by Gin Price
I froze.
Someone stood there, with what might have been a can of paint in hand, arms down to their sides with their back to me. The rain poured down on them as well as on the portrait they’d painted—a portrait of my decayed face underneath a gnarled tree. Beneath it the bubbled words: Death Comes.
My heart choked me. My sudden wheezing stole my breath. I tried to scream at whoever it was to get them to turn around, but the rain fell so hard it obstructed my view and drowned my words.
Frustration eventually cinched my throat to near closing.
I took a step forward, and another. I wanted to get over there, but I resisted the temptation to make the jump from the roof I stood on to the one across from me. As eager as I was to find out who it was, I wasn’t eager to end up like the curious cat.
I squinted, only able to make out the shape of a human and no more. Size, dimensions…all out of my visual ability to interpret.
“Who—who are you?” I choked out.
Whoever it was couldn’t hear me.
“Please,” I sobbed, more to myself than to my would-be killer. “Why did you do this?”
The next few seconds passed as hours while I waited for rational ideas to form in my brain. I couldn’t call the cops because my phone was dead. I couldn’t confront the person, or I’d be dead.
The person snapped their head to the side, hearing a noise I couldn’t, and darted away from the wall.
I could see the graffiti clearer now. My painted face dripped a little, the red simulating fresh blood ominously as it oozed over the gray flesh of death. The hypnotic swirl in the background looked like it was going to suck my corpse-like face into hell, rotted tree, rain cloud, flailing blue strand of hair and all. Death and decay. This wasn’t harassment anymore. This was a threat. I felt death sitting on my shoulder, giggling in my ear.
And I got angry.
How dare this person ruin my whole life so casually, throwing mortality in my face? They wielded a power against me and I was allowing it to go on! The culprit was right there, and I stood motionless like a dumbass.
Well, not anymore.
I ran to the fire escape full steam, fueled by my rage. The bottom of my Tribal shoe gripped the topmost rung of the ladder and I pushed off, launching myself to the opposite emergency stairwell. In hindsight, I knew I was a fool to try the jump in wet conditions, but I successfully landed on the opposite balcony only one floor down from the top sans broken bones, though my face scraped against the bricks as I slid into it. The bizarre road rash would negate the “I entered the wrong building” alibi I was working on in the event of cop interference, but the fact I hadn’t killed myself eased the loss.
Taking a deep breath, I began the stealthy climb up the ladder to the roof where I’d seen my harasser. Hopefully, I wouldn’t run into them as soon as my head crested the rim and give them a pimp target.
To be safe, I stopped and listened. I could hear the rain dripping into recently created puddles but nothing more. The atmosphere turned eerie. Each step I took I imagined the entire apartment complex could hear it.
Though it took me a little while, I finally made it over the roof’s rail and onto the tar.
The rain made it nearly impossible to see my surroundings, lending me a heaping helping of vulnerability. Awesome.
I crouched down and looked around.
There were two small shed-like structures on the top of the building, one housing the electrical outlets and stuff and the other the emergency exit for the stairs. Two very good places where someone could hide and jump out at me with weapons of various sorts.
Chicken pens, or coops or whatever the hell they were called, were sitting in the center of the rooftop. A sign of the times I supposed, where breeding chickens was cheaper than buying them from stores, but someone musta been damned broke, ’cause there were no chickens left.
The tarp lying over the tops of the cages would give me a little cover but not much, so I avoided the bird pens and made my way to the emergency stairs.
A pair of hands grabbed my arms and slung me into the shadow of the emergency exit opposite of where my newest graffiti picture was painted. I drew in a breath to scream but the wet body gnashed into me so hard I lost all diaphragm possibilities. The attacker’s fingers dug into my throat, holding my voice box hostage while his other hand yanked my hoodie away from my face.
Not to be outdone, I grabbed my assailant’s hood to get a good look at…
…my boyfriend.
“LL! Jesus, you scared the shit out of me,” he whispered and removed his hand from my neck.
“Me?!” I choked, partly due to his nerve. “Haze…”
“Where did you come from?”
“I was on the roof searching for you when I saw—Haze! How could you? I believed you when you said it wasn’t you!”
“We gotta get out of here.”
He clasped my hand and pulled me down to a crouch. We took a few steps toward the edge before I yanked back to reality and out of his grip. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you explain to me why you are painting my zombified face on the side of this exit shed!”
“I wasn’t!” He turned to face me, looking over my shoulder. “Manu, please. Someone is up here with some hardware neither one of us has an answer to. Okay? We’ll talk as soon as we’re down.”
“H-hardware? Like a gun?” I hoped I was whispering.
“Shit. Run!”
I looked behind me but I didn’t see anything. There was a loud crack of thunder, and I couldn’t hear much of anything, let alone Haze’s next command. He regained possession of my hand and ran me toward the roof’s edge.
I didn’t know if it was my adrenaline having a rock’n’roll concert in my ears, or the thunder, but I thought I heard…gunshots. In front of me, I could see the rim coming closer. “Don’t stop,” Haze yelled, and I found myself briefly wondering if he was ready for this level. We’d never trained building jumps.
“Focus on the jump,” I instructed a second before I flattened out my body and made the distance. I landed correctly, but Haze’s feet slid on a wet patch and he hit hard.
I helped him to his feet but he pushed me ahead. “Next…roof,” he wheezed.
I sized the building up…and up. It was a good three stories higher than the building we were on which meant we’d have to perform a successful Cat Leap. Not good.
In theory I was good at going from the ground to a wall top, but this was different. This was from the roof to a window ledge, fingers making the difference between success and death, and that was only if I was lucky enough to make a solid grab. If I didn’t, there was only the option of death.
“Haze. With the rain…” I slowed but he urged me ahead of him again.
“Focus, Manu. I’m right behind you.”
I nodded but I doubted he saw it in the downpour. I heard him grunt in pain and I figured he injured himself with the first leap. We neared the next building and I realized we faced the fire-escape side. Less of a jump than I thought, but the landing might be a little rougher.
We didn’t need to run balls-out, though. I doubted the person chasing us would’ve made the jump behind us, and they certainly couldn’t see us by now.
We could do a simple leap that would carry us to the other building. I paused to see if he was feeling okay to—
I felt his hands at my back shove me forward. I let out a bizarre squeak—a mixture of shock and terror—and flew forward over the edge.
I heard a bellow, or another crack of thunder maybe. It sounded like the reaper calling my name, but I wasn’t ready to go just yet! All the nights of training came down to the moment of instinct where I had just enough brain juice to tell myself to push out. I didn’t get much power behind it, but I arched and extended my arms. There might’ve been a quick prayer involved as well, wrapped in curse words.
The ground came closer, my fingers barely grazed the balcony on floor four. Floor three slapped the center of my hand but my grip couldn’t hold the wet metal. The second floor was all mine, and I held on as my torso jerked downward putting my upper-body strength to the test.
If I hadn’t used the Cat Leap technique by tucking my legs up, the jolt would have pulled my arms out of my sockets. Though saved from permanent damage, I couldn’t hold on for long, and I dropped to the alley.
Any trained parkour athlete knows how to absorb a decent fall with proper leg-bendage, but my foot slipped on a bit of garbage saturated by rain, and I landed hard on my back. The instinct to keep my head up kept the contact with the concrete down to a tap, but I had to lie still to collect myself.
I’d…almost died. Was I alive or only thinking I was?
The small of my back throbbed a bit. Yeah, I was still alive, but my head felt a bit light.
Five seconds ago, I’d been cursing the rain, but now I welcomed it. The cold drops splattered across my face, keeping me alert.
I felt nauseous and I wanted to keep my eyes closed for a little while longer, except the survival part of my brain wouldn’t stop screaming. Get up.
Get up.
I heard someone screaming my name, or maybe it was the lady who came out onto her balcony to let me know she called the cops and was glad I fell. I lifted a hand to shield my eyes from the rain to look up at her. I caught a glimpse of Haze leaning over the rooftop looking down for a brief second before he disappeared.
Shit. Had he seen me move?
An image of him readying his cans of paint to spray my face until I choked to death got me to my feet faster than was probably good for me. The woman above me continued to berate me, telling me she got a good look at me, and proceeded to call me “young man” over and over. Yeah, she got a real good look.
I stumbled a bit and grabbed the side of the wall for support.
No time to stop. Haze would be down any second and the sirens in the distance were growing louder.
“See? They coming for you, young man,” the woman reminded me.
I was a big believer in respecting one’s elders, but this woman was dying for a bird, so I gave her one, right before I turned the corner and did my best to jog-stumble home.
Twenty-one
Call the police.
My inner voice screamed at me to preserve my life status by calling in the troops, yet I stood in my dark, empty house staring at the phone, poised to do something but unsure of what. The living room felt larger, less homey than I remembered. Probably because no one was in it. No one except me, dripping on the carpet.
Call the police.
And tell them what exactly? My boyfriend is putting up horribly graphic cartoonish pictures of me on walls all over the city? That he tried to kill me by pushing me off a building?
I remembered the article I read about Heather and how her killer had scuffled a bit with her on the ground. Then it was speculated that he followed her up the fire escape, dragged her to the edge, and threw her over.
Was Haze trying to reenact what had happened with his sister?
The thought of him—my Brennen—viciously attacking his sister, and me, was beyond my comprehension, and yet, my sore ass and head made a valid argument for his guilt.
I sighed, going over every second since picking myself up off the unsanitary ground. Haze encouraged me to run. I heard him grunting behind me, and then I felt a push. Maybe he hadn’t meant to push me so hard. He’d nudged me several times before the pivotal shove, convinced someone was on our heels. Perhaps he got carried away.
Or perhaps I was deeply in love with a killer and needed saving from myself. I needed to call the police.
I reached for the house phone and jumped when it rang. I took a calming breath, trying to staunch the fear of who was on the other line. Was it Haze calling to talk me into listening to his excuses? Was it one of my brothers looking for an explanation or worse…was it my father?
No one was home, which meant Warp was probably out on the streets looking for me, buried in panic with no way of knowing my phone died.
I picked up the house phone on the fifth ring. “Hello?”
“Jesus fucking Christ!”
“Hey, Warp,” I said, trying to pretend nothing was amiss.
“Don’t ‘hey Warp’ me, Emanuella! I’ve been trying to call you!”
“My phone died. Sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“Just get to the hospital.”
“The hospital? Why?” I felt my rapid heartbeat in my earlobes and held my breath. “What happened? Is it Pops?”
I never understood why people took forever to tell you bad news. Finding the right words could possibly explain their pause, but in their fumbling, they gave off a ‘something awful happened’ vibe that’s like…torturous to people waiting on the other end of the conversation. “Jesus! Tell me,” I snapped.
“Someone ran Surge down.”
I fought to define every word in that one simple sentence, and what I came up with was absurd.
“No.” Nothing was allowed to happen to Surge.
“No? Dammit, Emanuella, get your head off your boyfriend troubles for five seconds and hear what I’m saying to you! Someone ran down…”
“No! No. He’s fine. You’re lying.”
Warp got quiet on the other end of the line, probably realizing by the sound of my voice I was on the verge of hysterics. The razor’s edge of his tone dulled. “Just come down here.”
“I don’t understand. When? What happened? Is he going to be all right?”
He said nothing.
“Johnny,” I yelled into the phone, wishing I could reach through and pummel the answers out of him. “Is he going to be all right?” Of course he was. Surge was in my intimate circle and things like that weren’t possible.
“I don’t know,” he said gently. “Come down here.”
The phone receiver hung from my hand and all I could see was those fucking red paper hearts.
***
“Ellie, get in!” Liv saw me jogging through the rain a couple of blocks away from my house toward the hospital and pulled up near the curb.
I climbed into the passenger seat, barely noticing I soaked the upholstery. “Thanks.”
“I heard about what happened. I guess it was only a matter of time before the war.”
I blinked out of thoughts about Surge dying on some hospital bed and pushed them back long enough to grill for details. “What did you hear?”
Liv shrugged. “So far, only that Decay and Surge were supposed to continue their fight at Tucker Park an hour after school. Decay didn’t show on time, but he came screaming up with his car, driving through the fence and running down Surge. Haze was in the passenger seat—laughing.”
She snorted and shook her head, believing the rumor true without facts. I knew better.
“What? No. That’s impossible.”
“God, Ellie! When are you going to stop sticking up for that bastard and realize that he’s the villain here?”
Liv’s fingers were white-knuckled as they gripped the steering wheel, and her entire body shook with emotion. She thought I was being irrational, but in reality, I had proof in the form of a bruise on my butt that Haze hadn’t been in the car. I didn’t see how it was possible for him to run down Surge at Tucker Park with Decay and then paint a new sadistic mural of me downtown all before pushing me off a rooftop. He’d be one hell of a multitasker.
“Liv, you said Decay and Surge were going to continue their fight after school? What fight?”
She seemed pissed at me and for a moment, I wasn’t sure she’d answer. “Yeah. After you left, Decay tried to pick a fight with your brother. Surge walked up and challenged him with a punch to the face before a teacher broke them up and suspended them for a few da
ys. The two agreed to meet to finish it.”
I didn’t have to ask why Decay would be after my brother. All the graffiti crew would be since I opened my big mouth. “This is all my fault for telling Haze about Warp’s relationship with Heather.”
From the corner of my eye I watched Liv wring her hands around the wheel as she drove. I knew she hated that Warp didn’t come forward when Heather died. She even suspected him of killing her best friend. “I told you before, Liv. Warp didn’t kill Heather. I know it.”
“Yeah, maybe. The evidence is piling up against Haze. Warp seems the victim of circumstance.”
I should have agreed with her. After all, I knew the truth about what Haze had done to me, but I couldn’t help but compare notes by playing devil’s advocate. “There’s nothing that points at Haze if you believe someone’s been ripping off his style.”
“You’re a fool, Ellie. Not only is the graffiti style hard to duplicate, there’s no one around these parts with the talent to do it. And he is trying to distract away from his guilt by running down Surge to start a war between the traceurs and writers.”
I pounced. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I ran into another masterpiece, and I saw Haze. There’s no way he could be downtown throwing up a piece while running down Surge at Tucker Park.”
The light overhead of us turned yellow and Liv uncharacteristically stopped for it, having to slam on her brakes to do so.
She turned to face me, her eyes narrowing. “You were with Haze?”
“Well, not with him. But I saw him standing next to the new piece on the roof of an apartment complex.” I decided not to mention he held a can of spray paint in his hand.
“That’s great.” Liv’s eyes turned on the high beams. “You witnessed him painting your face, which could link him to…”
“I didn’t actually see him paint it.”
“Come on, Ellie. You’re grasping at straws here. I told you he was the villain.”
Yeah—the villain. Then why couldn’t I stop thinking of him as a victim?
“He couldn’t have been with Decay.”
“Maybe he was. Maybe he painted it earlier, hooked up with Decay to run down Surge and then had Decay drop him back off downtown to finish his morbid artwork.”
