We Are Ash

by Samara Stone

  Dolores choked. She'd been trying to continue eating normally, but this was too much. She coughed out tomato soup and had a horrifying moment of plague-fear as she sprayed red all over the white formica table.

  “She turned to… to… ash? Ash?”

  “Well, she started to, but then it was like the ashes pushed into my lungs, like she exhaled them into me and I could feel it inside me, taking parts of me, learning. And I was so scared, Lorri. I thought I was gonna die, or be possessed, or something. I didn't even know what, but then my buddy shot her again and she turned to him and I could feel her suck the ashy crap back out of me and she breathed it into Cody instead.”

  Dolores leapt to her feet. “Oh hell no, your friend's name is Cody? And he shot a woman who turned to ash?”

  “Could you just sit the fuck down and listen?! Yeah, and as soon as she sucked back out of me, I started hacking and coughing up blood. Cody's screaming and clawing at his throat and she just turned those freaky glowing eyes on us and I could see the ashes sucking back out of Cody and he starts hacking up blood too. Then she just disintegrated into more ash and was gone, like she'd never been there at all. We made our way back to our truck and made it to town, but Cody said we couldn't go to the hospital because what if her body turned up… I don't know why I listened to him.”

  “But you got better? You got better, so these other people that have the cough, they'll get better too, right?”

  “What are you even talking about?” He looked so tired she wondered if maybe he didn't know about the new disease. An outbreak for which he might be Typhoid Mary. Or, she thought with a shudder, Typhoid Ash.

  “It sounds exactly like this red pneumonia that people are getting all over the country. That woman must've given it to you and Cody and now she's spreading it.”

  “She wasn't coughing up blood, even after she got shot. She just… disintegrated. But Cody… Cody really freaked out. He'd already been to prison and he didn't want to go back, so… so… I went to check on him the next day and he,” Danny's voice broke and he choked back a sob, “Aw fuck, he'd hung himself. He's dead, Lorri. He's dead because he murdered an imaginary woman.”

  “You think she was imaginary?” Dolores wanted to believe this. She wanted to believe that her Ash was not this woman. Ash was weird, but she wasn't some plague-causing murder-ghost. And yet, so many things were lining up that it was impossible to ignore.

  Danny shook his head and leaned over the table, absently cleaning up the tomato soup spray with a napkin from McDonalds.

  “No. I don't. But I can't explain what happened either. And we poached that bear to boot, so I can't tell anyone anything to have them go check it out. If there was a body to recover I could at least justify it, but… but as is… I didn't go to the hospital, so nobody would even known that I had this fucking bloody cough thing that everyone has got.”

  “But you got better! That's a good sign!”

  “No. That's where shit gets even weirder. I was definitely on death's door and by the time I realized that I needed to go to the hospital I couldn't even get up. Then another freaky woman showed up at my house, but not the same woman. I thought she'd come to kill me. Instead she put her hand on my face and it was like some part of me came back to life. I could feel the sickness syphoning out of me like she was charcoal sucking up some poison. I tried to grab her to ask her some questions but she disintegrated too, just like the other one. Like my weird doppelgänger. If my whole house wasn't spattered in bloodstains from my illness, I'm not sure I'd even believe it myself. And then… then when Mom came up sick, all I could think of was that… that… when it was inside me, I had the distinct sense that it had seen her. Like I'd led it to her. Like I caused this.”

  “But the doctors all said it's cancer. And Mom has smoked two packs a day since she was a toddler. I mean, it wasn't so much if she'd get lung cancer as when. I don't think they're related, Danny.”

  “But you believe me?”

  Dolores looked into her brother's haggard face and debated whether to tell him about Ash, but now she was the one afraid of what her confession might lead to. She was too scared of losing the first friend she'd had, the first real friend. For the second time that night she desperately wished that Ash had a phone.

  “Yeah, I believe you. Some things are just too fucking weird to be made up. Either way, are you sure you’re better? That the woman healed you? Maybe she didn't mean to make you sick either.”

  “Yeah, I guess. But they weren't the same woman. Maybe the second one was just a hallucination I had when I turned the corner? I wish Cody was around. I can't believe he just offed himself like that. And now Mom. I’m sorry. I'm worn out, Lorri. I'm just fucking done, you know?”

  “You cannot be done. Don't talk like that when you have a friend who just hung himself, please.”

  “I won't kill myself. What would you do without me?” He meant this as a joke, but Dolores didn't think it was funny.

  She punched his arm a little too hard. “I wouldn't know what to do without you—you're half my friends.”

  “I can't believe you're letting some homeless chick live with you.”

  “She's the other half, so be nice. Plus, I don't know… I'm poor enough that I better get some sad sack karma going in case I wind up homeless too.”

  “I'm not going to let you be homeless. Although if my job folds we might be homeless together. I guess we could come live here, if you can call that living.”

  “Uck, let's not even contemplate that horror.”

  “I was serious about Colt, though. His older brother works with me. He's back in town and he inquired about you.”

  “Dude, I'm seriously over that.”

  “You should just go get a piece. I bet you haven't gotten laid since… I dunno, ever?”

  “Shut the fuck up! Like you're getting a bunch of pussy up in Sausage Fest, North Dakota.”

  Danny laughed. “Why didn't you bring your friend with you? Is she cute?”

  “Apparently, since the only cute guy I work with put the moves on her.”

  “Why wasn’t he putting the moves on you?”

  “I assume he's intimidated by my dazzling intellect.”

  Danny chuckled a little before becoming serious again. “I mean it though, I want to meet this Ash girl if she's going to be living with you. You said she's foreign or something?”

  Dolores nodded weakly. The way things were shaking out, Danny and Ash meeting was the last thing she wanted.

  15 The Colt

  After a fitful night checking her phone to see if Lane had texted her back about Ash, Dolores realized that the watched feeling was back. It was different this time—she felt almost as if whatever was watching her was trying to respect her privacy. There was a kind of familiarity about the intrusion; like a dog watching you shower. Maybe a little odd, but nothing to worry about.

  Dolores was worried about running into Colt, though, as unlikely as it was. Danny didn't know that Dolores's last interaction with Colt had been sleeping with him, and what’s more, finding out he was engaged to Chelsea Hammersmarck afterwards. Her father was the mayor of Muskoten, and Dolores still felt stupid and embarrassed about it all. It wasn't that she had a moral problem with being the other woman, but she did have a problem with being duped.

  Even worse, she had thought she and Colt had a real connection. And he was six-seven and sweet to Dolores in a way so few were. They could laugh together for hours, and he was never ashamed of her despite being the star of the basketball team. Not even Dolores’s own mother was unashamed of her.

  They had been each other's orbits from second grade on, when Colt moved to Muskoten. In high school they shared missing fathers, disappointing mothers, and a love of anime. She remembered one evening up on the rugged butte overlooking town he had braided her hair, a chaste act that had left her breathless and aching to be with him. They'd night-hiked up there as a sort of mutual dare when a large grizzly bear had been raiding trash bins all over to
wn.

  Colt had dated Chelsea on and off their entire senior year, but Dolore hadn't seen them together in a while. She remembered him asking her what her post-graduation plans were as his fingers trailed over her scalp. His own hair was in a sloppy man-bun over the shaved lower half. His hair was as long as hers and twice as thick, lusciously deep black—so black that it looked maroon in the right light, not blue the way some black hair did. She told him that she was headed west, and that eventually she'd be a brilliant scientist once she got free of their dead-end town and her asshole mother.

  She had wanted him to kiss her after that, but he seemed to withdraw into himself after she shared her plans. When they ran into each other at a pre-graduation party the following night, she boldly told him that if he wanted a farewell kiss, he better get it—she was leaving the next day right after graduation. He'd laced his long fingers with hers, taken her out to his car, and drove her to his uncle's old place. He opened the door and they folded their long, strong, young bodies onto a flimsy bed with a thin, rubber-foam mattress. She'd had her first everything all in one heated night. It wasn't exactly what she hoped it would be, but it was more tender and fulfilling than she'd heard other girls talk about. He'd had a box of condoms under the bed and she didn't even have to ask him. He held her face in his hands after the first time, kissing her everywhere, and whispered, “You shouldn't run away.”

  Dolores laughed. “You could catch me if I did.”

  He smiled sadly and they had sex again. He said that she could stay if she wanted, that his uncle didn't mind and he would drive her home in the morning if she wouldn't get into too much trouble.

  “What do I care if I get in trouble?” Dolores asked and curled her body against his.

  It was the next day at graduation that Dolores saw the gaggle of girls all cooing and clucking over Chelsea. That and the shitty, tiny diamond on her finger. If Dolores could've pulled her body into a black hole and destroyed the world, she would've right then. She didn't stay near to the pack long enough to hear anything else, she just steeled herself to give Colt a look that would freeze the tropical Amazon as soon as she saw him. At least her decision to leave had been that much easier.

  Dolores felt tears slipping out of the corners of her eyes as she lay in her too small, too short bed with its threadbare navy-blue sheets. Evidently she still wasn’t over it after all. She wiped her face and got up to see if Danny was up and about. The bathroom was unoccupied, so she hurried in to take a shower, trying to push the memories of Muskoten from her mind.

  She was here for Danny. She was here to maybe bring some comfort to her mother, if it was true that the sick woman had been calling her. She was not here to wander down the what-ifs trail with Colt. Newly divorced Colt. Who got divorced after a year and a half anyway? Men who fucked around with other women while freshly engaged, she supposed.

  Showered and dressed, Dolores found Danny staring out the large window in their kitchen with a coffee in hand. The landscape was smears of gray, taupe, and brown with only bits of white from the last snowstorm. The sky sat heavy on the little town, making it look eerily adrift with nothing beyond its borders. Dolores could feel her pulse quickening remembering old traumas, but the watchedness settled over her like warm hands and she felt an odd relief. Was she going crazy again? Had her body developed a sort of imaginary, invisible friend-response to stress?

  Before she could question the sensation further, Danny turned his bright eyes to her and grinned.

  “Hey you lazy bum. You ready to go see Mom? I thought we'd swing by The Bakin' Barn on our way and grab some cinnamon rolls in case she's up to eating something.”

  “Sure, whatever. Why does she want me? You're the one she likes.”

  “Harsh, Lorri. She loves you.”

  “Oh, come on, you know what I mean. She loves me as a partial genetic match, not as a person. You, on the other hand, she loves as the second coming of Christ.”

  “Hey, it's not like I enjoy her weird infatuation with me. She keeps telling me I can always come live with her forever if I can't find a wife. It's weird, Lorri. It's not nice.”

  The not-nice phrasing she’d grown accustomed to with Ash made Dolores's stifle a laugh. She was sure her mother would not be as excited to see the Dolores after a year and a half as Ash was to see her after just one shift at Starbucks.

  “Where'd you go just now?” Danny asked.

  “Huh?” Dolores asked.

  “You were way zoned out. Let's go before you chicken out.”

  “Why would I chicken out?”

  “You'll see.”

  “She that bad?”

  “Something like that.”

  Dolores felt good old-fashioned, small town eyes watching her the minute she unfurled her lanky frame from Danny's truck in the parking lot of The Bakin’ Barn. Right away she saw old Karen Wiggins who she had waitressed with throughout high school. Deep mauve lipstick spidered out across her skin through the fine wrinkles that puckered her mouth.

  “Hey, there, Dolores, about time you came back for a visit. We miss you and your mixing arms. Never have had another girl that could mix that bucket of ranch like you.”

  Well, that was charming. Dolores could die happy now, having permanently impressed the other waitresses at Circle the Wagons with her ability to whip a five-gallon bucket of mayonnaise and ranch mix back and forth fast enough that no stirring was necessary. Danny stifled a laugh of his own as Dolores exchanged a few pleasantries before ducking into The Bakin' Barn. Dolores did love their cinnamon rolls, but she hated to admit she was excited about anything in Muskoten. She was about to say that to Danny just when something stopped her in her tracks.

  His hair was still shaved below with the rest tucked up in a Minnesota Timberwolves beanie, a few shiny black strands breaking free and trailing down his long neck. Dolores turned to flee and ran smack into Danny, who reeled back into the door from the impact.

  “Jesus, you big galoot, what the hell—”

  “You shut up!” she hissed, “You knew, didn't you? You planned this. You fucker. You motherfucking piece of shit.”

  Danny chuckled. “Come on, don't be a pussy, Lorri. What would it hurt to say hello? Besides, you know you want one of their cinnamon rolls. You'd eat those by the dozen when your dad gave us money.”

  Dolores was about to straight-arm Danny out of her way when she heard her name called from a knee-weakeningly familiar voice.

  “Dolores? Holy shit! Come here!”

  Colt came loping out from behind the counter and Dolores had the briefest glimpse of how normal-sized girls must feel as he effortlessly lifted her off the ground in a hug. He swayed back and forth with her and whispered in her ear, “The fuck, dude, I didn't even have a phone number for you!”

  She pushed back off of him and landed with a thud. “Oh yeah, I left it with your fiancé. She must not have passed it on.”

  Colt's smile died and his dark eyes looked so wounded that Dolores immediately regretted what she'd said. Then he stood up straight and the smile returned. “Well, I know I have some 'splainin to do, so how about I take you out to dinner up in Bismarck. I'll drive. You free around five?”

  Danny stood a respectful distance away, pretending to peruse the baked goods with the scrutiny of a health inspector. Dolores cocked her head, then straightened it, feeling a little too Ash-like. Suddenly she had the humming, buzzing feeling of being watched again.

  “What for, Colt? You don't need to explain yourself to me.”

  “I don't need to do shit, but I want to. I want to catch up.”

  “I'm not moving back. I'm just here for a day or two.”

  “Danny said a week.”

  “That bastard! Either way, it's just a temporary situation.”

  “Aren’t they all? Come on, please? It'll be fun.”

  Dolores felt absurd, but all she wanted was for Ash to be there so she could ask her for advice. It would undoubtedly be nonsensical and have nothing to do with the actual
circumstances, but Dolores wanted her only friend there nonetheless.

  “Look, I don't want to ride anywhere. I just sat all day and half the night driving here. How about we just go for a night hike or something?”

  “It's fucking December. You just going to knock me out and leave me to freeze to death?”

  “Don't be a pussy. We’ll head out right at five so you don't freeze your balls off.”

  Colt chuckled, but then his face fell into a frown. “I'm sorry about your mom, Lorri.”

  Dolores almost winced. Nobody besides Danny ever used the nickname, but coming from Colt is sounded so normal, so nice. “Yeah, me too. Could we get three cinnamon rolls to go? We're headed over to see her at the hospital now.”

  “Yeah, of course. I just pulled a batch out of the oven.”

  Dolores wanted to ask how he'd ended up back here after getting a full ride to play basketball at Gonzaga—the same place that Chelsea was going to. But that could wait for that afternoon. Danny paid for the cinnamon rolls and engaged in a bit of banter about Colt's older brother Stetson, but Colt's eyes kept darting back to Dolores. Dolores still felt that crazy, watched feeling, but it was distant now, like whatever watched her was giving her space.

  16 The Alone

  The Dolores left the Bozeman in its exoskeleton and we are sad that it didn't want us to accompany it to the Danny, but we realize that perhaps this is better. We are still unsure if the Danny saw our Ash eyes, and we are afraid that the Danny would tell the Dolores we are not-nice if it saw us even though we did not mean to be not-nice to the Danny. If the Cody hadn't shot us we never would have—well, no, we must not think about not having breathed into the Danny. Without breathing into the Danny, we might never have found the Dolores. Just Dolores. Our crazy bitch.