Flesh

by Laura Bickle

  Gramma puts the makeup that she used on Amanda in a zipper bag with instructions for application. Amanda pays careful attention to them.

  I slide down on the floor to check in on Garth. “What do you think so far?”

  Garth’s chin is in his hand. “I think that dam’s gotta come down. Or else shit’s going to get really real.”

  I swallow, hard. Doing something as huge, irreparable, and illegal as taking down a dam is just…unimaginable.

  He turns off the tablet. “I think it can be done, but we’re gonna need help.”

  The doorbell rings downstairs.

  “I’ll get it,” I volunteer. If it’s the cops, I want to tell them that Garth’s not home. I don’t think they’ll give me a whole bunch of crap, since I’m supposed to be fragile and all.

  I zip down the stairs with Lothar on my heels and open the front door.

  And immediately wish I hadn’t.

  Standing before me, dripping in the rain, are Amanda’s friends, Liz and Gem. They are glowering at me with unabashed hatred in their eyes.

  I shrink back automatically. Lothar squishes between me and the girls, his ears twisted in confusion.

  “What the hell did you do to get Rafe arrested?” Liz demands, shoving her way into the foyer. She jabs a purple-painted fingernail into my chest.

  My mouth disconnects from my brain. Liz is advancing on me, eyes flashing. I’m terrified by the force of that disapproval, this open conflict.

  “I didn’t mean for anything to happen to him,” I squeak.

  Lothar barks.

  “What did you do?” Liz demands. She shoves my shoulder. “He told us that you gave him something of Amanda’s. He went to find you, to ask you about it, and then that was it.”

  Gem crosses her arms over her chest. “And all of a sudden, he’s charged with assault and murder. He’s not that kind of guy. He would never hurt a woman. He would never hurt anyone. Jesus, he’s a hard-core vegan.”

  “And he loved Amanda,” Liz says. She’s grabbed my collar and is staring into my face. I have a pang of jealousy in that moment. Rafe has friends who would do this for him, to look for answers and fight for him. I’ve never had that.

  “Look,” I say. “This isn’t what you think it is.” I know that I can’t tell them the truth, but I can’t come up with a good lie.

  “She’s right. It’s not what you think.”

  I twist my head, looking back up the stairs. Amanda stands there, dressed in my clothes and Gramma’s makeup.

  Liz releases me. “Oh my god.”

  Gem lurches toward Amanda, then stops with her arms stretched out, as if afraid the illusion of her friend will shatter if she touches her. “Is that you?”

  “Sort of.” Amanda’s hands are tight on the handrail, her greenish with white knuckles on display.

  Liz bursts into tears. She goes to Amanda, puts her arms around her. Amanda gingerly returns the hug.

  “Why didn’t you tell us you were alive?” Liz sobs.

  Amanda holds her at arm’s length. Her voice is soft and strained. “Because I’m not.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  This was not going down the way that any of us expected.

  I lead Amanda and the girls to the parlor to talk and close the door behind them. It seems like as good a place as any for people to say their goodbyes to the dead.

  Gramma makes more cookies over the fireplace grate, and I return to the parlor after a respectable time with cookies, milk, and a box of tissues. The Tissue Fairy in action, that’s me.

  The three girls sit in the front row of chairs. I try to slip in and drop off the platter and Kleenex. I want to silently slide out, to avoid the thick accusatory tension in the air, but Amanda grabs my wrist.

  “Stay,” she says. I sink into a chair in the front row. Funny, I haven’t ever sat here before, not even when Gramps died. I glance at the pedestals at the front of the room that should be holding massive bouquets of flowers. They’re empty now, casting sharp shadows on the wall. I crinkle my nose. They need to be dusted.

  Amanda is speaking to the girls. “You can’t tell anyone. No one at all.”

  “But Rafe is under arrest!” Gem wipes her eyes. “We can’t leave him there.”

  “We’ll figure out a way to get him out,” Amanda says. She glances at me. We are all she has.

  “We will,” I promise. I feel the weight of this vow settling in my chest. This is a promise I mean to keep, but I have no idea how to.

  “But for now, we have a bigger problem.” Amanda takes a deep breath. Her fingers clench in mine. “Remember when I said that I wasn’t alive?”

  “You’re alive.” Gem reaches for Amanda’s other hand. But when she clasps it in hers, she stares down at the greenness of it and flinches.

  “No. I’m not. And neither are a bunch of people walking around town. They’ve been bitten by Catfish Bob, or bitten by people who have been bitten by him.”

  “Like…vampires? Are you a vampire?” Liz leans forward in interest, her voice hushed.

  “No. I’m some sort of…fishy ghoul.” She rolls up her sleeve, exposing the mottled surface of her skin, like wax or parchment paper over fins. She opens her mouth, displaying serrated teeth.

  Gem shrinks back and Liz moves forward. “Wow.”

  Gem gazes at her. “That’s just…I can’t wrap my head around it. I can’t decide if it’s cool or gross.”

  “Trust me. It’s a lot to absorb.” Amanda takes a deep breath. I notice that she’s wisely not mentioning her dietary restrictions. “And there are others. Others who are trying to hurt people. We have to stop them.”

  “I heard that there was a dead guy who held up the bait shop,” Liz said. “Everybody thought it was a mistake. Or that there’s something goofy with the water supply. Like too much oxycodone in the water treatment plant, making people crazy.”

  “No. There are actually dead people walking around. For reals.”

  “How do we stop them?” Gem asks.

  “We have to do something to placate Catfish Bob. We have to…we have to destroy the dam. Once the dam is destroyed, Bob will go back to sleep and the rest of it will stop,” Amanda says. “But we need your help.”

  The girls gaze at her. I don’t know them well enough to know if they can be trusted. But it feels like something has moved within this little group, something even more powerful than that wall between life and death.

  *

  A mizpah is an emotional bond held by those who are separated by distance or death. I’ve seen the term engraved on headstones, and never fully understood the meaning of the word until now, until I’d seen Amanda in this limbo, trying to connect to the living.

  The girls leave, but my parents still don’t come home. Worry for them gnaws at me. We listen to the radio news and weather reports about severe thunderstorm warnings. The whole area is under a stationary front that isn’t going to move for days. A bus full of retirees traveling south on a casino trip overturned on a two-lane road, falling into the river. Dad calls to say that he’s taking Mom to the scene to look for bodies.

  Things feel too far out of control. I know that my parents are going to find out about everything. A secret between two people is hard enough to keep, but this is beyond critical mass. Too many people know.

  I go to bed early, clutching Lothar. Gramma has found a sleeping bag for Amanda, and she lies motionless on the floor, still and unmoving as the corpse I suppose she is. Her chest doesn’t even seem to rise and fall anymore. The catfish charm is tucked tightly in my fist. I glance at the oil lamp Gramma left on my night stand, with the flame flickering.

  I wonder if she left it here, for me. As a weapon.

  I know that Amanda is changing. I just don’t know what the tipping point is, when she will become what Travis, the Hunter, and Jesse were—when that need for flesh will override her mind. And I have no idea what I’m going to do then.

  I don’t sleep. I’m exhausted, but I can’t. I just watch t
he still figure on the floor until I can’t stand it anymore. I get up and tiptoe around Amanda. I slink downstairs, holding the sleepy dog like a teddy bear.

  Gramma is sitting up in bed, listening to the radio in her room. Gramma’s room has hundred-year-old wallpaper and pictures of herself and Gramps on every wall and horizontal surface. Her collection of glass bells takes up the rest of the space on her dresser. She’s wrapped in her pink fuzzy chenille robe and her hair is in curlers. She’s sipping coffee, staring at the radio. I sit on the bed beside her. Wordlessly, I press my head to her shoulder, and she reaches up to pat my cheek. Lothar jumps up into bed and worms under the covers.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I say. I feel weak.

  “You will figure it out,” she says. “I believe in you.”

  Nobody has ever said that to me before. I burst into tears, snotting all over Gramma’s fuzzy robe.

  Like a little child, I cry myself to sleep. At least, I think that’s what happened. When I awake again, I’m tucked in Gramma’s bed and gray light is coming through the rain-streaked windows.

  I crawl out of bed and pad into the kitchen. Gramma’s making coffee with a propane chafing dish, while Garth pours cereal into a bowl. It’s still raining.

  “Are Mom and Dad home yet?” I ask.

  “Should be soon,” Garth says. “Assuming that no more shit hits the fan.” He gestures at the radio with his coffee cup.

  “Sixteen bodies have been recovered from the bus crash, but twelve people are still missing. In related news, flooding in low-lying areas has been to blame for a family of six going missing overnight at the Green Meadows Campground. The family’s camper was found, but the occupants are missing, presumably to escape the weather. Calls to police overnight have reported sightings of the family walking along State Route 551, but these have not been confirmed.”

  I shudder. I don’t want to voice what I’m thinking: What if Catfish Bob is gleefully gnawing on the bones of the old folks and the missing family?

  Gah.

  I hear crunching in the driveway, and I leap up to the window. A tractor-trailer is backing up along our driveway with an irritating beep-beep-beep of warning. My mom’s SUV is right behind it.

  “Is he lost?” Garth mumbles.

  The truck backs up, beyond view, with the trailer aimed toward the Body Shop.

  I rush upstairs to get dressed. Amanda groggily sits up on the floor.

  “You have to hide,” I say, searching for my shoes. “They’re home.”

  Amanda obediently retreats to the crawlspace. I glimpse the soles of her feet, which are black, like she’s been walking on ink.

  By the time I get to the Body Shop, the back door is open. My mom and dad are dressed in muddy hazmat suits and fighting with the doors to the tractor trailer.

  “Mom, Dad…what’s up with the truck?”

  Dad gives me a hug, heedless of the mud. “We don’t have enough room in the cooler for the bodies from the bus wreck. The sheriff commandeered a tractor trailer with a refrigeration unit to store them until we can get the bodies transferred to other morgues.”

  A lump sticks in my throat. I don’t like the idea of that many unknown bodies on our doorstep. I want to tell him, but he’s called away by the radio.

  I retreat back to the house, tripping over Lothar. He lifts his head, scenting the air for fresh corpse. I pick him up and head down the hall.

  Garth’s putting on his boots. “You’ve got to do your part now,” he says.

  He’s right, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

  *

  I slog through the rain, my polka-dotted rain boots sticking in the mud and my pink rain poncho flapping in the wind. The creek is swollen, reaching beyond its banks, running fast and sweeping old leaves, the ghosts of plastic bags, and broken branches along with the current. I slog up to the road to cross it, listening to the sound of water roaring through the culvert under the road.

  I find myself on the Carltons’ doorstep, far too soon. It takes three tries before I can muster up enough gumption to knock on the door, though.

  Renee answers, still in her Hello Kitty pajamas. She looks startled to see me.

  “Hi,” I say uncertainly.

  “Hi.”

  “Can I, uh…can I come in and talk to you and your brother?”

  “Sure.”

  I follow Renee up to her room. The house is super-quiet. I assume that the baby must be sleeping. She taps on her brother’s door as she goes by. Ryan emerges, his hair completely screwed up, tugging a T-shirt on. She gestures for him to follow us to her room, and he does.

  I sit awkwardly with Renee on her unmade bed. Ryan flops bonelessly on the floor.

  “Are, uh, your parents home?” I want to ask them to shut the door.

  “They’re out in the field, trying to get the cows closer to the barn. They’ve already moved them twice. They’re stressing about the rain and feel like they need to prepare for the coming rainpocalypse.” Ryan rolls his eyes and yawns.

  “So, what’s going on with you?” Renee shifts to the head of the bed and hugs a pillow, as if to put some distance between her and me.

  I take a deep breath. And then I let the story out. The whole story, omitting nothing.

  Ryan seems to wake up as I talk, and Renee fidgets with the edge of her pillow.

  When I finish, I stare down at my ridiculously cheerful boots. “So, um. That’s what’s been going on with me.”

  Renee nods. She seems to absorb it. I expect her to ask if I’m taking any medication, and if I am, suggest that I take more. “Why are you telling us this?” she asks instead.

  “Because I need your help.”

  Her mouth flattens. “Ah.”

  “I don’t know who else to ask. You two are it. You’re the only people I know who can do it. And I know that you’ll probably say no, for a whole lot of good reasons. Because it sounds absolutely batshit crazy. Because we could get in huge amounts of trouble and be grounded for life or wind up in jail. But I have to ask.”

  Silence hangs.

  Ryan looks up at Renee. “It’s your call.”

  Renee’s stare is clear-eyed and vulnerable. “Even though you hurt me—a lot—I still love you like a sister. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

  I break down crying, because I am so undeserving of this gift of friendship she has given me. I feel Renee’s arms around me and Ryan patting my back.

  I wish I’d had the courage to do this before, before all the shit hit the fan.

  *

  Everything is in place.

  All that’s left is the waiting.

  Life moves in a flurry around me, but I feel curiously still and calm, as if I’m existing in slow motion. My parents swirl around, phones ringing, cops trickling in and out of the Body Shop. Gramma is cooking in the fireplace again, and Garth is punching at his cell phone. Amanda has fallen asleep in my bed, as if she’s conserving what last bit of human strength she has. When she dreams, she twitches as if she’s swimming. I sit at the parlor window in a rocking chair, wrapped in a quilt with Lothar snoring at my feet, drinking hot chocolate and watching it rain.

  I need this time. I need to just feel it, to be in this moment. I let go of the past, of my feelings of shame about how I treated Renee, my guilt about Rafe, and the worry over lying to my parents. I let go of the future, of all our plans, and of all my fear of getting caught and facing the consequences of what I’m planning to do. Destroying a dam is not a small thing. Something this much bigger than I am requires the help of others, the cooperation of many moving parts. Not one of us can do it alone.

  I’m just existing, in this rain-streaked gray space. It’s curiously peaceful. My thoughts drain away under the tapping of the rain. The creek crawls up, past its banks, reaching into the yard in soggy runnels. I swear that I can see little minnows swimming in the clover. This creek is a tiny tributary of the Milburn River, and I imagine that the river is deep and swollen brown now. The ligh
t slowly drips out of the day, turning the skies the color of a day-old bruise.

  I eventually disentangle myself from Lothar and the quilt. The snoring dachshund remains swaddled in the quilt. I put on my shoes and walk back to the Body Shop.

  My mother’s chattering on the phone, gesticulating as she talks. My father is hunched over a stack of forms, rubbing his forehead. Neither of them have slept.

  “How’s it going?” I ask my dad.

  He gives me a smile. “Okay. How are you?”

  “Fine.” I put my arms around his neck and give him a hug. He seems startled by this, but then he kisses the top of my head.

  His brow wrinkles. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  “I’m good.” I give him what I hope is a reassuring smile, then turn to my mom.

  She turns her phone off and flings it on the counter. She throws up her hands. “Jesus.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We have two more pickups to do.”

  “More?” Dad echoes.

  “I sent Garth to the jail for that suicide, but we’ve got a multi-car pileup before the bridge on Route 60. We have to go. If there are bodies, we have to tag ’em and get the EMTs to take them to the hospital for now.”

  I put my arms around my mom. I understand that this is a looming disaster. It’s been all hands on deck, from the volunteer firefighters and volunteer EMTs to the cops and my parents. In small towns, everyone has to pull together, because no one is coming to rescue us but us.

  “Stay safe, okay?” I tell them.

  She nods, but I don’t think she really hears me. “You listen to your Gramma. And watch the water. If it goes up around the foundations of the house, I want you to go to town, okay? Go to Sheriff Billings’s house on high ground and wait for us.”

  “Okay.”

  Grumbling, she throws all her gear into a soggy gym bag. Dad grabs two more body bags. Then he doubles back and gets two more before they head out the door.

  “Love you guys,” I call after them.

  My mom waves as she climbs into the SUV. Their headlights back up out of the marshy driveway and onto the road.

  I peer into the cooler. I pick out a couple of plastic bags of sustenance for Amanda. I gaze out the back door at the refrigerated truck. The engine is running, keeping everything cool. But gas is getting low in our generator. Hopefully, they’ll bring some back when they return.