Teen Frankenstein

by Chandler Baker

SOMEHOW IT HAD wound up Thursday. Or maybe it was Wednesday. I couldn’t remember anymore.

  “Watch it.” Billy Ray’s arm caught me in the shoulder, and my books sprayed onto the floor. I kneeled down to collect them. A sneaker stepped right across the spine of my physics workbook. I pinched the cover and wriggled it back to safety.

  For a moment I stayed near the ground, watching the pairs of legs pass by. Worn jeans, tights, boots, tennis shoes, wedges. Part of me wanted to give up, to stay there. What difference did it make, anyway? Knox was dead, and I was in some ways worse off than dead. I was invisible.

  I crawled to my feet. No one offered to help. I passed by Cassidy’s locker. She wasn’t there, but I’d seen her yesterday collecting her assignments after math. No sign of Paisley yet.

  I met Owen at the cafeteria entrance. “Want to go see that Stan Lee documentary at the cineplex after school? It’ll be over before curfew.”

  I yawned. “No, Owen, not really.” Only, I couldn’t remember if I’d bothered to say that out loud.

  * * *

  WAS IT FRIDAY already? God, how did that happen?

  I stared out the window of the chemistry lab. Dark clouds were beginning to congregate over the school’s campus and beyond the forested blanket of the Hollows. Below the windowsill, zebra grass bowed in the wind. The American flag beat wildly. It had been almost a week since I’d set foot in the cellar, but I imagined the mercury in my father’s glass barometer plunging with the pressure. The Doppler radar, which I’d been studying so intently up to this point, would be electric now with orange and red beginning to spread toward Hollow Pines.

  “Tor.” The voice felt far away. “Tor. Hello? Tor.”

  I jumped when I felt a hand on my shoulder. “What?” I snapped.

  Owen jerked back. His face looked longer, leaner. It was impossible to miss the purple bruises under his eyes that gave away that he hadn’t been getting much sleep. They reminded me of Adam. The amused smile always brimming just at the surface of Owen’s eyes was gone. And that reminded me of Adam, too. “Are you going to help?”

  There was nothing clever in Owen’s delivery. He didn’t try to make me laugh. He just pointed to the small lab prep of our would-be science fair project. Set up in the empty classroom was a test tube fitted with a rubber stopper, a piece of glass tubing, and a two-liter soda bottle.

  I sighed and turned from the window, where the first droplet had splashed the pane. Owen and I had agreed to abandon Mr. Bubbles. The experiment had already failed. I’d played God and created a monster. Besides, the lower mass and muscle density with that level of voltage would probably never work, anyway.

  My lip curled at the sight of our new project, an archaic production of sulfuric acid from sulfur and saltpeter. I dropped my elbows onto the table and looked over Owen’s equations for balancing the reaction:

  KNO3(s) + S(s) -----> K2S + N2(g) + SO3(g)

  It was all painfully unoriginal. “Have you done the stoichiometry calculation yet?” I asked, my cheek pressed into my palm.

  “Not yet,” he said, rinsing the walls of the soda bottle using the small sink in the center of the lab table and leaving them wet.

  I sighed again. I was becoming a professional sigher. It was pathetic. Or maybe it was apathetic. God, weren’t those basically the same thing? I picked up a pen. It felt like a lot of effort. And I quickly ran through the calculations to determine the number of grams of saltpeter needed to react with a gram of sulfur. When it came time for the fair, we’d translate the process in neat print onto a colorful poster board, hell, maybe we’d just tear out the page of my notebook and slap it onto the poster board. Honestly, who cared? This was nothing compared with what I’d accomplished. This was pointless. Kid stuff.

  When I’d circled the answer, I returned to staring out the window. Adam was out there with Meg. I had to keep reminding myself that he had killed Knox, that maybe he’d killed other people, too, except I could never get my mind around the idea that Adam was the Hunter. Something didn’t add up. He had a violent streak, but he wasn’t sadistic. It was more that he was being driven mad by how different he was. The truth was, I didn’t want him to be different. I wanted him to be perfect, and when he wasn’t, I had to send him away. I had no other choice.

  Did I?

  Outside, I watched the sky darken. Even though the sun hadn’t set, the looming storm made the use of lights inside mandatory. I glanced at the clock. It was after three in the afternoon. I chewed on the end of my pen and wondered for the millionth time this week what he was doing.

  The first flickers of lightning lit the bellies of the clouds like camera flashes sparking behind a gray veil. I lifted my cheek from my palm. I thumbed the lightning charm dangling from my wrist and rubbed it between my fingers, making the gold metal warm to the touch. The little zigzags in the bolt dug into my skin when I pressed. The bulbs went off again. And suddenly, it was like the lightning had struck me. Maybe the experiment with Adam wasn’t over. Maybe he still could be a perfect specimen. Before, I hadn’t had the answer. The generators. But now …

  The pen clattered to the table. Owen glanced up from fiddling with the fit of the glass tube. “What?” he asked.

  “The storm’s only going to be here overnight.” I grabbed my rain shell off a stool. “After that it might be too late.”

  Owen gently set the glass tube down on the counter. “What do you mean ‘too late’? What are you talking about? Too late for what?”

  “The experiment.”

  “This is our experiment, Tor.”

  I punched my arms through the sleeves of my coat and pulled the hood over my ears. “This is college sophomore science, Owen, and you know it. I’m talking about the generators.” I pointed out the window where the fog rolled over the tops of the woods. “I’m going to get Adam. This isn’t over yet. I think I can fix this.”

  “Tor.” Owen stepped toward me. I was already making my way for the door, skipping backward. “You can’t fix a body count. It didn’t work. We tried.”

  “I know, but maybe I should still fix him. I have to go,” I said. “I’ll call you later.”

  I backed out of the room, still watching the storm brewing outside.

  “Tor!” Owen called, but I just pivoted and ran, ran for my car, ran for Adam, ran to chase the storm breaking overhead, and just hoped that I’d get there in time.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Lightning is caused by an imbalance between positive and negative charges. A single cloud-to-ground lightning bolt can contain up to one billion volts of electricity.

  * * *

  “Answer, answer, answer.” I shook the phone. This was my third call in a row. I dashed down the abandoned school hallway, dodging a yellow sign marking a puddle on the floor.

  “No cell phones in school,” barked Old Man McCardle. He pushed the mop back and forth across the white tiles. The silver wisps of his hair covered only pieces of his bowed head, sun-pocked and wrinkled with age. A yellowing bandage, stained with dirt and sweat, wrapped around one of his hands.

  I cupped the receiver. “I know, but it’s an emergency.”

  I hurried past while he grumbled something after me.

  Just as I made it outside, the line clicked over to voice mail. “You’ve reached Meg. If you’d like to leave a message, do so after the…”

  “Meg, it’s Tor—Victoria—Frankenstein. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you. This is urgent. I have something that will help Adam, but I need you to meet me at the lightning generators in the Hollows as soon as possible. Even if it’s raining. Tell Adam. He’ll know the spot.”

  I could have sworn I’d told her to answer her phone if I called. Then again, maybe it shouldn’t have taken me a week to call. I crossed the parking lot and dropped into my car. I crumpled the flyer that I’d pulled from my backpack and threw it on the dash. Think.

  I stared at my cell phone. But it remained quiet. Maybe this was some kind of sign. Maybe Owen was right. I’d been down thi
s road. As unpleasant as it was to admit, Adam had malfunctioned. That was my doing.

  The sky was a wash of gray, and I leaned into the steering wheel to watch it darken, like spilled ink coming toward us. I twisted the key and felt the motor rumble underneath me. I’d almost forgotten. I didn’t believe in signs.

  I was going to the Queen’s Inn to find Adam for myself. A few minutes later I crossed Main Street on my way to the southeast corner of Hollow Pines. As I drove, the houses got rattier. Weeds scaled the fences of overrun lawns. The windows of a gas station had been boarded up with plywood. Meanwhile, the clouds above me engaged in a valiant standoff with the threatening downpour. The sky held steadfast, with only a few spare drops slipping through the defenses and plummeting to earth like warning missives that splashed onto my windshield.

  There’d be more. A lot more. The radio’s weather report beeped with severe thunderstorm warnings and a tornado watch in the area until midnight. I pulled into the seedy lot of the Queen’s Inn. The motel was a squatty two-story building with bars on the windows of the bottom-floor rooms and craggy asphalt with painted yellow lines fading in the parking lot. The place reeked of imagined cigarette smoke and crushed dreams.

  Most of the spots in the lot were empty. I parked mine in a back row, nearest the road and the vintage sign with slide-in letters that read VACANCY. Or that was what it would have read if the y wasn’t missing from the end. My hands twisted over the steering wheel. What if he had left town? What if she told someone our secret? My stomach chewed over these possibilities. I still had time to turn back while the experiment was still in the loss column. But, instead, I unfastened my seat belt and climbed out of the car into the part of town that nice girls never went. I looked both ways and crossed the parking lot to the front entrance of the inn, where I pulled open a door with ten years’ worth of fingerprints smudged on the glass.

  A sleepy-eyed man with a comb-over slid his elbows off the counter upon seeing me. “Can I help you?” His tone urged me to say no, but that wasn’t going to happen. A roll of thunder so faint it could have been mistaken for my stomach growling seeped through the door.

  “I’m looking for a girl’s room. Her name’s Meg.” When he blinked, his hoodlike eyelids had only a short distance to travel. “She’s about this high.” I held up my hand an inch over my own head. “Dark hair. Pointy features. Scrappy. She’s with a boy named”—I hesitated—“John Wheeler.” I thought I saw a flash of recognition, a moment where his wiry eyebrows twitched.

  “Sorry. We don’t give out occupants’ room numbers.” This was the type of place that called their customers occupants instead of guests, and I found this to be the most honest thing about the Queen’s Inn.

  The clerk returned to picking bits of lint from the front of his shirt.

  I cleared my throat. I’d been expecting this answer. After all, it was no surprise that occupants at the Queen’s Inn wouldn’t want to be found. I leaned on the counter. “Then could you call them to let them know someone’s here?” I used my girliest please help me voice, a skill, although not mastered, that was maybe the one plus I’d picked up from the Oilerettes. “I’m sure they’d like to know.”

  He looked as if he didn’t want to commit to moving, but, finally, he picked up the receiver. “Meg, you said? Meg what?”

  “I don’t really know,” I said honestly. “I—Well, truth is, I’m better friends with John and, this girl Meg and I, we’re on more of a first-name basis only. Know what I mean?”

  He grunted but didn’t seem perturbed. In a place like this, there were probably plenty of people who had reasons for obscuring their name for some reason or other.

  Behind the counter, he ran his finger down a list.

  “She’s skinny,” I said. “Pretty. I guess, anyway.”

  He didn’t glance up. “I know the one.” His voice was gruff. “Not a lot of young kids like you staying here.” He perched a pair of glasses on his nose and peered down through the lenses. With a dirty fingernail, he punched the numbers into the phone’s keypad and I watched, holding my breath.

  First a nine. That was to be able to dial, I figured. Then a two, followed by a one, then another two: 2-1-2.

  Room 212, I recited silently. I waited for the phone to ring in his ear. I worried the guy would go narcoleptic on the phone, but he hung up and stated, “They’re not answering.”

  I shrugged. “No problem. Thanks for trying.”

  At least I knew that they were still staying here. I left the dingy clerk’s office armed with Meg’s room number and stuffed my hands into my pockets to keep them out of the wind. Without stopping, I climbed up the two flights of steps that ran alongside the fire escape.

  I found Room 212 four doors down. The second “2” hung cockeyed from its nail. Inside, the window blinds were drawn.

  I used the tarnished brass knocker to rap on the door. “Come on, come on.” I bobbed up and down on my toes. I knocked again. The bottom had dropped out on the atmospheric pressure, and the temperature was falling along with it. The storm was strengthening. But where was Adam?

  Again, there was no answer. I glanced over my shoulder. No one was around. I dug my teeth into my lower lip and wiggled the door handle. Locked. My heart thumped. I wondered if I’d officially lost my marbles. But that was the thing about losing it: You were usually too far gone to care. From my back pocket, I pulled my wallet and slid out my driver’s license. Bending down, I inserted the license between the doorframe and door and slid it down toward the latch. It took several attempts until I heard the click that meant I’d successfully maneuvered the license in between the lock and frame.

  With a whiny creak, the door popped open an inch. The room inside was a dark, tea-stained brown. The soles of my shoes sank into a spongy, carpeted floor as I slipped in and pulled the door shut behind me. I chained the lock and pressed my back to the door, letting my eyes adjust. A musty odor emanated from the comforters on two separate beds.

  “Hello?” I called. The room was quiet except for the buzz of the window air-conditioning unit. All I needed was a hint of where they might have gone or when the last time was that they were here. I forced myself to move away from the wall and made a beeline for a duffel bag squished tightly between the television and minifridge.

  I dug into a pile of clothes. If I had any doubt as to whether I had the right room, it went out the window when I found the treasure trove of cutoff denim. The girl loved to take scissors to jeans—shorts, skirts, it didn’t matter. Soon, I was squatting amid a denim massacre.

  But it was underneath a pair of underwear that I saw the glint of a screen. I pinched a red thong, the kind I’d never personally own, between two fingers and dropped it on the pile of clothes.

  I picked up the shiny black tablet. The silhouette of my face reflected off the screen. I swiped my thumb across the bottom, and the tablet came to life. Bingo.

  The background lit up blue, displaying a dozen icons. I tapped the one for “mail,” but it wasn’t set up. I cursed under my breath and closed out of the application. I selected the Internet app instead and the browser expanded.

  I navigated to Meg’s search history. A long list appeared, showing the last two weeks of activity. I scrolled. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. A clue. Anything. Shopping websites filled the bulk of her history, and I grew impatient as I paged my way through.

  From the hallway, I heard the sound of approaching voices. I stiffened, glancing around for somewhere to hide if I had to. Under the beds? The bathroom? They got closer. Shadows crossed the blinds. Footsteps. They were at the door, and then, in the space in which I was sure a key would slip into the lock, the footsteps began fading. They passed by the room. I let out a long whoosh of air and returned to the contents of the tablet.

  Partway down, though, the word fire caught my attention. The link was to a news article. I clicked it, and the screen went white before flashing to the local news site for Hugo, a town north of Hollow Pines, across the Okl
ahoma border.

  The headline, at once, stopped me cold: Fatal house fire was intentionally set, officials say. I read without wanting to. I read knowing what I might see. But the important thing was, I read anyway.

  Unified Fire Authority investigators ruled out natural gas as the cause of a fire that destroyed 408 East Trice Street in Tuesday’s late-evening hours. Unified Fire Battalion Chief Aaron Blanton issued a statement confirming, “… some other form of accelerant was spread in several places throughout the house.”

  James Flacco, 21, perished in the fire. An autopsy will confirm whether Flacco died as a result of the fire or whether his death occurred at some time earlier in the night.

  My skin went from hot to cold to clammy and sweat-ridden like I was consumed by fever. I had finally found the house. My hands quivered. I set the tablet down and heard it knock against something hard in the bag.

  I pushed a rolled-up shirt to the side, and my finger grazed something smooth and hard. Carefully, I lifted a gun out of Meg’s bag.

  My veins whooshed against my eardrums. Despite living my entire life in Texas, I’d never held one before. The short, angular handgun was light in my grip. I balanced it between handle and barrel.

  My thoughts tumbled one on top of the other, roaring like a waterfall. Adam. The flashback. The screams. The fire. Meg. Gun.

  That was what Meg meant by trouble. Someone died. I stared at the words on the screen. I hadn’t created the monster. I’d just uncovered the person there waiting. It was John lurking underneath the surface. Not my methods. John.

  But my loyalty was to Adam.

  Still shaking, I stuffed clothes back into the bag, then tucked the gun unnaturally underneath my arm. When I stood up, my head filled with hot air, and I had to wait three Mississippis for the feeling to pass.

  The world around me was sharp and dreamlike all at once. I unchained the lock and slipped back out onto the balcony. Still no sign of Adam. In the parking lot, a blue truck was parked next to my car. It looked empty, but the motor was running. I caught a silhouette of my own reflection in the truck’s window as I passed by.