Flawless, a Claire Fontaine novella

by Tanpepper, Saul

  Except, Claire suspected, none of it was conscious. That would’ve been giving the girl too much credit.

  And so it had been like that with Dennis. Claire had known it was coming long before anyone else did; she had warned Dennis, and he must’ve known it too, if only subconsciously, because he was only too willing to believe her. Sure enough, the signs started appearing almost immediately afterward: Heather getting moody, “forgetting” to call Dennis, acting like she was no longer interested. For the first time, Claire felt a sort of hatred for her. Dennis deserved better.

  Well, if it was any consolation, he’d died before Heather could flip the switch on him.

  Given such a history, was it any surprise that Heather had already moved past Trevor?

  “I’ll be right over,” she assured Claire.

  “Can you drive?” Claire asked. Her arm was throbbing something horrible right then. “You might have to take me to the emergency room. My parents are at a picnic or something up at Dunbury Park. I’m here all alone.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sure it’s nothing serious.”

  Claire frowned. How would she know it wasn’t serious?

  “Just sit tight, googly bear,” Heather said. “I’ll leave as soon as I gather up a few things.”

  Claire couldn’t help smiling at that, proof that everything was, indeed, fine between them. She doubted Heather would be quoting her favorite movie of all time, Monsters, Inc., if things weren’t okay. She felt sorry for doubting her.

  “Um, Heather? Can I ask you something?” She bit her lip, wondering if she was making a mistake bringing up Trevor.

  “Of course, sweetie.”

  “The other day, at The Hut…” She didn’t know how to word it. Heather waited patiently without speaking. “Never mind. Just, can you hurry? My arm really hurts.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” Heather answered, then added, “schmoopsie.” This time, the endearment felt just a tiny bit forced. “I think I’ve got something that’ll take care of it.”

  Claire hung up the phone, feeling both relieved and unsettled. She was glad she hadn’t specifically brought up Trevor’s name. No sense to digging up old bones, so to speak. But it bothered her that Heather had seemed almost too willing to come to her aid. Sure, it was the code of The Five to support each other, but there were times when the code was broken. Self-preservation was a strong instinct sometimes.

  She waited in the dark, not bothering to open the curtains. The weather had been uncharacteristically warm this spring, especially this past week, and so she’d drawn them across the windows yesterday after Dee had dropped her off, hoping to keep out the heat and the glare. But already the house was beginning to warm up. Pretty soon, the AC would kick in.

  She couldn’t sit still. Every few minutes or so she’d get up to peek outside, and each time she did it seemed like the sunlight grew ever brighter, ever more intense, hotter and hotter. She had to blink several times, wiping away the tears until her eyes adjusted. But even then the brightness was uncomfortable, so she’d let the curtain fall back and welcome the darkness back into the room.

  She lay down on the floor, relishing the coolness there, letting her arm settle wherever it felt most comfortable. It felt good to just rest. There was this vague sensation of pressure behind her eyes, like she might be experiencing the beginnings of a migraine. She’d never had one before, but had heard that’s how they started, with pressure behind the eyes and a sensitivity to light. But a half hour later, when Heather finally knocked on the door, the headache still hadn’t made its appearance. The sensitivity persisted, as did the pressure in her head.

  Heather skipped into the room without commenting on the darkness. She settled onto the couch and began to fan herself with a magazine someone had left there. She held a white paper bag in her hands, which she set on her lap. Claire noticed the fancy DB logo on the front, indicating it had come from DiMarco’s Boutique downtown, which reminded her that she still hadn’t had a chance to wear that Ronnie Marx she’d gotten.

  “What’s that?” she asked, her curiosity temporarily overcoming the discomfort in her arm.

  Heather gave Claire one of her trademark smiles, her teeth gleaming in the darkness and her head tilted ever so slightly. She reached into the bag and pulled out what looked like a tube of toothpaste.

  “Medicine,” she said, “just as I promised.” She extended her hand and Claire took the tube and inspected the label.

  “This was—”

  “Dennis’s stuff,” Heather finished. “Yeah, I know.” Her voice cracked just the tiniest bit, and Claire realized that this was the first time she’d seen Heather express any emotion since the funeral. In fact, it was the first time she’d even mentioned him.

  The poor girl! Claire hurried over and wrapped her good arm around Heather, pulling her tight against her side. She suddenly felt very close to her.

  Heather stiffened for a moment, then relaxed. She sniffed once. “It’s an angel—an anal—”

  “Analgesic,” Claire said. She handed the tube back to Heather. “That means it kills pain.”

  “And there’s antibiotic in it, too.” She reached into the bag a third time and brought out a bottle that rattled when she shook it. “Here’s more of the same, but in pill form,” she said. “Take two tablets orally three times a day for ten days,” she read off the label. “Between these and the ointments you should be right as rain by Monday, honey bee. Guaranteed.”

  Claire gave the medicine a doubtful look. If they hadn’t worked for what Dennis had contracted, what made Heather think they’d work for her?

  First of all, nobody knows what Dennis had.

  Yeah, well, she didn’t know what she had, either, did she? Who knew what the mugger in the alleyway had given her—probably something stuck in his dirty, unkempt fingernails. The memory of the attack came back to her, feeling just as brutal as the actual assault. She remembered the pale skin of his face beneath the hood, its boyish shape, the hairless chin, the demanding hands swiping at her phone. And those deep, black eyes. She shivered.

  “Dennis couldn’t take it,” Heather said, sighing heavily. “He was allergic. If you need more, I know where I can get it. April’s mom is a doctor. It was April who gave it to Dennis in the first place.”

  Claire nodded. April had been nearly as devastated by Dennis’s passing as Heather had been.

  “Unfortunately…” Heather went on. But then she must’ve seen the look of doubt on Claire’s face. “Look, just give it a try. If you don’t see any improvement by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll drive you to the emergency room myself. Okay?”

  Claire hesitated. She didn’t know if it was wise to wait even that long. But she felt like she owed Heather something. She’d been so forgiving, so willing to help when Claire doubted she would’ve done the same if the situation had been reversed. So she nodded.

  “That’s my girl. Now I’ll leave you. You look like you could use some rest.” She gathered herself and stood.

  Claire did feel tired. In fact, she felt like she could sleep for a week.

  Heather walked over to the door, but when she got there, she paused before speaking.

  “I don’t blame you,” she said, quietly. Claire swallowed, and it made a loud clicking sound in the awful silence that seemed to build between them. “You’re so much prettier than I am, Claire. Prettier and smarter. And…” She sighed. Her shoulders sagged. “Boys only care about looks.”

  “Not all boys,” Claire said.

  “No, but the ones that matter do.”

  Claire’s heart nearly stopped then. It felt like it was breaking. But before she could say anything in answer, Heather was gone and the door was closed against the blaring heat of the day. And suddenly the house was so nice and cool and quiet that Claire couldn’t be bothered to worry about Heather even one minute longer. She had bigger problems to worry about. Like this arm that felt like it had come from a dead person and been sewn on in place of her own. She
shuddered and another spasm of pain burned its way into her shoulder.

  She hurriedly opened the tube Heather had given her and smeared the salve over the scratch. It was so nice and cool, and her arm almost immediately began to feel better. She followed this with a double dose of the antibiotics. Then she lay back down and fell asleep with a vague notion that maybe she shouldn’t have taken the pills when there was no one else around. What if she were allergic? What if she went into shock?

  She had no idea if she was allergic to them, as Dennis had been. But then a dreamless sleep washed over her, and the worry and pain faded into oblivion.

  ‡ ‡ ‡

  Claire woke sometime later, still feeling horribly tired and weak, but considerably better. The arm only ached a little now. She wandered into the kitchen and filled a glass from the sink. The pills were green. She hadn’t noticed that before. In the dim light and against the sickly green tinge of her skin, they had looked almost white. But now her skin had lost that awful color; it was much paler now than it had been, paler and waxier. But anything was better than green.

  She hurriedly swallowed the pills, feeling them tumble down the length of her throat and dropping into her empty stomach. Then she opened the tube of antibiotic ointment and applied another layer of the thick white slime to her arm. Just as before, the burning in her skin immediately began to fade. It felt cooler. Any remaining discomfort sloughed away in sheets. She could almost feel the wound knitting back together, the infection dying. But also like before, an overwhelming weariness overtook her. Her eyelids felt as if they weighed a million pounds.

  “It’s this fever,” she said. She went upstairs and fell into her bed. But this time, even as exhausted as she was, sleep was long in coming. And once it did come, it was broken by strange and horrible dreams.

  In one, she was an impassive bystander watching as Trevor shoved Dennis down the school stairs on his skateboard, laughing and shouting that Dennis needed to stay in his place. Dennis crashed to the ground with such force that all his skin tore away, leaving only ragged tatters of raw, bleeding muscle and shattered bone. But he was laughing, too! The shock of it was so terrifying that Claire had woken herself up screaming.

  Later, the dreams returned, but this time she watched as Six and Ralph made out with each other in one of The Hut’s booths, which then morphed into a dark alleyway. Claire recognized it in her sleep as the one where the mugger had attacked her. The boys’ kissing fascinated her, but it grew more and more passionate, more violent, louder, until she cried out, begging them to stop. They didn’t. Claire then realized with a dawning horror that they were devouring each other face first, their heads collapsing into each other, their bodies becoming gigantic mouths. She tried desperately to rouse herself, but in the end, the dream faded away without her waking.

  It was replaced by another, this one portraying April and Heather lifting weights in some dark room somewhere; their hysterical laughter echoed out of the shadows in tremulous waves and their voices were monstrous and guttural: “We’ll kick her ass,” they snarled. “We’ll scratch her face! Then who’ll be number one?” In a mirror that reflected nothing, the other two girls, Simone and Deirdre, were flaying each other with willow branches until their wounds broke open and bled in pools and puddled at their feet; they laughed hysterically, then began smearing what looked like froyo on themselves until their skin was miraculously healed. Then they went back to whipping each other.

  When she finally did wake, wrenching herself from that horrible dream world, gasping and soaking with sweat, her heart thudding dully against her chest, the shadows were long against the far wall and the weak light that seeped in around the edges of the curtains came in corpulent shades of red and purple. The clock on her bedside table said a quarter of five. She felt miserable, but at least the soreness in her arm was nearly gone.

  She got up, swallowed another set of pills, reapplied the ointment, then went downstairs to wait.

  Her parents finally stumbled in from their “picnic” around midnight. They didn’t even notice Claire sitting in the darkness. She heard them giggling as they went up the stairs. She heard the crunch of the mattress springs as they got into bed. She heard their snores. And when the bells of the church in town began to ring six o’clock in the morning, she heard that, too. Finally, when she heard her parents stirring, she went back upstairs and crawled back into her own bed.

  She spent the whole of Sunday inside, no longer feeling nauseous, though still a bit weak and spent.

  The medicine seemed to have worked miracles. The scratch was now just a faint shadow, and her arm was back to normal size and color again, except for the paleness the ointment had left on her skin. She didn’t feel feverish, but now her stomach was all twisted up in hard knots, probably from the antibiotics. Her muscles were stiff, though they didn’t hurt.

  “It’s the flu,” she told Dee over the phone, not really knowing if it was true or not, suspecting that it wasn’t, not really caring either way. Her arm trembled from holding the phone as she lay on her bed, so she rolled to one side and sandwiched the thing between her ear and the pillow to keep the cord from pulling it away. She’d begged her parents to get cordless phones for the house, but they had stubbornly refused, citing nostalgia. Sometimes, they seemed so out of touch that she wondered how they’d ever managed without her.

  She didn’t tell Dee about the pills and cream that Heather had brought over. Knowing her, Dee’d probably scold her for using other people’s prescriptions. And she’d be especially bitchy about it if she knew whose it had originally been. But as far as Claire was concerned, where the stuff had come from or whose it had been didn’t matter. It just needed to work, which it did.

  “Did you report your cell phone missing, Claire?”

  Claire winced and covered her face. “No. I totally forgot.”

  She could hear Dee take in a sharp breath, and she asked what the matter was.

  “I got a text in the middle of the night. It was from your phone. Are you listening to me? Your phone, Claire. At least, the ID said it was you.” Claire thought she could hear an edge of panic in her friend’s voice.

  “So? The thief was probably just going through my contacts list and thought he’d have some fun. What’d the message say?”

  “That’s the creepy part, Claire. It said…”

  Silence weighed on the line like darkness.

  “Well? What’d it say, Dee? Tell me.”

  “It said, ‘one will die.’”

  Claire felt her breath catch in her throat. One will die? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

  “You need to tell the police, Clarabelle.”

  “They’re just trying to scare you…us. Me. I don’t know.” Now she really was getting a headache.

  “Well, it’s working. They’ve got your address and your phone number and they know what your name is. And now they have my number, too, and everyone else in your contact list!”

  Claire’s mind was wandering. She knew she should be more concerned—the alarm in Dee’s voice said so; the text threat said so—but she just couldn’t bring herself to feel anything but apathy right now. Maybe it was because she hadn’t eaten anything in almost forty-eight hours. Though, honestly, she didn’t feel much like eating anything at all.

  “I’ll call and report it, okay?” she promised.

  “I worry about you, Clarabelle.”

  “Which is why you’re my best best friend,” Claire answered. It came out sounding sarcastic. She didn’t mean it to, but she didn’t apologize for it, either.

  I thought she was your best best friend because she’s the second hottest girl in school.

  By Monday morning, Claire felt heaps better. Ninety-nine percent better, in fact. She still hadn’t slept, but somehow she didn’t feel like it mattered. There was a dull ache in her other arm, the unscratched one. She figured it was probably from lying on it wrong. The scratched arm was still feeling bloated and numb, but it looked perfectly normal,
which was what was important.

  In fact, it looked better than normal. It was practically radiant.

  Strange.

  The scratch was completely gone now, invisible, no trace whatsoever.

  She hurried down the stairs and past the breakfast her mother had laid out for her, stopping only long enough to peck her cheek as she ran out the door.

  “Honey?” her mother called after her. “Did you brush your teeth?”

  “God, Mom! Of course I did,” she answered. “Just embarrass me in front of the whole world why don’t you!”

  She turned around to frown at her mother and caught the sour look on her face just before she turned and went back inside. Parents!

  As she walked along, Claire discretely held her hand up to her mouth and exhaled. It didn’t smell like anything, so she shrugged and hurried off toward Heather’s house.

  Heather’s father was the head of a large research group at a local biotech company. Claire knew almost nothing about what he studied, but after Heather’s shocking accusation at Dennis’s funeral, a nasty rumor had begun circulating claiming Dennis’s infection had been the result of one of Mister Graham’s experiments gone horribly wrong. It was a ridiculous accusation, of course. Why would Heather implicate her own father? Everyone knew Dennis had contracted some weird food poisoning. If anyone was to blame, it was the owner of Pongo’s Pizzeria.