“But you can’t just give up,” said Kizzy.
“Watch me,” said Diego.
“I’ll go by myself then,” said Kizzy. She picked up the bag with the canned goods.
“Damn it!” he yelled. He slammed his fist on the table. The wooden cup toppled over and fell to the floor. He stood up and pushed the table away. “I never should have come after you. It was a stupid decision. My sympathy gets me in trouble. And you! You had to lose your temper and kill Banshee. You’re a moron.”
He kicked the chair over and walked towards the front door.
“What are you doing?” Kizzy asked.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t say a word. He stormed out and slammed the door behind him.
Kizzy stood in the kitchen alone. Had she done the right thing? She walked over and picked up Diego’s cup from the floor. Just a few moments ago he was drinking from it to keep himself alive. And now Kizzy was taking that from him. She felt an intense guilt in her gut. It seemed as if the bad feeling was emanating from his cup. She wanted to throw it across the room, to get it as far away from her as possible. But she held onto it. She held on and soaked in every bit of that nasty feeling. She would turn herself in to the cops. She would tell them that everything was her fault.
She would die so that he could live. The chaos of the past day had made her forget she was going to die anyway, and Diego, he was going to live forever.
Iris came from the basement holding a folder full of papers.
“Most of them were confirmed dead by doctors,” said Iris. “But some others I had checked myself, and obviously I was wrong today, so I was probably wrong with them too.” She walked to the table and sat down. “I’m just going to have to live with that.” She was completely still.
“I’m going to turn myself in,” said Kizzy.
“You are?” asked Iris.
Kizzy nodded.
“Aren’t you afraid of dying?” Iris asked.
“It’s just nothingness,” said Kizzy sitting down. “It was going to happen sooner or later. The Enoch pill doesn’t work on me.”
“Really?” Iris said. “I wonder if that’s why I was always drawn to you.”
“Is that why you were watching me?” Kizzy asked.
“Possibly,” said Iris. “I’ve been watching you for years actually, since you were smaller and first came into the woods.”
“Why?” asked Kizzy.
“You always seemed so... unafraid,” Iris said. “I admired that.”
“No, I’m afraid of all sorts of things,” said Kizzy.
“But you never showed it,” said Iris. “The first time I saw you, you were maybe 12 years old. You and a friend came towards the woods. I was out there looking for dead animals. I hid behind a tree when I heard you coming. I stepped on a twig. That sent your friend running, but not you. You stepped forward to inspect what made the sound. I thought for sure you would find me, but your mother called you in for dinner. That was the closest I ever came to being found. I spent the next month hiding in the house, I was so terrified.”
Diego came running into the house and closed the door behind him.
“The police?” Kizzy asked.
“Iris, what’s out there beyond the woods?” Diego asked.
“Wasteland, ruins, all types of beasts and monsters,” she said.
Her voice was filled with wonder and warning.
“There’s a sign at the end of the road that says New York City is only twenty miles from here,” he said. “Is that true?”
“I don’t know,” said Iris.
Kizzy looked at her, something wasn’t adding up. “You said you never even heard of New York City. But it’s only twenty miles away.”
“I wasn’t lying,” Iris said.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. That’s where we’re going,” said Diego.
“You can’t,” said Iris. “Kizzy is going to turn herself in.”
“You are?” Diego asked.
“That’s before I knew New York was so close,” said Kizzy, looking at Iris, trying to say with her eyes to be quiet. She wasn’t sure if the expression was lost on the android.
“But I think you should turn yourselves in,” said Iris.
“Why?” asked Diego.
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Iris said glancing at Kizzy. The look was menacing.
“We have to find Dr. Enoch,” said Kizzy.
“Then maybe I should tell the police where you are going,” said Iris looking out the window.
“Why would you do that?” asked Diego. His brow became sharp and his lips tight. Kizzy noticed his fists tightening.
“I don’t know,” said Iris. “I get this craving to do it.”
“Then control yourself,” Diego growled.
“You have no idea what it’s like,” said Iris. “To be created for a purpose. And how satisfying it is to fulfill that purpose. And what it’s like when you can’t fulfill that purpose, how torturous that is.”
“Iris,” said Kizzy. “I promise that if we get caught, I’ll request that you cremate us.”
“What?” shouted Diego.
“Promise me,” said Iris.
“I promise,” said Kizzy.
“And what about you?” Iris asked, looking to Diego. His arms were crossed.
“No,” he said.
“Diego please,” said Kizzy.
“No,” he said louder. “Just on principle. It’s too creepy.”
“There’s nothing creepy about it,” Iris said. “I just want your word.”
“Look, you won’t even know the difference,” Kizzy said. “Please.”
“Whatever. I promise, I guess,” he said with a shrug.
“Ok, ok, good. That makes me feel better.” Iris said as she began pacing the floor. “You know Diego, ever since I saw you coming down those stairs, I haven’t felt right. The thought that I may have burnt up living people... it has just made me feel wretched. But this... this makes me feel better.”
“Well, I’m glad I could do that for you,” said Diego sarcastically. He turned to Kizzy, “We should be going.”
“Wait,” said Iris. “Maybe, before you go, could I please just burn a piece of your hair?”
Diego laughed and looked at Kizzy. “Is she kidding me?”
“No, I’m not,” said Iris.
“I don’t really feel comfortable with that.”
“Please,” Iris pleaded, she was begging with her hands. “Just one little hair. For the smell. It will take me back to the old days. If you do it... I promise I won’t tell the police where you are headed.”
“You tell them that we went in another direction then,” said Diego.
Iris nodded eagerly. She grabbed a candle, lit it and brought it close to him on the table.
Diego glanced at Kizzy with a look of disbelief. He must have felt uncomfortable but he shook his head and smiled. From the back of his scalp he plucked a hair. “Is this one ok?”
Iris closed her eyes and nodded.
Diego brought it towards the flame as Iris brought her face in close. Diego brought it a little closer and then pulled it away with a smile.
“No, no, don’t do that,” said Iris, with an almost playful giggle.
When he finally brought the hair to the flame it fizzled and smoked and made a sour, foul odor. Iris breathed in deeply and shuddered with pleasure. She leaned back in the chair and stared off into space. “Thank you,” she said finally, in an almost breathless voice.
Diego looked at Kizzy and laughed, the lines around his eyes looked like pure joy. She was almost jealous of him, that he could be so in the moment like that, in
stead of stuck inside his head, the way she was all the time.
Iris shakily tried to stand up but fell over onto the table.
“Oh dear,” she said as she pushed herself up and staggered to the basement door and walked down the steps.
“It was better for her than it was for me, that’s for sure,” said Diego.
“What’s our plan?” Kizzy asked. She had a feeling that time was running out before the police would be back.
“Well, we can take some food with us,” said Diego pointing to the canned goods in the bag.
From the basement they could faintly hear the “Beep. Beep. Beep. Boop.” of the cremator.
“What is she doing?” asked Diego with a confused look on his face.
“She’s burning more birds I think,” said Kizzy.
Diego threw his head back and cackled. “I think we may have messed her up.”
Kizzy cracked a smile, but then shook it away. “Hey. Can I trust that you won’t sabotage us anymore?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“We can’t afford any of that bullshit with the pills,” said Kizzy.
“Beep. Beep. Beep. Boop.” came from the basement.
“Hey you’re the reason we’re in this whole mess, not me.”
“I just want us on the same page,” Kizzy said.
“I don’t think we’ll ever get on the same page. We just need to walk these twenty miles, find Enoch and hopefully he’ll be able to fix everything. With any luck we’ll be pardoned by morning. And then we can each go our separate ways.”
“Well, they won’t be completely separate. I mean, wasn’t I supposed to help you when you’re on the outside?”
“I’m not sure I want that anymore.”
“What are you talking about? That was our deal.”
“Well, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of being alone doesn’t it?”
“Never mind then, be by yourself,” Kizzy said and put up a stone wall around her heart. “Let’s go tell Iris we’re leaving. It’s strange I haven’t heard her in a while.”
“Maybe she ran out of birds,” said Diego.
Kizzy heard the basement door creak open. Iris stood in the doorway, holding the cremator disconnected from its glass tube.
“Beep. Beep. Beep.”
Kizzy leaped towards Diego, grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him down. She flipped the table up onto its side as a shield.
“Boop.”
The flames roared against the wood, pushing it a few inches across the floor. The underside became hot against Kizzy’s back. Her right hand was on the floor beside the table and was exposed to the flames. The fire brushed over her skin and the pain roared up through her arm. Her hand turned black and stank of scorched, burnt flesh. She screamed.
The flames stopped. The brass footsteps came towards them and tore the table away, throwing it up against the wall. Kizzy grabbed Diego and pulled him through the doorway to the living room and the flamethrower beeped. The fire chased them as Kizzy turned the corner. They weren’t quite fast enough and the flames caught on Diego’s pants and shoes.
The fire danced on the floor around him. He screamed as he jumped from the flames, kicked off his left shoe and shook the fire from his pants.
Frantically Kizzy looked around. There was no door in the living room and the windows were all too small to climb through. The only way out was up the stairs to the loft.
Iris stepped through the doorway amidst the flames. Kizzy and Diego sprinted for the stairs as the flamethrower beeped. They climbed the steps two at a time on their hands and feet. Liquid fire roared up behind them. Kizzy could feel the intense heat on her back and neck.
Upstairs smoke and orange light were billowing up through the cracks in the floor from the kitchen below. The only way out was the lone window at the end of the room. Diego ran and tried to open it, but it was jammed shut.
“We need something to smash it,” he yelled.
Kizzy looked around. The wooden bed post she had broken the night before was laying against the far wall. She ran across the room to pick it up. Iris’s footsteps were coming up the stairs. Looking at the distance between her and the window, Kizzy realized it was too far. She wouldn’t be able to make it in time. Her scorched hand made her think of the pain.
“You two are very crafty,” Iris said as she climbed the stairs. “But now I’ve finally got you.”
Kizzy backed up against the wall, out of sight from the staircase. She held the bed post tightly and looked to Diego’s eyes. He knew what she was thinking. The flamethrower beeped as Iris reached the loft and stepped towards the threshold. She saw Diego alone at the window and darted her head around looking for Kizzy.
“Now!” yelled Diego.
In an instant Kizzy swung the bed post with all her might and hit Iris square in the chest. The wood vibrated painfully in her hands. The fire erupted from the thrower as Iris was knocked backwards off her feet and down the steps. The ceiling and stairway were all engulfed in flames.
Kizzy ran to Diego. But halfway across the room the floor caved in and she toppled down through the brittle wood into the fiery kitchen below. She crashed onto the hard wooden floor. When she regained her senses she was laid out next to the overturned table. She glanced up. Diego looked down.
“Are you ok?” he yelled.
“Yeah,” said Kizzy. She felt disoriented and scared. The table was shielding her from the flames. “Jump down.”
Diego steadied himself to take the leap, but then looked up and quickly backed away from the hole in the floor.
“It’s just me and you now darling,” Kizzy could hear Iris saying to Diego.
The ceiling sank down wherever Iris stepped and she was approaching a sagging main beam in the center of the room. Kizzy wouldn’t be able to make it up to the loft, the living room was engulfed in fire. And she couldn’t leave Diego there to die. She looked around frantically for a solution and suddenly she saw the ax sitting next to the record player. She grabbed it and began to chop at the main wooden beam above her.
“No Diego, that glass is too strong,” Iris said. “You’re very special to me you know that?”
Kizzy chopped and chopped. Chips of dusty wood fell into her eyes. The flames blazed all around her. The sweat poured from her face.
“And now I will make you forever mine,” Iris said.
Kizzy swung one last time and the sagging beam broke. The floor it was supporting began to fall. She ran out through the door and into the cool, cool night.
“Beep. Beep. Beep. Boop.”
Kizzy turned to see Iris falling down from the loft. As she fell the flamethrower spewed fire up through the thatched roof and into the sky. Iris’s heavy body broke through the kitchen floor down to the basement.
Kizzy looked to the loft. Diego was kicking against the glass. Coughing. Surrounded by thick black smoke. The flames were coming closer and closer. Kizzy held her breath. He was going to die. He wasn’t going to make it out of there. Kizzy was sure of it, and there wasn’t a thing she could do. The kitchen floor had completely collapsed and there was no way to enter the house.. She fell to her knees. She would have to watch.
Diego brought his foot back gave the glass one last kick. Finally it shattered. The black smoke billowed from the house in thick waves. Diego stuck his head out and coughed the blackness from his lungs. He gasped in the fresh air.
Kizzy felt as if she could finally breath. He climbed out from the window and clumsily slid down the drainpipe.
He ran to her and they embraced. His body and clothes were hot to the touch and reeked of smoke. Soon the flame-engulfed walls began to implode in on the house. Iris was still in the basement. If the fall hadn’t broken her, surely she would have been crushed by the collapse.
She grabbed Diego’s hand with her unburned left one and ran down the road. The whole ghost town; houses, trees and weeds were colored a brilliant orange in the night.
Before long the last of the town was behind them and the color of the fire faded from her memory. Only the milky moonlight lit the abandoned road ahead of them. Kizzy noticed the warmth of Diego’s hand in hers. It wasn’t quite a thermal warmth, but another kind of feeling. It felt like a twig snapping in her chest. They had twenty miles to go.
The ruins of Iris’s house smoldered. No walls were left standing. Everything had fallen into the rubble. In the moonlit night the orange embers glowed on and off, on and off, like hundred of little neon signs.
Some of the rubble trembled. There was a pause. It moved some more. A figure crawled from the cinders. It got to its feet, staggered around. Kicking aside some burning wood it reached into the embers and picked up the flame thrower. It left the wrecked ashes of the house and limped in the direction of Diego’s scent.
15
Leo surveyed the charred ashes of the house. He lit a cigarette and imagined his lungs being scorched like the smoldering ruins. Ten officers in teams of two circled the area with the hounds they had brought from the city. The dogs sniffed the ground happily. Chip walked up beside him, his erect posture and bright orange hair almost seemed like a joke in the gray early morning. He raised his eyebrows to Leo, he had a small German Shepherd on a leash that wasn’t picking up a scent.
Chip patted it’s head. “Good girl Lana.”
Lana licked his hand.
“You don’t think they were inside when it burned down, do you?” Leo asked.
The Enoch Pill Page 16
