Neil danced backward out of her grasp. His puffy coat made him look like a frolicking red marshmallow. “Okay little miss, ’nuff said.”
He turned and sprinted down the road; Ronni ran after him, struggling to keep up.
Jacqueline turned to her friend. “You sure this is a good idea?”
Olivia moaned and wrapped her arms around Annette all the tighter.
“It’s not,” Annette said. “But hopefully they’ll forget before we get there.” Up ahead, Ronni tripped over her own feet and took a tumble, rolling on the pavement and cackling. “They don’t exactly have the best memory when they’re stoned.”
“Wait, you smoked too. How do you feel?”
Annette raised an eyebrow. “I feel no change. Nothing at all has been altered.” She regarded Olivia. “And this one is typically energetic and joyous. Your supplier must have given you some defective marijuana.”
Jacqueline squinted at her friend’s robotic tone and giggled. Her own thoughts were jumbled, which made it hard to tell if Annette was messing with her.
A commotion sounded up ahead, and Annette literally dragged a mumbling Olivia along while Jacqueline took up the rear. When they rounded onto the next street, they found Neil and Ronni pestering two younger teen boys who’d been walking the opposite direction. Both newcomers looked agitated.
The two boys were trying like mad to get away from her clearly insane friends. Neil tried to grab one of them, leaned in to give him a kiss, and the kid shoved him away.
Ronni was latched to the other one, rubbing up against his arm. “C’mon,” she said pleadingly. “It’s not that cold! Maybe that house’s empty. We could sneak in and—”
“Dude, get off me!” The kid elbowed Ronni in the stomach and she fell back, gasping for air.
“Please…” she panted as he briskly walked away.
Jacqueline stopped in place, confused. Olivia was full-on crying now, and Annette turned the girl around and held her tightly.
Neil made one last grab for the other kid, reaching down for his crotch, and the kid responded by punching him in the face.
“Faggot!” the kid shouted. He turned on his heels and sprinted after his friend, disappearing into the night.
“He called you faggot!” Ronni said, laughing. “’Cause that’s what you are!”
“Shut the hell up, cow,” Neil growled. He snatched her by the lapel of her coat, but she couldn’t stop laughing. Neil let her go, took a step back. He exited the glow of the streetlights and disappeared. Jacqueline’s heart skipped a beat.
His rapid footsteps echoed through the night. Ronni ran after him.
“Damn,” said Annette.
Jacqueline took a deep breath, gathered her thoughts. She helped Annette guide Olivia down the street in pursuit of Neil and Ronni. All she wanted to do was get back home. This wasn’t the kind of exciting night she’d wanted.
There was a large public common area called Arbor Park just before the turnoff onto Brenslow, the street on which the old Coppington estate resided. It was there that they found Neil and Ronni, stopped just feet from the entrance to the parking lot, facing a young girl. Jacqueline could see the new girl was crying. Neil and Ronni both appeared to have sobered up, concern plainly showing on their faces.
Jacqueline knelt before the crying girl. “What’s wrong?”
The girl looked up, eyes bloodshot, tears glimmering on her cheeks. The left side of her face was scraped badly, dribbling blood. Jacqueline touched the wound, and the girl winced.
“What happened?” she asked.
The girl shook her head.
Jacqueline touched her knee. “Who did this to you?”
The girl recoiled. Just then, a growl sounded from somewhere deep in the park. The hurt girl jumped from the curb, almost running into Olivia and Annette, shrieking as she sprinted down the road and out of sight. Jacqueline felt dazed, not sure what the hell was going on.
The growl came again, closer than before. Jacqueline had heard it before, in her backyard when she’d dumped the pizza box in Mr. Mancuso’s trash.
“We should go,” whispered a suddenly meek Ronni.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” said Neil.
They all backed up a step, finding one another’s hands in the process. Just as Jacqueline was about to lead the dash back home, a tall shadow stepped into the moonlight.
“Pretty little things,” a familiar, grumbling voice said.
The figure drew closer, and though her instinct said to run, Jacqueline stood her ground. Another step closer, and steel glinted. Jacqueline thought of Debbie, the woman who’d been stabbed in the mall parking lot, and anger bubbled up inside her. This was the same guy.
A car took the turn onto Brenslow, fully illuminating the approaching man. Jacqueline saw the same filthy jeans, the same tattered leather duster, but that’s where the similarities ended.
The thing wasn’t a man. Its face was decayed, its eyes hollow voids dripping pus, its nose a pair of narrow slits. Its jaws were much bigger than they should’ve been, and a gelatinous tongue dangled over rows of small, spiny teeth. The thing’s skin had a greenish tint, glistening as if covered in slime. The creature turned the knife over in its clawed, deformed hand.
“Jackie,” Olivia said from behind her, sounding terrified.
The approaching monstrosity stepped onto the street, sniffed the air. Its lipless mouth clacked open and shut. “Pretty little things,” it said again.
Jacqueline knew she should’ve been frightened enough to pass out, but she wasn’t. Her heart beat faster than ever before, the fury inside her roaring through her veins. It felt like an electric charge had risen up around her. In her mind she saw the three girls who’d gone missing; Todd’s leering face; Papa Gelick’s hungry eyes and groping hands…
Jacqueline took a menacing step forward, and amazingly, the monster recoiled.
“Gorgon,” the thing said.
Without thinking, Jacqueline charged, the sound of her friends shouting for her to stop barely registering in her brain. The monster lashed out with its knife, and Jacqueline ducked underneath the blow. The creature stumbled, and given that sliver of an opportunity, Jacqueline jumped and swung her fist as hard as she could, connecting with its distorted face, snapping its neck around. The knife clanked off the pavement.
Jacqueline fell into a crouch, scooped up the beast’s knife, and readied herself to leap, to drive the blade into its brain. But when she lunged, the monster was ready, the back of its clawed hand colliding with the underside of her jaw. Her teeth snapped together, she toppled backward.
“NO!” Olivia screamed.
Starbursts exploded in Jacqueline’s eyes as she hit the ground. Hands grabbed at her, and she fought against them until she heard Olivia say, “It’s just us.” Jacqueline took a deep breath. Her friends helped lift her to her feet.
“Where’d it go?” she asked, rubbing at her aching chin.
“He took off,” said Neil. “Again.”
“He?” said Jacqueline.
“Yeah, the same guy from the mall. The one who stabbed that chick.” Neil scratched his chin. “What the hell’s he doing all the way across town?”
“Maybe we should talk about this when we get someplace safe?” Olivia said. “Not really liking being out here alone after la chica loca decided to go all Rocky on some serial killer’s ass.”
“Yeah,” said Ronni.
They hurried away from the scene. Jacqueline cast one last look behind her, wondering why her friends hadn’t seen what she had. Then she realized her hand didn’t hurt after striking the creature, and examined it. Just like when she’d hit Papa Gelick, there wasn’t even a bruise.
“Hey, Jackie,” said Olivia.
“Yeah?”
“You really need to get a refund from your dealer. That shit was horrible.”
No kidding, Jacqueline thought.
Annette called the cops as soon as they got back to the house, and the five Otakus hurriedly
sprayed themselves with Febreeze to mask whatever weed smell remained before they arrived. When the cops did show up, Annette took to the lead. She told them about the two boys, the crying girl, the knife-wielding madman. The officers eyed them warily, until one of them said something about it being foolish to be out at night alone when kids had gone missing. Jacqueline handed over the knife the monster had dropped, still hopped up from the confrontation.
After the cops left, the friends settled into the living room for the night. Neil was strangely silent, and when Jacqueline asked why, Annette leaned in and whispered that his secret was out. Jacqueline guessed that meant he was gay, which didn’t seem like a big secret, since it’d been obvious from the start that Neil liked boys.
Everyone was too jacked to sleep, so Olivia searched the bathroom and returned with Mitzy’s prescription of Ambien. They were all out cold fifteen minutes later.
All but Jacqueline, that is. The pills didn’t have any affect on her, and she lay awake while her friends snored. Every time she felt close to sleep, her legs would twitch. She couldn’t get the monster’s face out of her mind.
I have to talk to Mal.
She ticked away the seconds and then slid out from under her covers and stepped over her snoring friends. She climbed the stairs two at a time.
When she took the compact from her dresser drawer, it was cold. Mal wasn’t there. She stared at the mirror, willing him to appear. “Please, Mal,” she said. “Please just come.”
The image of the boy with silver hair appeared in the mirror. He looked deeply concerned.
“Jackie, what’s wrong?”
“I saw something,” she said.
“What kind of something?”
“A monster. But I was the only one who saw it. Everyone else thought it was just some guy.”
Mal’s lips pressed together. “Anything else?”
“I got angry again. I…”
“You what?”
“I attacked the monster.”
“Jackie, no!” Mal exclaimed. “You could’ve gotten hurt.”
She clenched her teeth. “There’s something else.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“The thing called me Gorgon. That mean anything to you?”
“It does,” he said, and fell silent.
Jacqueline leaned toward him, lowered her voice. “Mal, if you love me, you need to tell me what you know. Please say I’m not going crazy like my dad.”
The boy in the mirror considered her for a long moment, let out a sigh. “You’re not. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this so soon.”
“Do what?”
“Tell you the truth.”
She folded her arms over her chest, crossed her legs.
Mal gulped and said, “The stuff I see when my spirit’s out there floating through the void is confusing, but what I know for sure is there’s other worlds out there, some like this one, some not. There’s millions of them, Jackie, all squished against one another.”
She tilted her head, confused.
“The worlds are always multiplying,” he continued. “And as they expand, the membrane that separates them grows thinner. There are bad things out there, Jackie, things from dark dimensions filled with nothing but pain and torment. Given the right circumstances, these monsters can pass through one reality and into another, and stay hidden in plain sight.”
“Stay hidden?”
Mal nodded.
“But this monster…I saw it.”
“Because you’re special, Jackie.” He swallowed, hard. “You have an ability only one other person has. You can see the truth in any disguise.”
“I can?”
“Yes. That’s what a Gorgon is.”
“And who’s the other one?”
At that, Mal gave her a faint smile. “Me. It’s us, Jackie. We’re conduits, the most important beings in the history of creation. We’re singular. We exist where we exist and nowhere else…” he shook his head, “which means both our lives are in danger.”
Jacqueline drew her knees to her chest. “Why?”
“Because to some things out there, we’re a threat. We’ve lived thousands of lives, you and I, and there are always those who try to keep us apart. I think that’s who trapped me in this damn mirror. But we’re close, so close. Once I figure out exactly how to get out of here…”
Jacqueline waited for him to say more, but he simply shook his head. “So you’re Gorgon too?” she asked.
He nodded.
She sat back, sighed. Millions of worlds? Monsters and demons? Thousands of lives? It was too much to believe. She laughed softly to herself.
“What’s so funny?” asked Mal.
“If we’re Gorgons, why don’t we have snakes in our hair?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Forget it,” she said.
Mal frowned. “Jackie, this is serious. We need to be careful. I’m close to figuring this out, and I need you to be safe until I do.”
“Okay,” Jacqueline said. She propped her chin in her hand and stared at Mal’s reflection. “I wish you were here right now.”
“So do I,” Mal said. “In time, sweet girl. In time.”
“Time…”
“Jackie?”
“Yeah?”
“You look exhausted.”
Funny enough, she was. It’d come on all of a sudden. Jacqueline stretched her arms above her head and reclined on the bed, setting the compact on the pillow beside her. She stared into Mal’s gray eyes until she finally drifted off.
Her sleep was filled with nightmares. And one gigantic mirror.
CHAPTER 37
The pastor’s sermon was some nonsense about Powerade and Gatorade. Somehow, Powerade was supposed to represent Christianity, while Gatorade was the unbelieving masses. Drew didn’t get it. The whole sermon was totally random, and what the hell did any of it have to do with Christmas?
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the time. It was just past ten o’clock on Christmas Eve. “I hate this,” he whispered.
“Shush,” said Hannah, sitting in the chair next to him. She stared straight ahead, her green eyes half-mast. She hated church as much as Drew did, and snuck her mom’s anti-anxiety medicine to drift through the service. Drew knew how she felt, but he couldn’t stand the glassy-eyed, vacant expression the pills gave her. He shook his head. At least she still looked gorgeous, her makeup just right, her hair pinned back and curled to perfection, her frilly top slung low enough to reveal a hint of cleavage.
He drooled at the thought of ripping that top off of her.
The pastor finished his sermon, and the band started up an alt-rock version of O Come All Ye Faithful. The congregation sang along, including Hannah. Drew cringed, noticing his father staring at him from farther down the row. So was his mother, her blond hair done up in a bun, her eyes painted with a severe shade of blue. Drew faced forward, mouthing the words as they appeared on the pull-down screen beside the pulpit.
When church ended, Drew stood up and dutifully shook the hands of those around him. Hannah gave out hugs to both men and women alike, some of the men lingering in the embraces longer than they should. Pride welled in Drew’s chest. I’m the one who gets to take those clothes off her later, he thought with a smile.
“Glad to see you in such good spirits today, Drew,” came a male voice. Drew faced Mr. Phillips, Hannah’s dad. The man held out his hand and he shook it. “Good to see you.”
“Good to see you too, sir,” Drew replied.
“Always respectful. I like to see that in a boy your age.”
“Thank you.”
Mr. Phillips nodded and returned to his model wife’s side. Mrs. Phillips was tall and gorgeous like her daughter, and given the blank look in her eyes, she enjoyed doping her way through service too. Drew had to laugh at that.
Hannah’s arm snaked over his shoulder, soft lips kissed his cheek. “What’re you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing.�
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“We should get outta here.” She nibbled his ear. “I’m needy.”
“Okay. Let me say bye to my parents.”
He turned around to look for his father, but instead caught sight of the Thompson family on the other side of the room. Mr. Thompson walked with a limp, his wife with her shoulders held back as if a broom had been shoved up her ass. Jordan and his older brother were just behind them, seeming uncomfortable. People greeted them with kind hellos, but when their backs were turned, those smiles became frowns. The Thompsons were one of only three black families who frequented Vulgate Presbyterian, and certainly the least well-off and most liberal, which didn’t make them many friends.
Jordan glanced in Drew’s direction. Drew flipped him the finger. Jordan seemed to deflate as he stared at the back of his father’s head and kept walking out of the church.
A hand fell on Drew’s shoulder. “I know, Hannah, I know,” he said, pivoting. “Hold on, let me get my—”
Alexander Cottard stood before him, eyes narrowed, brow stern. “Son, we need to talk.”
“Um, okay dad,” Drew said nervously. “But first—”
“Now.”
“Fine! Sheesh.”
Drew found Hannah chatting with Phoebe Wolfe and a couple other girls that’d been raised in Vulgate’s youth ministry program. “Babe,” he said, “I need a rain check.”
She frowned. “Why?”
Drew gestured toward his father. “Dad wants a chat.”
“Will I still see you tonight?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ll call you when I’m done.”
“Drew, now,” Alexander shouted over the din of conversation.
“Jesus effin’ Christ,” Drew muttered, and did as he was told.
His father led him to the chapel’s side entrance, where Pastor Lubble was busy schmoozing with the girl who fronted the church band. The girl was in her mid-twenties and pretty, nervously twirling her hair as she spoke. Drew had to laugh. The pastor was probably misreading her nervous tics for interest.
Alexander strolled up to the pastor, and Lubble immediately snapped to attention. The girl hurried on her way. Pastor Lubble stared at her ass as she left.
Boy in the Mirror Page 24