by Sarah Porter
I mean, if they are people. From what I see that’s not really the right word to use. Their heads are humanesque but huge, bobbing things a yard tall, and they look like the machinery does, made of glowing red and yellow lines that shine out of pitch blackness. They loom over me, like their sharp-edged lights are about to carve me to pieces.
“Everett Bohnacker,” someone says—a thin, creaking voice—and laughs. “Everett, you enjoyed meeting your brother here, didn’t you? Why would we be any worse?”
But now Dash is next to me, out of nowhere; he’s looking exactly like he did when he murdered me, barefoot and shirtless. Before I can understand it—how can he be simultaneously in charge of my body and down here?—he’s got me by my elbow, because it appears that I have one at the moment. And he’s pulling hard. He must know his way around here pretty well, because he yanks me through this slippery patch of night that looks too small to put a hand through.
He drags me to my feet and we’re running again, his hand crushing mine. It might make me feel better having Dash with me if I didn’t hear how his breath was whistling, if I couldn’t feel the terror popping in his muscles as he pauses to insinuate me straight through what looks like a wall. We emerge into some kind of narrow corridor and all the blinking random colors are gone. For a moment we balance against each other in dead blackness.
Then a green-streaked haze washes in at our feet, throwing our knife-thin shadows up the passage. They’re after us again and we plunge on. At a bend I glance back. Those blob-headed guys are maybe thirty feet behind, glowing scarlet, shining green—and that’s what it is, they almost look like old neon signs, except of course they’re three-dimensional. I can see their light pulsing into the corners of my eyes when they’re gaining on us, dimming a little, surging brighter again.
And then I start wheezing. I’m gasping and doubling up as I run, and I still can’t get enough air. That’s right: even in this insane place, I still have my damned asthma.
Even though it’s not a real place, not in the normal sense. It’s probably not real air. Whatever, I’m sucking at it as hard as I can with my lungs aching, and my legs are starting to buckle beneath me. “Never,” Dash says, dragging at me. “Never, there’s no time for this!”
Like I can help it. I’m almost on the floor. And its glossy cement is swarming with reflected red and yellow lights.
Dashiell is going to abandon me here, that’s what he’s going to do. He’s going to leave me as a gasping, broken sacrifice for those not-human things and save his own ass. Obviously. Because treachery is the essence of who my brother really is, at least when you know him the way I do. Realizing that is just making me wheeze harder, and tears start up in my eyes because I’m so desperate to finally just finally please breathe.
Then Dash throws himself on top of me, knocking me flat. And drives both of us straight through the pavement.
I guess he’s counting on me to break his fall, because it’s a long way down.
Except that I don’t land anywhere. All at once I’m sitting on piss-reeking cement with my head tipped against a steel security gate. My breath is coming in, hard and rapid. I stagger to my feet, so dizzy that I can barely get a grip on myself, and look around. It looks like the loading dock of a warehouse. Dash must have parked my body here before he came plunging after me, and it’s probably just luck that no one got around to robbing or killing me while my brain was out of commission. I’m in the middle of some horrible part of what must be Queens, all caved-in buildings and psychotic drunks gabbling and fighting with imaginary demons. The sky is getting dusky, and I am completely and hopelessly lost.
But it’s still a huge improvement over what I just left.
Get us to the subway, Never, Dash says in my thoughts. Head for Manhattan. I’ll be back soon.
So he didn’t abandon me, exactly. He shot me back to the surface, back to driving my own body around, while he stayed down below with those glow-headed freaks.
As in, did Dashiell just save me? Save me by endangering himself? It’s hard to believe, but I can’t logically see my way to a different conclusion, at least not right at the moment. I have to move, though, not stop and think about this. There’s a guy in the middle of the street staggering and stabbing at the air with his fingers; his eyes are starting to home in on me and he’s heading my way.
I walk at first, trying to act casual, but I can’t maintain it. There’s still too much fear slamming around in me and I start to get the twitchy feeling that the homeless guy’s head is inflating, flashing, twisting with red and green beams. I burst into a run, telling myself at every step that I need to calm down, that I’ll only attract attention and that’s a really bad idea here.
I round a corner with a seedy bodega on it and make myself wheel to a stop. I peer back up the street I just left, pressing up against the faded ads for beer. My face is full of greenish-beige tits in a vaguely gold bikini and my breath surges through my lungs again and again, just like it never ditched out on me.
There’s no one and nothing back there. Okay. I’m getting a grip, now. The subway. “So where would I find the freaking subway around here, Dash?”
No answer. I guess that’s fair. He’s busy.
There’s a weirdly heavy bundle stuffed against my guts; I’m wearing a bomber jacket with elastic at the bottom so whatever it is doesn’t fall out. It makes a muffled clacking sound as I walk, so there must be more in it than just the money. I’m not crazy about walking around a neighborhood like this with thousands and thousands of dollars on me, though I guess I don’t look like the type who would have much of anything valuable. But I sure don’t look like I belong here, either.
In the distance I can see an intersection that seems brighter and busier than the rest of this mess of sort-of-city. Lots of cars zipping along, maybe stores. That’s probably a good place to start looking.
It takes me at least half an hour of wandering around, and the dark is really settling in. But at last I see a lit-up green globe in the distance, the kind that marks a station entrance. It turns out that we’re at the very end of the line.
This part I know how to do. I stop at a newsstand and buy a candy bar before I go in, because I’m getting famished. Head down the stairs, blip my way through the turnstile, head down some more.
It’s all so everyday, so normal, that I feel kind of disappointed. Hey world, I’m just your average, generic nobody after all. The adrenaline has totally washed out of me and I just feel drab and tired. I know I was in terrible danger, but now that I’m out it’s hard not to feel sort of nostalgic about it; I was scared, sure, but also bright and vital in a way that I usually only get to imagine.
The train comes, and I sit through station after station that I’ve never even heard of before. The whole time I’m thinking mean things, like how stupid that woman’s dress is, and how the guy spreading his legs three feet apart isn’t fooling anybody into thinking that it’s because his dick is so big. Sorry, dude. Seriously, I hate everyone.
I guess I shouldn’t have worried. We’re just cruising through the tunnel into Manhattan when Dash comes back. And then I can’t hate the people on the train very effectively anymore, because I can’t even see them. I’m not in the glowing factory this time. Just in the darkness.
I don’t fight him, and he doesn’t bother giving me little glimpses of the world now. I get the feeling he might be pretty pissed off with me. For all I can tell, I stay in the darkness for hours on end.
The next thing I know, we’re walking down a nice-looking street full of fancy boutiques and restaurants—where? It looks like the East Village, probably pretty late at night, since all the bars are packed and clamoring. Dash is still controlling my body, but I guess he’s decided to let me be conscious for a while. We head up to one of the apartment buildings, and Dash presses a buzzer on the intercom.
“Yes?”
“It’s Everett Bohnacker,” Dashiell says, and he really manages to sound almost exactly like me, though I
guess using my vocal cords makes that a lot easier. “Dashiell’s brother. I need to speak to you privately.”
A sharp bark of laughter comes through the speaker, and the door buzzes open.
We head inside the lobby—lots of black stone—and walk straight to the elevator. I must be slow on the uptake, but it’s just sinking in now that we’re going to see her—I guess I somehow thought Dash would wait a day or two? I’m starting to kick and spasm and it must annoy him, because my awareness starts kind of strobing again. Thin slices of blackout alternate with moments where I can see our surroundings. So I’m not conscious when we get on the elevator, but I get a flash of the numbers going up. And for a moment I feel my hand fumbling in that package inside my jacket, and pulling out an object I can’t identify. Whatever it is, it gets stuffed into the back pocket of my jeans.
I don’t see us step out on Paige’s floor, or walk into her apartment.
I do hear my own voice talking—but way, way more confidently than I usually would. Dash is still pretending to be me, just a new and improved version. And she’s there, inches away from me, looking skeptical and wearing this silvery robe that clings to her body. Every time I inhale I smell the perfume in her black hair. And then my hand pulls the package out of my jacket and flings it on this tiny silver table. It’s wrapped in layers and layers of half-rotten newspapers, and when it hits the table the paper splits wide.
Jesus. We didn’t bring Paige a pile of hundred-dollar bills. No wonder that package was so heavy.
Gold coins roll chiming over the table and shudder on the floor. Light flashes and spins, and Paige is staring in shock from the gold, to me, to the gold. And then I’m walking toward her with that swaggering stride, pushing her back against a wall. I can’t understand why she doesn’t just punch me in the face. Seriously, if I could stop my body from acting this way I would do it, but Dashiell’s got a good hold on me now and he lifts my hand and runs a single finger around the side of her jaw and down her neck.
And under the edge of her robe.
Everything goes back to black, and when I know where I am again all my clothes are off. And so are Paige’s.
I guess Dashiell is messing with me, because he doesn’t let me feel what’s happening for very long. Just long enough to drive me completely insane: her skin sliding under mine, her mouth moaning against my neck. It’s all Dashiell, and I’m just along for the ride, but of course she’s got no way of knowing that. Why would she let this happen?
But maybe I can guess: she doesn’t have to consciously know he’s here to pick up on something, like she probably thinks I just remind her of the guy she loved. I’m feeling almost sorry for her when my awareness blips out again, though God knows I try to get back to the surface.
She was so soft. So soft all over. A blur of shining black hair and satiny arms and wet lips; so, so many times over the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.
And then I’m lying next to her, gasping a little, and she’s up on her elbow looking down at me. “We both miss Dashiell,” she says, kind of coldly. “And you’re more like your brother than anyone would think at first glance, aren’t you, Everett? It’s natural that we would try to comfort each other. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
I guess ashamed is how I must look. Seems reasonable.
Dashiell is nowhere that I can feel right now, though I try to sense him in this frantic, lurching way. I’m on my own and I’m completely out of my depth. I’m so afraid of making an ass of myself that I can’t say anything.
Paige stares at me for a moment, then gets up and starts getting dressed—and her body is so far beyond anything I could have imagined, and she’s pulling on the most amazing lace underwear. Then she turns, and there in my face is the last thing in the world I want to think about: it’s pretty subtle, really, but her stomach is just a little too round. Dashiell’s freaking baby.
“I have to get to work. Did Dashiell tell you? I get paid to go to parties.” She laughs, maybe bitterly. “That’s my life, Everett. Standing there being seen. I’m wallpaper.”
I know I should say something—something about how her heart is even more beautiful than her face, maybe? But even thinking it makes me feel like a dork, and anyway it’s probably not true.
Pretend to be Dashiell. Okay. Do what he would do.
I get up without saying anything and kiss her gently, first on the forehead, then on the cheek. Then, though I really have to work up my nerve to do it, on the mouth.
She just had sex with me, or with what she thought was me. So maybe she won’t mind.
Now that I think about it, we just had sex on the same bed where Dashiell died.
“I should get going, too,” I make myself say—or maybe he helps me say it. “You have a wonderful evening, sweet thing.”
Ugh—that definitely wasn’t me. Not by myself.
I need to get my clothes on and get the hell out of here, before it can get any worse. But Dashiell doesn’t let me get dressed fast. Nope, we have to take our freaking time. Even worse, I’ve been wearing that moronic hot dog T-shirt all day, and Paige sees me in it.
When I pull my jeans on, I feel something strange stuck in my back pocket: a hard, ragged lump shaped like a horseshoe.
At least I get a little longer to watch Paige shimmying into a skintight shiny blue skirt and a metallic leather bustier. Baby-blue lipstick. Smears of weird colors on her eyes. The whole time she’s watching me in a funny way; does she suspect there’s something weird going on? “Everett? I hope you covered your tracks. No one knows where to look for that gold you found, do they?”
“It’s fine, love,” Dash says with my voice. “I’ve taken care of everything. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”
Then I’m finally free to move, and I’m walking past that pile of gold coins and out the door and pushing the elevator button.
And wondering the whole way if what we just did to Paige was some kind of bizarre rape. I mean, she absolutely has a right to know who’s in bed with her, doesn’t she? Like, she can’t agree to sleeping with Dash when she has no idea he’s here, so it was sort of like we tricked her. I hope that doesn’t make it completely wrong, though, because even if I didn’t have much to do with it, I can’t say it wasn’t the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.
Or that I’m not dying to do it again. I could swear I feel Dashiell grinning. And how did you enjoy your positive reinforcement, Never-Ever?
I’m not sure which I want more: to stab myself to death right now, for being such an asshole.
Or to go on being Dashiell’s puppet for as long as I possibly can.
RUBY SLIPPERS
When I get home it’s already nine, and the awful thing is that I open our front door onto darkness and emptiness. And even once I’ve locked the door behind me and checked the lock over and over again, and turned on every light in the whole house, the aching emptiness filling the rooms doesn’t go away at all. I can feel the darkness clawing at the back of every brilliantly lit surface, waiting to seize me again. Our dad isn’t home, that’s normal enough, but Everett isn’t either, which is a lot more unusual. And he doesn’t answer his phone, though I must call him five times in a row. I guess Dashiell is with him and maybe that should make me less worried, but it doesn’t; not now that I’ve talked to Mabel. Not now that I’ve seen what’s moving through the Brooklyn night.
Mabel’s babyish voice, so discordant and so out of place in her hulking body—it was too much like the way I heard another voice recently, talking out of someone to whom it definitely didn’t belong.
Then something occurs to me, and I start searching under the furniture and inside all the closets—just in case one of those cats got in here somehow. I don’t find anything except some balls of dust and a dozen lost socks under Ever’s bed upstairs, but that doesn’t make me feel any better and I keep pacing through all the rooms and charging up and down the staircase. I would turn on music to bury the awful quiet, if I weren’t so afraid o
f what else it might drown out. I’m listening so hard that the silence starts to whine in my ears: the music of nothingness, the shrill complaint of the void.
And what about the windows? They’re closed in this weather, of course they must be, but possibly not all of them are locked. So I start my patrol all over again: first upstairs through Dad’s bedroom and his tiny study, Everett’s room, the bathroom, and then the room that used to be Dashiell’s but got converted into a guest room. With every one of Dash’s belongings cleared out of it, and all new furniture, the room feels lonely and barren and nobody ever goes in there. The windows are all fine, locked tight, and my breathing starts to flow just a little more smoothly. I gallop downstairs again and survey my own bedroom, then head to the kitchen, tugging back the striped drapes to check the latch. I can see our stoop from here, and the flowerpots that edge the brick steps. Lamplight gilds the tree just outside the window, making its meshed branches into a golden cage. A few dry leaves fidget in the wind.
And in that tree, something is gleaming. Just like on the night when I first heard Dashiell and Everett talking, two sequin-bright dots hover above a bare branch. Animal eyes: their twinned-moon shine. Oh, so they’ve been watching us for days now, circling our house. That sense I’ve had of horror tracking us, closing in: it’s here. That’s what Mabel was telling me.
There’s a smear of gray as the cat jumps down onto the railing and then out of sight, but I see enough to recognize it, and I would have known anyway—because I’m forced to know a thousand times more than I can understand, and to feel more than I can begin to arrange into meaning. All there is around me now is possibility, possibility with no underlying sense it can cling to.
Possibility, and a gray tabby cat that can only be the same cat I saw leaping off the bridge earlier tonight with its claws outstretched, frantic to sink them into Mabel’s bearded face, eager to rip flesh. Someone else might say that it has to be a different cat—because why would some random animal have followed me home? But I have no choice except to know.
