Mayfly

by Rei Fletcher

  Hopefully empty.

  She touched the wheel, imagining driving it. Imagine just turning south and going, and never stopping. They could take turns, and be in Vancouver by tomorrow.

  They. What the fuck? But the idea felt so goddamn right to her.

  Maybe she'll take me with her when she goes. I could be an evil minion.

  Not that Ash was evil. Were there non-evil minions?

  "Marianne."

  She jumped, peering out into the dark. Her eyes had adjusted enough that she could see trees, and the spaces between them, and the little movement where the wind hit them.

  "Ash?" She opened the door a little. It was icier than she thought, and she shivered.

  "Marianne."

  "Ash, where are you? Are you hurt?" She grabbed her knife and got out, listening for the voice again to give her direction.

  "Marianne, help me."

  There was pain in her voice. Marianne started down the road, telling herself not to rush. Whatever could hurt Ash would be out there, ready to hurt her, too. She could find Ash and fix her. They could come back later and take care of the nest.

  A shadowy form limped along, just barely out of the ditch. Her hand tightened on the knife.

  "Marianne!" Her voice was so full of joy that Marianne smiled, starting forward.

  The sickly sweet stench hit her like a wall. She doubled over, stomach dumping its contents onto the gravel with surprising velocity. Her knife pinged against stone and she dove for it, rolling to her feet.

  "Marianne?" The shadow turned its head. Its voice frayed at the edges. It wasn't shadow; it was black, and grey, and it never stopped moving.

  She sprinted toward the car. Behind her, it squealed with rage. The sound of its movement was the sound of a multitude. She risked a glance back, enough to see the roiling insects sweeping along the road.

  Marianne dove into the car and slammed the door. It pattered drily against metal and glass. She didn't look at it. She hit the interior light and scrambled to close the vents, so very aware of how not airtight a car was.

  "Marianne, you promised."

  A writhing face rose up in front of the windshield. "Let us in, Marianne. Don't run away."

  She turned the key. The car roared to life. She concentrated on the mechanics of it, instead of the creeping sensation of things touching her. Oh god, were they touching her? It felt like they were touching her.

  "Let me in, Marianne. It's time to keep your promise."

  The voice had knitted itself back together. It was low and smooth, whispering to her stupid pride.

  "You still have a place with me, Marianne. Come, you're no small light. You can be my queen."

  She slammed the car into reverse, headlights flashing over the writhing shape. The glimpses were too short and she was too far away, but she knew what it was: not just caterpillars but leech-things and other things she hadn't encountered yet, gathered up into one churning form.

  Where the road turned sharply she stopped. The engine rumbled. Beneath her hands, it felt almost alive. The thing reared up. It was getting bigger, even as she watched. Oh god, it was getting so big.

  "Marianne. You promised."

  She swallowed. "I owe you jack shit, asshole."

  Her foot hit the gas. The creature lunged forward, shepherding all of its insect components into a lumpen, lopsided grab at the car. She shifted gears, feeling the car digging into the earth. The voice laughed.

  "Mine."

  There was a quick flash of light, coloured sickly green, followed by a boom that rattled her teeth. The thing began to fall apart in chunks. The car blew through the tattered remains.

  "What the—"

  She screamed and slammed on the brakes. The sound of dirt and gravel fell away. She opened her eyes. The headlights illuminated the bark of pine trees in excruciating detail, a few inches from the fender.

  "Fuck!"

  She panted, rested her head on the steering wheel. After a long, long time she figured she could move without her heart exploding.

  She left the car running and the door open. The taillights illuminated deep gouges and broad rooster-tail sprays where the wheels had kicked up dirt. She carefully ignored the crunching under her boots. She crossed the oval clearing, searching for anything still squirming around.

  Finally, she looked west. There was a vague bright spot, but nothing like the massive fire she expected. The boom, though, that had to be Ash, right? Why else would the bug monster have vanished?

  She got back into the car, hoping Ash and the world would forgive her for leaving it idling. She didn't want to be alone in the dark.

  Chapter 12

  She heard sirens passing on the highway. They were out past the city limits, but maybe the boom was big enough that it would take more than the local volunteer fire department. It sounded like a lot of them. There'd be police and ambulances and all of that.

  They grew less frequent. She searched for a flashlight and turned off the car. It wasn't long until dawn, and gas money wasn't going to do much good when there was no station nearby. She sat in the driver's seat and shivered, telling herself it was only the cold, and definitely not terror.

  "Marianne."

  It was so faint she thought it was her imagination. When it came again she shined the beam of light around the interior of the car, ready with her knife in case it was a bug that had survived. Nothing was there. Ash kept her car spotless. No place for anything to hide.

  "Marianne, help."

  She emerged cautiously, knife at the ready. Under the pine boughs, there was a strange movement and a wet sound. The beam flashed over a pale face, smeared with red, and soft brown hair.

  "Ash!"

  She ran to help her. The blood was from her stomach and leg. Marianne swallowed hard and helped her limp to the car. She felt so light.

  "We'll get help." She thought of the screaming sirens. "A doctor or something?"

  "Feed."

  Her eyes rolled up, wide and full of pain. There was so much blood. Marianne touched her hair softly, trying to make her feel better. She'd need a lot. But she'd stop, Marianne was sure of it.

  "You can. I'll let you."

  She smiled: a wry, little one. "Bless. The trunk."

  Marianne found a cooler in the back and heaved it out. Ash needed help to sit up, leaning against the side of the car. She pawed weakly at the plastic lid. Marianne pulled it off, feeling a wave of cold from the cooling packs inside, surrounding bags full of red.

  "Don't look."

  "Is it dangerous?"

  "Please!"

  Ash's expression wasn't worried; it was desperately ashamed. Marianne wanted to protest. She didn't care. It wouldn't bother her. She would prove it.

  "I'll...go keep watch."

  She went down to the bend in the road, where she could see both the car and, more distantly, the highway. It was a narrow, two-lane highway, but it was the only route west, and even at night the traffic was steady. In between the rushing of cars, the roar of the big trucks, and the now-sporadic sirens, the sounds of Ash's feeding reached her. It was a low, wet, growling, interspersed with the hollow sound of the cooler being manhandled. It didn't sound human.

  Is this what I'm okay with? Is this better than what I was doing?

  The sounds trailed off. Without any directions, Marianne decided it would be safe, or Ash wouldn't mind, anyway.

  There were scores in the dirt where Ash had scrambled for the bags. They were scattered around her like the remains of a Twinkie binge. She was laying down, and only lifted her head when Marianne approached, slowly returning to her place against the car. Marianne retrieved the overturned cooler, collecting up the empty bags, tucking them away beside the few full ones that remained. She guessed that Ash had drunk all she needed. Marianne crouched down. The little circle of light showed her flesh beneath her ragged clothes, bloody but completely whole.

  "Back to good?

  Ash nodded. "I'm sorry." She wiped her face clumsily. No
t completely back to good, then. Marianne sat down beside her and clicked off the light. It was okay now that she wasn't alone.

  "It's cool. I've seen worse."

  "I know what you saw."

  Her voice was hollow, but there was something else, too, like she was impressed. Marianne's mind flashed back to the house.

  "It was pretty shitty."

  "So it was." Maybe because she was tired, or maybe because she'd been hurt so bad, but her accent was coming out.

  "But you kicked its ass."

  "We did, yeah."

  "We're safe?"

  "From those beasties, anyway."

  "The thing that was here sort of fell apart, so I thought it might be like that. That you got rid of it."

  "Something was here?"

  Marianne nodded. "It was speaking to me. Sometimes it sounded like…him."

  "We'll be careful. Best you stay clear of him."

  Her voice was slowing. With the light off she saw how the trees were outlined with charcoal blue.

  "I'm sorry, my girl."

  "What do you need me to do?"

  "My time to sleep."

  "I can take you home."

  She insisted on taking off her ruined clothes to spare the upholstery. She was too tired to change, though, even fumbling with the blanket she tried to wrap herself in. Marianne bit her lip, then helped her with it, tucking it around her carefully. Ash cuddled into it.

  "Forgive me for the fuss," she said, while Marianne opened the door for her.

  "I wouldn't want to damage this car, either." Marianne decided that Ash didn't need to know how close she'd come to wrapping it around a tree.

  When they got Ash into the house and to her bed she sighed, sinking into sleep. Or not quite sleep. Marianne couldn't put her finger on the difference. Stillness, maybe. People moved, even when they were sleeping. Ash was like a painting.

  Pre-Raphaelite. Waterhouse. Some strain of romantic, dreamy lady. Pale women who all looked like death was around the corner. But Ash was death, not dying. Marianne pulled a sheet up around her. It seemed like a normal thing to do. And there were sheets, after all, so she must use them.

  She sat on the edge of the bed. After a moment she lay down and put her arms around her. It felt like there was no solid ground anymore; if she didn't keep running, she was going to fall.

  Hunger woke her up. Ash was still asleep, so Marianne poked through the silent kitchen, finding the odds and ends of food, like you'd expect if someone ate what tasted good, instead of what you needed to live. Her stomach rumbled.

  Her borrowed toothbrush was in the cup exactly where she'd left it. For some reason it made her feel warm. After a quick freshening up she took the car to get something real to eat.

  There was no answer when she called home. She wasn't sure if staying over at Charlene's was going to cut it as an excuse whenever she made it back. She thought briefly of returning to nap with Ash, and the yearning to stay was nearly physical.

  The blanket and couch were close enough, strung between leaving and staying. Afternoon TV turned into evening TV. She flipped through stations until she landed on the local news. It was showing the wasteland of the house. The camera panned over smouldering remains. There was maybe a depression where the hole had been. The truck was just a frame. Whatever Ash had done, it had obliterated the house, changed the contoured landscape, and left nothing behind.

  Fuck you. That's what you get for coming to our world.

  She heard the sound of water. Her heart beat faster, but it was nothing to do with fear, no matter what she tried to tell herself. Marianne's eyes remained blindly on the TV, intent on the sound of the shower and the rustle of dressing. Imagining. Thinking of her drying off, pulling on her jeans, covering her pale skin with silk.

  "Does it serve?"

  Ash leaned over the back of the sofa. She was her tidy self, the black blouse stark against her skin. She'd fed, but maybe that was all gone to the wound-healing.

  "It's fucking awesome."

  Ash smiled. "It's been a long time since I woke to a friendly face." Her eyes were deliberately on the screen. Marianne looked back at it, too.

  "I'm sorry. I borrowed your car for food."

  "Peanut butter and jam."

  "It's cheap."

  "So are burgers. Come, my girl. Let's go for a ride."

  "Shouldn't we hunt?"

  "Not every night. That way lay madness." She held out the keys. "You can drive."

  She allowed herself to caress the wheel before they left, getting comfortable in the leather seat. The rumble of the engine made her smile.

  Marianne took them to a shitty-looking plywood shack beside the elementary school. There was a line ten deep at the order window because it had the best burgers and fries and a dozen or so milkshake flavours. The sun had vanished fast, but it was summer in the north; dusk took all night to slide into twilight. Ash put the top down and turned on the radio. They ate, watching the sky turn into the sharp blue of night. Damp, cool air crept out from under the trees. The cook turned on a mosquito zapper. It sparked and snapped enthusiastically.

  "I should be eaten alive." Ash looked smug. "They don't like you?"

  "So I learned."

  "Competition."

  Ash laughed, light and surprised. Marianne searched the sky for the first star, to wish on it. She wondered if she'd be able to see Orion or the dipper. Something familiar.

  "I don't mind all that."

  "It's a bit embarrassing, turning beast, so."

  "Do you lose control?"

  Ash tilted her seat back a little. Her finger traced the splash of colour on her milkshake cup. "In the days after I became...became, I didn't understand. You know, good godly girl that I was, I thought I must have become something from the devil himself, forever out of the light of goodness. Daylight, that sort of thing. I thought I must kill. I thought if I didn't, they'd become too. Since I discovered differently, I'm as meticulous as can be."

  "Then it doesn't matter, right?"

  There was a long silence. Marianne kept her face as still as she could, determined to prove herself.

  "If I said I chose it?"

  "You...Did you have a reason?"

  "I did."

  "You hunt evil things. So…"

  So? So…

  "You want to do good. Just like everyone else."

  "Like a mosquito. A parasite."

  "No. Those things...those things at that house, those were parasites. You're no more a parasite than anyone who wears wool or drinks milk."

  Ash finally moved, tossing their garbage into the can beside the car. "Let's drive."

  "Where?"

  "You have the wheel. Wherever you want."

  The headlights tunnelled into the dark. She drove south, feeling the car eager to go faster. She had to remind herself of the speed traps that the truckers coming through always warned each other about, because she wanted to step on the gas and open the car up the way it was meant to run. Between the sparse little towns, they were suspended in a peaceful, unknowable dark, into which all of her worries evaporated, and there was only the car, and the dashboard light, and Ash, and the thin songs from the radio.

  "I know this one," she said, and Ash turned it up, white fingers tapping in time to the music. "It's old, right? I think my parents had the record."

  She knew they did. She remembered watching the record spin, nose full of the smell of the dusty record player. Her mom's voice floated from the kitchen, a beat or two off. Maybe that memory should have hurt, but she started humming along instead.

  The landscape had already begun to change by the time they made the third town over. The horizon pulled away from the highway, stretching the sky out wide above fields of yellow grass. There was a big rodeo here, she knew, though she'd never been to it. Her parents weren't rodeo types, and after her dad died there weren't any vacations at all.

  How much would it change if they just kept driving? If Ash would take her.

&nbs
p; The Eagles came on the radio. She pulled into a rest stop looking over the town. Ash put the top down again and they tilted the seats back. God, there were so many stars, and they were so beautiful. Ash kicked off her boots and put her feet up, wiggling her toes in an action so human that Marianne could forget all the vampire stuff.

  "You've been alone a long time."

  "Easier, you know."

  "Not better."

  "No, not better. In the beginning, I was learning to search them out. The beasties. Then I became, and I was such a beast myself. Then it was hunting."

  "Invisible war."

  "Wars," Ash corrected.

  "And there was no one to hunt with you."

  "My kind don't half love. To love and lose is a hard road."

  "Have you?"

  "Not often, but well."

  "Sounds lonely. Sounds...wonderful. You know. To feel something like that. Terrible to lose it. It sounds...I guess that's what life is. Wonderful and awful."

  The radio played on. Her heart beat faster. She wondered—

  "Marianne."

  Ash's voice was wistful. Marianne kept her eyes on the sky, but she wasn't looking at it, anymore. Her every sense was locked on her hand, finding Ash's. The feel of it, and the way Ash squeezed in response, melted whatever fear and confusion remained.

  She crawled over the gearshift, straddling Ash. It was so hard to breathe, and she could barely meet her eyes. Her hands rested on Ash's stomach, feeling the silk slide over her skin. Smooth and cool and…wonderful.

  "Your lad." It might have been meant as a protest. If so, it was a weak one. Her hand touched Marianne's cheek. Marianne lost her soul the moment she saw the look in her eyes. No one had ever looked at her like that.

  "Fuck him."

  Marianne kissed her, cradling her face, afraid she might move away. Instead, she felt Ash's arms close around her, and everywhere she touched was electric. She might look like marble, but she was giving flesh, and her mouth was hot and sweet. Marianne leaned back, barely able to break the kiss even for breath. Ash's hands were under her shirt, leaving lines of fire behind them. Marianne unbuttoned her blouse, exposing more of her smooth skin. There were embroidered roses around the edges of her bra. Marianne traced one with her finger, seeing Ash shiver.