Victorian Tale

by K. L. Somniate

  All she’d asked for was a ride.

  And she’d expected both of them to say no.

  And that they didn’t have the time or resources to drive her across the city for a trivial district competition.

  She’d really only asked out of habit, to let them know she’d be away for a bit.

  She’d inquired offhandedly, scribbling away at her homework on the couch, knowing their answer before the question even left her mouth.

  So she’d been shocked, almost off of the couch, when her aunt and uncle had asked if they could come and watch.

  They’d never come and watched before.

  doesn’t bode well.

  Victoria blinks.

  You’re talking to me, huh?

  bad omen.

  Victoria starts to retort, but feels her phone vibrating in her front pocket.

  She stands up quickly and scoots into her room, shutting the door hastily behind her.

  It’s an unknown number, but without thinking, she answers the call.

  “Tori?”

  Malek recoils violently, so disturbingly that Victoria almost loses her grip on the phone.

  She frowns, confused, but chooses instead to focus on the man, the journalist, who’d finally called her.

  “Hello, Tori! I know it’s on short notice, but I was wondering if you want to get together for an interview tonight…?”

  “Oh! Oh hello! I’m-I’m so sorry! I don’t believe- I mean, I can’t. I have a dance competition tonight!” she squeaks, disappointed. Of course the competition means a lot to her, but the man had been so looking forward to interviewing her…

  Malek scoffs.

  She can see him scowling in the mirror.

  She flips it the other way.

  “No, not at all! A dance competition? You dance? That’s wonderful! The district qualifier?”

  “You know about it?”

  “Of course I do, I’ve written a few columns about the fine arts for the Post. Do you mind if I come and watch?”

  “Of course not! But I don’t think I can be interviewed afterwards, sorry, I’ll be with my family-”

  “Of course, of course, I understand, I just didn’t want to seem creepy or anything. Wanted to make sure ahead of time that you’d be alright with this total stranger showing up to your special event!”

  She smiles. .

  “You’re not creepy! That’s fine, great in fact! You can meet my aunt and uncle.”

  “Splendid. I’ll see you there.”

  “Ok!”

  She punches the end call button before she can say any more stupid things.

  Her heart is still pounding, her hands sweaty. She wipes them on her pants and sits hastily on her bed, feeling a girlish excitement flooding her system. Part of it might be for her upcoming competition, but at least a portion of it is from hearing the journalist’s voice again, listening to the warmth in it, the soft words flowing from his mouth-

  he’s so fucking weird.

  She huffs.

  I don’t remember asking you. And if I was going to ask anyone, it wouldn’t be the dead guy who lives inside my head and occasionally makes smart ass remarks.

  who goes out of his way to watch a fifteen year old girl he doesn’t even know and has only met once perform in a dance competition?

  It’s not weird.

  it is.

  He likes the fine arts.

  i don’t trust men who like the fine arts.

  Well you’re just ignorant and close-minded.

  and you’re fifteen. he’s a grown man.

  It’s not like we’re meeting at a bar or a strip club! He wants to meet my family! What kind of murderer or rapist wants to meet his future victim’s family?

  a SUPER weird murderer rapist.

  i’m telling you right now. he’s a creep. trust me.

  Trust you? she scoffs and begins to change.

  i can sense it.

  Just don’t distract me. I don’t have time for your nonsense.

  He settles down again, retreating from her mind to rest in his corner.

  just let it be noted. that guy? keeps a photo of his mother taped to a human scarecrow in his basement.

  Duly noted…weirdo.

  22

  Larissa stiffens.

  Victoria, flushed, wants to let go, but for some reason, her arms refuse to unlock.

  But Larissa takes it in stride, awkwardly patting Victoria on the back, and even smiling (maybe in the heat of the moment).

  “You did good,” she says.

  Victoria beams at her.

  Her arms reluctantly loosen and Larissa steps away, turning instead to smile and giggle with the other dancers.

  They’d qualified.

  They’re going to regionals!

  Even Larissa would be hard pressed to feel anything but elation.

  Although, after that scene in the lunch room, Victoria wouldn’t have put it passed her.

  you put the bitch in her place.

  Don’t call her that.

  she’s a bitch.

  She’s only fifteen. She doesn’t know who she is yet.

  at least she’s hot.

  Victoria winces.

  Touching other girls has become extremely uncomfortable, thanks to her new guest.

  No matter how innocent, she can always sense him perking up a little with every casual touch. He also forces her to be hyper aware of things she wouldn’t normally be aware of, like the sweat sliding down her classmate’s neck or the curve of a teammate’s hips.

  Sometimes she’ll find herself fiddling with her hair with a strange grin on her face.

  Other times, while zoned out, unbidden, her eyes will be drawn to a friend’s chest, watching its movement without blinking.

  Every time, she shuts her eyes tightly and shakes her head as though trying to rattle the supernatural entity out of it.

  He usually chuckles and “rests” after such incidents.

  “That was very impressive! Loved the song,” Uncle Timothy says.

  He opens his arms and Victoria, shocked but certainly not unwilling, gives him a brief hug.

  Aunt Paula’s smile looks a little less painful than it usually does when it’s aimed at her.

  “I really loved the choreography. You’ve been practicing all semester?”

  “During the summer too.”

  “Ah. You’re very good, I never knew. Your…mother wasn’t much of a dancer.”

  Victoria feels the smile slide from her face like a fresh coat of paint in a rainstorm.

  “I…wouldn’t know.”

  Aunt Paula nods.

  “Say…who was that man you were talking to?” Uncle Timothy asks over the chatter of other families as they enter the throng of people on their way out.

  The theater had been completely full, so now everyone’s pressed skin to skin with one another, packed in tight as they try to shuffle to the exits.

  “Oh, he’s a journalist I met at the pride parade. His name is-”

  he ran away the second he saw your aunt and uncle.

  “That’s nice,” Uncle Timothy says idly, not hearing a word she’d said in the cacophony of human noise. “He seemed nice.”

  “You were magnificent.”

  he moved away very quickly.

  “I’ve never seen anyone so graceful, so light on their feet. I’d love to talk to you about this competition and your training too, if you don’t mind.”

  he doesn’t know anyone here, and he doesn’t know shit about dance, you can tell-

  “Do you mind if I send you my address? It’s not far from here, you can take the metro.”

  why doesn’t he just give it to you now?

  maybe he doesn’t have it memorized yet, maybe he has to look it up when he goes to his real house because it’s his newest temporary fake apartment and he hasn’t even opened all of the boxes in his latest murder rape station.

  “Shut up,” Victoria says aloud.

  Uncle Timothy lo
oks affronted, having finally heard her properly.

  “Sorry! Didn’t mean you, I was just…spaced out.”

  got your head in the clouds and your eyes star struck, hm?

  you’re going to regret this.

  You’re going to regret this.

  You’re going to regret this.

  You’re going to regret this.

  For some reason, she hears his words, echoed over and over and over again for the rest of the night.

  And she hears them again, quietly, intrusively, for the next few days, softly but incessantly, and they only grow louder and more persistent the day she gets up, yanks a sweater on, and gets on the metro with his address and map directions clutched in her jean pockets.

  23

  The King reigns over the grey skies.

  The King reigns over the grey earth.

  And the King reigns over the underworld.

  Long live the undead.

  Long live the unliving.

  Long live the Grey.

  Victoria lets out a startled gasp.

  An old woman with a small fluffy white dog on her lap looks up in alarm.

  Victoria, feeling embarrassed, smiles weakly at her.

  She blinks away the flashes of red, the images of twisted metal and snapped bones, littering the floor like human waste, the garbled screeches of a metro going off the track, people screaming in her ears, and the irrepressible feeling that something has just gone terribly, terribly…right.

  Block the tunnels.

  Leave no human alive.

  What the hell is this, she asks Malek uneasily, but he doesn’t say a word.

  She gets one last trail of feeling, a wisp of anger, and then he shuts her off and broods for the rest of the trip.

  She tries to entertain herself, but she can’t seem to read her book, not when every time the metro submerges and the lights go out, she sees the shadow of a man, standing in front of her, reaching towards her.

  Not when over the top of her book, she sees a pale young woman with dark hair and scars on her neck, bending down over a dark, red lump on the floor.

  She stands up, shaking a little, at her stop and grips one of the poles for support.

  For a minute, her hand is slick and sticky with blood.

  She lets go of the pole like it’s burnt her and stares at the imprint she left behind.

  She blinks, expecting it to disappear, but it doesn’t.

  It remains even as she makes her way out on trembling legs.

  this is a mistake.

  He lives in the nicest part of the city. He gave me his address and his name and even where he works. And I know people. I just get this feeling about them. I just know…call it women’s intuition.

  Malek scoffs.

  She ignores him.

  He would see.

  at least call them and tell them his address. you said you were going out, not where you were going or who you would meet.

  They wouldn’t have understood.

  call them. tell them where you are and where you’re going.

  Will you shut up if I do?

  pinky promise. cross my heart. hope to die.

  properly, this time.

  She rolls her eyes and dials the home number into her phone.

  But…

  No answer.

  And Aunt Paula texts a few minutes later informing her that they’re going out of town this weekend to attend a ceremony awarding her cousin a medal for being an honors student.

  4.0 GPA.

  Active participant in five honors organizations.

  Treasurer of the student government.

  Club president of the German Culture Club, the Japanese Animation Club, and the Italian Language Study Club.

  They’re so proud.

  And they’re sorry they won’t be home for a weekend, but they know she’ll understand.

  no warning, huh?

  They never give much warning… but it’s fine.

  he’s not.

  Just…go to sleep or something.

  She is a little touched, however, that he’s so earnestly trying to convince her that she’s heading towards trouble.

  don’t be, he says immediately. this is just my body now too, i don’t want you to ruin it by trusting 30 year old men who’re interested in 15 year olds.

  God, you’re so creepy. And paranoid.

  He rolls his eyes, but an itch tugs her mouth into a frown.

  And his unease follows her, dogs her steps, pulls her towards random stores, random windows, trying to distract her.

  But she is determined.

  She doesn’t want to let such a nice man down.

  And…she’s never been interviewed before.

  No one’s ever wanted to know about her before.

  and he’s handsome, isn’t that right?

  looks like a movie star.

  men with eyes that blue couldn’t hurt a fly.

  Shut up.

  you don’t want my advice, fine.

  but here it is anyway.

  never trust the gorgeous ones.

  they’ll fuck you harder than anyone else ever will and you’ll be so enamored by them as they do it that you’ll even thank them.

  You’re so crude and gross. I’m glad we never met when you were alive, I would’ve called the cops.

  “A load of good they did you.”

  His words slip out of her mouth.

  Victoria clamps it tightly shut.

  A curious young girl stares at her, but is swiftly tugged away by a mother who refuses to make eye contact as they shuffle away.

  you’re making a huge mistake. i know people, i just have an instinct about them, and that one reeks of wrongness.

  The guy who’s died at least twice says he has an instinct about people, Victoria snaps.

  She feels a sharp jolt of pain in her lower gut, a reactionary jab of anger, disdain, and regret.

  you assume i was murdered.

  Most Revenants were.

  i’m not like most revenants.

  She feels her phone buzz and she jams her hand in her pocket.

  But it’s an Amber alert, not her aunt or uncle.

  She puts it back.

  my deaths had nothing to do with my instincts and everything to do with my choice of friends.

  He says “friends” with so much bitterness that she feels a swell of betrayal and fury wash over her chest in impassioned waves. She struggles to separate her feelings from his, to push his cynicism and misery away from her. They are not her emotions. She has no reason not to trust the journalist. She knows his name and address.

  tell your family.

  They wouldn’t understand and it’s not a big deal, stop making it out to be one, we’re just going to have an interview. He works for the Post, for crying out loud. He showed me his ID.

  serial killers are never full time serial killers. murdering people for fun just doesn’t pay the utility bills.

  Were you a comedian when you were alive?

  She can sense a grudging laugh echoing quietly somewhere in his corner and grins in response.

  But he is beginning to make her uneasy, whether it’s his mental restlessness affecting her mind, making her more jittery, or his emotional pleas getting to her head.

  The man is a stranger, after all.

  yes, yes, yes, thank god, you don’t know-

  But he has a badge. And serial killers…they don’t meet their victims in public twice, give out their addresses and full names to them-

  those could all be fakes.

  But I just get this feeling from him like he’s alright, ok, Malek? I just have this feeling that he’s not one of the bad ones. He’s educated, he’s a writer, he knows about dance and politics. He doesn’t talk like a psychopath.

  how would you know, have you ever met one?

  Yeah, I have, and he moved into my headspace, Victoria rolls her eyes.

  To her amusement, he laughs again.

  But as they get
closer, even though he says nothing, thinking quickly and silently to himself, she can sense he’s still just as tense.

  Relax.

  this is such a mistake.

  My only mistake is talking to a journalist. Dad always said to never talk to anyone in print.

  he would probably be livid seeing his fifteen year old daughter fooling around with a thirty something year old man.

  There won’t be any funny business! And even if there were, I’d…I’d-

  what, use your Pulse, my Pulse? as if you know how.

  Victoria uneasily touches her shoulders, her waist, her arms.

  She feels…the same as she always has.

  She’s inspected herself from head to toe every night, looking for evidence that she is in fact a Revenant, but there isn’t any. In fact, if Malek weren’t here, chattering away in her mind, she probably would never know, never even suspect that there was anything wrong with her.

  “I…It’s just…a backup. You know. Contingency plan.”

  it’s useless if he-

  Malek stops talking. Victoria blinks and focuses her eyes on the building in front of her.

  Everything will be fine, you’re worried over nothing.

  She double checks to make sure she has the right address and floor. Then she enters the elevator and heads on up.

  Malek, barraging her mind and body with tension, antipathy, and paranoia as she does.

  24

  God, I love this apartment.

  can’t jump off the balcony, it’s too high.

  So modern, the doors are all sliding doors!

  windows are too small to climb out of, we’re too high-

  His kitchen is so clean! And enormous!

  this fag has modern art in the shitter, i’ll bet on it.

  “Make yourself comfortable! No need to worry about disturbing anything, I’m normally not this clean!” the journalist chuckles as he waves at her carelessly from the sink. “I just have special company today, is all.”

  She giggles.

  It feels wrong to sit on his firm white leather couch, but she does so nonetheless, a little embarrassed by how it squeaks when she moves.

  he’ll know when you’re shifting uncomfortably.

  Shut up, would you?

  “Do you usually invite interviewees over to your apartment for interviews?”