by Leah Rhyne
But I nodded and tried to look encouraging, though inside I was feeling restless, like we were wasting time. Still, I knew from experience that if cold made Lucy grumpy, hunger turned her into a raging bitch. “You should eat, for sure. I’ll wait for you.”
We changed course and headed to the nearest dining area, a little pizza joint called the Rat in the basement of the student center. Their food was greasy and kind of gross, but also kind of amazing, and I knew how much Lucy loved their macaroni and cheese. Plus, being in the basement, it was dimly lit, so I could sit back in a corner and blend in with the exposed-brick walls. I hoped.
Lucy took the steps down two at a time, but I followed more carefully. I noticed the popping and crackling noises of my joints grew louder with each step. They crunched. They snapped. How long is this body going to keep working? I wondered.
Lucy bounded straight for the pizza counter, where the macaroni bubbled under a plastic-looking sheen within the circle of the heat lamp; I turned and headed for a table in the darkest corner. I slumped down in a chair, my legs stretched straight underneath the table so as to not strain my joints. The less I moved, the better, I figured. I pulled my sunglasses off for a second, but when I remembered the stitches in my face I put them back on again.
The dining hall filled rapidly with students coming in for lunch. Two girls sat at the table beside me, carrying binders and textbooks and wearing lots of makeup. A few days earlier, I’d have fit right in with them. Now, I was a pariah. They sniffed at the air like little puppies, then made faces and left, each giving me a nervous glance as they walked away. I stared at them and smiled.
Minutes passed. Most people in the area had similar reactions to my scent—what I dubbed the gag-face-run-away—and I was starting to garner some unwanted attention. By the time Lucy walked over with her plate of mac and cheese, I felt like the whole room was staring at me.
She sat down. “Ugh. I can smell you again. The break from you brought it back. I thought I was over it, but I don’t know if I can eat around you.”
“Yeah,” I said, gazing around at staring faces. “That seems to be the general consensus. I’m turning the stomachs of diners everywhere. Or at least, diners here in the Rat. I’ll wait outside so you can eat.”
“Probably a good idea. Do you want me to grab you a slice of pizza to take with you? You’ve got to be getting hungry.”
I wondered what would happen if I tried to eat.
I wondered if I had a stomach.
I shrugged. “No thanks, I’m good. I’ll be outside on the bench.”
Outside was better in some ways. No one seemed to notice the smell that stuck to me like drying rubber cement. I couldn’t smell it, of course, but I could imagine what it smelled like. A cross between the chemically smell I remembered from dissecting fetal pigs in A.P. Biology two years before, when my lab partner and I had named ours Hamlet, and also straight-up decay. I’d smelled dead animals before. I knew the deal. Had the weather been warmer, my stench would likely have drawn crowds of vultures circling overhead. Luckily the cold kept them at bay.
But outside was also worse. The blinding sunshine refracted off the thick, ubiquitous blanket of snow, shedding a spotlight on me, sitting alone on a bench with my flaky, dry skin and huge sunglasses. Everyone hustled by, I imagined, to avoid my stench. But then I realized: they raced by simply to get from one warm spot to another. I was just scenery along the way.
I sat silently on the bench, immobile, statue-like, un-shivering. I had no foggy breaths around me. Even though I tried harder to breathe real, warm breaths, the air that came out of me was as cold as the air outside. And so I sat, as obvious as fire in the snow. One of these things is not like the others…one of these things just doesn’t belong… I hummed to myself, hoping no one took too much interest in me. It didn’t work, though, and people stared.
Luckily, though, my giant shades kept me well-disguised. Dozens of students filtered by, people I recognized from classes and complete strangers, but no one showed a spark of recognition. Still I squirmed, sitting there, not belonging. After what felt like a year but was maybe only five minutes, Lucy appeared through the dining hall door.
“Are you doing okay?” she asked. “You look concerned.”
I tried to smile. “I’m fine. I just like it better when we’re on the move. I feel less conspicuous.”
Lucy pulled me to my feet, holding my gloved hands in her mittened ones for a moment before letting go. Then she linked her arm through mine and carried me along with her bounding steps. “Well, then let’s go!”
The rest of the walk to Clove was uneventful, a complete and utter relief. But when we approached the apartments from the bottom of their hilly parking lot, and the buildings loomed ahead looking sparkly and innocent with their blanket of clean snow, I grew nervous. Terrified, even. So I stopped walking as Lucy continued forward.
Suddenly, standing there, alone, I remembered what happened that night after I left Eli’s apartment.
Tears froze against my face and I shook with anger, fear, and cold as I left Eli’s place that Wednesday night. I knew the walk back to my dorm would be long and dangerous in the howling winds and blinding snow. How could he do this to me? I thought as I stomped down the stairs leading to the parking lot. I’m never gonna speak to him again.
It was late, close to two a.m., but my mother would probably still be up. She always stayed up late, and besides, it was three hours earlier there. I dialed her cell phone number, holding my phone in a bare hand that grew colder with each step I took. As I stomped, I jerked my head from side to side, watching around me, a bundle of nervous energy, looking for anyone who could give me a ride. But everyone, it seemed, had taken shelter from the storm. I was alone.
The phone rang four times before I heard my mother’s voice on the other end of the line. “Hey, Sweets, what’s up?”
I sniffled dramatically, then started bawling, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Baby, what’s wrong? Honey? Sweetheart? Mommy’s here! Talk to me, darling!”
My only answer was more crying. I took shelter beneath a massive pine tree, where I leaned against the trunk and tried to catch my breath, slightly protected from the fury of the snow. I crouched, hugging my knees with my free arm, while I breathed several shaky, watery breaths. My mother was silent, waiting. Finally, she said, “Honey, I’m terribly worried. Please. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Finally I managed to speak. “Eli and I had a fight and he made me leave.”
She snorted with laughter, and it struck me as cruel that she could laugh at a time like this. “Is that it? Here you had me thinking the world was coming to an end out on the East Coast. Baby, relax. It’s not like you were going to marry him.”
“But I really, really like him, and now I have to walk home in the snow! I’m going to freeze to death and you’re laughing at me!”
“Honey,” she sighed. “It’s okay. I bet you kids’ll patch things up first thing in the morning. And you won’t freeze. You’ll be moving.”
“But the snow!”
“Can’t you call one of those campus security guards? Won’t they pick you up? There, honey, hang up with me, call security, and then call me back. See? There’s a solution to every problem.”
That was typical of my mother. A solution to every problem. She and Lucy were the optimist twins. But that silly phrase, heard hundreds of times throughout my childhood, was the last thing I heard before pain ripped through my head, starting at the back and catapulting forward until I felt it with my whole body. I jerked forward from the force of an unseen blow, my phone flew from my hand, and I collapsed into the snow. The darkness, which had felt so complete a moment earlier, became something entirely different as the world closed in on me.
From there my memories grew spotty, but they were there. Memories of the days following.
There was motion: bumpy, jerky motion. I lay on a hard, ridged surface, and with each bump my head crashed into the side of what
sounded like a van. Each crash sent more pain throughout my body than I’d ever felt before. The metal beneath and beside me was cold, but on the other side of me, I felt something warm. I heard another girl moan.
I remembered being carried, my feet getting jammed up as I was pushed and shoved through a doorway. But it was dark, or my eyes were held shut, and I cried out in fear and in pain.
I remembered cold. Being so cold I couldn’t stand it. I remembered shaking and trembling and crying as ice filled my veins, and all other feeling left my body.
I remembered voices. The cries of other girls. I remembered knowing I wasn’t alone, but wishing that I was.
I remembered knowing something felt terribly wrong.
And then I’d known only darkness.
I’d known nothing more until waking up in the morgue on the side of the mountain.
Design Doc 32-D
Iteration 1
We continue to perfect the formula for the fluid that allows us to sustain controlled life.
Requirements include:
Conductive—subjects cannot remain animated without a consistent flow of electricity; however, wires may be threaded through key veins and arteries to aid in ebb and flow
Viscous—it must be thick enough to keep veins and arteries from collapsing in on themselves
Low freeze point—subjects must be able to endure the coldest of winters
High boil point—subjects may not shut down in warmer climes
Substances under consideration:
Formaldehyde
Arsenic
Methanol
Alcohol
Barium sulfate
Standing in the parking lot in the midday sun, I cried out as the darkness of memories flooded into my brain. Lucy jumped, spinning around to face me.
“What happened? Are you all right?”
I wasn’t.
In a shaking voice I described what I remembered. The darkness, the banging, the other girls, the terror. Lucy listened, nodding, patting my arm when I faltered. My brain was racing but my body felt flat, and I wondered if I’d ever get used to living without physical reactions to emotional distress. I doubted it.
That said, in my past life, the stress of something like, well, dying and coming back as a monster-girl would’ve caused a crippling migraine by that point. I was relieved to still be on my feet…sort of. In a weird, dead sort of way.
“Well, that settles it,” Lucy said as soon as I stopped talking.
“What does it settle?”
She gestured around us. “We came to the right place. This is where your adventure started, so this is where we’ll start getting to the bottom of it. Do you remember how far you’d gotten before you were knocked out?”
“My adventure?”
“Yes. I’m silver-lining this for you. It’s an adventure. Adventures have happy endings.” She paused and looked away for a second. Then she turned back, her face once again set in a grim mask of calm. “So. Where were you knocked out?”
“I was over there.” I pointed to the pine tree at the edge of the lot in the direction from where we’d just come.
“Well, let’s go look around for some clues. I feel like Sherlock Holmes all of a sudden.”
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” I asked. “You have to be freezing.”
“Elementary, my dear Watson. I am, but that’s okay. We’re gonna find something good, fast. I know it.” She shivered. “I’m a little jealous that you can’t feel the cold, though, I have to admit.”
I wrinkled my nose as best I could, which wasn’t great. It felt stiff and leathery when I tried to move it. “Want to trade?”
“No. Come on, let’s go.”
Lucy trotted and I trudged across the parking lot, following our own footsteps to make walking through the thick snow banks easier. When we reached the tree to which I’d pointed, we spread out and started looking around. “What exactly are we looking for, Miss Holmes?” I said to fill empty airtime.
“Clues! Anything that might tell us about the bad guy.”
“Like this?” I said. I noticed something small and black sticking up out of the snow, leaning against a rock. I bent at the waist and picked it up, eyeing it with suspicion. “My phone.”
“No way!” Lucy ran to me. “That’s lucky. At least now you don’t need to buy a new one!”
“Battery’s dead, or it’s completely shot.” I shook it, and then held it up to my ear. As if that would fix it.
“Yes, but also now we know for sure you were here. It means your memory holds up!” She looked excited, but I didn’t see the big deal. I knew my memory was right, phone or no phone.
We searched through the trees and snow for ten more minutes, until Lucy’s nose was so red I was afraid it was going to fall off. After the phone, we hadn’t found anything more interesting than some gum wrappers, cigarette butts, and beer cans. “DNA check?” Lucy said, holding up an empty can of Bud Light.
“No. Nobody who could do this would have such terrible taste in beer.”
We laughed together, a low, comfortable sound. We both tried to make light of the situation, even though we both knew how serious it was. There was a fine line between laughter and tears, and we skirted it constantly. Or, well, Lucy did. I couldn’t cry, so laughter was my only option. That said, there was little to do but keep on moving, so we headed up to see Eli. It was time to get Lucy in out of the cold and to find out what, if anything, Eli knew.
I knocked on the door to his apartment, and his roommate Kyle answered. “Eli’s upstairs, Miss Houdini,” he said, less than friendly. To Lucy he at least smiled.
“Houdini?” I asked.
“Yeah. You know, you disappear and reappear at will.” He looked annoyed. “Thanks for the visit from the cops this morning, by the way. Had to flush some stuff down the toilet. You owe me for that.” His eyes were red and bloodshot, though. No way did he flush all his stash.
“Oh, shut up,” I said, pushing him aside. “Don’t be a dick. I’m in no mood.”
He stalked back to the couch, pushing aside the empty beer cans and open pizza box, half-full of partially chewed crusts and open tubs of marinara. Kyle picked up a video game controller and un-paused a monster-slaying game. As Lucy and I walked up the stairs we heard swords crashing and creatures moaning and groaning behind us.
The moans and groans made me shudder. Those game designers were on to something…maybe they knew something I didn’t. I moved more quickly.
Eli’s bedroom door was open, and he stood when he saw us coming. He’d been reading, stretched out on his bed among papers and textbooks. The rest of his room was spotless, though. Always spotless. Perfectly neat, perfectly studious, that was Eli. He never liked when I came in and left my stuff haphazard in the corner of his room. It drove him nuts, but I did it anyway, just because I could. I remembered the night of the fight, how my bag had lay in a heap with my clothes piled willy-nilly. I wondered where those clothes and that bag were now, and I realized they could be back at the morgue, where I never wanted to go again.
Eli’s voice pulled me back from my reminiscing. “Ladies,” he said. “I didn’t know to expect you as well, Luce. Come in, have a seat.”
Always well-mannered, too. Except for when he kicked me out of his apartment in the middle of a nighttime blizzard. But who was counting?
Lucy stared at Eli and looked around his room with narrowed eyes, and I was amused to realize he was Suspect Number One in her mind. I knew better; Eli couldn’t hurt a fly, and wouldn’t even if he could. He wasn’t always exciting or passionate, but he was sweet. I wished I’d never mentioned that stupid German boy to him. I wished I’d settled down and stayed with him forever. Then I wouldn’t be in the predicament in which I found myself. Then I’d be alive.
He reached out to give me a hug, but I sidestepped him and walked to the desk chair in the corner, sitting down. “We need to talk,” I said. “About the other night.”
“I know,” he said,
eyeing Lucy’s suspicious face. “I’m sorry I let you walk home so late. So sorry. That was dangerous, and I should never have let you leave in the middle of a snowstorm. You have every right to be angry.”
“Something happened,” Lucy said, still glaring. “You should be more than sorry.”
Eli’s face paled. “What? What happened? Are you okay?” He rushed to me and knelt down. His face changed as his eyes scanned my glasses, my hat. My pasty white skin. I watched panic set in. “What’s that smell? Jo, what’s going on? Why are you still wearing your coat and glasses? Take off your glasses. I want to see your face.”
I looked at Lucy, who hovered over his shoulder, and she nodded. “Close the door?” I said to her, and she did.
I leaned closer to Eli. “Are you ready?”
He nodded. I took off my glasses.
Eli staggered back. “What the hell, Jo? Is this some kind of a sick joke?”
“It’s not a joke,” I said. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but we think I’m dead.”
I don’t think he heard me. He was too busy learning for himself what Lucy and I already knew.
From the safety of a few feet away, he leaned closer, staring. His eyes traced each curve of my face, at first with a clinical precision. He saw skin, still milky-white beneath our amateur makeup job. He saw my eyes, once blue but now leeched gray, the irises having bled out their color hours earlier. He saw the flap of skin I sewed back in place with careful little stitches that no amount of foundation or blush would hide.
Eli’s clinical precision melted. He stood, backing away, his face a mix of terror and disgust. His hand flew to cover his mouth, and he ran. Seconds later the sound of him retching in the bathroom echoed down the hall.
“Poor guy,” I said to Lucy. “He’s always had a sensitive stomach.”
