Glistening Haven: A Shape Shifting Dystopian Boxset

by Jill Cooper

  She hated being thoughtful.

  Jenna entered the baby’s nursery. A number of cute outfits were in the small bassinet. There were packages of pacifiers, knit caps, and a few canisters of formula. Why the formula was left behind, she didn’t know, but Jenna knew these things were important. So she found an empty plastic bag in the closet and packed everything away. Delicately, she took the clothes off plastic hangers and folded them before placing them inside.

  The ones with dinosaurs on the shirts made her smile. Soft to the touch, they already smelled sweet, like baby’s breath. She was going to bring it all along for Wendy. Give the girl some hope that everything would be all right. Babies were promises of renewed hope, a better future. Too bad it was damned from the start, but maybe if Wendy were strong, things would be okay.

  Maybe.

  “Jen?” Dirk’s voice rang out as he knocked on the door. “We’re ready to check out.”

  Caught off guard, Jenna stood and wiped a stray tear off her cheek. “Just, uh, packed a few things Wendy might need. For the, you know...”

  “Baby.” Dirk’s eyes swept through hers. They smoldered with his usual intensity. Under his gaze Jenna felt naked, as if her soul was exposed. “ You okay?”

  “Fine.” Jenna saw Dirk was going to try to touch her arm, so jerked herself away. “I’m good. Just a lot of crap, you know?”

  “You want to ... talk about it?”

  The words sounded so foreign to her. Jenna rarely wanted to talk about anything, rarely wanted to let anyone in. But she was going to need to, and soon. When they took Wendy to her mother’s compound, everything was going to come out in a frenzy. Jenna needed Dirk and Jameson on her side. She needed to control the situation, and she couldn’t do that with a fleet of people around her, offering their opinion on who she was and what she had done.

  Dirk stepped forward and caressed her shoulders. “You look like you’re coming unhinged. What’s the matter? You can tell me, if you want to.”

  “But, you think I won’t want to, right?” She nearly cried when she said the words. Jenna had to get a grip. Usually she didn’t feel so vulnerable, but being here, with him, and with the baby’s things around the room...

  “It’s not like you’ve been forthcoming. You were gone for two years and I don’t know why. Except for the dead glistenings. And the hearing. But that only accounts for one year, not two. If you have something important to say, I think you know I’m here.”

  “For now.” Jenna laughed bitterly. “Yeah, you’re here for now. ‘Til we get where we’re going. Until you know the truth. About me.”

  “Just try me, Jenn. Maybe I’ll surprise you.” Dirk flashed his smile. Warm, inviting, lovable.

  She didn’t know what she was doing. She couldn’t be doing this. Jenna needed to stop herself, but it was like she wasn’t in control anymore and words tumbled out of her mouth that she never wanted to say.

  “My parents came to me right before I was supposed to be getting dressed for our wedding.” Jenna took a deep breath and watched Dirk’s eyes darken. “They wanted me to know, before I got married and got pregnant, so they chose the worst moment in history to tell me, that my father wasn’t my father. He raised me, but he didn’t make me.”

  “I don’t’” Dirk started, but Jenna shook her head to stop him. If she stopped talking now, she might never get the courage to say the words again.

  “My real father. Was killed by people not much different from us. Then my Mom found out she was pregnant. Very sick and very pregnant, she met Alan, the man who raised me. He’s a doctor, you know.” Jenna paused for Dirk to say something, but he didn’t.

  “Anyway, they hid my Mom, and together with Sally, the dead woman in the shed, brought me into the world. But I was always sick. Always had seizures, slips of time, and I would become so hungry.” Jenna squeezed her eyes. “Only red meat could fill me up. Still like that today. But the seizures, the slips of time, Alan developed a pill to help. It evens out my blood pressure. It’s not a cure, I don’t think, but it helps keep me normal. Normal as I can be.”

  Dirk was still scowling. “I have no idea what you’re trying to say. What’s this have to do with our wedding and what’s going on now?”

  Her own breath pounded in her ears. “I can’t take it back if I say it. I can’t undo it.” She gripped his shirt and pulled him close. She didn’t want to talk. All she wanted to do was kiss him.

  Dirk wouldn’t oblige, his nose against hers, but his lips just out of reach. His voice was husky, his breath sweet, and Jenna just wanted to remember it; one last time. “Jenn, just tell me, c’mon. You’re so close. Maybe then we can move on.”

  “We can’t.” Her lip trembled. “We won’t. That’s why I left. That’s why I needed to get away. I knew that if you—” Jenna was cut off by his kisses. Unable to resist being so close to her, Dirk grabbed her, kissing her with a tender passion she craved. His arms were strong, cradling her like he’d never let her go. And when they pulled away, barely away but enough so she could see Dirk’s eyes, she was filled with such a fear inside herself that was unfathomable. This was why she didn’t want him close, this is why she did her best to stay a bitch twenty-four-seven.

  But she spoke the words for the first time in over ten months. The words she said only to Chief Travis Reynolds. Jenna always hoped to never speak them out loud again. “I’m a glistening.”

  Dirk’s jaw went slack and his hands fell to his side. Jenna could feel the air in the room draw cooler, the space between them seemed to multiply and the fear inside her magnified. The look in his eye said nothing and everything all at once.

  “When they told me, my life ended. I wasn’t me anymore. But certain things made sense. The hunger, the fainting spells. My mom told me as a kid I was just sick. Didn’t get enough vitamins. Until Alan, my step-dad, found a compound to help. I just thought it was regular medicine. I didn’t realize. Not until they told me.”

  Dirk’s eyes fell on her and reflected her own anguish. “You never suspected?”

  She shook her head, trying to build strength. “Did you?”

  His eyes were hard. “Then why tell you at all?”

  “They wanted me to know. Before we started having kids. Put down roots. But it was too late,” Jenna drew a long shaky breath. “Because I was already pregnant. I told my mom, the night before at my bachelorette bash. I was going to tell you on the sandy beaches of the Caribbean. But when I found out what I was, what it was—”

  “You just ran off?” His nostrils flared and his eyes grew cold like she was a stranger. A perp. “You just—did you abort our baby and you never even told me? Did you?” The anger in his voice dared her to answer.

  Jenna had bile in her throat and her heart felt like it was clamped in a vise. “You think I could? I left. I went to my parents’ compound. The one where they search for a glistening cure. The one where I was born. I went there to have our daughter.”

  Dirk looked faint.

  “But it didn’t work out.” Her voice was haunted. “It was harder than anyone expected. Something about me didn’t like being pregnant. I was sick all the time and I knew in my gut, something was wrong. When she came, it was hard and fast. No one expected me to survive and she was stillborn.” Jenna cried like she hadn’t cried since that day. The sob shattered every wall she built around her heart. “And then I went crazy.”

  Jenna took a deep, shaking break. Inside her heart quivered. “Grief, revenge, anger, post-partum swollen-breasts-with-milk-but-no-baby depression. I went out and started finding glistenings and killing them. I didn’t want to stop and didn’t want to be stopped, not until the Chief came. Found me. Talked me into returning to the police, answering for my crimes.”

  “You were never going to tell me.” The dark realization built like horror on Dirk’s face. “Damn it, Jenn, she was mine. Ours, and you just shut me out like you always do. I should have been there. I should have—”

  “What? Held my hand?” Jenna’s e
yes were wild. “Told me everything would be okay while I have their blood in my veins? While everything in me screams they are evil monsters and then I find out that’s exactly what I am? I didn’t want you to look at me like you are now.”

  Jenna turned her head away from his eyes. “I get it. Don’t pretend.”

  “Pretend?” He snorted. “I’m sorry you think so little of me to think I couldn’t have dealt with it, Couldn’t have loved her.”

  He was living an idealized dream, like he always did. “And lose your life? Lose your job? We couldn’t have stayed together, raised her, and kept things normal. If people found out what I am, what she was, we’d be Wendy and Jake. Is that what you would have wanted?”

  “To be with you, to be a family, maybe I would have given it all away. But you never gave me a chance. You never asked. Screw you, Jenn. Screw you.” He slammed his fist into the door and Jenna’s heart raced to watch his angry display, to see the hate in his eyes and the mourning in his voice.

  Jenna bit her lip, tried to quell the sob building in her throat. “We need to pull it together to find Wendy and—”

  “Work together like nothing happened? I don’t get you. I don’t get your timing or any of this. How the hell do you expect me to just act like nothing’s happened between us? You were supposed to be my wife, and you were the mother of my kid, but hell, let’s put it all aside because we have a job to do?”

  “For Wendy and that baby. They’re in trouble. She needs real medical care. And I needed to tell you because when you saw the compound—”

  “I’d have questions. Yeah, I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it. Anything else you want to tell me while we’re at it?”

  Jenna didn’t, but part of her wanted to beg him for forgiveness. Wanted to tell him she loved him and would do anything to take it back. “Let’s just get this show on the road.”

  Dirk stared at her, his eyes slit like coins, and studied her every breath. She broke the stare and glanced down at her boots.

  “Jameson’s in the van doing some recon. Time to hit the road.”

  Her stomach rolled. Jameson, of all people, would probably tag her himself and throw her into New Haven to be conditioned. She hoped Dirk wouldn’t tell him, but didn’t think she had right to ask for favors. So instead she nodded and opened the bedroom door.

  She found herself staring down the barrel of Jameson’s gun. Her comrade for the last ten years spoke.

  “They told me you were a glistening, but I didn’t believe them, until now.”

  With a flick of his wrist the electrode collar shot out around Jenna’s neck. It latched closed and she gagged for air. He tugged it hard. Electricity surged through her body, racing from limb to limb, sending her slamming into the back wall. She fell to the ground. For the first time in her life, her skin shimmered.

  Being a half-breed, only half of her shined in crazy patterns like she was a pair of plaid socks and her wings were nothing more than small nubs beneath her clothes.

  But it was enough. She squeezed her eyes shut and heard Dirk holler at Jameson. Things would never be the same.

  Chapter Twenty-Five Wendy

  When Wendy awoke in the car, the fog was dense and darkness tightened her. Through the thickness of the trees, she could see a glimmer of the moon trying to peek in. Glancing over, she saw Sally studying the road with both hands on the wheel. They hadn’t talked since the last stop and Wendy hadn’t seen Jake for the last two. It set her on edge.

  Wendy struggled to push herself up and felt the movement of her baby as it too awoke.

  “You’re awake. Good. You needed your sleep, but it’s good you’re awake again. How are you feeling?”

  “Tired. Foggy.” Wendy said. “But safe with you.”

  Sally smiled at her. “Good girl. We’ll be there soon. I’ll make you something to eat and some tea. After a good night’s sleep we’ll decide where we are off to next.”

  “Where’s the other truck? I don’t see it?”

  “Errands. They are picking up some supplies, but don’t worry. They’ll be along soon.”

  Wendy relaxed the rest of the way to the cabin. They drove through more trees than Wendy knew existed on the planet, let alone in one area. The roads turned left and right into the shape of the letter S. Beside the road, just off the path, were wooden rustic signs. Wendy couldn’t read what they said in the darkness.

  There was a single lamp post beside the cabin Sally parked next to. The patio looked overconstructed, with enough support beams to hold up an elephant, and the doors were giant sliding pieces of glass. The building itself was towering, appearing to be at least two stories, with stone arches and an antique stone chimney. Inside no lights were on and Wendy wondered if anyone was expecting them.

  Sally cut the engine and unlocked the doors. “Go easy getting out of the car. You’ve been sitting a long time. Might take awhile for things to respond.”

  “I’ve been on car rides before.” But she yelped when she opened the car door. A cramp ran up her leg and settled along her belly. She felt like everything inside of her came together, hardened and then slowly expanded out again. “It was a cramp, I think.”

  Sally took Wendy by the arm and helped her out of the truck. “Walk around for a few minutes and take a few big breaths. You’re probably dehydrated. I’ll get you something to drink soon.”

  Wendy did what she was told, pacing in front of the house. She rubbed her belly to relax herself and then made a slow ascent to the patio door. She saw a small wooden box marked keys beside the entry way. It looks like this building was the main office and the rec center for the resort. Peering inside, Wendy could only see a small desk light on. There was, however, the flicker of a television, and off in the corner an old wood stove burned. Wendy could make out tourist flyers beside the sofa and there was a warm-looking crochet rug nestled beneath it.

  Sally came up beside her with her doctor’s bag and an arm full of duffel bags. “My cousin’s place. It’s closed for renovations but he keeps watch. He’s going to let us stay here until tomorrow. Until we think of something more long-term. It’ll be a warm bed and good food.”

  Her smile made Wendy feel better as it always did, but she felt trepidation when the man came to let them in. His frame was small and his eyes were beady. He wore dog tags around his neck and twirled a toothpick inside his mouth. Goosebumps rose on her skin and her spine chilled. Wendy didn’t like the look of his greased-back hair or the tattoos on his forearms, but as he unlatched the glass door, she smiled. She knew she had few options left.

  “Is this her?” His words slurred and he stepped back to eye her like she was a piece of meat on display, hanging from a butcher’s window. Wendy stepped back without meaning to.

  Sally rubbed her shoulder. “Easy, Jack, you’re going to scare the poor girl. Why don’t you go make her some soup or something?”

  “Yeah,” he sucked in air through her teeth and it whistled, “all right.” He dragged his words out as his eyes lingered over her large breasts and protruding belly, but he left the room and Wendy relaxed.

  “Sit down and put your feet up.” Sally nodded to the sofa. “I can see your ankles swelling from here.”

  Wendy hadn’t noticed, but they were a little inflamed. She did as she was told and thanked Sally when she was handed a tall glass. She hesitated when she saw what it was. Organ juice. It was Jake’s juice, the one she had been sneaking since she left New Haven.

  “Don’t, okay,” Sally sat beside her. “We know you’ve been drinking it. We know it makes you feel better. So drink it and don’t feel guilty. It lessens your symptoms and right now we need as much of that as possible.”

  Wendy bit her lip and looked at the thick, red slop. It smelled good, though, and her belly churned for nourishment. She took a tentative sip, wiping the corner of her mouth. Swallowing, the cabin came alive with smells of rustic pine, the crackling of the fire. Down the hall, she could hear Jack clinking together pots and pans as he whistl
ed a little ditty.

  She was probably just tired and not thinking straight, but she drank more. It made her feel like a freak show, a bloated, uncomfortable freak show. Still, something in her felt better. Settled. It relaxed her enough to lay her head down on the sofa pillows while she absently stroked her belly and thought of her dad. And her mom.

  Wendy remembered how she stormed off to meet Jake. She knew it was the last time she’d see her parents for a long time, but had been so angry with the fighting, with how Mom always accused Dad of everything. Like it was all his fault, but Wendy knew it was her fault. She was the one who had sex and ended up pregnant, so why did Mom have to go around screaming at Dad?

  She left. She had to, but Wendy didn’t need to scream at them. She didn’t have to storm out and maybe she could have told them everything. Maybe. But, they never would have let her go without them. That’s how parents were, and Wendy needed to do this alone so she could be with Jake. But she hadn’t realized they would die. If she knew someone was out to kill her, Wendy for sure would have told her parents everything, and taken them with her somehow.

  Wendy moaned, waking when Sally sat beside her. Her eyes widened into narrow slits as Sally put her wrist to her forehead. It was cool to the touch. “Your fever’s finally spiked. I knew it would.” Sally sighed. “It picked a hell of a time to do it.”

  “Will I be okay?’

  “Should be, for now. With some Tylenol. Most glistening women break into a small fever toward the end. Just a little harder on you, that’s all. Better get you to bed.”

  “Jake—”

  “I’ll send him along when he gets here. You need your rest. Think of the baby.”

  Wendy nodded and dry-swallowed two pills. She struggled to pull herself up from the sofa and Sally grabbed her arms and forced her to her feet. Wendy gave a soft laugh, and Sally guided her upstairs toward the bedrooms. Climbing stairs was hard on her back and her feet turned out like a duck. Wendy was out of breath by the time they reached the top.