False Memory

by Dan Krokos

  DAN KROKOS

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  1

  In the food court I find a mall cop leaning against a pillar. His eyes sweep over the tables, fingers rolling a whistle in front of his sternum. His left hand taps a beat on his thigh. C. Lyle, according to his name tag.

  I walk up to him. It takes five seconds for him to look at me. “Hello,” I say. “I lost my memory. I was wondering if you could help.”

  “You lost your memory?” he says.

  I don’t know why he asks. It’s clear he heard me perfectly. “Yeah. I don’t know where I’m supposed to be,” I say. He stands upright, arching his back to push off the pillar.

  Fuzzy blond wisps cover his chin, and acne pocks his forehead —not all of him made it through puberty.

  “What’s your name?” he says.

  “Miranda North.”

  “And how old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  One corner of his mouth goes up, and I know it’s fake because no one smiles that way naturally. I remember that. “Doesn’t seem like you’ve forgotten all that much. You remember who you are.”

  Half true. I remember my name and age. I remember what a mall cop is. I don’t remember anything about my life. Here’s hoping that’s normal for amnesiacs.

  The crowd pulses behind me, makes me step closer to C. Lyle. I try to block them out; being in the open like this makes my skin itch, and I don’t know why.

  “I don’t remember anything else,” I say.

  It’s true. This morning I woke up on a bench, staring up at the Terminal Tower. I know that’s in Cleveland, and my first thought was what bad luck to wake up in Cleveland with no memory. Not San Diego, or Dallas, or a place where the sun shines more than three days a year. The logical reason I’m here is because Cleveland is my home.

  I know my name is Miranda North, and I know I’m in the second half of seventeen. I have four hundred dollars cash in my pocket.

  “Why would I lie?” I say.

  “Because you’re a kid, and kids like to mess with security guards.”

  Can’t imagine why. If he wants me to stand here until he’s forced to deal with me, I can play that game.

  After wandering the city for a bit, I found a mirror in a public restroom and didn’t recognize the girl staring back at me. I mean, yes, I knew it was me. Obviously. But if you had asked me what color my hair was before then, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. It’s reddish-brown, straight, a little past my shoulders. I’m muscular, like I work out all the time. The contours of lines on my stomach are visible without flexing. I’m not bulky, but there’s nothing soft about me. Maybe I’m a gymnast. My eyes are the same color as my hair, which seems odd. I drifted into the mall after that. I felt fine at first—not afraid, because I didn’t know what to be afraid of. The memory loss could be a temporary thing. Then I noticed my eyes automatically searching for cover, places to hide. Scanning people’s faces, judging their expressions as friendly or menacing.

  Watching the way they moved, seeing if they were preparing to attack. Nobody was.

  Paranoia, I thought. I struggled to appear calm on the outside. Inside I was feverish, eyes darting at everything, grasping for calm thoughts.

  Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to ask someone for help. I rode the escalator to the food court on the second level. Found a table in the corner to rest and think. Then I saw C. Lyle leaning against his pillar.

  “Just...let me use a phone or something.” Maybe if I’m holding a phone, my fingers will remember a number my brain can’t.

  C. Lyle really studies me for the first time. It’s like his eyebrows are trying to kiss between his eyes. “Are you messing with me?”

  I’m trying to be calm and reasonable, but this emptiness inside my chest widens, this fear I might never remember who I am.

  With that awful thought, my eyes ache, as if I stared into the sun for a few seconds. The cramp spreads through my brain into a full-blown headache, which I could do without right now. I blink a few times. Over my shoulder, the line curls away from Charley’s.

  “No,” I say. “I’m not. I was hoping my memory would come back, like one of those temporary things. But it’s not. I know it’s not. I really need your help.”

  He points at the bag in my hand. “You lost your memory but had time to shop?”

  I look at the bag too. “I had some cash on me and thought I’d buy a few things.” Buy some stuff in a mall. Be normal. Part of trying to not throw up into the nearest trash can. He points at the floor now. “Set it down.”

  I do.

  He crouches and opens the bag, then raises an eyebrow.

  “Is there anything in here that could harm me?”

  “What? No.” The way he’s looking at me, like I’m a criminal, makes my skin crawl.

  “You’re sure?”

  The ache behind my eyes becomes a burn, a hot spike narrowing to the bridge of my nose. It doesn’t feel like a normal headache, but maybe I don’t remember what a normal headache is. I take a shallow breath and rub my eyes while C. Lyle bends over and paws through my bag. He pulls out a red bra. I spent forty dollars on.

  “You lost your memory but had time to go bra shopping?” he says.

  Someone bumps into me from behind. I step forward instead of lashing out with an elbow, which for some reason is my first instinct. C. Lyle isn’t quite looking at me; he’s looking up at the pale patch of skin between the straps of my black tank top.

  “I have a lot of time,” I say. “Like I said, I don’t know where I’m supposed to be.” I’d be content with a lie, a few comforting words. Everything will be okay, Miranda.

  He sees the rest of the stuff is clothes, which I bought so I’d have something to change into. If I was going to be a fake shopper, I might as well buy fresh jeans.

  He stands up and dusts his hands together like they’re dirty. “Get out of here. I’m not here for you to play with. Or I can walk you out.”

  My mouth opens a little. I don’t understand. I just told him I don’t remember anything, and he’s trying to shoo me out of here like he’s got something more important to do. “Please,” I say. “I don’t know what happened to me.” If I knew, maybe everything would be fine. Maybe knowing would fill some of the emptiness inside. Or maybe I could lose the headache.

  He drops his hand on my shoulder. And squeezes. It’s like a piano wire is running from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. The wire breaks. I clamp both hands onto his arm and hug it to my chest. My black boots squeak on the floor as I pivot into him, still holding his arm, and set my back against his front. I pull his arm across my body and pop my hip against his thigh. He flips over me, legs kicking like he’s on an upside-down bike.

  C. Lyle lands hard on his back, blowing out an explosive, spittle-
laced breath.

  I stand there stunned. One thought flashes like a neon sign—I’m in trouble.

  His face mirrors mine. Except for the area directly around us, life carries on in the food court. The line at Charley’s grows.

  A kid spills a drink, and his mom shakes a finger in his face and shouts. Someone balls up a wrapper and shoots for the can, misses, and leaves it on the floor.

  C. Lyle fumbles with his stun gun, trying to unbuckle the strap.

  I have to stop him. I have to show him I didn’t mean it.

  Because it’s true; I have no idea why I did that. But he has the snap open now, and his fingers close on the stun gun. I stop thinking.

  I thrust my hand forward, palm out. “Wait!” As I say it, the pain behind my eyes returns, stronger than ever. I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t stop. My brain has been replaced by a huge glowing coal. And somehow, the pain and heat radiate outside my head. I can feel them spreading around me, moving outward in waves, even though it’s impossible.

  C. Lyle freezes on the floor, hand clenched on the stun gun.

  His eyes bug and his whole body begins to tremble. Thankfully, his hand spasms too violently to pull his weapon. People around him back away rather than help, then they freeze too. Then they run.

  C. Lyle flops over onto his belly. He gets a leg under him and tries to stand but slips and falls flat again. The fire in my head keeps spreading, releasing pressure with each pulse, granting me a fraction of relief with each passing second. People flee from me, from us. Pounding feet rattle my eardrums. The pain blurs my vision with tears, but my eyes automatically search for an exit on their own. They find no escape route, just faces with open mouths and wide eyes—deer eyes, panicked.

  Fear. Of what? I spin around, looking for someone sane, someone who will tell me everything is fine. Instead I see a man running, head turned over his shoulder, blind to the silver railing in front of him. He hits it. His feet leave the ground and he topples over. His shoes go upside down as he drops, soles pointed at the ceiling. The screams don’t drown out the thump of his body.

  I clap a hand over my mouth. It happens again. A woman flips over the railing. Her beige purse flies into space, coins and keys shooting out and flickering in the bright light. I focus on that, the purse pinwheeling through the air. I watch it disappear under the floor’s edge.

  More people fall, so I fix my gaze at the skylights framing the bright blue sky. A little boy calls for his mother. His voice cuts through me and pulls my attention back to the hysteria.

  He yells again—“Mom! MOM!”—but there’s too much noise, too many bodies blurring past to find him. My numb feet carry me to the edge, where I clamp my hands on the cold metal tube that’s supposed to protect people. Bodies sprawl far below, twisted and still.

  I push away and spin back to the court, swallowing hard against my gag reflex.

  Even the people who didn’t see me flip C. Lyle—they run too. Like a spreading wave, the wave from my head, the people farthest away stiffen, then take off in no particular direction.

  Many of them scream. Some cover their mouths to keep the screams in, like me. I only catch snippets of their words—help me what is this Mom where are you please please someone! C. Lyle staggers to his feet like a drunk, belt jangling as he lurches to the escalator. He almost trips over two people tangled on the floor. The last two. I watch them break apart and roll away from each other. They breathe in heaving gulps.

  One gets up and runs down the escalator. The other crawls, dragging his right leg. My last image of him is a work boot scraping over the ridges on the top step.

  Somewhere in the food court a tray falls. A drink splashes over the floor.

  At first the court seems empty, except for the bags and food trays people have left behind.

  But I’m not alone.

  2

  A guy about my age sits in the middle of the court amid scattered and overturned tables and chairs. A plate of mango chicken from Ruby Thai sits in front of him. He’s lean, with the most intense face I’ve seen so far. A staring-contest face. His black hair is thick, a little long, curling slightly at the neck. His white T-shirt stretches over a body pared down to just muscle and skin.

  He waves at me, like everything is fine. I stand there for a moment, frozen. Finally he turns his hand around and makes a Come here motion.

  He knows who I am; he has to. No other reason he’d be sitting there instead of running. He could know why I can’t remember; he could know what just happened; he could know why those people fell, why they’re probably dead; he could know if it’s my fault.

  I make my way over to him, stepping lightly over upended chairs. Part of me wonders if I should be moving in the opposite direction. My eyes keep flitting up to him, tracking him, and that’s why I step in a puddle of Coke. My right foot makes a squeak with every step until I reach his table and fall into the chair across from him.

  “Hello,” I say, trying to play it cool. I don’t know what I’m more afraid of—finding the truth, or not finding it. I fold my hands in my lap to keep them still.

  Behind and below me, on the lower level of the mall, people still run and shout. Their panic echoes off the ceiling.

  “Hello,” he says. His blue eyes are startling. Fake, almost. Like bright blue paint.

  I smell him then, his sweat and soap, but something else. Flowers? Not just flowers—roses. Now that I recognize the scent, I realize it’s been there since the pain in my head started. “Are you wearing perfume?” I ask.

  “It’s the psychic energy. Messes with the limbic system, so for some reason you smell roses.”

  I don’t say anything. He waits for a reaction, but I have no idea what to say. He lost me at psychic energy.

  “It’s . . . we smell it and they smell it, people the energy affects. It’s just a weird byproduct. How’s your head?” “It feels like it’s on fire,” I say.

  “It’s running hot, yeah.”

  We sit there. Like nothing’s wrong. Somewhere glass breaks and tinkles over the floor. He studies me under two black eyebrows that aren’t thick but aren’t thin either. It’s like he has two faces—from the nose down he’s amused, but his eyes are lowered in a studying scowl.

  “Is this funny to you?” I say.

  He frowns. “It’s the least funny thing I can imagine.”

  I’m starving, and I need something to do with my hands, so I pluck a piece of his mango chicken. It tastes like ashes. For the first time, I begin to wonder if any of this is real. If a doctor in a white coat walked over and said I was experiencing a psychotic break, I’d probably buy it.

  “Tell me what happened,” I say.

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “No idea.” I see it all again—the pumping legs, flailing arms. The people falling. The woman’s purse in the air. “Those people...”

  He shakes his head slowly. “This wasn’t your fault.” But his face says it is. He appears calm, but his mouth is tight. He’s trying to hide his horror, that much is plain. I know now, for sure, the panic was my doing. All of it. Somehow.

  “This wasn’t your fault,” he says again, like he’s trying to convince himself.

  “No?” My cheeks are wet now. I smear tears away with my fingertips.

  He leans forward, pulls his tray back before I can grab more chicken. “How’s your memory?”

  He knows. But how? An excited trill cuts through me at the thought of an answer, numbing all the unease for a moment.

  “Gone,” I say, voice paper-dry. I suck in a breath and hold it, willing my hands to stop shaking.

  “I figured.”

  “Did you?”

  We sit there some more. The mall is silent now, tombish.

  “Do you have a name?” Iask, harshly, since he doesn’t seem willing to offer up information.

  “Peter.”

  “Peter...”

  “Just Peter for now,” he says.

  The insanity of the situati
on finally sinks in. Not the madness from before, but how I’m sitting here now, with “Peter,” and he’s talking about memory loss and psychic energy. I feel a kernel of something awful pop in my stomach. The truth is near and I don’t know if I’m ready for it.

  “My name is Miranda,” I say. I lay my hands on my thighs and squeeze to keep from fidgeting.

  “I know.”

  “What happened?” I say.

  He scrubs his face with his hands and runs one through his hair, leans back in his chair. “You released a burst of psychic energy that affected the brains of everyone in the mall, specifically their amygdala and prefrontal cortex. The energy incited base panic in the minds of everyone, freezing all other functions until only pure terror remained. You were able to control it before you forgot how. So when you felt threatened by the cop, your response was automatic.”

  “Liar,” I say. I can’t think of a more absurd explanation. I don’t even understand what he said. But if I didn’t believe him, I wouldn’t be frozen on this plastic chair. If I woke up in Boston I wouldn’t be here, listening to this crazy boy tell me these crazy things.

  He gives me a patient blink. “I can explain more later, but we need to go. Now.”

  I stand up, the chair screeching under me, too loud in the big empty space. “Why can’t I remember?”

  “Because you haven’t been taking your shots. Or your shots weren’t actually shots.”

  My shots weren’t actually shots. The boy who smells like roses named Peter comes around the table and takes my arm. I shrug out of it and almost punch him in the chest but hold back. My body is humming again; I feel like I did the second before I threw that cop.

  He holds my gaze until I look away. “Relax,” he says, “We’re friends.”

  “How do I know that? I lose my memory and you’re just waiting for me, brooding over mango chicken?”

  He shrugs like it doesn’t matter. He starts to walk away, calling to me without looking back. “We’re leaving, Miranda.” The scent of roses gets fainter, as if it’s coming from him.

  I stand there a moment longer. Wondering if I should trust him when I don’t trust myself.