After Hope Dies

by Lilly Haraden

  Her heart aches. A sigh escapes her lips…

  Una does, however, spy a certain figure over on that bench. He sits slouched into the space between table and bank chair with his legs all splayed out and easy. And one crucial detail: he is in colour. Glorious technicolour pants and a strange hat. A black freak, this one.

  Una approaches the man like a moth to gravitatious flame and spurts, ‘Do you know where my sister is?’

  Bax raises his head to the young thing and replies with a nod, ‘That I do. And I think we can help each other out on that front. Baxter Monae.’ Hand extended.

  ‘Una Lian.’

  Shake.

  ‘Why don’t you take a seat, young miss?’

  Sit. ‘What business do you have with my sister?’

  The strange man stretches like a clockwork cat and groans deep. Says, ‘Too much business to keep track of. See, I’ve been keeping my hands full with a few supernatural cases. The most bizarre thang: people getting the very colour sucked right outta them. Naturally, as a concerned and contentious person of colour slash African American, I can’t simply stand by while there’s a colour-sucker on the prowl. No no. Won’t do. And to think, I thought all this had stopped many years ago…’

  Una bites her lip and assembles her next words very carefully as the man gives her the eye. He scares her, how much he already knows. ‘Why are you so interested in finding her?’

  Bax takes off his hat and reveals black locks. Resting the cap on his Beck-green jeans, the man replies, ‘Particularly pernicious little spirit, that Macaque of yours. It’s gotten itself involved in a gang of sorts. When spirits congregate there is trouble sure to follow. I’m trying to pre-empt and unravel said trouble.’ He turns to Una and says in a voice of serious quality, ‘I’m also trying to unravel another child’s life from the clutches of a monster. Your sister may have crossed paths with said monster. Reckon you could help me?’

  Una nods but replies, ‘How?’

  ‘Searching through time and space has only left me with a couple of scraps. Sightings here and there. Maybe you can shed some light? See anything in your travels through the CCTV lines?’

  Una kicks her feet into the blue, cloudy gravel. ‘My sister was at the Shenzhen ice creamery this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, we have a location of sorts. But it does help corroborate some information I have.’

  ‘What information?’

  And Bax whips out a Shandian, shows Una the message. Girl leans in, reads:

  “Picked up a Chinese kid at the ice cream place in Stallwind East; possible recruit? Jan’s with me.” From a woman called Dani, timestamped 6:03PM.

  Una feels her heart swell and she gives the man her best smile possible. Although neither she or he can be certain…‘You’re a Godsend.’

  ‘I do try. Let’s go save your sister, all right?’

  Ice cream

  Outside now, cold dawn. Yi can’t stay with Carrie any more. But, oh, the memory of waking up together. Sunrise to kiss the sleep away from dark oceans, watching the eyes of her love part and fill with her image. Kisses all sleepy and new. Another time. There will be another time. There must be. But now, she must leave before the fathers conspire to return wayward daughter to home. So the warmth of a fantasy is all Yi has in the early hours of this morning. Wave goodbye to Carrie. Don’t cry. Outside now. Where the sky battles with daylight’s dark, where chills run across her arms and legs like a pawing, perverted monkey.

  Where to now, young thing?

  Yi-Ti replies, ‘Leave me alone.’

  Now now, can’t have you wandering off without me.

  And like the shiver of anxiety, a problem forgotten only to return, Macaque appears by her side and clip-clips the sidewalk as Yi-Ti walks away from her love’s home. In her ear: ‘Did you miss me? I waited so patiently for you outside.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘You haven’t told your father yet, have you? How do you think he’ll react when he finds out you’re a lesbian? Think he’ll wrap his arms around your shoulders or your neck?’

  ‘Fuck. Off.’

  They round the corner. Macaque scampers ahead and mounts a fire hydrant with a clatter. Perched atop, he glares at the young thing and coos, ‘Believe me, I’d very much like to. And after that night spent in the cold, mostly alone, I’ve had time to come up with a deal that I think you’ll find more than satisfactory. I’ll be rid of you, and you of me.’

  Yi-Ting stops before the creature and cradles her arms. Short, blunt, trying and failing to hide her excitement. ‘What is it?’

  ‘An exchange of sorts,’ Macaque explains, using his hands like a surly academic. ‘I wager you’d very much like to see the end of me. As I hold all the power in this particular setting, I’m going to be a little bit greedy and demand something of particular value from you.’ Pause for dramatic effect. Yi leans closer. Her breath fogs the early morning in anticipation. Here it comes:

  ‘I want the love you share with your sister.’

  Yi narrows her eyes and doesn’t even try to conceal the confusion; Macaque explains, ‘A fairly abstract demand but I can handle all the arrangements. The brunt of it is this: I’ll take all the love you have for dear Una, rip it from you and eat it whole. The effect: I will trouble you no more. You can go home too. I promise I won’t trouble another soul in your family. But, on the other hand, my extraction will mean that it’ll be like you barely know your sister at all. She will become a stranger to you. That, dear girl, is my price.’

  Yi-Ting straightens and murmurs, eyes away, arms crossed, ‘Why would you suggest something that you know I’d never hand over?’

  Macaque falls silent.

  Deathly still. Eyes hurt. Eyes angry.

  Everything falls into a strange pallor of silence and Yi-Ting senses the change like a new pressure on her skin. Something is wrong with the Macaque. She meets the eye of her tormentor but can’t read him. What’s going on…?

  Her head hits the concrete hard. Bells and screaming in her ears. Her screaming. A fierce pain at her throat, scratching, parting the skin open in swathes. Yi wails and latches her fingers through Macaque’s fur as it drinks from her neck but she cannot shake it. She is a piece of wet fruit – squeezed, split apart and torn and spat out. She can feel the liquid leaving her. The beast laps and sucks and pierces her neck like a demented beast with hands on her collarbone – ten sharp needles drawing out the colour. A pain of ear-splitting volume. And she can do nothing. She lies there and feels her attacker slice her throat apart and hold her down. Claws on the shoulders now, pinning her arms to her sides. Tongue drilling wet and circular in her open wound. Enormous, unshifting weight. More pain. Her feeble voice: ‘Please, stop, stop it, please don’t, I don’t like it, please stop, please!…’

  But he doesn’t listen. Her voice dies down into a whimper. Whimper. Oh. Yi loses control over herself and urine runs down her legs to soil her borrowed clothes. Yet the pain does not stop and her neck spasms, twists and contorts...

  How long…this pain, this weight…

  Macaque leaps away and lands perfect on the hydrant. Clang. Yi-Ting can’t get up. She is still weighed down. Pinned like a naturalist’s butterfly. It’s painless now. Just a memory. Girl reaches with gentle fingers to her neck but there is no wound…What can she do but stare at the creature. Broken heart. Broken nerves.

  ‘You can get up now, I’m all done.’

  Release. She brings herself up to her waist. And she cries like a child with her hands in her eyes. Getting to her feet, still bawling, all unsteady from the drain. Her neck feels all right, no remnants of that assault…What is this mess at her feet: a strange concoction of bodily fluids. She feels insubstantial like wet paper. But the facts of the attack are still so fresh in her head. Vision overlaid: memory and perpetrator. See him leaping so quick from his perch. Feel his teeth and claws inside her. Fingers licked clean now.

  She wants to run.

  Macaque glares at her. Don’t you dare. I can
go for seconds.

  ‘W-Why did you do that?’ Yi-Ting cradles her arms once more and says between sobs, whisper-soft, ‘Why?’

  Macaque runs a paw over the back of his mouth and gives a little belch. Satisfied. He replies, ‘Because I can. Because I wanted the melanin inside you. Because you can’t stop me. What can you possibly do to stop it from happening again?’

  He is silent for a moment. The words sink under young Yi’s skin. He hates her. Yi understands it then: absolute hatred. Macaque continues very soft and very serious, ‘You could try and run. I wouldn’t mind a chase and there’s plenty of blood and colour for me to feast on. Actually, there’s something I haven’t tried yet with you. Truth be told, I am quite curious…’

  Macaque smiles sweetly. ‘We can’t let Carrie have all the fun, can we?’

  It’s hopeless, isn’t it? Yi whimpers and licks away the tears from her lips. With the slow drudgery walk of someone who has lost all will to go on, the young girl shuffles down the lightening street. Macaque falls in beside her and throws out, ‘So, where are we going next? I could use a drink while you ponder my proposal.’

  Yi sobs and walks on.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  It takes her a long while to find her way to the ice creamery. Destination held high like a constellation, a celestial goal for the girl to aspire to, and so very difficult to navigate by, for the skies are cloudy. Don’t think about it. But the thought of someplace nice and warm and familiar, where she could spend what little money she has on something sweet and gooey before the Macaque finally takes her again. Maybe ice cream can be a last meal for her. Maybe she can be the first meal of many for the monster.

  Should she go home and shower and change? Una would not be there, surely, on a school day. Vague thoughts of her friends flit through her head but what the supernatural has done to her and the regulars of this world…like a glacier through mountains. Ice chisels the distance out between rock. Valleys form. She should not trouble her friends with the supernatural, no. Leave them in peace lest they suffer too. Carrie is the limit…Oh fuck. Could Macaque turn to her! Quick, don’t think about it. He can read thoughts. He might make good on that idea…

  Ignore it. Ignore it! So the ice creamery kept her going. And by the time she got there, mounting that last step up from the orange East metro line, her body had nearly given out.

  Macaque scampers on ahead to the glass and waits for her by the store. She doesn’t meet the eyes of the creature, has not been able to since what happened this morning. It had kept merciful distance from her: paces behind her steps, separate seats on the trains…not that smelling like urine really attracts many people to you in the first place…

  Yi rests against the window to look inside at the ice creams and her stomach explodes in riot. Something good, something nice. Let us at it! Macaque stays outside. Strange how disinterested he becomes on a full tummy. Strange mercies. Macaque seems to have eyes elsewhere, so Yi takes the opportunity to head inside.

  The attendant behind the counter gives her a very strange look. What? Does she smell too strong of piss and grit? Is her uniform/slacks combination not indicative of her total socio-economic worth? Yi pulls out a wallet and parts the vaginal slits. No notes. No card. Oh…did they fall out on the train? Did she ever have them to begin with? How did she buy her ticket? What’s going on…?

  Yi apologises to the owner and asks if she can sit over by the window where the fake palm fronds overflow onto the seats. After a tiny moment of reluctance she is released from judgement. Sit.

  This is their spot. Her heart breaks. Yi stares down at her hands on the table. Feels like crying. After all that effort! The ice cream jewels are so tauntingly close…And the continual hours of a single-minded goal to keep her moving, to keep her mind free of the terrible creature that stalks her…she feels the glare of Macaque as it waits outside, now staring at her neck with juicy eyes and fangs glistening with saliva. Tongue licking the lips. Oh, I’ll have you again, dear. And more. Macaque slithers a hand across its fur, resting at the groin, circling…Yi-Ting coughs and feels her bladder twitch.

  Eyes away.

  Who is that? Who is that woman by the counter glancing her way as she talks to the attendant? Hair all the colours of the ocean: blue and white. What a style. How bizarre. Oh no, please don’t come over. Yi turns her eyes away and places hands between legs, hoping desperately that the woman’s simply going to walk on by and ignore her. No luck. She slides in opposite, where Una should be sitting, and places her bowl of strawberry icy fields and cream between them. In a voice that Yi hates to admit is kind, the woman asks, ‘You’re not doing so well, it seems.’

  Yi wishes she had the malice inside her to say something bitter like, ‘You’re an observant one, eh,’ but when her eyes find the Macaque outside at the trash cans all she can muster is a feeble, ‘Y-Yeah.’

  Eyes back on the woman. Maybe twenties? Late? Adults all look the same – varying degrees of old. Leather jacket and gloves, a definite quirk with the hair though. Nobody can pull off that sort of do unless they intend to follow it through completely, day in and day out. Is that a good thing? Maybe. Yi’s eyes then fall to the bowl of ice cream between them; the woman traces her gaze. Without warning, she says, ‘I actually bought you something. Hope you don’t mind. The woman says she recognised you and knows what you like.’

  Oh. A second later the attendant brings over a double-scoop bowl full of green tea and crème brûlée. Yi feels like crying as the gems slide beneath her nose. But intuitively she slithers back and says as the attendant smiles and moves off, ‘I can’t take this from you.’

  ‘Well, too bad, I already paid for it and you can’t unscoop ice cream. Here.’ A spoon. What’s the harm in just ice cream?

  ‘Eat it, come on.’

  ‘Ok.’

  Smell and taste. Precious memories of sister and love and afternoons spent next to these plants. How could she trade those memories away to the monster? The actors are muddled today, though. This is new. She eats in silence, snatching glances at the woman across from her as she finishes her own gem bowl.

  ‘Dani. Name’s Dani, if you were wondering. And if I can state the obvious again, it seems like you’re in a bit of trouble.’

  Yi nods and remembers her manners. ‘Yi Ting. Or Sue.’

  ‘Both nice names. Have a preference?’

  Yi shakes her head and spoons in a green bulb. Dani smiles and pushes her plate to the side – all done. She makes a show of thinking with her eyes and hands before amassing her next words; Yi listens with her heart in her mouth.

  ‘I don’t know if you’d be interested, but if you’re in trouble and need some work then I can get you started on something that pays well. Truth be told it is hard work and not for everybody but it’ll keep you off the streets for sure.’

  A strange idea blooms inside the girl’s head: the clarion call of independence and all the sweet things that come in its wake. She could solve many problems in one…Yi asks, ‘Would I make enough money to live away from home?’

  ‘Hmmm, not entirely. But if you’re in need of a place to stay I can lend you my sofa for as long as you’d like.’

  ‘How long is that?’

  Dani considers with a smile. ‘Wise question. Let me put it this way: I’ve always wanted a roommate.’

  Yi closes her eyes for a moment and thinks. ‘I…I don’t really need work, to be honest. I just need to stay somewhere safe for a little until I can think about what to do…’

  ‘I understand. Hey, how about this.’ Dani relaxes in her seat and plots out the deal: ‘You come back to mine and stay for a while – no obligations. If you want to work then I can get you a good job. If not, then you can always help with the rent and find your own work.’

  ‘Can I ask…can I ask what kind of work you do?’

  Quick as anything: ‘Hostess.’

  Yi doesn’t understand.

  ‘I work in a nightclub and serve drinks. Easy pay. We have a great boss.�
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  Yi senses there’s a trap laid out but can’t figure out how to dismantle the situation. For when she weighs up her options she’s left with arithmetic that looks like this: she is sitting in borrowed, urine-soaked slacks, half a dirty school uniform and with no money, with a monster outside ready to do bad things to her body, and is currently being offered shelter, food and work. Going home is out of the question. So really…

  A little clatter catches her attention out the window; the Macaque has found his way inside the garbage can in the nearby laneway and is busy butt-deep into the lip. Yi looks at it with disgust before turning back to her new friend…who, curiously, has her eyes on exactly the same spot. The laneway. The garbage can. No…it can’t be…

  Dani narrows her eyes and then turns her focus back to the child. She murmurs, without accusation, without a trace of anything suspicious, ‘Do you see that?’

  Yi feels her heart leap and bound. Someone who can see and understand! As she nods she feels giddy, helium-high. Dani breathes in sharp and then out in a puff, says, ‘He was staring at you for so long...Right. It’s decided. You’re staying at my place. Forget the work for now.’ Dani trails away but picks up quickly after a suck of air, ‘How long has it been with you?’

  ‘A very long while now.’

  ‘Mmm. Ok, let’s go. Just got to wait for Jan to come back from the bathroom. Yep, here she is.’

  Yi-Ting looks around the palm fronds and comes face to face with a brown girl. She’s wearing the most beautiful white dress with a pink ribbon tied around the waist. Wide-brim gold hat over gold hair that runs from ear to elbows. Golden! Wow. What a striking creature, this girl who smiles with teeth at Dani and passes a look over Yi without malice.

  ‘Heya,’ she says, ‘Looks like Dani’s made a new friend.’

  Dani says as she stands up, ‘This is Yi-Ting. And this is Janelle, sort of like my little sister. So, Yi’s going to be staying at my place for a while. Looks like we’ve got a guest for our movie night.’