by J. C. Lillis
“For what?”
“For God to strike you down.”
“Can I?” I fiddle with Lagarde’s tiny machete. “Apparently he’s sent assassins.”
I force a grin. She doesn’t smile back.
“Abel said you had a fight,” she says.
“It was nothing.”
“You have to talk to him, Brandon. Be honest.”
“Like you’re honest with your mom?”
“That’s different.”
“What do you want me to say to him? ‘Oh, see, I have this secret tormented inner life where I’m actually exactly the kind of person you hate’?”
“Abel wouldn’t hate you.”
“Yes he would. Trust me.”
Below us on the couch, Abel shifts onto his back in his sleep. His knees flop open and his arm drops behind his head, exposing a slice of white belly.
“How did you get to be an atheist?” I ask her.
She snorts. “That’s a weird question.”
“I want to know.”
“Well, there was this contest to see who could not believe in God the fastest, and I won.”
“Okay.”
“They gave me a tiara and an Unbeliever of the Month plaque.”
“I’m serious.” I prop Sim’s hands on Lagarde’s shoulders. “How did you decide not to believe everything Father Mike says?”
“Like, the stuff about helping the poor and not being assholes to each other?”
“You know which stuff I mean.”
She shrugs and handstands Lagarde on my chest. “I don’t know. It was easy. I was like, skeptical in the womb.”
“But what if you weren’t? What if you start out believing it because that’s how your brain works, and then you can’t completely shut it off?”
“Oh, well, then you’re screwed.”
“Thanks.”
“Kidding.” Lagarde tips over. “I guess you’ll just have to be braver than me.”
“I am screwed.”
“Oh, stop.”
“Why do boys have to exist?”
“You could always date the Phillie Phanatic.”
“Oh my God.”
“Remember your crush—”
“Yes. Shut it.”
“That would be an abomination.” She molds Plastic Sim in an evangelical pose, both arms skyward. “An abomination in the eyes of the Lord.”
I grin. “Think of the children.”
“If everyone married a mascot, we’d all go extinct.”
“Marriage is one man and one woman,” I huff, “not one man and one phanatic.”
She erupts in quiet giggles. So do I, but I’m queasy. Her phone chirps in the pocket of her plaid pajama pants.
“That’s your mom,” I say.
“Oh, piss off.”
“She hears your ungodly—”
“—Eep! No way.” She covers her mouth.
“What?”
“It’s from that Dave guy. With the Cookie Monster shirt?”
And the stupid hair, I almost say, but I keep my mouth shut. “Why’s he texting you?”
“Because I’m awesome? Listen: ‘You definitely cool girl. Me going to Atlanta con. Me want to know if me see you there.’ That’s kind of cute. He even spelled definitely right.” She starts texting back. “Me see you there. You bring COOKIE.”
Status: System disrupted. Remove foreign object to stabilize.
“You don’t want to do that, do you?” I say.
“What?”
“Hook up with some guy you met at a convention?”
“What should I hold out for?” she teases. “A sham marriage to my best friend?”
I flick her shoulder. “Ideally.”
She presses Sim’s face to my cheek and makes a smoochy sound. I kiss the top of her head. I try not to, but I picture her in this position with that Lego-haired creep Dave, his lips lingering on her hair and his hands roaming the gentle curves of her body, doing all the stuff my hands would never do. My Bec. Not mine anymore. I guess she never was.
She lays Sim and Lagarde on my chest, side by side.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” she whispers.
“Yep.”
Abel snores pornographically, like a prince sleeping off an orgy. Outside on the highway, everyone’s going somewhere fast; 18-wheelers and SUVs and slick two-seaters all streak by together in one deep roar of purpose. I press my eyes shut and pretend Bec’s shoulder is Sim’s, picture his mechanical heart pumping blue in the dark. You are safe here with me, he says, and Shall we watch the skies for falling stars?, but all I see is Abel’s hurt face in the kitchen when I said shut up, and all I hear is Hell Bells. Hell Bells. Hell Bells.
CastieCon #2
Atlanta, Georgia
Chapter Eight
“Fellow Casties,” sighs Abel. “A solemn bonjour from the parking lot of the Atlanta Superion Inn. Also known as Hell’s fiery furnace.”
Abel’s at the RV desk with the camera on, eating cheese curls that smell like dirty socks and fanning himself with a CastieCon program. I’m folding boxers in the Sunseeker kitchenette and deciding which t-shirts need to be ironed. I refuse to look at him. He didn’t even ask if I wanted to do a post, which I guess makes sense because we’ve barely spoken to each other all week. Whatever. I’m used to showy silent treatments. I have an older sister.
“Since we’ve been deluged with three whole comments wondering why we haven’t posted a vlog entry from the road this week, I figured it was time to sit you down for a heart-to-heart and be honest with you.” Abel clears his throat. I turn my back and plug in my iron. “Okay, here’s the thing, kids: Daddy and Daddy had a fight. The particulars aren’t important; let’s just say that Daddy Two was being a raging bitch and Daddy One graciously stepped aside and gave him the space he so desperately needed this week.”
I slam down the tabletop ironing board. “You’re not posting this.”
“Did you guys hear something? Like a gnat, maybe?” Abel cups a hand to his ear. “Anyway, Daddy One has personally had an awesome week. Cadsim ladies, I so enjoyed that new hurt/comfort fic where Cadmus ‘whimpered like a proud wounded cat’ and ‘dissolved into the comforting clank of Sim’s arms.’ Also, the road between Cleveland and Atlanta? Let me tell you guys: Superbly creepy cemetery in Cincinnati. Amazing drag show in Lexington—Anita Bigwon, you complete me, I’m totally stalking you on Twitter now. Of course, Daddy Two over there spent the entire week sulking in the RV and rewatching Season 1—”
“I’m not listening to you.” I wipe sweat off my brow with my forearm. “Just so you know.”
Abel rolls his eyes and crunches another cheese curl. “Aaaanyway, kids, just because Daddy and Daddy are fighting doesn’t mean we don’t love you. We’re parked just paces away from the Superion, where we’ll be giving you complete coverage of the Tom Shandley Q&A in…t-minus forty-five minutes. Guys: Are you ready to kneel before Xaarg?”
“Your phone keeps ringing.” I grab it off the desk and hold it up.
“I busted out my black cashmere t-shirt specifically for this occasion, ‘cause it’s not every day you lift your question paddle before the biggest badass villain on television. Considering he only approves of ‘literary fanfic that probes the psychology of Xaarg,’ I’m preeeetttty sure he’ll be his super duper awesome self and give another fat NO to cave-scene sexitude. We might have to literally worship him then.”
I fling the phone at his chest. “Will you answer this already?”
“Jesus, Brandon!” He shuts off the camera, rubbing the spot where I hit him. “What’s your malfunction?”
“Nothing wrong with me.”
“Normal people don’t throw phones.”
“Bitter loveless losers do, though.”
He checks the screen. “I missed three calls from Kade.”
“Tragic.”
“You know—”
“Make sure you apologize a million times a
nd ask if he’s mad at you until he is.”
“I don’t do that!”
“It’s pathetic.”
“At least I have someone.”
“Someone with a chicken tattoo.”
“It’s a phoenix.”
I give him a smug chuckle, so he thinks I’m stifling a great comeback.
“Screw you.” He shakes his head. “Seriously.”
Bec bangs in with her laundry bag slung across her shoulder. She looks at me, then at him. I turn back to my Steamium, scrub it across my Castaway Planet shirt.
“What’s going on?” she says.
Abel’s dialing Kade. I shoot a toxic glare at him. “Nothing.”
“How long are you two going to do this?”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“—Awwww, babe, don’t get pissy. I forgot…no, I did!” Abel’s saying. “I know, I’m tired too. I was out till two…No! God, not with him. Can you imagine?”
I slam down the Steamium. Bec shakes her head.
“I’m catching a Greyhound home,” she says, “if you guys don’t stop acting like infants.”
“Thought you had fun this week.”
She sighs a little, but she smiles. It’s been like old times with me and Bec this week—sort of, when she’s not texting Dave. A few times she’s hung out with Abel, but mostly it’s been the two of us chilling like an old married couple, eating cheese fries and chocolate cream pie in diners, fishing at crappy free campgrounds, doing weird touristy things Bec loves, like the Grave of Doctor Pepper in Virginia. I don’t really care what Abel’s been up to. He goes out at night in whatever town we’re in, and he comes back in at two in the morning with souvenirs: a thrift-store snakeskin bomber jacket, a shot glass with a skull and crossbones on it. Sometimes I’m still awake in the loft, fighting off swarms of dark thoughts or combing the Cadsim fanjournal for the next Hell Bells sighting (nothing else, so far). When the door creaks open, I always pretend I’m asleep.
“It was fun,” Bec says, “but the two of you are—”
“Talk to him. It’s not me.”
“It’s both of you! I can’t stand you guys like this.”
Abel lets out a hugely annoying look-how-much-fun-I’m-having laugh. “Nuh-uh! No you didn’t. You did not! Oh no, baby, that’s not crazy. You want crazy, let me read you something from this FJ…Um, fanjournal? I am not a nerd; you’re just culturally illiterate…”
“This shirt. For meeting Dave today. What do you think?” Bec waggles a narrow green t-shirt with a deep v-neck.
I swallow hard. “Nice.”
“It’s not too boob-intensive, is it?”
I’m just about to push out a “No” when Abel breaks in with a couple expletives that would’ve gotten me three days’ detention back in high school. He’s staring at his laptop, punching the scroll buttons up and down.
“Babe, I gotta call you back, all right?” he says to Kade. “Something’s going down here.”
***
I see her fanjournal icon in my head. It pops up in my dreams: the angel statue, the halo of knives.
“It’s bad, guys,” Abel says. “C’mere.”
You knew this would happen, says Father Mike.
hey_mamacita is back. This time she’s posted a picture I’ve never seen before. Abel in his Thundercats t-shirt, pulling a stern face beside a cinder-block wall.
Under the photo it says:
A MESSAGE OF GRAVE IMPORTANCE.
to miss maxima and the rest of you Cadsim girls: I am officially calling you out. STOP TROLLING US OR ELSE!!! it’s one thing not to agree with our manifesto, but CHRIST ON A BIKE it’s a whole other bag of crazy to come over and attack us and call us, I quote, “psychotic” and “mentally ill.” who are brandon & abel to you, anyway? as far as I recall, you were calling for their heads last year when they ripped apart your fic on Screw Your Sensors every week, so kindly cram it with the mark david chapman references and calling us batshit crazy, especially since you of all people know EXACTLY where we’re coming from.
for the record, YES, we will still have a spy (spies plural) at the Atlanta CastieCon today. they’re already there, and they are READY FOR ACTION as soon as brandon and abel walk in.
and BFC update = plots are thickening. as we speak. there’s still time to join us, IF you dare.
ta-ta.
:-)
We just stand there and blink.
“You guys.” Abel taps the screen fast. “That is a personal photo.”
“Did you post it anywhere before?” says Bec.
“Facebook, maybe. I don’t know.”
“Any enemies? Besides the Cadsim shippers?”
“No. I love everyone,” Abel shrugs. “Except if they suck. But most people don’t—What is he doing?”
I’m already in the back room, unzipping the canvas storage chest under the bed. I find them right away, under a couple flannel shirts and four awful Christmas sweaters from our last Vermont holiday with Aunt Meg. Dad ordered the SAFE-U vests five years ago when someone got shot half a mile from our house during deer season. When we took our Saturday walks in the woods with our binoculars and bag lunches, he wouldn’t let me leave without strapping one of these on. Always best not to take chances, he’d say.
Abel says to Bec, “What are those?”
“How would I know?”
“I thought you knew every inch of this place.”
I shrug. “Tell him it’s like the vests they wore in Episode 4-23,” I tell Bec. “When they’re rescuing Dutchie from the tentacle robots? Tell him he should wear one too.”
“Did you get that?” Bec asks Abel.
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s like a costume,” I say. “But not so obvious.”
“Tell Brandon,” says Abel, “that I think he’s full of shit, and that those are bulletproof vests, and if he thinks I’m wearing one of those he’s one hundred percent demented.”
“Tell Abel that they’re bulletblocker panels, and when your enemies are stalking you and other people are calling them psychotic, it’s actually a fairly intelligent idea.”
“Tell Paranoid Android he’s officially out of his skull, and that no one in the history of fandom has gotten shot over a ship war.”
“I bet that’s not true.”
“And plus there’s no way Cadmus would wear one of those.”
“Tell him we don’t have writers to save our asses.”
“Ask Brandon how come he’s such a puss all of a sudden.”
“Tell Abel to—”
“Shut it!” yells Bec.
I turn around. She’s standing in the kitchen nook in a pink bra with red circles, the one that’s always hanging damp from her shower rod when I use her bathroom at home.
“Listen, bozos.” She tosses her sleep shirt on the counter and starts yanking on her green v-neck. “Do it or don’t do it. Fight or don’t fight. Love each other or hate each other. Just leave me out of it. Understood?”
I sneak a look at Abel. He crosses his arms.
“Yeah,” we mutter.
“You have anything to say to each other?”
“Nope,” I shrug.
“Not really,” says Abel.
Bec sighs. She shoves Plastic Sim at me. Plastic Cadmus at Abel. Putting on her best Zara Lagarde sneer, she stalks to the door and wrenches it open, flooding the Sunseeker with heat and the sooty gray smell of exhaust. She quotes Lagarde in Episode 2-11, two seconds after I know she’s going to: “Get it together, men. Or die.”
Chapter Nine
Crystal Ballroom, 10:52 a.m. Eight minutes to the Tom Shandley Q&A. Gold tickets stamped, blue wristbands snapped on. The redheaded girl at the check-in booth gives us a cute gun-finger and says “Have a blast, guys!”
You’re taking chances, bud.
I reach in my SAFE-U vest, squeeze Plastic Sim.
“Let’s go.” Abel shoves rudely at my back. “Seven minutes!”
/>
Inside it’s packed. Much more than Cleveland. The booths are swamped and the line for the Shandley Q&A is twice as long as Bree LaRue’s, wrapped all the way around the draped table where two of Xaarg’s Henchmen are signing a stack of promo shots. We’ll have to tromp through an army of strangers to get in line.
I adjust my vest, scan faces. No one looks crazy. But how would I know?
“Help me look for Dave, okay?” Bec says. “He said he’d meet me at the Q&A.”
Abel high-fives her. “Woohoo! Get it, baby.”
I don’t know how they’re calm. All I can think of is hey_mamacita. Plots are thickening. We have spies. I straighten my back like Sim but it doesn’t help; a camera flash pops, a toy laser gun goes brrrzzapp and I think this is it, this is how I die, face down on a stretch of paisley carpet by a rack of collectible Christmas balls that say DON’T MESS WITH XAARG.
The doors to the Q&A room slide open. Everyone struggles forward. I shuffle behind Abel, keep my eyes on his dumb yellow rubber watch. I try to look anonymous, which is pretty impossible when the six-foot-two person in front of you has a neon sweatband around his forehead and hair that could signal ships lost at sea.
Abel settles on a space in the center of the crowd. The room feels airless and reeks of floral shampoos and failing deodorants, snack-stand onion rings and popcorn. I’m four inches from the back of some sweaty guy’s novelty t-shirt. Cartoon Jesus aims two machine guns straight at my face. The guy’s talking to a girl in a candy-red wig with dangly earrings shaped like the Starsetter: “True, but that’s a critical part of Cadmus’s backstory. If they retcon it now it’ll be a disaster.”
“He’s coming he’s coming!” I think Abel’s talking to me, but then he pokes the stocky lady standing next to him. She’s dressed in leather pants and a ripped gray tank top like Zara Lagarde, and homemade replicas of Lagarde’s gun and machete are slung across her back. “Oh my God oh my Goddddd how excited are you?”
Lagarde Lady grins. “Totally!”
Bec’s waving Dave through the crowd. Hugging him. His hair looks even stupider than before and he’s brought her a plastic-wrapped cookie from the snack bar.
