Freaks Like Us

by Susan Vaught

  “Fine china. Expensive electronics. You know, anything delicate.”

  “Screw you, Freak.”

  I manage to smile but that hurts, too, so I stop.

  “I’ll go get help,” he says.

  I shake my head then quit before something else in my body grinds or breaks. “No. No way. We got this far.”

  “Man, you can’t even stand up. How are you—”

  I force myself to my feet and somehow I don’t scream or faint even if I’m not really sure how because it hurts so much. But I do it, and I make myself turn to face Drip, and I make myself look at him, and I make myself say, “We can’t let her down. Let’s go, okay?”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  After a second, he just starts walking. Sort of. More like hobbling.

  And so we move. Slow at first. It takes forever to gain ground because both of us are just limping. Both of us hold our ribs. If I move wrong, all I can do is stop and gasp and blink away the stars and tears, but I figure out pretty quick how to move where I don’t kill myself with each step. We’re doing it. Down the path. We’re getting there. By tomorrow at least. Christ, this is slow.

  And the sun’s out full now, no morning clouds, and it’s getting warmer, and we’re getting closer, and there’s the opening and the place we hide the shears we use to cut the brambles and we’re through it and—

  And here we are.

  Our quiet place. Our special spot. And the river’s still moving fast alongside it, still rushing over the stones all clear with foam on top, and there’s still trees on the other side and the big huge rock hanging out across the river, and—

  Sunshine still isn’t here.

  I think we both know that.

  I think we both knew it before we ever came here, but we had to come. I can’t say why. We just had to do it.

  In the glare of daylight, her absence seems so huge and wrong it’s unbearable. My eyes take in every inch of the place, side to side and top to bottom, and there’s nothing here. Nothing of hers.

  Nothing of her.

  All the pain in my body turns into nothing compared to the pain in my heart.

  Drip limps toward the rock, and slowly, like he’s way sore, he crawls to the top of it, and he sits, and he looks down at the rushing water and he hangs his head, and I can see his hurting, taste it and smell it and hear it and touch it, just as hard and sharp as I feel my own.

  It hurts so much everywhere, all over, inside and out, that I just bend over. Then I go forward, crouching, then crawling, until I’m under the rock, until I’m leaning against the big rock wall under the tall rock roof where we always hide when it rains or when Sunshine needs to be totally away from people or when we’re scared of Roland and Linden and alphabets like them and just don’t want to have to be afraid anymore. This is our private place within the private place. Our special spot in the special spot. I close my eyes and rest my head against the rock wall, trying not to cry out from the aches in my body, in my soul, and trying not to think about the fact that Sunshine kissed me here for the first time, and she tasted like peanut butter.

  The last time she kissed me, she tasted like Sunshine. A hint of mint, a tingle of cinnamon. I open my eyes.

  She kissed me. Last Saturday before she vanished. She kissed me and she told me things I can’t think about because the black clouds and knives will come to kill me. She told me things I barely remember and I’m not sure I didn’t make it all up, even the kissing and everything that happened after that.

  Something catches my attention. Something in the ceiling above me, straight ahead of me, toward the river and the spot where light barely trickles underneath the big rock. It’s small, the thing, but it’s not rock colored, not reddish or gray or even green like moss. It’s more yellow, and it’s tucked into a little crevice of stone.

  My heart stops beating, and for a second my mind stops working and the world stops existing and everything, everything, everything in the universe goes still and quiet and nothing because the thing in the crevice, it’s not yellow, is it? It’s not yellow at all.

  It’s gold.

  When I can think, when I can breathe, when I can feel the stab and sear of the pain in my bruised chest and ribs, I reach forward. My shaking fingers find the golden thing in the rock, and when I touch it, the metal sends cool shocks through my existence.

  I gently draw Sunshine’s locket from its hiding place, the locket she never took off, the locket she never would have left behind—

  Unless she couldn’t leave a note.

  Unless she wanted to leave a message.

  A message for me.

  Hidden here.

  Me, and only me.

  “Freak?” Drip calls from way up on the rock, seemingly miles above my head. “You ready? We should get out of here. I think somebody’s coming.”

  And my brain is spinning and spinning and I have no idea what this means, no idea what to do, what I should do, what I need to do.

  What does it mean? How did she leave it here? When? And why? If I open it—but I don’t even know if it opens. What should I do?

  I grip the locket and try not to bang my head in frustration.

  What should I do?

  “Freak?” Drip calls again, and the locket tingles in my palm like it’s done the thousands of times I’ve held and squeezed it, the thousands of times Sunshine’s brought me back from the dark places I go—

  She left it for me.

  She wanted me to have it.

  —I’m sure of that now, and I want to shout because she’s probably alive somewhere and then I want to scream and cry because no, maybe this means she’s definitely dead but I don’t know why I think that, I don’t know what to think, I don’t know what to do, so I fasten the locket around my neck.

  It’s tight on me, and short, but my neck’s pretty skinny and my rounded collar’s pretty high so I can push the locket underneath the edge of the fabric so it’s as hidden and secret as our kisses, as what happened between us before she disappeared. Hidden and private, like this place, and like those things are supposed to be.

  I don’t know whether to be happy or destroyed and right now I’m feeling both. I wonder about telling Drip about it. I probably should tell him, but it feels wrong. She didn’t leave it here for him. She left it for me.

  “Freak, I mean it.” Drip’s coming off the rock now, and I crawl out to meet him—slow—so I don’t move wrong, and so the locket doesn’t come out from under my shirt. It feels good to have it, to have this piece of her so close to me, to have it touching me.

  When I stand, the sunlight hits my face and my eyes close and the heat washes over me, soothing all the hurts inside and out, but not that much, not too much and Drip stands there, too, just stands listening to the water and feeling the heat until we hear people calling her name, people coming this way.

  Searchers.

  Searchers who won’t find her.

  I resist the urge to lift my fingers and press them against the locket. I just want to go home now. I want to get the locket home and sit in my room and hold it and see if it opens, see if there’s anything inside it, maybe something she wanted to say to me or something she wanted me to know. It’s so small, there can’t be much in there, but maybe there’s something.

  “Let’s blow,” Drip says, and he starts out of our spot, and I follow him. We’re both moving like cripples again, and sometimes when I move my arms wrong or turn at the waist, daggers stab into my ribs and chest and I can’t breathe right.

  “We should tell them we didn’t find anything,” Drip says. Blood has dried on his arms. His mom probably won’t flip out because Drip’s always bleeding from somewhere, but you never know.

  “We didn’t find anything sounds good to me.” Even though it’s a lie. And with Drip full of bramble holes and scratches, We were careful won’t fly, will it?

  I wonder if Roland and Linden searched the rest of our area. They probably didn’t. I wonder if they’ll be at the VFW
. They probably will. No doubt they told everybody we whiffed and they had to do all the work. If Mom and Dad are there, they’ll probably be pissed.

  “As long as nobody tries to hug me, we’re good.” Drip cringes midstep, and I figure he’s pretty sore, and thinking about how one of his mom’s giant bear hugs will crush him like a bad grape.

  “Where is she, Freak?”

  “I don’t know.”

  We’re at the clearing now, and we’re through it, heading forward, heading out of the woods toward the park.

  “What happened to her?” Drip asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  Yes, you do. You hurt her. You humiliated her and disgusted her and she ran away because of you. Maybe you killed her. Maybe you killed her. Did you kill Sunshine, Freak?

  No. NO! Just… no. I wouldn’t hurt her. I could never hurt Sunshine, never would hurt her in a million thousand years or even more than that. And why would I hurt her and stick her necklace in the rock to find later? That would be ridiculous.

  You could have done that. You would have done that. Covers your tracks, see? Liar, liar, murderer on fire. Maybe you really killed her.

  If we weren’t already in the park, out in the open, I’d slap myself because I did not kill her and if I could kill the alphabet voices I would. I don’t know much, I can’t say much, I’m not much—but I know I’d never hurt anyone, especially not her.

  Minutes pass, and more minutes. We’re walking more slowly than we should. Can’t help that. It does get better as we go though, like moving loosens up the bruised muscles and aching bones. It’ll be bad after we sit again, but we’ve been through this before, Drip and me, a few times. Alphabets like Roland, they never leave you in peace very long.

  At least they never hit Sunshine. At least I don’t think they did.

  “Here we go,” Drip says as we get close to the parking lot. “Look normal, or you know the parents will have a brain seizure.”

  And they will, too. And there will be tons of fussing and questions and all of that will take away from looking for Sunshine, even though I’m not sure anybody should be looking anymore, because the locket—

  What does it mean?

  I can’t wait to hold it in my hand. I can’t wait to open it. I hope there’s something inside. There has to be something inside.

  We climb the curb of the sidewalk and the step up hurts and I wince and Drip groans through his teeth but we keep moving toward the coordination area, where lots of people have come back and lots of people stand around saying nothing and looking sad and the women with clipboards are checking stuff off and taking vests back and yeah, there’s Roland off to the side with his mom and Linden and his dad, and neither of them so much as gives us a glance.

  Drip’s mom is back, and his brothers, and a little farther away, I see Agent Mercer, and past that, Mom and Dad, and they’re standing with Mr. and Ms. Franks.

  I catch a breath and my ribs throb like awful and I almost shout. Seeing the dark Sunshine-hair glittering under the sun, it’s almost too much to stand, even if it’s not really her. I should go to her. Talk to her. Sunshine would want me to help her mom any way I could.

  “Later,” Drip says as he breaks off, trying to keep an even pace as he heads for his mom, radiating no-don’t-hug-me as best he can. Drip’s never been able to put on much of an attitude, but he’s trying.

  I’m trying, too, and probably doing horribly, just like him.

  When I pass Agent Mercer and get closer, I can tell Ms. Franks is crying. My heart twists all over again. Mom looks up and sees me. She gives me a little wave and a sad frown and shake of the head.

  No, I didn’t find anything.

  Dad’s face tells me the same.

  No, nothing. There was nothing.

  And I want to say, I found something, and maybe I should say it, maybe I should tell them all and let them help me figure it out and Mr. Franks glances past me like I’m part of the scenery but Ms. Franks looks at me at first with pity and caring and then with wide eyes and then with narrow eyes and she bares her teeth and I stop walking because all of a sudden Sunshine’s mother looks like a Farkness Biter and I’m not sure if that’s my alphabet or if it’s real but I think it’s real because she’s pointing at me and charging toward me and now she’s screaming at me and yelling at the top of her lungs and Agent Mercer barely gets to her barely gets her arms pinned before she grabs me and maybe claws my face off and he’s asking her what is it what’s wrong and she gets one hand loose enough to point, to point at me and screech, “Monster! Monster! What did you do to her? Where is she? You tell me or I’ll kill you!”

  And when everybody gapes at her, her face goes red from fury and she points at me again, and I realize she’s pointing at my neck and I look down and realize the gold chain has come out from my collar and oh, oh no, oh crap, oh shit, and she’s yelling, she’s yelling, she’s yelling, “Don’t you see it? Can’t you see it? That freak is wearing my daughter’s locket!”

  FOURTEEN HOURS

  Fight for Sunshine.

  That’s my voice, not an alphabet voice because I do have a voice of my own. I do.

  Fight for her.

  But I don’t know how anymore. I don’t know if I can.

  The holding cell is dark and it’s stone with a metal seat and it stinks like piss and bleach and maybe old molded bread and it’s quiet because there’s no one in jail here—except me. Mr. Watson’s already been carted off to some big detention center, and I’m probably sitting right where he sat.

  You deserve it you slime, you piece of trash, you stupid, stupid, stupid worthless FREAK. Freak is as Freak does, Freak is as Freak does. You’ll always be a FREAK.

  I have to fight for her.

  It’s so dark and smelly and the bars are so close and the alphabet voices are killing me or something feels like it’s killing me and I hurt I hurt all over but I can’t let go because if I fall into the darkness with the melty faces and evil trees and yelling screaming endless growling and insults and chattering and whispering and snarling I’ll never come out and I’ll be lost and she’ll be lost and I have to fight for her.

  Don’t listen to the voices Jason I know you can do it I know you can focus there that’s it look at me what you’re hearing isn’t real what you’re seeing isn’t real don’t give in to it don’t let it take you look at me Jason look at me and everything will be okay and

  Nothing will be okay because I can’t see her and I can’t hear what she’s telling me and my palm’s tingling for her locket but I don’t have it because they took it away from me. Chief Smith took it away from me and his men handcuffed me and they brought me here and half the town was following and yelling and it feels like a movie from the fifties where everybody wears cowboy hats and storms the jail and lynches some guy and I don’t really care if they do because nothing will be okay because I don’t have Sunshine and now I don’t even have her locket.

  My eyes stay closed. I feel like I’ll never open them again. I’m sitting on the foldout metal bench thing, holding one of the chains that fastens it to the wall, and I’m tapping my head plop-plop-plop on the stones behind me. No pain from that. Not really. Just a bumping. Maybe some comfort. Lots of hurting from everything else. Hard to think. Hard to hear. Hard to breathe.

  Agent Mercer comes into the cell with me. I don’t have to open my eyes to know it’s him. I smell his FBI cotton-clean scent and hear the measure of his stride and the soft squeak of his leather shoes and I know it’s him when he sits beside me or maybe the alphabet tells me it’s him because the alphabet knows things sometimes or at least it seems to or I think it does.

  There’s a click of heels and a waft of perfume, and the cell door closes. Another few clicks and still without opening my eyes I know Captain Evans is standing in the corner.

  “This is ridiculous and you know it,” she says. She sounds lawyerly. The noise of her talking jabs into the rest of the noise in my brain and I want to cover my ears but covering my
ears won’t help because so much of the racket comes from inside. There’s no running away from what’s in your own head.

  “Does she have to be here?” I mutter, opening my eyes just enough to see fuzzy, dim images of her, of the bars, of the side of Agent Mercer’s flat-line mouth.

  He’s here to kill you. You’re gonna fry. Fry and die. Fry and die! You’ll never get out of this alive.

  I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care. See? I do have a voice. I still have my own words. I can still fight for Sunshine, at least a little bit.

  “She doesn’t have to stay if you don’t want her to,” Agent Mercer says. “By the laws of this state, at seventeen, you’re not considered a juvenile anymore. Like any adult, you can waive counsel.”

  The lawyer starts to talk but I ignore her like an alphabet voice even though I can’t ignore the real alphabet voices at least not much longer. “Seventeen? I thought I’d have to be eighteen.”

  Agent Mercer pays no attention to her attempts to interrupt, and he says, “In some states, yes. In others, it’s sixteen. In this one—seventeen.”

  Captain Evans finally makes it between our sentences with, “It’s a bad idea to waive counsel, Jason. Don’t do it.”

  My gut hurts. My sides ache. My mouth is so dry I can’t swallow and every time I breathe, daggers stab into my sides. They aren’t real daggers, only maybe they are because they feel like big fat hot steel blades. I’ve got tears here and there, but not crying yet. As long as I don’t think about Sunshine—

  Don’t cry Jason please don’t cry I hate it when you cry and I can’t make you better and I tell her I hate it when you cry too and I stop I stop for her and she kisses my cheeks where the tears were and I wonder why I’ve never kissed away her tears before and

  —Great. Now I’m crying. But only a little.

  “See?” Captain Evans sounds like she’s won something. “He’s clearly distraught. He needs his lawyer.”

  Shut her up make her stop talking make her go away make her die make everybody die you should die you should die you should die!