by Ellery Fenn
Clarisse made a pointed face at him, and they mouthed words to each other angrily for a moment. She didn’t want to be alone with us.
“Fine,” she snapped. “Just bring me a bandanna or something to cover my nose with.” Pat left.
Corrie sunk deeper in her seat. I bristled with annoyance. She didn’t deserve to be treated this way. She was more powerful than they could ever dream of being. They should respect her. And besides, she didn’t smell that bad. The smell of the backpack full of dead fish on the other hand, was one I could’ve gone without.
Clarisse smiled nervously. “So. Anyways. I think it would work if I went through it and copied out all the relevant sections. Then I could go to the library and type them up and print out a bunch of copies. I could hand them out at school and put them in lockers.”
I nodded. “That’s a great idea. What do you think?”
Corrie shrugged, her eyes still glued to the ground.
The door creaked open and Pat handed in a bandanna. Clarisse took off her jacket and tied the cloth around her face.
“I can get started now,” she said.
I fiddled with my sleeves. “I hate to do this, but I kind of need to go.” Clarisse’s eyes widened. “Doug’s meeting with the detective right now, and we really need to know what’s going on there.”
Corrie shook her head at me.
“I’m sorry guys!” I held up my hands. The sound of a stereo playing goth music came from outside the shed. “This is really important. Good luck.”
I flew from the shed before they could talk me out of it. Pat had changed into paint-stained clothes and nodded in time with the music as I soared away.
Why did she let them treat her that way? I’d left her to their mercy. It would be a miracle if she forgave me.
I flew over the suburbs and scoped out the station from above. I should’ve been there hours before. Who knew how much had happened?
It only took a few minutes to find my way. I glided through the front doors and past the main desk, wandering fluorescent halls until I found them.
It was a small, brightly lit room. Doug, Mr. Crocker, and a man that must’ve been the detective sat across from each other at a table covered in papers. It was warm. Doug’s jacket hung on the chair behind him.
“Why didn’t you come forward about this earlier?” the detective said. His voice was perfectly emotionless.
Doug clasped his hands over the table. “Detective, I think you understand how embarrassing the situation is.” This was his polite, respectable front. “It reflects badly on me.”
I rolled my eyes. No duh. I floated by the table and watched the interaction.
“How so?”
“I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty popular at school. You’re aware of my baseball career. I’m a straight-A student. People like me. And to have some unpopular sophomore use me this way, that’s incredibly embarrassing. I can’t believe I was taken in.”
My chest began to ring. What was he saying? How had he twisted the story so far from the truth?
The detective shuffled some papers. He was exactly like you’d expect a detective to be. “You can’t let this impact you too much. She could’ve chosen anyone.”
Doug nodded solemnly. “You’re right. It’s still just… disturbing.”
“I think everyone understands that,” Mr. Crocker said. “No one thought she was capable of such a scheme.”
They couldn’t have been talking about me. It didn’t make sense.
Doug sighed. “I’m really sorry I didn’t come in sooner. I should’ve set aside my pride, and just told the truth. Yeah, framing me the way she did is, well it’s the act of a disturbed mind. But her family wants her back. That’s what’s really important, making sure she’s safe.”
Safe? Safe! He sure wasn’t thinking about my safety when he punched my lights out. For the second time that day, I began to silently cry.
“I’m glad you’re taking this seriously,” the detective said. “I know Mr. and Mrs. Bittermann will be very grateful for your testimony.”
“I’m just glad I can help.”
The room spun as I crumpled to the floor. They were talking about me. My chest tore apart. Even though I was invisible, I still had form, and that form flung out tendrils like smoke in the wind. My throat burned with tears.
“It really is a shame she’d target such an upstanding young man,” Mr. Crocker said.
I couldn’t look at them, couldn’t acknowledge their presence. I wrapped my arms around my chest. Maybe if I squeezed tight enough, I wouldn’t fall apart. I wasn’t solid enough. My arms went through, into my chest and out the other side, curling around me like vines.
“There’s one point I’m confused on,” the detective said. “The blood on her dress. Are you saying she went to such lengths as to cut herself to get the blood?”
Another round of tears shook my shoulders, shook them apart and away from me. They grew, I grew. I filled the room.
“I know she did,” Doug said. “I didn’t want to tell anyone this, but I did see scars on her wrists before this whole incident.”
Scars? I was terrified of anything sharp. I fainted when the doctor drew my blood.
“I see,” the detective said. He wrote a note. “That’s very interesting.”
“I really think it’s the influence of that friend of hers. Not that I blame Clarisse for what happened. But Lisa was so different before they met.”
I clawed at my neck, but there was no neck to claw at. I unraveled. Mist flowed from me like blood in water, up to the ceiling, coiling around each of the men, insubstantial tentacles I wished I could choke them with. Doug hadn’t even known me before Clarisse. How dare he pin this on her?
“It’s important to take into consideration all influences,” the detective said. “She may have wanted to run away before, but this Clarisse could’ve definitely pushed her over the edge.”
Mist spewed from my mouth, my eyes, my mind, filling the room. Ran away? Is that what they said I did? Ran away?
“That makes sense,” Doug said. “I don’t think Lisa would come up with a plan like this on her own. I mean, it’s so extreme. Staging an attack just to keep the pressure off her?”
“We shouldn’t attribute motives to her actions,” the detective said. “It’s what makes sense to us, but if she has a history of cutting, it’s entirely likely that she did it for attention.”
Their words echoed in my mind. Framed him. Cut herself. Did it for attention. Weren’t detectives supposed to be impartial?
“What’s this mist?” Mr. Crocker said. “Is something wrong with the air conditioning?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll have someone look into it when we’re done here.”
“Like I said, I’m just glad I could help. I hope she can get taken care of,” Doug said.
“Oh, don’t worry,” the detective said. “She’ll be taken care of.”
I screamed without a mouth, rage and despair tearing through the air. Papers flew from the table. Lights flickered. I screamed until I had no vocal cords, screamed until I had nothing, screamed until I couldn’t scream anymore. My voice echoed like the last note of a song.
Mr. Crocker’s voice trembled. “That had to be the pipes.”
Doug nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Pipes.”
“You’re right,” the detective said. “We’d better vacate the room. Just in case.”
They scrambled to the hall and slammed the door behind them. I coalesced back into a vague human shape, collapsed to the ground, and cried.
Chapter Eighteen
Corrie
Clarisse and I stared awkwardly at each other. I scratched under my turban.
“Your makeup’s bad. Like, really bad.”
“I know.”
“Lisa’s never been great at makeup.”
Clarisse wasn’t either. There was no subtlety to her black and white appearance.
I fumbled with the zipper on the bag she lent me and grabbed a fis
h to nibble on. A hissing noise from outside startled me.
“That’s Pat,” she said. “Spray painting.”
I swallowed and nodded.
She pulled a notebook from her bag. “Why do you eat that stuff?”
The desiccated fish looked back at me from my hands. “I… have to.”
“Oh. So you don’t eat brains?”
I choked on a scale. “B-brains?”
“Yeah.” Her expression was curious rather than joking.
I shook my head.
“Oh. Do you mind if I pull the couch up to the workbench? So I can sit and have a hard surface to write on?”
I shoved the rest of the fish in my mouth, stood, and pushed the loveseat into place before she could move.
“Oh.” She set the notebook on the workbench. “Thank you. You’re really strong.”
I swallowed my snack.
She flipped through the first few pages of the diary. “I hate reading this. You don’t know how bad it is.”
I chuckled.
“What? You can’t read, can you?”
Brain-eating, illiterate zombies must’ve been a regular occurrence for her. I nodded.
“Oh. You read this?”
I nodded again.
She sighed. “I just hate seeing this little peek into his mind. Like right here, ‘July 5th, 1986.’ That was only a few months ago. ‘Got with my cousin again at the barbecue. She didn’t want to, but I said I’d tell her parents, so she gave me a handjob.’ I mean, does he genuinely believe that’s okay?”
The thought of him still brought phantom hands to my skin, still made my head ache. Still made my mind swim with violence. The violence he treated me to. The violence I wished to return to him.
She transcribed the entry, mumbling to herself. “I should probably go in order. But I can fix that later.”
Dust drifted through the yellow air that streamed from one grimy window. Various projects lay unfinished on the workbench. An unhemmed pair of pants. A disassembled alarm clock. A pair of shoes, half painted with the words ‘The Cure’. Posters of people dressed the same way as Clarisse and Pat hung from every wall. Joy Division. Siouxsie and the Banshees. Bauhaus, the same word that was on Clarisse’s shirt.
She caught me looking. “It used to be his dad’s shed, but he never used it, so Pat took over. It’s kind of like his special place.” The scratching of her pencil stopped. “You should be really grateful he’s letting you in here.”
I sunk in my seat. “I am.”
Her eyes were intense. If that was the purpose of the charcoal around them, she was a better makeup artist than I thought. “Good. Cause you know, it’s not his fault he’s scared of you. He’s shy, and you’re really freaky.” She returned to her writing. “I get it that you and Lisa are really close now, but we were her friends first.”
She flipped the page and continued, filling several sheets of paper in silence. She tapped her foot to the faint music Pat played. I counted the posters.
She set the pencil down and leaned back.
“Done?”
“No.” She tugged at a string on her fraying shorts. “Just thinking.” I pulled at one of my fingernails. “Lisa’s changed.”
She gazed up at the faint outline of a tree in the window.
“I mean, yeah, obviously she’s changed. She’s…” She swallowed. “Well, she’s changed. You didn’t know her before. She was- shy. Quiet. Just went along with what anybody said, just to make them happy. Wanted to do whatever I was doing. Kept to herself.” She picked at the eraser of the pencil. “I didn’t mind. I’ve known her a long time, longer than I’ve known Pat.”
I raised my eyebrow.
“No, yeah. I wasn’t always like this.” She gestured to herself. “I was a horse girl. And when we met, Lisa wasn’t as shy as she is now. We were twelve. Summer camp. She came up with all the best games.” She laughed. “We got in so much trouble. But high school’s different. She’s not popular. Me and Pat are her only friends. Well, me. Pat just comes with me.”
She through a few more pages. “Her parents really suck. They never liked my family, but when I met Pat and got into goth, they really freaked. Wouldn’t let her see me. Didn’t stop her though. She sneaks out to my house all the time. And they can’t keep us apart at school.”
She wrote down another entry.
“Lisa got really, even more… subservient, I guess. Started really caring about her appearance and boys and all that. But I mean,” she laughed. “That obviously wasn’t ever going to work.”
I growled. How dare she say that?
Clarisse jumped and stared at me. “No, no, that’s not what I mean. She’s gorgeous and funny and really a great person. She’s just, not into guys.”
I settled back in my seat, tilting my head in confusion.
“She doesn’t acknowledge it, represses it. But she’s a lesbian.”
I concentrated on the few fuzzy memories I had of life, but nothing came.
“I’ve just been waiting for her to accept it on her own.” The scratching of her pencil filled the shed again.
I ran my finger over my nose bone. I didn’t care for human conventions and the prejudices of the living. They had no hold on my life. I wouldn’t have guessed that she was attracted to girls, but I wasn’t surprised either.
So why was my mind reeling, replaying every moment we spent together? Her head leaning on my lap, her arms around me, the touch and smell of her soft hair, her cheeks sparkling with blush. The softness she employed as she cleaned my wounds. The quiet in the closet as she dressed me.
When she held my hand, what did that mean? When she said I was important to her, what did that mean? When she smiled like the sun, when she touched my skin, when she laughed and danced with me, what did that mean?
My skin tingled with the memory of her touch. I’d kept my gaze from her as best I could, refused to think of her like that. But now there was a chance. I could hope.
I shook my head to clear the thoughts. This was wishful thinking, fantasy, as killing Doug had been. A happy ending that would never happen. It was sick to think of her in that way. She was me; I was her. We’d been one in life. If anything, we should be like sisters. Was this incest?
“But anyways, what I was saying is that she’s changed. She’s not as shy. She’s kind of the leader of this whole operation, and that wouldn’t have happened before. It’s like she’s become the best version of herself. It’s just a shame it happened too late.”
I couldn’t imagine Lisa any other way. Too late for whom?
Clarisse looked up from her writing. “Don’t tell her I said any of this.”
I shook my head, my emotions still rolling. As strange as it seemed, the shed felt like a confessional booth. Truth could reside here that could never be allowed elsewhere.
She eyed me warily. “Good.”
The hissing of spray paint paused. Pat entered the shed a few minutes later.
“How’re you doing?”
“Good. I’ve got… ten, eleven, fifteen entries so far. And there’s still a bunch to go.”
“Ew. What a horny guy.”
“You’re an idiot.” Her eyes rested softly on him. “It’s not about sex. It’s about power, about what he can get away with. Horny people are too busy reading porn mags to rape people.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.” He handed her two cans of soda.
“That’s cause you’re a guy. And a good guy. Thanks babe.”
He blushed through his makeup. “Shut up.”
She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. He lowered her bandanna and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her tight to his lanky body. She cradled his face in her hands with a moan.
I felt like a voyeur, but I couldn’t look away. They clung to each other like magnets, angling together as though they were the center of each other’s gravity. It was like something from a fairy tale. True love’s kiss.
Pat made eye contact with me and pulled away. “Maybe n
ot right now.”
She tugged at his shirt with a pout. “Fine.”
“I’m going to get back to work.”
Clarisse took a seat as he closed the door behind him, a smile on her face. She cracked open a can and handed it to me.
I raised the cold drink to my lips. Bubbles filled my mouth and I involuntarily spit.
She choked on her drink. “Are you okay?”
I put my tongue in and out of my mouth to get the taste off. It burned. I frantically unzipped the bag and licked a fish.
“That’s disgusting.”
I pushed the can as far away from me as the workbench allowed. If Doug was a drink, he’d taste like that.
She laughed and adjusted her bandanna. “Guess that doesn’t taste like rotting flesh, huh?”
I shook my head as she flipped to a new page in the journal.
“What’s it like, being a zombie? Do you remember when you were alive?”
“A little.”
“How long have you been a zombie?”
I did the math in my head. “Two days.”
She drew away from me, her eyes hard on my face. “Are you serious? You died two days ago?”
I nodded.
“That’s, that’s the same night Lisa…”
I averted my gaze.
“That’s… that’s really weird.”
She stared at me warily before writing a few more entries, glancing at me suspiciously every little while. After a moment, she cracked the door.
“Pat, can you bring me some water?” She wrote another entry while he brought her a glass. “Thanks babe.” She set the cup down without drinking and closed the door tightly.
She shoved the couch back and walked to me, her eyes boring into mine. I growled softly as she advanced.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a baby. I’m just going to take your makeup off.”
I held as still as the dead, narrowing my eyes at her as she squinted at me. She wet the rag and wiped my face clean. Her touch was like sandpaper, whereas Lisa’s had been like silk.
She pulled away with an expression I couldn’t discern. “Stand up.”
She circled, looking me up and down. She threw my turban to the ground and stepped right up to my face. She put her hand to her head and drew it straight across to me, measuring our heights.