The Frenzy

by Francesca Lia Block

  “What?” I kept saying it until she got off the phone.

  “Pace.”

  “What about Pace?”

  She came toward me and I backed away. “Come sit,” she said.

  “No! What is it? What happened?”

  “Olivia. I need you to breathe.”

  “Tell me!”

  “He passed away,” my mom said.

  “What? He what?”

  I watched myself clawing my fingernails along my arms like they belonged to someone else.

  “Liv!” She tried to hold me but I wrenched myself away and she stumbled in her high heels.

  “What?” I kept saying over and over. “Passed away? What is that? You mean dead? He’s dead?”

  “He took his life,” she said, and I thought I saw her crossing herself, but very quickly.

  I forced my teeth into my lip, trying to break the skin, to taste my own blood. I thought about how little I’d seen him for the last month, how sad he had been about Michael, how I hadn’t been there for him. I kept trying to rewind the sequence of events in my mind, go back to when we were talking on the phone and he was telling me about the hottie he met in the house on Green. If I could stop it there, then redo the rest. He had said, “Maybe things are changing for us, Skirt.” But he hadn’t meant this way. Pace, my brother, my best friend. Playing Little Earthquakes for me. Writing Tori lyrics on my blue jeans. Letting me comb his hair, soft and gold as the silk inside a cornstalk. Watching him at football practice pretending to be tough and straight and then we’d go home and sing our favorite songs in my room and paint each other’s toenails. I had to take the polish off of him afterward, though, because someone might see in the locker room. Weird the things you think of so you don’t see the images in your mind of how he actually did it, took his life. With a rope. Around his neck. With a rope.

  I wanted to scream everything at my mother. You don’t know who I am! You don’t know who Pace is! Everything is a lie—everything! It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault!

  But I knew it was just as much my fault. For not calling Pace more. For letting him hurt alone. For not seeing the signs. Maybe even for being born.

  I smacked my lips together, saliva accumulating in the corners or my mouth. My skin itched and my skull and hips ached. I had my period and it felt like blood was pouring out of me, all of my blood, leaving me drained, a lifeless corpse. I backed up, glaring at my mother. I could hear Sasha’s voice whispering in my mind.

  Kill your mother. Kill her.

  “Stop it!” my mom shouted at me. “You’re scaring me. Stop hurting yourself.”

  I looked down and saw streaks of blood on my arms. A salty taste burned on my lips. Soon the hair would grow, my limbs would change, the monster would appear.

  I had to flee.

  Before I could think anything more I was out the door, heading toward the woods.

  News travels fast in small towns and Corey was already on his way to me. I’d left my phone at home so I didn’t get his call but as I rounded the bend toward the woods he was there. He had known somehow that this was where I was going. But I couldn’t let him see me. I was already changing.

  “Liv!” He shouted at me to stop and picked up his pace.

  I ran faster, sure I could outrun him. But Corey was pumping his arms and legs, adrenaline bursting through his body, and he caught up just as I dove in among the trees.

  I stopped in my tracks and looked over my shoulder. “Leave me alone! Go away from me!” I snarled.

  Corey watched me steadily, concerned but not afraid, even though I knew my eyes must have looked like the eyes of a demon. My teeth were cutting my gums. Drool spilled from the corner of my lip. My ears twitched, turning this way and that, listening for signs of danger. The sounds and smells were starting to overwhelm me, banging in my ears, burning my nostrils. My skull hurt, lengthening as it filled with too much sensation. I lowered my head to the ground.

  I tugged off my shirt and then struggled out of my jeans. Night was coming on fast and I could feel the pull of the moon rising slowly above the forest.

  “Liv,” Corey said softly.

  “Pace! Oh my God, Pace.”

  “I know, baby.” He reached out his hand.

  “And I’m changing, I’m going to … You can’t see me like this.”

  “Liv.” His voice reminded me of the one he used with the animals at the vet’s. “Don’t be scared. I know what you are.”

  I couldn’t speak anymore. I just looked up at him and my eyes felt like they were on fire in the sockets. I cocked my head, trying to ask him the question. How do you know?

  “I chased after you that night last month when we fought.” It was as if he’d read my thoughts.

  I glared at him.

  “I’m sorry. I wanted to see if you trusted me enough to tell me yourself. And I saw that you didn’t.”

  My mind raced back over the events of that night. You mean you saw me change? He nodded.

  He had seen me. And he was here now. “I saw you change and I saw you change back. I followed you again to make sure you got home safely. You were naked. I was worried about you. But I didn’t want to let you know I was there.”

  This was Corey. The Corey I had known for years. Corey who would never judge me or leave me, even if I changed into a monster in front of his eyes. Even if I ran naked through the woods and lay on the ground eating freshly killed meat. It made no sense and yet it made perfect sense to me because I knew him. But I had not trusted him.

  And now I had to run. My limbs were changing. They refused to stay still. Pain shot through me; the only relief would be to move. Go home, leave me.

  He didn’t listen. As I ran he followed, deeper into the woods. I heard him struggling to keep up—the ragged sound of his breath—and sometimes he would gasp out my name. We came to a glade and the moon shone brightly through the trees on my monster body.

  I stopped to look up at the round white light in the sky. Corey slumped beside me, his sides heaving.

  “Since when you outpace me like that?” he gasped.

  Outpace.

  We both stared at each other as the shock returned. Corey turned his head away and to the side, bit his lip trying to keep back the tears. My heart was pounding pain through my veins. I looked up at the sky and howled my grief to the moon.

  When I could make no more sounds I looked around me. A circle of golden eyes watched us from the darkness. Fourteen golden eyes. My brothers.

  I got to my feet. The transformation was complete now and I wasn’t weak from it anymore. The ache and pain had turned to strength, a feeling of great power.

  I could have run all night with my pack. The moment had come.

  But then I looked at Corey, who had moved so that he stood behind me. He had followed me here. He had made love to me for a month, even knowing what I was and that I would not tell him the truth about it. Corey was my family now, the only one I had. Pace was gone, my parents would never know me and the seven wolves watching in the darkness wanted something I could never give them. I thought about the deaths in the woods and wondered who was responsible, what these creatures could do to a boy in the woods at night, no matter how brave or compassionate he was. All this went through my mind and I turned slowly in a circle, making eye contact with each brother. Amorus. Gregory. Frederick. Marcos. Felix. Sebastian. Victor.

  Leave us! He is mine.

  Victor, the largest wolf, snarled, his eyes glowing like golden mirrors in the darkness as he looked at

  For now. There was a sneer in the wolf voice.

  I didn’t understand what he meant but I knew he was not done with me yet. And I also knew I had won, at least this time. He lowered his head in submission, then turned and slunk into the woods. The others followed him.

  I dropped to the ground, wriggled forward on my belly and rested my chin on Corey’s leg.

  “Who the hell were they?” he said.

  I could smell his flesh through his c
lothes and I wanted to taste him. I could almost taste him—the sweet, salty sensation a memory on my lips. But I had not forgotten my prayer.

  May the winds of calm …

  Pace was dead, I had changed, but this was Corey, the one I loved. And somewhere inside, beneath the teeth sharp enough to pulverize bone, the muscles that could take down an elk, the fur rough enough to protect from cold and wet, somewhere beneath it all I was still me.

  I’m sorry, Corey. I love you.

  He nodded as if he’d heard me, then stroked my head until that full moon fell and only redemptive dawn lit the sky.

  Death

  By morning I had changed back again. We didn’t speak about any of what had happened—even Pace; it was too much. Corey found my clothes near the entrance to the woods. He walked me to the stream, sat me down in the shallow water, bathed me, dried me off with his sweatshirt and dressed me. Everything hurt and my stomach was growling with hunger. It was all I could think about, or all I wanted to think about, wiping out any thoughts or feelings of grief. I limped home on Corey’s arm and he kissed me good-bye at my door. The day was already growing hot and the sun shot harsh rays into my eyes as we emerged from the trees.

  Part of me wished my dad had hit me again to take my mind off everything. But my parents seemed to have forgiven me for running because of what had happened to Pace. They were in the kitchen drinking coffee and for once the TV wasn’t on. Gramp slept sitting up on the couch. My dad didn’t say anything. My mom asked me what I needed and I pointed to the refrigerator. Then I walked over to the freezer and took out a slab of red meat marbled with streaks of white.

  They both stared at me. “You want a steak?” my mom said.

  I nodded. I didn’t want to hear a lecture about anemia right then but I’d have done anything for some rare meat.

  “You must be anemic. You look pale. I told you. Let me cook you up something. Go upstairs and get in bed. I’ll bring it. I told you young people shouldn’t be vegetarians!”

  She went on like that as I climbed up the stairs, threw my clothes on the floor and got in bed. The sheets felt cool and soft against my skin. My mom was obsessed with thread count and for once I was grateful. I smelled the meat cooking in a pan on the stove. My nostrils tingled with sensation and my mouth watered; my stomach growled so loudly it sounded as if there were an animal in the room. When my mom finally came with the steak I sat up and devoured it in a few bites. My teeth still felt sharper than usual and my tongue longer, my mouth bigger. I wiped my greasy lips with the back of my hand and gave my mother the tray. Then I lay back down, closed my eyes and slept.

  When I woke it was the next evening. I felt nauseous and confused. For a moment I lay there in a fog, trying to think of what it was I didn’t want to remember.

  Yes, Pace. That was it. No. Yes. What?

  Pace was dead.

  My best friend. The only one I trusted besides Corey. And dead because he hated himself. Because he didn’t accept himself. That was partly why we had been friends. Because we both felt this same way. And it had won, the self-hatred. It had killed him.

  I curled up in a ball and shut my eyes but I couldn’t sleep again.

  I would have slept straight through if I could have; slept through forever. Corey kept calling until I answered.

  “Come outside with me,” he said. “Baby, come outside and breathe.”

  But I couldn’t get out of bed. Not even for Corey. And he couldn’t come to me because of my parents. I was too weary even to care about that. So I stayed in bed for two days—not able to read, completely unable to write in my diary—until Pace’s funeral and then I put on black jeans and a black Sex Pistols T-shirt turned inside out under Pace’s cotton button-down and went to the cemetery with my mom, my dad and Gramp.

  We stood on the sloping hillside full of the graves of men who had died in the steel mill—crushed by steel, burned by molten steel—men and women who had died of old age, cancer, heart attacks and grief, children who had died of illness and accidents, babies who had died at birth. They all lay beneath our feet, under their carved gray granite headstones and giant crosses that shadowed the lawn, and Pace would be there, too. But it was impossible that Pace could be there with the dead. I could still see his face and hear the sound of his voice. His scent of goat’s milk soap and citrusy aftershave was still on the shirt he had let me wear home. I could still feel his lips.

  Once Pace and I had kissed. Just once. I think we were trying to prove something to ourselves—maybe that we weren’t the things we feared.

  We were dancing to old David Bowie in my room. “We can be heroes, just for one day.” Pace was so much taller than me; I just came to the middle of his chest. One of his big hands held mine, and the other rested on the small of my back. He turned me around gracefully but with force and I tossed my hair. It was right after the first frenzy and more than anything I just wanted to be a regular girl. Pace must have wanted, in that moment, to be a “normal” boy. He touched his lips to mine. It was awkward and sweet and he tasted of peppermint toothpaste. Then he pulled away and we both broke into giggles. We laughed so hard we fell to the ground.

  We were what we were. And in that moment, because we had each other, it was okay.

  But Pace hadn’t felt okay, even though there was nothing wrong with what he was. Pace wasn’t a monster like me. He was just a boy who loved boys.

  I watched the men digging the grave and thought that I wanted to go down there with Pace, down where it was dark and quiet and safe. Where I couldn’t hurt anyone ever again. Tears poured down my face and slid saltily into my mouth. I saw Pace’s parents clinging to each other like stunned children. They were rich, tall, blond and good-looking. They had once had a handsome, athletic son who they had never really known at all. Carolyn Carter, the waitress at the café where Pace worked, was with them. She glared at me and I hung my head.

  I looked around for a boy about my age, a cute boy I didn’t recognize, just in case this mysterious Michael had heard what had happened and found his way there. But there were very few young men at all.

  After the ceremony I went over to Pace’s parents and hugged them, trying not to look at Carolyn. They felt almost boneless with grief. Their eyes were blank. I didn’t have words to say but I tried anyway.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  The words you are supposed to say when what you mean is so much more. You feel denial and empathy and anger and blame and fear and sorrow and all you can say are words. In some ways animals have it better, I thought.

  I looked up. Corey stood across the plot from me, watching with his greenish brown eyes. The boy I loved. He knew what I was and he hadn’t run away. I saw my mother watching as Corey hugged me lightly and kissed my cheek. I wanted to turn and kiss him on the mouth but I was afraid. Not of what she would do but of what would happen if she made me angry. So I pulled away from him quickly.

  “I want to show you something,” he said.

  Next to Pace’s grave was an old gravestone with a huge sad-eyed angel bending over it like a willow tree. Carved into the stone were the words: MICHAEL FAIRBORN, JULY IO, 1896—SEPTEMBER 2, 1913.

  “Michael?” I said.

  “Wasn’t there something about a guy who hung himself in the house on Green Street?” Corey asked me.

  Hung himself? Like what Pace had done. With a rope in his closet. I shuddered. “The Fairborn House. Michael Fairborn.”

  Corey and I exchanged a look. Michael. Like Pace’s

  Michael? I had never seen this Michael guy. He had never showed up at the funeral. He was like an apparition. The names could have been a coincidence but I wasn’t so sure. Maybe Pace imagined Michael or maybe there was more to it. Nothing made sense in the normal way anymore.

  I shivered, remembering the icy house. Corey moved closer to me so I could feel the hairs on my arm brush against his smooth skin. I wasn’t embarrassed by them now. In the light of what had happened, small thin
gs like that meant nothing.

  I wanted to tell Pace what I was thinking. I don’t understand what happened with Michael. But whatever it was I wish I could have helped you. I let you down. I turned away from you. Without your love and acceptance, without Corey, I could have been where you are now. Love is the only thing we have to save us.

  “What do you think that means?” Corey asked. “That they had the same name. That Pace did it the way he did.”

  I wished Pace was there so I could ask him. No matter what he said, I wouldn’t have judged it; I would have just listened.

  “But you know about things I don’t understand, baby.” Corey took my chin in his hand and lifted my face gently so our eyes met. “Like what happened with those wolves the other night.”

  “I’ll tell you everything I know,” I said and the tears came with it and he reached out and took my hand even though people might have seen us. Fuck it, I thought. Pace is dead and I’m going to worry if my mom sees this? I didn’t pull away.

  I looked across the cemetery lawn and saw Joe Ranger standing by himself with his hands in his pockets, watching me. Even from that far away I could see his jaw working, chewing tobacco like he was devouring a piece of raw meat.

  Perhaps my friend Pace, in love with a ghost, had lost his mind. But who was to say that I had not?

  August Kill

  We only had a few more weeks before the end of the summer; that was when Corey would be going away from me. Now that Pace was gone I clung to my boyfriend more than ever. Without him, with everything that had happened, I was afraid it would be so easy for me to move in the direction Pace had gone.

  I went back to work and Corey started picking me up in the evening instead of meeting me at the barn. We walked together through town, not caring if anyone saw us. Part of me wanted the news to get back to my mom so I could finally tell her the truth.