and holds down a hand to help me to my feet. “Well, you missed the most pathetic client I’ve ever seen,” she says as I follow her to her room on the other end of the hall. She tries to keep her tone light, but her voice is strained and laced with concern. “She had a cat that was like half a hundred years old, and it died a few weeks ago. This woman was like fifty. So not old enough to be a crazy cat lady, especially since she only had one cat. She brought in pictures of these kittens she found at a shelter, and she wanted to know which one was her reincarnated fluff ball. I told her she needed to sign up for online dating.”
She throws open her walk-in and gives me a genuine grin over her shoulder.
I give her a shadow of a smile in return.
“Then there was this other woman, also fifty, totally bat crazy over her antique collection.” Kalin continues, her tone growing more comfortable and lighter as she talks and throws random articles of clothing across her bed.
I poke through the pile, more using her voice as much welcome background noise than actually listening. There’s an array of tight pants, flashy tops, and short skirts. I would never wear any of these clothes. I can’t even imagine wearing them in public. I find the least obscene pieces, a shiny purple tank and a pair of tight, dark-rinse jeans.
I’m not sure I’ve ever even worn jeans.
“I can’t believe you go out in public in this stuff,” I say.
Kalin laughs. “Don’t hate, participate.” She punctuates that with a wink.
I snort. But just this little bit is helping to dull the images clawing for my attention in the dark recesses of my brain.
The parking lot is in poor repair, and it smells of obnoxious perfume and smoke. Heavy bass spills out over the asphalt, and bits of laughter travel across the air as people mill in and out of the bar.
Overhead, the sky is black and dotted with stars. I take a moment to soak in the sight of it. It’s been so long since I’ve been outside in the dark.
Cari squeals when she sees me. Her dark red locks are sectioned into several miniature braids all over her head. I don’t even want to know how long that took or how long it’s going to take to get out.
“I’m so excited to see you out,” she says. “Pay for nothing. Everything is on us.”
“Have you ever drank before?” Milly studies my face.
I shake my head. “Tessandra’s house is a dry zone. She barely even likes vinegar.”
Milly laughs. “I love her so much.” Her dreads hang free tonight and bounce against her back as she leads the way to the bouncer by the door. “We’re going to start you off with tequila shots.”
“Then we’ll get to the fancy shots,” Cari adds.
“You guys are going to make her sick,” Kalin says with a laugh.
“Rite of passage,” Cari says. “Think of it like a belated birthday celebration. Everyone needs to get drunk on their twenty-first birthday.”
Bass-heavy music vibrates the buffed rubber floor. We pile onto stools by the bar, and my eyes roam around the dim, humid room.
Cari orders the first round of shots. “Bottoms up!” she chirps, drawing my attention away from the crowd. On three, the four of us turn our shot glasses up in unison and laugh as the liquid burns down our throats.
Bright orange mist blooms in the back of my mind, and I tip the second shot, less fiery and laced with caramel this time. The image dims just enough to give me hope that with enough alcohol I might be able to forget what Renali forced me to remember, at least long enough to fall asleep. Or pass out, more likely.
Half an hour later, with a belly and bladder full of several different kinds of alcohol, I feel my way along the wall to the bathroom. My thoughts swim in a thick gray mist of nothingness
framed by swirling lights of bright orange, red, and white.
I release some of the alcohol from my bladder and stumble over to a sink, giggling despite the fact that I have nothing to laugh about. After rinsing soap from my hands, I splash cold water on my face and glance up at the two sets of eyes looking back at me from the mirror.
Swaying slightly to the right, I reach out and touch my reflections. They smile at me, a small, sad smile, their dark eyes clouded, concealing their thoughts. Same dark eyes my mother had. Same dark eyes everyone in the family has. Gretchen is an exception, of course, because she’s mixed with something Nordic. Her father has never been around. I try to remember if I’ve ever even seen him, but when I push at my brain to find the information, I’m met with a dizziness that makes me laugh.
This is how people become alcoholics. Running from their pain, as if anyone ever really can.
I leave the bathroom. A man stands in the corner beside the men’s room, swiping away at his phone. He’s ordinary enough in a casual tee and jeans, clean shaven, with the dark features of someone from the other side of the world. The bright screen shines in his face, and for a split second, I’m back in that woman’s bedroom, Evangeline’s, watching an orange mist being siphoned from her husband’s lips.
He lifts his eyes and stares at me.
“Do I know you?” I ask.
“Do you?” A light Southern accent lines his voice, and a smirk plays across his lips.
Is he one of the snaky merchants from the black market? One of the ones who hangs around in the shadows because they’re up to no good?
I step closer to get a better look at him. Light is scarce in this hallway. My resurfaced memories slosh around in my head in a shallow pool of screams and shattering glass.
His eyes hold steady on my face. “Fran der hound-eer?”
“What?”
He laughs. “Are you from around here?” he repeats slowly, taking a step closer.
I take an involuntary step back. “Yes.”
“I’ve never seen you here before,” he says. “Where have you been hiding?”
“In my house,” I hear myself saying, the words sounding muffled like I’m underwater. The hallway tilts, so I throw my back against the wall to steady the stripes on the wallpaper.
No Rest for the Wicked Page 9
