A Different Kind

by Lauryn April

  I smiled.

  A costume store had taken up shop in what was formerly some shoe outlet in the strip mall down the street. Mom and I browsed the pre-made costumes, packaged in plastic bags. I scanned the shelves, remembering the first Halloween Jo and I spent together. We were twelve. Jo’s family had just moved to town a few months earlier.

  I’d gone trick or treating with Jo and her family. Mom had bought me a fairy costume, complete with sparkling wings and matching pink candy bucket. Jo was dressed as Dorothy, her mom had made her costume, and she carried a picnic basket for her candy bucket. Though I never told her this, I kind of liked her costume better.

  “How about this?” Mom asked. I looked up to see her holding a feather duster in one hand and French maid’s costume in the other.

  I shook my head: No.

  Mom frowned, then continued browsing. “This would look cute on you,” she said, holding up a white nurse costume.

  I shrugged.

  “I remember dressing as a nurse just a few years before you were born. Your father and I went out, with him dressed as a surgeon. That was a fun night….”

  Mom went on, smiling as she remembered the good old days before I was born, but my mind was stuck on one word: surgeon. Suddenly all I could think about was that I’d be having brain surgery in a week. That thought hit me hard. I’d been so wrapped up, thinking about how this was the solution to escaping the Greys, that I’d overlooked that it was brain surgery. I didn’t just have the Greys to be afraid of, but this procedure as well. What if I died on the operating table? What if I lived, but ended up with brain damage? What if I had to cut all my hair off? I felt my stomach twist. Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner?

  “Payton, sweetie, are you okay?”

  Mom looked at me, concerned. I wondered if I should tell her I was going to have a serious surgery, one I might never wake up from. Knowing I was about to do something that could get me killed seemed like the kind of thing I should tell my mother about, but what would I say? Hey Mom, I was abducted by aliens and need to have brain surgery to remove the chip they implanted in my head. Yeah, not unless I wanted her to ship me off to the looney bin. I wanted to tell her, but there was no way she’d believe me. If she did anything to keep me from going to that appointment on Friday, I’d lose my last chance of escaping the Greys.

  Mom’s lips were thin. She was worried. I must have been really zoned. Looking at her, staring at me with such concern, I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted her to comfort me and tell me everything would be alright. I wanted her to hold me the way she did when I was seven and tripped leaving the monkey exhibit at the zoo, scraping my knee.

  “What’s bothering you, honey?” It was rare for her to ask how I was feeling.

  I wanted to spill everything.

  But I couldn’t.

  Instead I focused on the most insignificant worry I had. “Would you still love me if I was keeping secrets from you? Like, if I came home one day with my head shaved and said I couldn’t tell you why?”

  “Head shaved? Payton, please tell me you’re not planning to do anything crazy with your hair.”

  “Mom, that’s not what this is about.” I sighed. “I just want to know…I just want to know that you’d be there for me, even if I was different.” Like mutated by aliens different. “And that you trust me to make my own decisions, even if you think I’m crazy for making them…like shaving my head.”

  A moment passed where Mom’s eyes rocked back and forth. She let out a huff and hugged me. I closed my eyes, thankful for her warmth. She brushed a strand of my hair out of my face as she pulled away.

  “This is about Jo, isn’t it? You’re concerned about how I feel about you because of the things she’s going through with her parents?”

  I opened my mouth to disagree, then shut it and nodded instead. Though I wanted to, I couldn’t tell her the truth.

  Mom smiled. “You are a beautiful, intelligent, strong young woman, and I will love you regardless of any decision you make, or experiences you feel the need to have…even if that includes shaving your head bald. Though you do have such pretty hair, I’d hope that wouldn’t be something you want to do.”

  I smiled.

  “You’ve always been such an independent girl. I know your friends right now are your whole life and that maybe you feel that you and I aren’t as close as we used to be, and I know you can handle anything that happens in your life on your own. But I will always be here for you, honey. You’ll always be my little girl.”

  Mom smiled. Though her words changed nothing, it felt like they made things better somehow. I was afraid of the Greys, afraid of being taking away from my home. I was afraid I’d die on the operating table to prevent that from happening. But for a moment Mom made me feel like I could handle it.

  Setting up for the party on Saturday was an all-day event. Mom decorated the house from floor to ceiling with Halloween themed items. Somehow she managed to make it look expensive and not cheesy. I had to give her props for that; she knew how to decorate. There were swaths of blood orange fabric. Silver candelabras with black candles were placed all through the house. Mom even replaced some of the paintings with these framed, ink drawn skeletons. When we were done the whole house felt gothic, but whimsical at the same time.

  I was finishing up getting ready, touching up my silver eye shadow, when the doorbell rang. Mom yelled for me to answer it. I figured she was in the kitchen making sure the appetizers were getting put together perfectly. I grabbed my headband off my desk. Sliding it into place to complete my costume, I rushed down the stairs.

  “Happy Halloween,” I said, opening the door. I broke into a wide smile upon seeing Jo.

  She’d dressed as Princess Leia, wearing a long white turtleneck dress. Her costume was tighter than I remembered from the ten minutes of Star Wars I’d watched the time Jo’s little brother had stolen the TV remote. We’d had to fight him to get it back. I don’t remember there being a slit up the leg either, but it was still far less revealing than the metal bikini option.

  “You look great,” I said.

  “I thought so too, and look, I even got a prop gun.” She held up a black plastic gun.

  “Forget the gun, that hair is awesome.”

  Jo laughed. She had pulled her hair back and wore these fake buns on the sides of her head, held in place with a head band.

  “Guess we both went for the alien theme.”

  I frowned. “Huh, you’re a princess?”

  “From another planet.”

  “Oh right, and yeah I saw this and couldn’t resist.”

  I wore a shiny, short green dress, white patent leather boots that went up to my knees (I’d bought them two years ago for this retro dance), and my headband had two springy antennae on it with shiny green balls on the ends.

  Mom came around the corner a minute later dressed like Marilyn Monroe, her blond hair curled into waves. She hustled Jo and me into the kitchen to help with last minute prep. Slowly the house started to fill with guests. Vampires, princesses, flappers, and cowboys all shuffled through the door. Mom mingled among the crowd and Dad, dressed like a 1940s gangster, wearing a black pinstripe suit and white tie, finally came out of his office to enjoy the night.

  Bridget, dressed like a nurse, and Erica as Wonder Woman arrived together a short while later. They seemed nervous, but eased up once we got into conversation. The four of us hovered around the punch bowls. Mom had set out two, one a red liquid with floating oranges for the adults, and an orange non-alcoholic version for us. I scooped another glass of the red punch, grabbing one of the floating orange slices. Bridget told a story about how Mrs. Langly left the window open in her geography class, letting in a bee. Jo and I were engrossed as she talked about one of our classmates getting stung.

  “They had to rush him to the hospital because he didn’t have an EpiPen,” she said.

  “Is he okay?” Jo asked.

  “I think so.”

  The doorbell ran
g again. As I sucked on the orange slice I saw my mom waving at me to get it. I rolled my eyes. Mom was busy talking to some of my father’s business friends. One of them, a lawyer, was ironically dressed as the devil.

  I opened the door and smiled when I saw Nikki. She had her curly hair pulled back, hands folded before her, and wore dark sunglasses. Behind her stood Frank, Joey, and Randy – all three wearing similar black suits.

  Nikki cracked a smile.

  “Men in black.” I laughed. “You guys look great.”

  “We thought it’d be appropriate.”

  Nikki and the guys made their way through the crowd to where Jo waved from beside the punch bowl. I followed behind them, but then I saw something that dragged my attention away. Among the party-goers I caught a glimpse of a thirty-something man whose face, with his bright blue eyes, was eerily familiar. I couldn’t place him, but I knew I knew him from somewhere. Jo called my name, dragging my sight away from him. I rejoined my friends around the punch bowl and forgot about the man.

  Shortly after I introduced Nikki and the guys to the rest of the group, Bridget was pouring herself a glass of punch. Her cup slipped, spilling the red liquid onto the wood floor.

  “Oh, shit.” Bridget looked up with a worried expression. “I’m so sorry.”

  She bent down and picked up her empty glass.

  “It’s fine,” I said, grabbing a small stack of napkins from the table. I kneeled on the ground beside her. “No biggie – one of the wonders of wood floors is easy clean up.”

  Bridget smiled.

  Together we cleaned up the spill, then I excused myself to the kitchen to throw away the wet napkins. After tossing them, I caught sight of the man with blue eyes again. I glanced at my friends. They were preoccupied with their conversation, so I decided to follow the man into the crowd. He wore white, though I’d yet to get a good look at him. Slowly I maneuvered around my mother’s guests, until finally I had a clear view. He had a square, clean shaved jaw, dark hair, and blue eyes. I still couldn’t place him, but my mind didn’t want to let this go. I felt this prickling in my limbs as I stared at him. I rubbed my arms as my insides quivered. I knew him and I needed to remember how.

  My mother walked by. In her hand was a black tray. On it were Jell-O shots, except they weren’t in plastic shot glasses, like I typically saw at house parties. Plastic tubes were filled with red Jell-O, keeping with Mom’s Halloween theme, and they were shaped like syringes. I watched as Mom handed the shots out to people around us. They injected the red Jell-O into their mouths, and my memories came rushing back.

  My palms started to sweat. My muscles stiffened. Images of a man in a black hoodie, of a man with blue eyes and dark hair, pulling a syringe from his pocket, flashed through my mind. He was the man from my dream. Weeks ago I’d dreamt he’d sneaked into my bedroom and injected me with something. Now he was on the other side of my mother’s Halloween party.

  My heart thudded wildly. I needed to know who he was. Making my way through the crowd I tried to get closer to him. As I neared, I saw he’d dressed like a doctor, wearing a white lab coat and stethoscope around his neck. I kept my distance, not wanting him to see me. All the while I wondered if my dream had really been a dream. I thought I’d created him in my nightmare, but if he was a real person, did that mean my dream was real as well? Why was he here at my mother’s costume party?

  Nothing made sense.

  Mom walked toward him. I hid around the corner as she handed out the rest of her Jell-O shots and introduced one of my father’s friends to my mystery blue-eyed man.

  “Gerry, meet my friend Mr. John Doggett, he’s an insurance adjuster….”

  Mom’s voice trailed off as my thoughts took over once again. This John guy was a friend of my parents. The way Mom talked about him made him sound like she’d known him for some time. He couldn’t have really done what I remembered from my dream. I shook my head. I must have met him before. Maybe my brain pulled his face from my memory to use in my nightmare. That was how dreams worked, wasn’t it? Just your brain pulling out random bits of memory and rearranging them. I sighed. That had to be it. It just didn’t make sense that one of my parent’s friends would sneak into my bedroom to inject me with something.

  I turned and walked back to my friends.

  Now that Nikki and the guys had joined the party, things started to get more lively. We danced, and told stupid jokes. Frank seemed to be hitting on Bridget pretty hard. I watched her blush as he smiled at her. Later we all competed in a game of “Mummy Wrap” against some of the adults to see who could wrap a person in toilet paper faster. We won, but as a collective group we were also more sober than our adult counterparts. Even though I was enjoying my time with my friends, I kept finding myself staring at the door, wondering when Logan would arrive.

  After unraveling nearly half a dozen rolls of toilet paper and laughing at a mummified Jo, I started to wonder if Logan was even going to show. When the doorbell rang again, I nearly jumped to answer it.

  Maybe it was the red punch running through me, but I felt fluttery and warm inside thinking about Logan. So much so that as I neared the door the silver candelabra on the entranceway table started to shake. As it lifted into the air I worried the lit black candle within it would set something on fire. I lunged forward, grabbing the silver candle stick. I took a few deep breaths until it was no long fighting against gravity.

  With one last, deep breath I opened the door. Logan stood with his hands thrust into the pockets of his black slacks. He wore a white button up, half unbuttoned to reveal a Superman t-shirt. His red tie hung loose around his neck, and even his glasses helped pull the look of Clark Kent in transformation together.

  I smiled. Logan’s eyes raked over me.

  He cleared his throat. “You, um, you look great.”

  “Thanks, so do you.”

  Logan came inside and I shut the door behind him. “Sorry I’m so late. I wanted to wait until Mom left for work. She’s got the night shift tonight.”

  “She didn’t want you coming over, huh?”

  “She forbid it actually, but she’s being ridiculous. Even if they were going to take you again this soon – which they won’t – they probably wouldn’t do it with this many people here…probably.”

  “That is a good point. Guess I’ll just have to throw a party every night from now until Friday.”

  Logan fell into conversation with the rest of my friends seamlessly. Later that night we started a game of flip-cup in the kitchen with more stolen red punch. After ungracefully spilling some of it on my dress, I excused myself. Passing through the living room, where my mom was announcing something about going outside, I noticed the guest bathroom was occupied and went upstairs.

  Standing before the bathroom mirror I rubbed at the red punch stain. After a few moments I gave up. It wasn’t coming out. I went to my room to find something else to wear. It was getting late and the party was winding down. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to change into something more comfy. I unzipped my tall white boots, casting them aside, and looked through my dresser for a pair of sweat pants. There was a soft knock at my door. I turned around and saw Logan poking his head in.

  “Hey,” he said. “I just um, I wanted to say thanks for inviting me.”

  I smiled. “I’m glad you came.”

  Logan stepped into my room, lightly closing the door behind him. “So, um…how are you?”

  I sighed and sat down at the edge of my bed. “Good. Tonight I’m good. Except for the random moments where I remember everything that’s going on in my life. I still haven’t completely gotten the telekinesis thing down yet either.”

  Logan sat beside me. “You will.”

  Our eyes met and his gaze was comforting. I couldn’t help but smile.

  “You’re so optimistic this is going to work out okay. And I mean, yeah, I’m dealing but I don’t know if I really believe that I’m going to keep them from taking me again, or if I’m just keeping face to get in one l
ast hurrah before their bright lights appear in my window.”

  Logan’s worried eyes traced my face. Suddenly, his features were illuminated by a piercing light. As if I’d summoned it, my room lit up. I turned to the window to watch as the shadows were chased away by a glaring, white light. My heart thumped in my chest, beating a quickening and irregular beat as fear overcame me. My mouth fell open and I froze.

  No, it was too soon.

  Then the light started to fade. I heard this cracking noise echo into the distance. I let out a deep breath. Someone had set off fireworks in the front yard. I closed my eyes and took another breath. I was so relieved I wanted to cry. More fireworks burst into the air, and I took a few more deep breaths to get my erratic heartbeat under control. Mom went all out on this one.

  “Payton,” Logan said in a soft voice.

  When I looked around I saw that every metal object in my room was floating. Boom! Another burst of light filled my bedroom, illuminating the thumbtacks floating before my cork board. Once again the framed photo beside my bed hovered in the air, as did the loose change that had been left on my desk. My medals lifted away from the wall, and a mess of bobby pins hovered above my dresser.

  Boom! Crackle. Another burst of light.

  Seeing my room in such disarray only made me more nervous. Everything floated higher. I felt my bed waver as the metal frame lifted off the ground.

  “No,” I whimpered, but I couldn’t make it stop.

  Logan’s hand fell over mine. I looked away from the mess around me to meet his eyes.

  Before I could say anything, his lips met mine.

  Boom! Crackle. Another firework exploded outside. My surprise melted away and I eased into the kiss. It was short and sweet, and his lips were so soft. The bed shook as its legs met with the floor.

  Logan pulled away and I sighed. With a quick glimpse around I saw all of my things had returned to their usual, gravity inclined positions. I looked back to Logan. His eyes searched mine as if he were trying to figure out how I felt about his kissing me. Suddenly that was the only thing I could think about. It had surprised me, but I hadn’t disliked it.