Lady Superior

by Alex Ziebart

  A duffel bag in faded military green blocked the door. On top of it, a folded notecard stood at attention with Kristen’s name scrawled across it.

  So creepy. She shuddered.

  She shifted to crawl from the bed—and it was a bed, albeit an exceedingly soft bed—and froze as it rocked dangerously, as if on legs too thin to hold itself up. Inching to the edge of the mattress, terrified the entire thing would collapse beneath her, she cast away the blanket. Mind still fuzzy, she realized she was naked save for a layer of bandages wrapped around her stomach. She whimpered, heart racing, breaths rapid. Rushing to the door, she turned the lock, closing herself in before snatching the card from the duffel. She turned it over in her hand.

  Don’t be afraid. You’re the badass. You’re healing super-fast. Don’t get any ideas, though. You aren’t immortal.

  I left you in good hands. Everything you need is in the bag. Call me when you’re ready. No rush. I know I was an asshole. Don’t use your phone. Use the one in the bag. There’s cash for lunch in there, too. Load up on calories. I’m serious.

  Kristen doubled over, struck by hunger at the mention of food. She clenched her jaw to stifle the reaction. It didn’t make any sense; she hadn’t felt hungry at all until she read the note, but now she was so hungry it hurt. She gingerly felt the bandages again. She hadn’t noticed the bullets until Jane said something, either.

  She slumped to the hardwood floor. Jesus Christ. They shot me. I got shot. I didn’t even know. That’s something you’d notice, right?

  She looked down at herself. She was still naked and sitting on a hardwood floor. No carpet. It should be cold.

  Then she shivered. Suddenly, it was cold. Could she turn it all off at will? Or was it adrenaline numbing her to those sensations?

  Kristen leapt to her feet, grabbed the duffel, and heaved it onto the rickety bed. Pulling the zipper, she found her blonde wig on top. She tossed it aside to reveal the clothes she’d stashed before changed into her Under Armour. She’d hidden those, and Jane had found them. She tossed those aside, too. More clothes. Clean clothes. Clothes from her closet at home. Her heart beat faster.

  She was in my house. Why was she in my house?

  She continued digging through the duffel. More clothes—options, she supposed—along with her phone, a burner, a hairbrush, three pairs of shoes, her wallet, her keys, her vitamins, a bottle of aspirin, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and various other hygiene products.

  Holy crap.

  She wasn’t sure whether to be impressed by Jane’s thoroughness or creeped out.

  She took a deep breath. Stop panicking, she told herself. It isn’t helping.

  Closing her eyes, she blew out the breath and drew another. She counted to ten, simply breathing. When she opened her eyes, she looked over the clothes, made her selection, and dressed: a navy blue racerback tank, a pair of black athletic shorts, and some sneakers.

  A perfectly casual summer outfit. Totally normal. Totally not weird. This is fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.

  She pulled her wig on, pinned it in place, and brushed it out in a hurry. Shoving shoes and clothes back into the duffel, she noticed a lumpy pocket for the first time. Simultaneously curious and afraid, she found the zipper and tugged it open. Inside, she discovered a treasure trove of granola bars—at least a dozen, if not more. Kristen gasped and dug into them, inhaling a handful as quickly as she could open them. She tore wrappers with her teeth, eating the bars one-handed as she crammed clothes back into the duffel with the other. As hungry as she felt, staying in this place any longer—wherever she was—held no appeal.

  Kristen zipped the bag and checked her phone’s GPS.

  No signal.

  She cursed and shoved it into her pocket. Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she wiped crumbs from her mouth, unlocked the door, and stepped out into a hallway.

  She wasn’t entirely sure what she expected; maybe a prison, a hospital, or some twisted complex from a horror film. Instead, it was just a house. The short hallway was painted mint green and covered with an array of photographs. Some of the photos looked downright ancient—black and white and blurry. The bathroom across from her was pure white with clean black trim, an image of art deco contrasting sharply the bedroom and hallway. Tiptoeing down the hall, she peeked into the second bedroom: floral orange with a faded shag carpet. Another room, another decade. She shuffled onward until she came to a split at the end of the hall. Kristen froze.

  To the right was, she guessed, the living room. Guessing was all she could do. It wasn’t a room so much as a cave, a dwelling hewn from solid stone. Torches burned on the walls for light. Dolls and figurines sat in irregular niches chipped into the stone. An empty cauldron lay askew in a dip in the ground, soot and ash marking it a firepit. In the far corner, a drooling old woman slept in a perfectly modern La-Z-Boy recliner. Though the power cable clearly wasn’t plugged into anything, the chair’s massage feature hummed happily. Kristen noticed the woman’s hair and grimaced; it was a single, crusty, matted mass, laid over her shoulder like a blanket to gather in her lap. The woman’s hand rested on it as if it were a dog.

  Kristen’s eyes drifted along one of the walls. There was a door with a window; past the window, just more stone.

  I’ve gone absolutely batshit.

  She backed away from the living room, turning left to the kitchen. Hardwood floors were stained with soot from an enormous coal-fired stove, its stovepipe passing into the filthy wall behind it. A table laden with pots, pans, and bottles stood in front of a wooden icebox. Beside the icebox, another door—through its window, she saw grass and sunlight. Beautiful, brilliant sunlight. She rushed toward it, passing a sink that drained not to a sewer, but to a bucket beneath it. Grasping the door handle, she threw it open and ran out.

  Her feet hit hardwood. Kristen slid to a dazed stop. She’d run back into the kitchen. She hazarded a glance over her shoulder and saw the door again. It was closed. She turned, opened it, and stepped out.

  She stepped back into the kitchen.

  Footsteps sounded from the stone floor of the living room. Hyperventilating, Kristen’s panicked hands grasped the door handle a third time. She threw it open, but looked before she leapt. She saw beautiful green grass cut by a cobblestone path, all of which was enclosed by a white picket fence. She took a breath and walked through the doorway.

  Back in the kitchen. The old woman, hunchbacked with her matted hair worn like a bear’s pelt, glared at her. She spoke with a thick Slavic accent. “You use front door.”

  “Where am I?”

  “You are fine. You don’t need to be here anymore. Leave now.”

  “I’m trying!” Kristen swung an arm at the door. “I tried three times!”

  The old woman pointed at the hallway. “I said use front door. Go. Use.”

  “How? I saw that door. It goes into a wall!”

  “Jane bring me fools. Don’t tell fools who I am. I say you use the door. You don’t say no. You use door. Do you understand my words?”

  Kristen took deep breaths. Everything is weird. Just embrace it. Go with it.

  She nodded. “Yes. I understand. I’ll use the door. But can you tell me what this place is? Why did Jane bring me here?”

  The woman shrugged. “I live here. That is what it is. Why Jane bring you here? You were hurt. I owe her favor. I hate those things. Favors, you know? What a bother. How you got hurt? I don’t know. She no tell, I no ask. Nie mój cyrk. It’s good life. Now get out of my house.”

  Nie mój cyrk. What the hell did that mean?

  The woman pointed to the hallway more incessantly. “I said get out. Go.”

  Head down, Kristen scurried to the cave of a living room. She opened the front door. The stone remained. She glanced over her shoulder, and the woman gestured her forward. Kristen took a breath and stepped into solid rock—onto the bottom step of a concrete patio with a path leading to the road, a perfectly suburban street with a Chrysler sedan parked in front o
f the house. Kristen pulled her keys from her pocket. On her keyring was the key to a Chrysler. She rushed from the house, but allowed herself a single glance back. She saw a beautiful two-story home with an enormous front window, its blinds drawn back to reveal a bright white living room furnished with modern black leather and a wall-mounted plasma TV.

  “What the fuck,” she muttered, running to the car and circling to the driver’s seat. She hopped in, slammed the key in the ignition, and spotted another note on the dashboard.

  Sorry, you can’t keep the car. I’ll pick it up at your place later. Don’t worry—you won’t see me. And remember, call when you’re ready.

  Kristen swiped the note from the dashboard and threw it into the backseat. She started the car and peeled out, tearing down the road.

  Once she turned off of the residential side streets, she found herself in more familiar territory. Relief instantly washed over her. Calm set in, and with the calm came the instincts of a cautious driver. She slowed the car, merged into traffic, and stopped at the first fast food she saw: Taco Bell. After a trip through the drive-through, she opted to eat in her car, windows down in the parking lot. After a chicken quesadilla, a Nachos Supreme, a Crunchwrap, and three soft tacos, she finally felt sated—and bloated. She groaned and slouched in the driver’s seat. “That was a terrible idea.”

  Plucking her phone from where she’d deposited it—a front cup holder—she checked for a signal. She had one—not a good one, it never seemed to be good—but she had one. Three missed calls, all from her sister Emma. Eight text messages: seven from Emma, one from an unfamiliar number. She checked that one first.

  Hey, sorry you couldn’t make it last night. Maybe next time?

  Kristen pressed her lips together into a tight line, brow furrowed. After a minute’s consideration, she tapped out her reply: Who is this?

  Setting the phone back into the cup holder—she doubted a reply would be forthcoming given her own late response—and pulled out of the Taco Bell parking lot. She let instinct guide her home as she drove, paying only cursory attention to the road. Traffic was light and left her to her thoughts.

  Memories of the night prior lingered no matter how hard she tried to shake them. Beating the hell out of the armored weirdos had felt incredible. Using her strength always did; the opportunities had been few and far between since she'd first discovered what she could do. But she'd been shot. The actual shooting didn't bother her so much as the realization that she could be shot. Mostly, she was disappointed. It could happen again. She wasn't all-powerful. She couldn't deflect bullets. She had a limit. And as limits went, it seemed like a pretty bad one. Criminals had guns. She could get a bulletproof vest, she supposed, but she couldn't have a bulletproof everything. And wearing a ridiculous costume like her favorite comic book heroes held a certain allure. No doing it now, though. She would need armor. Big, bulky, unpleasant armor. Real heroes didn't wear armor like that.

  Kristen grumbled aloud to herself. “Oh, what a tortured soul you are, Kris. You have super powers. What a god damn disability that must be. If only you were a normal girl instead of a human wrecking ball.”

  She wanted to hit something—pound her fist on the steering wheel, kick out a window, anything—but a conscious reminder that she was driving put the thoughts to rest.

  Kristen pulled into the lot of her apartment complex: The Green Grove. She hated the name. The name implied something idyllic. The crumbling brown shingles, peeling siding, litter forming dunes in the parking lot, and the third appearance of a fumigation truck since moving in implied something different. It was better than some places, she supposed, but that was a small consolation. She had a balcony, though. That was nice.

  She parked in her spot, took the rear entrance into The Green Grove’s dank hallways, and climbed the stairs to her fourth floor apartment. As she turned her key in the lock, she remembered that Jane had found her way inside. Kristen wondered for a moment how hard that would actually be. How had she gotten in? Picked the lock? Climbed the balcony? Would anyone call the police if they’d seen her doing that? Probably not, she concluded. Nobody would care.

  Kristen stepped into her apartment, its interior illuminated only by a slice of light filtering through the curtains over the sliding glass balcony doors. She walked past an open kitchenette to the small living room, slinging Jane’s duffel onto a sagging futon. Out of habit, she checked her phone again. A new text message: Jack.

  She scrolled up for context.

  Hey, sorry you couldn’t make it last night. Maybe next time?

  Who is this?

  Jack.

  She chewed the inside of her lip and thumbed a reply. Where did you get my number?

  The reply came instantaneously. Kristen could picture him, leaning on the counter at Otherworlds with a smug grin on his face. It was on your pull list.

  Kind of creepy, dude.

  Not impressed?

  No. Seriously creepy.

  Kristen lowered her phone. She strode over to the refrigerator, threw open the door, and grabbed a bottle of Spotted Cow. Wrenching the cap off with her fingers, she spoke aloud to herself. “Let’s play a fun game, Kristen. Who’s the bigger creep, the lady who knows everything about you, carries a gun, and blackmails you into fighting werewolves, or the hot guy who lifted your phone number off of your pull list to try getting into your pants?”

  She looked down at her phone.

  Not creepy! Just resourceful.

  She tapped her reply. No. I didn’t give you my number. Until I do, don’t use it. This is not okay.

  Kristen took a swig from her beer, keeping one eye on the screen. His reply took longer than before, but it came. She read it twice.

  You’re right. Sorry. Won’t do it again.

  Her eyes drifted across the apartment and back again. He apologized. He actually apologized for being a creep. She didn’t even need hands to count how many times that’d happened before. The number was zero.

  Kristen dismissed Jack's existence outright, checking her sister's messages for the first time. They were all sent the night before. Six messages of progressively longer strings of the word hey followed smiling poop emoji. No voice mail.

  Any other person might have seen the messages as frantic. Kristen knew her better. It was as normal as the girl got.

  She set her phone on the counter and set off down the short hallway, past the bathroom and what was meant to be the bedroom. Instead, there was only an inflatable mattress shoved in the corner with a pile of blankets. The rest of the room was occupied by a set of stereo speakers and a suite of exercise equipment: a treadmill, a stationary bicycle, a punching bag on a steel frame, and a rack of strength bands. The room barely fit everything; using one item necessitated pushing everything else to one side. She flipped on the light, set her beer on the bicycle seat, and stripped her wig and street clothes, hanging them on the handlebars. She ruffled her own short, messy brown hair to help it breathe. Gathering a set of dirty workout clothes slung haphazardly over the band rack, she held them in hand and glanced at the full-length mirror on one wall. The bandages over her midsection caught her eye.

  Kristen prodded her stomach. Whatever wounds lay beneath the bandages, they didn’t hurt. It should hurt, she reminded herself. No pain. She poked harder. Still no pain. She gathered the bandages up in her hand and tore them away with one hard pull. Nothing. Only spots of puffy red flesh remained as a small sign of recent healing. Who was responsible for that? she wondered. Was the healing a part of what she could do, or was it that old woman?

  She caught motion behind her reflection. The mound of blankets shifted, a body beneath them rolling toward her. Kristen yelped and dove for her wig. First she pulled her workout tank over her head, then the wig. She only just managed to pull up her shorts when the blankets parted to reveal a face. “Emma!” Kristen shrieked. “What the hell?”

  Kristen’s sister buried her head beneath the blankets again. “Jesus, Kris. Put a bra on.”

&
nbsp; Kristen regathered her things and evacuated the room. Ducking into the bathroom, she yelled as she dressed properly. “What are you doing here?”

  “You told me I could crash here whenever. You gave me a key.”

  “Yeah, but maybe ask me first?”

  “I texted you.”

  “And I didn’t reply, did I?”

  “I figured you were at work.”

  “I was! And it’s four in the afternoon. Why are you still in bed?”

  “Because who cares?”

  Dressed, Kristen laid her hands flat on the bathroom counter. She drew slow breaths to calm her nerves. She shouldn’t have been angry, she knew. Any other day, Emma staying over wouldn’t have been a problem. Emma had been living with her boyfriend for a little over a year and the open door offer seemed like the right thing to do. Emma never really chose to live with him, though she should have seen it coming. Their mother had thrown her out the day she graduated—just like she had Kristen and the two siblings between them. During their parents’ divorce, the woman had fought tooth and nail to keep her children. In the years after, it became clear to all of them that she’d done it out of spite more than any actual affection. Moving in with their father after getting the boot wasn’t much of an option; he’d followed his job to Minnesota.

  “Oh! Before I forget, you should call mom. She’s totally freaking out.”

  Speak of the devil.

  Kristen stepped from the bathroom, trying to look casual as she returned to the bedroom. “And why would I do that, exactly?”

  Emma was sitting cross-legged on the bed, bleary-eyed in her rumpled tank top and baggy pajama pants. People had been telling Kristen that Emma looked like a small version of her—which Kristen took to mean less cartoonish—and she couldn’t help but agree. Only Kristen could make Emma seem petite in comparison. “Uh, I just said she’s freaking out.”