Shards

by F. J. R. Titchenell

  “I feel lucky that she still wants to be friends with me, after all of this. She’s so special. I don’t know what I’d do without her in my life. Letting go is hard, ya know?” he asked.

  I may not have liked Kevin when we first met, but seeing him in pain made me realize that, like it or not, I considered him a friend now, and if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s seeing a friend in pain. I looked down at the field, to the game, to Haley, to Madison.

  An idea formed. Maybe not a good one, but I thought it might do Kevin some good.

  “I know this probably sounds really random, and feel free to say no, but earlier I got an invitation to a party, and I’d rather not be completely surrounded by strangers. You want to come with me?” I asked.

  “Patrick’s?” he asked.

  I nodded. His smile started to return. “Sounds fun, brother.”

  The first thing I thought when I entered Patrick Keamy’s house was, Wow, Mina would hate this place.

  There were too many people, the music was too loud, there weren’t enough visible exits. Surveillance would have been next to impossible. There was beer and more than enough debauchery to go around.

  It was everything a party was supposed to be.

  “Ben, Kevin, my boys!” Patrick said enthusiastically as he welcomed us in.

  I shook his hand. “Looks like you got half the school in here.”

  “The better half,” Patrick clarified, laughing a deep, throaty laugh that smelled of cheap vodka. “Nah, not as many as I’d like really. Some people still wanna go to the ‘official’ homecoming dance with their ‘kings’ and ‘queens’ and ‘adult supervision,’ but they’re losers. Come on, lemme show you around.”

  I looked to Kevin for rescue, but he’d already ducked off, called over by some of his friends. I didn’t know most of the people there. I could see a few familiar faces hiding in the mix, Robbie and Madison and even Haley. She flashed a smile my way, but seeing Patrick with me, she made no move to join.

  “Got some good tunes and dancin’ in the backyard, got a pool table and Guitar Hero in the rec room, karaoke goin’ in the living room, enough drink to paralyze a herd of elephants. If you can’t have fun here, man, you’re doing something seriously wrong,” he said.

  He guided me through the living room, grabbing a couple of plastic cups of beer from a nearby table and handing one to me. While he quickly drank his down, I set mine on a bookcase.

  “Your parents are okay with all this?” I asked, trying to draw attention away from not taking my drink.

  He laughed. “Yeah. They know this sort of thing’s gonna happen, and they’d rather have it happen under their roof instead of under some stranger’s. Now that is nice.”

  He took a long, leering glare at Madison. Given how low-cut her top was and how short her skirt was, he had plenty to leer at.

  “She’s not bad,” I said noncommittally.

  “‘Not bad,’ he says,” Patrick mocked. “She’s a frickin’ goddess, my man. Limber, too. She makes you an offer, you take it, because it don’t get much better than Madison Holland. Why else do you think she invited you here?”

  Patrick must’ve seen the look on my face because he laughed, loud and braying. “Seriously, Ben, you gotta live a little!”

  “I live just fine,” I said.

  “Awww, come on, nobody ever sees you doin’ anything after school. You just sit with the same people during lunch, and I hear you spend most of your free time with Raingirl.”

  That nickname set me on edge.

  He backed off with the smoothness of a used-car salesman, putting a placating hand on my shoulder. “Nothing wrong with a little charity work, man, especially charity work that could be that cute with a little effort. I’m just saying that, if that’s why you’re hanging out with her, you’re really selling yourself short.”

  Before I could explain that Mina and I were friends, he wrapped a powerful arm around my shoulder and started guiding me around the party.

  “Guys like us,” he said, “we’re special, and I don’t mean the short-bus special. No, we’re good old Grade A, all-American special. We’re young, strong, good-looking, and smart enough to realize we’re all three of these things, am I right?”

  “I guess,” I admitted.

  He slapped me on the back. “Don’t guess. Know. We are special, and all we have to do is take advantage of it because, you see, since we are smart, guys like you and me know we won’t live forever. We know that we’re only young, strong, and good-looking for so long, and that if we don’t take advantage of these things, we’re gonna miss out on some of the best years of our lives. If we hold back, we only hurt ourselves,” he said.

  “I don’t hold myself back,” I said, defensive.

  “Yeah, you do,” he said. “I’ve had my eye on you. You seem like a good guy, but why be good when you could be great?”

  I wanted to think he was a drunken fool, but there was truth in his slurred ramblings. Mina wasn’t holding me back, and she was a good friend, most of the time. She needed help fighting the Splinters, and I was more than willing to offer it. The problem was that she expected this to be a lifestyle. She thought that just because she had signed her life over to the cause that the rest of us ought to do the same. I couldn’t do that.

  I turned back, found the cup of beer I had set on the bookcase, and drank it down as quickly as I could without vomiting. It was warm and tasted terrible, but I knew the buzz I could feel it bringing on would be nice.

  Patrick looked impressed. “Now that is what I’m talkin’ about! So, are you ready to start living life to the fullest?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “You ready to seize every opportunity that crosses your path?” he asked more vehemently.

  “Yeah!” I said, getting more pumped by the second.

  “You ready to get drunk and do stupid shit?” he asked.

  “How stupid?” I asked.

  “As stupid as you want,” he said.

  “Hell yeah!” I nearly shouted.

  He clapped me on the back even harder. “Then let’s get this party started!”

  I’ve been to enough parties to know how to drink without getting truly drunk. I never drink hard liquor, always keep a running tally of how many I’ve had written on my wrist in pen, and never, ever actually finish a cup of beer. Set down a half-full cup somewhere and pick up a new one and people will think you’ve drunk just as much as them. They’re cheap, dishonest tricks, I know, but they’ve allowed me to socially drink while still keeping most of my wits about me.

  Considering how blurry most of that night was, I imagine that I broke at least one of my rules. It all ran together in a mix of dancing, with Haley, with Madison, with some girls I didn’t even know, and of very poorly singing “Take On Me” on the karaoke machine.

  At some point, a couple hours in, I stumbled into someone and got a cup of beer spilled all down the front of my shirt. I cursed at my stupidity.

  The line to the main bathroom was long. I asked Patrick if there was any other that I could use, and he said I should try one of the upstairs guestrooms. There were fewer people up there, mostly looking for quieter places to talk, to make out, or pass out on one of the chairs. I found a guestroom, but it was dark, and three voices inside yelled at me to shut the door.

  I continued down the hall and finally found an unoccupied guestroom with an unoccupied bathroom. I washed my shirt in the sink, getting most of the beer out of it.

  The mirror showed me a face I hadn’t seen in a long time. Myself smiling. Not worried, not scared, just good old Ben Pastor, with maybe a couple too many drinks in him.

  “You’re having fun,” I said to my reflection, smiling. “You are having fun, right?”

  Someone closed and locked the bedroom door behind me. I turned and saw Madison Holland standing by the bed, looking at me and smiling.

  “Ben Pastor. I’ve been looking forward to getting you alone for a while,” she purre
d as she sauntered into the bathroom doorway.

  I put my hands on the sink and sighed. We had to have this conversation sooner or later. It looked like it was going to have to be sooner.

  “Look, Madison, I’m really flattered by the attention, I really am, and you are a really beautiful girl, but I just have to tell you, I’m really not looking for . . . whatever it is you’re looking for right now,” I said, firmly.

  She didn’t respond. She did, however, cock her head violently to the side with the familiar, unsettling sound of splintering wood. Five spindly, spider-like legs burst from her cheeks, pulling her lips aside as she hissed at me.

  The bottom half of her face erupted and flew toward me. The spider-like legs latched around my head and pulled themselves tight, pushing what had once been her pretty, red lips against mine as a fleshy, inhuman tongue tried to force itself into my mouth. It was cutting off my air and was so strong I couldn’t break it away. It was connected to Madison by a thick, flesh-colored tentacle that throbbed grotesquely, jutting out horribly from where her bottom jaw should have been.

  For a brief moment, I thought about how this wasn’t exactly how I imagined my first kiss going. I just hoped it wouldn’t be my last.

  She jerked her neck violently, throwing me to the floor and dragging me out into the bedroom. Almost effortlessly, the tentacle lifted me up from the floor and sat me on the edge of the bed. Cocking her neck again, the tentacle broke off from her head and wrapped around my arms and chest like a snake, the end forming a thick, dagger-like protrusion of bone that the tentacle curled up against my neck, threatening to slit my throat. She cleared enough room so I could breathe through my nose.

  She just stood there, casually checking her nails as her bottom jaw and face grew back in. As soon as she looked more or less like herself, she looked back at me gleefully.

  “You’re a hard guy to corner, you know? I mean, if I wanted you in your house I could’ve broken in at night so easy, but to pull this off, I have to get you alone in a public place. Do you have any idea how hard that is?” she asked, blowing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. “No, I don’t imagine you would.”

  I struggled, trying to fight my way free from the tentacle’s vice-like grip. As if correcting a naughty dog, she flexed her wrist, forcing the coils to tighten, the dagger of bone pressing threateningly against my throat.

  “I’m not supposed to kill you, but if you keep fighting me, I might have to. That’ll make some people happy. God knows Jess and Hermes wanted you dead after what you two did to us. Alexei thought that would be too messy, he just said we should bring you into the fold, make you one of us. Trust Sam to come up with another option.”

  Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her lipstick and began to apply it to her new lips.

  “He’s authorized me to make you an offer.”

  Checking a handheld mirror to make sure her lipstick was even, she pursed her lips and leaned over, kissing me on the side of the neck. I could feel her lipstick drying there and felt sick. I struggled, trying to yell, and only getting a monstrous tongue forced into my mouth for my trouble.

  “Unless you want me to get to first base with your stomach, I’d really recommend you stop squirming,” she said. I relented, for the moment.

  “Now, since you’re a smart guy, like Patrick said, you must be wondering just what this offer is,” she said, tearing a slight rip in her top. “Right now, we’re willing to offer you whatever you want. Money? Power? Women? Anything and everything you could want will be yours. All we ask, in exchange, is that you stay away from Mina Todd.”

  She reached down to her skirt and gave it a good tear, then carefully removed her lacy black thong. She considered it for a moment, then tore it in half, forcing the pieces into one of my jeans pockets. I tried yelling at her through my living gag, wanting to ask her what the hell she was doing.

  “Don’t worry, this’ll all make sense in a minute,” she said, adjusting the tattered fabric so it stuck slightly from my pocket.

  “Now, where was I? Right. Mina. She’s gotten far too efficient since the two of you have started working together, and we can’t have that. I know you’re probably thinking to yourself that this is crazy, that nothing could get you to leave Mina behind because she’s your friend, and you two are fighting the just and right fight,” she said as she climbed up on me and straddled my hips. She caressed my neck gently for a moment, and then slashed at the side with her fingernails. I howled in agony against the Splinter beast that held me in place.

  “You might be thinking that, but that’s only because I haven’t gotten to the best part yet. The best part is that if you say no, if you continue this fight with Mina, we will destroy you. We will take from you everything that you love. Your friends will abandon you, adults will think you are scum, and your mother will wonder how she lost her way with you.”

  I felt a cold stab of rage as she mentioned my mother.

  She touched her hand to the tentacle-beast surrounding me, slowly, grotesquely absorbing it back into her arm. I coughed and retched as my mouth was freed, and that horrible, probing tongue withdrew.

  Climbing off of me, she walked casually over to the door and turned back to me.

  “So what do you think?” she asked perkily.

  I coughed heavily, wiping the taste of bile from my lips. “I think that if you’re resorting to crap like this you’re more scared of us than we thought, and I think you’re right. You must be crazy to think I’m going to collaborate with monsters like you.”

  Madison rolled her eyes dramatically. “Sticks and stones, but I forgive you. You don’t know how bad things can get yet, but if you keep going like this, you will.”

  Her body shuddered and snapped with that crackling, splintering wood sound. Bruises formed on her arms and neck. Tears flowed freely down her puffed up, pink cheeks, trailing mascara and eyeliner. A faint trickle of blood rolled down her inner thigh. I could see now what she was doing, and at once I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.

  “You wouldn’t,” I said feebly.

  “Yes, we would,” she said coldly. “Give in now, and I can make these go away, and I can spend as long as you want making this all up to you. And believe me, I’m really good at making things up to people when I’ve been naughty.”

  “Go to hell,” I spat at her.

  She smiled cheerfully. “I was really hoping you’d say that. I just want to say, I really look forward to working with you. We’ve got a pool going on, about how long you’ll last before you come crawling to me on your knees, begging to lick my toes to make it all go away. I’ve got you pegged at six weeks. Be strong; I stand to win a lot of money off of you.”

  Unlocking the door, she started sobbing dramatically and sprinted out into the hallway. I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened. They were fools if they thought I was going to give up. I could make it through this, I could be strong, I’d just stick to the truth as best as I could, and hope that everyone would believe me over her.

  That feeling of strength and righteousness lasted right until the moment I saw the first stranger’s face, curious and a little scared, looking through the open doorway at me.

  11.

  A Better World’s Priorities

  Mina

  “Ben?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Have you been listening to a word I’ve said?”

  Ben sighed. “We’re going to see the guy you knew about who got rejected by the pods before you,” he recounted.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s the crazy hermit who taught you about Splinters in the beginning. You and a bunch of other people who are already dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “And for some reason, you couldn’t tell me all this before?”

  “Yes.”

  I was more annoyed with The Old Man than with Ben for forcing me to answer this question on the hike up to the given coordinates. Unfortunately, Ben was the on
e who was there to hear the involuntary bite in my voice.

  At least my head was clear today, clearer than it had been in weeks. Once we had gotten up into the hills, the distortions to my senses had started fading out, as if all I’d needed was a little space from the town my existence was confined to. There were none at all right now, just my mind, raw and frail and oversensitive, like my body on the morning of a broken fever.

  “Okay. You were keeping a promise to him, not telling anyone,” Ben added to the summary. “But even though he’s still into fighting back and he’s guaranteed human, you guys haven’t spoken in years.”

  I didn’t like this part of the story. I liked the idea of refusing more of Ben’s questions, even implied questions, even less.

  “We have a fundamental difference of opinion,” I said. “And he withheld critical information from me.”

  Ben almost laughed. “Is that all?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” I said. “It wasn’t someone else’s secret, and it wasn’t personal. Well, parts of it were, but not the relevant, important part.”

  “Go on.”

  “He was in a pod,” I repeated. “In the Warehouse. So he knew that the people who’d been copied were still alive and what happens if you don’t disconnect them the right way. He never saw fit to volunteer that. It wasn’t until . . .” (Shaun) “. . . until a Splinter told me that I got him to admit it, and by then, some people were dead, and I was a part of it.”

  Ben was silent a moment. “Okay, yeah, that’s pretty bad,” he agreed. “So why are we going to see him now?”

  This part was more complicated.

  “I told him I couldn’t work with him as long as he kept killing Splinters with the people still attached, and that’s where we ended things. He is a good person, mostly, and I do owe him almost everything I know. If he’s on a hit list, I can’t not tell him.”

  Ben nodded. “And he doesn’t get cell reception, I’m guessing?” He didn’t seem to expect an answer.

  “Tell me the code answers again,” I said.

  “Again?”