Nightmare's Daughter

by Aurora Smith

  Isaiah always looked like a really tired vampire. A tired vampire who was in need of a blood fix but might continuously get punched out by whoever it was he tried to woo.

  Michelle, bless her, was like the group mascot. She was way too skinny and wore lots of makeup, even for our band of misfits. She had about six earrings in each ear, chains hanging off many of them. She wore a burgundy-black lipstick. Today she had purple hair, but it would probably be pink tomorrow. Her eyes were a dark brown, almost black. With the dark lips and the heavily-mascaraed black eyes, her face looked like it was actually black with white patches pasted on, serving as skin. She reminded me of one of those mean, black, feral cats that popped out at you and tried to scratch your face off if you met them in a dark alley late at night. I’m not sure what Michelle’s face really looked like under all that makeup, I imagined it was probably not horrible. But she didn’t care to share, so I didn’t care to look. She never bugged me about my “mask,” and I never bugged her about hers. That was one of the nice things about this group.

  There were just the four of us, all lonely and unconcerned with anything other than ourselves. We lived in Kalispell, Montana. Not the best place for four freaks. Other than that, I guess it was okay. It was pretty but it did get really cold. As I mentioned previously. Seventeen degrees. Stupid cold.

  I was concentrating on the smoke coming out of my mouth when I saw a big white van that said “Valley Christian” in happy cursive on the side. The giant vehicle was creeping around the corner at the little access road near the lake, going slowly to avoid a spin out, I guess. Careful Christians. Thrilling.

  I was suddenly totally ready to go.

  Kid after kid came spilling out of the van. It was a freaking clown car. We knew them, kind of. They went to our school and held prayer meetings in the middle of the football field. Most of those prayer meetings probably involved praying for our poor condemned souls. I had never actually talked to any of them before. This suddenly seemed odd to me since they were all for saving the world.

  I guess I wasn’t a part of their “world,” I was too different.

  A girl I had seen many times, but, of course, never talked to, popped out of the van looking wobbly in her big black snow-suit and heavy black jacket. Most of her face was covered up, but I could still see her smiling. That was the girl who was always smiling. She had big lips, her nose and cheeks were covered with tiny freckles (nothing like Johnny’s blanket of Irish), and she had long eyelashes you could see from a block away. Her face was friendly, open, and very un-intimidating, which was odd because she was so pretty. Usually, insanely pretty girls get this look of ice-queen. It’s a scale, some have it more than less, but it’s always there. But not for this one.

  Her name was Lucy Peterson, but Isaiah always called her “badonkadonk” because she had an amazing butt. I’m not a butt-watching jerk or anything; she was pretty well-known for her derriere. She looked like one of those pin-up girls from 50’s cartoons: big chest, tiny waist, a big booty, curvy hips, and those athletic legs that were nothing but solid muscle. She was distracting, really. Her face was young and innocent-looking, and her body was… not.

  She did seem as innocent as her face suggested, though, regardless of the Betty Boop body. The girl was always happy and laughing loudly, drawing attention to herself with her unreasonable joyfulness. I was willing to bet she pooped rainbows and threw up skittles. She was that ridiculous.

  When she finally made it out of the church van, she hovered, helping others get out of the still-spewing clown-van. Lucy looked less concerned with her beauty than the other girls. Most of the others sported perfect hair and matching outfits, while she just had her hair all tucked underneath a bright blue beanie that matched her stunning eyes. Not that I had ever noticed the perfect shade of her crystal blue eyes before…

  The pink and brown scarf around her neck looked thick. I noticed her black snow suit didn’t curve around her famous body, unlike the rest of the girls in her group. Instead of a pin-up cartoon, she looked like a black marshmallow with sprinkles on top. Her round face almost looked chubby with all that fluff around it.

  I’d had a few classes with her; she was always the life of the classroom. As I watched her waddle around, chattering with her church group, I realized that she never seemed to get actual work done in any of the classes we’d had together. But she still got passing grades. Helps to be beautiful, I guess. From the flamboyant happiness she was tossing all over, the chick looked like she didn’t have a care in the world.

  She was really irritating.

  A big guy, her boyfriend, trailed her. Mark or Mike or something or other, was big and popular. He was a handsome guy, if you go for that tall, dark, and handsome type. He played on the football team and dated the prettiest girl in school. Mike (Mark?) was pretty much the king of the world, or at least the Kalispell High School world, which was the only world that mattered to most of them. I thought Mark (Mike?) was a joke. I’m sure he had great parents who adored him and gave him everything his precious heart desired. Adorable.

  “What are you looking at?” Michelle asked, sneering at the large group that just joined the crowd at the lake’s edge.

  “Nothing, shut up,” I said irritably. She muttered something back at me, but ignored my bad mood. Thank goodness for friends who get you. Or, if not “friends who get you” at least “friends who are as weird as you are.”

  I inhaled again from my cigarette and blew the smoke out in little rings. I should start singing like that caterpillar from Alice and Wonderland, maybe then I would disappear without having to get up and slog through the snow. I heard Johnny laughing behind me. Then I felt a pain in my arm as he punched me to get my attention.

  “Dude, it’s that girl.”

  “What girl?” I asked, acting like I hadn’t noticed Lucy.

  “The one I was telling you about, the girl that I tutored for math last week.”

  “Oh,” was my only response. Johnny had gone on and on about this girl who sat so close to him during tutoring that her hair tickled his face the entire time. I thought he had been exaggerating, but now that I saw who he had been talking about, I realized that he was telling the truth. He had probably been completely freaked out the whole time too. Johnny wasn’t the big stud he made himself out to be. But that girl, she was definitely the type to get way too close without realizing how insanely close she actually was.

  “Let’s go.” I flicked my cigarette in the snow and stood up. I took one more look at my classmates, the church group that had no clue I even existed. I saw the black, sprinkled marshmallow spinning around in a kind of chaotic way. She obviously had no idea what she was doing. I looked down at her feet and saw brand new skates. She’d probably purchased them yesterday, brand new skates for a one day thing. She acted like she didn’t care how silly she looked, like she was perfectly at ease in her own skin. The stupid twirls and the uneven, jerky movements ended up looking like fun, rather than the train wrecks they were.

  I wondered what that kind of self-assurance would feel like. I didn’t even know how to comprehend such a feeling.

  She was skating out to the middle of the lake. A few “unconventional” spins morphed into a race back into Mr. Perfect’s arms. What a delectable couple. I could see them now: married, him balding and her 70 pounds overweight. The American dream.

  I turned around, put my earphones in, and turned up my music as we all walked to my car, a beat down little Rabbit convertible. That car was old and dingy, but it was awesome. I loved driving it. It was always like an adventure. Never really knew how it was going to turn out. I was grabbing the keys out of my pocket, when Johnny hit my arm and pointed to the lake. I looked over and saw Lucy standing awkwardly; I knew at once what was happening by the look of terror in her eyes. Something had happened to her footing. Mr. Perfect was standing a few feet away from her waving his hands wildly for her to walk over slowly.

  What an idiot.

  “She needs to sit dow
n, take off her skates and scoot,” I said to no one in particular. No one even responded to me; what I was saying was so obvious. Most of her group was all huddled together on the shore, chatting. The ones in skates were off at another part of the frozen pond, doing a kind of dance, the “killing time and not looking like a total fool by pointlessly moving around” kind of dance. The few that had noticed Lucy’s panic were frantically looking around, trying to find a branch, form a chain, get an adult. That was at least more helpful then what Mike (Mark?) was trying to do. But obviously, none of the church group had paid attention in PE class when they went over this very thing. Everyone was trying to talk, to each other, to her, to Mark, to the snowflakes… Hippies.

  I wasn’t much of a conversationalist so, if that were me, I would be good to go. I’d listened in class. I’d just tune them out and do my thing. Skateless and scooting. Lucy, however, started to walk slowly towards Mark (Mike?), when I heard a loud crack. Goosebumps instantly rose on my arm and all the hair stood up on the back of my neck. I got a crazy rush of adrenaline all the way down to my fingertips.

  “Hey, tell her to sit down!” I yelled to the crowd, startling my own group. I saw Isaiah jump from the corner of my eye. Down near the pond, two people turned toward me but, before they registered what I’d said, I heard another crack. Lucy froze again as a visible crack grew in the ice near her feet; this time she should have just kept walking. My body tensed with that second crack. I knew what was going to happen; my head was already playing it in slow motion. Her body jerked a little as the ice below her shifted.

  Lucy tried to run away from the crack but just fell lower with each step. Running on the blades of her brand-new ice-skates looked almost impossible for her. I started to panic as I saw her plunge down, not totally under water, but pretty close. The ice she’d been standing on was buoying her up, but I knew that wouldn’t last. Her arms started flailing as soon as she started falling and she began screaming that high-pitch panicky scream people only get when they’re really, legitimately scared.

  As soon as she screamed, everyone in the area turned toward Lucy. Almost instantly (as soon as they realized what was going on) the herd of cows started heading to her. I swear someone mooed. Amazing. Just what the situation needs, more people on the ice.

  Her dumb boyfriend was making things worse by standing at the opening trying to grab Lucy. He kept backing up as his weight made the hole bigger. He was making the whole thing worse while she was trashing around, making herself more tired. It had only been a few seconds, but she had to be freezing already. Mike (Mark?) grabbed Lucy’s hands once but almost fell in and flew back, away from the hole, without her.

  I knew in that moment that I had to do something. I couldn’t just let this girl drown right in front of me. My feet started moving before I even gave it a real thought. I was running toward the ice. People went flying as I pushed through the crowd of gawking faces. Lucy’s frightened face was sinking lower, her arms were slowing down, and her fingers were losing their grip on the ice. She was disappearing slowly out of view. Mr. Perfect was now standing to the side like an idiot. His mouth hung open as I raced by him toward the hole. A regular Prince Charming. With a frog for a brain, apparently.

  As I ran, I yanked my belt off. When I got to the lake itself, I dropped to my stomach and belly-crawled towards Lucy. I was surprised at how fast I was moving and at how big the hole was. They had done a number on this thing “trying” to get her out. I yelled at someone to come grab the other end of the belt but they all stared at me. One or two people stutter-stepped, but no one seemed willing to step onto the ice. I pulled a big knife that I kept in my boot (for no other reason than it was cool) and plunged it into the hard ice. Then I took the belt that I had slipped off and put the metal buckle around the hilt of the knife. My hand clamped around the other end of the belt. Hopefully one of those dumb cows would figure it out; I didn’t trust an old knife stuck in cracking ice. I focused all my attention on the partially-glazed, panicked eyes of the beautiful girl sinking away from me.

  Lucy’s stupid snow suit had probably weighed ten pounds before she had gotten soaking wet. No matter what I grabbed, sleeves, shoulders, chest, the soaking, half-frozen fabric slipped right out of my hand. I was already starting to shake from the contact with icy water. I could only imagine how insanely cold Lucy was by now. It was crazy that she was still able to move or focus on me. Her arms reached toward the fingers of my free hand and I was able to grab under her elbow. I tried to pull her up but I couldn’t get more than her chest out of the water. She weighed a ton; every inch of her that left the hole added a huge amount of weight to what I was pulling. I really needed two hands but I knew that, without the dumb knife-and-belt setup, there was a good possibility that I would fall in with her, and we would both be toast. I paused for half a sec before I spoke to her.

  “I am going to let go…”

  “No!” She tried to scream at me, but her voice cracked from the cold. Terror registered in her eyes. I didn’t blame her.

  “Listen, I am going to let go and put my legs in. I will pull you up.” I couldn’t believe I was about to try this.

  “Don’t leave me,” was all she said.

  “I won’t leave; I’m going to grab you with my legs, okay? You just hang onto the edge, get both elbows up there.” She didn’t answer but she tried to fold her elbows up onto the ice, like she was resting them on a counter-top, and nodded her head. Her chin jutted out like she was determined to do what I said if it killed her. Which, I realized, it might.

  Another adrenaline rush. Like I didn’t have enough pumping through me right now to power the entire city.

  “I’m letting go.” I pulled her elbows onto the icy shelf but they slipped right off the second I let go. After several minutes she was losing all motor skills.

  Big blue eyes and puffed out cheeks sank away from me quickly. She was going down fast. I spun my body around and put my legs in the freezing water. Even though I’d been expecting cold, I still lost my breath from how crazy-cold it was. I felt Lucy’s body with my legs and locked my boots around her waist. A million freezing daggers were attacking my skin. Also, I had a 200 pound whale anchoring me to the bitterly cold hole of doom.

  I pulled my legs up as far as I could with soaking wet skinny jeans in sub-zero water. I think I was losing that one argument I had with myself about snow suits and the purpose they served. As Lucy’s blank face neared the surface, I managed to grab under her arm with the whole right side of my upper body. She gasped for air and, like a magnet, clung to my neck. Holy cold. Lips and nose were facial ice cubes, digging into the inside of my neck. I imagined it felt warm to her but I was really not enjoying it. At all. I still wasn’t sure I was going to be able to lift this stupid girl out of the hole by myself. But then the girl’s friends were there, pushing themselves on their bellies towards us. It looked like an army of colorful penguins was coming after me. Thanks for nothing guys.

  “Hurry!” I yelled at them. It was unlike me to raise my voice, especially in a crowd, but I was desperate. A chaperone-looking guy grabbed Lucy from my now-frozen arms and shimmied her out of the hole and got her onto solid ice. Then many hands grabbed her and rushed her to a car in the parking lot, hopefully with the heater blazing. Mark (Mike?), aka Mr. Perfect, grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the hole.

  Then he picked me up and ran me to the same car.

  I think I preferred the deathly ice-trap than being held like a blushing bride being tenderly held by Romeo himself on her honeymoon night.

  As we neared the car, I saw them stripping Lucy out of her clothes. She looked waxy and was alternating between shivering uncontrollably and not moving at all. That was bad. That meant that her temperature was so low it couldn’t get up on its own. Through concern for the girl came the thought that they were going to try to do the same to me. If I hadn’t been freezing to death I would have run away as fast as I could. As it was, I couldn’t move.

  They sat me
next to her in the back of the big Cadillac, Driving Ms. Daisy style. It was so warm in the car that it almost burned my skin. Blazing heat made the air almost soupy, it was so thick. I could feel the heat hit my lungs as I breathed in and instantly warmed from the inside. The crowd around me started taking my shoes, socks and jacket off, then whipped off my layers of shirts and proceeded to take off my jeans. And maybe the theoretical long-johns.

  “S-s- top!” I managed to stutter. “I choose dea-ath!”

  I was being completely serious. I heard a snort from the frozen, bright-faced girl next to me. As I turned to look at her, I realized she had what looked like a duck down comforter wrapped around her. Jealous.

  “Put the b-b-blanket around y-you and then take offff…” she couldn’t finish the sentence. Her lips were frozen shut; it was probably painful for her to speak. I could appreciate her discomfort, but what she was feeling was nowhere near as painful as letting those kids undress me. Not that I was arguing with the basic point. Like I said, I paid attention in PE and I had to get the cold clothes off of me. Even if I hadn’t paid attention, my legs were so cold my bones hurt. I wanted out.

  My reaching for the blanket was the sign; the sign the crowd was waiting for. It spurred them into action. Two solemn guys wrapped me with a big comforter like the one that was encasing Lucy. Then I felt someone take off my pants…and everything under my pants.