by Gina Whitney
Let me tell you, I was more than a little freaked out. It might as well have been a king cobra the way I snatched my hand back. The candy was on the floor, and I was just ogling it, waiting for it to do something else. Some random customers stopped and stared at the Twizzlers too. When they didn’t see anything, they gave me a look and moved on.
Finally the store manager came over like he was approaching an escaped mental patient. “Miss, can I help you?” he asked, maintaining a distance.
And I was still just standing there, waiting on the Twizzlers. “I’m okay,” I said, but I was thinking, Okay, now I’m just freaking losing my mind. All I could do was rub my eyes and go grab some Red Bull. Obviously there wasn’t enough caffeine in my system to keep me coherent. I needed some wings.
Six months later I was in Dr. Graves’s office, watching him draw straight lines on his writing pad.
“You know, Ms. Valois, this is all very simple,” he said. “Not only your hallucinations, but all of your emotional problems primarily stem from your unconscious rebellion against adult responsibilities. Graduation is coming up soon. And your father’s parenting style—smothering, overprotective—has plainly crippled your ability to cope with stress. You’re twentyone years old. Time to grow a spine.”
Wow! I didn’t realize I was so fucked up. Thanks, Dr. Graves, for pointing that out.
The doctor leaned forward like he was about to tell me a great secret. “And you really must get over Rafe.” He leaned back with that smug, know-it-all look. But I couldn’t argue with what he had said, especially the part about Rafe.
Rafe was my first everything. We’d met in high school and bonded over being two weird, little squids in an ocean filled with great white sharks. We spent weekends playing games on the computer, watching horror movies, or walking in the woods just talking about nothing. We’d decided to attend Long Island College together.
It sounded real sweet. But time was Rafe’s friend. Once an ugly duckling, he’d experienced a sudden growth spurt at age twenty that had resulted in a buff body and the disappearance of his cystic acne. He had constantly perused the drugstore aisles in search of the perfect product for his highlighted hair.
To me he’d started looking like a damp puppy as he chased the ultimate wet look.
Tiffany, a perky Delta Rho Rho, had seen the changes in Rafe too. Shortly thereafter I’d found it hard to get him on the phone, let alone see him. Hell, the last time I’d seen him, Tiffany had been tonguing him down at the student union.
And why wouldn’t he want Tiff? He had a choice: a hot chick or some oddball who had apparently gone crazy. I was resigned to the idea of never finding love again and becoming the ultimate cat lady.
“You have been hiding from the world, Ms. Valois. Why do you think you chose accounting as a major? Stop trying to hide behind numbers in a ledger book.”
Mr. Graves got me again. I hated accounting, but numbers never teased me. Numbers never cheated on me. And numbers never made me feel like I had to apologize for taking up space on this earth.
“Find out who the real Grace Valois is,” Dr. Graves finished.
I stood up, and had to screw my ass back on since it had been handed to me. As I walked to the door, Dr. Graves looked up at me as if I were a memory he had forgotten already. I whipped around, scraping my arm against a wooden shard protruding from the doorframe. I didn’t even notice the tiny drop of blood my abrasion left behind.
And then Dr. Graves said something else to me.
The next morning I was determined not to let anyone or anything—especially my apparent mental illness—put a damper on my day.
I shared my cubicle of an apartment with Julie, my best friend since preschool. She was already in the kitchen with a bowl overflowing with Fruity Pebbles, chewing like a horse eating confetti. “Hey, Jules. Helping yourself to my cereal again? You know that stuff ’s like five dollars a box, right?” I said, a little miffed.
She plopped her size-eleven, flip-flopped feet on the table. “Just sit your ass in the chair. What are you wearing to the beach today?”
I had forgotten all about that—more like kicked it into my subconscious, hoping like hell it wouldn’t come to pass. “Julie, what ever are you talking about?” I said as I innocently fluttered my eyelashes.
“Don’t be funny, Grace. I packed all your stuff in your duffel bag…including your 1920s-style bathing suit. You will not have me stop back to get it. That’s called stalling.”
Shit, she figured out my maniacal plan, I thought.
Julie was not one for detours. If she was on a mission, it was full steam ahead. She swung her feet off the table, and slammed her fist down with enough force to create a current that rustled the curtains.
“You’re going to have a good time, Grace,” Julie demanded. “Do you understand me?” She jumped up out of her chair and grabbed me. I struggled to break free of her death grip.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I’m just so stoked. Besides, you need some meat on those bones.”
Julie had no problem displaying her strength, and constantly encouraged people to challenge it. Some boys thought she was a little manly, and yeah, she probably was a girl trapped in a boy’s body. Not that she liked girls or anything. But she constantly craved competition. She loved fast cars and arm wrestling, and was very athletic. She had a rock-hard body. If it weren’t for her beauty, one might have assumed she had gender issues.
My father, Ed, had never been a fan of Julie’s daredevil antics. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Julie; he was just protective. When we were kids, whenever Julie had stopped by, Dad had looked over his glasses, his eyes telling her to handle me with care. And boy, when Julie got her driver’s license, I thought Dad was going to have a stroke every time I got in the car with her. So did I, the way she sped up and down Sunrise Highway like mayhem on wheels. But she was my best friend and alter ego; I always ended up having a good time anyway.
Julie gently shoved me out the door and into her car. I gave her a look of warning, but before I could even get my seatbelt on she floored the gas, leaving a set of tire marks in the parking lot. She let out a hearty laugh. “Sorry, I forgot you lack the need for speed.”
“No problem. I love starting my day with my eyes sucked back into my head.”
I scanned the radio stations before settling on classical. Vivaldi was Julie’s clue that something was up.
“Spill it, Grace. What’s on your mind?” she said, pretending she didn’t know.
“Do we really have to go to this party? I’m so done with these flakes, it’s not even funny. I can honestly do without seeing these fake-ass people for the rest of my life.”
“Seriously! What’s your problem with everyone? Graduation’s a month and a half away. After that it’s all downhill. I mean really downhill. Would it kill you to let loose a bit? This is our last day being with all our friends.”
“Your friends.”
“Damn it, Grace. If you’d get your head out of a book every once in a while, maybe you’d have friends other than me. Geez, let’s just eat, get a tan, and have some fun. OK?” Julie threw a towel at my face. We both laughed, but I had something else to tell her.
“I saw Dr. Graves yesterday. I’m having those dreams again.”
Julie knew those dreams well. She had lost many a night’s sleep running to my room to stop my screaming. I was thankful she took care of the numerous noise complaints angry neighbors had delivered to the landlord. Still I never felt comfortable enough to tell her the dreams’ contents. They were so disturbing, so perverse. I didn’t want her to think I was a psychopath.
“He told me, ‘Have a good life while you still can,’” I said.
Julie looked at me like she was expecting something else to come out of my mouth. When new words weren’t forthcoming, her eyes narrowed, and she let out a ghoulish laugh. “Ooh, have a good life… How sinister.”
“It wasn’t what he said, moron. It was how he said it. Like he knew something
.”
“What do you expect from someone who talks to crazies all day?” Julie caught her faux pas. “Aw, sorry, Grace.” But, typical Julie, she wouldn’t allow me to wallow in my well-deserved pity party.
“Good grief, Grace. Don’t tell me you’re going to analyze that all day. Paranoia will destroy you.” She pushed button number two on her radio and cranked up Pink Floyd. However, she gave the lead foot a break, opting to drive at a more acceptable speed to make me feel better.
We pulled up to the beach, and Julie parked her Volkswagen in the outermost spot, forever mindful of any potential damage to her car. She bounded out with two beach chairs in one hand. Her stride was quick and long.
Julie ran down the beach to get right in the middle of the action. I hung back, surveying the surroundings for a quiet spot.
“Grace, are you going to sit with me or by yourself ?” she yelled from all the way down the beach. I thought she was pretty much being a nag at that point. She should’ve been thankful I was there at all; this was for her benefit, not mine.
“Fine! Be a loner!” she grumbled, and immediately immersed herself in a volleyball game.
I adjusted my chair to face the sun. Getting a tan was at the top of my list. I would live on the edge that day and use a sunscreen with an SPF of only ten. My SPF-fifty-preaching father would have killed me if he knew. But you can’t get a decent tan slathered in paste.
I blissfully reclined in my chair, taking in the salty ocean air. It was heaven. The heat of the sun combined with the cool breeze coming off the water was an awesome blend. Burying my toes in the warm sand, the sound of the waves started lulling me to sleep. The cries of the seagulls cradled my thoughts, allowing me to fall even deeper.
Then a sudden cloud cover sent a chill down my spine. I opened one eye, assessing when the sun’s warmth would return. I chuckled at Julie’s big mouth as she challenged a group of boys to a flag football game. But that wasn’t all I heard.
Tiffany’s catty, suburban–girl, shrill voice was coming up behind me. “Rafe said I was the best lay he ever had,” she squealed, making sure I heard every word. “He can’t even remember why he was with such losers before. Oh…sorry, Grace. I didn’t see you there.”
The demon dropped her crap mere inches from my chair, surrounded by her it-girl goon squad. “Grace, would you mind sitting somewhere else so my girlfriends can hang with me? You’d be the best,” Tiffany said, glowering down at me.
As I looked up, all I could see were the bottoms of Tiffany’s braless, newly fitted breasts peeking from underneath her cut-off shirt. And those were two of the reasons I’d always been intimidated by her. Seriously, she was such a perfect physical specimen; there was no way she could’ve been born to Homo sapiens parents. This diabla enticed her prey with her deceptively angelic face, like a prototype Precious Moments figurine. And her pheromones smelled like cotton candy—usually. That day she smelled a lot like rancid bologna and sulfur. I instinctively put my hand to my nose to prevent the thick odor from coating my nostril hairs.
Tiffany saw this and became highly offended. “What the hell are you doing? I know some lowlife trash like you isn’t implying I stink.”
That was my cue to leave, like the other times Tiffany had gotten in my face to establish dominance. I didn’t care about those things. I just wanted to be left alone.
I was about to get up when she slapped the top of my head. “You hear me talking to you?”
Goose bumps raised the hair on my arms. All the sounds around me became jumbled up. The world constricted right before my eyes; all I could see was Tiffany. I stood up a bit shaky. My equilibrium went haywire for a few seconds. When it steadied, my vision was intensified. Tiffany’s outline was crisp, sharp—like I was looking at her through the eyes of animal. Oddly I was no longer afraid of her or intimidated. Rather I felt challenged and exhilarated.
Tiffany gave me a peculiar look. “Well?” she said, unsure whether she wanted to continue the fight.
My palm began to burn, like someone was holding a blowtorch to it. I refused to acknowledge the pain, and remained on target. My fingers locked, moments away from being wrapped around Tiffany’s neck. A shockwave exploded in my mouth, and I could feel fangs trying to bust through my gums. I immediately covered my mouth.
Julie saw Tiffany and practically torpedoed out of the water, coming to my rescue. Little did she know that this time, it was Tiffany who needed help. Good ol’ Jules ran up, waving her hands with a DON’T JUMP OUT OF THE WINDOW look on her face. She had no clue what was really happening and assumed I was getting messed with again.
Tiffany walked backward, never taking her eyes off mine. She knew if she stayed one more minute, something really awful was going to happen to her. She scooped up her belongings as quickly as she could, all but running off the beach and leaving her friends behind.
“Grace, it’s OK. I’m here now,” Julie said, panting.
My dissociated mind came back to me, and brought with it a brain-slicing migraine. “I don’t know what just happened,” I said, rubbing my temples. Julie put me in the car and drove us home. I looked in the side-view mirror, tracing my gums with my tongue.
“What are you doing?” Julie asked, not keeping her eyes on the road.
“Nothing.” I kept looking at myself, thinking, Just another fucking figment of my screwed imagination.
Chapter Three
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
—William Shakespeare
Something was searching in the dark, and caught a whiff of what it was looking for. A scent led the phantom figure to a door that was top-paneled with glass and had Dr. Graves’s name on it. It smelled around the old, wooden frame, its painful appetite growing stronger. It tried to open the door, but it was locked. So it used a fraction of its fantastic strength to rip the door lock out of the jamb. It pushed the door open hard, with no regard to the glass slamming against the office’s interior wall.
Grace’s blood had dried into a purplish-crimson stain on the shard of wood, which still jutted out like a porcupine spine. The figure sniffed and tapped the quill with the tip of its leathery tongue. Ravenous hunger contractions squeezed its stomach tight.
The figure heard the Vietnamese janitor, Bao, rounding the corner. Bao had recently immigrated to the United States, so his attention was divided between the ESOL app on his iPhone and trying to maneuver the bulky industrial buffer. His earbuds and the whir of the clumsy machine prevented him from hearing the wispy movements of the phantom figure. Bao had turned on a single light—forever mindful that electricity was a precious commodity where he came from—and was working at the dark end of one of two abutted hallways. He didn’t notice that the shadow figure had caught sight of him and was spooking around in the darkness like a wraith.
Bao came upon Dr. Graves’s door, perplexed that it was broken. He looked around, but saw no one.
Spider-crawling up the wall, the figure took a keen interest in Bao’s confusion. It crept up to the dropped ceiling and hung upside-down, with its hands and feet adhered to the tile…all the while staring down at Bao.
It watched as Bao hesitated, then committed to taking a small step into the office. He didn’t dare turn on the lights for fear of what could have lurked inside. Instead Bao pulled out his earbuds and listened to the darkness. The janitor heard nothing but the eerie hum of the air conditioner; he reasoned it was not his job to look for trouble, and quickly exited Dr. Graves’s office.
All the while the mysterious figure wondered what Bao tasted like. It scaled back down, positioning itself like a living wall sconce only inches away from Bao, its milky, thickly veined fist about to punch a hole through Bao’s chest. But the figure remembered its orders not to bring any attention to itself. All the stalking stranger could do was inhale the tang of the sweat that beaded off Bao’s skin.
The phantom figure watched Bao swat at his raised neck hairs. Bao grabbed the buffer and hotfooted it to the elevator. The janitor
’s frantic finger kept hitting the “close” button as he looked deep into the immeasurable darkness of the hall. Finally the car came, and Bao jumped in. As the door closed behind him, the figure heard the muffled voice of the translator through Bao’s dangling earbuds: “Tôi đói,” it said. “I’m hungry.”
Later that night Samantha Beckon got off work. She hated smelling like a bag of Fritos. Like Grace, Samantha’s family had no money to speak of, and she had to work at the Galaxy 10 movie theater to pay her way through college. Tonight she had been pulled to concessions—her least favorite job—where the intermingled smells of buttered popcorn and jalapeno nachos had not only conquered her uniform, but had actually seeped into her pores.
Normally Samantha worked the ticket booth, where she spent most of her time staring aimlessly out the window. She had seen Grace a few times and recognized her from Chemistry 301. In class Samantha sat in front of Grace, but was unaware that her cheap perfume choked Grace out. Moreover, her lion’s mane of curly, red hair blocked Grace’s view of the chalkboard.
It was well past two in the morning, and all Samantha wanted to do was get back to the dorm. The bus pulled up, and she was surprised that her old friend Jack, the regular driver, didn’t greet her. She presented her pass to the gruff replacement, and, despite being overwhelmingly tired, offered a genuine smile.
“Where’s Jack?” she asked.
“Just go sit down, will ya?” said the brusque driver, who resented the fact that he had to drive all the way out to LIC— on the outskirts of town—to drop off one person.
Samantha took a seat at the very rear of the bus. She avoided looking at the driver’s reflection in the rearview mirror, with the corners of his mouth pointing downward. She scooted down and prepared mentally for the long, tense drive, wishing Jack were there.