Slasher Girls & Monster Boys

by April Genevieve Tucholke

  They’d gotten the cover, and that single shot had set her career on fire. It showed Jaycee in the tub, one bare leg propped on the lip, mouth open, expectant, the bubbles barely covering her body, the reflection of the photographer in the water. It was lewd, tawdry, and it sold more issues of Slide than any cover that year. Jaycee’s album had exploded and the rest was history.

  Jaycee remembered that Mama had taken her to McDonald’s that night. She hadn’t blinked twice when Jaycee ordered a shake and fries and two cheeseburgers. Now that famous photo was framed in their living room and every time she walked past it, Jaycee could hear Gary Todd’s voice. You want the cover, don’t you? Then tell me. Say yes.

  “Go on, babygirl,” said Louise.

  Jaycee walked across the bathroom floor. When she looked down at the tub, the bubbles were gone. The tub was full of murky brown water, a dry, milky sheen to its surface, peppered with little starbursts of white mold.

  “It’s dirty,” Jaycee whispered.

  Louise chuckled softly. “So are you, kiddo. So are you. It’s why that boy didn’t want you.” Something moved beneath the surface of the water. “He knows what you are. That’s why he put those pictures out there, so everyone else would know too. Now get in the tub.”

  Jaycee was cold when she pulled off the sweats and the gray T-shirt, when she stepped into the filth of the water, the film of the surface parting in oily ripples beneath her toes. She lowered herself down as the flashbulbs popped, as the high whine of them filled her ears. It didn’t sound like cameras now, more like a machine, a drill or a saw, like metal against bone.

  She was shaking, the lights growing brighter and brighter as the thing in the water curled around her ankle. She wasn’t sure if it was her mother’s voice or Louise’s that said gently, “Go on, babygirl. It has to be fed.”

  × × ×

  Kara slammed the laptop shut, but the image of the dead groupie was burned into her mind: a young girl with chestnut hair, half of her face eaten away by someone or something, the remaining skin studded with uneven rings of bite marks like bloody, haphazard embroidery.

  She could still hear Jaycee singing that god-awful song in the other room, but now it didn’t sound like grinding, crunchy guitar pop. It sounded like a lament.

  Made crooked just like you.

  Kara thought of that day they’d been driving to the Wind Creek casino. She’d been nineteen, barely older than Jaycee was now; Trent had been at the wheel, Jaycee in her car seat in the back. When that song had come on the radio, they’d all sung along.

  They say you’re crazy, I’m crazy too.

  It had started off as a good day, one of the best days, but it hadn’t ended that way. It had ended with them arguing in the parking lot of the casino, Trent yelling, his shirt stuck to his body from the heat, that weavy awful sound he got in his voice when he’d had one too many. He’d been drinking the whole time, sipping on that Big Gulp from the 7-Eleven, a Coke slushie that he’d doused with rum. She’d been able to smell it, but she’d pretended to herself that it was just the sweet chemical scent of the air freshener and the gasoline. That’s why he’d been in such a good mood.

  And then his mood had soured, like the wrong switch got flipped. The worst part was the way he cycled high and then low. One minute he’d be calling her a whore, demanding to know who she was spreading her legs for while he was at work, threatening to call their friends, her mother, the people at the salon where she worked. She’d be yelling right back, giving as good as she got, then suddenly, he’d be on his knees, crying. You’re going to leave me, aren’t you? You can see I’m shit and you’re going to leave me. Don’t leave me, baby. Please don’t leave me. Clutching at her hips, crying into the folds of her skirt. Then as if someone had picked up the remote and skipped back to the last channel—You’re going to leave me, aren’t you? Well FUCK YOU.

  He was up and on his feet, screaming in the parking lot, Jaycee crying in the backseat, her little face red and crumpled, a crowd gathering to watch the show. Concerned, sure. But smug too. These morons in their stonewashed jeans with their sunburned shoulders and beat-up cars, getting their chance to laugh at someone else for a change. She could feel their eyes. They were judging Trent, but judging her worst of all: Why doesn’t she just walk away? Doesn’t she have any self-respect? What kind of mother lets her kid see something like that?

  Trent had always been that way. And the worst part, the part that Kara could never talk about, never admit to anyone but herself, was that there was a time when she’d liked it. No, she’d loved it. She’d loved his jealousy, his intensity, the way that broken little boy in him came squalling to the surface, how he’d get so wound up that he’d put a fist through a wall, then take her in his arms moaning Love me, love me, love me. She’d been drunk on his wildness and the fact that she’d been the one to tame him, crazy Trent Connors, beautiful and dangerous and tripwire lean.

  She wasn’t sure when she realized that when Trent called her worthless, he meant it. But she remembered standing in the parking lot that day, seeing the scorn in all those people’s eyes, and wondering if he might be right. There’d been a guy wearing a Pearl Jam T-shirt. He’d had little bits of boiled egg in his beard and one of those big jutting bellies that looked hard as a melon, Eddie Vedder’s face stretched over it so it looked like he was screaming instead of singing. When the cruiser pulled up, its red and blue lights flashing, its siren making that bright, humiliating chirp, that loser with food in his beard, with a belly so big, he probably hadn’t seen his own dick since 1980, had shaken his head and smiled. Here we go, that smile said. What did you expect from trash?

  Kara hadn’t pressed charges, but Trent had a record and Jaycee was crying. CPS got involved and there had been house visits and a report filed. That was the report that the tabloids dragged out when Jaycee got arrested. It had been online and on TV. It had been everywhere. For Kara, it was like standing in that parking lot all over again, her makeup smeared, her face sunburned. But instead of ten or fifteen people, it was thousands and thousands of people laughing, leaving comments, calling her a bad mother. What do you expect from trash?

  They’d put up one of Trent’s old mug shots with a headline: Like Father, Like Daughter. But Where’s Mom? and in that minute, Kara had hated Jaycee. She’d understood that she would always be standing in that parking lot. No matter how many tickets Jaycee sold, or how many charities they gave to, they’d always be trash.

  So maybe Kara had wanted to punish Jaycee a little. She’d been a nightmare since she’d turned thirteen, challenging Kara on every decision, breaking house rules, sneering that she was the one who paid the mortgage and if she wanted to go out, she’d damn well go out. Maybe Kara hadn’t looked closely enough at Wellways because she’d just wanted Jaycee to be someone else’s problem for a while. The night that Jaycee had called from Wellways, Kara had heard how scared she was, but as she’d hesitated by the door, the waves had whispered back to her with every beat on the shore: trash, trash, trash, a refrain that had drowned out Jaycee’s terrified voice, and that high metallic whine. She’d known that if she went to get Jaycee, the headlines would start all over again. Everyone would be watching.

  But she could apologize now, walk down the hall and say, “I’m sorry, baby. Tell me what happened there.” Because it couldn’t be all that bad, and once it was out in the open, they’d both feel better. She’d apologize and then she’d get Jaycee to sing something else.

  Kara pulled on her robe. The hall was very dark and the ceiling seemed strangely far away. The only illumination came from the bright square of light cast from Jaycee’s doorway. It was like being in a chapel, Jaycee’s voice flying warm and resonant through the eaves. They say you’re crazy. I’m crazy too.

  Kara was halfway down the hall when she heard another voice join Jaycee’s in high, sweet harmony.

  Lost my mind, lost my way

  F
ound my crooked path to you

  We will be home soon

  Kara stumbled, putting her hand to the wall for balance. It felt damp beneath her fingers, as if moisture was seeping through from somewhere. Her chest was tight, the breath caught there, captive against her ribs. Something was in that room with her daughter. Someone, she corrected, regretting the wine and especially that little bit of Ambien. Someone was in that room and Jaycee was not allowed guests. She was going to get a talking-to no matter how rough she’d had it at Wellways.

  She forced herself to walk down the hall, disturbed to find her legs were shaking. Jaycee was sitting on the bed with her back to the door, her blond hair shining in the lamplight, her guitar in her lap. There was no one else there. Kara could still hear two voices singing; the harmony went on, pure and perfect. It’s an MP3, Kara told herself, some kind of recording.

  “Jaycee?” she whispered. “Baby?”

  Jaycee didn’t turn. Kara could see her face reflected in the big windows, half in shadow, as if something had taken a bite from it. Jaycee’s fingers moved over the neck of the guitar. Her hand looked like a fat spider stretching long white legs, twitching in slow spasms as the chords formed—G, A, A, D minor, G—the spider flexed.

  “Jaycee,” she said more firmly. “I’m talking to you.”

  The spider stopped. The girl on the bed turned and Kara’s stomach dropped. Jaycee’s face was whole, but it wasn’t her face at all. Her forehead was broader, her nose a little flatter, a pretty face, and even without the bite marks on her cheek, it was easy enough to recognize the girl from the coroner’s photo.

  “What is it, Mama?” Her features shifted; the eyes became luminous and damp, the mouth puckering red, a silver-screen starlet’s face.

  Kara blinked and the girl was gone. It was just Jaycee sitting on the edge of the bed with that beat-up old guitar.

  “I thought . . . I thought I heard someone singing with you.”

  Jaycee looked at her blankly. Then her lips stretched over her teeth. It wasn’t quite a smile. “I sang a lot while I was away.”

  “That’s good, baby.”

  “I sang until I screamed.”

  “What?”

  “It liked that sound best.”

  Kara swallowed. You have to say the words. You have to say it and then she’ll stop. “I’m sorry, baby.”

  Jaycee set down the guitar. She rose from the bed. She seemed taller, longer. Her face was pale and strange and when she opened her mouth, the black space between her lips was too deep. It seemed to grow and elongate like a cavern.

  “No, Mama,” she said, and she spoke again with two voices. “You’re not.” Three voices. “Not yet.” Ten voices. A choir now.

  Kara heard a little whimper and realized it had come from her. She gripped the door frame as the thing that was not her daughter crossed the room, her too-long limbs moving in silence, the white nightgown obscenely short, a little girl’s nightgown.

  “I am, baby. I am,” Kara said, her voice thready and weak.

  The thing put its hand on Kara’s shoulder. Kara wanted to scream but she was afraid to, afraid that if she opened her mouth near it, something might climb in. Gently, it turned her.

  “Shape up, Mama. You’ve gotta give a little to get a little.” Down the hall, Kara could see a light beneath her bathroom door. Had she left it that way? She could hear the sound of running water, and below it a shrill whine. The whine grew higher, the piercing wail of some hungry machine, the sound of appetite. The thing that was not Jaycee, that was a thousand Jaycees, led her down the hall. “You’ll learn to be sorry, Mama. But first you have to get in the tub.”

  HIDE-AND-SEEK*

  MEGAN SHEPHERD

  Beware a man who comes in a black coat with a bird on his shoulder. If you see him, it means you are already dead. He is Crow Cullom, death’s harbinger, and the only way to win back your life is to challenge death to a game. But be warned, death has never lost . . .

  —Excerpt taken from A Patchwork Death, a book of Appalachian folktales

  PART I: SUNSET

  Annie stepped onto the front porch. The screen door thwacked behind her, echoing through the narrow valley loud enough to scare a flock of crows into flight. They disappeared over the ridge into the fading summer sun. She pressed a hand to her rib cage and slowly sank into one of the rusty metal chairs, watching for the crows to come back. She hoped they would. She was already feeling sleepy. It was a heavy sort of feeling, but not unpleasant—like being wrapped in a winter blanket. She let her arm fall away from her ribs, releasing a gush of blood that soaked her new sundress, rolled down her bare leg, pooled thickly on the uneven boards.

  Dying wasn’t so bad, not really.

  Not when you could go out like this, on a summer’s evening with the fireflies winking in the trees. She always thought dying would be a scream into a void, a thrashing, a searing. Not this slow and sleepy drip.

  Behind her, inside the house, heavy footsteps moved fast. A man’s voice making a telephone call. An accident, he said, his voice slurred with gin. While Annie was sitting here dying among the fireflies, he was probably cleaning his fingerprints off the knife and rehearsing the drunken lies he’d tell the police.

  A crow landed on the porch railing. It was one of the ones that had flown away. Or was it? It seemed bigger than most, and blacker, like its feathers had lost all sheen, but Annie thought that might just be blood loss blurring her vision. The bird cocked its head.

  “Annie Noland.”

  A man had spoken, not the crow, and it came from the side of the porch. She wanted to turn toward it, but her movements were sluggish. She tried to stand, but her legs didn’t work. She collapsed to the hard porch floor with a crash. Painless. She barely felt anything at all.

  Footsteps came up the stairs—slow, calm, not like her stepdad’s panicked ones inside the house. A man’s black boots, polished, but with an unreflective sheen like the bird’s feathers. Then the hem of a black coat, stained with salt rings. The man crouched down so that his face was in her line of sight, and she knew. That sea-tangled black hair, the rough face that seemed ageless.

  Beware a man who comes in a black coat with a bird on his shoulder, her grandmother had read from the old book of Appalachian folk tales when Annie was a little girl. If you see him, it means you are already dead.

  The crow landed on the man’s shoulder and cawed.

  “You’re Crow Cullom.” Annie’s voice was barely audible, but he seemed to hear her just fine. “I thought you were only a story.”

  The crow cocked its head.

  “I’m much more than a story, chère,” Crow Cullom said. “And it’s a pleasure not to have to introduce myself. So few people know me.” He smiled. “The residents of this valley have always been an exception.”

  His boots scuffed as he stood to help her up. She felt nothing as he slid his hands under her arms. He had no temperature to him, no pressure, no smell other than the faintest odor of the sea. But then that started to change. She detected a flicker of warmth. Her legs moved a little more easily. By the time she slumped into the chair, the sluggishness was gone. Her entire body hummed with life.

  “Did you heal me?” she asked, touching her blood-soaked dress.

  He gave a brittle laugh. “No, chère. I took away the last traces of your life. You’re in the in-between now. You needn’t worry about feeling pain anymore.”

  Annie looked through the gash in her red-wet dress. The wound was still there, a gruesome slice through layers of skin and fat and flesh, but it had stopped bleeding. Not worsening, but not healed either. She smoothed the fabric back.

  Crow Cullom extended a pale hand. “I have come to take your soul to death’s realm. There are no worries there.” There was a scar across his palm, just as there had been in the inky black drawing in her grandmother’s book of legends. Annie used t
o trace that drawing of his scar as a little girl. Her grandmother had said it was from where he’d taken his own life many, many, many years ago.

  A door slammed from inside the house, and Crow Cullom’s head turned. His eyes narrowed as a figure slunk out the back door, moving with a drunk’s uneasy lurch. A car roared to life, just as sirens started from somewhere deep in the valley. His eyes shifted to Annie’s slashed dress.

  She grabbed his wrist, staining him with a bloody handprint.

  “I don’t want to go. Not yet.”

  “Death waits for no one, Annie. Didn’t your grandmother teach you that?”

  She gripped the chair arms with her newfound strength, pushing herself up, and then took a step down the stairs. “She taught me that I have the right to challenge it. To challenge death.” Night was falling on the valley, and the light was growing faint, but she could still make out the flicker of surprise on his face. “A game,” she added. “Of my choosing, for my right to return to the realm of the living. Isn’t that how it goes?”

  “A game?” His lips curled in a smile. “You do know the legends. Very well, you pick the game, but I, as death’s representative, set the terms. And I should warn you, chère. Death has never lost.”

  Annie forced herself to stand straighter. The sirens were getting closer now.

  “What will it be, then?” Crow Cullom asked, seemingly unconcerned. “Not chess. I grow so weary of chess. I played Go Fish with a Russian dissident once, on death’s behalf—it was delightful. None of these modern video games with the flashing lights, I hope. They’re so dull. Push a button and just—”

  “Hide-and-seek.”

  When she was a little girl, she’d played hide-and-seek in the valley every summer with Suze at the Dixon Farm down the road—the only daughter in a family with four sons. Annie knew every inch of the valley, down into town, to her high school and the train tracks beyond. It has to be a game you’re good at, her grandmother had said, if you have any chance of winning.