by Schow, Ryan
What a wonderful consideration, Brayden thought.
The truth, however, was a two-part revelation: one, he was too responsible for self-destructive behavior involving alcohol, and two, he couldn’t impose on these women any longer.
He was a stranger in their lives.
A guest who needed to leave.
So the next day he packed his clothes and toiletries, then found Netty in the living room, asleep on the couch. Days of Our Lives was on, and the blonde hostess that did The Biggest Loser for so many seasons was lamenting over some dude with Lego hair and pearly whites. He was the same kind of guy you would see in pornos thirty years ago with hairy chests and even hairier backs.
Brayden went to shake Netty’s shoulder, tell her he was leaving, when his cell phone vibrated. He picked it up and it was the new Gerhard.
“Abby is conscious,” the deranged doctor said.
“What?” he said a little too loud.
Netty startled awake, flashed bitch eyes at him for waking her like that, but then came alert when Brayden wouldn’t stop staring at her with that wide, telling gaze.
For Brayden, thoughts of alcohol poisoning and suicidal debauchery seemed to just flitter away. He was whole again. Renewed. He put the phone on speaker so Netty could hear, then said, “Netty’s with me.”
There was that weird silence that occurs when you think you’re talking to one person and just like that it becomes a party line.
“Did something happen?” Netty said, breathless. She was sitting up, getting close to Brayden. He liked the way she smelled. “Is Abby okay?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Gerhard replied. “Her memory is fragmented, I’m afraid, and she will need the help of those closest to her to remember who she is.”
“We can do that,” Netty said anxiously, looking at Brayden, who nodded. “Yeah, we can definitely do that.”
5
At the lab, Gerhard, Netty and Brayden all sat around Abby. She was dressed in a robe, but she looked the same way you’d imagine a drunk baby in space might look. The first thing Brayden thought was, holy balls, her brain must be running last place in the Special Olympics. It was sad seeing her like this. Any minute now, he was thinking, and she was going to start drooling.
“Abby,” Netty said, her voice so sweet and caring you couldn’t fathom it coming from her after how psychotic she’d been acting since Abby’s death, “can you remember anything?”
Her eyes were glazed donuts. Her face could have been on display at the wax museum the way she had absolutely no emotion. Brayden was trying to see the old Abby in there and having no luck. A cold dread spread through him, like tendrils of ice, making him fear the worst.
“I remember looking different,” Abby finally said. Brayden startled a little. He didn’t expect to hear her speak, not looking the way she did.
“You were in an accident,” Brayden replied. His throat was dry, his tongue like wadded tissue. Thinking of how they were close friends once, how they did so much together, he could hardly imagine himself without her. And yet looking at her right now, half vegetative and so lost, he couldn’t imagine her ever being normal again. Their entire history, it’s like it was erased. If that were in fact the case, he didn’t know how to feel.
Sad? Sick?
“An accident?” she said. Her voice wasn’t hers. She sounded all breathy. And dumb. Brayden felt bad the second he thought this, but he couldn’t help it.
Brayden saw Gerhard’s eyes turn on him. The weight of his gaze could be measured in pounds per square inch. Brayden’s face, it was straight, as if what he said about her being in an accident was perfectly true, although it wasn’t. She was shot to death for Christ’s sake.
Lies, if told properly, can become truths, he thought. That’s what he and Netty decided in the car before they arrived. They decided to lie to her because Abby didn’t need to know she was murdered for reasons unknown by a hairless, teenage psychopath. The one crumpled over on the floor looking like a burnt, triple fudge brownie.
“How bad?” Abby said. Her face could barely produce signs of worry. She dragged her eyes to Brayden, and they shook from the effort. He felt his skin scrawl. They were her eyes, but they weren’t.
There was something…off about her.
“Abby,” Netty said, her voice all but trembling, “it was bad. But you’re awake now, and that’s what matters most.”
More lies. Lies told to cover the truth. All these lies told to bury the ugly past.
“I know you’re feeling strange right now,” Gerhard version 2.0 (or more accurately, Mengele version 3.0) said, “but things aren’t going to feel right for awhile. A lot of damage was done to your brain and you have plenty of healing to do.”
Abby looked at him like a lost puppy, or a special needs child, as if she could not comprehend even being there.
He said, “These are your friends, Netty and Brayden, and they are here to help you remember your life.”
For as insane as Gerhard has been acting, this bi-polar mania that seemed to sometimes simmer and sometimes rage just beneath the surface of his skin, Brayden thought the man’s beside manner was exceptional. He must be having a good day. Not that Brayden was going to drop his guard for a single moment. He wasn’t.
After all, he made a promise to Georgia—to look after Abby, and make sure Gerhard didn’t ruin her—and he was bound and determined to keep that promise.
6
Brayden and Netty spent hours lying to Abby about her past. To say they glossed over the more difficult parts of her life would be a gross understatement. They left out entire events. Like Maggie’s suicide. Or her being Savannah Van Duyn before she was Abigail Swann, even though it would have explained why she felt, looked and sounded different. The reshaping of Abby’s life was a joint decision between Brayden and Netty.
The way Brayden originally stated it, he said, “If ever there’s a time to reinvent history, it’s right now.”
“She deserves a better past,” Netty agreed. “She really does.”
So, with that said, every black cloud in Abby’s life now contained a silver lining, so instead of dwelling on the black clouds, they devoted their energy to the silver linings.
The problem they would later discover was they were revealing her past void of any preplanned grace.
In an effort to suppress the stains in her life, they practically ignored her formative years, school in Palo Alto, Jacob Brantley, the indecencies of the cockroach paparazzi, Julie Satan and the Diabolical Three, Margaret’s monstrous behavior, Gerhard’s War Machine, the Virginia Corporation, her melted body, Maggie’s suicide, the Giardino murder/suicide, the bald boy, her shot-to-death body, Rebecca’s triplets. These horrible events had no place in the resurrected Abby’s life. Not if she was to be happy. The challenge to reconstruct her life, however, was that these particular events fully defined the Abby they once knew.
These events shaped and molded her.
How could they say her defining characteristics were indomitable strength, determination and an unrelenting craving for justice without telling her she was like this because the world she knew was not one of silver linings but of black clouds.
The thing is, you save those kinds of details for never. As in, you choke them down like a bottle of pills and never, ever share. At least, that was the plan. So when it came to re-shaping her brand new, damaged mind, they tiptoed in circles and they withheld, misdirected, flat out avoided certain questions.
Lies of omission truly were the best lies because there was no such thing as keeping a straight face as much as there was just self-control and a shut mouth. In that, Brayden and Netty were wholly unified.
Abby asked a lot of questions of Brayden and Netty, but the unconvinced look on her face said she didn’t believe their lies/answers. In fact, most of what they said made her raise her eyebrows and overly appraise them in ways the before-dead Abby and the before-dead Savannah never would. Her skepticism resembled suspicion. There were t
oo many holes in their stories. Netty and Brayden, they were fast learning the errors of their haphazard plan.
Gerhard interjected in an attempt to salvage their stupid approach. This was courteous of him considering he had become a human horror show who managed to make a niche out of playing God.
The monster known formerly as the Angel of Death looked at post-death Abby and said, “The lack of familiarity, the emptiness of your memory, it’s normal for anyone who has experienced severe brain trauma, which you, my dear, have experienced. As for the holes in their story, I believe they are simply trying to spare you some of the more unsavory details of your former life.”
“I remember things,” Abby said, defensive and staring hard at the man, “I just don’t remember anything they’re telling me.”
Her entire being bristled, changing both the mood and the energy in the room. Perhaps this was because of the massive effort it would take to get back to normal, or maybe she was agitated because she knew there would never be another “normal” for her.
Everyone knew that.
“You don’t know what you know,” Gerhard said. He kicked the words out of his mouth, almost like he was irritated they were even in there.
Here we go again, Brayden thought. He’s on the swings.
“Don’t be rude,” Netty said, even though he almost killed her earlier that week. “She’s trying to understand what’s happening to her.”
Gerhard drew a loud breath through his nose, fired up his eyes, then exhaled audibly. Brayden knew any minute the train was going to derail. Gerhard rubbed his eyes, like he was tired, then snorted in a fast breath, held it and let it out in a more civilized manner than before.
“Those damn babies,” he muttered to no one in particular. “They’re up at all hours of the night. And Alice, she just sleeps through it.”
“Don’t you think Rebecca should be with them?” Netty asked, like she was grateful to be talking about something other than Abby. “I mean, they’re her babies.”
“They’re my babies!” he snapped. “Mine and Dr. Heim’s.”
“Really?” Netty challenged. “They grew in your belly and came out of your vagina?”
“What babies?” Abby asked.
All three of them said, “Never mind” almost at the same time.
“Our procedure is ours,” Gerhard warned, “therefore the products of the procedure are ours as well. I.e., the babies.”
“Try telling that to the mother,” Netty said. She was too drained to put much emotion into the statement, even though it looked like she felt plenty.
“Speaking of Dr. Heim, where is he these days?” Gerhard said, turning those troubled eyes on Brayden.
“In a better place,” Brayden mumbled.
The thought of Heim, what he tried to do to Abby, how he pried open her chest, poured gasoline directly into her heart and tried to burn her to death, he deserved everything he got. If he lived and died every day in the rot and stink of Kaitlyn’s fake grave until the end of time, it would not be punishment enough for the things he’s done.
“The man is a certified genius, the only other person who might be able to understand Abby’s condition. If you harmed him in any way—”
“He tried to kill…our friend…in her own house, so I’m thinking your asshole best friend’s disappearance isn’t as big a loss as you think. Plus, if you know him, then you know he is like our friend in that he is impossible to kill.”
He didn’t want to say their “friend” was Abby in front of Abby because that would most likely confuse her. To explain she had healing powers, much less reveal she survived four brutal attempts on her life, might overload her fragile mind for good. He couldn’t risk that. None of them could.
In the lab down the hall, Rebecca floated in stasis. Her cesarean scars had healed, but Gerhard still hadn’t released her from her eternal sleep. Brayden had half a mind to walk down the hall and start the procedure himself. There was a bigger problem than just waking her up. How would they explain anything at all to her?
The babies, the new version of the doctor, Abby being killed and resurrected—but now with the mental equivalent of a freaking jelly bean?
No way.
You can’t just spring that kind of thing on a person who was held captive, impregnated and then dunked into a pink coma for months. In a way, she was no different than Abby. In a way they were all victims of Gerhard and his rogue science, and they were all survivors.
Brayden looked at Gerhard, at how the man was now sweating, how he looked and sounded like he was grinding his molars, and it was easy to imagine he went home at night, got piss drunk and kicked his cat.
Whatever happened during his transformation, it clearly knocked some screws loose. Which left him highly unpredictable. We’re talking manic/depressive with homicidal inclinations.
Knowing the man, it wasn’t hard to imagine Gerhard might just as soon kill all four of them than deal with the problems he had. This kind of solution wasn’t beyond his realm of thinking.
Not with his sordid past.
“You two make my goddamn head hurt,” he hissed before leaving. Fortunately he didn’t press the Heim issue, because it could only go bad.
In spite of Gerhard disappearing, there was a big part of Brayden that ached to tell Gerhard what they did to Heim, that motherfreaking creeper.
Brayden would eat that satisfaction like it was dessert.
7
That night, as they parked Abby’s Audi in front of Netty’s apartment, Brayden said, “What we’re doing, it’s just confusing her more.”
“I know,” Netty said.
She looked exhausted. Mentally drained. She parallel parked the S5, putting the car right up to the curb without scraping the rims.
“It’s like all these lies we’re telling her,” Brayden said, undoing his seatbelt, “she’s not believing them. You can see it in her face.”
“Not everything’s a lie,” Netty replied. They climbed out of the car, walked into the building’s front entrance. She opened the door for Brayden.
“We’re basically playing God to Abby the same way that German dickface Gerhard is playing God to her. Except where he altered and re-altered her genes, we’re altering her memories, giving her the life we always wanted her to have. The life she never lived. A life she’s apparently too smart to believe in.”
“You think we’re wrong?” she asked. Concern crept into her eyes.
In the lobby, Brayden pushed the UP button on the elevator, heard the reassuring swishing start as the weights and pulleys sprung to life.
“I don’t know anymore, Netty. I think—I don’t know—I think maybe we should try the truth. I think if she were herself, she would want to know.”
“After everything she’s been through,” Netty said, “do you really think she deserves that?”
The doors opened up; they stepped inside. Netty pushed her floor, the “close doors” button, and then stood inside next to him. For all her neurotic behavior these last few days, he was surprised by how comfortable he felt standing next to her. There was something…good about her. He was starting to see why she was Abby’s BFF.
“Honestly, I don’t what’s right or wrong anymore,” Brayden said. “It’s like my moral compass is so skewed, I almost can’t live with myself.”
Netty looked at him for a long minute, then leaned in and kissed his cheek, dangerously close to his mouth. “You’re a good friend,” she said, “and a good person.”
Inside, he wanted to cry. Yet he had no idea what the tears were about. Perhaps it was because he knew he lost his friend. He lost Abby. Even worse, he knew he could love her, maybe even be with her, but it would always be a one-sided affair because she was not there. Dying, being dead, it changed her.
It might have even ruined her.
Ladies and Gentleman, Behold…the Charlatan
1
After they left for the day, Abby looked Holland square in the eye and said, “I am not the girl
they say I am.”
“Oh, and who do you think you are?” Holland asked.
She sat up straight with defiance. The drugs he gave her earlier, the ones that made her look like she just woke from the dead, they were wearing off fast. She was growing more alert and more upset by the minute.
“My name is Janice Millworth and I am from Elko, Nevada,” she said, sitting up straighter. “I’m not this Abigail Swann bitch they say I am.”
Holland’s hand shot out, grabbed a handful of the beautiful girl’s hair and twisted it so hard and so tight she squealed. Yanking Janice’s head up in his face, tears standing in her eyes, Holland growled, “Janice Millworth is dead. She’s dead and gone and that girl will never, ever exist. She was a whore. A nobody. The kind of government-subsidized trailer park filth bankrupting this entire goddamn nation. It’s time to do something good with your life! Something productive!”
She was mewling now, the tears running. This seemed to enrage him more. She was missing the point. He tightened his grip on her hair. She stiffened, screamed, wrapped her hands around his wrist in an attempt to pry him loose.
“You were NOTHING when I bought you!” he shouted. She was digging her nails into his skin, drawing blood. “Get your hands off me!”
She let go, reluctantly, her mouth wide open in a now silent, pained scream. He hadn’t loosened his grip at all. If anything, her defiance angered him enough to tighten it further.
She sniffled and sobbed in shameful combination, but to her credit, she held her composure more than most. The result, however, was her blowing a lot of snot out of her nostrils, and making more than a few constrained tears.
“Who you are is exactly who those two nuisances say you are,” Holland snarled. “You are Abby Swann. Now if I ever hear you bring that disgusting Janice Millworth name up again, I’m going to jam a gun down your throat and the last thing that’ll ever go through that perfect head of yours is a goddamn bullet. Am I clear?”