by Amy Berg
And then, for a brief second, her eyelids flutter. I stagger back. No. That’s not possible. The earth groans in the distance, followed by a sharp creak. The ice below my feet trembles and spiderwebs out. I move to run, but lose my footing and fall. It’s the last thing I remember.
I come to, unsure of how much time has passed. A sharp pain hums in the back of my head. I feel for it and find blood on my fingertips. I grab for my pack, but it’s gone. I start to panic. I scan the landscape for any identifying markers, but the world looks invisible. I cannot tell the difference between the horizon and the ground. I whirl around in search of my own shadow. But there’s nothing. I’m in the middle of a whiteout, and if I don’t get back to the hut soon, I’m going to freeze to death.
A faint glow in the distance moves toward me. Its radiance attacks my eyes. I wince, but out of it I see the silhouette of a figure. He moves quicker than I’d expect, as if he’s drifting above the snow. “Richard. Thank god.”
But as he gets closer, I see the outline of a body that does not match Richard’s. It’s slighter, more feminine. And out of the whiteout walks the woman who was trapped in the ice, now free, wearing the same strange smirk on her face.
A curious ache shoots through my hands. My heart beats loudly in my throat. What the fuck is going on? This woman is dead. Moments ago, she was entrapped in ice, and now… Now, I cannot move. I cannot breathe. I can only stare.
She is less than five feet tall and certainly not more than a hundred pounds. Her eyes are as dark as her long, matted hair. She has scars across her neck. Or perhaps they’re tattoos. Whatever they are, she carries them well. Animal skins barely cover her body. Her arms are strong, her stomach taut, her hands and feet the size of a child’s. But she is not a child; she is very much a woman. Seemingly from another time.
I should run. But where can I go? I cannot tell up from down. I momentarily lose all feeling in my body. It’s at least thirty below now. Wake up, I tell myself. The wind agrees, and charges at me. Wake up, it screams. Fucking move. Don’t let this woman near you. But the cold seeps into my insides.
The woman reaches out and grabs my hand.
“No,” I mutter. “Stop.”
She obeys.
I came to Erebus for isolation. Now all I want is to be back in the hut with the eleven other researchers. I think about Richard and hope he made it back safely. I can imagine he and the others sitting around the stove, playing Monopoly, or reading. Or perhaps Mary Anne is baking one of her weird cakes for the group. She loves baking cakes.
Here I am, in the middle of a whiteout, completely lost, with a woman who is probably dead, thinking about cake.
She reaches her hand out again, and this time I take it. I’m not sure why. Her body is warm, which I failed to notice the first time she touched me. I inspect her hands—calluses along her palms, dirt under her fingernails. A moment passes and she peers into my eyes. A calm washes over me. And then, very suddenly, she reaches out and touches my face. I’m terrified, unable to move.
She points toward what I think is the sky, and tugs at my hand. She wants me to follow her…
If I believed in God, I might think she is an angel sent down from Heaven. But I stopped believing in God a long time ago.
I held the paper booklet my grandparents made at Kinko’s tightly in my hand, and ran my thumb across the Xeroxed photograph of my mother. She was younger and had different hair. There were at least four other pictures I knew she would’ve preferred, but I didn’t have a say. My grandparents made all the arrangements themselves. I was only twelve. Below my mother’s smiling face was a cheesy quote about birds and souls and being set free.
My mother never took me to church or talked about religion, so I knew it was one of the many things she didn’t believe in. I understood why. Everything in church smelled old and seemed intentionally dismal. Even their most optimistic hymn, “Christ Is Risen,” about a man who came back from the dead, sounded terribly sad. I felt guilty for not believing in any of it, but I also knew that if my mother were with me, she would’ve agreed. There was nothing about this service that represented her.
My grandparents didn’t know that her favorite songs to sing along to in the car were The Bangles’ “Manic Monday” and Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes”. They didn’t know that she didn’t mind crumbs in the bed as long as they were from cookies. They didn’t know that she smiled even bigger when someone said something hurtful. They didn’t know that she did the best she could.
The booklet with my mother’s picture on it was made of cheap, thin paper. She deserved card stock. The paper’s edges didn’t even line up. It was a rushed job. I unfolded it, laid it flat across my lap, aligned the corners to match, and then folded it again. There. I could feel people’s eyes on me. I glanced to my right and caught the attention of a gaggle of women. They cocked their heads to the side, as if to sigh in unison, Oh honey. I knew very little about pity, but in that moment, I decided to hate it. As soon as I turned my attention elsewhere, they began to whisper.
“Her poor kid. Looks just like her too. I always knew there was something, didn’t you?”
“Well, she certainly hid it less and less.”
“She was beautiful, I’ll give her that. But such a mess.”
I noticed a tiny piece of cracked wood coming off the edge of the pew. I rubbed my finger against it, hoping I’d get a splinter. But it wouldn’t take. I wondered why these friends of my mother’s decided to share their opinions on a day intended to celebrate her life. If all they wanted was to be heard, then why whisper at all?
I had to get out. I leaned over to my grandmother, “I’m going to the bathroom.”
She nodded, “Do you know where it is?”
I bumbled over the kneelers in the pew, and made it into the aisle. A few stragglers were standing in the back, blocking my exit. They squeezed my shoulder on the way out, which I assumed was the most a stranger could offer in a moment like this. If they had known me better they might’ve given me a hug. I would’ve preferred that no one touched me at all.
Once I made it to the lawn I took a seat and a deep breath. Freedom, I thought. Freedom from the dusty pews, the creaking floors, the whispers; freedom from my mother’s dead body enclosed inside some stupid box.
I lay down in the grass and looked up at the sun until my eyes stung. It felt good. Then I noticed something on my hand—a ladybug. I thought it was bizarre to be granted good luck on the same day as my mother’s funeral.
“Meryl. Do you know what this means?”
My grandmother had found me.
I shook my head no.
She smiled, “It’s a sign. A sign that your mom is still with you.”
And without even thinking, I shook the insect from my hand.
I am running out of time. I can feel it with every step. I watch the breath escape my mouth and the cold air eat it up. I’ve been following this woman for miles, and still, there’s nothing.
I stumble over my words. “Where—where are you taking me?”
She continues into the storm without answering.
Every detail on her body looks human; the follicles on her face, the small hairs sticking up on her skin. I wonder if she blushes.
Perhaps if I cut her open I’ll know if she is real or not. At least then I can study her. I can have evidence to confirm my fear. Richard would understand. It was for research, I’d say. It was only for research. The woman looks back at me for a moment, as if she knows what I am considering. Then she continues through the snow, neither cold nor exhausted.
My body aches. Three different places in each knee hurt. At least I can still feel my knees, because I have lost feeling in my fingers and toes. I try to breathe life into my hands, but my lungs are too cold to offer any.
I’ll be dead soon. And then I will be the woman someone else finds in the ice. Maybe I am already dead. I am, aren’t I? I must be. This explains it. What a terrible heaven I’ve created for myself.
; But I know death is not the only explanation. Not for me. It’s not even the most likely. I know what this woman is. I have known it all along. Why try to make it back if the truth is only going to follow me?
With this singular thought, I allow my body to collapse to the ground. The snow hugs me, and I feel warm. This is it.
It was a warm night when I smiled at her, and she stared back with a gleam in her eyes that screamed adventure. She tilted her head back and laughed. My mother did that a lot. It was always the loudest, most infectious laugh too—the kind that turns heads in a movie theater. When I laughed it always felt small, contained. As if I were holding back.
She took me out to dinner at our favorite spot because it was a Tuesday, and she said Tuesdays were more fun when we didn’t treat them that way. I asked her if I could order the fried chicken breast. It was toward the bottom of our plastic menu, which meant it was one of the more expensive entrees.
“Sure,” she said. “But only if you tell the waiter you want the fried chicken boob.” She laughed again.
“Mom,” I groaned with a smile.
She leaned in, as if we were making a special pact. “Do we have a deal or what?”
I gave a rebellious nod. She made everything thrilling.
After dinner, she held my hand as we walked home. She reenacted the waiter’s reaction to the word “boob” with impassioned exaggeration. Boooob, he said. Boooob. Her version of the story was always better. But as we continued down the half-empty streets, her grip tightened around my hand. A panicked squeeze.
“Mom?”
Her head frantically jerked around.
“Mom? What is it? What’s wrong?”
She mumbled to herself.
I looked around, but no one was there. It was happening again.
She tugged on my backpack and yanked it free from my shoulders. She unzipped the center pocket, reached inside, and found my purple scissors. The same pair I used to make construction paper snowflakes that morning.
This was not the first time my mother saw things that weren’t there. She was sick, and it was getting worse. I knew that much. But we were a team, and I made her a promise. If grandma and grandpa asked, I would tell them that everything was fine, that things weren’t that bad. I decided that it wasn’t a lie if I believed it too.
She cowered in a corner and clenched the scissors defensively.
I reached down to her, “Mom?”
She swung the scissors at me, “No. No. No.”
I backed away. The mischief in her eyes, her big, bellowing laugh, it was all gone. She was tiny and fragile and angry. I wanted to fix her. I wanted to understand. I decided that if my mother was afraid, then I should be too.
I closed my eyes. Nothing that I had seen in this world rattled her, so whatever tormented her must have come from a world outside of our own. I imagined a gigantic, misshapen creature. It had black eyes and long, pointy fingers, like the one from that movie I saw when I stayed up past my bedtime. The creature loomed over her small body with wicked intention. No. Stop. Please. But these were only thoughts in my head, not words I could express. She needed my help, but I couldn’t move. I tasted vomit in the back of my throat. Regurgitated dread. I screamed, but nothing came out.
The creature was inches from my mother’s face, taunting her. She gripped the scissors, took a breath, and stabbed a hole in its chest. The creature’s heart was bigger than she expected, but she kept at it, snipping away until it was completely torn to pieces. I smiled. She did it. She was a hero.
But when I opened my eyes, I saw my mother’s body on the ground, the scissors still in her hand.
The creature took her on a Tuesday. It was only a matter of time until it would come for me.
I lie in the snow, content with my decision to die. But the petite woman standing over me does not approve.
“Leave me alone,” I mutter.
She takes my arm.
“No!” I scream. “I don’t want to. Leave me the fuck alone!”
She begins dragging me across the snow. I try to pull my arm away from hers. I try to dig my heels into the ground. I want to be an anchor, but she’s far stronger than me. My arm is going to dislocate any second.
I beg her, “Let me go. Please.”
But she won’t. I feel the wet snow sliding down my back. Behind me my body is creating a path like a plow. The woman pulls harder, dragging me even faster now.
I make pictures in my head—the sun hitting my face, dancing to one of my favorite songs, making a cannonball into a pool, a marionberry pie, a good kiss, the taste of something new. I’m going to die. And that’s okay.
Then the woman lets me go. I wonder if I’m falling, but when I open my eyes I’m still lying in the snow. The woman is gone. I have a strange desire to call out for her. But before I can, someone says my name.
“Meryl.” A hand reaches down and touches my forehead. I look up and see Richard standing over me.
I try my best to speak, but all I can mutter is, “Where…?”
“You made it back. I need to get you in the hut. Come on.” He puts a blanket over me and tries to help me up.
“Where is she?” I ask softly.
“Who?” Richard looks around, confused. “Is there someone else with you?”
I turn away from him, embarrassed, and look out into the distance. I strain my eyes to find the difference between the horizon and the ground, but everything looks the same.
And then, I see her, staring at me from afar—the woman who dragged me to safety instead of tearing me apart. I am all she has. I am the only one who sees her, and the only one who ever will.
About The Author
Lauren LeFranc grew up in Orange County, California before hipsters called it The O.C. and when most only knew it as “that place between LA and San Diego.” She later attended Brown University, where she wrote and performed in the school's premier sketch comedy group, Out of Bounds. After graduating with a degree in Anthropology-Linguistics, Lauren worked as a brand strategist at the advertising agency, TBWAChiatDay in San Francisco. She moved to Los Angeles soon after, and has been lucky enough to write for various dramas with her writing partner, Rafe Judkins, ever since. Lauren’s credits include My Own Worst Enemy, Chuck, and Hemlock Grove. She is currently a writer-producer on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Follow her on Twitter: @LaurenLeFranc
“Dangerous Stars”
by Kam Miller
Erika Harlow, PhD – February 13, 8:07PM
Dr. Erika Harlow knew the hush of death. She’d felt it since she’d arrived at this scene, like the house was holding its breath. Despite the familiar activity of the uniformed police and crime scene technicians, an eerie feeling climbed up her back, whispered in her ear, confirming: This place has known violence.
As she moved up the oak staircase to the second floor of this restored Washington, D.C., row house, the feeling intensified. It reminded her anew of the violence that had visited her own home when she was just six years old.
Now a psychologist for the Victims Assistance Center, she’d been called in on an apparent suicide. Erika took in the scene. The dead girl lay on the flooded bathroom tile floor. At 16, Angela Dunn was 90 pounds dripping wet. Her lips blue. Her skin leeched pale. Her drenched pink cotton sweater stained crimson at the cuffs. Careful T-incisions marred the teenager’s wrists. An X-Acto knife gleamed dully beside the claw-footed bathtub. Bloody water nearly filled the tub. More blood-tinged water covered the bathroom floor.
Erika felt the hallway carpet squish beneath her foot. Instinctively, she stepped back, having violated the now-sacred tidal pool. Still she felt its pull, its undertow. She shook it off. Erika wasn’t here for reflection; she had a job to do. She’d been called in to speak with Angela’s family – her latest foster family, the Becketts.
According to Angela’s Child and Family Services file, the Becketts had been Angela’s longest placement at 18 months. In fact, Angela’s 13-year-old half-sister, C
laire, had just been placed in the Becketts’ care as well. So why would Angela decide to end it all now?
Erika frowned. Something else didn’t sit well with her. Angela’s prune-y fingers had been perfectly French manicured. Cyanotic blue showed through the pale pink base, giving Angela’s nail beds a purplish hue. The precise, white tips of her nails stood out starkly as a vanity against death. The manicure offered Erika’s first solid clue all was not as it appeared.
Detective Carter Hunt – February 13, 7:10PM
They got the call-out during dinner break. Carter Hunt had been eating at his desk. His partner, Edison James, a 20-plus-year veteran, had vanished, going God-knew-where for his meal. All Carter knew was it wasn’t with him. Carter had brought a sack of fast food back to the station house. It was better than eating alone at Mickey D’s.
Crumpling the remains of his burger wrapper and stuffing it into the cardboard French-fry sleeve, he chucked the grease-stained trash into his trash can. Captain John Decker strode out of his office clutching two message slips in his hand. A sturdy man in his 50s with a gray flattop, Decker’s bearing screamed former military, as did his no-bullshit demeanor. After eyeballing the bullpen, he let out a visible sigh and headed toward Carter.
“Where’s your partner?” Decker asked.
“Break. I reckon he’ll be back soon. We got a case?” Carter answered, his Southern drawl stroking and stretching each word, each syllable.
Washington, D.C., was technically in the South, below the Mason-Dixon line. But Washington, a veritable island of international importance, remained its own entity. The District of Columbia was a metropolis where the most powerful political players on the planet did their dirty work. This was Carter Hunt’s beat. But it wasn’t Carter Hunt’s world.
This Carolina transplant had just been promoted to homicide detective at the Metropolitan Police Department. His colleagues made no bones about how they felt. They thought he was a country-music-loving, tobacco-spitting, Ford-F-150-truck-driving, dumb hick straight out of Deliverance. Well, they were wrong. He wasn’t dumb, and he’d never seen Deliverance, though he got the gist it wasn’t flattering. And the rest? Well, Carter couldn’t deny he enjoyed a big truck, a little Rascal Flatts, and a pinch of Skoal.