Black Rainbow

by Scott Savino

  I wanted so badly to run away. If only my feet would move.

  “Why are you here?”

  She now stood a good three feet above me, hunched over like a tree bent against the wind.

  “Your family owes me a great debt. I saved your grandmother from death, and now you must repay what is due.” She licked her decrepit teeth.

  “You saved her? From what?”

  “From the evil that took the rest of her family.”

  Bubbe was only seven when she was secretly transported into the U.S. A Jewish family had taken her in, but she had no living relatives. She’d always told me she was saved by a sympathetic Christian household. She never mentioned ... how could she have …?

  “You smuggled her out of Russia?” Nothing I said felt right. Even just speaking to this woman, this monster, felt like being trapped inside a nightmare.

  Baba Yaga laughed, yellow spit flying out of her horrible mouth. “She prayed so many nights in her pathetic little straw bed. But there was no god to save her. Only me. You know who got taken out of Russia? Who were the children people wanted? Pretty blond children. Not crooked ones who couldn’t walk.”

  My breath was hot.

  “But Bubbe walks fine …”

  “She walks because I made it so! I fixed her so she would be acceptable. Kindness is only in the eyes, Baht. No ugly children made it past the Nazis.”

  Suddenly my sight was overtaken with a vision of a young girl, her legs bent in the wrong places, begging in the street for help. A creature appeared to her. It was tall and hideous, reeking of death. But the little girl was not afraid. She had seen evil with her own eyes many times. The monster was just another atrocity to be committed to memory. The creature called itself Eema and promised to save her from certain death. When it asked for a life in return, the debt seemed so far away. If the little girl could only escape she would pay whatever the monster wanted.

  The bones in her legs began to break and reform. She struggled to not cry out in pain. The monster delighted in the torturous transformation. When it was done, the little girl walked without a limp for the first time in her life.

  She met the creature’s eyes and said nothing, refusing to feel thankful.

  The scene shifted and I felt the cramped muscles of the little girl as she was smuggled out in crates. Weeks on the sea, the tides churning her stomach. Other children were dying of nameless diseases but the little girl stayed strong.

  She had faced the Baba Yaga. She would face this too.

  Then my vision faded to black and the room slowly returned. I expected to see Baba Yaga still towering above me, but she was gone. In a fit of relief, I collapsed onto the floor. I was so filled with emotion I barely felt the pain of impact.

  Maybe she had been a dream. A nightmare.

  I touched my face carefully, as Bubbe had done on my thirteenth birthday. I was eager to feel the life within my skin, to confirm my own reality.

  Something fell across my left wrist.

  It was Bubbe’s bracelet, the one she had given me so many years ago. Except now it was made of strands of grey hair tied into seven knots. I caressed it with nervous fingers, confused but somehow reassured.

  When my phone rang, the noise shocked me from my stupor. I pulled the phone from my skirt pocket to check the ID, grateful for the use of my arms again, but moving in a numb haze.

  It was my mother.

  I almost didn’t answer, still reeling from the horrific experience I’d just had. But something told me not to ignore it.

  I reluctantly accepted the call, pressing it to my ear and whispering, “Hello?”

  I heard a sob from the other end. “Baby. Bubbe just passed away.”

  The silence between us stretched across oceans.

  “How?” I mumbled.

  “We don’t know yet. She called me just a little bit ago. She told me she loved me and that she was going to do one last thing for us. Her tone worried me so much I came over, but she was … she was already dead …” She stifled another sob. “But Rebecca, she looked so peaceful. She was even smiling. She was sitting in her favorite chair, a picture of you in her lap, and she was smiling.”

  I gasped for words. “And you’re sure she’s …”

  “Yes, sweetie. They say it looks like it was natural causes, although she had a large bald spot on her head. It wasn’t there the last time I saw her, but we won’t know anything until the medical examiner …” She couldn’t finish the thought.

  I looked down at my wrist. Seven intricately hand-tied knots made of soft, grey hair looked back at me.

  “I’ll take the next flight out. I love you, ma.”

  “I love you, too, sweetie.”

  I don’t know what destroyed the first bracelet Bubbe made for me, but I really believe it protected me for all those years. It withstood so much. When it finally broke, so did our family. But Bubbe would not let the Baba Yaga win. She emigrated from a war-torn country and moved to the states knowing no English as a refugee. She looked death in the eye and challenged it to take her.

  And take her it did. But it couldn’t take all of her.

  Left to me was one small part.

  The part that had lived to protect us.

  Complete Me

  DAVID FARROW

  I GUESS I’LL PREFACE THIS with a quick disclaimer:

  I hate Valentine’s Day. I’m not sure whose bright idea it was to remind bachelors like me how painfully single we are by shoving hearts and flowers and cutesy kissing couples in our faces. We’ve officially turned the idea of love into a commodity, something you can buy with expensive jewelry or in boxes of chocolate, and it’s sickening. And I know I’m hardly the first person to complain about how fucking commercial it is. It just pisses me off is all.

  Am I bitter? Maybe just a little. Truth is, I used to love the holiday, at least back when I had a steady boyfriend to spend my money on. Everything seems so much rosier when you’ve got a warm body to cuddle up with on cold nights—someone to spoil with little love trinkets and stolen kisses. It’s only when you don’t have that anymore that you realize how shallow it all is.

  I won’t name that particular ex in case he happens to be reading this. We parted on relatively good terms and I’d rather not drag his name through the mud, but our breakup kind of soured me on romance in general. I was going through a big life transition—moving all the way from Washington to Massachusetts to start my post-college career—and it was probably for the best I didn’t have a relationship to sidetrack me.

  But here’s the problem: being single sucks. And as much as I disparage the commercial trappings of romance, it does get lonely when you come home from a long day at the office and there’s no one there to greet you. Plus, there was the obvious lack of physical comforts. There’s no shortage of Boston locals looking for easy hookups, and I’ll admit I’ve gone that route on more than one occasion, but empty sex is just that. Empty.

  Lately my relationship with relationships has been complicated, to say the least. Especially now that Valentine’s Day is looming, and I just know the office is going to be decked out in paper hearts and painful shades of pink before the week is up. Sandra, who has the cubicle next to mine, is already wearing heart-shaped earrings and listening to sappy love songs while she works. Ten bucks she’s got a boyfriend to keep her warm when she gets home. Not that I’m jealous or anything.

  Anyway, the point is, I was already feeling kind of shitty about my love life when I got the email. The office was emptying out and I was wrapping up a last minute spreadsheet when my inbox pinged. I was sure it had to be my project coordinator or something, so I clicked over to my email to skim the message.

  It wasn’t my coordinator. In fact, it was from an address I didn’t recognize at all. It was just a string of gibberish letters at a domain called “ng.net.” I would have deleted it as spam, but something about the subject line made me pause.

  SUBJECT: Jonathan i miss what we used to have

 
I knew spam-bots could fill in your name to any number of phishing templates, but there was something weirdly personal about this one and I found my finger hesitating over the mouse. I would be in deep shit if this email flooded my work computer with viruses. But I couldn’t shake the notion that my ex had sent the message, as stupid as that sounds, and I didn’t want to delete the thing without at least taking a peek.

  I clicked on the email and regretted it immediately.

  Jonathan-

  i still remember watching you in the light of the purple moon the way ashes fluttered on your breath like flecks of forgotten things and the way your hair rested on the pillow all rumpled and brown i just want to run my hands through that hair again

  oh jonathani can’t stop thinking about you the way you bite your lip when you’re working at your cubicle the way your skin is flushed on cold walks through the city the way you masturbate in the dark when no one else is watching how i want to touch you just once just one more time

  i want you to fill me i want to feel you inside me i want you to complete me jonathan help me feel complete

  My face went red and I clicked delete so hard I thought I might break my mouse. I craned my neck to make sure no one had been reading over my shoulder, then shut down my computer and hastily got my things to leave.

  I didn’t feel safe anymore. This hadn’t been spam. It was too specific, too close to home. I didn’t think it was my ex either. Someone was watching me, and might have been watching me for awhile.

  Could it have been one of my previous hookups? Someone who’d gotten a little too attached? I didn’t know how else to explain the whole line about touching me “just one more time.” But the part about the purple moon and the ashes on my breath was so weird and unsettling I wasn’t sure what to think.

  I could have asked one of my coworkers to walk with me to the train station, just in case, but only Barbara from accounting was still hanging around and it probably would have been weird for a strapping young man like myself to ask for a bodyguard. I tried to tell myself I was just being paranoid. Besides, everyone was leaving work right about now and my way home through Boston would be packed with people. I’d be safe in the crowd.

  The sky was already turning gray when I left the office and joined the swarm of pedestrians headed down the street toward Haymarket. It’s been fucking freezing lately and that day was no exception, so hunkered in my scarf and jacket, chin tucked into my chest, I worked my way forward as quickly as the crowd would allow.

  I probably wouldn’t even have noticed the weird guy in the black hoodie if I hadn’t looked up at the exact right second. I was just passing Faneuil Hall where a street performer was playing drums set up on some plastic buckets. I turned my head to watch him play when I locked eyes with a man standing by the Samuel Adams statue. His face was mostly hidden beneath his hood, but I could see his eyes clear as day.

  They were a bright, vivid purple.

  He was staring right at me. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought he might have been smiling.

  I pushed through the crowd, apologizing profusely. When I looked back the guy in the hood was still staring at me. He lifted a gloved hand and offered me a slight wave. I turned away, heart thumping, praying I could make it to the green line in one piece.

  Thankfully, I got there without incident.

  The train was packed, but I was grateful for the cover. I felt safer surrounded by so many people. As we rumbled along on our way to Brighton, I couldn’t help but sneak glances at my fellow passengers, hoping I wouldn’t find the man in the hoodie staring back at me. I hated that I was getting so paranoid, but after that fucked up email, what else was I supposed to do?

  The hooded man, whoever he was, didn’t show his face again that day. But I couldn’t shake the sense he was still watching me somehow.

  oOo

  That night, I invited a guy over for a little fling. No one I knew, just some jock on Grindr looking for a fun time. Not exactly my proudest moment, but hey, any dude who likes dudes has been there at some point. It wasn’t that I was feeling especially horny, I just didn’t want to be alone. My roommate was out for the weekend and the idea of spending two days by myself while some creep was out there stalking me wasn’t the most appealing prospect, so at that point I was more than willing to take the comfort of a stranger.

  The jock showed up at my apartment around nine o’clock. He had a tiny hoop earring, a neck tattoo, and platinum blond hair with a single streak of green. A little more out there than my usual type, but at least he was fit. We never actually exchanged names. In my head he was a “Travis.”

  We made out for a bit, did some other things I’m totally not going to share here, and spent the rest of the night cuddling and watching Netflix. He didn’t talk much, which I appreciated. Most of the time you can tell when a brief connection isn’t going to grow into anything more. Travis was gentle and fun, and just the kind of distraction I needed. That was good enough for me.

  I invited him to stay the night, partly because I wasn’t going to kick the guy out into subzero weather, but mostly because I wanted someone to hold while I was sleeping. Even in dreamland, I didn’t want to be alone.

  He preferred to be the big spoon so I nestled up against him, holding his hand as I fell asleep.

  I don’t remember what I dreamed about that night, or if I dreamed at all. All I know is I woke up in the early hours of the morning and I wasn’t holding Travis’s hand anymore. Traces of gray sunlight lit up the far side of my bedroom, and there was a thick, heavy feeling in the air, like a blanket of heat without the warmth. I took a sniff and was instantly nauseated by the nastiest stench, something like raw meat mixed with sewage.

  I turned to look at Travis, but what I saw on the other side of the bed brought a scream to my throat, along with a good amount of bile. Travis had been mauled. His face was a pulpy mess, his chest cavity ripped open like a bomb had gone off inside him. Blood was splattered everywhere, all across the walls and bed sheets and the crappy t-shirt I’d worn to bed. There was this weird black gunk sprayed over everything, too, but I couldn’t tell what the substance was supposed to be.

  I scrambled out of bed and vomited into the corner, my whole body shaking.

  I had no idea who else had been in my apartment last night or why they’d murdered Travis but left me alone. All I knew was I had to call the police. I grabbed my jeans off the floor and fumbled through the pockets for my cell phone. But when I dialed 911 and held the phone up to my ear, the only thing I heard was deep, heavy breathing.

  “Who the fuck is this?” I shouted.

  The person at the other end of the line spoke. Or at least I assumed it was a person—their voice was garbled and a bit robotic, like they were speaking through a vocoder or something. It made my head throb.

  “Oh, Jonathan, it pained me to see you with another, how terrible that made me feel, how absolutely spurned and jaded, I couldn’t stand to see him holding you like that so I did what I had to do, I had to show you that he could never love you the way I love you. Oh, Jonathan, how I want you to be with me, to fill me up, to complete me—”

  “Leave me alone!” I screamed, tears streaming down my face. “Leave me the fuck alone!”

  “I will never stop, Jonathan, I will follow you to the ends of the earth until at last we can be together, we can be one soul, one being, one beating heart—”

  I hung up the phone and threw it into the corner. Then I curled up on the floor, clutching my knees to my chest, trying and failing not to cry. I couldn’t look at the mangled mess on my bed that used to be Travis.