Slasher Girls & Monster Boys

by April Genevieve Tucholke

  She checked. She tried to listen with her fingers.

  Nothing.

  She moved her fingers, pressed deeper.

  Nothing.

  Then.

  Something.

  A pulse.

  Maybe a pulse.

  Something.

  There it was again.

  Not a pulse.

  A twitch.

  “Thank God,” said Dahlia, and she realized with absolute clarity that she was relieved that Marcy wasn’t dead. Dahlia fished around for the actual pulse. That would have been better, more reassuring.

  Felt another twitch. Not in the throat this time. Marcy’s right hand jumped. Right hand. Then, a moment later, her left leg kicked out.

  “No,” said Dahlia, fearing a fresh wave of convulsions.

  The twitches kept up. Left hand. Left arm. Hip buck. Both feet. Random, though. Not intense. Not with the kind of raw power that had racked Marcy a few minutes ago.

  It was then that Dahlia realized that this whole time she could have been calling for help. Should have been calling. She shifted to lay Marcy on the floor, then dug into her purse to find her cell. It was there, right under the knife. Directly under it. The knife Dahlia forgot she’d put unsheathed into the bag.

  “Ow!” she cried, and whipped her hand out, trailing drops of blood. Dahlia gaped at the two-inch slice along the side of her hand. Not deep, but bloody. And it hurt like hell. Blood welled from it and ran down her wrist, dropped to the floor, spattered on Marcy’s already bloodstained blouse.

  She opened the bag, removed the knife, set it on the floor next to her, found some tissues, found the phone, she punched 911 and tucked the phone between cheek and shoulder, pressing the tissues to the cut.

  The phone rang.

  And rang. And, strangely, kept ringing. Dahlia frowned. Shouldn’t the police answer 911 calls pretty quickly? Six rings? Seven? Eight?

  “Come on!” she growled.

  The phone kept ringing.

  No one ever answered.

  Dahlia finally lowered her phone, punched the button to end the call. Chewed her lip for a moment, trying to decide who to call next.

  She called her mom.

  The phone rang.

  And rang. And went to voicemail.

  She tried her aunt Ivy. Same thing. She tried her dad. His line rang twice and the call was answered.

  Or—the call went through. But no one actually said anything. Not Dad, not anyone. After two rings Dahlia heard an open line and some noise. Sounds that she couldn’t quite make sense of.

  “Dad?” she asked, then repeated it with more urgency. “Dad? Dad?”

  The sounds on the other end of the call were weird. Messy-sounding. Like a dog burying its muzzle in a big bowl of Alpo.

  But Dad never answered that call.

  That’s when Dahlia started to really get scared.

  That was the point—after all those failed calls, after that bizarre, noisy, not-a-real-answer call—that she realized that something was wrong. A lot more wrong than Marcy Van Der Poop having a bad day.

  She turned to look at Marcy.

  Marcy, as it happened, had just turned to look at her.

  Marcy’s eyes were no longer rolled up in their sockets. She looked right at Dahlia. And then Marcy smiled.

  Though, even in the moment, even shocked and scared, Dahlia knew that this wasn’t a smile. The lips pulled back, there was a lot of teeth, but there was no happiness in that smile. There wasn’t even the usual mean spite. There was nothing.

  Just like in the eyes.

  There . . .

  . . . was . . .

  . . . nothing.

  That’s when Dahlia really got scared.

  That’s when Marcy suddenly sat up, reached for her with hands that no longer twitched, and tried to bite Dahlia’s face off.

  -7-

  Marcy let out a scream like a panther. High and shrill and ear-shattering.

  She flung herself at Dahlia and suddenly the little princess was all fingernails and snapping teeth and surprising strength. The two girls fell back onto the wet floor. Dahlia screamed too. Really loud. A big, long wail of total surprise and horror.

  Teeth snapped together with a porcelain clack an inch from her throat. Marcy bore her down and began climbing on top of her, moving weirdly, moving more like an animal than a girl. She was far stronger than Dahlia would have imagined, but it wasn’t some kind of superpower. No, Marcy was simply going totally nuts on her, throwing everything she had into attacking. Being insane.

  Being . . .

  Dahlia had no word for it. All she could do or think about was not dying.

  The teeth snapped again and Dahlia twisted away, but it was so close that for a moment she and the crazy girl were cheek to cheek.

  “Stop it!” screamed Dahlia, shoving at Marcy with all her strength.

  Marcy flipped up and over and thudded hard onto the concrete floor. She lay there, stunned for a moment.

  Dahlia was stunned too. She’d never really used her full strength before either. Never had to. Not even in jujitsu or field hockey or any of the other things she’d tried as part of a failed fitness and weight loss program. She’d never tried to really push it to the limit before. Why would she?

  But now.

  Marcy had gone flying like she was made of crepe paper.

  Dahlia stared for a second. She said, “Hunh.”

  Marcy stared back. She hissed.

  And flung herself at Dahlia as if falling hard on the ground didn’t matter.

  Dahlia punched her.

  In the face.

  In that prom-girl face.

  Hard.

  Really damn hard.

  Dahlia wasn’t sure what was going to happen. She didn’t think it through. She was way too scared for anything as orderly as that. She just hauled off and hit.

  Knuckles met expensive nose job.

  Nose collapsed.

  Marcy’s head rocked back on her neck.

  She went flying backward. Landed hard. Again.

  Dahlia scrambled to her feet and in doing so kicked something that went skittering across the floor.

  The knife.

  She looked at it. Marcy, with her smashed nose and vacant eyes, looked at it.

  With another mountain lion scream, Marcy scrambled onto hands and feet and launched herself at Dahlia. For a long half second Dahlia contemplated grabbing that knife; it was right there. But this was Marcy. Crazy, sure, maybe on something, and certainly no kind of friend. Still Marcy, though. Dahlia had known her since second grade. Hated her since then, but that didn’t make this a grab-a-knife-and-stab-her moment.

  Did it?

  Marcy slammed into her, but Dahlia was ready for it. She stepped into the rush and hip-checked the little blonde.

  Marcy hit Dahlia. And Marcy rebounded. As if she’d hit a wall.

  Any time before that moment, such a clash, such a demonstration of body weight and mass, would have crushed Dahlia. It would have meant a whole night of crying in her room and eating ice cream and writing hate letters to herself in her diary.

  That was a moment ago. That was maybe yesterday. This morning.

  Now, though, things were different.

  Marcy hit the edge of a sink and fell. But it didn’t stop her. She got back to her feet as if pain didn’t matter. She rushed forward again.

  So, Dahlia punched her again.

  This time she put her whole heart and soul into it. Along with her entire body.

  The impact was huge.

  Marcy’s head stopped right at the end of that punch. Her body kept going, though, and it looked like someone had pulled a rug out from under her feet. They flew into the air and Marcy flipped backward and down.

 
Which is when a bad, bad moment got worse.

  Marcy landed on the back of her head.

  The sound was awful. A big, dropped-cantaloupe splat of a sound. The kind of sound that can never ever be something good.

  Red splashed outward from the back of Marcy’s head. Her body flopped onto the ground, arms and legs wide, clothes going the wrong way, eyes wide.

  And Marcy Van Der Meer did not move again.

  Not then. And, Dahlia knew with sudden and total horror, not ever again.

  She stood there, wide-legged, panting like she’d run up three flights of stairs, eyes bugging out, mouth agape, fist still clenched. Right there on the floor, still close enough to bend down and touch, was a dead person. A murdered person.

  Right there was her victim.

  Her lips mouthed a few words. Maybe curses, maybe prayers. Maybe nonsense. Didn’t matter. Nothing she could say was going to hit the reset button. Marcy was dead. Her brains were leaking out of her skull. Her blood was mixing with the dirty water on the bathroom floor.

  Dahlia was frozen into the moment, as if she and Marcy were figures in a digital photo. In a strange way she could actually see this image. It was framed and hung on the wall of her mind.

  This is when my life ended, she thought. Not just Marcy’s. Hers too.

  She was thinking that, and the words kept replaying in her head, when she heard the screams from outside.

  -8-

  For a wild, irrational moment Dahlia thought someone had seen her kill Marcy and that’s what they were screaming about.

  The moment passed.

  The screams were too loud. And there were too many of them.

  Plus, it wasn’t just girl screams. There were guys screaming too.

  Dahlia tore herself out of the framed image of that moment and stepped back into the real world. There were no windows in the girls’ room, so she tottered over to the door, her feet unsteady beneath her. The ground seemed to tilt and rock.

  At the door she paused, listened. Definitely screams.

  In the hallway.

  She took a breath and opened the door.

  The bathroom was on the basement level. This part of the school was usually empty during class. Just the bathroom, the janitor’s office, the boiler room, and the gym.

  She only opened the door a crack, just enough to peer out.

  Dault was out there, and she froze.

  Dault was running, and he was screaming.

  There were three other kids chasing him. Freshmen, Dahlia thought, but she didn’t know their names. They howled as they chased Dault. Howled like wildcats. Howled like Marcy had done.

  Dault’s screams were different. Normal human screams, but completely filled with panic. He ran past the bathroom door with the three freshmen right behind him. The group of them passed another group. Two kids—Joe Something and Tammy Something. Tenth graders. They were on their hands and knees on either side of one of Marcy’s friends. Kim.

  Kim lay sprawled like Marcy was sprawled. All wide-open and still.

  While Joe and Tammy bent over her and . . .

  Dahlia’s mind absolutely refused to finish the thought.

  What Joe and Tammy were doing was obvious. All that blood, the torn skin and clothes. But it was impossible. This wasn’t TV. This wasn’t a monster movie.

  This was real life and it was right now and this could not be happening.

  Tammy was burying her face in Kim’s stomach and shook her head the way a dog will. When tearing at . . .

  No, no, no, no . . .

  “No!” Dahlia’s thoughts bubbled out as words. “No!”

  She kept saying it.

  Quiet at first.

  Then loud.

  Then way too loud.

  Joe and Tammy stopped doing what they were doing and they both looked across the hall at the girls’ bathroom door. At her. They bared their bloody teeth and snarled. Their eyes were empty, but there was hate and hunger in those snarls.

  Suddenly Joe and Tammy were not kneeling. They leaped to their feet and came howling across the hall toward the bathroom door. Dahlia screamed and threw her weight against it, slamming it shut. There were two solid thuds from outside and the hardwood shook with what had to have been a bone-breaking impact. No cries of pain, though.

  Then the pounding of fists. Hammering, hammering. And those snarls.

  Far down the hall, Dault was yelling for help, begging for someone to help him. No one seemed to.

  Dahlia kept herself pressed against the door. There were no locks on the bathroom doors. There were no other exits. Behind her on the floor were three things. A dead girl who had been every bit as fierce as the two attacking the door. A cell phone that had seemed to try to tell her that something was wrong with the world.

  And the knife.

  Dad’s knife.

  Just lying there.

  Almost within reach.

  She looked at it as the door shuddered and shuddered. She thought about what was happening. People acting crazy. People—go on, she told herself, say it—eating people. Marcy had been bitten. Marcy had gone into some kind of shock and seemed to stop breathing. No. She had stopped breathing. Then Marcy had opened her eyes and gone all bitey.

  As much as Dahlia knew that this was insane and impossible, she knew there was a name for what was happening. Not a name that belonged to TV and movies and games anymore. A name that was right here. Close enough to bite her.

  She looked down at Marcy as if the corpse could confirm it. And . . . maybe it did. Nothing Dahlia had done to the girl had worked. Not until she made her fall down and smash her skull. Not until Marcy’s brain had been damaged.

  All of those facts tumbled together like puzzle pieces that were trying to force themselves into a picture. A picture that had that name.

  Began with a z.

  “Aim for the head,” whispered Dahlia, and her voice was thick with tears. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

  Tammy and Joe kept slamming into the door. The knife was still there. Very good blade. And Dahlia was very strong. She knew how to put her weight into a punch. Or a stab.

  “. . . God . . .”

  When she realized that she had to let go of the door to grab the knife, it changed something inside of her. She waited until the next bang on the door, waited for them to pull back to hit it again, then she let go and dove for the knife, scooped it up as the door slammed inward, spun, met their charge.

  Tammy, smaller and faster, came first.

  Dahlia kicked her in the stomach. Not a good kick, but solid. Tammy jerked to a stop and bent forward. Dahlia swung the knife as hard as she could and buried the point in the top of the girl’s skull. In that spot where babies’ skulls are soft. The blade went in with a wet crunch. Tammy dropped as quickly and suddenly as if Dahlia had thrown a switch. One minute zombie, next minute dead.

  That left Joe.

  A sophmore boy. Average for his age. As tall as Dahlia.

  Not quite in her weight class.

  She tore the knife free, grabbed him by the shirt with her other hand, swung him around into the sinks, forced him down and . . . stab. She put some real mass into it.

  Joe died.

  Dahlia staggered back and let him slide to the floor.

  Outside she heard Dault screaming as he ran in and out of rooms, through openings in the accordion walls, trying to shake the pack of pursuers.

  Dahlia caught a glimpse of her own face in the row of mirrors. Fat girl with crazy hair and bloodstains on her clothes. Fat girl with wild eyes.

  Fat girl with a knife.

  Despite everything—despite the insanity of it, the horror of it, the knowledge that things were all going to slide down the toilet in her world—Dahlia Allgood smiled at herself.

  Then she lumbered over to the door, tore i
t open, and yelled to Dault.

  “Over here!”

  He saw her and almost stopped. She was bloody, she had that knife. “W-what—?”

  “Get in here,” said Dahlia raising the blade. “I’ll protect you.”

  Yeah.

  She was smiling as she said that.

  SLEEPLESS*

  JAY KRISTOFF

  She takes her time.

  I’m used to it by now. It’s always the same. She’ll be late to her own funeral, this girl. But she’s worth waiting for. When I think about her, I still get that unbearable lightness in my stomach. You know the kind—halfway between giddy and puking your lungs up. I can’t remember a girl making me feel this way before. Or at least, I don’t want to.

  Funny thing is, I don’t even know her real name.

  The house creaks around me, arthritis swelling old timber bones. The dark outside my bedroom window is full of crickets and the pulse of the distant freeway. If I listen hard enough, I can hear the rumble of farm machinery and soft voices. I wonder what the hell anyone out here has to talk about, but I can’t make out the words.

  I was half-asleep. Dreaming of long blond hair and pretty blue eyes. The selfie she sent is stuck to the old laptop on the bed beside me. When the speakers ping to let me know she’s finally arrived, me and the butterflies in my stomach all wake up at once. When I see her avi on the screen, their fizzy wings start beating at my insides.

  I think she might be the one.

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: hey wolfie

  My fingers don’t shake much as I type my reply.

  wolfboy_97: hey c0ff33

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: wut u doin

  wolfboy_97: waitin on u like alwayz

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: ya soz, my mom being a cow

  wolfboy_97: lol mine 2

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: wut she on ur case about now?

  wolfboy_97: got a C in history and she flipped

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: flip over a C lol

  wolfboy_97: ikr

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: i could help.

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: I’m real gud @ history

  wolfboy_97: didn’t know that

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: o ya

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: can learn a lot

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: mistakes of the past & all