Slasher Girls & Monster Boys

by April Genevieve Tucholke

  Afterward, he staggered out and left her huddled in the corner of the closet. She looked like she wanted to sleep anyway.

  He managed to make his way out of the house somehow, into the blur of his car, and onto the road. He shouted at the world to stop spinning so much. He’d almost made it home too, before he’d hit that damn deer and run himself straight into the lake. Shatter. Shards. A terrible screech. Then that green and blue light again, everywhere, and him struggling through the murky water to the police sirens above. Except, this time, he couldn’t seem to reach the surface—

  A loud clap of thunder jolted Richard out of the nightmare. He sucked in a terrible gasp of air. Sweat beaded his body. Outside, the wind was slapping the branches against his window again. Richard looked wildly around until he knew for sure he was back in his own room. Then he flopped his head back down on his pillow and let his breath out.

  That stupid psychiatrist, planting memories back in his brain.

  A faint tapping sound made him turn in bed. His eyes settled on the closet.

  The door was wide open again, the doorknob tapping gently against the wall. Inside, it was blackness. The hairs rose on Richard’s arms and neck. Suddenly the room seemed colder, the weight pressing again on his chest, the terrible feeling that something in here did not belong. On a strange compulsion, he rose from his bed and took a step toward the closet. Then another. Step by step, he made his way over to the closet until he stood right at the edge where the blackness began.

  Inside the closet crouched the pale-haired girl without a face, her wrists and arms slashed with dozens of lines, blood smearing the wall behind her. She reached her scarlet hands out to him. He opened his mouth to scream.

  Morning came.

  Bright sunlight streamed into his room. Someone was pounding on his bedroom door. Richard went to the windows and pulled down all the blinds. He curled up in defense, then pushed himself into the corner of the bed. His bloodshot eyes stayed on the closet door. He couldn’t remember when it had closed again, or whether or not it’d been closed the entire time, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of it, and he couldn’t stop trembling. His body felt sticky with sweat, and he was afraid to look down in case he saw blood smeared across his skin.

  “Honey?” The pounding again. It sounded like Mom, but he couldn’t be sure. “Are you all right?”

  He didn’t want to answer. Go away. What if it was the girl, trying to tempt him out of bed?

  “Honey.” The voice sounded more urgent now. “Honey, the police called again. They said the neighbors saw you wandering around the middle of the street last night.” She sounded frantic. “Richard? Did you hear me?”

  I don’t know. It wasn’t me. Richard started shaking his head to himself. He looked down at his bed. Mud and grass stained the sheets, and his feet were dirty.

  Ridiculous. He couldn’t have gone anywhere last night—all he did was wander around in his nightmares, that damn party that just refused to go away. When he heard his father’s voice join his mother’s outside the door, he finally lifted his head. “Go away!” he yelled. “I’ll come out. Just please go away.”

  His mother gave some muffled reply through the door, how they were here to support him through whatever trouble he might be experiencing, that they were going to wait downstairs for him.

  He didn’t move until the sun had shifted into late afternoon. By then, his parents’ voices had turned sweet and coaxing. Sweetie, please come down. You should eat something.

  “I’ll be there, goddamn it,” he finally spat at the door. He stumbled out of bed and forced himself to the bathroom.

  There, he let out a choked gasp.

  He looked horrible. Worse than horrible. His eyes were so bloodshot that it looked like his irises swam in a red sea. Were his eyes bleeding? The veins on his hands and wrists stood out, swollen as if ready to pop. His skin looked ashen, a corpse-like gray.

  Richard splashed water on his face, scrubbed it hard, and looked again. Then he started to cry. What was wrong with him? Why was he being punished like this? It wasn’t his fault Lillian had taken it all so badly. After the night of that party, after the rumors had already spread like wildfire through school—Lillian, that slut, she gave herself away in a closet at a house party, she wanted it, that slut—the girl just shut down like a broken toy. Richard didn’t see what the big deal was. How could she be so depressed over nothing? She’d been drinking as much as he had, maybe more. Besides, he was the one who got slapped with a DUI and destruction of property after the deer and the lake. His dad had to make a personal call to Harvard to explain that one.

  They were all just fooling around.

  Richard hadn’t expected to go to school one day to hear that Lillian had been found dead in her closet, her wrists and arms slashed apart by a razor.

  Then came the accusations against him from her parents, and the trial. A whirlwind, a nightmare. Sure, his parents had plenty of money and influence to fight it, and the charges were dropped—lack of evidence, and all—but the damage to him was done. His parents had to move across town and switch him into a new private academy. He’d fought to put the whole thing behind him.

  Richard had a sudden urge to smash his mirror into pieces. I don’t deserve to be punished like this. He stared at his reflection. His thoughts echoed back at him, filling his mind until it sounded like a different voice said the words.

  The sun shifted again. Afternoon turned into sunset, and his room bled with red light. Darkness crept forward. His mom started calling for him again.

  What would she say, once she saw how terrible he looked? Richard sighed and raked a hand through his hair. Finally, he went to his dresser and started pulling out some clothes. His movements turned feverish as he went. He pulled out more and more, until a pile of clothes lay on the floor. That was what he had to do. He had to get out of here, before the girl found him again.

  A faint movement at his window distracted him. He paused in what he was doing and turned to look out at the street.

  Except it wasn’t his street any longer. Instead he saw a long, dark hallway stretching away from him, a hall covered in portraits, its walls faded and charred as if burned by fire. It looked like a shadow of the home where the party had happened, its details eerie and inaccurate. The portraits’ eyes were all closed, their brows all furrowed. The wallpaper, once cheery and yellow, was singed with dark streaks.

  And standing in the middle of the hallway, framed by his window, was the girl. She had her back turned to him, and all he could see of her was her torn sweater and her long, pale hair. She turned her head slightly, so that he could see the outline of her cheek, and then slowly, excruciatingly, she turned all the way around. The deep, jagged lines carved into both of her arms were sharply visible, blood dripping in long streaks down her fingers and dotting the floorboards of his bedroom. Now he could make out the curve of her lip, the dark circles under her eyes. He ran over to the window, dragged his dresser away from his bed, and shoved it in front of the windowsill with a loud crash, blocking the opening halfway. Outside his bedroom door came the alarmed sound of his mother’s voice, but she seemed so far away that he couldn’t tell if she was there at all. Richard yanked the blankets off of his bed and piled them up on top of the fallen dresser, then dragged an armchair over to add to the barricade. He pulled his bed over. He picked up the floor-length mirror in the corner and stood it in front of the armchair. His breath came in short gasps.

  Maybe that will keep her out.

  His mother’s fist continued pounding weakly on the door, but he was no longer listening.

  Beyond the barricaded window, a thick darkness began seeping into the room. It crawled in along the edges of the walls, shutting out the light until a yawning black fog stretched across half the room, reaching for him. He stumbled backward with a cry. His bedroom door’s knob jiggled. Richard’s back hit the wall. When he sta
red at his reflection in the floor-length mirror, he saw that the whites of his eyes had turned completely red.

  Then his reflection vanished, replaced by hers. Blood stained her arms.

  Richard suddenly felt the grooves of the closet door behind him. He yanked on the door—it swung open without a sound. He scrambled into the safety of its small, enclosed space, and then he shut the door and locked himself in. Go away, he whispered into the darkness. Tears ran down his cheeks. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. Just go away and leave me alone, please leave me alone, please.

  Go away, Lillian.

  For a moment, it seemed as if the world stilled. As if it listened to him. Richard’s sobbing quieted—he straightened, listening for the sound of footsteps or a girl’s voice, waiting for the weight to press down on his chest. Nothing. He kept waiting, until his legs grew cramped and the closet had started to feel stuffy. In his haste, he realized that he still had his shaving razor clenched tightly in one hand. Through the slit below the door, he could see a thin sliver of light. The world had gone quiet. Maybe she’d gone away. He’d imagined this whole insane scene in his head and now that he had shut himself away, he’d cleared his mind, and when he opened the door he would see his room all put back together. The girl would be gone.

  Long minutes dragged by. Finally, he reached out and pushed the closet door.

  It wouldn’t open.

  He pushed harder, then searched for a lock that didn’t exist. His breathing grew labored; he jiggled the doorknob again, and when that didn’t work, he shoved himself to his feet and slammed all his weight against the door, again and again. The door stayed as unmoving as a brick wall.

  Maybe someone had accidentally locked himself in there, Dad had joked.

  Richard started screaming for help. His fists pounded on the door. Somewhere, far away, he thought he could hear the frantic shouts of his mother. He pounded until his fists were bruised and raw.

  His breath started to rise in clouds. When he paused long enough to look around the dark closet, he realized that he was not alone. The girl without a face was crouched in one corner of the closet. Richard scrambled away from the door and huddled into the closet’s other corner. She kept staring with sightless eyes. With a whimper, Richard brought his hands up to block her from view.

  “What do you want?” he whispered into the darkness. His voice trembled. “I’ll do anything. Please.”

  When he opened his eyes again, the girl had crawled halfway to him, leaving red stains on the floor as she went. He curled tighter as she drew near. She lifted her bloody hands, then reached for him. Her hands touched his cheeks. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

  I want you to see me.

  For a split second, the girl’s face came into clear focus. It was a familiar face, one he’d seen in a closet and one he had worked for a long time to blur out. Small, thin lips still shiny with gloss. Skin so pale that little blue veins appeared along her temples and eyelids. Smudged black mascara that cut a sharp line across the top of her left cheek. Irises of piercing gray that surrounded dilated pupils, bloodshot eyes.

  She looked down at the razor in his hand. She touched it—and at her touch, the razor crumbled into pieces, leaving behind only the blades. She held one of them up to his face, then brushed it across his arm.

  Then you can go, she said.

  Outside the closet, Richard’s parents finally broke down the door to his bedroom. Two police officers followed behind them. They shouted frantically for their son, but no one answered. The room was dark, the dresser and mirror and blankets all piled haphazardly in front of his window. They turned on the light. The police searched the entire room. Finally, Richard’s father yanked open the closet door.

  Richard sat huddled against the closet wall. His face stayed turned down in concentration. Blood covered his arms. In his hand was a blade from his razor, and he was busy sawing deep, jagged lines into the flesh of his arms.

  His mother screamed at the sight. His father lunged to snatch the razor out of his son’s hand, but Richard shrieked at him to get away. It took his father and a police officer to drag Richard out of the closet and into the light, but even then, they could not pry the razor out of his hands.

  “No,” Richard gasped as they tried to restrict his arms. “You don’t understand. She said I could go, if I did this. She promised I could go.”

  × × ×

  Spring changed to summer, then to fall. The semester began at Harvard, and a new flock of freshmen filled its halls. Absent among them was Richard. In a hospital several miles from home, he sat against the soft wall of his room, struggling, as always, to free his hands from their bonds. In the corner, the girl without a face watched.

  How frustrating, he thought, that no one would give him what he kept asking for. All he wanted was a blade. But it never came, so he struggled alone, trying, failing, to act on her words.

  Finish. Then you can go.

  A GIRL WHO DREAMED OF SNOW*

  MCCORMICK TEMPLEMAN

  Petals of snow fell on her shoulders as the girl hugged her mother good-bye. Jaw clenched, the woman looked down at her child with clear, dry eyes. There would be no weeping today. “It is time to go, Nara. Your father awaits and your duty calls. Your time is now.”

  “Don’t go.” A small hand wrapped itself in her skirts. Nara’s sister stared up at her. Nara wanted to pull her close and tell her she would never leave. Instead, she kissed her softly on the head.

  Turning, she looked out at the icy landscape, the soaring trees, branches dark and bitten blue with frost. And for a moment, she had something like a premonition, a feeling that something terrible was watching her, something hungry and sick. She could nearly hear it out there, panting between the trees, its breath ragged and spoiled.

  Sins of a faraway people had sickened the earth, changing it. And now there were whispers of something coming, something catastrophic sweeping ever closer. Her people could hear it in the song of the birds and the creak of the ice. The earth held many secrets, some of them too terrible to tell.

  × × ×

  The first leg of her journey was to be the easiest, and yet Nara found herself queasy with fear. A shaman’s daughter, she’d learned the ways of the wind and snow as others might learn to speak and crawl, and she thought on wild things and night creatures as her brothers. Even the wolves howling in the frozen stillness didn’t frighten her. They sang their song, and she sang hers. But still, there was something in her bones that told her she was being followed. And as she fell asleep each night, hoping to see her father’s face in her dreams, she saw only snow.

  Nara had been walking for seven days when she came to an outcropping of trees at the foot of a tilted mountain. Hunger gnawed at her bones. She built a fire, curled up next to it, and settled in to sleep.

  Behind her closed lids, she could see the dancing of the firelight.

  “Father,” she whispered. “Father, I’m coming.”

  She could see him there now in her mind’s eye, tormented, broken, and her heart yearned to join him, to ease his pain. She recalled the shaman’s song he had taught her, and with an aching heart, she began to sing. Her small voice rose like a sparrow’s call, and as the night grew ever darker, the earth below her seemed to soften and receive.

  Soon she drifted off. But had she not, she might have seen a change in the flames, an alteration in their trajectory as shadows gathered, as something cold and silent slipped out of the earth and circled her like the outward swelling of a maelstrom.

  × × ×

  Mowich stoked the fire and stared into the dark. She was out there somewhere. This girl his brother sought. The one he said would fetch them the highest price of all. Mowich didn’t like it, never had. But who was he to fight it?

  It was five years now since the plague had come. A pestilence brought back from a plundered land, it s
ickened the girls and killed the women, quickly devastating the countryside. At first the healers prescribed witchgrass. Born of ice and snow, it grew wild on the hillsides near the outer edge of the land. But when the witchgrass was depleted, the skies dried up, no moisture fell, and the land grew stingy and bare.

  Mowich’s mother had died soon after Izlette was born. He’d clung to the baby, to her sparkling eyes, to each sprout of chestnut hair on her newborn head. She’d shown no sign of the sickness until last spring, just before her fourth birthday. Then it came on fast and strong, sucking the flesh from her bones. It wouldn’t be long now until it carried her to the grave. Without the witchgrass, there was nothing to do but watch the women-folk die, and to fetch fresh ones from territories up north where the women were hearty and strong.

  It was only his first trip, and already so much had gone wrong. Whatever had happened to the girls they tried to take in the village by the river, he was sure it hadn’t been wolves. Four girls, caged and ready to take back to market. Mowich had been sick in the snow over it. When dawn came, when he’d gone to check on them, to give them water and food, all four were laid out in the snow, their throats gouged, torn, their lifeless eyes staring up at the heavens.

  “Night creatures,” his oldest brother, Sain, had proclaimed, and the others had believed him, but Mowich knew better. Sain, though small, had always had a wicked way about him, and something in him was turning, warping for the worse. Terrible things had happened to those girls. Something had gotten to them, something worse than any creature that lurked in the woods. He knew that at last Sain’s vile predilections had eclipsed even his greed.

  It was the morning after that when Sain had his vision. He’d called them all together, all six of them—Mowich and his older brothers, fat-cheeked Ig and curly-haired Dairn, and the Fairlish twins, whose gold had procured the wagon, whose muscle drove the horses, and whose lack of brains made them useful as Sain’s thugs.