Found You

by Mary SanGiovanni

  Steve considered that for a moment, nodded, and made his way back to his car.

  Dave turned back to his dark, quiet house to face the next twenty-four hours alone.

  While Dave and the others discussed where to find the Hollower and how to kill it, it busied itself with tormenting the strangest and possibly the most grotesque of all the meats. This one, a woman who called herself Anita, but who the others thought of as DeMarco, was the most difficult to find. She did not produce the same kind of Hate or Fear or Doubt that the others did, and so it was little more than vaguely aware of a somehow round impression of her, and a sense inside a sense, a fullness inside her solid shell.

  Her Worry seemed, by all accounts, to be focused on the consciousness inside her. She used the word “baby” for it. It could not sense this baby, not fully, but it knew the baby was there. Anita worried when it moved too much inside her, or not enough. She worried about the liquids and solids she sent splashing and sliding down inside her, whether they were enough or too much, whether there were (she called them “chemicals” in her thoughts but it read her impression as “poisons”) in the liquids and solids, and how they would affect the way the consciousness, the baby, grew its shell and all its internal physical things. Her Concern for the baby outweighed and eclipsed all other Concerns, and a part of that Concern, Anita knew, was unfounded. This made it very difficult to find her.

  When it did, though, it considered showing her terrible things—bullets tearing through stomachs, distended flesh bursting open and spilling its contents. But it searched her mindprints and found that she compartmentalized such things, that she put them in a different, distant place in her mind that seemed unconnected to the concept of the “baby.” Those thoughts were “work” thoughts, and the baby was a “home” thought, at least so long as she carried its shell inside her.

  It didn’t matter. The Hollower discovered that those “work” thoughts did not have nearly so much an effect on her as simple puddles of blood in the small outer shell she called “underwear.” It told her that she was not strong enough to hold the baby, that the baby was not strong enough to be born. It couldn’t find the baby to quiet it, but it didn’t have to. She had seen the blood, and that was enough. She called her male to come get her right away.

  When the male (“Bennie”) found her, she was curled up in a corner of the room, crying in the dark. She showed him the blood on her hands, the blood in a small pool on the floor.

  It felt sharp waves of Fear from the male, then, too. Although the blood had disappeared by the time the ground conveyance got them to the hospital (it remembered this word from the one called Sally’s thoughts), Anita remained tense and inconsolable throughout the darkening. It was the clearest the Hollower had ever seen her.

  When it came back for her, it would know how to crush her.

  It was late when Erik dropped them off on Cerver Street. Stars twinkled here and there in the sky, and a mild breeze lifted Dorrie’s hair. She was relieved to hear her wind chimes tinkling softly against the wooden post of her porch. Still, the street was much too quiet otherwise, and when she looked up at the moon, a full round white head without a face, she felt cold all over.

  She glanced at her house, willing her feet to move across the street. They wouldn’t. It was dark, and her house hulked, unfamiliar and unwelcoming, on her lawn like an animal waiting for sudden movement to spring.

  She felt Jake’s hand on her shoulder. “You okay, Dorrie?”

  “I’m afraid to go back in there,” she said plainly. “After feeling so safe with you guys, I just…I don’t know if I can go back in there.”

  Jake squeezed her shoulder lightly and blurted in a breath, “Look, I don’t mean this to come out all shady and wrong, and you can totally tell me to go to hell for even asking, and I swear I’m only asking because I know what you mean about feeling safer before, but…I don’t want to stay in my house alone, either. So if you wanted to, I mean, if it wouldn’t be too weird or uncomfortable, well, you’re definitely more than welcome to stay at my house to night.”

  Dorrie felt a flood of relief. “Really? It’s cool if I stay?”

  Jake smiled. “Of course.” He led her to the front door, unlocked it, and let them inside. He gave her a tour of the house, and they chatted, that familiar, comfortable sense of security returning now that they were off the street. It didn’t feel like they had just met, but, rather, that they had run into each other again and had a chance to reconnect.

  “So how about Cheryl living on this street, too?” Dorrie asked as they detoured through the kitchen. “I thought I recognized Dave from his visits to her, when we first walked in.”

  “Crazy small town, small world stuff right there.” Jake opened the fridge, oblivious to her flinching at the motion, and grabbed a bottle of soda. He offered it to her, but she shook her head. He put it back in the fridge. “And what’s up with Cerver Street? This has gotta be the most cursed neighborhood in Lakehaven.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it. I remember Cheryl, though. I can’t believe she’s dead. It’s so sad. I’d see her on her way to work sometimes, or coming home. She always seemed like she had it all going on, you know? I always admired her. Envied her. She was so beautiful, so well put together. I always thought nothing bad could happen to a woman like that, and if it did, there would be nothing that she didn’t have the resourcefulness to handle. I guess—it’s stupid, but it’s true—that I made her something of goal to reach for.”

  “I think you’ve done just fine being you.” He winked at her. “Cheryl never really did anything for me. I mean, she was really pretty and all—I see why Dave liked her— but I thought she always looked kind of nervous, like she figured no matter where she was going, she was going to be late and get in trouble. Plus, she was, I guess, too skinny for me.”

  “Don’t you like skinny girls?” Dorrie crossed her arms over her breasts and her stomach with sudden shyness.

  Jake looked pained. “Nah, I don’t like girls who are too skinny,” he answered, looking away. He absently rubbed the crook of his elbow. She thought he might have been thinking about that girl, his ex-girlfriend, who he’d told her about on the porch, the one who died of the drug overdose. Maybe he was done with bony hips and hollow eyes and arms weak and bruised and too thin. She suspected that maybe it was very much true, what he’d said, that maybe his taste for skinny girls was long gone.

  “Well, what do you like?” she asked, timid. She’d never been much of a flirt, but she found she genuinely wanted to know what kind of girls Jake did like nowadays.

  He looked up at her, seeming to remember himself again, and offered a smile. “I like women, with real curves. Breasts. Hips. Thighs.”

  As he mentioned each, his eyes traveled over those parts of her. It didn’t feel dirty or disrespectful to have him look at her like that, even though his gaze was so intense, and the thoughts behind his eyes so startling and unbelievable to her in their clarity. Instead, it was with such an earnest longing, such an honest appreciation of her as he looked at her body that it made her feel good. Sexy. Even a little bit adventurous.

  His eyes returned to hers and with them, nervousness in his expression. “I think you’re beautiful.”

  She felt heat in her cheeks. It was her turn to look away. “I…I’m not that…ehh, I don’t think so.”

  “You should know so.” His voice was low, soft, as if the moment were encased in a bubble he was afraid of popping. “I wish you saw what I see.”

  Her gaze returned to his. “What do you see?”

  “Someone who’s never looked at herself long enough to see the beauty in her eyes or her smile, or the grace in the way she moves. The way she lights up a room.”

  Dorrie looked away again, embarrassed. Guys didn’t say things like that to her often. She didn’t think Jake was a player type, the kind of guy to wax poetic at a girl who looked vulnerable, easy to lay, and so incredibly grateful for the compliments as to do anything to please him. Bu
t the insecurities flared like flames, hot in her cheeks, hot down her neck and across her chest. Hot everywhere. The feelings inside her confused her, made her feel light-headed. She wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t wrap her brain around his being attracted to her, to his wanting to grab rolls of flesh, to sink into the fat of her when he touched her.

  But he stood so close to her, his breathing different now, the scent of him in her nose, in her lungs, inside her, and she wanted him. A part of her didn’t much care if he fed her lies right up until he kicked her out the door, so long as, for at least a little while, for a time, she could have an experience to take out to remember when she felt like it. He made her feel special and desirable and wanted, even needed.

  “Why me?” Her voice sounded almost too quiet for her to hear herself. “Why do you like me?”

  Jake flinched, but never broke his gaze. “For lots of reasons. I know you don’t know me that well, and, under the circumstances, you haven’t seen much to want to get to know. I know I’m probably the last guy you’d want attention from. But I do like you, Dorrie, for lots of reasons. I’ve always thought you were great looking and funny, and today I saw how cool you are to talk to. When I first saw you, I was just wowed by you. But it’s more now. When I’m around you, I don’t feel stupid or useless. Maybe I am, but…look, I’m not good at this. It’s been a long time since…since anyone has mattered. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone in my life that I didn’t cause pain. After a while, you just push people away to keep them safe…” His eyes, glassy, almost wet, continued to look at her with that honest longing, so full of genuine feeling that Dorrie felt her own chest tighten.

  “Maybe I’m just selfish, but I’ll tell you the truth, Dorrie. Since I first saw you, I’ve thought about you—where you go when you take walks, what you think about when you stand on your front porch. I never dreamed I’d be spending time with you. Or be alone with you.” He tilted his head, taking an awkward step closer to her. “But I’ve thought about kissing you. Touching you. Does that make me sound like an asshole? I’ll just—”

  “No,” she said hastily. “Not really. I think it’s sweet.”

  He managed a small smile. “Good.”

  In that moment, nothing else mattered. Dorrie wanted to be close to him and to kiss him, too, to feel the weight of him on top of her, to feel him pressing inside her. Surprising herself, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He seemed startled but returned the kiss fiercely, slipping his own arms around her waist. She cringed in that first second that he’d feel her and think her fat, but the way he kissed her melted those worries away. When they parted, panting heavily, he took her hand and led her without a sound to his bedroom and eased her down onto the bed, kissing her again. Just the contact of his skin felt good. The scent of him was intoxicating.

  “I want you,” he whispered. She wasn’t sure if it was meant as a request, whether he was looking for permission to take her, or whether he was simply stating an intention. She responded by kissing him and reaching for him. He was already hard, and this, more than anything else, convinced her that whatever happened after didn’t matter, because for this moment, he did want her, and she felt gloriously attractive.

  For a good two hours, neither of them thought of the Hollower, of getting high or losing weight or flashing cop lights or cruel teasing teenage boys and unkind names, or of anything else except being with each other, close to each other, in each other’s arms. They touched and kissed, delighting in discovering those places that made the other gasp or breathe heavily, and later, in discovering each other’s rhythms and feeling like they belonged to each other. They felt alive, protected from the Hollower so long as that connection between them remained unbroken. And when they were done, Jake held on to her like he would never let go. They fell asleep like that, tangled arms and legs and wet skin drying pleasantly cool.

  It was the first night in a while that Dorrie felt safe and maybe the first night ever that she felt good enough for someone else. And although she didn’t know it then, it was the first night in longer than Jake could remember that he slept easily and soundly, without bad dreams.

  It took many lightenings and darkenings of their world before it had found the child-meat they called Sean. He lived outside of the Secondary’s hunting ground, and the Primary had found that child-meats were far more resilient in some ways than those who had marinated in their Fears and Insecurities well into adulthood. Therefore, he appeared blurred in its perception, much like the oddity called “baby” inside the meat called DeMarco’s shell.

  This did not mean it couldn’t hurt him. It could get to him, given time.

  But that would have to come later. The other meats had plans that demanded its immediate attention.

  Still, it would make the child-meat feel its presence.

  It gave him a terrible nightmare about big red bug-filled shells that floated on strings, a whole roomful of them, and a decaying figure known to Sean as “Dad.” It rubbed out the dad’s face, as a reminder.

  Sean remembered. He awoke and spent the rest of the darkening with his room filled with light.

  Satisfied, it pulled back and waited for the next darkening. When the others were destroyed, it would come back for the child-meat and kill him, too.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Early the next day, Steve had brunch with Eileen, who was up from Trenton on another case and had stopped in to say hello. She didn’t have much to add to Sally Kohlar’s case except that she’d died from a severed spinal cord and head and neck injuries. She confirmed that the blood that formed the word on the wall was in fact Sally’s, and that given the nature of her injuries, she could not have smeared it herself. This was confirmed by the fact that there was no trace of blood on Sally’s fingertips and no skin or anything else to indicate a finger had smeared the word onto the wall.

  “Meaning what?” Steve stirred Splenda into his coffee.

  Eileen shrugged. “Glove, maybe, although the blood layer is thin and there just isn’t a seam mark, a brush stroke, a stray fiber, a layer of epithelials, or a fingerprint anywhere. Not a breath of a clue as to who made those marks, or how. It’s almost like the blood just flew up onto the wall and flowed into a pattern of letters.” She laughed and sipped her coffee.

  He couldn’t quite return a laugh with ease. But he wasn’t really surprised. He figured the Hollower hadn’t really touched Sally’s blood at all—couldn’t, maybe. But it could have made the blood move. The thought made him feel a little sick around the edges.

  Eileen handed the Kohlar file to him. Sally Kohlar had been a delicate little woman, and even minor stresses on her system had effects that wouldn’t have registered with a normal body. Steve looked at the pictures, seeing the family resemblance between her and her brother in the blonde hair, the gray-blue eyes, the haunting shadow that never quite left the cheeks. But Dave was sturdier, hearty in spite of his evident drinking problem. Sally had been a wisp, a fragment of that health.

  After lunch, he’d thanked Eileen and gone back to the station. That’s when Bennie found him.

  Bennie looked tired and angry. But when he saw Steve in the locker room, he lunged at him, pushing him up against a locker.

  “Man, I told you to leave it alone. I told you.”

  Steve tried to loosen Bennie’s grip on his neck. He managed to splutter a choked, “Wha-whaha?”

  “She says you woke it up.” Bennie eased up on his neck. When he spoke again, the faint Hispanic accent and the utter exhaustion tinted his words. “Some kind of…I don’t know, some kind of monster, a monstruo that eats souls or something. She thinks it came after her. It’s crazy talk, the same fucking crazy talk in the files you asked me about the other day. I told you she was excitable. Impressionable.”

  Steve gave Bennie a little shove, not hard enough to elicit fresh anger, but hard enough to put some space between them. Mendez’s implication was clear. “Bennie, I swear I didn’t talk to her. I know she’s got enoug
h going on. I wouldn’t involve her in any of this. Is she…okay? What happened?”

  Bennie pressed his palms to his temples, as if trying to wait out the pain of a headache. Still, though, his eyes remained fixed on Steve. “I just got back from the hospital. I came home last night, and she was bleeding. Crying. Thought she’d lost the baby.”

  “How—”

  Bennie held out a hand for him to shut up. “There was blood on the floor, Corimar. I saw it. Blood all over her sweat pants. Blood on her hands. But it was gone when we got to the hospital. All of it. Like it had never been there. And she kept mumbling about it, about the voices in her head telling her it had killed the baby, that her body wasn’t strong enough to hold it, that the baby wasn’t strong enough to live. It was dead inside her, dissolving into poison right inside her. That it was gone, stolen. All night long like that. All night, man.” And Mendez mumbled a word.

  “Bennie, I’m sorry, I—” Then it sank in, what Mendez had called him. He pulled away from the angry officer, hands outstretched in a “hold up there and just wait a sec” kind of way, and inched out from between Mendez and the locker. “W-What did you call me?” A distinct unease made his heart beat faster, and he felt heat creeping up his neck to his cheeks.

  Bennie glared at him. “What are you, deaf, too? I said, ‘all night, man.’ I didn’t call you anything.” From his expression, he honestly didn’t seem to know what Steve had meant. He didn’t pause long on the subject; instead, he launched into a monologue of half English, half Spanish about how he didn’t know what, exactly, was going on, but pregnant-lady rantings about boogeymen that ate babies right out from between their mother’s legs and babysitting new detectives who wanted to go play ghost hunter amounted to too much crazy talk on top of twelve-hour shifts. He slammed his locker closed and stormed out of the locker room.