The heat was growing like a pot of boiling water. There was one bubble of heat, one wave of fire getting stronger by the minute. Abigail felt she was going to boil over. She was going to burst. Laying on the kitchen floor, she watched the puddle of sweat drain off her and to the floor. She had never been so warm. She felt as if she was being cooked alive, and it could not get any worse until she felt the bite from the inside. Sunny had taken another nip at her mama, and Abigail felt every one of her tiny sharp teeth. Crying, Abigail now had a puddle of tears to mix with the sweat. If only there was a way to stop Sunny, a way to swat her hand and tell her to behave. Another bite came, and with this bite, Abigail screamed. Not only was Abigail being cooked alive, but eaten alive as well. Damn child. Do these babies gnaw their way out into world?
The neighbor heard the scream and knew now was not a time to think of doing what she had to do. There was no time left for handling things sober. She’d do it old school, cowboy style… slightly drunk. The neighbor put on her sneakers and ran across the field to the girl, forgetting her shot gun, forgetting her scripture.
She found the girl slumped over on the kitchen floor dripping in sweat and sobbing. “I’m here…don’t worry. I’ll get the chain off honey…I’m here…is the baby coming?”
Abigail looked up, shocked to see the neighbor lady from across the field. She had a sweet face; the type of lady you would want to sit next to at a coffee shop and joke about the weather with. Looking into the lady’s eyes, Abigail could feel herself slipping. Sunny was taking over, and the sweet neighbor lady wasn’t safe. She’d kill her and make Abigail roll around in her guts.
The lady was trying to take the chain off her leg. “Not safe…NOOOOO leave it…it’s not safe, she can’t help it…she can’t. She’s just a baby. You need to leave, it’s not safe…it’s not her fault…” Abigail yanked the chain out of the neighbor’s hands, then all that could be heard was a sinister giggle. Sunny had taken over.
Abigail sat up, grabbed the neighbor by the neck and laughed. A laugh like a child, a laugh where all was going to be forgiven, so being naughty was extra yummy.
Then Sunny did it, she showed the neighbor the true face of The Grey. The skinny blonde lady was gone, and in her place were eyes that wrapped around the head, skin that shone with ice, and a mouth that went way beyond the ears. There were teeth that embodied the word terror. Teeth that evolved for nothing more than to rip.
The neighbor was choking, and her eyes became glassy with the understanding that this was her final moment. She had the sin of being prideful about a good deed, a good deed that wasn’t in her heart. She had forced it, and now she was here with this creature facing her death. In those seconds, she understood that chain. She wasn’t overcome with fear, but was heartsick over this one choice. One small inclination in an afternoon had been what was to blame here.
The Mothers nodded to each other while watching the screen and called for Superior Mother. This baby was one of the most feral they had ever seen. It was terrifying and thrilling for the Mothers.
Superior Mother, listening to the report and watching the monitors, gave a bored nod. “Dispatch Mothers to retrieve her and the baby. Quickly, she’ll be out soon, and she’ll kill everyone, including her mother. Let the Mothers in the nursery know to prepare for an original.”
One Mother stopped and asked, “An original?” Superior Mother gave everyone a glance, then winced at the fact that she would have to explain something. It was valid to ask this question, but she felt that they shouldn’t have dared. “A baby that is born with its truest nature of who we are in The Grey. We have nicknamed them Originals. They no longer happen very often, but the records show, when we began this journey it is how we were. We have, my dear Mothers, been tamed over time in this world.” Superior Mother left the room, leaving the Mothers behind to question themselves—whether or not they were, in fact, tame.
Jacob
Driving home from work, Jacob had a bag of burgers for dinner and anxiety on his mind. The last thirty minutes he hadn’t been able to focus. There was a tap, tap, tap on his mind, telling him his world wasn’t right. Things were slanted and he couldn’t figure out how to correct them.
One tap made Jacob feel like death was down the street. The second tap meant there were murders waiting at his door. He headed home not wanting to know what the third tap was. He’d promised Abigail burgers, but couldn’t get them home fast enough. He broke every speed limit and traffic law on the way, but with one drunken sheriff in town, there were no worries about being stopped.
Jumping out of his truck, Jacob ran to his front door. From the second he opened the door, time stopped; the things he saw were things nobody would ever believe. Abigail had their neighbor by the neck, even though she was such a frail creature. Abigail, so skinny and cold, was holding their neighbor—a large woman—by the neck high enough so that her tip toes where hardly touching the floor. The neighbor dangled. Jacob knew this wasn’t Abigail; this was their daughter.
Jacob should have jumped instantly to help the neighbor, but he had to take a second. He needed a pause to see what he was seeing. A small amount of time to analyze whether or not he was insane.
The thought of the third tap pounded Jacob away from daydreaming and into action. This was the third tap, this is what he felt looming around him. Running across the room to shove Abigail off the neighbor, there was another pause. He heard laughter. A child’s laughter. It was ringing in his ears and the feel of it made him wish he could unhear it. The sound of children’s laughter was tainted now, ruined forever.
Behind him, Jacob heard crying mixed in with the laughter. Abigail was sobbing; she was a rag doll with a pregnant belly lying on the floor. He was such a quiet man, trying to live a tranquil life. Now, he was tossed into the very center of chaos.
Lisa
Lisa tried to focus on enjoying herself. She was at her little coffee shop, at her table on the porch. It was a gentle day, a light touch of a breeze and dab of sunlight. But, she was forcing it. There was no flavor to anything she drank, and her eyes felt dull.
She thought that if she could break The Grey—smash it into tiny pieces that blew in a million directions with the wind—then this quiet corner, in this little coffee house could be a human normal for her. A day like any other, without the pressure of a Grey void standing by.
It would be suicide to try and break The Grey. A mission so impossible that Lisa knew the only conclusion to it was her death. That was the only logical outcome; there could be no other way. Sniffing the breeze that sat with her at the coffee shop, she didn’t care what logic said.
Death was not foreign to Lisa. In The Grey, a Mother simply was tucked into bed and was never seen again. She always assumed it was death—if death was even a condition that happened in The Grey. That was another question she had no answer for. Answers were earned. She had earned nothing.
Israel sat down in front of Lisa. “Hey, you look serious, girl. Deep in thought.” Blinking back her daydream, she looked at Israel. He was the color of chocolate, with eyes that floated between green and blue. He seemed warm, like Allison—warmth that almost radiated from him.
Lisa couldn’t answer Israel. The only thought she had was sinking into him, consuming the heat that radiated from him. She wished there was a door that she could open in his chest that lead to a little hammock under his heart. She could sleep there, pretending his heartbeat was nothing more than music.
“Lisa?” Shaking her head, she only stared at him. Catching herself, Lisa pushed out a smile.
“Sorry, just daydreaming. How are you?” Lisa didn’t give a damn how he was, but that seemed to be the thing humans asked each other most often. She’d had a theory that the humans didn’t actually give a damn how the others were either; it was just considered a polite thing to say.
Over the next thirty minutes, Lisa and Israel sat making idle chit-chat. Probing each other for answers to questions neither really cared about. Where are you from? Where
did you go to school? Favorite movie, favorite color. Lisa lied about them all. She had no favorite anything. What was the point to that?
She was from The Grey. How could she explain that to a human without getting tossed into The White again. School? School was in The Grey with the Mothers. There were no sports teams or after school activities. Favorite color, how trite! Who has time for such nonsense? Favorite movie. That’s just as trite. Why bother to learn the names of made-up characters from works of fiction? Fiction was useless, ineffective, and not worth remembering.
Why remember movie titles when there was real life to deal with? No one cares what the name of your favorite comedy is when they are tossed into The Black. Lisa didn’t say any of this. These were the emotions that blanketed her mind. The most secret of truths.
Yet, she played along. She smiled at Israel, answered all of his questions, asked more questions, giving the impression of interest only because that’s what she believed human females did. Time passed, the sun left, the moon arrived, and before Lisa could think of an escape, the coffee shop closed and her corner turned chilly. A kind of chilly that was uninviting and crude; yet there she sat, still talking to Israel.
Lisa had decided about thirteen minutes into the conversation that she was going to have sex with Israel. She was sent here to breed. She would never go looking for a man. It was a matter of convenience, nothing more. She didn’t know or care what it was for him.
Having sex with him, or any man, was nothing more as an errand that needed to be taken off her to-do list, and Israel reminded her of a chunk of chocolate cake. She knew that was ridiculous, but for her, it was good enough. So, why not go there? Jump in…Lisa focused on Israel’s nose, which seemed to be getting closer to hers by the second. Kissing was going to happen, and for Lisa, kissing seemed too intimate. Israel kissed her and kissed her, never giving her a second to analyze whether she wanted to be kissed again.
Kissing was too tight, too close for her taste. His mouth on hers, with his tongue on hers. She played along, but couldn’t tolerate the idea of this type of exchange. Lisa didn’t feel this passion thing she’d seen on TV. She was supposed to be aroused, wanting that tongue-on-tongue thing, but she didn’t want it. The act was repulsive.
Lisa took off her shirt because she believed this would get the kissing to stop, a distraction for them both. She felt nothing; she wanted to feel lust—an embedded lust that all humans have for each other. Instead Israel grabbed her, putting his hand on the small of her back and pushed her breasts against his chest. She felt a trickle of the ice she had on her skin melt against Israel’s heat. She thought she would swoon, not from wanting Israel, but from his heat.
The pulse of the heat, the smothering feel of it, Lisa wished she could drink it in. She was starting to enjoy herself when she noticed that for every touch she gave him, he responded with a flinch. The flinch gave it all away; Israel knew Lisa was different. Lisa wasn’t warm breasts, curves, and whispering kisses that he knew of human women. She was the opposite of inviting. It was as if he had picked up the puppy with three legs and decided to take it home anyway. He would go through with it, with her, but she didn’t understand why.
Getting completely naked with another being was new. In The Grey, privacy was utmost importance. The privacy of The Grey, the privacy of the girls, and when you become a Mother, you get your own room so you can have even more of this envied privacy.
It was all a useless shame; Lisa knew that now. There was no real privacy in The Grey; there was only a pretending at it. Like children playing house. The Grey was pretending you had privacy while everyone else pretended they did too.
This thing, being naked with Israel, started as nothing more than clinical for her. Lisa wanted more; she wanted so much more from this awkward, uninspired non-seduction. Watching television for weeks at a time, seeing humans embrace and have true, fake, made-for-television lust is what she wanted. Just as she wanted cooked beast and cake. Now, Lisa only wanted her clothes and a quick departure to her couch where she could sink into her thoughts and try to forgive her stupidity.
She felt confused. It wasn’t the sex that was confusing. Part A goes to Part B. What shot at Lisa was the look on Israel’s face when he entered her. He didn’t look pleased, there was no wanting more; it was a look of discomfort, almost pain. Why didn’t he stop? He was repeatedly shoving himself into her, as if he just couldn’t quite get it in all the way. Lisa did nothing but observe as he did this—as if she wasn’t involved at all. She wanted it over. She wanted him gone.
At the end, both were getting dressed, and Lisa believed both were glad it ended. Israel was shivering. He was visibly shaking. Lisa watched him put on his clothes, bouncing around, flaying his hands, trembling while trying to get his socks on. He did not say a word. It was fall. It wasn’t cold. Lisa knew this. The chill he had came from her. Israel had mixed into Lisa’s frost.
She decided silence was best and went along with whatever Israel was doing. Both got dressed, looked at each other with the same regard you do a museum display, and headed towards the door. She was hopeful she wasn’t pregnant. Motherhood wasn’t going to be for her. She wasn’t sad she had sex. She didn’t exactly enjoy it, and she was glad it was over.
Sex was just another thing that Lisa couldn’t do right. She couldn’t follow orders, didn’t finish her last mission, she was never good at anything in The Grey, too stubborn to walk the line, too soft-hearted to be truly wicked. With the humans, she spent more time trying to figure them out than trying to accomplish her mission. Sex, it seemed, was something that hung over every humans head, something she was no good at and not interested in.
Out the front door of the coffee shop, Israel kissed Lisa on the forehead, and left in the opposite direction. That forehead kiss she was sure wasn’t a good thing. Wouldn’t he want to walk her home? Wouldn’t he want to kiss her mouth again? Wouldn’t he want to touch her again? Isn’t that what men did after sex with a woman? Wasn’t that the way it was supposed to happen?
Lisa started walking, following her feet again, knowing that was not what was going to happen for her. Lisa wasn’t text book. She wasn’t the same; she was different. The way it happened for other women of The Grey would never work for her. This should upset her, make her bother to cry. Instead, she stopped walking, turned around, and watched Israel walk away. Lisa had to admit to herself that this was slightly hurtful, but she’d get over that. What grabbed at her now, was when Israel rounded off the block, and Lisa realized that she couldn’t come back to this coffee shop again. Content had once again slipped out of her grasp.
The coffee shop was Israel’s place, his job. It wasn’t hers. She’d only borrowed it, using it for those quiet moments of content. Israel didn’t want more of her. She was sure he’d made that clear, so how could she come here, to his place, and present to him something he didn’t savor. Kicking a rock down the street, wishing the rock was her head, Lisa was upset about losing the coffee shop. The man, the sex, was less than an afterthought.
Allison
Watching cartoons with her daughter had become one of those things Allison learned to tolerate. She could giggle when her daughter giggled. Smile when her daughter smiled, and frown on cue when something bad happened. She could do this while completely zoning out, eyes glued to the screen. She enjoyed cuddling, little arms wrapped around hers, little hands holding hers. But, she was so damn over anything princess, anything cartoon; it just about made her crave tequila sunrises and dance music.
Often, she’d tell herself that there would be a day when cartoons would be gone and the idea of a beautiful princess would hopefully fade from her daughter’s interest. On that day, Allison would be free of them, and on that day, she’d burn all the DVDs. But, tonight she sat smiling, giggling and so on, until her phone rang.
“Deals off…I got with your girl…there’s something wrong with her…something not right…not right…” Israel was speaking rapidly, almost panicked. It was too fast, as
if he had only seconds to spare before the killer figured out his location.
“What? You’re kidding me, right?” Allison told herself to be patient, maybe she could talk him off whatever ledge he was on.
“No, the fuck I’m not! Your girl is cold. I mean physically cold. Fucking her was like sticking my dick in an icy glass of milk. I’m still shivering…I can’t get warm. You hearing me? I cannot get motherfucking warm.”
Allison thought he was exaggerating. Sure, Lisa was a lanky, malnourished looking, little woman, so yeah, she might feel kinda frosty, but whatever. He was being nothing but drama.
“Seriously Israel, you’re making shit up…if you don’t …”
“The fuck I’m not…we done.” Then there was a click. Allison looked at her daughter who was listening to every word she said, straining to hear whatever the person on the other line said. When the conversation was over, she shrugged it off. Her mama was the apartment manager; people called her all the time with weird stuff.
Israel got spooked, but by what? Why didn’t her brother get spooked, notice something was off? Her brother never mentioned cold, not a word of it. Sooner or later, this chill Israel had would fade. Then he’d be left with anger that might not passively go away. But, who would that anger go to Allison or Lisa?
Allison tucked her daughter into bed. Then sat on the couch, wondering what the next step was. What came next? What to do? What to do? Grabbing a bottle of wine, she didn’t bother with the glass. She needed to think outside of her comfort zone, outside of herself, and the wine would be her catalyst.
Women of the Grey- The Complete Trilogy Page 37