The sand monster swung one massive hand in an arc where the boy had been standing. Never mind the fact that he looked like he was moving in slow motion, the creep was as big as the Hulk with fists to match. “Are you insane?” I asked as I rolled away from the tangle of limbs and finally found the boy's face. “You could've gotten-” My words dissolved on the tip of my tongue.
Stitches.
I pedaled myself backwards across the sand until my spine was curved against the base of the cliff. The sand monster had turned and was finally facing towards us, shedding debris as he moved and revealing even more of the putrescent flesh that served as his skin. The bird lady had frightened me, don't get me wrong, but this thing, this thing was just sick.
The boy was looking at me with an equal amount of surprise.
“You tackled me,” he said and then stood up abruptly, dark eyes accusatory. “What's your problem?” My eyes however were still on the monster trudging towards us. The boy sighed and turned back towards it, face bored, his pale, stitched lips set in a thin line. He began to move forward.
“Wait!” I called. He ignored me, hand reaching outwards. The zombie thing grinned. And then his fingers brushed its battered face and it was gone. Poof. Like it was never there. There was no light show, no burst of energy, not even a body lying in the massive footprints. I waited against the wall of rock, eyes wide, fingers twitching with shock and then I stood up and ran.
I think I got about a mile down the road before he caught up with me.
“Maybe these are yours?” He asked, holding out one pale hand in front of my face. The keys dangled from one of his slender fingers. I snatched them away and turned on my heel. The boy followed.
“Leave me alone,” I said, walking faster. “I do not need this shit right now.” The boy blinked at me like he didn't understand. Whatever was going on, I didn't want to know. I didn't care. He stayed silent until I reached the car.
“Give me a ride home?” He asked. I almost choked. Did he really ask me that? I whirled on him and opened my mouth to rant then closed it again. God, he looks pathetic. I thought as I studied the stitches in his bottom lip and across his pale throat. Whatever happened to me happened to him, too. “I-” Before I could answer, another bird woman, a white one this time, with feathers for eyebrows and yellow lips landed behind him.
“We've much to discuss,” she cooed, her black eyes locked onto mine. My mind whirled with both the improbability of the situation and the fear of the unknown.
I opened the door in a hurry and skidded away from the parking lot without looking back.
When I got back to the house, it was dark. Nobody noticed you were gone. I chased that thought down with a shot of pain. Of course they didn't. Grandma Willa wouldn't notice if she was missing her own fucking head. I parked the car crookedly in the driveway and stomped into the house, slamming my shoes against the entry mat more aggressively than was necessary and turned on all of the lights on the first floor. I sat down at the table and ate three bowls of cereal. Then I grabbed some scissors from the drawer next to the sink and slipped the end of one of the blades beneath my stitches. I closed my eyes and squeezed.
The thread split easily beneath the metal teeth. I snatched at the ends, tugging them from my wrist. It wasn't painful but the discomfort made me gasp, like worms crawling out of my skin. I stared at the tiny, bloodless holes. It was better than having black fishing line crisscrossing my wrist like the back of some cheap corset but I still didn't like them. I tugged my sweatshirt over my hands and dragged my tired body down the hallway and into the lavender bathroom that smelt like potpourri and mothballs. Whatever had happened at the beach, I was going to forget. Life was hard enough without zombies and harpies and boys with stitches in their face.
I stepped in front of the mirror and frowned at the paleness of my own skin. I look just like that boy, I thought as I opened my mouth and checked my gums. They were pale, too. “It's the stress,” I told myself as I probed my skull for the rest of the offending thread. The stitches in my head were substantially more difficult to remove and I ended up with clusters of yellow gold in the sink and across the counter top like bits of blonde snow. There was even a moment where I debated cutting it all off.
I paused.
I like your hair long, Tate, it makes you look like a princess. Jessica had told me that, back when we'd still gotten along, before she'd starting fucking boys I didn't know and locking me out of her room at night. I put the scissors on the counter and flushed the black thread down the toilet before heading upstairs to my room.
I begged sleep to take me but it refused, dancing at the edges of my brain and leaving me restless and more emotional than ever. The cold eyes of the dead crows glared at me from their perch on my windowsill and the antique clock on my dresser ticked pass the useless, unwanted seconds of my miserable life. I turned onto my side and watched my reflection in the mirror. I was a mess, in more ways than one. My hair was ratty and tangled and my eyes shone with unshed tears. I was still wearing the same set of clothes that I had changed into after removing the ones soaked with Boyd's blood over a week ago. They were crusted with sand and salt and stank like the sea. I tore them off in a rage and threw them to the floor until I was standing naked in front of the oval mirror.
“Why am I even here?” I asked myself, hands grasping the faded white paint of the frame. “To suffer? I should just kill myself.” But I knew as soon as I said it that I wouldn't do it. I was a coward. Unlike Jessica, unlike Boyd, they had wanted something and they'd taken it. I didn't even have the heart to do that. I collapsed to the floor in a heap and crawled over to the stack of clothes I'd been wearing the day Boyd died. I hadn't had the heart to wash them yet. I pulled my hoodie to my face and breathed in the iron scent of blood. “I'm sorry,” I sobbed as I let the emotions of anger, guilt, and sadness wash over me like a tide.
Boyd is dead because you weren't good enough. Your friendship wasn't enough to keep him here. This is your fault.
“Murderer,” I whispered to my reflection. Shafts of moonlight cut my face into stripes. I picked up one of my combat boots and used the heavy heel to smash the fragile, old glass into pieces.
I fell asleep on the floor, curled around the sweatshirt, and dreamed of demons.
The next morning, I decided that I needed a taste of normalcy, of routine. So I took a shower, put on fresh clothes, and went to school. The walk was what nearly turned me around in my tracks. There was too much time to think, to wonder, about Boyd's death, the beach, everything. I turned my headphones to a song I didn't like and tried to memorize the words. Before I knew it, the gates of the school were welcoming me back to a life I felt like I'd already outgrown. I waded through the gossip and the he-said, she-said until I found myself standing outside of my first period class.
When I saw Margaret Cedar sitting in my seat, twirling her extensions around her finger, I knew the day was only going to go from bad to worse. I made myself walk in and sit down in the back row next to a kid I didn't know. I think his name was Jack or Charlie or something like that. He was fat enough to take up two desks but I squeezed in next to him and pretended I didn't notice. His attempts at conversation were a welcome reprieve from my suffering. Everybody else ignored me which was nice and nobody had written anything new on my locker so for a while there, I almost considered myself blessed. Then third period English rolled around and I found myself in a class of jocks and cheerleaders, kids who had either failed to get into AP English or didn't care. I was of the latter and found myself regretting it. The college obsessed AP kids were at least quiet. The ones in this class never shut the hell up.
“Alright guys, let's settle down,” Mr. Summers pretended to shout over the din. In reality, he cared as little as they did. He was tenured, he was retiring at the end of the school year, why should he give a shit? “Pass your homework to the front of the room and we'll get started on our next unit.” Chalk scraped across the board as Mr. Summers wrote out a sentence in hi
s teeny, tiny handwriting. I squinted to see. Snickers resounded behind me like a chorus of chipmunks. Chitter, chitter, chitter.
“I hope it's Romeo and Juliet...wouldn't that be perfect? Just like Boyd and Tate. Wonder when she'll cut her wrists.” It was Jarrod, Margaret's boyfriend, who wasn't even a jock, just a loser. I didn't blink back tears or yell out, “What did you say?” I just turned around and spit in his face. “You fucking bitch,” Jarrod shouted as we both rocketed out of our chairs. He pulled his fist back.
“Hit her, hit the stupid bitch!” It was Margaret Cedar.
“What is going on here?” Mr. Summers hadn't even had a chance to process what was happening when I swung first. My fist connected, white hot pain racking my knuckles and sending Jarrod stumbling back, blood streaming from his split lip.
“You fucking whore!” He screeched. I didn't hear, I didn't stop to see what Mr. Summers would do, just ran with my heart on my sleeve, fat tears mixing with my eyeliner and dripping down my face, thick and runny like blood.
I sat in the park for hours, in the spot where Boyd had taught me how to play chess.
“You see this one, here?” He'd asked pointing to a knight.
“You mean the little horsey guy?” I'd asked and watched as he'd thrown back his head and laughed, loud and raucous and passionate. I knew then that we'd be friends. We were just too perfect together.
I kept my sweatshirt wrapped around my knees, arms locked together tightly as I stared at the people passing by. Smiling people, happy people, people with friends and family. I ignored the drying blood on my knuckles and only vaguely thought to wonder if an asshole like Jarrod had any diseases.
“Why do you even bother?” A voice asked. At first I thought it was mine since I had been having that very same thought when I realized the words hadn't come from my mouth. The boy from the beach stepped out from behind the tree. He was even sadder in the perfect daylight than he'd been in the dusky evening. His head was stitched to his neck with the same black thread that I'd pulled from my skin the night before. I adjusted my sleeves. It hadn't grown back. Some part of me had said that it would. I stabbed at the holes with my nails.
“Even bother what?” I asked as he knelt down in the grass next to me. People were starting to stare, not that I really cared, but how did he ever make it around town like that? Maybe the frosty lips and the navy eyes would work on Halloween but as it stood, even I thought they were a bit creepy. The boy folded his legs beneath him like he expected to sit a long time. I stood up.
“Where are you going?” He asked. I have no fucking clue, I thought, since I'm probably suspended. I sat back down. He made a daisy chain while we sat in silence together. When he was finished, he handed it to me. I waved him away.
“Aren't you going to tell me what that thing was last night or are you really gonna make me ask?” The boy put the chain around his own wrist and secured it. I shuddered. The happy daisies emphasized the pale translucence of his skin and made the black cross hatches of his own stitches even more macabre.
“I meant, why do you even bother going to school anymore?” I pursed my lips. So he knew who I was. That explained the getup and the stitches. It was all a set up. Of course it was. It had to be. It was just my luck.
“So you know about Boyd, huh? Is that why you followed me to the beach? To harass me? To watch me cry?” I could feel my blood pounding in my ears. The boy blinked. I stood up again. “You could've killed me, pushing me off of that cliff and the stitches...” I paused. The more I broke down last night's events in my head, the less sense they made. I decided to keep my rant going anyway. I did best riding my anger hot. If I let it cool down, it was likely that I would never act and the boy and his friends, whoever the fuck they were, would get away with it. “You better be prepared to fucking explain yourself. You stuck a needle in my goddamn skin,” I huffed, pointing a finger at myself. “And that costume, that sand guy, was that shit from the props department?” The boy opened his mouth but I stopped him with another torrent of harsh words. “You know what, you know fucking what,” I breathed. “I don't care. I don't fucking care.” Tears were falling again and it was all that I could do not to break down. “I just lost the best friend that I'll ever have. He was everything to me,” I shrieked through clenched teeth. “They all were and now they're all fucking dead.” I dropped my hands to my sides. “You don't need to go out of your way to fuck with me, okay? I'm already screwed up enough as it is.” The guy had yet to speak, to defend himself, but at least he hadn't laughed. I think if he had I might've hit him harder than I'd hit Jarrod.
“I lost someone, too,” was all that he said and then he was back to picking daisies again. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stir up any raw feelings, I just thought you knew.”
“Thought I knew what?” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest. I was starting to feel stupid now. The boy placed his newest creation atop his messy head of gray-brown hair.
“There are two cops coming down the walkway behind you.” I cast a disinterested glance over my right shoulder. Sure enough it was Margaret Cedar's older brother and the school cop. I threw my hood up to cover my hair.
“Thanks,” I said as I stepped around the base of the tree and out of their line of sight. The boy stood up and followed me.
“My name is James,” he said, holding out a hand. I ignored him and kept walking. “You see that?” He asked as he pointed his finger across the park. I glanced up and then froze.
It was the black bird lady from the beach.
I ducked my head and began to walk faster.
“That's enough,” I hissed as I slipped through a break in the hedge and a hole in the neighboring chain link fence. “I told you to fuck off, leave me alone.” He kept following.
“You don't know anything do you?” He asked, this time with a touch of amusement in his voice. I proceeded down a cobblestone pathway that lead to a duck pond and a series of trails that would ultimately end up with me in my own backyard. When I reached the cover of the trees, I turned around and shoved 'James' or whoever the hell he was in the chest.
“I said fuck off!” And then I was turning around and running until my breath caught in my chest and I was standing at the edge of our fence debating the merits of actually going in. I didn't have anywhere else to go. I didn't have any money on me. What were my options? Boyd's. Go to Boyd's. My unconscious mind had yet to accept what my conscious one had already drowned in. Boyd was dead and gone.
Boyd killed himself and he's never coming back.
The wind whispered these words in my ears but still, I went. I walked that familiar route and climbed in the trailer through a back window. The house smelt like bleach and new carpet but still, under all that, there was just a little of Boyd. I curled up in the corner of the kitchen and hoped the Orangutan hadn't moved back in yet. I wasn't in there for more than five minutes when I heard noises from Boyd's bedroom.
They're cleaning his stuff out, throwing it all away.
I rose to my feet without thinking. All I knew was that it had to stop. I had to stop them from touching it because if they touched it, if they took his flannel night shirts away, if they took the manga, if they took the ships in bottles, then Boyd would really be gone.
I flew around the corner, my hands grasping the edges of the door frame and prepared myself for a fight with the Orangutan. Instead, I found something else. Something I had been trying to prepare myself never to see again.
It was Boyd.
My insides burst open like a pinata. There it was, all of me to see, my emotions strewn across the floor like candy.
“Boyd?” The word was wet with tears. It dripped from my lips and splashed into the silence that loomed between us. Boyd glanced back at me and rubbed a hand over his beard.
“Which do you like better,” he began, holding up two CDs. “Moonlight Sonata or Für Elise?” I stared at him a moment and watched him shimmer like a reflection in a glass, wobbly and unstable. He wasn't real but now I kne
w I'd finally plunged over the deep end. I'd left the dock of sanity at the trailer door. But at least if I was crazy, I could have Boyd back in a way. Maybe I could even summon up my mother or Jessica or my brother, Abe? I lunged towards him.
Arms wrapped around my chest, pulled me back, and threw me to the floor in the hallway.
“Don't touch him!” James screamed, his chest heaving as he struggled to hold me back. “He isn't finished yet. If he was finished, they would call for you!” I stared at him for a long while, wondering which us was crazier. I decided I didn't care and threw him off of me. Boyd's room wasn't very big and I was at his side in three short strides.
“Boyd?” My fingers brushed his sweater, my hand reached for his face. His lips twisted, curled, became black and brittle like charcoal and began to flake across my skin. He wrapped his hand around my waist while talons, dark and gleaming pierced into my side. I started to scream but then he was tossing me like a doll across the room. I burst through the cheap prefab walls and into the living room. In the very spot I'd seen Boyd dead, I was now lying in danger of bleeding to death.
I lifted my sweater and stared in horror at the red liquid leaking across my hands. Boyd- or whatever it was that he'd become- crawled through the hole I'd made and came tearing after me. His back was twisted, his vertebrae exaggerated and sharp, and his eyes, like two pieces of broken glass, reflected my pale face back at me. “What are you doing?” I whispered as his talons tore through the new carpeting and reached out for my face. “Why?”
James stepped in front of me and placed a hand on the Boyd-thing's bulging forehead. In an instant, Boyd was back to normal, grinning and thrusting a piece of paper under my nose.
“You are not gonna believe this, Neil.” I saw my own hand reach out and grab the paper.
“Hey!” I heard myself say. “You passed! I can't believe it!” I watched as a mirror image of myself ran forward and threw her arms around Boyd's neck. “I told you that you were smart. Stupidity skips a generation.” The ghost-me withdrew and planted her hands on her hips. “It's true.” Boyd ruffled my hair. “We learned that in AP Bio last week,” the other me said as she knocked his hand aside. I turned my face away and stared at the dark pool on the floor. My fingers shook as I reached for the wounds in my side. It's true, it's all true. Your life really does flash before your eyes.
She Lies Twisted Page 4