by Hal Schrieve
“Aysel’s right, though, I can take care of myself,” Tommy said loudly. “I didn’t expect any of you to come back for me. I’m glad you all got out. And it turned out all right.” His casual smile made Aysel feel even worse than she had before. She knew he was sincere.
“We probably should have put someone on watch duty to make sure we could have avoided that whole thing. But we’re alive. Live and learn,” Elaine said. She sounded so flippant that for an instant Aysel felt reassured, until she remembered that they didn’t know if the woman dentist had been trapped inside when the fire spread. Aysel thought about bringing this up, but she couldn’t speak somehow. Instead she sat down on the gravel next to Z. In the ensuing silence she heard the noise of more sirens in the distance. She looked in the direction they had come. There was more smoke now.
“Jesus,” Z said, looking at the smoke. “You set a fire, all right.”
“I need to get home,” Aysel said. “My mom will be pissed, but I can deal.”
Z turned to look at her. “Yeah, you had better get on back home.”
“What?” Aysel asked.
“Nothing,” Z said, standing. “Nothing. Jesus.”
“Are you mad at me?” Aysel asked. “Look, I’m sorry about the fire. I did it because I care about you. I wanted to protect you.”
“And you’ve really protected me now,” Z said. “All of us are so much safer now that you’ve committed arson. Time to go home.”
“Hey,” Elaine said. “Cool it.”
“I’m not going to cool it,” Z said. Their hands were balled into fists. They looked at Elaine hard with their dead yellow eyes. “Aysel has a mom to go home to and I have nobody, except her and Tommy and I guess you. Aysel and Tommy are what is literally keeping my body together but she doesn’t even need me—”
“I want you all to be safe,” Aysel said, her voice high.
“Aysel wants us to be safe! Great! What a wonderful girl! She can just go home at the end of the night, but she cares about the people who are out in the dark!”
“What the hell, Z!” Aysel shouted. “You don’t think I’m scared? Police all over town, shooting people like me—”
“Oh, yeah, because you’re totally the same kind of werewolf as the kids living in the woods, without parents, without shelter. The police are going after you for sure.”
“I’m still a werewolf.”
“You don’t really give a shit if you get all of us killed. You just want to be where the action is.”
Aysel felt tears come to her eyes. “That’s not true! I care about you, Z! I care about Elaine! I care about Tommy!”
“We’re a great plot twist in your suburban werewolf sitcom life,” Z said.
“I love you,” Aysel said to Z, and her voice broke. “I would die for you.”
“We give you an opportunity to piss off your mom and light things on fire—” Z was shaking.
“Fuck you,” Aysel said. The allusion to Azra stung, and she couldn’t get past the hatred in Z’s eyes. She still didn’t feel anger, only misery, but she had made herself too vulnerable. She crumpled in on herself.
“Look, Z,” Elaine said, “Aysel doesn’t need to hear this shit right now. I understand you’re mad, but getting all upset with one another is literally the last thing we can afford. We need to have one another’s backs.”
Z scrunched up their mouth. “Fine. Whatever.” They turned around and began to walk away. “I’m going home to grab my necromancy stuff before we leave town. Elaine, Tommy, I’ll see you there.” They stepped off the gravel and into the grass and began, somewhat unsteadily, to walk toward the road.
“Jesus,” Elaine said, looking at Z’s retreating form. “I’m sorry that happened.”
“Z didn’t mean all of that,” Tommy said to Aysel. “We all care about you, too, Aysel. You look out for people, you care about people. You’re not a thrill-seeker. You put yourself on the line because you’ve got a big heart. Z knows that.” He looked at her with his deep purple eyes and Aysel wanted to punch him, or gently touch his cheek.
“Yeah, right.” Aysel looked at Tommy, thinking back to the last year. She thought of all the times she had ignored Tommy, all the days he must have left school and gone to be strapped to that terrible chair—
“It’s true,” Elaine said. “Look, this kind of fight happens all the time. Z loves you, too, Aysel, I know they do.” She hugged Aysel, who was too surprised to hug back. “I’ll talk to Z about it, okay?” She moved away and made as if to go. “And you’ll see us again. But we have to get out of here.”
Aysel watched them move away as a group. The tears came more easily now. She could barely see as she left the park, walking in the opposite direction.
Azra got home and found Aysel on the couch.
“Did you know I was out looking for you? For hours.”
“Oh,” Aysel said.
“I’m so scared for you. I just don’t know what to do.”
When Azra turned on the news, Aysel looked at her face to see if she knew Aysel had something to do with the fire. She didn’t. The news station wasn’t even a local one. It was national.
“. . . five fire trucks and a perpetual rain spell eventually managed to subdue the blaze. The origin is magical, and it is widely supposed that the werewolf terrorist organization, now known as the Wolf Guts Group, is responsible. Documents found in a hidden room inside the building are badly damaged, but it seems likely the group acted with the intent to destroy evidence about a patient or patients previously treated by Archie Pagan, the local man recently murdered by werewolves. Pagan had worked to rehabilitate werewolves in the past, and potentially kept illegal personal records of this treatment. It is now thought that one of his patients took his life. Police are following a lead to locate a possible link to the incident of stolen necromancy and demon-summoning books at the Willamette library, as a charred pentacle was found inside the hidden room. Suspects include three teenagers spotted running away from the scene.”
Aysel thought of the fire, and the clouds of smoke on the news, and how the fire looked smaller in real life, and the words about the police not being sure there were survivors. She thought about Tommy.
Her throat was raw and her nose stuffed up, but she couldn’t bring herself to stand up to go to the bathroom for water or get tissues. The only position she could imagine being in was the one she had adopted on the floor, half under the bed. She wanted to keep crying, and she was sure she would have if she hadn’t been worn out and if her voice hadn’t given out after a long while sobbing to herself and her pillow. She was trying to be quiet so her mother wouldn’t hear, and was sure she was failing. Aysel fell asleep with her eyes feeling swollen and her chest and body feeling hollowed-out and sore from crying. The streetlamp illuminated a thin strip of carpet and several cassette tapes and CDs that were strewn across her floor.
She fell asleep and for a while was calm, her mind blank. But then something stirred in her sleep. Aysel woke with a start. She hit her head badly on the underside of the bed and scrambled up to her feet, stumbling so that she knocked her small bed askew and nearly tipped it over. Her head ached. Her hair was in her eyes. Outside the window mist massed along the cold earth of the yard and the streetlamps shone dimly at the end of the street. She looked over at the clock. It was four thirty. She thought of Tommy and Elaine at Z’s house, all together, and wished she were with them. Then, in a second, she wished she never had to see any of them ever again. For a guilty moment she regretted ever meeting them; her life would be so much cleaner if all she had to do was keep her head down and pretend not to be a werewolf, alone. But that was wrong.
Aysel stumbled again and sat down on her bed. She ran her fingers through her long hair again, and then in a moment had grabbed the scissors and was in the bathroom, turning on the light, looking at her puffy pink eyes in the mirror and holding the scissors to a long lock of hair. She cut several chunks at once, in a hurry, because in her sleepy state she knew she would
n’t be brave enough to do the job properly if she didn’t make a big, dramatic gesture immediately. The hair fell to the floor in dark curls. She had cut in random, ragged directions with no sense or purpose, and the result looked as wild as Aysel felt inside. Aysel forced a laugh at herself in the mirror and splashed cold water on her face, and began again, more carefully. When she was done, she cleaned all the hair off the floor and put it into the trash wrapped in toilet paper. Then she drank four glasses of water in quick succession and threw herself down in her bed, on top of the blankets.
17
Zstumbled off, their cold hands shoved underneath their frigid armpits. The streetlamps lit the signs on every corner very dully, and it was several wrong turns and a good twenty minutes before Z could say with certainty where they were or what direction it was to Mrs. Dunnigan’s home. Finally they were on a street they knew. There was a house with a tall hedge that stood as a landmark. They felt in their pocket for the key to Mrs. Dunnigan’s apartment, thinking how empty and hollow the place was, how cold they were. They thought of Aysel for a second and blinked, hard, against the pressure of their scratchy eyeball.
At the end of the block, in front of Mrs. Dunnigan’s building, there was a line of police cars. The lights on one of them were still going, but the others had their engines turned off. The door to the first-floor apartment stood open. Z stood and leaned against a mailbox for a second, then turned around and walked, as hurriedly as possible, back past the house with the tall hedge. Their legs were weak from running and their calves cramped painfully. Finally they gave up and sat down in front of someone’s flowerless chilly hydrangea bush and curled into a ball. They were still in that position when Tommy and Elaine finally found them.
“There’s cops in front of the apartment,” they said, to Tommy more than Elaine.
“We saw,” Elaine said.
“That’s that, then, isn’t it?” Z said. “We’re all homeless now.”
“I don’t understand how they knew to come to where you were,” Tommy said.
“I mean,” Z said slowly, looking at the sidewalk between their feet, “Mrs. Dunnigan’s store has been getting attention recently. Everyone in the city government probably knows she’s the registered caretaker for the city’s only zombie . . .” Z shrugged. “It was only a matter of time.”
“Can you stand up?” Elaine asked. She reached a hand down toward Z. Z turned their head away, rolled awkwardly over, and propped themselves into a crouch. For some reason they still felt an aversion to having Elaine help them. But Z’s knees were too weak to support them, so they fell over anyway. Elaine caught them under their arms.
“I can walk,” Z said, but they couldn’t. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“Here, just let me like, hold your arm or something,” Elaine said. “Anywhere. We have to split. We need to get out of the town before sunrise.”
“We can’t,” Tommy said. “We don’t have a car. I don’t have money for a bus.”
Z, leaning awkwardly into Elaine, suddenly had an idea. “Mr. Weber,” they said. “We’ll go to him.” They felt a pang of doubt as soon as they said it—Mr. Weber had avoided them since the beginning of March. But they knew where his house was, and it wasn’t far. If anyone they knew in town could be prevailed upon to help them at all, it was him.
“Who’s Mr. Weber?” Elaine asked.
“He’s the science teacher,” Z said. “He’s sort of friends with Aysel. He’s the one who tried to break into the library for me, and got arrested.” They took a couple of steps, supported by Elaine, and felt the necessity of clinging to her shoulder. “We won’t make trouble for him, just ask if he knows a way out of town today or tomorrow. Or a transport spell. I’m sure he has a transport spell. He’s a sorcerer.”
“Okay,” Elaine said. “I mean, my plan was just to hitchhike and then ask someone down the road to let us sleep in a Subway bathroom, so that’s probably as good as my plan.”
“How far is it?” Tommy asked. “Can you make it?”
“Not far,” Z said. “Yes.”
“Let me carry you on my back,” Elaine said. “You weigh like forty pounds, my backpack was heavier than that. It’s no problem.”
“We’ll go quicker that way,” Tommy agreed. “No offense,” he said to Z. “It’s not your fault.”
“Fine,” Z agreed. Elaine hoisted them onto her back and hooked her arms under Z’s knees.
“You don’t actually smell that bad, for a zombie, you know,” she said. “You kind of smell like metal and something on fire, but not like, dead animals.”
“Thanks,” Z said. “I used to smell worse.”
“We’re like, a two-thirds transgender, one hundred percent monster traveling group now,” Elaine said as they started down the street. “That’s cool. Or wait, I guess I shouldn’t assume about you, Tommy. What’s your gender?”
“What?” Tommy said.
“I just don’t wanna assume. I know some shapeshifters who switch it up. Z, Aysel told me you were calling yourself like, genderqueer or something these days, right?”
Z was a little taken aback by the conversation. “I guess,” they said. “Yeah.” They tightened their hold on Elaine’s shoulders.
“The words change a lot,” Elaine said. “Doesn’t really matter.”
“Turn right at the end of the road,” Z said.
Mr. Weber’s house only had one light on, in a back room, with the window barely visible from the street. One light meant he was home. The group hesitated on the sidewalk in front of his house for a moment, wondering if they should go up one by one, or just send Z, or what.
“We look more suspicious, just standing out here,” Tommy said. He had a point. They all walked up to the door, and Elaine unhitched one of her hands to knock.
There was a period of long silence inside. Then, the noise of footsteps approaching the door became audible.
Mr. Weber opened the door holding a ball of white fire in his hand.
“Holy shit,” Elaine said.
“Who are you?” he asked. Then, seeing Z on Elaine’s back, he started. “What’s going on? Why are you here, Z?”
“Let me down, Elaine,” Z said. Elaine folded her knees, and they held her arm and stood next to her.
“Tommy, why are you here?” Mr. Weber said. “I saw the police come to the school today. They called you on the intercom.” He folded the fire back into his palm and grabbed the frame of the door. “What the hell is this?”
“Sorry, Mr. Weber,” Z said. “The police are after us. Mrs. Dunnigan left and the police are at my house now. I’m liable for incineration. Tommy’s—the police are after Tommy too. He was a patient of Archie Pagan’s and they . . . think he’s involved.” Z looked at Tommy, who nodded.
“I was looking at the news. Someone set fire to Pagan’s old office earlier tonight.”
“Yeah, I heard,” Tommy said, at the same time that Z said, “really?” They looked at each other.
“They say there are three suspects on the loose.”
“You don’t say,” Elaine said, raising her eyebrows.
Mr. Weber opened the door wider. “Come in, fast. There’s a monitor spell that sweeps this block every ten minutes, it got put in after I was arrested.”
They all stumbled into his living room. Mr. Weber turned one of the lamps on and drew the curtains. “Stay away from the windows,” he said.
“We don’t want to make problems for you,” Elaine said. “We’re just trying to get out of town. Z thought you could help us, and we can’t think of anyone else.”
“Who are you?” Mr. Weber asked.
“I’m a werewolf,” Elaine said candidly. Mr. Weber started.
“Are you with the group that got raided?” he asked.
“Loosely. My friend got shot,” Elaine said.
“He was also my friend,” Z said. Elaine looked down in surprise.
Mr. Weber put his hands to his temples. “How do you know my students?”
&n
bsp; “I’m friends with Aysel,” Elaine said.
“Oh.”
“Normally I don’t say the whole werewolf thing straight out, but I figure if I’m already running from the cops, and you know that part, why not mention it, you know?” She looked around the front room, the tidy couch, the teacup sitting on the table by the shuttered window. “We’ll be out of your hair soon. We just want to know if you have any like, magic cool transport spell things to get us on our way.”
“What happened today? How do—never mind,” Mr. Weber said, looking at Tommy. “Don’t tell me.” He looked back to Z. “You said your guardian is gone?”
“She had to leave,” Z said. They wondered whether to elaborate. “She was very sick.”
Mr. Weber seemed to tremble a little, standing and looking at them all. Z did not feel fear coming off him in waves as they had when he told them not to ask any more about his arrest, but that could be because he had become numb, in a trance of horror. That happened.
“You don’t have to help us,” Z added. “Though like. Please don’t call the police on us.”
“Oh, hell,” Mr. Weber said, breaking out of his frozen silence. “I’m not going to call the police on you.” He wiped his hand over the bottom part of his face, over his short beard. “But you might have made it worse for yourselves by coming here. I’m under surveillance. The monitor’s probably going to see you when you leave. And I’m not sure I can . . .” he trailed off.
“Okay,” Tommy said. “We’ll leave out the back in a little bit.”
“No, no,” Mr. Weber said. “Let me just think. I’ll make you all some coffee. Go back into the office by the bathroom down the hall. There’s only one window and the monitor can’t see it from the street.”
The office, which had brightly painted blue walls, was a jumble of books and papers. There were photos of a younger Mr. Weber with six men Z assumed were his brothers. They had different face shapes but all had Mr. Weber’s nose and ears. He looked like the youngest. Tacked above the desk was a yellowing card that said “Happy Rosh Hashanah” and had an image of a pomegranate in red and gold. One wall was covered entirely with tanks of lizards. Z recognized Leo. He evidently still was not well enough to return to school. There was only one chair in the office, so Z and Tommy and Elaine sat on the floor.