by Micah Thomas
“Curvature. This isn’t necessarily going to help you with your Pre-Calc prep work for next semester, but I thought we might as well touch on it,” Mrs. Jackson said and started sketching out maths on the chalkboard.
Peter raised his arm in a lazy motion. “Mrs. Jackson?”
She turned. “Yes, Peter?”
In his stoner voice—universal speak for high school boys—Peter said, “Heh, are curves something you know a lot about?”
He was shooting for a laugh, Eva knew. Mrs. Jackson was what she thought of as buxom, which was a literary term for “holy shit, big boobs”.
“As a matter of fact, Peter, yes. Is there something about the angles and sides of spherical polygons that interests you?”
When he didn’t get the laugh, he slumped in his seat.
“No. I like your curves though,” he muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Eva shot him an angry glance. God, how could this Neanderthal be Dylan’s best friend? Mrs. Jackson ignored the comment, because she’s a goddamned professional, Eva thought. The world had changed in every single vital way, but dipshits still were dipshits.
The lesson was long and boring; Eva zoned out more than once. It was different than fainting. She had these instances the doctors had told her were dissociation and she knew she zoned out. Eva knew she had a problem. A lot of people had it worse though. In Civics, they learned about the world today, never outright mentioning the Raid—not in school—but it was there. A looming event had changed the world almost overnight. An event which made their studies more pointless than they ever were before.
She practically sleepwalked through the first half of the day; Pre Calc, French, History, Art. School was more a daycare than anything else. If we weren’t here, we’d be throwing rocks in the street, making mud pies and babies.
At lunch, she picked up a cheese pizza and looked for Dylan. He was there, at a long cafeteria table holding court—probably talking about the power of poetry. Her belly did a funny butterfly thing as she approached and caught his eye.
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” he concluded. Peter looked bored, practically a mutant shoving fries in his mouth, but the others—the girls—had been eating it up. Amy smiled and made room for Eva, scooting away from Dylan’s side.
“Hey, Evie,” Amy said, not even bothering to force a smile.
Eva hated the pet name, but she tolerated it. “Hi, Amy.”
“Babe,” Dylan wrapped his arm around her waist, “you feeling better?”
She wished Vickie had lunch with them, but they had different schedules. There were just about a thousand students at the school. Small, but still enough to keep them on different schedules, lest the inmates foment a rebellion.
“Yeah. Tip top.” Even if she wasn’t, Eva wouldn’t let Amy know anything. She would never trust the eyes beneath those sharp bangs.
“Hey, did you hear they’re gonna do football this year?” Peter asked.
“How does that work? There’s not another school to play against,” Eva said.
“We’re gonna have two teams, genius. God,” Dylan said.
“Great. How did we live without football last year?” Eva said and hoped her sarcasm wouldn’t bleed through.
“I know, right?” Dylan, oblivious, agreed.
“Dude, you gotta try out. I’m going to try out. Can’t wait to smash some heads,” Peter said through a mouth full of half chewed fries.
Dylan chuckled, “Maybe. What do you think, babe? Want to date a high school hero?” He grabbed a roll from Amy’s plate and made the motions of throwing a long pass.
“Hell yeah!” Peter mocked going long.
“Whatever you want,” Eva said. She leaned in to whisper to Dylan, “Are you still going to want me even though I’m not a cheerleader type?”
Dylan smiled and Eva thought she’d gotten through to him, but not. He said, “Hey, that’s a fair point. Amy, you’d be a cheerleader, wouldn’t you?”
Eva picked the gross cheese product off her pizza and ate the soggy bread in silence. Fucking Amy. Why was she even here? If things stayed the way they were, and why wouldn’t they? Eva had known these same hundred or so people her entire life. No getting rid of them. If things hadn’t been this way, she was sure she’d have gone to the city and never looked back. No one else seemed to mind; high school was supposedly the best time of their lives and for some of them, it seemed to be all that mattered.
Eva saw some “bad kids” being harassed by a teacher at the entrance. Had they been out back smoking weed? They had the right idea. She’d always wanted to join them. The bad kids read books. They’d been to the city. Listened to interesting music. In the social hierarchy, Eva was an outsider to even the outsiders. If she hadn’t been broken and spent so much time away, she’d likely be the vapid Amy type: moneyed, white, preppy. It was Dylan who kept her from falling off the radar to some place beneath freaks and geeks. He’d had an easy life and was popular, but he was something more, too. An old soul.
School disallowed PDA, but she and Dylan snuck a quick kiss behind his open locker. She stole a glance into his organized shelf of books and notebooks. His orderly way always surprised her in contrast to her messy method of shit in a backpack, papers folded or wadded up inside. He had to go to class. The school bell directed their lives. Their wardens stood in the halls, smiling with arms crossed and ready to teach them something because that was just what you did.
Eva shuffled on, going through the motions. Ignoring jerks, not playing along with note passing, she’d bear this sentence with the dignity of a prisoner who knew for a fact nothing was any better on the outside. She was Red in Shawshank Redemption, but didn’t have an Andy to give the time meaning. She did have Vickie, though.
With the final bell, the great, daily exodus began. Some parents met their children on bikes of their own. The scene was pastoral. Bucolic. Eva knew these words and thought they applied. The after-school scene was like some Scandinavian utopia where families laughed and played together.
Eva spotted Victoria saying goodbye to the bad kids and headed over with a sly grin.
“What are you smiling about?” Eva asked.
“Nothing.”
“Victoria Smart, did you buy drugs today?”
“Maybe. If I did, would you be interested in being my date?”
“My dear, I would be honored to escort you. Our usual location, I presume?”
“Just so.”
The sun came out to shine through holes in the grey clouds as they rode their bikes out to the water, down from the disused ferry docks, to a section of the beach where no one but they ever hung out. This was a dead zone; morbidly beautiful. Along the beach, sand and rocks fused to glass and shimmered in the evening sun. Statues of men, soldiers in some unknown battle, stood with guns aimed up the shore.
“It is beautiful here,” Eva said.
“I wonder why there’s never anyone else here?” Victoria asked absently.
“I think something bad happened,” Eva said, scratching her head and hoping and fearing the motion would clear the cobwebs from her memory. She did remember something, but it wasn’t nice.
They had but a single, anemic joint. Once lit, they passed it back and forth with the amateurish clumsiness befitting the sad little thing.
Joint finished, Eva closed her eyes and enjoyed the cool breeze over the lake. She wanted to dream of running away. Of escaping to something new. Forget about the what ifs.
Victoria spoke in the slow, deliberate, cadence of a stoner. “It seemed the thing they sought was closer, ever closer. Escape from the great dream. The real beyond the facade. This obsession consumed all it was fed. Lives and time. How bitter to find, at the heart of the maze, the same old death there.”
“What the fuck did you just say?” Eva asked, shocked out of her reverie.
“What?” Victoria stretched her arms over her head and let out a slow breathe.
; Eva fidgeted with her hands in her lap. “What did you just say?”
“Was I talking? I’m so fucking high. Do you think I should dye my hair again?”
Eva looked down at the beach. Again, she almost remembered something important. Something real.
***
In the middle of the night, Eva woke with her heart racing. She’d been dreaming about the Black Star Institute again. There was a time they’d dosed her with a new medication and she’d dissociated for a week. In her dream, she was there again, with a sense that she was two people. One was a mind she identified as herself, and the other was some thing capable of moving her around like a robot, but whose thoughts were beyond her. Shuddering at the memory, Eva checked the clock. 3 a.m. The house was so quiet. After tossing around a few times and making a good effort at going back to sleep, she gave up and pulled on some sweats. Why not take a nice bike ride to clear her head?
The island was dark; the old, dead streetlights looked sad with their hangdog expressions. She picked up speed as she left her block, wind on her face, inhaling the fog rolling in from the lake. This felt good. She was connected to herself. She never felt this way around her family or at school. It was as if Eva could only be herself when no one was around.
A mist of rain blew against her skin as she followed the road back from the coast and saw lights coming from the shops in the main drag. Odd, she thought, who’d be at work at this hour? She should stop. Go home. Go home, a voice in her head repeated. The voice was persistent, but not strong enough. She pedaled harder towards downtown, eyes fixed on the light. She wasn’t paying attention to the road and hit the curb with too much forward momentum. The bike flipped and tossed Eva head first onto the pavement.
“Fuck.” She cradled her face.
Warm blood seeped onto her hoodie. She touched the gash at her hairline. Not good.
Closing her eyes, Eva felt an internal static where there was usually a comforting nothing. Instead of fainting or having a fit as she thought of it, she opened her eyes again. She checked herself for more injuries but was intact other than the cut on her head. Not too shabby, idiot, she thought. Could’ve died out here and been found in the morning. What a way to go.
She picked up her bike and studied the bent wheel with disgust. “Fuck,” she repeated. Only a few blocks away from the lighted store fronts, she decided to carry on her mission and see what was happening. If one of those open stores was the pharmacy, she might as well pick up a Band-Aid.
Despite her fall—or because of it—she was clearer headed than she’d been in years. Maybe even before the Black Star days. A kick to the noggin could have been all she needed. Sorry Mom, sorry Dad. Didn’t mean to waste a fortune on medical bills. You only needed to drop me on my head when I was a baby or buy a mule and put me behind it.
As she approached, Eva could hear voices, moans, laughter, and a few screams. The static inside her head threatened to bleed over into her sight. She saw stars even with her eyes open.
Cautiously, Eva peered around the edge of the grocery store—the first store on the block. She blinked against the light. Against what she saw there. No fucking way.
There, in the store, was kind, Mr. Dickenson, her teacher, buck-ass naked, jerking off onto the ass of someone bent over, who was in turn, fucking someone with dark hair’s mouth.
Eva turned away, desperately hoping she wasn’t seen. She never thought his would be the first penis she’d see. How many people were in there? Oh, god, was this what everyone did when she was sleeping? A fresh wave of agitated noise, like the buzzing of bees in a hive, hit her mind, giving her a shudder. Her head hurt. There was a keening noise coming from inside store. She looked back again and this time there was blood. Whose blood?
There had to be at least thirty people in there, people she knew from school, from town. They reminded Eva of zombies. Sex was supposed to be fun, but they didn’t look like they were even having a good time. It was so porny and extreme. They were cutting themselves, using the blood for lubricant, writhing in it, wailing. Gross. So gross.
Eva looked away. She didn’t want to see anymore. The window pane of the pharmacy shattered and the celebrants spilled over the broken glass from the store, ambling into the street. Eva gasped in horror. Hide. I’m not supposed to see this. She wanted to turn and run, to go home fast, but was transfixed. Instead, she cowered in the alley and watched. She was shaking and couldn’t think clearly. This had to be a dream.
Then Eva spotted her dad. Daddy. Covered in blood, he stood in the street illuminated by the store light, licking the face of some man she didn’t recognize. Their erections practically sword-fought each other as they squirmed against one another.
She saw—or thought she saw—a woman standing behind them; a giantess with muscular arms raised, thriving within the chaos. The figure was larger than life, a stridently naked form made of dark fog, shadow, and flesh. It was her. With the recognition of the figure haunting her dreams, Eva felt intrusive thoughts surge within her. She shook her head, like trying to shake an Etch-a-sketch clear but the impulses were too strong; hunger and lust. Eva’s rational thought fell beneath the onslaught and she longed for the woman and was terrified of her. Then, in her mental surrender, she was seen. The woman, the giant, in her impossibly large gait, started towards Eva.
I’m not supposed to see this, she thought in a panic. The disorder and conflict in her mind was suddenly replaced by a comforting, thrumming sound, and after that, darkness. She recognized the fainting spell coming on and quickly sat down. This is just a dream, Eva thought as the world faded around her.
CHAPTER THREE
OVER THE US and Mexican border, a shooting star screamed across the sky. He, she, they; of one mind and one purpose to burn. Respiration was combustion. Combustion was respiration. All other prior frustration of purpose had been forgotten. All sins forgiven. In the moment of exalted eruption, they were alive. More than that, they were strong in this expansion of self, spiking the molecules of air into plasma. Nothing else felt this good. Cruising within the atmosphere, opening up again, finding fuel in the immobility of matter, they screeched harder and faster. Oh, how good would it feel to burn everything? If they reached deeper into the earth below and brought the matter there into the fluidity of exited atoms? They’d done it once before, and they wanted to do it again.
Azure skies scorched with their white-hot annihilation. A call back to flesh was made from within. The human parts wanted to come down and set their will against the desire to burn.
They’d seen enough of the border in their exploratory flybys to know they could cross when the time came, and the time was coming. They’d cross eventually, but not as fire. That way would broadcast their every move to those who might still hunt them.
“Enough. Let’s go home.”
The voice had an identity, because they were not one, but three, and he heard her and shifted his alignment to match. Once-out voted, their strange companion complied. Their descent was a guided along lines of electromagnetic force more than visual geographic indicators—they knew where they were, always. Once on the ground, quick as a match snuffed out by a determined breath, Cassie was herself, alone. It was a short walk through the desert back to the village where she lived.
She didn’t worry if anyone saw what had happened. She’d kept her secrets long enough and was ready to leave. Now, with clear knowledge of the border security—or lack thereof—there was nothing left to plan; no reason to hide. Henry was sedate. He became this way after a big burn and dropped into a quasi-naptime in her mind. The expenditure of energy to burn followed by the effort to shut it down always took a lot out of him. She knew he loved it and hated to stop. She was also aware that he knew this worried her.
For two years, they’d shared a single mind, their lives made up of discrete awarenesses within one body. Cassie wasn’t a scientist or a shaman; she didn’t know how this thing worked. They’d been brought together and joined and this was now a fact of life. Henry wa
s still Henry, the love of her life, a ghost with memories and desires, and she was his haunted house.
They had their reasons. Number one was the fact that they’d used up all the good will Cassie’s mother had bought them. The village was her mother’s place of birth, her origin point. They had to take her in with her troubled daughter in tow. Now, it was time to move on.
There had been few questions when they arrived. Rather, there had been a party welcoming Cassie’s mother back into the fold and Cassie had been equally embraced by her cousins and extended family. Her mother had told the story—abridged and yet enough to explain everything. This was mostly because Cassie’s Spanish was beyond rusty, but partly because her mother enjoyed talkeing over her. The country had gone mad, she said. The things in the news were truths and also lies.
Aliens or demons—and they could be the same thing—had landed and taken some dozen cities out of this world and built a wall around them. They told people if they stayed they would have a perfect life, welcomed as many people that came, and then the walls closed. Yes, their cousins had said, Mexico City was one of them. The others? Chicago, Cassie’s mother told them. NYC, some places in Europe and India, but she didn’t know where else. How was Mexico handling the invasion? Good, they told her. The Presidente had not blocked anyone’s path and many had left, but many stayed and things were much the same in that country.
For almost two years, things were routine in Mexico for Cassie, too. Then the situation changed. Cassie’s mother died. Heart attack. Sudden. Without modern embalming, they did as they had for time immemorial and buried her within the same day. Another party was held with the same faces which had graced her welcome home to see her off again.
Cassie and her mother had shared a one-bedroom home. Her mother was gone, but the house still smelled of her. Cooking on the wood-burning stove, the scent of oils and turpentine from her mother’s easel. A work remained half-done—a portrait of mother and daughter. She’d known Cassie’s burden. She’d known everything about Cassie. Gone. Cassie thought of the old quote, “and now, there’s no one left that knew me as a child.”