Everyone's Favorite Girl

by Steph Sweeney

  Instead of the quarters of a mad scientist, replete with torture devices and ghastly mutations, I found myself standing in a nerdy teenager’s bedroom that reeked of rotten food and dirty clothes. Large and luxurious in design, yes, but atop the stately décor of the room were strewn the messy remnants of a smart but lonely boy. Empty pizza boxes, twenty-ounce bottles of various sodas, dirty clothes left wherever they fell. The bed was unmade. Garbage can full. He had probably a sixty-inch television sitting on the coffee table, so close to the couch it’s a wonder he didn’t go blind—before I stabbed him in the eye, that is. He had several videogame systems and a laptop linked to the TV, behind which an extension cord ran across the floor to the wall.

  It was disgusting. The kind of room you know is covered top to bottom in dried up drool, pizza grease, and jizz.

  “This isn’t quite what I expected,” I said.

  “He used to make me clean up,” Judy said, closing the door. “He had a costume he made me wear.”

  “French maid?”

  She nodded.

  I looked her up and down. “I bet you looked cute as shit dressed like that.”

  “He told me I looked stupid. He liked to call me stupid.”

  She seemed sad in a way. Some twisted form of nostalgic. How much time had she spent in this room, giving Brian head and cleaning up his disgusting mess, all the while fearing the day he would decide to take her virtue along with her dignity?

  “My dad would have kicked my ass if I left my room like this,” James said, kicking at a can of soda that proved not to be completely empty, even though it was turned on its side.

  “Mine, too,” Judy said. “We had white carpet. You weren’t allowed to wear shoes in the house, and eating anywhere but the dining room table was the worst sin I could commit. My mom would rather have found a boy in my room than a bag of chips.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” I said. “I don’t want to be in here. I feel like I’m breathing in the dust of dried semen.”

  “It’s this way,” Judy said, pointing toward the back wall, to the right of Brian’s bed.

  She went over to the bookshelf, removed a few books, and slid open a panel in the back. After punching in a code, she walked with the bookshelf as it slid to the side so she could return the books to their proper place.

  Behind the bookshelf was an open doorway leading to a small room lit only by the glow of a computer monitor.

  This time I went inside first. I wanted to see what my fetal self looked like.

  The room was bare. White tile and a stainless steel table upon which sat a cylindrical water tank lit up with under-lighting. Floating inside with wires and tubes attached to it was my clone, its hands out, as though it were about to clap, eyes shut, head ducked forward. A computer monitor displayed its heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen level, etc.

  My knees felt shaky.

  This fucker really was going to make Favorite Girls out of me.

  “I guess I should be flattered,” I said, but my words fell dead on the floor.

  Judy and James darkened the doorway and I turned to them.

  “You’d think one of me was enough for him,” I said. “What are we going to do with it?”

  “I’ll keep taking care of her,” Judy said. “Just like the rest.”

  “The rest?”

  She nodded. “We currently have six unborn Favorite Girls. The latest Flora has already been born.”

  Now I knew what it felt like to be a single mother with kids. Only I had about two-hundred, ranging from I-need-you-for-everything babies to I-don’t-need-you-anymore teenagers. And all of them girls.

  “I’m surprised Mr. Shriver hasn’t made you flush them.”

  “He want to, but Brian talked him out of it.”

  “Brian? Really? I bet he wanted to keep them for himself, didn’t he? Sick fucker probably had all kinds of experiments lined up for them.”

  “Speaking of which,” Judy said.

  I was heated. “Test subjects, that’s what he wanted them for. God, what a piece of shit he was. You know—”

  “Melissa.”

  I stopped. Her voice had cracked. She was about to cry.

  Behind me, the monitor chimed softly.

  “I’ve finished my work,” Judy said. “The Loyalty Drug is complete.”

  -Clinical Trial—

  WHEN I took Flora to see Patton, I decided to leave her there. Not just for the examination, not just overnight, but permanently. Tomorrow was going to prove a very dangerous day. I couldn’t leave Flora alone in our room. She would be a sitting duck. I made Patton swear to protect her with his life, to not let anyone take her under any circumstances.

  “Not unless it’s me, and I’ve killed Mr. Shriver,” I said.

  “How will I know you’ve killed him?”

  I had to think on that one a moment.

  “I’ll pluck out one of his eyes and bring it with me.”

  Patton grimaced, but he showed no emotion at the thought of someone murdering his brother. My feelings for Patton had gone back and forth so many times they’d finally snapped, leaving me lost as to how I felt about him, but one thing I did have to consider was this: I trusted him. Without stringing him up with the Love Drug, without blackmail, without leverage, I trusted this man.

  The first man I’d ever trusted.

  Flora took the news easily that she would be sleeping over at Patton’s apartment, though she did try to get me to stay.

  “We could watch movies together,” she said. “Don’t you want to see what Patton’s PJs look like?”

  I giggled, and it left my throat feeling swollen. Her ability to generate joy out of thin air, her sheer will to make the world a happy place—it filled me up with warmth when she was around, left me all the more cold and empty when she wasn’t.

  When I left, Patton was in the kitchen taking the plastic wrapper off a bag of popcorn and Flora was sitting cross-legged on the couch hugging a pillow. Her wound was exposed. Patton had taken the bandages off. I didn’t know why, but he knew what he was doing.

  Before returning to my room, I took a trip down to the Showcase Hall.

  I passed by Bob’s open office door hoping to find him sleeping at his desk, but he wasn’t there. I guess it was knowing I would be spending the night alone, but I was ready to talk to anyone right now. Out in the lobby, I keyed myself into the waiting room—the Seduction Room, they should call it, where Kate doped me up and made me want her—and then keyed myself into the Showcase Hall, relishing each moment I swiped my keycard.

  I came upon Kate first and was surprised to find her curled up naked in the window. She was asleep.

  I hadn’t instructed Sean to strip her naked, but I suppose he thought it was implicit—that I wanted Kate displayed just like the Favorite Girls. Kate was lucky he hadn’t strapped her down, too. This was Flora’s window, now devoid of its usual floral decorations, save for a few dried up petals in the corners.

  I thought about waking her up with a good pounding on the window. Pointing my finger, sticking out my tongue, maybe even mooning her, but in truth I preferred her this way. Sleeping peacefully in the bright light, rainbows of color emitting from the diamonds in her nipples, her soft lips slightly open and not saying a goddamn word.

  I liked her much better when she was in a coma.

  Down the hall I came upon the bartender, whom I’d had James install here after Judy finished explaining what I had to do tomorrow. He was also naked. James must have seen Kate, assumed I’d ordered her stripped, and did the same to the bartender.

  He, like Kate, was asleep as well as nude. Next to him was an empty plate, a fork, and three empty bottles of water. He would wake up a
nd regret drinking so fast at some point in the night. How long would he sit there holding it until he finally resolved to let loose and piss himself?

  Seven windows, two of them occupied.

  I went back to my room.

  I lay awake for a long time. To occupy myself I stared up at the dim recessed lights in the ceiling, recounting other times I’d had to sleep alone. Finally I fell asleep, only to suffer violent dreams all night, waking up periodically and lying awake for another half hour, flinching at the slightest sound.

  The darkness and silence of the room were stifling. This was what death row really felt like. Loneliness that will never abate. Your whole life reduced to a single room, a single set of sensory cues, a single feeling: fear.

  This was it. This would be the last time I slept in this bed, the last time I stared at the grow light stands in the corner, trying to recall the smell of Kate’s sparkly weed plants. The last time I nervously peered into the corridor, certain the shower room entrance at the end would suddenly darken with Clifton’s shadow.

  Clifton, the first brother I killed.

  Or maybe Brian, the second.

  Who would I kill next?

  But that was a dumb question. I already knew. I would start the day with breakfast with the Favorite Girls in the cafeteria. Then Judy and I would conduct her clinical trial. Then I would kill Sean.

  I just didn’t know how yet.

  How I would kill Sean or how I would bring myself to do what I had to do for Judy.

  When the time came to head up to Level D, I’d been awake for two hours, just sitting there on the couch, dressed and ready, staring at the broken stereo system. I ended up leaving too early and consequently was the first one in the Level D cafeteria, aside from a few cooks and Ms. Lane, who was quietly reading at a booth way in the back.

  I didn’t want to disturb her, so I sat in the silence for a few minutes before deciding to go to Patton’s apartment. Once you come to trust someone, you’re still haunted by the faintest idea that you could be wrong. It never goes away completely, that fear of your reality disintegrating and leaving you in a much darker world. I trusted Patton, but at this moment I had an opportunity. A keycard. I could bust right in and catch him with his fist clutching a handful of Flora’s hair and his dick poking the back of her throat.

  How long did I stand there and vacillate?

  Key in or knock. Don’t trust him. Trust him.

  Screw it. This would be the least of my offenses today.

  I threw the door open and stepped in quickly. All you have to catch is someone scrambling. If they scramble, they’re doing something wrong. Ask every mother who’s ever walked into a bedroom like Brian’s to find her son out of breath and frantically clicking his computer mouse.

  I found no scrambling.

  Patton sat at the table with a cup of coffee and a newspaper.

  Flora was on the couch. What she was wearing alarmed me at first: one of Patton’s button-down collar shirts and, I noticed when she stood, a pair of his boxer shorts.

  She came running up and hugged me like we hadn’t seen each other in a year.

  “Look what I’m wearing!” she said. “We forgot to bring clothes. I’ll just wear what I wore yesterday. Patton says we’re going to breakfast.”

  I hadn’t forgotten clothes. I just hadn’t planned on leaving her here.

  It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to breakfast.

  “You’re staying here,” I told her.

  “But I want to see the girls.”

  “You’ll see them later.”

  She ducked her head and nodded, shoulders slumped as she walked away.

  “Why can’t she come to breakfast?” Patton asked, not looking away from his paper.

  “That’s something we need to talk about.”

  This time, he looked up.

  After learning the plan for the day, Patton agreed that Flora shouldn’t leave his apartment.

  “You should stay with her, too,” I said. We sat opposite one another at the table with Favorite Girls laughing and chattering all around us.

  “No,” Patton said, vehemently shaking his head. “I have to be there. That’s non-negotiable.”

  After spending so much time around James, I was starting to enjoy a man who asserted himself a little.

  Still, I didn’t want her to be alone and I insisted he not join us in the warehouse.

  “Put James with her,” he said.

  “James has to be there.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s with Judy, helping her prepare.”

  “And we’re doing this in the warehouse.”

  I hesitated to answer. It wasn’t just that I wanted someone there to protect Flora. I really didn’t want Patton to see this.

  “Yes,” I said finally.

  “Don’t you think that’s a little dangerous? Doing it out in the open like that? What if Mr. Shriver comes down to see how production is going? Or Sean?”

  He had a point. I’d only spent one day in the warehouse. I had no idea who might make an appearance. Or when.

  We would have to station one of the lab techs at the elevator, where he could let us know if someone was coming down. Then again, that would only give us a matter of seconds to disguise our activities.

  Impossible.

  “What if we just hold the elevator so no one can come down?” I asked.

  “Won’t work,” Patton said. “There are two stairwells. One is locked up on every floor. The other only goes from Level A straight up to Level E. If the elevator isn’t moving, Sean will get word to Mr. Shriver and he’ll come down there to check things out.”

  “Using the stairwell?”

  “Yes.”

  “The one that only goes from A to E.”

  “That’s what I’m guessing.”

  “How do you access the stairwell—from Level A, I mean?”

  “You can’t. You’ll never break through that door.”

  “But where is it?”

  “I’ll show you when we get down there,” he said, “but for now we need to figure out what we’re gonna do. If someone pops in on us…it’s over.”

  He was right. I needed to come up with a way to distract Sean, and I had to do it quickly. As far as Mr. Shriver was concerned, there was nothing I could do. I had no access to Level E, no access to him.

  Patton was shaking his head. When he spoke, his voice cracked a few times. “If you have to do this…you should do it here, in the infirmary. Where I can make them comfortable. Where I have a better shot at—at—”

  “You know why we can’t, Patton.”

  From then on he didn’t look at me.

  The cafeteria was quiet. The only sound sleepy, well-mannered girls make is the click of their forks on their plates. Naturally the girls surrounding Patton were a little rowdy. Giggles and flirty chatter—from the Floras, Diamonds, and Glows, anyway. Our bitter discussion did no harm to their collective demeanor.

  The two Frogs at the table were aloof and timid. The Vampire Girls steered clear of us altogether.

  I ran through everything Patton just told me again. A private stairwell where Mr. Shriver could enter and exit the building through the warehouse alone and safely. If we held the elevator, Sean would get word to Mr. Shriver, and Mr. Shriver would send him down to the warehouse via this stairwell.

  That was it.

  Patton had just given me the answer to everything.

  Breakfast was nearing an end. Most of the girls had finished and now hovered over their soggy, half-eaten pancakes, gossiping about life in the warehouse like it was some chapter in a story they’d read, not something they’d actually experie
nced. Young and resilient—or in complete denial.

  “It’s about time to go.”

  “Just give them a few more minutes,” Patton said.

  A few more minutes turned into half an hour. I tried several times to dismiss the Favorite Girls to their classes or the warehouse, but Patton stopped me, even using the girls, forcibly bringing me into a conversation with them.

  At five past eight, I couldn’t wait any longer. Without Patton’s approval, I stood and addressed the room. I only had to shush the girls closest to us.

  “Girls, can I have your attention for a moment? This morning I only need the five oldest of each Favorite Girl to report for work. The rest of you will go to your normal classes. For those of you coming with me to the warehouse, finish your meals and be at the elevator in five minutes.”

  A murmur of groans rose throughout the cafeteria.

  Patton sniffled.

  After instructing two lab techs to stand in the elevator door, Patton and I led the girls to the taped-off area where they’d slept for the past month. James and Judy were laying down the last in a long row of sheets and blankets.

  In the middle of the floor stood a cart with a blue rubber mat on a tray. I didn’t have to count the syringes to know how many there were.

  We had thirty Favorite Girls: five Floras, five Frogs, five Vampires, five Diamonds, five Glows, and five Giggles, ranging from ages fifteen to seventeen. I didn’t know most of them. In fact, aside from the Floras and a few Frogs, I don’t think any of us had ever exchanged a single word.

  Patton, though, knew each one intimately. Where I saw six groups comprised of five of the same girl, Patton saw individuals with unique personalities, wants, and fears.

  He couldn’t even keep himself from crying, and it was scaring the girls half to death.

  “I need you girls to lie down on your backs,” I said.

  They all obeyed without question. Even the Vampire Girls, who gave me snarls and looks of disapproval, gave me no sass whatsoever. In one moment the room was live with the shuffling of feet. In the next, thirty Favorite Girls lay motionless, trusting that whatever we were about to do to them, everything would be okay.