Marisha reached to scratch her face, noticing her hands weren't tied. A promising sign that she wasn't being held against her will.
“I’m sure I know where this is,” she said, circling a finger, “but every feeling I get makes me think it wasn’t good the last time I was here.”
She ran her aching fingers over her head, searching for an enormous bruise, a knot, something pronounced enough to suggest her memory, or lack thereof, was due to a hit to the head. Fingers traced her skull, quickly resting on a bump. It was small, barely enough to classify as a real head injury. Further attempts to find something came up empty, confusing her even more.
Propping herself up on her elbows, Marisha listened to her joints snap. The thick curtain around her bed gave no hints as to who or what was directly outside. All her clothes and belongings were still on her person, and the only evidence of humanity were her boots neatly placed by the edge of the room and her bag seemingly unsearched. Everything, on the outside at least, looked to be in the same place she left it.
She wasn’t sure if she had come here by choice or if someone had found her. It would be awfully odd for a kidnapper to have just left her unattended.
She sat up and swung her legs to the side of the bed, careful not to make a noise. Stepping down, she felt the icy floor underneath her feet. Marisha tiptoed to her backpack, slipped her socks and shoes on, and parted the curtains.
Just outside the door was a huge cavernous room. All around hung black ceiling to floor curtains. The first thing that came to mind was the story of the labyrinth. You couldn’t look over but look under, and you just might not like what you find. If memory served her correctly, this was the main living area, and beyond these curtains would be a meeting area situated around a perpetually lit fire. The kitchen would be just beyond that, full of people hard at work around the clock. The smell of roasted garlic and rosemary on a rainy day. She didn’t know why she knew all the things, just that she did.
The only problem, she couldn't remember who any of these people were. Faces at the front of her memory, the names escaping her. Featureless slates sitting around a table, laughing, crying, and they all seemed the same.
Turning left, she was quickly met with a wall. Marisha headed back in the opposite direction, following the sound of the voices. As the voices got louder, a paralyzing fear spread over her.
“What if I don’t recognize anyone? What if these aren’t good people? What if these are people who had tried to kill me in the past, and… and failed and had come back to finish the job? What if, what if…”
She put her face in her hands, inhaling and exhaling huge breaths as her heart pounded deep inside her chest.
“Get it together, Marisha,” she muttered between her hands, her hot breath sticky against her palms. “You can do this.”
One foot in front of another, she started again. Louder and louder, the voices grew into a low roar. She paused again, took a few breaths, and kept going.
Orange flames danced in the air as the fire roared on—Marisha’s eyes followed the smoke as it billowed up through a hole in the ceiling.
Closer still. Individual voices came through now, male, female, children, even a baby’s hungry cry. They all sounded happy, or at least contented. No yelling, no screaming, no sadness.
The smell of burning pine tickled her senses, stoking her memories once more.
A few more steps and she would be out in the open, but at this distance, she could see everyone now. Nobody was patrolling, nobody watching and waiting to punish her for leaving.
She stepped forward, looked left, looked right, and spoke.
“Hello,” she said, but just barely above a whisper.
They all continued talking, drinking, and dancing. No one paying her any attention. She tried again, spotting a little girl, no more than five years old, only a few feet away.
“Hey… help me.”
The girl looked at her, then looked back to the group, clearly undeterred by her presence. Another kid nearly the same age as the girl looked at her, smiled, and then waved. His little hand excitedly moving back and forth as if he knew her. She put out her hand and beckoned him to come. The boy scrunched his nose, only hesitating a bit, then walked toward her.
Marisha knelt down, trying to find the right words, “Do I—do you… do you know me?”
He cocked his head to the side, his mouth slightly agape. “Of course I do, silly.” He said, clearly puzzled by the question, “and you know me too.”
“Are you sure?… I mean. Maybe I just look like someone you think you know. I look like many other people.”
“No,” he said as his big head bounced up and down. “I know you a lot. But, I… I haven’t seen you for a long time.”
Marisha furrowed her brow to focus, trying hard to place the vague memories. All that passed through the file were holey, moth-eaten memories, missing faces, and feelings.
“Can you tell me what my name is, then?”
“Hmm—is this a trick?”
“No, no, no,” she said, gently placing a hand on his shoulder, “It’s a… game, yeah a game. You answer a few questions, and it helps me out. Sound good?”
He stared at her a while, tapping his chin with a finger, “What do I get if I win?”
Marisha stared up and playfully bobbed her head back and forth, “I think I could find you something back in my backpack. Don’t worry, it will be really cool. I promise. What do you say?”
“Okay, but this better not be a trick.” He said, “My sister tricks me all the time, and… grrr… I get so mad.”
“Okay, Question 1: Who am I?”
“Well… you’re Mari,”
Marisha gasped but quickly returned to her wide grin, “Good, good. One more, and how do you know that’s who I am?”
“That’s because you were my brother's best friend.”
Thirty-Eight
Colleen
Colleen rolled over, feeling something sharp dig into her spine. Her head felt full of cotton, the sounds of birds muffled and distant. The smell of wet soil and fragrant flowers stoked her senses as she tried to shake herself awake. She rolled back the other way and landed on her back. Looking up, reds, yellows, and purples filled her vision.
Pushing herself up, her back screaming at her as every bruised muscle pulled and stretched. The bones grinding against each other. She might never get the full wrath of the Terror, but her body was already beat and broken before she ever turned eighteen.
Panning her stiff, uncooperative neck, she could see she was right back where they had started. The glass garden, the unbelievably beautiful flowers, but also the mound of soil that held Marisha’s parents were all still waiting for her.
They brought me back here? Seems like an awfully weird way to get rid of me.
She touched her face, then pinched her nose and tried to move it. A stabbing pain instantly brought tears to her eyes, immediately causing her to let go and suck in a whistling breath.
“Not shocking,” she said in a now comically nasal voice. “They really did my face up good.”
Colleen checked her pockets and hidden locations, her fingers quickly locating her knives and even her mother's Glock in their usual spots. So, she hadn’t been robbed. Her wrists, although sore, were no more hurt so than usual. No rope or tie-down marks, no new bruises, she could see at least. Her back would probably be a road map of black and blue in the morning, but she had already expected that.
Pushing up to her feet, her head only spun a bit as she called out, “Marisha! Marisha!”
She knew it was pointless. Marisha was gone.
Maybe she didn’t want to come back. What if… what if she wanted to stay here. To stay with these people. Seeing all this could have brought all these memories flooding back.
She tried to push her fears down, telling herself she was overreacting. It was all just a misunderstanding. Why else would the woman she loved yell at her, attack her, and even deny she knew her? There had to be a
rational explanation. Unfortunately, the only one that made sense, the only one that explained everything, broke her heart. Marisha hadn’t feigned love for her. That was real.
They had never talked about her getting sick, seriously at least, but why would you in this lonely world. Finding the other half of your soul was supposed to be a beautiful sojourn, not a countdown to disaster. Marisha was young, in good health, and never had shown any signs before, but everyone knew that’s how it started.
“Colleen! Marisha!” a familiar voice yelled, knocking her out of a trance. His voice barely audible above the gentle breeze blowing past her ears.
A cream-colored blur flew past the edge of her vision, darted back across, and then headed straight towards her, never slowing down.
With no time to prepare, he was jumping up into her arms. With weak knees, she instantly crumpled to the ground; a giant furball standing on her chest.
Before she knew it, a rough, wet tongue was licking her cheek, quickly moving to her nose, then mouth. His cold, damp nose sniffing every inch of her head.
“Gross, Jackson! It’s not like you haven’t... seen… me in that long!”
He continued to lick, his tail sticking straight up in the air like a flag, proudly marking where he had found his favorite human.
“Okay, okay, okay. That’s good, boy. I’m happy to see you, too. Now, where's Lito at?”
She wrapped him in a hug and barrel-rolled him, once again feeling every inch of her bruised frame. He was going to get the biggest belly scratch of his life. For an instant, everything felt good. It didn’t last long before the sense of dread returned.
“Colleen! Marisha! Colleen! Marisha!”
“Lito! Lito! Over here,” she yelled.
The first thing she saw was the Chesnutt mare’s head parting the overgrown branches of the bushy pine trees. First one, then all three of the horses with Lito sandwiched in-between.
“We have to go,” she said, her words pouring out between the panic rising inside of her. I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited to see you, “Where have you been?.”
“Nice to see you, too, Colleen. Um, where’s Marisha?” Lito said, looking around.
“It’s a long story, but we need to go—she’s in there.” She pointed toward the white dome, her arm bobbing up and down.
“Slow down. I need you to tell me what’s going on first before I… we go bursting into someplace we know nothing about. I’m not about to make this trip even more of a death sentence than it already is.” He puffed his chest up. “I’m here to make sure you, all of you, make it.”
Colleen closed her eyes, balling up her fists. Her knuckles went white, digging crescent-shaped indentions into her palms.
“I need your help. They took Marisha.” Her voice was shaky, her words forced.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Don’t you think I would tell you if I did? We were just up in the tower… talking. She was upset, and then, something happened to her. She began freaking out. She wasn’t Marisha anymore.”
“So… somebody did something to her or…”
“I don’t know, it’s possible. One moment she was fine; the next she’s yelling, screaming,” her voice broke, reliving the moment over again, “and—”
“And what?”
She threw up her hands, fingers spread wide. “A gang of—I don’t know, kids or something, attacked us, pinned me down, and took her.”
“Did you get a good look at them? Would you know them if you saw them?”
Colleen flinched, her eyes wide with an uneasy sorrow, “Yeah, no, I don’t know. I was pinned to the ground, still in shock.”
“Did she act like she knew them?” She shook her head.
Her shoulders slumped as she looked down to the ground and kicked a divet into the dirt in front of her. Nervously rubbing hands together, like she was starting a fire with sadness.
“Did she say anything else to you?”
“Nothing, she does not know who I am anymore.”
“I’m sorry what? This all just feels—I’m sure it was just—”
She wanted to slap him, make him understand. How much clearer could she have made this? They would not find her arguing about things.
“No! I saw the look in her eyes. There was hate, complete disgust at the sight of me; everything about me made her sick.”
“We’ve all been under a lot of pressure. You don’t know it wasn’t that. She’s from here, you know,” his tone calm and collected, “I can imagine being here does a lot to her heart.”
“Yeah, but it’s breaking mine.”
She’d held back the dam long enough. The tears rushed out, flowing down her wind burnt cheeks. Her arms flopped down to her side, Jackson licked the back of her hands, something to comfort both of them.
“Maybe this was her sick way of coping. We need to make a plan, a smart one.”
“It wasn’t a joke or coping or anything like that.” Colleen pressed her lips together. “She’s sick, something’s wrong, and I need her back. We have to get her.”
Colleen could see the look on his face when it all clicked. When it made sense, what she was saying. The fact that one of them was sick, and no one could fix it,
“If she has it, you know we can’t risk it,” he said, “You know we can’t fix her. You know how this ends, and it can’t end happily ever after. Don’t you get it? You were meant for so much more.”
“What the—what’s that supposed to mean—are you serious about that right now?
“I’m sorry, I just meant more…” his voice trailed off.
“More what? Seeing more of those I give a care about to die. No thanks.” She jabbed a finger at his chest, stopping just short of his sternum.
Jackson nervously paced between her legs. He looked up and used his nose to gently nudge Lito back.
“Why would you want to put yourself through this?”
“Because… because I love her, and I don’t think I can live without her.”
Thirty-Nine
Marisha
“I see you are awake,” said a tall, younger man. He was thin, but his abnormally broad shoulders gave him a more intimidating appearance. What looked to be a week's worth of growth was brown with hints of red mixed in. A long scar rested above his left eyebrow, continuing down through his eyelid. “I see you’ve met your best friend again. Why am I not shocked she was the first person to greet you?”
The young man gave Marisha a toothy grin, but it quickly faded as he noticed the blank look on her face.
“I thought you were my best friend,” she replied quietly.
The lanky young man turned his head to the left, and his hazel eyes drew to a line as if trying to stare through some sort of disguise. The left one jerked along, not in sync with his right.
“You really don’t remember me, do you? Garrick? The guy you used to hang out with every day for months. How can you...”
Marisha put her hands' palms up, shrugging her shoulders. “I’m sorry. You don’t look like anyone I remember. I'm trying, but I don’t know you.”
It was as if all the air was punched out of his lungs, every bit of his body deflated. He shook his head and just stood there, deep in thought. Garrick opened his mouth and began to speak instead, stopping and turning to leave.
“Hey!,” Marisha said, “Where do you think you are going?”
“I just thought that...you know, it was pointless.”
“Why? I remember bits and pieces. My head is like a puzzle where someone threw away half the pieces and then expects me to put everything together the same as new. I just need some time, and help.”
Garrick perked up, his face brightening at the proposition of helping her. He stroked his temples, then let a smile spread across his face, “You know what, let's start with that you remember. Do you remember anything about earlier today? Anything at all.”
“I mean, I remember being furious. It felt like my entire body was on fire. Everything was blood
red, with thick black ooze pouring over my face, dripping down into my vision,” she paused and took a deep breath, “That sounds really crazy, doesn’t it?”
He put his hand on her arm, “no, not at all.”
“Do you remember who you were with or why? When we found you, it wasn’t pretty, you were...fighting with someone. It looked like—you were about to kill each other,” an exaggerated grimace was plastered across his face.
“I don’t remember that, any of that. Like I said, it's all parts and none of the ones that fit together. Waking up here stirred the fire, forced a few pieces together that don’t fit.”
She felt dread rising inside. How could she have fought with someone and not known it?
“Nothing about the girl you were with? She wasn’t anyone important?”
“Okay, a girl. That’s something. Maybe we’re getting somewhere.”
She crinkled her nose and tried to push a face to the front of her mind, drawing a blank.
“If she was important, I’m pretty sure I'd have some memory of her.”
“Okay then, let's say we forget her and try to get that fire going again some other way. What do you say?”
“We have three hundred and seventy… three people who live here, most days.” The little girl said, "If they don’t cause trouble and follow the rules. But if they don’t, then we just,” she raised her arms up and acted like kicking a ball up high, “kick them out. Daddy doesn’t put up with idiots.”
Marisha let out a loud, “Ha!” then covered her mouth, still laughing. Garrick grabbed the little girl by the shoulders, tucked her under his armpit, and playfully put a hand over her mouth, hoping to silence her.
The fire had been the entire community's focal point, but it seemed to only be a small portion compared to the livable areas. They kept walking, joining the main hallway that connected the theater to the other buildings. Light poured in through skylights, casting long shadows across the walls.
The Maddening: Book 2 in the Terror Saga Page 21