Queeroes

by Steven Bereznai

  “I am not going to take your shit anymore, you goddamn fake-andbake whores!” she shouted.

  The words rumbled up and grew somehow, a deafening roar that made Liza’s entire body shake, and drowned out the drone of the mall’s Muzak. The reverberations went beyond a bellow, cannonballing up from Liza’s chest, and the world trembled at her fury.

  Mandy, Lacey and Stacey’s eyes opened wide and, for just a second, the latter two wore a “Who do you think you are?” look on their pretty faces—until they saw the concussive blast issuing from Liza’s mouth, a rippling haze that curdled the floors and walls in its path.

  Store windows shattered in a spray of glass, floor tiles buckled and snapped, chairs and tables in the food court were ripped from their moorings while neon signs burst with electric sparks.

  The cheerleaders were tossed—not like the Barbies they patterned themselves after—but like rag dolls; their limp bodies buffeted and bounced. Stacey slammed into a column. Lacey sailed through the air and bashed into a salad bar.

  Mandy was a different story.

  While the food court had suddenly turned into the tornado scene from The Wizard of Oz, Mandy’s body did not move. She held her arms up protectively, and stared through the space between them at a flickering shield of what appeared to be static electricity. It stood between her and Liza. Tiles shattered against it. A bench bounced off. Even the girl’s roar seemed muted.

  Liza clamped her mouth shut and slammed her hands over her lips. Silence and an eerie stillness reigned. Her concussive blast died and she gazed in horror at the destruction all around her. Mandy could tell that Liza had no more clue this would happen than the rest of them. But what exactly had happened, and what was that strange shield holding Mandy safe?

  Water streamed from pipes that used to be attached to taps. There was a loud bang and popcorn shot everywhere. A life-sized statue of a clown teetered, and then crashed to the ground, fracturing its face in two.

  Mandy took sharp, quick breaths. The shield that had protected her from Liza’s voice fizzled and disappeared.

  The two girls stared at each other. Loud shouts came from the other end of the mall. The teens’ eyes snapped in that direction. Frantic footsteps echoed closer. Liza’s gaze grew wider. She kept one hand on her mouth. The other pointed at Mandy in horror.

  “What are you doing? Stop pointing at me!” Mandy shrieked.

  Liza’s finger remained locked on her. The tall girl’s entire arm shook, making jabbing motions in the air towards Mandy. The cheerleader looked down at herself, and watched her own chest slowly disappear.

  “Holy Hannah Montana,” she swore.

  Mandy lifted her hand and watched as it, too, faded away. She turned to a storefront mirror, and before her eyes, her body slowly seemed to dissolve.

  The last thing to go was her lips.

  Suspended there, glossy and red, they wailed, “But I’m too pretty to die!”

  Chapter 3

  Troy sat astride his bicycle in the Nuffim Mall parking lot. It was full of police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks. Red emergency lights flashed across his brow.

  “You okay, son?” a cop asked him.

  “Yeah,” Troy lied.

  The truth was he felt dizzy, and a cold sweat ran down his back.

  A few feet over, another cop was questioning Jesse.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” the police officer asked.

  “There was a scream,” Troy said, “and, I’m not sure, an explosion?”

  Troy rubbed his temples.

  “You sure you’re okay, kiddo?” the cop pressed, gripping Troy’s shoulder.

  Kiddo—that’s what Troy’s dad would call him. The memory made him smile, and for a moment the needles scraping along the inside of his skull softened into gentle fingertips.

  A CNN chopper buzzed overhead and a slew of flashes from reporters’ cameras went off in Troy’s face.

  His classmates Lacey and Stacey were being loaded into ambulances. Both were unconscious and would wake with no clear memory of what had transpired. The media would write it up as an explosion, the cause under investigation. And then there was Liza. She was the kind of girl

  everyone, including Troy, overlooked, and yet today something about her drew Troy’s notice. A paramedic was putting a bandage over a scratch on her temple. She looked about nervously, as if expecting to be put in cuffs. The needles in Troy’s brain returned as prickles of guilt. Troy shook it off. His imagination was getting the better of him.

  “Okay, kiddo, you’re clear to go,” the cop said.

  Jesse came over to Troy.

  “You want a ride?” Jesse asked, holding up his motorcycle keys.

  “I’m good,” Troy replied, indicating his bike.

  Jesse shrugged indifferently, but the needles in Troy’s temples were back again, and he felt his former friend’s disappointment. Jesse zipped up his leather motorbike jacket and climbed onto his Apache. Troy watched him disappear into the night. The needles in his skull receded, and for a moment he found himself wishing his former best friend would come back.

  Troy shook his head. He had to get away from all this insanity. He had to be careful getting out of the parking lot, but once he was free of police cars and ambulances, he began pedaling as hard as he could, reveling in the feeling of air on his skin, and the pleasant burn of his legs as he pumped the pedals of his bike harder and harder. He was free of his boss, free of Jesse, free to just be.

  He crested a hill, and stopped. His heart hammered, and at first he assumed it was just from biking so hard. But looking around, at the forest on either side of him, he felt a strange, disembodied excitement. He squinted into the darkness. He was alone on the road; at least he appeared to be. All the same, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. He could hear the gurgling of the Nuffim River beyond the trees flanking him. Several streetlights were burned out, leaving the street more in shadow than light. It was the perfect scenario for a slasher flick.

  “Hello?” Troy called. “Jesse?”

  He shook his head and was about to resume biking home, but from amidst the foliage Troy spotted a pair of bright yellow eyes staring at him.

  For a moment he thought it was a wolf. Troy’s chest heaved up and down.

  He could sense the owner of the yellow eyes bunching up its muscles.

  “Oh sh—”

  The thing with the yellow eyes burst from the brush, knocking Troy sideways. It landed on the road, sprang forward, and disappeared into the woods on the other side of the road. The only thing Troy really saw was its tan skin over hard muscles, clothed simply in a pair of pink underwear—American Apparel, if he wasn’t mistaken. All the same, Troy knew…

  Sensed exactly who it was.

  Troy got up and onto his bike.

  He stared after the creature—Chad—that had knocked him over. He was gone from sight, but Troy could feel the cheerleader still. Gibbie was not the only one who was somehow changed this night. Chad’s wildness exuded from him in waves, slamming Troy’s heart and making it hammer. It filled him more surely than the rush of a wrestling match. This was insane; this was more insane than Gibbie throwing Markham and Riley. This even went beyond the mall being hit by a localized earthquake, or explosion, or whatever the heck it was. Troy had kept it together through all that. He’d quarantined his feelings when Jesse had offered him a ride on his motorbike. But enough was enough. Whatever wildness brimmed within Chad, Troy could feel it too, and it ran through him like a drug.

  “This is totally crazy,” he said.

  And that made him smile, ’cause Troy Allstar was ready to be crazy’s bitch.

  “Game on,” he said, and he began pedaling in pursuit.

  Chad ran, hard and fast. At times on his two feet; at other times he’d find himself loping along on all fours. He didn’t know why he’d charged Troy, and now a gust of wind brushed past, carrying the wrestler’s scent.

  Beyond the trees, Chad saw a bike li
ght keeping pace on the road.

  He’s following me!

  Up ahead, the forest thinned out. Lights flickered from the many windows and street lamps of the subdivision up ahead. The cheerleader ran faster, bursting out of the bush, right in front of Troy. There was a skid of tires. He would’ve only caught a momentary glimpse, Chad assured himself, launching himself easily over a fence, into a backyard, through more backyards, over a front gate, onto the street, across it, into another yard.

  The wind brought a gust of Troy’s scent nearby.

  How?

  Faster, Chad ran, in the opposite direction from his own house, then into an abandoned lot. It was there he doubled back, clambering over a dumpster, ducking behind the Nuffim Community Center, skittering around its outdoor pool, hurling himself upwards off the diving board, over onto a neighbor’s deck, and then scaling down a tree trunk, easy as pumpkin pie at a Thanksgiving feast.

  Lost him, he smiled.

  Home was in sight. He ran faster, reaching the house, jumping onto the sagging porch with its cracked pots of dead flowers, reaching for the chipped front door, grinning as he yanked it.

  The fox beats the hound, he gloated inwardly.

  The door remained shut.

  He pulled several more times.

  The deadbolt clattered, stubbornly locked.

  Chad searched for his key, but while he’d managed to keep his underwear on, he’d stripped his pants long ago. A gust of wind carried another whiff of Troy. The rattle of a bike chain grew louder.

  Chad looked down at his hands. Claws sprouted from where his manicured nails ought to be. In the reflection of the mailbox he could see his face. It was him, with his pretty lips and defined cheekbones, but at the same time it wasn’t him. His eyes—they were all messed up again, looking like a cat’s, and his ears, pierced twice on the left side (“Left is right, and right is wrong!” Mandy had advised him at the piercing studio), now ended in pointed tips, as if he were a companion of Frodo Baggins.

  “Jesus H.,” Chad cursed, tears coming to his yellow eyes, “what’s happening to me?”

  He couldn’t let Troy see him like this. Chad looked about desperately.

  Bars protected all the first-floor windows—a legacy of his mother. She never had adjusted to small-town life before she died. Looking up, Chad saw his bedroom window open, the curtain blowing in and out.

  It had been an odd chase—and chase was exactly what it had been, Troy quickly realized. Chad was attempting to lose him, and the harder Chad tried, the stronger his desperation became, and the easier it was for Troy to follow him. It beamed like a beacon in the night.

  But it ended here.

  Troy watched a silhouette climb up the sheer wall of a two-storey house…

  Like a squirrel.

  …and disappear within an open window.

  Chad let his body drop to the floor with a thud. He waited for his dad to

  call out, but all lay silent.

  Of course, he realized. It was two-cent wing night.

  He opened his bathroom door and flicked on the light. In the mirror he saw again what he’d become: the teeth, claws, eyes, and ears. It wasn’t just a trick of the night. This was real.

  More tears glimmered in his yellow pupils.

  “What’s happening to me?” he blubbered.

  “Chad?” a voice called from outside.

  He looked back to the window in alarm. He ran over and slammed it shut, pulling the curtains fast.

  “Chad!” Troy called again, his voice now muffled by the closed window.

  Chad opened it for a moment.

  “Just a minute!” he yelled, and then slammed the window shut again.

  He ran back to the bathroom. He still looked like a freak. His desperation

  grew. He squeezed his eyes shut and flexed every muscle in his body, fists

  clenched tight.

  “Change back, change back, change back…,” he growled.

  He opened his eyes, panting. He still looked like a monster.

  He made a little mewling sound, his face a grimace of frustration. He pulled his hair back, a gesture he usually reserved for when he contemplated what he’d look like with a facelift, but today all he wanted was his old face back.

  His heart was hammering so hard it was almost all he could feel.

  “Keep your cool, Lenwick, just keep your…”

  And that’s when it occurred to him. If he could just calm down, then maybe he’d return to normal.

  He ran to his dad’s bedroom. One half of the double-sink counter was littered with razors, men’s deodorant, a worn toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste squeezed from the middle. The other sink was completely clear. He opened the mirrored cupboard above the clean side. Inside was bottle upon bottle of prescription medication, all with his mom’s name on them.

  He grabbed a bottle labeled Valium. Troy started banging on the front door and it made the blond boy start. He popped open the lid and took a handful of pills, swallowing with a gush of water from the tap. Staring into the mirror, Chad breathed heavily, waiting for it to work. Nothing happened.

  “Damn it!”

  The banging on the door was louder this time.

  “Coming!” he yelled.

  He opened the medicine cabinet again, searching. He grabbed a bottle of what he thought was an anti-anxiety medication, and took another handful of pills. He waited. Still his eyes glowed yellow, the pupils vertical slits. He reached for a third bottle. He got the lid open, but when he tried emptying pills into his palm, they scattered all about the floor.

  He tried to focus on them, but his vision grew blurry. He felt himself teetering. He stepped back to right himself but instead found his legs giving way beneath him. His claws scrambled at the countertop to hold himself up, but they had no strength, leaving behind long scratch marks as he slid downwards. He knocked over another plastic bottle and pills pelted him.

  “Help,” he whimpered in a final panic as darkness descended upon him.

  Troy started banging louder on the door, then slamming his shoulder into it.

  “Chad!” he yelled. Needles tickled Troy’s nape, and he could feel his classmate slipping away.

  “What the hell have you done to yourself?” Troy wondered out loud.

  Pull it together, he ordered himself, Chad’s dying. Troy could feel it. With force of will, he pushed the emotions into a box.

  He pulled futilely on the window bars. Clambering up the drainpipe resulted in a broken drainpipe. His grip failed as he tried scaling the brick wall.

  “Think,” he ordered himself. He could call the fire department. They could break down the door, but if they did, what exactly would they find? Something was happening in the town of Nuffim, and the cheerleader was among those affected. Who could say what they’d do with him?

  He’s dying, he reasoned. What difference does it make?

  A vision of a cage came to his mind. It made a big difference.

  “Think, Allstar, think!”

  In a fit of inspiration, the answer came. He pulled out his cellphone. Ignoring the slew of messages on it, he called home. When he heard the voice on the other end, he spoke in a panic.

  “Gibbie, it’s Troy. There’s an emergency.”

  Chapter 4

  Gibbie sat in the basement of the Allstar residence. Above him there was a flurry of heavy footsteps, and a lot of picking up and putting down the phone. He paid it no mind. He had to concentrate. He stared at Troy’s weight set. The bench press was loaded with heavy discs on either end of a barbell.

  “No problem,” he said, pushing his thick glasses up his nose.

  He lay on the bench, gripped the bar and grunted loudly. With a final “hur-huh!” he shoved upwards. To his dismay, the bar remained rooted in place, not budging an inch. He pressed again, grunting louder this time. Once more, it remained unmoved. A third time he tried, growling and twisting his torso back and forth. The weight practically yawned in boredom.

 
Gibbie sat up.

  “Better start with a warm-up,” he reasoned. He went over to Troy’s set of dumbbells, neatly arranged on a rack, and by turning scarlet in his cheeks, holding his breath, and putting everything he had into it, his two hands managed to move a single sixty-pound dumbbell from its spot.

  It immediately slipped from his grip and he had to jump back to keep his toes from getting squished as it cracked the cement floor. He panted, staring at the fallen weight. To the right was a cable machine. He went to it, grasped the metal rod hanging from it, and pulled downwards.

  It moved with complete ease.

  “Yes!” Gibbie cheered in victory.

  He looked back. The pin had fallen out of the stack of weights, and all he’d done was lift five pounds. It was already starting to feel heavy in his grasp. He lowered it with a clang. The poster of a flexing and tanned bodybuilding champ looked down on him mockingly from the wall. Gibbie’s shoulders hunched in defeat.

  The commotion upstairs grew more frenzied and there came a clomping of feet down the basement stairs.

  “Gibbie, you haven’t seen your brother, have you?” his dad asked from the middle of the steps.

  “No,” he replied.

  “Your mother and I are going to drive over to the mall. There’s been some sort of explosion. He’s not answering his phone. You stay here in case he calls, okay?”

  “Yeah,” Gibbie said, feeling a surge of worry.

  His father went back upstairs, the front door slammed shut, and there was a vroom sound as the car started up and pulled out of the driveway. The phone in the kitchen began to ring and Gibbie ran up to get it.

  Troy’s voice came from the other end in a rush.

  “Gibbie, it’s Troy. There’s an emergency.”

  “Are you okay?” Gibbie cut in.

  “I’m fine, now listen…”

  “Mom and Dad are freaking out. Where are you?”

  “I’m at…”

  Troy looked around, stepping closer to the street sign.

  “McDougall. I’m at 15 McDougall Street. Gibbie, you have to get here, fast. Someone’s in trouble.”