But David wasn't the only person she was connected to.
* * *
Shelly's place was actually a unit above a garage. The house was a rental, too, and she'd lived through three different families moving in and out, with the fourth still yet to arrive. It meant that, for now, Carly could park well off the street in the little driveway. She didn't know if the police were looking for her but it seemed smart to play it safe.
The door swung open even before she reached the bell. "Hurry in, hurry in," Shel said, and Carly hurried up the last few steps. God, she was unbearably hot and thirsty. She suddenly realized she wasn't sweating. That couldn't be good, could it?
Shel's apartment was a cool 75 degrees; after a lifetime in the desert, that was almost punishingly cold. Carly asked for water then had to force herself to drink it. Shel had brought home the box of wine and was slowly killing it.
When Carly sat on the couch, she woke Watson from a nap. The old cat hissed at her and ran into the bedroom.
"Weird!" Shel said. "Watson loves you."
"Nobody loves me today."
"Oh, sweetie." Shel knelt on the couch and gave Carly a long hug. She'd missed the tone of that remark; Carly ached for loneliness. The idea of it soothed her. For maybe the first time in her life, she did not want to be loved.
"Oh, sweetie, you really liked that guy, didn't--whoa." Shel pulled away slightly. "What happened to your hands?"
The brown spots had spread, growing even darker. They were almost the color of that prank corpse.
Suddenly, Shel's computer lit up like a flood lamp, a silver cloud appearing around it and connecting it to other devices in the room: her tablet, her phone, her Fitbit… even the phone in Carly's pocket.
And just as she shuddered at the sight of all that machine connection, the black web appeared around Shelly, too. Dozens of shining-wet black cords were right there, shooting through the walls of the apartment into the city. One pointed toward the bedroom, and Carly realized she could use it to find Watson.
One emerged from Shelly's abdomen and entered Carly's.
No no no no no this was awful. Carly had not come here to be connected, she'd… It occurred to her that she'd actually come here to say goodbye. It was time to leave Vegas and never see her old friends again. She and Shelly had been through so much together but the memories of those times had become a burden. They just made her feel crowded.
But break off with her former best friend? There was only one way for that to be permanent.
With the same ease she'd found in cutting the leash or breaking that crazy woman's incredible grip, Carly mentally took hold of the black cord connecting her to Shelly and began to draw life from it the way a vampire would drink blood.
Shel's expression went blank for a moment, then her eyes slowly closed. She didn't collapse, but she did slowly sink down onto the couch cushions like an old expiring helium balloon.
Carly clasped Shelly's hands, feeling all of the power that connected them draining away from her former friend and into her. What's more, the strands of the web was growing thinner, too; Carly wasn't just emptying the connection between Shelly and herself, she was draining all of them.
And god, she had so many. Cutting her off from the world was like trying to stand beneath a waterfall and drink every plummeting drop.
But Carly was the one who could do it. She drank it all down, taking every connection into herself the way a black hole would swallow light. The revolting black web strands became thinner, then crusty dry, then grayish, until they finally popped like the crazy woman's fireworks, floating upward in a way real dust never could.
Carly expected that to be the end but there was more vitality to be had. She drained Shel to nothing, until her former friend began to lose distinguishing features. Slowly, she transformed from a normal human corpse into something like a silhouette cut out of gray paper. Finally, that too popped, and there was nothing left of Michelle Read Donovan but a big pair of yoga pants and a Doctor Horrible t-shirt.
"God!" Carly said, almost shouting. "I feel great!" Almost immediately, Shel's phone began to ring and her computer began to ping out Facebook notifications. A quick glance at the screen showed that her friends and family were checking in because they "had a bad feeling." Interesting! So many of them could sense what Carly had done in exactly the same way. She'd have to remember that for next time.
Shel's damn phone kept ringing so Carly carried it into the bathroom--holding it like a dirty diaper--and dropped it in the toilet. The computer had a long yellow cable that connected to the modem so she unplugged it at both ends. It wasn't enough. She smashed the modem. It wasn't enough. She wedged her hands under Shel's oak desk, lifted it--it was not as heavy as it looked--turned it over, then dropped it onto the floor.
The noise it made was amazing! Carly could just imagine it echoing out into the neighborhood, especially through the empty rooms of the unrented house just across the yard.
Her own phone began to ring and she didn't even have to look at it to know it was a police detective. She flipped it over and extracted the battery. Better but not enough.
Carly stared out the window at the darkened house for a long moment. It was sealed up, which meant it would be stifling inside, but that didn't matter. Could she go there and rest? Break the front walk with a sledge, snip the phone and electrical wires, block the water and sewer…
No, that wasn't feasible. She understood, suddenly, David's friend Bill's urge to dig a furrow in the gravel path that led from the road, but she didn't have time to make this space comfortable, not before the end. Plus, the cops might be able trace her phone here.
If she let them arrest her, she'd be taken to a public institution. There would be no privacy there. She couldn't allow that.
Carly hurried back to her car and got back onto the road as quickly as possible. Other drivers and the extremely rare pedestrians she passed all had wet black webs of their own. It was disgusting, really, but she was getting used to it. As she drove through the streets, she and her car passed through the strands like ghosts.
If only stupid David hadn't called the police, she could have driven back out to the private estate where they'd gone hiking. God, how perfect that place seemed now: secluded but not so secluded that a shriveled up old corpse wouldn't be discovered at some point. If only she could return to that little cluster of yucca plants. She could stretch out on the ground, close her eyes, and lie in wait.
Too bad. She had to find someplace new and to do that she had to break with her old life. There were still connections holding her in place and she would not be able to rest and build her power unless those were destroyed.
And what the hell was the matter with Shelly anyway? Since when does she go out in the middle of the day? Carly dropped by her place all the time; she was always home doing her design work. What's the point of inviting your friend over if you're just going to bug out before they got there?
Unless something bad had happened to her.
Carly took out her phone to call Shelly but the stupid thing was dead. How was she supposed to check on her friend now? She cursed it and tossed it onto the passenger floor. Who's idea was it to make everyone carry phones all the time, anyway? Phones suck.
With a note of surprise, she realized that the brown spots on her hands had vanished. She must have imagined them out of guilt, like Lady MacBeth, although she couldn't imagine what she had to feel guilty about.
A cop car sat at the curb outside her apartment, but there was nobody inside. A quick glance as she drove past her building showed that two officers were standing at the top of her stairs, banging on her door. She sympathized with anyone who had to be outside in this heat, but not enough to wave and catch their attention. She drove to the end of the block and parked in front of the Ramirez house, which had been abandoned three years before during the housing collapse.
The deadbolt lock on the front door opened easily for her and she slipped into the dark and the quiet. Imme
diately, she could sense that the power, phone, and water had been shut off long ago. The sewer lines were still there, obviously, but those would be easy to plug. The front walk was just a line of stones; she could dig those up with the pry bar in her trunk.
The cop car pulled away. Carly slipped out the back, then snuck into her apartment. There was a post-it across the door asking her to call a non-emergency police number but she'd already decided she didn't like phones any more.
It was well after dinnertime but she wasn't hungry at all. That Roghan Josh she'd barely eaten must have been damn filling. She wasn't even sweaty from the heat. A little thirsty, maybe, but that was natural in the desert.
The first thing she did was rush to the little dish and tear up Marie's phone number. It felt good. Very freeing. This was it. Moving time. She'd spent her whole unbearable life in Vegas. Now, she was going to find freedom. What did she need? All those clothes? A TV? Her phone?
The tossed her phone onto the couch and instantly felt two hundred percent lighter. Her Facebook and contacts were useless now. Why had she ever worried about them?
All she needed was money. Cash money. She could take her credit cards to the bank, withdraw the maximum cash advance, and vanish. After that, she would be free. No more friends. No more mother. Free.
She hurried out of the apartment and raced down the stairs. If the cops were watching, she wanted to be already moving when they started to get out of their patrol car.
It wasn't cops who were waiting for her. It was her neighbor, and he was pissed about his stupid dog.
"Miss Carly!" he shouted while she was still on the stairs. "Miss Carly, look at this." He held up the end of the canvas leash to show her the clean cut. "How could this have happened, Miss Carly? With that knife lying on the grass right there? Whose fingerprints would be found on that knife, do you think?"
It was always Miss Carly with this guy, but no other signs of respect of any kind. Not ever. Carly stepped onto the bark chips and picked up the knife. "Oh, you mean this knife?"
The black web appeared again, but by now it seemed almost commonplace. Carly could see her neighbor had connections to people inside the house, and also to the east. Some of the strands plunged into the ground--it took her a moment to realize he probably had family back where he came from, India or Bangladesh or whatever. Worst of all, there was a connection between her and him.
Like the one between her and David, it wasn't based on warm feelings: her neighbor hated her and Carly didn't feel much more kindly to him: The guy left his dog outside in the middle of the day in August, for god's sake. Still, it was a connection, and it had to be destroyed.
Just as Carly let her thoughts take hold of the cord between them, a man came up the walk. She'd barely gotten a sip before the distraction broke her concentration.
Still, her neighbor staggered. Then, suddenly, he snatched the knife out of her hand.
"Hey!" the tall man shouted. Startled, her neighbor retreated wordlessly to his front door, clutching his chest and holding up that metal-stamped knife as though warding off an attack. Asshole.
Carly glanced at the approaching man and her immediate thought was that he was a cop. No, that couldn't be right. He was too good-looking, for one thing. If David had been half a McConaughey, this guy was at least a point nine if not a full. In fact, it occurred to her that he looked very like the driver of the Dodge Sprinter, the one she'd seen out in the desert.
But no, this wasn't him. That other guy had been a lean, muscular, good-looking, dark-haired white guy with a little knife scar on his cheek, and this one was a lean, muscular, good-looking, dark-haired white guy with a little knife scar on his cheek. Obviously not the same. It's funny that she could have mixed those up.
Most importantly, there was no web around him.
He called her name in a questioning tone. Instead of answering, Carly focussed all her attention on him. Strands of web--black cords that ran through the streets and houses, connecting strangers she couldn't even see--where everywhere, but the tall man had no connections at all. No cords emanating from his body. No black web. It was real. He was not connected to anyone.
He pressed his fingertips to the spot below his right collarbone as though an old injury pained him, then he called her name again. This time she answered. "That's me."
"Are you okay? It looked like that guy was about to attack you."
"Thank you. I'm okay."
"He wasn't bothering you?"
"That guy bothers the whole world. He leaves his dog chained up outside no matter what the weather and he throws stones at my window whenever I play music without headphones. It doesn't even have to be loud! If he can hear it, it's like a crime in progress."
The guy quirked his head a bit, as though Carly was not behaving the way he expected her to. "I know the type. I'm Ray."
"I'm… oh right, you already know my name. How do you know my name? I assume it's not because you're here to protect me from the creep next door."
Ray took a deep breath. "Actually, I'm trying to find out what happened out in the desert with you and David Collins. That was you, wasn't it?"
Carly's first instinct was to brush him off. All she really wanted was to get away. From everything.
But this guy--this odd guy--had no connections to anything or anyone else in the world. In fact, there was something about him that made her trust him. He smelled like sharpness.
"God, there's nothing to tell," she said. "David slipped some kind of drug into the Camelbak he gave me and I've been hallucinating all day. Just now I was thinking that you smelled like sharpness, of all things. Either that or I have a rare case of late-onset-synesthesia, which I don't. So, I had some hallucinations and the guy played a stupid prank on me. But you know what? That's not even the worst date I've ever been on."
It was a lame joke, but he smiled. "The cops found a body out there."
"A real one? Not the fake one I saw?"
"Are you sure it was fake?"
Considering it was wearing her clothes… "Yes. Absolutely sure. Is that why the cops are calling me and coming to my apartment? Christ. None of this makes any sense! Why me? Why do I have to be caught up in this bullshit?"
"The whole world is made of bullshit," Ray said. He looked warily around. "If the cops are looking for you, we should probably not just hang around out front of your building."
Interesting. "You're right. Let's go."
She led him back to the Ramirez house. Part of her knew it was a terrible mistake to go into an abandoned building with a guy she'd just met, but there was no denying that she felt safe with him. They were unconnected. She was sure that, if he meant her some kind of harm, she would see a black cord between them.
Unless the cords were just hallucinations. Which they weren't. She knew they weren't but it made no sense to talk about them as though they were real. Besides, who would believe her?
They slipped into the house and shut the door. "Damn," Ray muttered, wiping sudden beads of sweat from his forehead. Carly should have been sweating in the stifling heat, too. Why wasn't she? What had happened to her today? It was almost as though she'd acquired really stupid superpowers.
"Can you get me fake ID? I know that seems like a weird question, but the way you talked about cops made me think you have a reason not to like them. You know? Can you get me a fake ID so I can get out of Nevada?"
"I don't know anyone in Vegas," he said.
"Where then? I can get money. Not a lot but it should be enough. God, I can't go to jail, okay? I can't be arrested. Being among all those people… It would destroy me."
He looked at her quizzically. "What happened to you? What did you see out in the desert?"
"Nothing," she said. "It was just a stupid prank."
They heard sirens approaching. Ray moved a little closer, which Carly didn't mind. He was already what she wanted to be. "Tell me."
So she did. It turned out to be surprisingly easy. Desert hike. Weird fake body. Spinning
sensation. Coming to without her own clothes. David shitting his undies and running away, abandoning her in the heat. Surviving only through sheer luck.
"That's it." Carly peered through the curtains at the police cars as they screeched to a stop in front of her building. Her stupid neighbor rushed out to talk to them. Double asshole. "I swear that's everything. There's no reason for all this drama."
From behind her, Ray's voice was quiet. "The cops think the body they found in the desert is you."
She whirled on him. "It's not me! I'm me. I remember everything about my life! I eat rice with breakfast every day because wheat is supposed to be bad for you. I took care of Shelly's cat last month when she took a job in Portland. I got fired from my stupid supermarket job because I yelled at a customer who pinched me. As a kid I took ballet lessons and I'm scared of horses and smoking weed makes me nauseous and this is my life! I remember it all. I'm me. Aren't I?"
There were tears on Carly's cheeks, but she wasn't sure why. She was herself. Still. So why did she feel she had to insist on it so ferociously? So why did it feel as though she was about to go away?
"Oh my," came a voice from the darkness of the other room. A tiny silhouette came forward, moving into the light of the window. It was the little red-haired homeless woman from the supermarket, the one who had been so surprised when Carly had broken her grip. "Is this sob story going to make things too hard for you?"
She wasn't talking to Carly. She was talking to Ray. They knew each other. They were connected, but Carly couldn't see the black cord.
Carly focused her attention on them again, trying to see the web that bound them together, but there was nothing.
Bad Little Girls Die Horrible Deaths: And Other Tales Of Dark Fantasy Page 19