The Shining Girls A Novel

by Lauren Beukes

  ‘It’s because you relate. You both have bad hair.’

  ‘Dan?’ she says, looking out the window at dusk creeping in over the empty lots and boarded-up houses and the rat-traps falling apart. Her face is reflected in the car window with the flame as she clicks the lighter again.

  ‘Yeah, kiddo?’ he says tenderly.

  ‘You’re Robin.’

  Kirby directs him down an alleyway, desolate even by this neighborhood’s standards, and Dan suddenly has a lot of sympathy for Detective Amato.

  ‘Stop here,’ she says. He switches off the ignition and lets the car roll to a stop behind an old wooden fence that leans out like a drunk.

  ‘That one?’ Dan says, peering at the abandoned rowhouses with the windows boarded up and weeds that have sprung up jungle-thick and blooming with flowers of trash. Clearly no one has been in here for a very long time, let alone set up a hidden den of yesteryear opulence. He tries not to let the doubt show.

  ‘Come on.’ Kirby unlocks the door and climbs out the car.

  ‘Hang on a sec.’ He bends down next to the open door of the driver’s side, pretending to tie his shoelace while digging under the seat to retrieve his revolver. A Dan Wesson. The name amused him at the time. Beatriz hated it. And the thought they might actually need it.

  As he straightens, he’s blinded by the flare of light catching in the rear windshield from the sun, which is definitely on the way out. ‘We couldn’t have done this 11 a.m. on a sunny day?’

  ‘Come on.’ Kirby picks her way through the weeds to the rickety Z of wooden steps running up the back of the house. He holds the gun at his hip, out of sight of the casual observer. He’d settle for any observer. He’s unnerved by how quiet it is.

  She shrugs out of his jacket and drops it onto the barbed wire blocking off the stairway.

  ‘Let me,’ he says. He shoves the heel of his shoe on the jacket, pushing down the razor-sharp coils, and extends his hand to help her over. He scrambles after her and as soon as the pressure’s off, the wire recoils like it’s spring-loaded, tearing into the fabric.

  ‘Never mind. I got it on sale. Bought the first one that fit me.’ He realizes he’s shooting his mouth off. Never figured himself for a talker. Never figured he’d be breaking into abandoned houses.

  They’re standing on the back porch. The view through the window is as foreboding as fuck; dim light that casts everything in shades of green, and detritus everywhere. It looks like the walls have been peeled and spread like confetti all over the floor.

  He shrugs the jacket back on as Kirby puts one foot on the windowsill. ‘Don’t be freaked out.’ Then she hauls herself through and disappears. Literally. One second she’s there, framed in the window, next she’s gone.

  ‘Kirby!’ He lunges for the window, putting his hand down straight onto a jagged slice of glass that’s still miraculously intact. ‘Jesusfuckingshit!’ She reappears and grabs hold of his arm. He half tumbles inside after her. Everything changes.

  He stands there, stunned, in the dining room. Disbelief like a concussion. She knows the feeling. ‘Come on,’ she whispers.

  ‘You keep saying that,’ he says, but his voice is thick and far away. He blinks hard. Blood runs from his palm and patters on the floor in thick drops. He doesn’t notice. The fireplace casts an unsteady orange glow over the floorboards in the dark corridor. There is no sign of the dead man she said she’d had to step over in the hallway when she made her escape before.

  ‘Snap out of it, Dan. I need you.’

  ‘What is this?’ he says, low.

  ‘I don’t know. I know it’s real.’ That’s not true. She’s been doubting herself the whole way here. Thinking maybe everyone is right and she’s the delusional freak and what she really needs is anti-psychotic meds and a hospital bed with a view of the gardens through the bars. It’s such a terrible relief that he sees it too. ‘And I know you’re bleeding. You should give me the gun.’

  ‘No way, you’re unstable.’ He says it teasingly, but he’s not looking at her. He’s running his hand over the patterned wallpaper. Testing to see if it’s real. ‘You said he’s upstairs?’

  ‘He was. Three hours ago. Wait. Dan.’

  ‘What?’ He turns at the foot of the stairs.

  She falters. ‘I can’t go up there again.’

  ‘Okay,’ he says. More decisively: ‘Okay.’ He goes into the parlor and her ribs squeeze tight. Oh God, if he’s in there, sitting in the chair, waiting. But Dan emerges, holding a heavy black poker from the fireplace. He holds the gun out to her. ‘Stay here. If he comes through the door, shoot him.’

  ‘Let’s just go,’ she says, as if that’s an option any more. He jabs the revolver at her. It’s heavier than she would have thought. Her hands are shaking badly.

  ‘Cover all the entrances. Use both hands. There’s no safety. You point and shoot. Just don’t shoot me, okay?’

  ‘Deal,’ she says, her voice shaky.

  He starts up the stairs, the poker raised like a baseball bat. She presses her shoulder blades up against the wall. It’s like playing pool. You have to breathe out as you take aim and release. No problem, she thinks with a flash of hate.

  The key scratches in the lock.

  She jerks on the trigger the moment the door swings open.

  The fucker ducks as the shot nicks the edge of the doorframe, splintering the wood. (It cuts through 1980 and bores through the window of the house across the road, embedding itself in the wall next to a picture of the Virgin Mary.)

  He is unfazed at being shot at. ‘Sweetheart,’ he says. ‘I was looking for you.’ He reaches for his knife. ‘And here you are.’

  She glances down at the revolver, a millisecond is all, to see if she needs to reload or click the chamber. Six rounds. Five left. Dan is already halfway across the room when she looks up. Right in her line of fire.

  ‘Get out of the way!’

  Dan brings the poker swinging down with force, but Harper, who is more experienced with violence, intercepts it with his forearm. It still cracks bone. He howls in pain and punches the knife into Dan’s chest. There is a bright spray of red. The momentum carries both men up against the door. It’s only on the catch. Not locked. They fall together, smashing through the boards nailed across the door, into another time. The door swings shuts behind them.

  ‘Dan!’ It’s only a few yards, but it feels like forever. It might as well be. When she opens the door, it’s on to the summer’s evening she came from. There is no sign of them.

  Dan

  3 DECEMBER 1929

  They hold onto each other like lovers, tumbling down the steps of the front porch and into the cold and dark of early morning. The snow is a shock. Dan hits the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of him. He gets his knee up to shove the psycho off and scrambles like a dog on all fours into the street, trying to get distance.

  Everything’s fucked up. Somewhere else again. Where there was an empty lot before, a brick warehouse has sprung up. He thinks about banging on the door for help, but it’s padlocked with a heavy chain. The windows of the houses are boarded over. But the paint is newer. None of it makes any sense; rolling around in the snow, bleeding on things, when it was June half an hour ago.

  Dan’s shirt is wet. The cold cuts through it. Blood runs down his arm and drips between his fingers, blooming in the snow in pink crystalline fractals. He can’t even tell what it’s from any more, his ribs or the cut in his hand. It’s all gone numb and burny anyway. The killer pulls himself to his feet using the railing, still holding the knife. Dan is already sick of that fucking knife.

  ‘Give it up, friend,’ the man says, limping across the snow towards him. The guy has his knife and Dan has shit. He’s crouching, his fingers digging in the snow.

  ‘You want to make it harder?’ The guy’s diction is slightly off. Old-fashioned, almost.

  ‘You’re not going to get a chance to hurt her again,’ Dan says. Closer, he can see that the bastard smashed open
his lip in the fall. His teeth are red with blood as he smiles.

  ‘It’s a circle that has to be closed.’

  ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, man,’ Dan says, hauling himself up. ‘But you’re making me angry.’ He shifts his weight onto his right foot, ignoring the pain in his side, winding up. The compacted lump of snow is gripped between his thumb and two fingers splayed wide like a four-seam fastball. He raises his knee and breaks his arms round in a pinwheel, pivoting his hips, and coming down on his front leg, letting the snowball glide, not snap, off his wrist at the sweet spot of the arc. ‘Vete pa’l carajo, hijo’e puta!’

  It sings across the street, this improvised ball, the perfect pitch to rival Mad Dog Maddux himself, and smashes into the psychopath’s face.

  The killer staggers back in shock, shaking his head and brushing away the snow. It’s enough time. Dan runs across the street, closing the gap between them. He’s on him. He winds up again, smashing his fist into the man’s nose. He’s aiming low, hoping to drive the septum straight into the bastard’s brain. But if it were that easy, it would happen all the time. The guy twists his jaw as the punch connects and Dan feels the cheekbone crunch under his knuckles. Puñeta, that hurts.

  He shoves himself backwards, ducking the knife weaving through the air, falling onto his back like a crab. He rolls himself over, lashing out with his shoe, connecting with something solid. Not the guy’s kneecap or his balls, which would have been useful. His thigh, maybe.

  The lunatic is still grinning through the blood running down his face from his nose. The blade in his hand is slick. The thought makes Dan feel sick and very, very tired. Or that could be the blood loss. It’s hard to tell how bad it is. Pretty ugly, he reckons, by the red in the snow. Dan gets to his feet, reluctantly. He can’t understand why Kirby doesn’t come out of the house and just shoot the bastard.

  He watches the hand with the knife. Maybe he can kick it away. Like some kung-fu master. Who is he kidding? He makes a decision. He lunges forward, grabbing hold of the guy’s injured arm, squeezing and wrenching it, trying to pull him round, unbalance him as he drives his other fist into the bastard’s chest.

  The killer gives a surprised whuff as the air goes out of him, falling back a step, dragging Dan with him, but he is stronger and more experienced. He still manages to jab upwards with the knife, ripping into Dan’s stomach, pulling towards his ribcage with a shearing meaty-paper sound.

  Dan collapses onto his knees, clutching his stomach. And then falls down onto his side. The ground is freezing against his face. There is a shocking amount of blood spilling into the snow.

  ‘She’ll die worse,’ the man says, smiling horribly. He nudges Dan in the ribs with the toe of his shoe. Dan groans and rolls away, onto his back, exposing his stomach. He tries to cover himself with his hands, a useless gesture. There’s something digging into his back, in the pocket of his coat. The goddamn pony.

  Headlights sweep across the street as a boxy old-fashioned car turns the corner. Motes of falling snow swirl in the beams of the headlights. It slows as it catches them in the spot, Dan lying there bleeding to death and the man with the knife hobbling back towards the house as fast as he can, with dawn on the horizon.

  ‘Help me!’ Dan yells at the car. He can’t see the driver’s face past the sulfur glare of the round headlights, like spectacles. All he can make out is a man’s silhouette with a hat. ‘Stop him!’

  The car idles in front of him, the heat of the exhaust forming sputtering cumulus clouds of carbon dioxide in the cold. Suddenly the engine roars, the tires spin, kicking up bits of ice and gravel, and it swerves around him. Barely.

  ‘Fuck you!’ Dan tries to scream after it. ‘You fucking fuck!’ But it comes out more of a jagged gasp. He cranes his head back to try and see the killer. He’s on the porch stairs already, reaching for the door. It’s hard to make him out, and not just through the flurries of snow.

  Dan’s vision is going furry-dark around the edges, like a cataract. Like falling down a well and the iris of light getting further and further away.

  Harper and Kirby

  13 JUNE 1993

  He kicks open the door, covered in blood and grinning insanely with anticipation, holding the knife and the key. But the grin dies when he sees what she is doing. Kirby is standing in the middle of the room, jerking the Ronson Princess De-Light to spray lighter fluid over a mound of stuff she’s gathered in the middle of the room.

  She’s torn down the curtains from the window, soaked through with wet patches, piled up on top of the mattress from the spare bedroom upstairs. There are empty bottles carelessly tossed at the base. The kerosene from the kitchen. The whiskey. She’s upturned the chair and torn it open so the stuffing leaks out in white clumps. The gramophone is smashed to pieces. Glossy splinters of wood and hundred-dollar bills and betting slips rammed into the dented brass horn. She’s brought down everything from the room. The butterfly wings and the baseball card and the pony and the cassette with a snarl of unspooled black ribbon tangled up in a charm bracelet, the lab ID badge and a protest button, a bunny clip, a contraceptive pill packet, a printer’s letter Z. A chewed-on tennis ball.

  ‘Where’s Dan?’ Kirby says. The light from the fireplace behind her shines in her hair like a prophecy.

  ‘Dead,’ Harper says. The snowstorm of December 1929 whirls behind him through the open door. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What do you think?’ she mocks. ‘You didn’t give me anything to do but wait for you to come back.’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ Harper says as Kirby flicks the flint. A steady golden flame flares up. She drops it into the pile. It catches a second later, oily black smoke twisting up from the paper, leaping orange flames.

  He yells in anguish, lunging for her, the knife out, but something brings him up short.

  He smashes violently into the floor, dropping the key, as Dan half-tackles him, on his knees, his arms clutched around Harper’s legs. Still alive, even though blood is pooling under him, black and thick. He is pulling at Harper’s pants to drag him back and keep him from getting at her. Harper kicks at him, frantically. His heel sends the key skittering across the floor, skidding through the blood, and coming to rest on the doorjamb at the very threshold of the House.

  He manages to get in a lucky blow, catching Dan under his jaw with his shoe. Dan groans and his fingers release their hold on his jeans.

  Freed, Harper scrambles to his feet, still holding the knife, triumphant. He will kill her and put out the fire and then carve up her friend slowly for the trouble he has caused him.

  But then he meets Kirby’s gaze as she levels the gun at him. The flames are hot at her back. She opens her mouth to say something and thinks better of it. She exhales slowly and squeezes the trigger.

  Harper

  13 JUNE 1993

  The flash is blinding. The force spins him into the wall.

  Harper touches the hole in his shirt where a dark stain is congealing. First it feels blank. Then the pain comes, every nerve along the trajectory of the hole the bullet bored through him lighting up at the same time. He tries to laugh, but his breathing is wet and wheezing as his lung starts filling with blood. ‘You can’t,’ he says.

  ‘Really?’ She looks beautiful, Harper thinks, lips pulled back to show her teeth, eyes bright, her hair like a halo around her head. Shining.

  She pulls the trigger again, blinking involuntarily at the crack. And again and again. And again. Until the chamber clicks. The detonations in his body register only dimly, as if he is already peeling away.

  Then she throws the gun at him in frustration and falls onto her knees and buries her face in her hands.

  Should have finished me, you stupid cunt, he thinks. He tries to move towards her, but his body won’t respond.

  His perspective is skewed, distorted at an obtuse angle. The whole scene is laid out beneath him, as if he is falling up and away from it.

  The girl with her shoulder
s shaking, as the flames lick up from the tangle of chair and curtains and totems, spewing a black, chemical smoke.

  The big man lying on the floorboards, swallowing hard, his eyes closed, holding his stomach and his chest, blood running between his fingers.

  Harper can see himself standing against the wall. How can he see outside of himself? He is looking down on everything, as if he is wedged high against the ceiling, but still tethered to the lump of flesh with his face below.

  Harper sees Harper’s legs go slack. His body starts sliding down the surface of the wall. The back of his head smears dark globs of blood and brain over the cream wallpaper.

  He feels the connection slip. And then it snaps.

  He howls in disbelief, clawing to get back down. But he has no hands to grasp. He is a dead thing. So much meat on the floor.

  He stretches out, reaching for anything.

  And finds the House.

  Floorboards instead of bones. Walls instead of flesh.

  He can pull it back. Start again. Undo this. The heat of the flames and the choking smoke and the howling fury.

  It’s not so much a possession as an infection.

  The House was always his.

  Always him.

  Kirby

  13 JUNE 1993

  The room is getting hot. The smoke gets in through the sobs, catches in her lungs. She could just die here. Keep her eyes closed. Not get up ever again. It would be easy. Asphyxiation would kill her before the flames reached her. She could just breathe deep. Let it go. It’s done.

  Something is pawing at her hand, insistently. Like a dog.

  She doesn’t want to, but she opens her eyes to see Dan, squeezing her hand. He’s on his knees, hunched over. His fingers are slick with blood.

  ‘Little help?’ he rasps.

  ‘Oh God.’ She’s still shaking, crying and coughing. She throws her arms around him and he winces.

  ‘Ow.’

  ‘Hang on. I need your jacket.’ She helps him out of it and ties it around his waist as tightly as she can against the wound. It starts soaking through even before she’s finished. She can’t think about that. She crawls under his arm, braces against the floor and hefts up. He’s too heavy, she can’t lift him. Her boot skids in his blood.