Half Lives

by Sara Grant

‘Really?’ Chaske feigned interest. ‘Yesterday you said it was time for Collective Gasp.’ Chaske was sitting quietly a few feet from us. He could do that, just sit and think for hours.

  ‘Wasn’t last time . . .’ Marissa panted as she transitioned from sit-ups to tricep press-ups. ‘What’s the awful band that’s all death and destruction?’

  ‘You’ll have to narrow it down more than that,’ I muttered. ‘That’s like his whole playlist.’ After Marissa’s blow-up, I’d kept my distance. I was never alone with her or Chaske really. I think we were both concerned that if she caught us together it might send her off the deep end.

  ‘Nuh-uh. I got eclectic taste in music,’ Tate whined.

  ‘It’s that band that looks like they survived World War Thr—’ Marissa started dipping faster and lower.

  Tate cluelessly responded, ‘Oh, you mean A Pock O Lips.’ I put the sounds together and a lump rose in my throat. Tate sat half way between Chaske and me. ‘And no. A Pock O Lips was ten days ago. Last time I listened to “Wha Eva” by Wha Eva. That’s my fave.’ Then he insisted on singing the song word for word.

  Wha Eva.

  Wha Eva.

  The bad, the good.

  Wha Eva.

  I put my faith in Wha Eva.

  Wha Eva alone.

  I laughed a little when he sang the really high parts. He squinted and tilted his head as if that might help him raise his voice an octave.

  Midnight playfully batted at the cat toy I’d created from one of Lola’s jewelled skull earrings I’d found in the lining of my messenger bag, and a thread that I’d unravelled from my already holey jeans.

  ‘Go on and play it already.’ I rolled my eyes.

  When Tate wasn’t talking about what tune he was going to play, he was reciting from memory the 1,496 albums he had on his iPod. He had scratched the names into the wall near the back. That had been his project the first few weeks we were here. I dreaded to think what would happen if his battery died.

  As crazy as it sounds, this had started to feel normal. This was our life. We had a routine and responsibilities. Everyone but Marissa had found a way to cope. We’d grown used to her constant motion – whether it was military-style calisthenics or the twitch she’d developed. I’d even grown to like the bizarre faces she’d drawn on the walls. At first they had felt somehow sinister, all those eyes looking down on me. But now I liked looking at the different expressions. She’d managed to capture almost every emotion. They reminded me of texting Lola and how we would communicate so much by simply selecting the right smiley face.

  Today I’d brought along a surprise: my Waiting for Godot script. I’d been supposed to do a scene with Jazz Richardson for drama class the week after, well, you know. The script was crumpled at the bottom of my messenger bag. I’d picked up the script several times and thought about reading it, but I’d always decided to save it. Mrs Lord couldn’t have paid me to read the thing a few months ago, and now I cherished it like some sacred treasure. It was the same excitement I used to feel when I saw the commercial for each Saw. I’d want to see those movies on the first day of release, maybe even a preview if there was one in DC or any of the surrounding burbs. But usually I’d wait, savour the anticipation. ’Cause once you saw it, the thrill of the scare was gone.

  I held that tattered copy of Godot and tried not to think of Jazz and Lola and Tristan and my parents. They had almost become like actors in a movie I’d seen a long, long time ago.

  Sometimes I’d force myself to remember the time before. I’d recall a special memory: Christmas morning when I was seven and ‘Santa’ had left me this wicked dollhouse. We’d stayed in our pyjamas all day and arranged the new furniture in the dollhouse. We’d even had a tiny Christmas tree with miniature candles and baubles stuck on it. Mum wrote our names on the thumbnail-sized stockings that hung on the mantel of the mini fireplace. I experimented with moving the fireplace into the bathroom and the attic, but Mum wanted the fireplace in the main living room. We laughed when Dad put Barbie and Ken on the roof as if they were these giants attacking my dollhouse.

  In that memory I knew that I was the girl in the Nightmare Before Christmas PJs, but I didn’t feel anything. I’d make myself remember as much detail as I could. I didn’t want to forget but I couldn’t make myself feel.

  ‘I thought we could read this.’ I tossed the script in the triangle of space between Marissa, Tate, and me. ‘There are basically four main parts. Four of us.’

  ‘What’s it about?’ Tate asked, flipping through the pages as if he could speed-read.

  I shrugged. ‘Just thought it might be fun.’

  ‘What is it?’ Chaske asked, sitting next to me.

  ‘Waiting for Godot,’ I checked the cover, ‘by Samuel Beckett. I was supposed to do a scene for my senior drama class and . . .’

  Marissa, who was now doing lunges, froze mid-lunge and crossed herself as if she were Catholic. Chaske bowed his head. I’d broken one of our unwritten but completely understood rules: never mention the past. I could see on their faces that I’d triggered memories of the time before and felt a pang of regret.

  ‘What else are we going to do? Come on, guys. Purleeeeeez.’ I did this half-whine, half-plead. Midnight strolled over and sat smack dab on the cover. ‘See, Midnight’s in.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound too exciting.’ Chaske stroked Midnight from nose to tail. Midnight leaned into each stroke.

  Marissa was running in place, her head twitching as if it were part of her exercise regime. ‘Tate and I will do it.’ She wiped sweat from her head and her black uneven hair spiked in all directions. With the chainsaw hairstyle, she looked a bit deranged. She’d lost so much weight that her cheekbones seemed pointed and her neck easily snappable. Her lips were still a deep red. She pulled my This Princess Saves Herself T-shirt into a knot at the base of her spine so her large breasts cast a shadow over her diamond-pierced belly button. The spark she used to have had been replaced by this dull, glazed stare – as if she were perpetually looking at something behind you.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ Chaske said, scooping Midnight into his lap. Surprisingly, she curled up and stayed.

  We leaned over the script so we could play our parts. The play was mostly these two guys talking. Doing nothing really. We took turns playing those two roles. Marissa kept twitching and glancing nervously at me.

  Marissa was reading Vladimir and Chaske was playing Estragon. Marissa lowered her voice to sound more like a man. Chaske’s voice boomed like an actor’s filling the space. They both spoke slowly, enunciating every word, and paused dramatically between lines.

  I soon realized this wasn’t the right thing to read under the circumstances. The more the characters talked about waiting for Godot, the more I couldn’t help but think of the parallel with my life. I knew logically that if Dad and Mum were alive and everything out there was fine, they would have come for me. I’d created this way to believe and not believe simultaneously. I was so much like those guys in the play, waiting for someone who would never come. I was praying for the end of the first act.

  Tate had started to read the stage directions out loud as if they were dialogue and it was annoying me. I held my hand up to halt Chaske from delivering his next line. ‘You know, you’re not really supposed to read that part,’ I told Tate.

  ‘It’s too boring to just sit here,’ Tate said.

  Marissa read her next line. She – well, her character – was saying that Vlad and Estro could part company if they wanted to. Chaske’s character was disagreeing, but they were all talking in a way that was getting jumbled in my brain. They were saying that they were going to leave but they didn’t move. That’s how the act ended.

  Seriously? WTF!

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Tate said, tossing the script across the room.

  ‘Not everything has a happy ending,’ Marissa said. She was twisting the studs on her ear. She stared at a spot just over my head, maybe the emoticon with the big ears and the tongue out.

/>   ‘We can write our own Act Two,’ I said. ‘Maybe Vlad and Estro fall in love.’

  ‘They obviously care about each other,’ Marissa added, and I couldn’t tell if she was serious or trying to make a joke.

  ‘Yeah, and Godot shows up,’ Chaske interjected. ‘Everyone lives happily ever after.’

  And for some reason, that was the funniest thing I’d ever heard in my life and I started to giggle. I pinched my lips together, but this ticklish feeling started in my brain. Giggles kept bubbling out. Chaske full-on smiled. Then Tate started with this little girly snicker and I collapsed in a fit of laughter. I could hear Chaske and Marissa laughing. My cheeks hurt from the size of my smile. I tried to stop but instead I snorted, which got us going again.

  We almost didn’t hear it because we were laughing so hard. We were rolling around, tears streaming down our faces, gasping-for-breath laughing, and it felt amazing – the release and the loss of control. The sound filled the space and it wasn’t so dark and we weren’t so far underground. The world hadn’t ended. And we could still laugh. I wanted to sweep them all up in a big hug and squeeze them in gratitude. Midnight looked at us with her big yellow eyes as if we were crazy – and maybe we were.

  Our laughs turned to exhausted sighs. No one said anything. Our eyes sparkled. It was good to feel human.

  Then we heard it. It was a thud. And then another and another. We glanced at Tate, but his hands were still.

  There it was again.

  We looked around, afraid to speak or even wonder about the source of the sound. I stuffed the script in my messenger bag and fiddled with the You’re Just Jealous that the Voices Talk to Me badge on the strap. Maybe I’d imagined the sound. We all had.

  Silence.

  We half laughed at our overreaction. Tate flipped his iPod over and over in his hand. Marissa raised her arms over her head, bending and pulling one elbow for a tricep stretch. Chaske lay down, butterflying his arms around his head. I opened and closed the fastener on the back of the badge with a faint click, click, click.

  There it was again, but this time the sound was the ping of metal on metal. We were on our feet. My ears strained. Was that a muffled voice? Someone trying to shout through a foot-thick steel door? A voice couldn’t penetrate that, but I’d swear I’d heard something.

  Someone was out there, pounding on the door.

  My heart leapt. It was my parents come to rescue me at last. I almost couldn’t believe it. After all this time, we were going to be rescued. It was like I had been held underwater and the knocking was a life-saving gulp of fresh air. I ran to the lock.

  Tate and Marissa spoke at once, throwing questions like hand grenades: ‘What if it’s over?’ ‘What if we were wrong?’ ‘What if it’s your parents?’ ‘Maybe we’re safe.’ ‘We could leave.’

  Marissa hooked her arm through Tate’s and they did this weird square dance-like do-si-do.

  Chaske was at my side

  ‘Can you believe it?’ I whispered to him. ‘It’s over.’ I went to hug him, but his body was stiff. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It can’t be your parents, can it, Icie?’ Chaske spoke slowly.

  ‘Why not?’ I said.

  ‘Icie, you said your parents have another key. Why would they knock?’ Chaske whispered to me.

  ‘Maybe they lost it.’

  Chaske shook his head.

  I knew he was right. My parents wouldn’t pound wildly on the door like that. If they’d lost the key, they would knock in code. Mum always knocked in bursts of three. Dad rapped twice slowly and three times in quick succession. That’s how they asked to enter my bedroom. I’d know who it was before I’d say ‘Come in’. I desperately wanted it to be them outside knocking, but I knew it wasn’t and I hated Chaske for being right.

  ‘They are coming for me,’ I said, and shoved him in the chest. He didn’t budge. Anger bubbled inside me. In those few moments, I’d remembered what hope felt like and I was mad at everyone and everything for taking it away from me – again. ‘What do we do?’ I asked him.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘We can’t risk it.’

  ‘Someone’s out there. We’ve got to let them in,’ Marissa said, walking to the door. She pressed her palms on the smooth silver metal and spread her fingers wide. ‘Believing is seeing,’ she said with almost a reverence.

  Huh? My brain was too confused to decipher a Marissaism.

  ‘Hey!’ Tate called, and pounded on the door. ‘We’re in here!’

  The tapping and pounding from outside became frenzied. Midnight walked to the door and cocked her head at the sounds as if she were ready to be let outside.

  ‘Ice.’ Marissa turned to me. ‘What are you waiting for? Open the door.’

  I shook my head and buried my face in Chaske’s chest. He held me tighter. He knew I wanted more than anything to open that door. I needed to open it.

  ‘Icie!’ Marissa shouted. I felt a hard punch on my shoulder. ‘Icie, look at me.’

  I shifted away from Chaske.

  Marissa came at me. ‘Open the door.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Icie!’ Marissa’s fingernails ripped at my neck as she slipped her fingers around the chain and yanked. The chain didn’t give. She twisted the chain. The links bit into my skin. She squeezed tighter and tighter. It was hard to breathe.

  Chaske grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her off me. ‘Stop it, Marissa,’ Chaske shouted. ‘We don’t know who it is or what they want.’

  I clutched my neck and gulped air.

  ‘They could have come to rescue us,’ Tate said, joining our huddle.

  ‘They could have come to kill us,’ I said. I backed away until my shoulder blades dug into the rock wall.

  ‘What if they need help?’ Marissa’s face was glowing red. Her body was pumped up, like a rottweiler ready to attack.

  ‘We are not opening the door.’ Chaske’s response was firm but calm. ‘Whoever it is could be contaminated with that deadly virus. Marissa, you said you saw what it did to people. Do you want to end up like that? I’m not sure we have been in here long enough for it to be safe to go outside.’

  ‘How the hell do you know?’ Marissa screamed, and raced down the tunnel.

  The tapping continued. My heart was pounding. Someone was out there. How could I ignore that?

  ‘We can’t leave them out there,’ Tate said, looking from me to Chaske. ‘Can we?’

  ‘We can’t risk it.’ Chaske clapped his arm around Tate’s shoulders. ‘Why don’t we go play some cards in my room?’ He was so calm. He must have had training for the police or army or some special ops.

  That noise was chiselling away the last of my sanity. There was someone out there. Maybe Tate and Marissa were right. Maybe there was no war, no threat. Maybe we could leave.

  Then my thoughts flipped like a pancake.

  What if it was terrorists come to kill the last survivors? Not for the first time, I wondered if it was an alien invasion. I pictured the slimy, screepy creatures from Aliens. I saw the ripping and tearing of flesh. I’m sure no Hollywood special effects would come close to the horrors of a real genocidal alien race.

  Chaske repeated my name. ‘Icie.’ I got the sense that he’d been speaking to me for a while and I hadn’t heard him. ‘Let’s go down to the supply room. I’ve been saving a Snickers bar for a special occasion.’

  ‘You’ve been holding out?’ Tate said, giving Chaske a playful punch. It was as if Tate had tuned the sound out, forgotten someone was knocking. He’d so easily accepted Chaske’s leadership.

  Chaske shrugged. ‘It’s a little melted but all the ingredients are still there.’ He tugged on my shirtsleeve and then guided us towards the tunnel.

  Marissa barrelled by Chaske, knocking his shoulder with hers. She grabbed me by the collar and dragged me towards the door. I flailed and tried to dig in my heels, but she easily overpowered me. She hooked her arm around my neck and pulled me forwards. I stumbled beside her and felt the crush
of her arm around my throat.

  My olfactory senses had mostly become deadened to the stench of this place – our unwashed bodies, the acidic earth and our makeshift toilets – but because Marissa insisted on exercising non-stop, her skin was sour like sweaty gym socks left in a locker over Christmas break, mixed with rotten eggs. Over it all was the same citrus perfume I’d smelled the first time I met her.

  She shoved me hard into the steel door. The force knocked the breath out of me and I bounced to the ground.

  ‘Open this door!’ she screamed.

  I scuttled away from her.

  With two strides she was on me again; she yanked me to my feet and slammed me with one hand against the door. She tightened her left hand around my throat and pressed my head into the door until I thought her force might actually meld my head to the steel.

  ‘Open it, Icie,’ she said in a low growl.

  Chaske whispered something to Tate and shoved him back towards the tunnel. ‘Marissa, calm down,’ he said as he approached us. ‘We are not going to open the door.’

  Marissa released me for a second and fumbled with something tucked in the back of her jeans which used to be mine. She held me with one hand and Chaske’s hunting knife in the other. She jabbed the knife at me. I flinched away.

  ‘Open it now, Ice,’ she shouted, and shoved me towards the locking device. I glanced at Chaske. ‘Don’t look at him. Look at me.’ She pressed the blade to my throat. When she twitched, its cold edge dug into my skin.

  ‘Stop this, Marissa,’ Chaske said. ‘How is she supposed to do anything when you keep waving that knife at her?’

  Marissa went for him. He stood his ground. She touched the blade to Chaske’s chest. ‘Open the door, Ice. You think you know me, but I will do this.’ She dug the tip of the blade into him. He squeezed his eyes shut but didn’t make a sound. A dot of blood seeped into his dirty, white T-shirt.

  One of the things I hated about horror flicks was the token scene where the girl screams and does nothing to help the man battling the beastie – be it human, alien, criminal or undead. I finally understood how fight and flight can create a bi-polar symmetry that renders you immobile.