Black Rainbow

by Scott Savino

  Just before she laid her head to sleep, her phone buzzed and she checked it.

  The St. Charles Place apartment complex. Number 207. Come tomorrow night. Don’t bring anyone with you. Then the same hearts she’d sent at the end of her very first message. Fear fluttered in Bear’s chest and her pulse quickened. Chelsea’s timing was terrible. Going out on the full moon wasn’t the best idea.

  Still, she thought, might as well get it out of the way on the first physical date.

  The logic was sound, but did nothing to assuage her nerves. The sharp kick-drum speed-up of her heartbeat followed her into dreamland where she encountered the image of herself, headless and pushed aside by the jeering hyenas of the world. Through it all hovered the strange case of the last sentence from this girl she was growing to love.

  Don’t bring anyone with you.

  It was a bad night.

  oOo

  The starlings peered out at Bear’s reflection as she looked herself over in the window of a shop just outside Chelsea’s apartment. Her fade curled playfully atop her head, with one defiant spiral dancing around her autumn eyes. No pink tux accompanied her tonight, though. The awful bridesmaid tux had been replaced by a dark sapphire blue one with white accents she’d found while thrifting. The bouquet in her hand was meant to match the ensemble. It didn’t, but the pastel blue daisies were still very pretty and reminded Bear of the dress Chelsea had worn in her profile picture.

  Reaching up to run a hand through her fade, Bear took a moment to appreciate how stark her white nail polish was against the dark brown of her skin, as well as how short she’d cut her nails.

  Mom had always said “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst”. She could prepare for the best too, though, right? She didn’t have to choose one or the other.

  Taking a deep breath, she went up the stone stairs and into the apartment complex itself before the store’s owner could ask if she was going to keep window shopping.

  It was a homey little place, if a bit dark, with maroon walls and little circular lights along the stairwell. She walked up to the second floor, switching the bouquet in her hands and muttering, “Hey, Chelsea. I got you these ‘cause they reminded me of you,” under her breath like a mantra, testing tones and speeds as she ascended.

  As she entered the second floor hallway, two things struck her very quickly.

  The first was the silence. It was late at night, so it made sense not to hear much, but she’d expected the noise of a television left on or someone snoring through the walls, at least the very least. Even the wail of a screaming baby would have been a strange comfort.

  Instead, there was nothing.

  The second thing she noticed was the sharp smell of blood that stabbed at her nose as soon as she reached number 207.

  Fear filled her as she gave the door a few urgent knocks, her breath quickening from worry.

  “Chelsea? It’s Bear. You in there? I got your text, are you okay?”

  The door opened on a room dark and silent.

  Bear entered, opening her eyes as wide she could in an attempt to see into the darkness. She held the flowers in front of her like a guide. “Chelsea?” she called again, her voice heavy with nerves. “C’mon, stop fucking around. This isn’t funny,” she added, getting stern even as her body began to tremble. Slapping her hand along the wall, she felt slickness against her palm and her blood ran cold.

  Oh no, oh no. Oh God no.

  Reaching the light switch, she flicked it on and stood in silent horror at what she saw even as some primal, sadistic part of her cackled, bellowing two words into the night.

  Oh yes!

  The apartment was covered with thick plastic wrap, everything beneath it pristine, pushed across the warped faux-hardwood floor to the walls. Chelsea stood in the center of the room, naked as the day she was born, blood dripping down her chin like thick syrup. Her skin was mottled with streaks of crimson, her blonde hair matted with sweat and blood, and her green eyes were wild, filled with fat tears waiting to fall.

  The only thing in the room besides Chelsea in the center, was the body of a young man, his neck twisted awkwardly and skull split in two. Grey matter dotted the floor in little popcorn clusters, but the largest chunk was in Chelsea’s hand, being squeezed like a stress ball. Clear ichor and dark red mingled in a small puddle at Chelsea’s feet, which slowly trickled across the uneven floor toward Bear.

  All of this Bear saw, but it was Chelsea’s mouth that drew her attention the most.

  Blood was smeared across it like hastily wiped lipstick and it was open for the first time Bear had been able to see.

  Two long fangs hung down, almost phosphorescent in the apartment’s eerie light.

  Suddenly, the night shifts and the fear of meeting made horrible sense.

  Chelsea collapsed to her knees in tears as she attempted to remove some of the blood, managing only to smear more of it on herself. It took a while for her to regain coherence, and even when she did it came out as choking sobs and the word “I’m sorry,” repeated like a prayer to an unforgiving God.

  “Chelsea?”

  She wouldn’t meet Bear’s eyes.

  Bear reached out and gently clasped her chin, lifting it to tilt her face upward.

  “Look at me,” Bear told her, voice stern.

  Chelsea obeyed.

  Using some tissues she always carried around, Bear wiped some of the blood from Chelsea’s face, cradling her head as horror gave way to cleanliness.

  “There we go,” she said, her voice gentle as she finished. “Are you okay?”

  Chelsea spluttered a moment, eyes wide, expressing confusion now instead of fear. “Why,” she asked, swallowing down tears and the last clinging bits of brain. “Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

  “Should I be?”

  “I drink blood and eat brains!” she argued, her blood-soaked hands grasping the deep blue sleeves of Bear’s tux. “I’m a monster, Bear! Blood keeps me alive. It has ever since nineteen fifty-fucking-six!” She sobbed, then, shaking heavily. “You should be running away, not—” There was a little sob, then her head was nestling into Bear’s neck. “Not holding me.”

  Bear just laughed a little. “Chelsea. Did you really not notice?”

  Chelsea looked at her, perplexed.

  “I call my friends a ‘pack’ for a reason.”

  As the full moon rose high in the window behind them, the crack of bone and shriek of pain filled the apartment like terrifying music. Chelsea watched her date’s body morph into that of a snarling creature between trapped worlds with its limbs akimbo and splitting seams before they grew and shifted into those of an immense wolf. Her fur was midnight, and she was bigger than any wolf Chelsea had likely seen before. The wolf that was Bear curled against her, letting out whimpers of happiness.

  Then Chelsea laughed. She laughed until she was crying again, her tears disappearing in Bear’s soft fur. And then they were both laughing. The wolf’s strange, yipping laugh shifting back into all-too-human chuckling, which mingled with the music of Chelsea’s laugh, both of them in stitches at the utter absurdity of their situation.

  Then they coiled around each other, ignoring the corpse on the floor in front of them as they basked in each other and the relief they felt.

  It was a good night.

  As was the night of their second date. And the third, and the fourth, and every date after, stretching onwards into a beautiful, blood-soaked infinity.

  And in that bloody apartment, on the night of the full moon, the last first date of Bear Bloomfield ended with a kiss.

  Friday Night Séance

  MIRANDA HERNANDEZ

  MOM,

  I’m writing you an email instead of calling because I am afraid of speaking about this in my own house. I don’t know exactly what is happening, but maybe you will. Maybe you know someone who can help?

  Before you get in the car or make any snap decisions about coming over here, please read all of this email first.
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  John hasn’t been acting at all like himself and I’m responsible for everything that caused this.

  Please don’t tell Grandma. She’ll freak out and that could make things worse. For now, please just keep this between you and me.

  Let me explain.

  You know John has been a fan of paranormal reality shows for as long as we’ve known him. Well, we were about to celebrate our fifth anniversary and I wanted to do something special for him. A real paranormal team from the Montgomery area advertised a guided investigation for beginners and I thought I’d surprise him with tickets to one of their ghost hunts. And I did surprise him. He had no idea until the last minute, even with the new flashlights and walkie-talkies I bought to go with us. The cherry on top was the reservation I made for a pre-investigation meal at his favorite sushi place downtown.

  I know what you’re going to say, Mom. Believe me, as much as we love the paranormal we share your feelings about respecting the dead. Please keep this in mind as I continue.

  It’s been almost a week since we drove out to a small town suburb of Montgomery for this event. John and I showed up at the town’s community center around 10:00 p.m., and the paranormal investigation crew met us in the auditorium. About a dozen people were expected to turn out including us. However, our hope for a more one-on-one experience plummeted as the crowd of ghost hunting hopefuls grew much larger than anticipated.

  We shared a look of silent annoyance as we observed most of the folks who stood around us. There were about as many Ghost Adventures wannabes milling about as you might guess. We thought about leaving when it was clear most of them wouldn’t approach the activity with much, if any, sincerity, and we weren’t interested in ghost hunting with a big rowdy group.

  I tried not to let it show, but John could see I was agitated. My plan was falling apart and my disappointment could have clouded the whole night, but John didn’t let me sink too far. He’s so good at making “lemonade” like that. He put his arms around me and I can remember the sardonic look in his clover green eyes when he said, “Buck up, Buttercup. The way I see it we can either stay and get away from the hillbillies—make our own little investigation group, just us and the ghosts—or we can go home and watch Patrick Swayze be a studly ghost while we play with the Ouija board and sip spiked hot cocoa.”

  I wish we’d gone home. But the pep talk was enough to bring me back around.

  One of the investigators emerged from the panel to greet the large crowd. She stood out like a ripe strawberry, hard to miss in her billowy bright red blouse. Big gold buttons polka-dotted her sleeves and ample upper body like flashy fruit seeds. The woman was as loud as she was bodacious, with a voice that could startle a sailor. Her name was Pam and she claimed she could “bring out the dead” with her mediumistic abilities.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her, but she seemed less likely to draw lingering specters in for a conversation than she was to drive away everything in a thirty-mile radius.

  With Pam in the lead, the paranormal team gave us an introduction of their experiences followed by a tutorial on how to properly collect evidence with devices like electro-magnetic field readers, dowsing rods, and digital voice recorders, all of which could be found at each of the locations they’d picked for the night to help lead the investigations.

  Then Pam gave us some background information about the various locations they’d chosen around this small town, and we were to choose one of them to investigate. The paranormal team would split up to assist with the groups gathering at each location. Almost everyone signed up to attend the abandoned Baptist church and the haunted fire station, but our dumb asses chose the Confederate cemetery. It seemed like the right choice at the time. We were only two of four people signing up to investigate it: it was as close to one-on-one as we were going to get.

  As John and I were about to leave and look up directions to the cemetery, Pam shouldered her way toward us, declaring we’d be a group together with her. The sound of her raucous voice effectively dampened any newfound hope we’d managed to find for a quiet adventure.

  Pam invited a pair of meek-looking white ladies to join our small group; a plain woman named Kate, and Kate’s equally plain, grown daughter, Samantha.

  Kate and Samantha were nice enough, though quiet. John guessed they disapproved of us once they saw us holding hands. We introduced ourselves as devoted husbands and smiled a little when they flinched. You would have been so proud of us, Mom.

  Our group of five split up into our respective vehicles and followed directions to the cemetery independently. It was situated on the outskirts of a housing area built within the past twenty years. We drove through town and into the wooded hills to get there, arriving around midnight.

  In these hills, the only surrounding light traveled from dim and distant porches scattered among layers of old pines and oak trees. The poorly lit corners of rooftops and shutters peeked between black leaves and branches, standing guard like a bunch of retirees with nothing better to do than spy on the neighborhood.

  We parked outside the cemetery in a little grove along the fence posts out front, headlights off—as instructed. Unlike the traditional gothic iron used to encompass other burial grounds, this was a sturdy livestock fence. The broad white planks glowed like electric coils in the night. John cracked a joke about the ghosts of the Confederacy being racist even in death, requiring a gravesite fence so white it didn’t even need a “whites-only” sign on it.

  There wasn’t an actual sign like that, but there might as well have been. Memorial Day had just passed a few weeks prior and there were plenty of little confederate flags stuck into the ground at the base of the headstones.

  As we strolled up to met the others at the gate, Pam turned to lead the way, a ribbon of cigarette smoke trailing behind her as she walked. Our shoes crunched layers of dried leaves and twigs as our eyes adjusted to the static darkness. Despite the grip summer weather already had on Alabama, a chill had settled over the cemetery. I was glad we’d worn our sweatshirts as we made our way to the center of a cluster of well-ordered rows of graves, careful to avoid tripping over the shadowed stones jutting from the ground.

  I handed John one of the new flashlights and reminded him to turn on the digital recorder, since the paranormal team members had indicated it would be central to the investigations.

  The five of us took a seat on the stone benches in the middle of the cemetery, flanked on all sides by decrepit two-hundred-year-old headstones. Pam lead us in a twang prayer before we started. John giggled at Pam’s heavy southern accent and how she pronounced the word “amen” as “ay-may-yan.”

  We were tasked with getting evidence of paranormal activity via EVP (electronic voice phenomena) on the digital recorder, and photos with our phones. We waited several seconds between questions so the recorder could pick up responses, even if we couldn’t hear them in the moment.

  I don’t know quite how to describe the séance, save for how somber it felt to ask personal questions of the corpses beneath our feet, separated from us only by some two-hundred-and-fifty-odd years of layered pine needles, dirt, and the thin wooden boxes cradling them. We asked everything we could think of in the span of about three of Pam’s cigarettes, taking care to be respectful in our tone and line of questions. It went as peacefully as I had hoped it would, save for the muggy, stagnant clouds of Pam’s cigarettes. Another cigarette later and we were just about ready to say a closing prayer before leaving, when a deep growl rumbled from somewhere behind Kate and Samantha. It was low and menacing, like nothing I’d ever heard before.