by Ryan Schow
What the hell?
Lies & Lays and Better Days
1
Sabrina Baldridge was in bed reading scripts of the first three episodes of season two’s Lies & Lays when her cell phone rang. The Caller ID said it was her mother. She ignored it. Sent it straight to voicemail. She was in episode two not really liking how her character was being developed or portrayed when her cell phone rang again. She silenced it. Again. And then she tried like crazy to stem her irritation. On the bed in a notebook next to her was a long list of notes she was going to give to the writers tomorrow morning, plus she still had homework to do. There was no time for catching up. Yawning so deep the script nearly slid off her lap, she checked the time on the bedside clock. It was beyond late and she was exhausted.
Then the phone rang again.
Hissing out a breath, Sabrina shoved the script aside, then snatched the phone off the bed and angrily punched the ANSWER button three times until it picked up.
“Jesus, mom, I’m trying to do a bunch of stuff right now!”
Her mother sounded like she’d been crying. “Something bad has happened, honey,” she said, sniffling. “Did you see the news this evening?”
“I don’t watch that crap,” she barked, “you know that.”
“But have you been on the internet?”
Sabrina said, “I’m unplugged. Trying to disconnect from the cyber world. I’m really trying to get into the Astor Academy scene, which isn’t easy since the people here are smart as hell and super uppity.”
“Honey,” her mother said, “shut up for a minute.”
“Geez, Mom—”
“Your father’s been arrested on murder charges.”
Sabrina sat up straight. Murder charges? Really?! Was she going to log into Yahoo and see the worst? Oh, God. She could envision it now: SENATOR JULIEN BALDRIDGE ARRESTED FOR MURDER! FATE UNCERTAIN FOR DAUGHTER SABRINA AND CW’S HIT SERIES LIES & LAYS.
“That’s not the worst part,” her mother continued.
Sabrina felt herself go unnaturally quiet, and unnaturally still. Caught in the haze of disbelief, she wondered, is this real?—this phone call?
“He did it because he’s convinced your brother was murdered. Sabrina, when did you last see Tavares?”
“Who’d he kill, mom?” she asked as helplessness chewed its way into her insides. If I hang up now, she wondered, will this all just go away? No, she told herself.
Grow up.
Her mother would simply call back again and again. And Tavares, could he really be dead? No. No effing way!
“He killed Senator Williamson of North Carolina. Sabrina, sweetheart, pay attention,” she said, more insistent. “When did you last see your brother?”
Sabrina blinked twice. Her face was a sallow mask, hollowed out and taciturn. More than ever, she realized her inability to cry in real life, in spite of her talent for squeezing out tears on cue when the cameras were rolling, was not a blessing but a disability. Emotions surged inside her, untamed emotions with no means of expression.
Sabrina managed to get a hold of herself even as the nightmare unfolded before her. “I don’t know,” she replied. “A few days ago? Maybe? I don’t babysit him if that’s what you’re asking. Do you really think—?”
“He’s not answering his phone. I need you to get an administrator, get in his room, see if he’s there. See if he’s…if he’s still alive.”
“Okay.”
“Call me the second you find out anything? Okay? Do you understand Sabrina? Call me no matter what!”
“I will, mom. God. I promise.”
Sabrina’s stomach rolled hard more than once, which eventually had her thinking about running to the bathroom to puke, but she didn’t. She regained her composure. Then she dug up the school’s list of numbers and called Janine Battenberg. The woman woke right up when Sabrina explained what was happening with her father. When she told Janine no one had heard from Tavares, the woman said, “I’ll call Campus Security, have someone meet us there, just in case.”
Sabrina, Janine and a hard looking military man in a black t-shirt with Campus Security written in white block letters (he introduced himself as John Black) met at Tavares’s dorm room. They knocked but got no response. Sabrina wore a light blue robe over her lace nightie, hugging herself not against the cold, but against the dread swelling inside her.
Why isn’t he answering? she wondered. She started to fear the worst.
“Open the door, please, Ms. Battenberg,” Black said. He was at least forty, all muscle, no body fat in sight and kind of handsome for an old guy. Janine unlocked the door as Black withdrew his gun and gulped. He had that look like he was about to see a ghost and not terribly excited about it. He did, however, look comfortable with the weapon. After a second, his eyes went flat blue and became lifeless enough to tell her he’d seen real action in his day. Whatever his history, Sabrina was certain John Black was a professional by the way he moved. She made a mental note to ask Janine about him later.
Sabrina sniffed the air, her genetically enhanced sense of smell picking up something unsavory. Her face curled on its own.
A door opened in the hallway behind them and a groggy looking boy popped his head out. Black turned and said, “Go back in your room, son.” The boy, seeing Black’s gun and Security t-shirt, closed and locked his door as instructed.
In the stillness of the hallway, Sabrina’s heart thumped away, dizzying her, making her skin feel both ice cold and scalding hot.
Janine twisted the knob, pushed the door open and stood out of the way. The smell hit Sabrina hard, had her covering her nose. Things inside her wavered. Black stepped forward, weapon drawn, moving into the darkness of her brother’s room. When he hit the lights, Sabrina saw Tavares asleep in bed. She heaved a sigh of relief. Had her mother been wrong?
But that smell…
Oh God, Tavares—he had to be alive. He just had to be!
Her hand came off her nose, and the smell overwhelmed her. Was that spoiled food? It had to be. Then the rotting meat smell of the room wafted out in one final, debilitating rush. Wobbling hard on unsteady legs, her entire world tipped on its axis and she stumbled sideways into Janine.
2
When she woke, she was crashed out on the carpet in the hallway, dazed, not sure for a second where she was. Then consciousness came on in a heartbeat: the retching, gagging, spitting sounds of Janine throwing up two feet away; the decayed flesh smell of spoiled meat.
Tavares was dead.
Awareness flooded her heart, devastating her. Pushing through it, Sabrina got to her feet just as Janine continued to choke and hurl nearby. The administrator had one hand on the wall where she was bent over and the other holding her hair back. Her vomit pile made Sabrina gag and turn. Plugging her nose—her eyes watering from the acrid stench of Janine’s puke, mixed with the decomposing smells of her dead brother—she made her way into Tavares’s room.
Black held up a hand and said, “You don’t want to come in here.”
“Don’t tell me what I want,” she snapped, still holding her nose and trying to breathe through her mouth.
Black holstered his weapon, then turned back to the boy in bed and gave a hound dog like snuffle in the air. “Probably two days gone, by the smell.” The window was cracked open, the evening breeze making dry, almost rancid ripples in the air. She let her nostrils go, took the smell of her decomposing brother full on. She knew that it would be worse for her than for anyone else because of her heightened olfactory senses, but she had to do it. And it was horrible. Gagging instantly, her stomach bucked under her ribs, and her eyes watered furiously. But by her will alone, she kept her composure.
“You really shouldn’t be in here,” Black said again.
Near her brother’s head, Sabrina saw a pack of flies buzzing and for some reason, this was what made her stomach give one, two, three pre-game heaves. She didn’t hork up the gut stew, though. Not yet. You’re stronger than this, she reminded hers
elf. Be strong!
She didn’t feel strong, though.
Pushing past Black, Sabrina rolled Tavares over on his back. This agitated the flies, which had Black telling her not to disturb the crime scene. She wasn’t listening. Her brother’s throat was gashed wide open and she couldn’t stop staring at it.
She swiped tears from her eyes. Gulped hard. “Where’s all the blood?” she heard herself ask. Inside the wound, there were strings of maggots and one small beetle crawling around, but not a single speck of blood.
Black turned away, swallowed twice, then took her by the shoulder and tried to peel her away from the scene. She shrugged him off.
“C’mon, Sabrina,” he reasoned, “you’re just torturing yourself. Not to mention contaminating the crime scene.”
For the smallest fraction of a second, she had a flash of Tavares when he was younger, maybe six or seven years old, out on the street skateboarding. He looked over his shoulder at her, his hair just a bit too long, and he smiled his smile. There was something bright and magical in his eyes: the innocence of youth, uncomplicated happiness, an ease about him that made her think he was a jovial boy, predestined for a blessed life. Not this.
She felt the broken thing inside her split wide open. A great wave of sadness crashed down on her, its weight so profound she felt crushed beneath the immensity of it. They hadn’t been as close as they once were. He was her brother, though. She loved him. Sabrina didn’t love anyone, but she loved him. Her body started to quake and shudder from the inside out, the trembling so insistent and sick, so unwanted, it fought to undo everything stable inside her. When she finally hit rock bottom, her grief spilled out as several deep, gut wrenching sobs. Black turned her body into his, held her tight while the pain rolled mercilessly through her.
“I know,” he whispered to her, smoothing her hair back. “I know.”
The sobbing brought other boys from their rooms. With her face pressed into Black’s sculpted chest, she heard her tortured moaning, as well as the sound of Janine telling the boys to go back to their rooms. Get it together, she told herself. But she couldn’t.
I can’t.
Doors opened; doors shut. The commotion, fleeting as it was, eventually stilled. Janine tried to come into the room. She turned and staggered out. In the hallway, a cough or two threatened to become more—a round two of her earlier retching. Bent at the waist with one palm on the wall for support, her stomach convulsing, Janine gagged and spit, too preoccupied with her nausea to fret over the onlookers. Not looking up, she shooed away the students, but it had no effect. More boys gathered in their boxers and pajamas in the hall, asking Janine if she was okay and what was going on. One kid, with his hands covering his bare chest like he had tits or something, he poked his head into the room and drew a sharp breath.
“Get out!” Sabrina screamed when she looked up and saw him. His shaggy head vanished from Sabrina’s view and Janine got a hold of herself enough to order them all back into their rooms.
Sabrina shoved off of Black, not wanting people seeing her or Tavares like this. Her legs were failing her, though. Her unsteady gait had Black taking her gently by the elbow in an attempt to help her walk straight. On the way out, Black shut the door and used Janine’s keys to lock it. By then, the hallway was empty once more, save for the three of them and Janine’s Jackson Pollock-like vomit trail.
Oh wait, no.
Some curious little asshole, he just popped his head out of his room and said, “What’s happening out there?” His eyes bobbed heavy with sleep. Plugging his nose, making the face, he gasped and said, “It smells…kinda funny. But gross.”
Were the boy’s senses like hers? Heightened?
“She’s just sick,” Black said, walking Sabrina past him. Looking back at Janine, he said, “Her, too.”
Janine managed to stand and say, “Something we ate,” but she wasn’t convincing. Brushing by the boy on rubbery legs, fingertips and hands trailing along the cold wall for balance, Janine caught up to Sabrina and Black at the elevator. Janine’s face was a few shades of green. Inside of the elevator, to Black, she said, “This is…unprecedented. And it’s going to expose the school.”
“My brother is dead and you’re worried about the school?” Sabrina barked in disbelief.
“It’s more than that,” Janine said, some color returning to her face.
“My brother’s head, he’s lying there, and his head…it’s practically sawed off!”
This time, when Black put a calming hand on her, she said, “You’d better figure out who did this, or I swear to God, I’ll tell everyone I know about this school, and about what happened here!”
Triangle of Lust
1
The buzz was all over campus: Tavares Baldridge was dead and his father, Senator Julien Baldridge of North Carolina, was being charged for the murder of North Carolina Senator, Theodore Williamson. A smattering of details quickly emerged, as is often the case in high-profile murders, but since the suspect confessed to the crime, neither names nor details were withheld.
That’s how everyone knew.
According to CNN, what precipitated the murder of Senator Williamson was not only money, but revenge. The talking heads on TV didn’t speak of motive, but they hinted at a strong case. That it would be closed shortly. Newscasters on every station promised more details as they became available which, of course, had everyone glued to their TVs, the internet and their cell phone news trackers.
The thing about dirty politics was, too often it went hand-in-hand with things like blackmail, revenge and murder. Awhile back, Brayden told Julie he once did a bit of digging and what he found out about the low lights of politics was not only unbelievable but damn near unconscionable.
Brayden said, “If you look deep enough into most prominent political figures—especially those inside the Presidential cabinet—any journalist worth their salt can compile a list of missing persons as long as a baby’s arm. Plus, most of them at one point in time, worked for the CIA, not that such a thing is willfully disclosed to the public.”
Julie could give two shits about politics or politicians or the CIA. To her, they were a bunch of men and woman promoting the kind of change no politician could actually effect. They sold not the kind of change America needed, but the kind of change anyone in their right mind just knew you would never see. But the net worth of a starter politician, with all the legalized insider trading opportunities afforded to them, they went into Congress or the Senate worth a half million and left office eight figures rich on an annual salary of only a couple hundred grand a year.
Go figure.
Astor Academy taught them the elections of late were merely popularity contests where the news media steered the course of said “news.” It was proven time and again (despite the nay-sayers and cries of false conspiracy) that the mainstream news was for sale. As were politicians through intermediaries and special interest groups. To Julie and her friends, most politicians were merely actors, salesman and charlatans working for handouts and payouts and that most coveted of four-to-eight year jobs. Sure they worked hard. But for whom?
Not the American people, not all of them. Just the market makers.
That’s why she refused to devote barely an ounce of energy talking about Senator Baldridge. All she said—and she said this to Brayden—was: “One less politician brings a smile to my face, so let’s not ruin any subsequent joy I’m feeling with details of his crimes.”
Brayden laughed, but it was an unsettled laugh. He was bothered by Tavares’s death. Everyone was, including herself. Tavares was a beautiful boy. He would’ve grown up to be a gorgeous man, and no gorgeous anything should ever be killed for any reason. That, however, would be the last she would speak of Sabrina’s father or dead brother.
Brayden and Julie sat together at lunch the day after Campus Security found Tavares’s corpse. The lunchroom was bristling with speculation about his death, but she had her own problems to worry about. Like hers and Emery�
�s baby. And how she had no idea what was going on, if anything, between her and Brayden.
He was a mystery at first, different and a little cocky, and he gave the best oral ever, even better than Constance, but was that enough to constitute a serious relationship?
She didn’t think so.
That’s why she wouldn’t sleep with him. That and she had someone else’s embryo incubating inside her. Her thinking this was freaking laughable: she was standing on morality while having been seeded by step-family. Perhaps this was why she found herself looking a little too long at Brayden. He was normalish. Not family, at least. Yet he was entertaining her despite knowing her…condition. She couldn’t help wondering WTF he was doing with her.
“Stop staring at me,” he finally turned and said. “It’s creeping me out.”
“It’s not you,” she said, trying to act like she had, in fact, been looking at something else. “I’m just feeling a little, I don’t know, woozy or something.”
They saw each other in the hallways between classes and smiled at each other like they weren’t the most dysfunctional non-couple ever. Then Theresa stopped her in the hallway on their way to fifth period and said, “Have you talked to Cameron lately? Like in the last few days?”
She hadn’t spoken with Theresa since vacating the group. Theresa grew icy toward her, almost like she’d slept with her boyfriend or something. If the girl even had a boyfriend, which she didn’t.
“Why would I talk to her?” Julie said, making the “as-if!” face.
“Something’s wrong, I think,” ignoring the look and the attitude. “After the whole Abby thing she posted, after it backfired on her, no one’s seen or heard from her.”
“Yeah, well, looks like the third time wasn’t a charm,” Julie said, referring to the number of girls who committed suicide on Cameron’s behalf. “The fallout has me thinking you should give up trying to find her and start creating distance between her. You know, to protect your reputation.”
