They'd been to the cinema on the day it happened. After the film (including staying to the very end of the credits to ensure they saw the blooper reel and the thirty-nine seconds of bonus footage tagged on the end), the girls had planned to go back to Elie's parents' house for a sleepover. With her father working abroad and her mother sleeping deep Xanax dreams, Elie raided the liquor cabinet and in no time at all, the pair had worked their way through two bottles of Californian red.
'So, there I am,' Elie was slurring, her face flushed with cheer. 'Got myself up on the roof, and I'm telling everyone, I'm going to do it, gonna jump down into the pool. I'm gonna do it!'
Little Shrew giggled, imagining the scene.
'And it's not enough that I'm up there, I have to have an audience, you know? So I'm calling everyone over, my friends, my brother, my brother's friends, these guys from the town who called in just because they heard the noise. Everyone there.'
'Crazy,' Little Shrew said.
'I'm on the roof, I have my audience, and I decide I'll dance a little, throw in the entertainment.' Elie swayed a cobra-like stomach around in an eye-catching circle as evidence of her moves. 'And then I think, wait a minute, I still have all my clothes on. Can't jump in fully clothed, and there's no way I'm walking away with everyone watching. So I decide to strip down to my underwear, right there.'
'Man,' Little Shrew said admiringly. 'You must have been wasted.'
'Society kid in her underwear on a roof! Let the neighbours talk, right? Except it doesn't happen. I get my top off easily enough, but I got my foot stuck in my jeans. The guys are shouting up at me to take care, my brother is telling me to get my ass down before I hurt myself. And then I fell.'
'Off the roof?'
'To the side, where Julio the gardener had been piling up compost for the rose beds for weeks.' Elie touched her arm. 'I never did make it in the pool. Instead, I landed in the compost with my jeans round my ankles, and now I can never look at the roses without thinking about it.'
Little Shrew marvelled at how easily Elie could tell this story. If it had happened to her, Little Shrew would never have gotten over the shame. Then, of course, it never would have happened to Little Shrew, because she avoided risk-taking of any kind.
'You could have been badly hurt,' she said.
Elie smiled that smile, the one with the manga fangs. 'My ankle still kinda hurts. But I got one hell of a story out of it.'
She reached over, trying to clink their glasses together, but she only managed to slosh her Pinot noir into Little Shrew's lap. 'Oh, my god! I'm so sorry.'
'Oh, don't worry,' Little Shrew said. She reached out her hand with a tissue to mop up the wine, but in her own muggy fog, slipped into Elie. Their faces met, and Little Shrew was amazed at how warm Elie was. Then the girl brought her eyes up to Little Shrew's, holding her there with her gaze before descending upon her.
It was a kiss. The kiss. Little Shrew's first, and the first of many. And all the while they were kissing, Little Shrew was aware of this light-headed feeling, like something inside her was stirring.
* * *
Elie was the happiest person that Little Shrew had ever known. Even when she had no idea that anyone was looking, she would sit in a lazy, comfortable position and spontaneously break into song. She couldn't sing for dimes, but her ecstatic, crazy randomness made others laugh. It made Little Shrew laugh, and she needed to laugh just then.
'Are you just going to sing all day?'
Elie added a perfect pirouette to her cabaret routine and said in a faux-royal voice, 'I believe I shall. The post apocalyptic world will need someone to remind them what Katy Perry sounded like.'
Little Shrew grinned. 'You don't sound like Katy Perry.'
'A girl can dream.'
The pair stood close together for a moment, and Little Shrew sensed that Elie might move to embrace her. Instead, she smiled shyly, and led the way to the garage.
'We can't take the minivan,' Elie said. 'I know you're not keen on travelling on foot, but we'll draw less attention if we go on foot.'
As ever, Little Shrew knew that she'd lost the argument. Still, she made a half-hearted attempt to resist. 'I still think we could just barricade the door and stay.'
'Sweetie, you heard what they said. They can't guarantee our safety here, so we're going to the harbour. We can't ride out the apocalypse by sleeping for days and watching Cumberbatch shows on mute.'
'What makes you think the place we're going to is any safer than here? And anyway, I don't just watch Cumberbatch shows.' Little Shrew was affronted.
Elie smiled goofily, and Little Shrew's frost melted. 'I can take or leave the shows. But that accent...'
'It's a good accent.'
Elie had already turned away and begun to practise some wide, measured sweeps with the golf club. Automatically, Little Shrew's eyes drifted to her favourite part of Elie's body — her thighs and calves. She stretched beautifully, with such measured ease. She was an artisan's creation, one that didn't so much break the mould as utterly defy it. Little Shrew wanted to protect her, take her hand and guide her to safety, but she knew that if she took Elie by the hand, it would be her that got pulled along. Defiant to the last, Little Shrew placed her hands in her pockets. Oblivious as ever, Elie continued to practise her swing.
For a full minute, the only sound was the swipe as the metal shaft cut through the air again and again. It was as though each of them was waiting for the other to make a decision. The silence lengthened until Little Shrew couldn't stand it any more.
'Okay, so maybe a lot of Cumberbatch shows,' she whispered.
* * *
'Don't worry,' Elie said later. 'Of course they like you.'
'I don't know. I just get the impression that they don't, that's all.'
'They're just self-involved,' Elie said. 'Dad lives for his work and Mom is on all of these charity committees, the neighbourhood group, church committee. She likes to stay busy.'
Little Shrew was used to making an indifferent first impression, but the memory of her first meeting with Elie's parents left her with a unique sense of disappointment. Both tanned to the colour of overcooked biscuits, their words were warm enough, but their smiles didn't reach their eyes. Elie's father blinked too much, like looking at her was painful. Elie's mother wrinkled her nose. Little Shrew approached them to shake hands, but they just stared at her palm like they might catch something from her.
'I'll just...uh...go upstairs, then,' Little Shrew had said.
She got to the first landing and turned out of sight, but she could still hear the barely-disguised whispering below her. 'I know. But don't say anything. I'm sure it's just a phase she's going through...'
It got no better with time. Elie's parents never spoke to her unless she spoke to them first. Even Julio the gardener, with his tenuous grasp of the English language, seemed to sense her lowly position in the pecking order. He would give Little Shrew wary glances when her walk along the garden path took her too close to the rosebushes.
Elie's college friends were all sylph-like and came from the same moneyed background as her. It didn't take Little Shrew long to realise that their honeyed appearances hid a veritable host of sharp edges, emotional problems and temper tantrums. Even so, Elie allowed herself to be ferried around at the centre of their group, as though she was the President and they were the Secret Service. When Little Shrew approached, they withdrew into a phalanx of sarcasm and cutting remarks, and if she persisted, they shooed her away in squawking voices.
Ultimately though, it made no difference. To a casual observer, Elie may have seemed as fragile as a leaf on the breeze, but she was used to getting what she wanted. What she apparently wanted was Little Shrew, and no one's disapproval was going to make the slightest bit of difference.
Elie's was a rare determination, one that was intense to the point of being sensual, or scary, or sometimes both. Each Friday evening, Little Shrew would stay behind after class and watch Elie run from the bleach
ers. In the months since meeting Little Shrew, Elie had gone from being a decent junior to an elite in the making. In the last track meet of the season, she romped home a full second ahead of the rest of the field, the quickest time recorded in the whole county that year.
As always, when the race was done, Little Shrew made her way down to trackside and smiled bashfully at Elie. Elie winked at her and emptied a bottle of water over her own hair, shoulders and chest.
When she met Little Shrew's eyes again, she looked positively devilish. Little Shrew could have fallen to her knees and thanked her then and there for the mere fact of her existence.
Instead, she fought back her desire and said, 'That's your personal best. Congratulations!'
'That's what you do,' Elie replied between breaths. 'That's what you do for me.'
Little Shrew didn't know what to say, but her heart felt like it might burst. She's just a girl, she told herself. Just a girl, running.
* * *
'You should run.'
'I can't run,' Little Shrew said.
'Everyone has to start somewhere.'
Little Shrew knew that she was going to run. In a world in which she was constantly being told what not to do, Elie was all about what she should. Even so, it would not be an easy process. The running shorts Little Shrew bought were comically wide, her thighs rubbed painfully together with every step and the earth felt heavy beneath her feet.
The track stretched out before her. It might as well have been a thousand miles long. With Elie's words of poisonous encouragement burning in her ears, Little Shrew's vision narrowed until she could only see directly ahead. Her heart was beating in her ears. She could feel a hundred eyes upon her as she lumbered maladroitly across the finish line.
She hated every second of it with the exception of the one directly after it was over. Elie placed a hand upon her shoulder and said, 'You did it, Little Shrew!'
* * *
Little Shrew's vision is clouding at the sides again, like it always does when she is under pressure. Like it does when she is forced into things she doesn't want to be a part of. Everything else is hazy around the edges, like the things that have happened in the last twenty-four hours are all products of a disordered mind.
There are no memories from today that she wishes to recall, so she goes back to something else, anything else, to distract her. The last time that they had sex. Saturday, two weeks ago. Or maybe three.
'Hold me down, hold me down,' Elie moaned. She likes Little Shrew's weight pressing down on her, pinning her to the bed. Little Shrew doesn't know why hearing this upset her so much — she has heard Elie say it a hundred other times, after all — but right there, at that time, it infuriated her. It's a reminder that Elie isn't with her because she's smart, or funny, or beautiful. She keeps Little Shrew around because she likes her weight, the power it implies.
That was when Little Shrew decided to exercise that power. She stopped, lifted her body upwards.
'No...no, don't,' Elie said.
Little Shrew balanced herself on her elbows. 'How do you actually feel about me?'
'Carry on, please,' Elie begged.
'Tell me.'
'Really? Really? Do we have to do this now?' Elie's tiny fists punched at the bed and she rolled out from beneath Little Shrew.
'You didn't have to do that,' Little Shrew said.
'It couldn't have waited?'
'Why should I have to wait?'
Elie rolled her eyes and put her dressing gown on.
Little Shrew sank downwards onto the bed. She felt small and sad and humiliated.
Elie sat for a long time, hands over her mouth, looking out the window. Finally, without turning round, she whispered, 'You should probably go.'
* * *
Little Shrew fiddled with the locker door in front of her. The mechanism was simple enough, but when she stared at it, it turned in on itself like an Escher drawing and gained extra dimensions that punished her eyes.
'Why don't you ever hang out with me at college?' Little Shrew said.
'Sorry?' Elie said. She was fresh out of the shower, towel wrapped around her waist, steam still rising off her hair. Her ankle was heavily strapped, and she was walking with a slight limp.
Little Shrew was sure that Elie had heard her and was hoping that she wouldn't pose the question again. But she wasn't in the mood to let this go.
'You heard me. Your friends are really mean to me, and you never challenge them.'
'You're just imagining it.'
'No, I'm not.' Little Shrew persisted. She figured that since the noose was around her neck, she may as well jump off the horse. 'And anyway...it's not just your friends. Your parents never even talk to me, and you never call them out for it.'
Elie looked away and busied herself with her kit bag. 'Do you really care what they think?' she asked.
'I don't care what they think,' Little Shrew said, carefully emphasising each word. 'I care what you think.'
A few seconds passed in silence, and Little Shrew found herself wondering if she actually imagined the whole conversation. Over her shoulder, Elie fired up her hairdryer.
* * *
Little Shrew has driven down the harbour road any number of times, and it's only now that she notices the colossal gap that has formed somehow in her memory. She remembers the way that the verge slopes downhill towards the soupy brown water. She remembers the blooming yellow fungal tufts that threaten to overwhelm the corrugated iron of the harbour building walls. What she hasn't remembered, until now, is the great chain link fence that cuts the water off from the harbourside completely.
The pair stop behind a wall at the edge of the car park.
'We'll have to go through the harbour building itself,' Elie says. 'Quickly, before they see us.'
Little Shrew follows Elie's pointing finger to a swarm of limbs and fury that is leaning into the fence, creating a bulge and threatening to tear it down. Behind the fence, Little Shrew can see a tiny military cordon in front of a transport ship. The soldiers are eyeing up the bulge as it swells, but they seem reluctant to shoot.
Little Shrew is still calculating in her mind — speed versus distance versus pain in joints — when Elie says, 'Okay, in five seconds, we're going to run for the Harbour building.'
'Elie, no. I'm in a lot of pain.'
'Sweetie, we can't wait, you know that, right? The soldiers aren't going to shoot because the sound will bring even more of these...people...over. There's not enough of them there to hold the place as it is. If the fence comes down, the military are going to close the doors and sail away.'
Little Shrew is incensed by Elie's steely calm observations. She's not sure whether the pain she is in is stopping her from thinking straight, or her inability to think is somehow contributing to the pain.
Elie slaps her on the back and practically pulls a salute. 'Time to shine, Little Shrew. This is where that time on the track is going to pay off.'
'Two more minutes,' Little Shrew pleads.
Elie vaults the wall in a single movement, graceful as a cat. One of the shamblers nearby is more alert than the others, and takes a three-iron to the temple for its trouble.
'Damn it, Elie!' Little Shrew follows way behind, taking precious seconds to negotiate the wall and get back into her stride. Pounding across the concrete, she soon has the attention of every shambler within earshot. A large group of them leaves the fence as one, sweeping round in a wide crescent that meets her at the tip. Little Shrew has the momentum, and pushes the leader into the rest. What follows is a stumbling of domino limbs as the ones at the front fall, and the ones behind lurch over them. Only one threads a way through, and as it opens its mouth to chomp down on the hapless Little Shrew, Elie strikes it a blow across the skull that leaves the golf club bent like a brace drill.
'Got your back,' Elie says.
With barely a pause, she bounces away in the direction of the harbour building. Little Shrew follows behind. Only when she reaches the doorwa
y does she pause to wipe the terror foam from her chin and spit on the floor.
* * *
They creep through the office areas, staying low behind desks and avoiding the windows.
'We need to get out of the offices and into the warehouse,' Elie says.
'How come you know so much about this place?' Little Shrew asks.
Elie keeps moving forward. 'My dad does a lot of his shipping through here.'
'So?'
'He brought me here to see how it all works.'
Little Shrew is nonplussed. 'Why would he do that? You never seemed to care before how he makes his money.'
Elie leads them through to a small door into the darkened warehouse. 'He was going to offer me a role in the company. Give me a chance to travel, make some money, see a bit more of the world.'
'Oh.' Little Shrew shuffles along behind, taking small footsteps in the darkness.
'What?'
'What?'
'What did you mean by that?' Elie says.
'I didn't mean anything.'
'That's not how it sounded.'
Little Shrew, in pain and miserable from having been a passenger throughout the journey, says, 'Well...you know, if you were taking a new job or going travelling, I just wondered when you were going to tell me. That's all.'
'We hadn't really sorted any of the details. I was going to tell you as soon as I knew.'
'Oh. Well, okay.'
Little Shrew sees Elie's head cock in the shadows. 'Are you sure? You don't sound okay.'
'It's just that it's pretty damn dark in here.' She knows that Elie won't buy it, but maybe she'll pick up on Little Shrew's desire to drop it and move on. It's not like it matters anyway, not now.
The Z Chronicles Page 24
