by Chad Huskins
In both worlds, Kaley collapsed to her hands and knees, and started weeping. For a moment, she didn’t even notice that there was snow in both worlds—not only in Siberia, but there in CMS’s girls’ bathroom. Packed snow on the sink, on the walls, on the floor. In Siberia, some of the snow immediately around her on the porch had evaporated. Transported here, she thought, as her mind caught up and slowly made the connections.
It mattered little to her. Somewhere, Shannon was going back to her schoolwork, distantly aware of Big Sister’s pain, convincing herself that at least some of it had been imagined. Sometime later, Kaley would marvel at the power of children’s imaginations—that of the boy in the basement, and that of Shannon—to use their considerable imaginations to not only fancy themselves as superheroes and space explorers, but also to forget and “patch up” the scars they didn’t want to recall.
The energy sucked out of her, Kaley sobbed and shook. Her weeping put the Russian hit squad off even more. The leader said two words: “Shto eta?”
An instant later, Spencer made his move. Kaley might’ve warned them, since she felt it coming, but for her there was no point. Monsters killing monsters.
Though, when the killing started, she couldn’t help but take notice. The fear of dying, the fear of losing it all, and, of course, the coldness. Such coldness.
“Shto eta?” said Stocky Man.
The others were transfixed. Spencer might have been, too, if he hadn’t seen it before. Only one of the Russians was still glancing at him intermittently, the others couldn’t take their eyes off of the Impossible Girl. And I’m sure they feel it, too, but they really haven’t let themselves acknowledge it yet. The “it” Spencer was detecting was the same “it” he felt months ago, that night on Avery Street.
It was there, at the very edge of their periphery. Spencer saw it. Perhaps it was only because he’d been exposed to Kaley Dupré before, and he was starting to “catch” some of what she had, or, at least, he was starting to catch on to her parlor tricks, how to spot them. There were whispers on the wind again, and also something materializing all around them, faint images in the snowstorm, something long and slithering over here, something moving just beneath the snow over there.
Something’s trying to get through. Wherever she is, there’s something trying to get at her.
Someone whispered a long prayer, and Spencer heard the word prizrak, or spirit, muttered. He saw the looks on their faces. They believed it. Somewhere in their brains they had stored their childhood memories of stories told in their grandmothers’ laps, and now, the Impossible Girl had drudged it all back up. After decades of putting it all behind them, they saw that there might be a kernel of truth to those old tales.
Stocky Man took another step towards the little girl, as if mesmerized. Spencer was now mostly forgotten. One of the hitters had turned and run off, and the last man to have his gun on Spencer was Erik, but even he had taken his focus away, and had his eyes affixed mistrustfully on the apparition girl.
Stocky Man took another step just in front of Spencer, and raised his gun, no doubt about to fire another round into Kaley and test his theory. Stocky Man never got his chance.
It all happened very quickly. Spencer leapt to his feet and swatted Stocky Man’s gun away, which fired at one of the other thugs, clipping him. He grabbed Stocky Man around his neck by one arm and used him as a human shield as he fired at two of the thugs: first at Erik, then at the big fellow standing next to him. The bullet tore through Erik’s face, sent him spinning to the ground but didn’t kill him outright. The other bullet slammed into the chest of its intended target, and the big fellow fell back, spraying his Uzi by reflex, causing the others to dive for the ground.
One bullet left!
Spencer pressed the gun to Stocky Man’s head and pulled the trigger. The bang was so close it stunned him, and the brains and shards of skull that shot across his face blinded him for a moment. As the body in his arms dropped, Spencer groped for the dead man’s right hand, found the Makarov, wiped a bit of blood out of his left eye and fired on the remaining two Russians,
The Russians had Uzis, and set out uncontrolled bursts at the snow, leading a trail up to Spencer, who had fallen to the ground and let Stocky Man cover him, absorbing the rest of the bullets. They ran, firing wildly behind them as Spencer took careful aim. Spencer hit the first man at the base of his spine, then in his right shoulder. The second man took a bullet through the neck, but just cupped the gushing wound with a hand and kept on running like it had been nothing more than an insect bite.
Grunting, Spencer pushed the corpse away and stood to give chase. It wasn’t difficult. The trail of blood looked like someone had spilled a couple buckets of paint, and by the time he’d rounded the cabin the final thug was on the ground in the front yard, gargling the last of his life’s blood and crawling past the body of the first thug Spencer had killed. Then, he stopped crawling, started wallowing and making a fucked up snow angel.
Panting and wiping the rest of the skull fragments from his face, Spencer stood over the bastard and said, “Look at me! Look! I did this to—” He never got to finish. The Russian levled the Uzi at him, ready to fire. Spencer squeezed his trigger first. The spray of blood was a perfect starburst out the backside of the thug’s head. Brain matter spread out like a giant paintbrush had dashed crimson across a white canvas. The Russian fell back into the snow, lying in the imprint of his own snow angel.
Spencer stood there a moment trying to catch his breath. The wind was still howling. Or wait…no, it wasn’t the wind. Spencer took a moment to look around. He scanned the cabin, the driveway, and the shed. Then he looked towards the woods. It was difficult to see through the storm, but he thought he made out small, gray and black figures moving towards him, almost the size of children. More howls. Growling and snarling. Wolves? He knew they were a serious problem out in these parts. Perhaps they had smelled Zakhar’s blood on the wind, and answered the call of their instincts.
As soon as they materialized, they vanished, swallowed up by the snow. They’ll be back, though. They’ll get their meal. He laughed at the thought. And boy, I have a buffet laid out for them.
Spencer staggered through the knee-high snow and sat on the bumper of the SUV. He bent over to check the burns on his lower legs, and touched the back of his neck, where the fire had singed him. He heard a low grumbling noise, some slithering, and a fell voice in the air. “This one’s appetite…he could be used if…yes…Yes! His appetites…”
The next few moments of Spencer’s life were largely on autopilot. Looked around. Saw no one. Pushed himself off the bumper. Tucked the gun in his waistband. Went to the two dead bodies in the front yard. Stared down at them. Knelt. Examined their guns. Checked their pockets for ID, money, cell phones, and more ammo. Took their Uzis. Found the red bear tattoos the vory v zakone were known to carry on their arms and legs. Stood. Walked away.
“Yes…yes, this one’s very useful…”
“Fuck you,” Spencer said, peeking into the shed to make sure the Subaru was still there. “You don’t own me, bastard.”
“Very useful.”
It took a few minutes to check the shed and all around it, then around the larger cabin to make sure that there was nobody he missed. Besides the one that ran off, he reminded himself. The wind howled a lonely song. Perhaps it was the wolves. Besides Spencer and the creatures speaking to him from someplace else, there was no one else out here now.
Or was there? Gurgling. Someone screaming. A survivor amid the dead. Spencer started to go and search.
Halfway around the house, he started laughing. It started somewhere deep in his gut, and, like a sneeze, it was more painful to keep it in than to just let it out and be done with it. When he found Kaley, he was nearly bent over laughing and she was crying. She had stepped away from the porch. Spencer saw the way she moved so strangely across the snow, like it was ice. She slipped and slid away from the bodies, all but one of which were dead. Her fe
et sometimes dipped below the snow, sometimes stayed above it, never leaving a footprint or even the slightest impression.
Spencer shook his head, snickering. He then swaggered over to where one of the Russians lay, gargling and moaning, face down in the snow. The man’s Uzi was on the ground, just out of arm’s reach. Spencer kicked the weapon away and then stepped on the man’s neck. “Erik, isn’t it?” The man turned his head from the snow. His jaw was exposed, a gaping hole in his cheek revealed missing teeth and a lolling tongue sticking through the wound. Blood was gushing across the snow and melting it. “Now, what was it you were sayin’ about ripping out my throat through my asshole? How d’ya say that in Russian? Hey!” he called out to Kaley. “Where’re you goin’?”
In a daze, the little girl had gone back to the porch, stepping up onto the wooden planks but pushing through the railing. Not looking very surefooted, she eased her way to the back door. “I…I…I…I…”
“Four I’s in as many seconds,” he chuckled, unzipping his fly. “An’ they call me narcissistic.”
“I…I have to check on…”
“The boy, right! You go do that.”
She paused in the doorway. “You knew?” She was dazed, still trying to figure it all out. “You knew I’d fade away? Teleport, or whatever?”
“No,” he said. “But I had a theory. It’s reactive. Like Avery Street. Like in the basement with the boy. Like you said, tossing a baseball at you, you just react.” He nodded towards the house. “Now go fetch the kid, gather what you need. We’re outta this shithole ASAP. We need to be gone before more of Douchebag McGee here’s friends show up. Go on, get to it.”
When she was gone, Spencer pulled out his pecker, and starting pissing into the hole in the side of Erik’s face. “Me an’ Erik, we got some catchin’ up to do. Ain’t that right, Erik?” The man gargled, screamed. The piss had leaked into his throat and he was choking on it as well as his own blood. When Spencer zipped up again, he felt something lick past his leg. Thinking it was Stocky Man or one of the others not quite finished off, he spun and aimed his new Uzi at the ground…
Nothing there. For a moment, for just a second, he thought he saw something swimming there on the ground, but it was so faint, like an after-image when you glanced at the sun and looked away quickly. There was a faint trail of it…and then it was gone. He looked out at the lake, then did a few turns, looking at the corpses all around him, then back at the lake. “Fuck you,” he said to the wind. “You ain’t gettin’ your hooks into me. Understand? Homey don’t play that.”
“…very useful…”
“Yeah? Fuck you. Who says I can’t use you?”
“…the other girl…the sister…”
On the ground, one of the dead men’s cell phones was vibrating. Spencer could just barely hear it, yet he ignored it for the moment. Behind him, Erik gurgled. “Shut the fuck up, Erik! Adults are talkin’ here. Ya see what happened to your mouth the last time you opened it.”
Walking like a woman on a boat in choppy waters, Kaley completed two difficult tasks: she ascended the stairs of the cabin, and she exited the girls’ bathroom. The door of the bathroom slowly shut behind her. Kaley didn’t quite get out of its way, and when it closed it bumped her butt and pushed her out into the hall. She blinked once, twice, then started back to class. There was nothing else for it. Mrs. Cartwright…was gone. And if Kaley hadn’t been able to bring David Emerson back, she almost certainly couldn’t retrieve Mrs. Cartwright, especially not after…not after…God, why did it do that to her? What is it? What have I done?
The smell of the school, the floor cleaners, the slightly rusted hinges of the lockers on either side of the hall, the posters on the wall that said YOU CAN DO IT CANES!, and the spot underneath it where someone had scribbled in tiny magic marker NO WE CAN’T!, all of it did nothing to break down the walls of her stunned heart and mind. School, she thought, searching for something to connect the word with. I’m at school. Yes, she was. And what of it? Mrs. Cartwright was dead. She was dead and little else mattered.
Somewhere along that spider web, Shannon was trembling, just a tad, but enough that her handwriting was all off. Kaley felt her sister’s fears, and she tried to remotely allay them. Reflexive. Like catching the boy…dodging the bullets…natural.
One foot in front of the other, Kaley was returning to room 208. What would happen if the other students asked her if she’d seen Mrs. Cartwright? What was she supposed to say?
Kaley looked down at the floor, watched the water froth around her. Whatever she had been dreaming over the last few months, all those dreams about the water and things swimming beneath it, it had all been something she’d seen coming, at least on an unconscious level, the same way she had known when first meeting Spencer Pelletier outside of Dodson’s Store that her time with him was not finished.
The water was calmer now. Quite a few ripples were spreading across it, though nothing seemed to be swimming in it at the moment and there was no appreciable wind, none except what was blowing in through the open window on the top floor of the cabin. Kaley stepped into the room where the boy had hidden beneath the bed, she could sense him and knew that he was all right, but at the moment it hardly mattered. Even Mrs. Cartwright’s death didn’t seem to matter.
Some of Kaley’s ambivalence towards all of this was undoubtedly due to shock. She was growing numb. That could be bad.
And then…there was a ringing in her ears. Strident and soul-piercing. Kaley jerked and looked all around. Up and down the hall, doors were opening and kids were stepping out. She blinked. Someone yelled, “Alexander Hewett! Don’t you run out of my classroom!” More kids came zipping out from doors. Kaley blinked again, then looked along the walls for a clock. Little hand on the nine, big hand on the four, so…
It was 9:20 AM in Cartersville, Georgia. The end of first period. Of course, first period was the shortest class of the day by ten minutes. All other classes were an hour and a half long. Time’s up already. But Kaley’s day was just starting. Part of her knew to go to the boy and give him the care and love he needed, but another part of her was on autopilot. The bell…it held a magical power over her, and she had to obey. She had to go back to class, gather up her things, and head to second period.
Mr. Boulier’s class, she thought, a bit absently. Social studies. The other kids had started breezing past her. One kid wearing his band uniform slammed his trumpet case into her side, knocking her sideways into a tall, fat black girl that said, “Better watch where you goin’, girl.” When Kaley just stared at her, the girl added, “I ain’t playin’,” then disappeared down the hall.
Some dorky white kids came up to her and shook their hips in front of her, saying, “Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle,” a reference to that song by that band LMFAO, or whatever. The boys moved on, laughing with one another. She hardly noticed, or cared.
Need to get my things. Can’t be late for Mr. Boulier, he writes people up without a second thought.
Kaley went to class to retrieve her things. Below the bed, the boy was whimpering. Kaley went to him.
Shannon Dupré sniffled. A tear dropped on her paper, smudging what she’d written. It was a vocabulary quiz, one where there were two columns: the left column had a series of words, and the right column had a series of definitions. She had to connect the words with their correct definitions: necessary, implied, seldom, independent, guardian…
Usually, vocabulary was one of her strong points, but right now the words wouldn’t orient themselves, or, more to the point, she couldn’t quite orient herself with her work. I told her not to go near the laughing man. I told her this would happen! I told her!
In her hand, her pencil was trembling. Slowly, she lowered the pencil and cupped her hands together, then wrung them, and tried to breathe. Kaley had taught her to breathe in slowly for five seconds, hold it for five seconds, then to exhale for five seconds. Some book she’d read on stress relief said this would help.
She rea
ched up to wipe her eye. “Shannon?” said a voice just over her shoulder. It was Ms. Moore, kneeling beside her desk. “You okay?” She touched a hand on Shan’s wrist, gave it a light, loving squeeze. “Are you crying?” She was trying to keep her voice down where the other kids wouldn’t hear. Ms. Moore was nice like that. She’d let Shan have her desk at the very back of the class, so others couldn’t whisper to her or make fun. And so that if she needed to scratch her private parts (which happened from time to time because of the infection) or if she had to leave to apply the special cream the doctor had given her, she could do it without anyone seeing.
“You know I’ve always told you you’re free to go to the bathroom anytime you need,” Ms. Moore said. “You don’t even have to wait to ask.”
Shan nodded, and wiped her eyes again. “I know. I’m just…I’m fine.”
“Sure?” Ms. Moore raised a suspicious but playful eyebrow. Shan could feel Ms. Moore’s heart aching for her. Her teacher didn’t know the full details, but the principal had given her the gist of what happened in Atlanta. A lovely woman, with a kind face. She was a single mother with two children, and had great powers of empathy. Sometimes, just being near Ms. Moore made Shan feel a little better. Not as much as being near Kaley, but better.
“I’m fine,” Shannon said, and lifted her pencil. Her hand had gone steady again.
Ms. Moore smiled. “Okay, well, you just let me know if you need anything.” She stood and stepped away. When she did, it was like Shannon was stepping away from a warm fireplace, and now the cold could set in again. The dark, mischievous, and even morbid feelings of the others around her. Ward your heart. That’s what Kaley always says.
Shannon had learned to do some of that, but she wasn’t as strong as Kaley. Her big sister had a power Shan admired, and just knowing that Kaley had mastered the ability to “ward” her heart gave Shan hope that she could do the same someday.