by Mary Gray
THE DOLLHOUSE ASYLUM
MARY GRAY
SPENCER HILL PRESS
Copyright © 2013 by Mary Gray
Sale of the paperback edition of this book without its cover is unauthorized.
Spencer Hill Press
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Contact:
Spencer Hill Press, PO Box 247, Contoocook, NH 03229, USA
Please visit our website at www.spencerhillpress.com
First Edition: October 2013.
Mary Gray
The Dollhouse Asylum: a novel / by Mary Gray – 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary:
A group of teenagers are granted asylum from the apocalypse—and then assigned new identities as famous, tragic literary couples and forced to reenact their stories or die.
The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this fiction: 7-Eleven, Ajax, BMW, Disney, Doc Martens, Doublemint Gum, Dr. Seuss, Hasbro, Infiniti, Kleenex, Listerine, Mattel, Photoshop, Sea World, Six Flags, Skittles, Slurpees, Star Trek, Target, Tinkerbell, University of Texas
Cover design by Jeremy West
Interior layout by Marie Romero
ISBN 978-1-937053-64-2 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-937053-65-9 (e-book)
Printed in the United States of America
For Adam. You are the light I am not.
1
Gruff fingers yank a blindfold off my face, light splashes into my eyes, and I blink. Gray walls swim about my head, and the ceiling soars much too high above me. I don’t know this place. I was walking to my bathroom when someone grabbed me from behind and forced a sour-smelling cloth over my face and—someone grapples with my hair, and I flinch. Who—who is touching me?
I try turning in the flimsy chair, but someone’s grabbing my shoulders, forcing me not to move. Spasms of fear shoot up and down my arms and legs. I try swinging my fists to make them loosen their grip, but my captor’s fingers only tighten.
Raising my arm to jab my captor in the gut, I pause. Someone’s laughing. How do I know that sound? It’s beautiful and low, a laugh I could recognize anywhere. Glancing around the sun-filled room, I find the source almost immediately. It’s Teo, my Teo, standing across from me on the hardwood floor, beaming at me. His ebony eyes shine forth like two onyx stones, and even his olive-toned skin makes me breathe a bit shallower. Choking back a strangled laugh—no one’s here to hurt me—I reach out for the love of my life, too tongue-tied to say anything.
His lips spread into a thin smile, reminding me of his mouth melting into my own. Fire raged beneath my skin with that kiss and it felt like I was lifted up into the air and floating. Six days ago we had our first kiss and we still haven’t been able to talk about it. I tried repeatedly to go into his classroom, but it was like our school had purposely decided to schedule a more-than-average number of parent-teacher meetings.
Locking his eyes on mine, Teo asks, “Manicure?”
I glance down at my fingernails, trying to see why he would think I needed a manicure, when my shoulders are released and pale, icy fingers grip my hand. Chills run through me.
A flat, tenor voice says, “Yes.” And I’m startled to see my fingernails are actually painted. Clear and shiny.
The fingers drop my hand, and my captor walks around to face me. White uniform, white skin, white hair. He’s albino. Who is he?
“Makeup is good.” Teo taps lightly on a handheld computer screen. “Hair is so-so.” He continues to scan the device, and I don’t like how he’s picking me apart like he’s Photoshopping me. Where are the other students? Or maybe it’s more than I could ever hope: it’s really just the two—three—of us, and he is finally unveiling his feelings. I never expected to fall in love with a teacher, but when I started at Khabela, the Austin math and science school, Teo was the only one who welcomed me. It took me a moment to understand why a math teacher would care that I read Tristan and Isolde, but soon we were knee-deep in conversation about all our favorite classic stories.
I wish he’d tell me why he brought me here. Maybe he let my mom know, explained what we were actually doing.
“Teo—?”
But I fail for words, the gray walls seeming to snatch at the fear inside me. My palms break out in a sweat and it’s calculus all over again, where Teo asked me to stand in front of my class to share the index card I had made to memorize last year’s trig functions. While I hate speaking in front of groups, I did it anyway, my heart slamming against the insides of my chest the entire time. When I’d finished, Teo congratulated me, making the fear worth it.
Tapping his computer screen, Teo trains his gaze on me again, softening a little. “I cannot tell you how much seeing you here pleases me.”
My heart flip-flops and it’s hard to say anything. He’s happy to see me. It’s all I can do to keep myself from smiling stupidly.
He takes one step toward me and I long to fill the gap. And when he speaks, his voice rings out in a baritone melody. “I hope you enjoy our little neighborhood, Miss Laurent. The women are on one side of the street, the men on the other. They each have their own houses. Seven again.” His lips perk up into one of those smiles that I love, and I’m reminded of his reverence for the number seven, how he arranges our desks in three rows of seven.
Glancing at the wooden door ahead, I open my mouth to ask if he’ll show me this street when he says, “That is right. You should desire to go through that door. Of course, the choice is yours.” He gestures behind me. “The back door is always an option.”
I turn to find the back door, only to see plastic shadows, slick and dark—body bags—hanging on a rod by the door. Another one of Teo’s jokes, maybe. A metaphorical exercise. Life without love is not living. See, Miss Laurent, you might as well be dead. But Teo would never hurt me. When we kissed, he held me like a porcelain doll, treasured me.
“Front door, then?” Teo asks when I manage to turn back to him, his tone light, almost happy. He wants to show me this neighborhood that revolves around the number seven. I’m not sure what to make of it, but I want him to show me.
Teo and the albino grab me by the arms and force me up, but there’s no reason to be touchy-feely. Wherever he goes is where I want to be. Teo is brilliant and kind. He would never shatter me.
* * *
Teo and the albino march me down a street lined with massive, square houses: seven on one side, seven on the other. No cars, no people, nothing. The way the sun sears my skin and the silence screams into my ears, I can understand why people don’t come out—it’s too hot, too stifling. Or maybe this is a newly built subdivision. No one has moved in at all. No, Teo said there were seven men and seven women, so maybe this is some sort of resort for relationships. I’m not really clear on how the men and women got here, because the street doesn’t connect to any roads: the house where I woke up marks one end of the street and a field of weeds stops the other, just ahead. What is this place?
Shielding my eyes from the sun shooting straight at me, I look up to the brick homes, all two stories, and the reds, browns, and grays of the bricks are washed out, like the color’s been erased. The windows gleam in the sunlight like they’ve never experienced any rain, and—something crunches under my shoe. I look down to find dead weeds; I’m planted in the center of a giant, crushed thistle.
“Good.” Teo stops next to me in the field of w
eeds past the final house. He scans the periphery of his development, and I do the same, realizing taller trees hover over the subdivision, closing us in. I try listening for the sounds of Austin, the cars or people, but the only noise is my own tennis shoes shifting and crunching the weeds.
“I cannot tell you how pleased I am that you have joined us here,” Teo says again. He gave me little choice when he kidnapped me.
“Your duty is simple,” Teo says, taking a step toward me, and I long to hear what he has planned. “You must choose the right house.” Right house? “But remember, Miss Laurent—try to leave and we carry you out the back door.” He nods in dismissal like we’ve just met, and my fingers tense, desperate for him to take them in his own hand. We are supposed to be together. Why is he acting like this?
Teo turns away to leave, the albino follows, and together they stroll away from me down the street. But where are they going?
“Teo?” I call after him, needing more of an explanation. Maybe he’s waiting for me to actually verbalize something. He is always urging me to speak up more in class. So I try a question. “Teo, what is this place?”
Slowing, Teo eventually turns to face me, but what he offers is a look I recognize, one he has taunted me with regularly in class. His brow wrinkles and his jaw locks: You know I am smarter than you, Cheyenne. Won’t you at least try to figure this out?
Smoothing his brow again, he says before abandoning me, “Welcome to Elysian Fields.”
Light flickers from the window closest to me on the right side of the street. I look to find a man peering at me through the blinds. At least, I think it’s a man. He has short hair and that’s all I see before he closes his blinds. Why is he hiding from me?
I glance at the women’s side, but their windows are empty, and their complete absence frightens me more—even the girls at school avoided me because I preferred my classics to their activities.
Spinning, I face the man in the window again, but my foot catches on something—a metal survey stake. Bending down, I examine the metal rod, unable to help wondering if Teo’s hands once touched it, too.
I don’t understand why Teo would kiss me, only to leave me out here like this. He’s always been cryptic—maybe this is one of his games. Like in calculus, when we couldn’t find him in the room. Most classes would mess around if the teacher wasn’t in class, but we dutifully pulled out our math books and copied down our work, because that’s what Teo would expect. Unbeknownst to us, he’d been hiding in the closet the entire time. Five minutes after the bell rang, he popped out. “I am pleased with you,” he had said, and promised a reward, a lesson involving an “unparalleled” math.
I brush the clods of dirt clinging to the stake as the wind caresses my face; I wish Teo were here to do the same. I’m supposed to know which house to go inside, yet there are fourteen of them—plus his. It could be any of them.
Walking toward the house closest to me on the men’s side, I grasp the stake in case I need it. Maybe I can pry a door open if that man doesn’t let me in. Teo expects me to do this without explaining exactly what he wants me to do, like he often did in class. But that’s what I love about him. He challenges our brains, always pushes us to think.
The blinds are still turned so I can’t see into the gray brick house. I hope I can glimpse a face, a movement, even a twitch of the blinds again, but it’s impossible to see through them. I feel like I’m on stage—the theater lights shooting straight in my face. It makes me want to do something dramatic, like flash the men. I would actually never do it, but the idea keeps teasing my mind. And when my fingers start to get twitchy like they might do it anyway, I move further down the street.
On the men’s doors hang rectangular, palm-sized signs with black, thin letters spelling things I’m too far away to read. Maybe I should read the signs in case Teo quizzes me later. It couldn’t hurt.
Striding back to the first house, I squint to read the label on the first door. Cramped handwriting spells a name I don’t know: Ramus. I pause and wait, the crisp scent of grass clippings rushing over me as I stand inches from his yard. But Ramus doesn’t come out. I could knock, but something tells me I should read all the signs first, like a clue that I shouldn’t ignore.
The second house has the light gray coloring of the first, but this sign’s boxy writing spells another name: Abe. I study the blinds on the front windows of his house when one twitches in the window by the front door.
A dark, dreadlocked head peeks back at me through the window, the whites of his eyes shining in shock. Hello, Abe. He’s as surprised as I am, and his eyes dart downward, like he’s ready to run.
I want to talk to him, ask him to let me inside. But just as I’ve taken a handful of steps toward his porch, Abe flips his blinds completely shut. Man, I feel like he’s scared of me. I’m not intimidating. Or maybe Abe’s house isn’t the right one. I don’t know. I mean, Teo might want me to try. I wish he’d given me more direction, like what to look for in the residents, or what other things might be helpful clues.
Unsure, I move to the next house to read the third name: Tristan. His awkward writing reminds me of my own, but he doesn’t appear to be standing at his window, as far as I can see. His blinds aren’t moving, and I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking for—a flashing “you found it” neon sign? But no. I don’t know anyone named Ramus, Abe, or Tristan. But I won’t get any answers until I try talking to somebody, so I raise my hand and knock once, softly, then loudly two more times.
I wait a few minutes, but Tristan doesn’t come to the door. All I can do is study the brick patio beneath my feet and stare at the traces of pink and green dye that smudge one side of the door.
Tristan doesn’t seem to be coming out so, against my better judgment, I place my sweaty palm on the doorknob. The metal is scorching hot and doesn’t turn. It’s locked! Stupid door. So I slump past two more houses, trudging through this scorching heat. My skin’s starting to burn and I really need a drink.
By the time I’ve made it to the middle of the street, I can almost feel Teo watching my every step, my every look. Naturally, his blinds are turned so I can’t see in, but picturing him hovering behind a window makes me yearn to go straight for him, find the comfort he so often offered me. Do not concern yourself with those ninnies, he would say of the girls who snickered at my choice of books. You may not have passed the test with flying colors, but you will get it. You shall see. But today is not a day Teo holds his hands out for me. That’s what he does when I’m on the brink of something. I’ll show him I can do this, find the “right” house.
Turning to face the women’s side of the street, I find that the houses look the same—nothing looks suspicious or obvious. The other houses remain still. All brick, all huge. Even their roofs are the same shade of gray-black. The towering houses make me feel so small, like they’re swallowing me.
It takes me a minute to realize the women’s homes don’t have signs like the men’s. They have mailboxes, which is weird. No mailman could come here with both ends of the street halting in grass. Maybe it’s a clue. A clue! I race toward a mailbox with a flag pointed up, and am about to yank the door open, when a female voice yells, “Don’t!”
Freezing maybe five inches from the mailbox, I glance around the street, trying to find the source of the not-sohelpful voice. What’s so wrong with opening a mailbox? And why is she screaming? Or maybe Teo asked her to.
But someone called out to me. I scan the red brick house in front of me, two away from Teo’s on the end of the street, when I find the source of the voice on the porch: a black-haired, caramel-skinned girl leering at me. A short, black dress hugs her body so tightly, it’s like her curves are about to pop. Two curves in particular—it’s obvious she’s had those puppies enhanced. Her appearance is so pristine, I’m suddenly very aware of my ragged jeans, now sweat-soaked T-shirt, and messy, flax-colored ponytail. Man, I must look like crap.
“Hot date?” I ask, mostly because she so obviously flau
nts everything. Black eyeliner extends past the diva’s eyes and ornate beading weaves through her jet-black hair. “Funny,” I say, crossing my arms, “I didn’t know the Egyptian style was in.”
“Move on.” The girl’s pouty lips jut outward as she leans in her doorway like she’s working the corner or something. Maybe this is part of Teo’s plan, to test my patience just to throw me off. But she was the one to talk to me, and I’m not about to let this opportunity slip through my fingers, so I throw out the first thing that comes to mind. “Can I have some water?” Because my throat hurts.
But the diva swats at me like I’m a gnat. “Go!” she yells, which is more than a little frustrating. I open my mouth to tell her she looks like a streetwalker in that dress, when a voice cuts me off.
“Let her in, Cleo.”
It’s coming from right across the street. I move to see who it is but change my mind. I don’t want to lose my footing with “Cleo.” Still, I turn around to take a peek at this boy’s house, but I’m not surprised to see that he isn’t showing his face; he’s only shouting through his cracked-open front door.
“You let her in,” Cleo yells before slamming her door shut.
Breathless, I don’t miss a beat. This boy wanted her to let me in. I can work with someone who will help me out. I sprint for his house, knowing he’ll help me next. Even the boy’s voice sounds nice.
“Hey!” My feet hit the pavement, my ponytail slapping me in the face, but the door starts to close. “Wait. Please. I need a drink.”
As I scramble up his porch steps he slams the door closed—crap—but maybe I can talk him into helping me. “Hello?” My voice sounds both loud and small in the silence of Teo’s mansion-filled subdivision. Scanning his sign for a name, I spot it right away. “Marc?” He wouldn’t have called out to Cleo if he didn’t want to help me out.
But he doesn’t answer me. At least, not outright. Maybe he’s shy—just needs a little time. I can be patient, chat through the door, show him I’m a nice person before he lets me inside. But several more seconds pass before a muffled voice answers. “Why are you here? There are already seven.”