The Girl Who Sees

by Dima Zales

  Finding new strength, I race for the stairs leading up to the 50th Street D-train station. If my Stuyvesant High track coach could see my performance today, he’d regret not letting me on the varsity team.

  I catch a flicker of motion in the reflective window of a laundromat I run past, and in the next business window, I confirm it.

  Despite my speed, Amie is right behind me.

  My heart gallops madly in my chest and my lungs feel like they’re about to burst as I reach the station. Wheezing for breath, I zoom up the stairs in double- and triple-step leaps.

  When I encounter a turnstile, I don’t bother reaching for my wallet with the MetroCard. I just jump over the obstacle like a steeplechaser. It would be great if a cop saw me and decided to give me a ticket for cheating the MTA, but Murphy’s Law makes sure there isn’t one around.

  I head for the Manhattan side of the station, my feet tingling as they detect the vibration of the arriving train.

  Amie is still right on my tail.

  Like a human torpedo, I jet all the way up to the station and see the train approaching.

  I feel pressure on my shoulder and glance back.

  Amie’s hand is gripping my jacket, her eyes scarily blank.

  My stomach clenches over the undigested oatmeal.

  As fast as the train is moving, it might as well be a slug for all the good it’ll do me.

  I spin out of her grip, leaving my jacket in her hand, and sprint toward the arriving train.

  My new idea is pure madness.

  If I time this wrong, there will be two corpses at the station—and mine will be much less spry than Amie’s.

  The train is a dozen yards from entering the station when I reach the end of the platform, Amie on my heels.

  Sucking in a breath, I jump down in front of the train.

  Chapter Sixteen

  My knees scream in complaint when I land, but I manage to hit the ground running. Jumping over rail after rail, I make it to the Brooklyn-bound train track.

  Looking back, I see Amie land in the spot I just vacated.

  Crap. My plan was to leave Amie behind the approaching train.

  The train’s brakes screech like a metallic dragon. The conductor must be attempting to stop.

  He fails.

  Just as Amie gets to the second railing, the train smashes into her, and she’s dragged under.

  Bile rushes up my throat as crunching sounds reach my ears. I know my pursuer was already dead, but it’s still sickening to imagine her body being mangled like that.

  With effort, I swallow and force myself to vault up the train track wall on the other side. I don’t want to be around to answer the inevitable questions about the accident or about my own suicidal, and possibly illegal, maneuver.

  My arms shake with exhaustion by the time I climb out, and I send mental thanks to Ariel for all the pull-ups she makes me do at the gym.

  The train has fully stopped by now, and morbid curiosity makes me look back again.

  To my shock, Amie’s body is not under the train anymore. Instead, it’s between the two train tracks—and moving.

  At first, my brain has trouble parsing what it’s seeing.

  Amie’s left leg is missing below the knee, and her right leg is broken at the ankle, with jagged bone sticking out of it. The gruesomeness of these injuries would make a seasoned World War I medic cringe.

  The worst part is how she’s moving—on all fours, like a cheetah from hell.

  I blink, as though that can change what I’m seeing, but that doesn’t help. Amie leaps over the rail in her path, her blank eyes zooming in on me like self-guided missiles.

  I’m too shocked to move. All I can do is stare at her missing right hand, the reason she’s using a meaty stump like a hoof.

  She leaps up, her stump scraping over the wall as she attempts to climb out with inhuman agility, and a fresh flood of adrenaline cuts through my paralysis.

  I break into a run.

  In a haze of horror, I dash out of the station. Every muscle in my body is trembling with exhaustion, my lungs working like bellows as I burst out onto the street.

  Behind me, I hear the sound of bone clanking on hard pavement.

  I pick up my pace, my mind frantically scrambling for a solution.

  Half a block in front of me, I see a store’s basement cellar hatches propped open with a stick.

  On autopilot, I sprint for it, a half-formed idea appearing in my mind.

  Reaching the open hatches, I stop and glance over my shoulder, panting.

  Amie is a dozen yards behind me, galloping on all fours.

  I steal a quick glance down.

  The metal door on the bottom of the twelve-foot shaft is locked from the street side—a common practice when store owners expect a delivery over an indefinite range of time.

  Steeling myself, I spin on my heels and meet my pursuer’s blank gaze.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Amie’s unnatural gallop speeds up, her eyes never leaving my face.

  I stare her down, as though I’m not afraid—the biggest acting challenge of my life.

  When Amie is within leaping distance, she opens her mouth, exposing her teeth.

  I understand her plan immediately.

  She’s about to chomp at my throat.

  She leaps up.

  At the last second, just as I can almost reach out and smack her, I jump sideways instead.

  She plummets down the open cellar, landing with a hard plop.

  I grab the stick that keeps the metal hatches open, and the doors slam closed.

  There’s a lock and chain to my right. I use them to secure the hatches and then reach into my shirt.

  With unsteady fingers, I unhook the safety pin that keeps my hidden pocket attached to the cloth and pull the pin out. Sticking it into the lock, I twist and break the metal apart. This way, even someone with a key will have trouble opening the hatches.

  Straightening, I scan the street for witnesses and thank the stars there are none. I’m dripping with sweat and out of breath, but I can’t afford to rest yet.

  Spotting a 99 Cents store half a block away, I make my way there and purchase a charger for my phone for almost ten bucks. (So much for that 99 Cent claim.) I then find an electrical outlet in the store and plug in my phone.

  As it reboots, I ponder how to deal with Amie before someone clips that lock. 911 is out. Not only did Ariel say not to call the cops the last time I was in a similar situation, but I’m also too tired to come up with a story to explain what amounts to a zombie in the basement cellar.

  Thinking of last night gives me an idea. Once the home screen reappears, I locate Pada L’Shick—the body disposal expert—in my contacts.

  “Greetings,” a man’s voice drawls.

  “Pada, this is Sasha. You gave me your card last night.”

  “Sasha. I didn’t expect to hear from you. Especially so soon.”

  I look around the store to make sure no one is eavesdropping. “I’m afraid I could use your help again.”

  “Assistance similar to what I provided last night?” Pada sounds almost giddy with the prospect of that horrific cleanup.

  “What I need is similar, but there’s going to be more work on your end.” I again look around furtively. “You’ll have to finalize the transaction when you get here, if you catch my drift.”

  “I think I do.” Pada’s creepy excitement seems to rise a notch. “You want me to do what Vlad did last night, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” I say, wondering how implicating this whole exchange could be in the court of law if the NSA is spying on our cell conversation (and aren’t they always?). “Though you don’t need to be quite as viciously thorough as he was.”

  “What’s the location?”

  I give him the Brooklyn address of the store and explain that he should look for “the mess” in the cellar.

  “Brooklyn.” His excitement wanes. “I usually stick to Manhattan, but I like yo
u, so I’ll do it. It will cost extra, however.”

  Somehow, having to pay for this makes me feel that much dirtier. “What do I owe you?”

  “With the first-time customer discount, this will be eight thousand,” Pada says, his earlier excitement gone. I guess money is the boring part for him. “Would you like to pay by check or credit card? If you have gold coins, I can knock off ten percent, but I don’t take paper cash.”

  “That’s a lot,” I blurt, then catch myself. How much would someone have to pay me to open those hatches and deal with Amie? Probably more than a hundred times what Pada just quoted. Even then, I’d only agree if I had a shotgun, a chainsaw, a barrel of gasoline, and some big dudes to assist me. Also, like him, I’d charge extra to schlep to any of the boroughs.

  “So you don’t need my help?” Pada’s tone is dry.

  “Can I pay in two months?” I ask, already calculating the impact on my “Quit Nero’s Fund” savings account. At the current rate of expenditures, I’ll be stuck in that soul-crushing job for an extra few months. Now my only hope is a lucrative TV deal suddenly coming my way, which could happen, thanks to my TV performance on—

  “There will be a five-hundred-dollar fee in two months,” Pada says. “Oh, and I don’t like people who owe me money to leave town without notice.”

  “Forget it,” I say. “The credit card interest rate will be less than that.”

  “If you say so.”

  Pulling out my credit card, I ask, “Can I give you the number over the phone?”

  He takes my card number, and when he asks for the expiration date, the transaction takes on a surreal quality.

  Hiding a mangled, still-alive body shouldn’t be so reminiscent of ordering pizza.

  “Leave it to me from here,” Pada says after I provide the security number on the back of my card. “Go home.”

  “Thanks. Bye.” I hang up before he remembers some other fee or changes his mind.

  Unplugging my phone, I take the charger and escape the dollar store.

  There’s an apple-green taxi across the street, so I drag myself toward it, the post-adrenaline crash hitting me hard. Though the subway right above me is a small fraction of the cost, I dare not go to the station so soon after jumping on the rails.

  Climbing into the car, I state my destination.

  “Hey,” the cabbie says with a cute Spanish accent. “Aren’t you that girl on TV?”

  Despite my exhaustion, I feel a jolt of excitement at being recognized. It’s so nice that I don’t even bother pointing out that “a girl on TV” could mean anyone from Cinderella to Miley Cyrus. “Yes,” I say, smiling modestly. “I was on Evening with Kacie.”

  “That’s right.” He smacks his forehead. “You predicted the earthquake. That was very impressive.”

  “Thank you,” I reply, my tiredness returning. Leaning back, I try to exude a default New Yorker attitude that says, “Please stop being friendly. I just want to be left alone.”

  “Were you trying to charge your phone?” The guy looks at the charger I’m clutching in my hands. “You can use my charger, if you want.”

  “Thank you.” I squeeze out a weak smile, hand him my phone to charge, and make a mental note to tip more than I originally planned.

  I pointedly stay silent after that, and the cabbie leaves me be, further increasing his tip. Exhaustion presses down on me, dragging my lids closed, but my mind is undergoing a paradigm shift.

  My natural skepticism and reluctance to believe in the paranormal are cracking like thin ice under the tank-like pressure of my recent experiences.

  So, here are the facts: I have prophetic dreams, and the dead can be raised by a necromancer named Beatrice who shoots multi-colored bolts of energy at corpses.

  A necromancer.

  If Occam were in my shoes, he’d slit his wrists with his razor.

  I also have to open my mind to the possibility that vampires and werewolves—the other creatures mentioned in the phone conversation in my dream—are as real as necromancers and the walking dead. Come to think of it, according to myths, vampires are a type of walking dead, so it’s not that big of a leap.

  There were other things mentioned in that conversation, words like “Cognizant” and “the Mandate.” What does it all mean? And how is my roommate involved? What does Ariel know and why can’t she tell me? The whole “bleeding from her orifices” thing was beyond creepy and is yet another weird thing to put on an ever-growing list.

  I’ll have to locate her and try to extract some information—without making her hemorrhage, of course. And I also need to visit Rose, to see if she can explain her gorgeous, Jack the Ripper nephew/boyfriend.

  Leaning back in my seat, I close my eyes, put one hand on my chest and one on my belly, and fiercely practice the five-in/five-out breathing to cope with the anxiety squeezing my stomach.

  To my surprise, the relaxation spreads through my body like warm water, and the exhaustion wins out.

  I’m standing on a circular platform in the dark as the scent of sage incense tickles my nose.

  Before I can even think about escaping, a bunch of candles light up all around me, temporarily blinding my dark-adjusted eyes.

  When my vision and pulse even out, I notice that each of the candles looks to be floating, creating a Hogwarts Great Hall vibe.

  As I examine my strange surroundings, I get progressively more concerned and confused.

  With its gray circular walls and seats around the circumference, this place reminds me of a miniature indoor Colosseum.

  I’m in the middle, where the gladiator would traditionally stand, which must be why I feel like I’m about to be pitted against lions, suicidal berserkers, chariots with swords sticking out of their wheels, or worse.

  There are a few dozen people in the seats around me, all wearing differently colored ceremonial robes with hoods on their heads, their faces barely discernible in the gloomy light. Is this a secret meeting of the Illuminati or a cosplay convention? Whoever they are, I’m grateful they skipped the creepy Venetian masks today, and I hope they’ll continue to abstain from Eyes Wide Shut-inspired orgies as well, or at least not force me into one.

  The nape of my neck breaks out in gooseflesh as I realize everyone is staring at something behind me.

  My muscles prepare to leap, but a hand touches my back and a vaguely familiar voice whispers, “I need to put this around your neck.”

  I almost jump out of my skin at the touch, but the voice calms me for some reason.

  Turning, I spot a man whose face is hidden deep inside his cowl. In his ceremoniously extended right hand, he holds a necklace that reminds me of a BDSM collar with a ring in the front. Embedded in the ring is a big, blue, shiny stone, a dead ringer for the diamond from Titanic—only round instead of heart shaped.

  “What is that? Who are you? What is this place? What’s going on?” I whisper so that only this guy can hear.

  Instead of an answer, he touches my back in a familiar, and strangely reassuring, way. He then uses my momentary confusion to wrap the collar around my neck, locking it into place.

  I reach back and try to unclasp the necklace, but I can’t feel any locking mechanism. It’s as if it were welded shut.

  “Take this off,” I hiss at the guy, but he doesn’t respond.

  Everyone around us shifts to the edge of their chairs and stares hungrily, to the point where worries about orgies reenter my mind, and I swallow so loudly the sound echoes.

  Channeling E.T., the man extends his index finger toward my face. I prepare to bite it off, but he doesn’t actually touch me. Instead, he points at the stone in the middle of my neck.

  Curiosity mixes with panic as he mumbles something to himself and a flow of bright blue energy pours from his finger and into the stone on my neck.

  “How are you doing that?” I whisper in awestruck fascination.

  I’d do anything to master an awesome effect like that for my future magic show.

  The ene
rgy flow intensifies, reminding me of the Force lightning from Star Wars or the thing Beatrice did at the morgue. Yet I feel no pain; the stone on my neck absorbs every ounce of power, leaving my body unscathed.

  My list of impossibilities already includes necromancers, and tentatively vampires and werewolves, but now I reluctantly have to add magic spells to it as well—because what else should I call this amazing special-effects display?

  “This will not hurt you,” the guy murmurs, and his identity is on the tip of my tongue when he suddenly steps back.

  I turn and see him make his way toward his seat in the first row.

  The glow from my odd jewelry illuminates my surroundings with ocean-blue light.

  A woman clears her throat behind me, so I spin around.

  In the third row, at my one o’clock, a slender figure in a magenta robe is on her feet, pulling down her hood. She’s Asian, with cherub-like round cheeks and wavy peroxide-blond hair. A tear-shaped diamond necklace adorns her robe, matching her flower-shaped earrings.

  “I’m Councilor Kit,” the woman says in a little-girl voice that reminds me of anime. “I’m the designated neutral party in tonight’s proceedings. Please state your name for the record.”

  “Sasha.” My throat is so dry the reply is barely louder than a whisper. Speaking in front of all these people is activating my worst fear, and the weird ambience amplifies it. My heart pounds violently, and I half expect it to rip out of my ribcage, Alien style.

  At my reply, the blue light around me turns green, and though I can’t see it below my chin, I’m certain the stone on my collar is the source of this new hue.

  Kit covers her head with the hood again and sits down. Immediately, a man in a baby-chick yellow robe stands up in the second row at my three o’clock. He removes his hood, revealing a contagious smirk that showcases his cheek dimples. His pointy chin also has a dimple, which combines with the goatee-shaped stubble on his tan skin to make him look like a mischievous satyr.

  “I’m Councilor Chester, the Plaintiff in today’s proceedings,” he says in a vaguely familiar voice, looking straight at me. His black lashes are so thick it looks like he’s wearing eyeliner. “I’ll cut to the chase. What did you do at eight p.m. on Sunday, October 8th?”