by Holly Black
This got some interest, but just for a moment. The children turned and came toward me as a group.
“Sponnn …” Little Ben was pointing at the television. “Sponnnnn … Baaaaaa …”
“Yes,” I said. “SpongeBob. You like SpongeBob.”
“Spooonnnn …”
“SpongeBob is done now.”
Ben turned to the television hopefully. “Spoonnnnn?”
“No more SpongeBob right now.”
Lily came over and reached up her arms, wordlessly requesting to be picked up, drooping against the plastic fencing. I put my hand against hers. Lily smiled and drooled a little.
They definitely looked happy. Not smart, but happy. Ben was aloof, sitting in the corner for most of the day, scowling and occasionally knocking over a pile of blocks. Melissa talked a lot, a low, endless, incomprehensible noise. She was also the bossiest, pushing the others around, making endless circuits with the toy shopping cart. Alex just stared into the depths of the toy oven. Melissa was somewhat sly. Lily was the most obviously dim-witted. She opened books and banged them on her own head.
At six o’clock the television turned itself on again. This time the show was the BBC news, which I assumed had to be a programming error—but the children raced over to watch. They seemed to like the news even more than they liked SpongeBob. They got particularly excited when war coverage was on. They were lulled by a long interview with an economist. At seven, the television switched itself off, and once again they stood there, watching the gray screen for five or so minutes before meandering off in different directions.
Seven o’clock was a mealtime. I retrieved five of the plastic containers.
“Who’s hungry?” I called.
This got a reaction. A chorus of excitement. Something to do. This felt so weird, just sticking the food into the hatch for these strange children, sending it on its colorful, musical way into their playland. But those were the instructions. Once again there was a cluster around the hatch, a struggle to reach for the containers. They ate so quickly that I couldn’t even see what they had. Then they dropped the containers and went right back to playing.
At nine o’clock they watched a police drama.
Summer days in England were long, and it was around ten o’clock before the day passed into anything I could be certain was called night. The kids were still glued to the television, taking in the sight of an autopsy with quiet fascination. A surprising amount of light streamed in through the windows … maybe more than during the day. The moon was nearly full and provided an almost fluorescent glow over the flat landscape, bringing into sharp relief the black outlines of trees.
Click.
All the lights went out. I lurched, but in a moment realized that, like everything else, the lights were on a timer. The darkness didn’t bother the kids. I saw their little shadows moving from toy kitchen to jungle gym to television set. Someone threw a ball, hard, but no one caught it. It dribble, dribble, dribble, dribbled its way to rest next to what I thought was little Lily, who was still “reading.”
There was nothing to do now. Not even stare at them. I could go to my room in good conscience, turn on the TV, and eat. I took a quick trip down to the kitchen and got some of the food that the actress set aside for visitors. There was plenty of it too—good ham and bacon and sausages, all in fancy packaging. All the delicious meatiness that I had been denied for weeks. I decided to make the most disgusting decadent thing I could think of—a big grilled cheese and bacon sandwich, chips on the side. As the bacon was sputtering away in a pan, I took Lazarus Healing from the row of books and let it fall open. It looked like an official publication—boring and hard-core crazy in a looping print, with lots of pictures.
We understand that our sleep need only be temporary, that the time is coming when True Health can come through re-an. As such, it is crucial to keep the original body in optimal health. Western medicine and household chemicals disturb the body’s balance, making re-an more difficult; therefore, it is critical to eliminate all of these from the system… . Though the mech for True Health exists, it is not fully available yet. But the time is coming very soon when the re-an period will start, and it’s important to prepare your mind for the transition, for your first eternal morning …
Which was bad enough. But then I got to the picture section in the middle and saw a picture of a dead girl on a surgical table, her abdomen sliced open. It looked like a normal autopsy, much like the one they had just seen in the show, except her smiling family members stood nearby.
Madeline, the caption read, seen here with her mother and sisters after she went to sleep in June. Her internal organs are being lovingly removed and stored for reuse before the embalming process. As mech goes forward, this step will be skipped, and the body will go right from sleep to True Health …
“Wow,” I said, flipping through some more pages. “The tabloids don’t even know how crazy you are.”
I took my two (I figured if I was going to the trouble of making all that bacon, I might as well use it) sandwiches, and some chips, and a roll of cookies, and two sodas back to my room. Up here on the hill, in this warm house, everything finally seemed good. It made all the difference to have a decent (a relative term) dinner, and a television, and a soft bed with a weighty duvet. I switched on the television and lost myself instantly. I’d been so starved for some mindless entertainment.
At two o’clock I found that I was still awake, still eating, still watching television, and hungry for another round of snacks. Since I was up, it made sense to go and check on the kids again. They were still up. In fact, they were all pressed against the plastic gate now, straining against it, their little faces urgent and sad.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, coming over.
But they couldn’t say. They spoke only in wide, sad eyes and outstretched arms. All the loneliness and misery that I had felt the last few weeks came to the surface. A motherly instinct stirred in me. These were just little children awake in the middle of the night, their mother gone, trapped in a strange playpen. No one had put them in pajamas and tucked them in. They didn’t know what to do. They were tired and confused. They pressed their hands deep into the mesh, reaching for me… .
Funny how this all fell apart, how all the shit came down simply because I was following one of my nobler instincts. All the times in my life when I’d done things for all the wrong reasons and walked away unpunished? I guess it was just time to pay.
So, yeah. Screw it, I thought. These kids need a hug, a tuck into bed, some kind of reassuring presence.
I strode over to the corner, where the gate was attached to the wall. It was like riot fencing, this huge webbing. All of this to keep in five tiny children. Seeing what I was doing, they gathered close in the corner, urgently waiting for me to open the gate.
“It’s okay, you guys,” I said. “It’s okay. Just … back up. Okay?”
But the children didn’t understand “back up.” They shook the gate, making it impossible for me to get it open. They pulled on the heavy plastic, shaking the catch. I looked around for a remote control for the television, but there was none. But there was the conveyer belt. I hit the switch. “The Farmer in the Dell” started up, and the colorful lights glowed brightly. Surprised, the children trundled over. Left alone for a moment, I was able to work at the catch again. It was designed to hold tight, and it took all of my strength to release it. But it finally gave way, and the gate slid easily back on its track. I pushed it open wide enough to make a doorway-size opening for myself. The kids were still clustered by the conveyer belt, which had stopped playing and glowing, their hands still inside the hatch, reaching around for containers that obviously weren’t there.
“Hey!” I called.
Turning. Shuffling. Pushing each other out of the way.
They were just a few feet away from me when some instinct deep in my brain told me that I had made a mistake. I wasn’t sure what the mistake was, but the fact that one had been ma
de was obvious. They were so eager, so needy, with their little arms and adorable little faces, and their skin … so ashen in the moonlight. They all looked gray.
Melissa reached me first, pushing aside little Ben and Lily and knocking them down. She got to me, grabbed me around the thigh in a strangely urgent hug, and pressed her face into my pajama bottoms. By this point Alex had gotten to me as well, and had me by the arm.
“It’s okay, guys,” I said.
And then Alex opened his mouth and clamped down just above my left wrist, digging his little teeth right in, tearing at my flesh and immediately drawing blood.
“No! No! No!” The universal word had no effect. I tried to shake loose, tried to push Alex’s head back, but nothing would detach him. In the next moment I felt Melissa make a similar attempt on my leg. I jerked my knee up hard, knocking Melissa off. She fell onto a pile of plastic toy pans.
Alex was sinking his teeth in harder. No amount of prying, pushing, or shaking would get rid of him. So the next reaction was just as automatic. I swung out with my right fist and punched little Alex in the face. I hit him with enough force to dislodge him and send him flying backward. He landed against the mesh and slid down, then put his little hands over his face and started to cry, loud screaming sobs.
The other three were just a foot or two away.
“What the fuck … ,” I cried, scrambling backward. I stepped outside of the gate and tried to pull it closed, but the kids grabbed at it, preventing this. Ben was already out and making his strange, unsteady way toward me. I ran for the door and slammed it behind me. There was no lock on it. Instinctively I grabbed one of the chairs and propped it under the knob. That’s what people did in movies. It was supposed to do something.
I ran for the kitchen and switched on the light with a shaking hand, fumbling around on the wall until I got it. Then I saw my wound for the first time. The pain truly came with the visual. There was a full bite profile. The blood was dripping down my arm, down to the floor. There was something cold running through my veins, starting from the bite and running up the arm. And the area around the bite was starting to go black. I grabbed a kitchen towel hanging from a hook on the wall and wound it tight around the wound. I was woozy, suddenly exhausted. I needed to get in bed for a little while. All the horrible weeks I’d been here, and now this… . Rest. I needed to rest.
I shuffled back down the hall, pausing just for a second by the door to the playroom. I could hear gentle shuffling inside. The children were still in there, moving around, playing. There was a faint, light moaning. Alex was still crying. The door rattled lightly.
For a moment I was flooded with guilt. These were just children … small, very confused children who had led weird lives. They couldn’t communicate with anyone. They ate raw food that came off a conveyer belt, like they lived in a sushi place. No wonder they bit me when they had the chance. They had no sense of normal. Maybe the bite hadn’t even been intentional, just an overenthusiastic attempt to make and keep contact. Stay with me. That’s what it had probably meant.
I still wasn’t opening that door.
I kept right on going, falling headfirst into the bed. I didn’t even have the energy to get under the covers. I just folded the duvet over myself and closed my eyes. Just a minute of rest …
When I woke up, there was light. Soft, diffused light. Birds were cooing.
I felt heavy, truly heavy, like my body had been cast in concrete and the supremely soft bed shouldn’t have been able to support my weight. But there was no pain anywhere. In fact, aside from feeling heavy, I had pretty much no sensation at all.
It took some effort, but I managed to turn my head on the pillow. I was under the blankets now. It appeared that I was wearing pajamas. I didn’t recognize them, but they were very nice. When I turned my head the other direction, I saw the actress standing in the doorway. She came and sat on the edge of the bed.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, reaching over and kindly stroking a stray hair back from my forehead.
“Kind of weird,” I said. “Tired.”
“You had a bad bite. But you’ll be okay now. I did say not to go in—but I understand. You were drawn to them. I know the feeling.”
She stroked my hair for a moment. It felt so nice. Ever have anyone stroke your hair? It’s amazing.
“I need to talk to you about your friend,” she said.
“My … friend?”
“Franklin. He was at the farm with you? I think he’s your boyfriend.”
“Was,” I said.
“Don’t think of it that way. There’s no ending, okay?”
I had no idea what to say to that, so I just let her continue to pet me. God, I was tired.
“It wasn’t his fault,” she said quietly. “It was just so dark.”
“Dark?”
The actress sighed deeply.
“He was just … in the road. Walking. It was dark. There aren’t any lights out here. I didn’t see him until he bounced off my hood.”
That woke me up—a little, anyway.
“Bounced off … You hit him?”
“He’s doing fine,” the actress said quickly. “That’s why I wanted to help you. I knew he must have come from the farm. I asked around, and George told me about you. He said you came together. You must have been worried sick when he went out and didn’t come back… .”
“I managed,” I said.
“He really wants to see you. I told him you were here, and he’s just been asking for you over and over.”
“Really?” I said. “He’s asking for me? Where is he?”
“He’s here. And he asks about you all the time! I’ll go and get him and bring him.”
I shouldn’t have cared about this, but a part of me was glad that Franklin was sucking it a bit, getting bounced off car hoods. That he was sorry that he’d left me. But how was he here? I’d been here all night and hadn’t seen him.
A few minutes later she helped him in. It was Franklin, all right. He looked like hell—his skin ashen, his eyes glassy, his lips dry. He was wearing some yoga outfit that I’d never seen before—probably one that belonged to the famous actor. And bizarrely, he was wearing a surgical mask tied snugly around his mouth.
“Sooofie … ,” he mumbled. There was a drag in his voice, a slurring distortion that wasn’t caused by the mask.
“Franklin?”
“Soooofie …”
He moved toward me, almost falling over. The actress was practically holding him up. She was strong.
“He’s still recovering,” the actress said, straightening him up. “I had to give him a little something to calm him down because at first he was a little … disoriented. Sometimes he seems agitated. But he’s okay now.”
I’d seen Franklin very righteously stoned, but never quite like this.
“Soooooofie … ,” he said, almost in a moan. There was real longing behind it, like he wanted nothing more in the world than to be near me.
“I think he needs to go back and rest,” the actress said. “I just wanted you to see him.”
“Soooooooooofie …”
Franklin strained to keep looking at me, even as he was negotiated out of the room, banging against the doorway in the process.
I decided it was time to have a look at my own injury.
It took all the effort I had to pull my arm from beneath the thick duvet, and as soon as I did, I wished I hadn’t. While it didn’t hurt, my arm was clearly not well. It was whitish-gray from the tips of my fingers to just above my elbow. The wound itself had become engorged and pus-filled, green and purple and blue-black and angry red and every color of the rainbow that my hand could be except its usual one. You didn’t need a degree in medicine to know that that kind of a wound was seriously fucking bad, and that whatever herbal teas I had been given, or whatever magical rocks had been placed on my sleeping body to aid my recovery, hadn’t worked and were never going to work.
This woman had hit Franklin with a car
and brought him back here to recover, and to cover up what she had done, and now he looked deranged. He was probably infected, delirious. She had weird children penned in the living room. And now I was going to get some hideous old-school infection if I didn’t get the hell out of here.
Just outside the window I could see the actress’s car. I had to go outside, and take it and drive to town, somewhere with a hospital. I wasn’t worried about driving on the other side of the road, or that I was stealing. How could she report me when she’d mowed Franklin down with a car and not told anyone?
Get the car. Drive. Before I got any sicker.
The act of pushing back the duvet felt like pushing a piano up the stairs with one hand, but somehow I did it. I got out of bed. All my movements were unsteady. My feet couldn’t be relied upon to move as I wanted them to, not with a normal gait, but I could get forward and out of the room, to the hall, to the door. Slowly. So slowly. I was walking like I was tangled up in nets.
The actress caught me as I was just a few shambling steps away from the door.
“There’s something I need to explain to you,” she said, her voice pleading, urgent. “And it’s really good news. See, death doesn’t really exist. That’s why we don’t call it death. We call it sleep.”
She smiled and nodded and took it as read that I had any idea what the hell she was talking about.
“My kids,” she went on. “They’re very special. They were all asleep. I woke them up using the mech. I’m not supposed to have the mech. But … one of the lab heads … I met him at Star Center… . That’s the special center for, you know, famous people… . He gave me a little bit. But it works! It’s true re-an …”
This was all a jumble in my mind, but I can honestly say I wouldn’t have understood it any better even under ideal conditions. It was a bunch of Lazarus crap.
“Re-an?” I repeated.
“Reanimation. True Health. My kids were asleep. I woke them.”
Piece by piece I clicked this all together. The picture I was assembling was very odd.
“You’re telling me that your kids were … dead? And you brought them back?”
