Some Kind of Animal

by Maria Romasco-Moore

  Grandma Margaret is aiming.

  “Lord Jesus, give me strength,” she whispers.

  I throw myself forward, knock into her legs. She pulls the trigger. Her shot goes wide. She shouts at me. “Idiot girl!” The pastor rolls out of Brandon’s grip. His nose is bleeding, broken-looking. His eyes meet mine for a moment, a split second. Bright blue. Pleading. I scramble to my feet.

  “Run!” I shout at Brandon, and I am doing just that.

  I am running headlong into the dark. It’s hard to see, but I just blow ahead, don’t give a shit when branches whip my face, my arms. When I stumble, when I fall, I just get right back up and keep going. There are gunshots, but they are hardly louder than the sound of sticks snapping beneath my feet. I can hear Brandon running behind me.

  Flashlight beams come swinging at us through the trees, but all they do is light our way. The pastor and Grandma Margaret can’t keep up. We know the forest better than they do. We belong out here, me and Brandon. We are cut from the same night sky.

  We run and the darkness opens up to receive us. This is home, as much as the bar ever was. The trees are silent old men, gently drunk, swaying in the wind. They watch us go with sad eyes, thinking of their own sons, their own daughters. The wind picks up and for a moment they are all dancing, waving their thin arms out of rhythm, moving to some song only they can hear.

  “Stop,” Brandon gasps from behind me. I skid to a halt.

  I don’t know where we are. The top of some hill in the national forest. There is moonlight pouring down on us, brushing the ground, the wildflowers, frosting the little bundles of dead leaves that hang from a shrub beside me. That’s the work of the cicadas, I know, from the heart of summer, when they drilled holes in the tips of the branches to hide their eggs.

  Brandon is leaning back against the trunk of a white tree, hand to his side.

  When those eggs in the branches hatch, the baby cicadas drop to the ground, their first act in life a long fall with no one to catch them. The instant they hit the dirt they start digging, don’t come back up again for years.

  Brandon’s eyes are shut, his face is pale. I think he has a stitch from running, but then I see it, beneath his hands—a shadow, a patch of darkness.

  The darkness is spreading and for a moment I think it’s the night sky, leaking out.

  But it’s blood. Grandma Margaret hit him. When we ran, she shot into the dark, and she hit him.

  “You’re okay, right?” I say. “You’re going to be okay.”

  “It burns,” he says, between clenched teeth.

  She can’t have hit anything important. He was running. He’s still standing. In movies people just drop like a sack of potatoes. I move closer to him, push his hand out of the way. The blood is coming, I think, from a spot above his hip. Nowhere near the heart. He’s fine. He’s still standing.

  I pull off my hoodie. I’m hot from running, sweat cooling against my skin. I wad the hoodie up and push it against his side. He grunts in pain.

  “You’ve got to put pressure on it,” I say.

  “I know,” he says, “I know.” His eyes look wild in the dark. But he’s fine. He’s standing.

  We work together, peel his jacket off, one whole half of it wet with blood. We use that to bind the folded hoodie against his side, tying the sleeves of the jacket together, pulling it tight, tighter, tight as it will go, while he gasps, sweat beading on his forehead, eyes squeezed shut. I knot the sleeves, wipe my bloody hands on some leaves.

  Brandon leans back against the tree.

  “What do we do now?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer right away. I’m scared he will pass out and leave me here alone. I don’t know what I’d do. I get this feeling in the pit of my stomach, like falling and falling through endless darkness. But I’m standing still.

  I reach out and shake Brandon by the shoulders. His eyes flutter open.

  “Fuck,” he says.

  “Should I call 911?” I ask.

  “What? No.” He presses his hands harder over the hoodie, grimacing. “They’d kill me.”

  Of course we can’t call 911. We’re on the run. We’re fugitives now. My daydreams coming true, but twisted.

  I think of kissing Brandon in the truck. I think of what the pastor said. You might be. A horrible thought occurs to me.

  “Did you sleep with her?” I ask.

  “Hmm?”

  “Mama,” I say. “Did you sleep with Mama?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Jesus,” I say, reeling, “are you my father too?”

  “I’m not,” he says.

  “You might be.”

  “No,” he says firmly. “You were already— It was after.”

  “Oh.”

  Were you in love with her? I want to ask. But I think I know the answer. He’s told me as much already. I’d give her anything, he said. Anything she wanted I’d give it to her.

  “Is Logan my father?” I ask instead. I always assumed he was. Always assumed he was a murderer, too. But even innocent of that crime, he sounds like an awful guy.

  Maybe it would be better, to know that I’m not half monster.

  Brandon shakes his head. “I honestly don’t know.”

  Any scrap of certainty I once had in my life is gone. I don’t know anything anymore. Don’t know who I am. Don’t know what to do.

  The plan was to find my sister. To get her somewhere safe. I’ll stick to the plan.

  “Cover your ears,” I tell Brandon. He blinks at me, confused, but puts his one free hand over his left ear. Good enough.

  I take a deep breath, lean back my head, and howl.

  I do it loud and long, do it until my throat aches and my lungs burn. The air here is cold. I take a deeper breath, howl again.

  If there are searchers nearby, let them hear it. Let them be afraid. They won’t think it’s the sort of sound that could come from a girl. Must be some kind of animal, they’ll think. Some kind of monster.

  The sound dies away. I gasp for breath. Brandon pulls his hand away from his ear, presses it back against his side.

  The adrenaline has worn off and I feel shaky and weak. Feel like my limbs might float away. I squint at the dark trees around us. I see no shapes detaching themselves from the shadows. No searchers, but no sister either.

  Brandon coughs, his body bent in pain. I want him to tell me what to do. I want someone, anyone, to tell me what to do. I’ve always wanted the opposite of that. To be free. To do exactly as I please. To need no one.

  But right now I need help. With trembling hands, I pull the phone from my pocket, power it on, ignoring the missed calls from the bar, and dial Dakota’s number.

  Pick up pick up pick up.

  “Oh my God, Jo. I’m so glad you called,” Savannah says before I even get a hello out. Her voice seems like something out of another world. A world I’m leaving farther and farther behind. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I say automatically, though I’ve never been less fine in my whole life.

  “Where are you?”

  “The woods.”

  “I still haven’t told anyone about talking to you,” she says. “Not a single soul. I swear.”

  “Thanks,” I say, searching for the right words. Should I tell her everything?

  “But look,” she rambles on, oddly cheerful under the circumstances, “I’ve got to tell you something. You won’t believe it.”

  Brandon is leaning his head back against the tree, eyes squeezed shut. He’s pressing both his hands into his side. His breathing is heavy, loud.

  “Savannah,” I start. I’m going to need a lot of help. Margaret and the pastor must have raised the alarm by now. “Can you—”

  “I had sex,” she blurts out.

  “What?”

 
“I had sex. Like one hundred percent all the way.”

  “What?” I can’t help myself. It should be nothing compared to the things I’ve learned today, but I’m still shocked. “With who?”

  “I just had to tell someone,” she says, “or I thought I’d explode.”

  I just got shot at, I should tell her. Savannah’s news doesn’t matter at all. But I can’t help confirming an awful suspicion.

  “Was it Jack?” I ask. She doesn’t answer, so I know it must be true.

  Jack. I can see him leaning over me, shouting. The veins in his neck. The scraggly hairs on his chin.

  “I haven’t told anyone else about it,” Savannah says. “Not even Dakota.”

  “How could—” I say, but I stop myself. How could you, Savannah? How could you let him touch you, let him do that to you? I want to hate her for it. Why Jack? Of all people? I want to be disgusted. It makes me uncomfortable, the thought of letting yourself be so vulnerable with another person. What pleasure I’ve had is a secret, a private thing, something I do alone. Something I’m a little ashamed of, if I’m being honest.

  But Mama had sex when she was our age. A lot of it, if what people say is true. With Logan. With the goddamn pastor. Grandma Margaret threw her out of the house because of it. Pastor Nelson turned her away at the door. They thought she should be ashamed. They wanted to make her ashamed. I’m better than them. I can be better than that.

  “Look, Savannah,” I say, urgent, “I need your help right now. If you care about me at all—”

  “Jesus, Jo,” she cuts me off. “Of course I care about you. You’re the only one I wanted to tell.”

  “Well, then please just do this one thing for me.”

  “Yeah, of course. Anything.” She has no idea. If she did she wouldn’t sound so eager.

  “You’ve got to get a car,” I say.

  “What?”

  “A car. From Dakota or from—I don’t know. Just, I need to borrow a car. I need you to take it to Myron’s house. I need you to meet me there. Alone.”

  I’m expecting Savannah to protest, to say that’s impossible, that’s too much to ask, how the hell is she supposed to get a car, that’s crazy. It is.

  “I think I can do that,” she says.

  “Oh my God,” I say, overwhelmed with relief. “Thank you. I’ll meet you there. As soon as you can get it.”

  “What’s going on?” Her tone is more subdued now. She gets it. This is serious.

  “I’ll explain everything when I see you, okay? I’ve got to get moving.”

  “Okay,” she says, “okay.”

  “Thank you, Savannah. I owe you.” I could kiss you.

  I hang up.

  “Can you walk?” I ask Brandon.

  “Yeah,” he says. He tries to push himself up with one hand, keeping the other pressed to his side. I rush to help him and he leans on me. I can smell his stale beer breath and his sweat and something else, a smell that reminds me of the rusty fire escape outside my old window.

  The two of us stagger along, our progress awkward, Brandon leaning heavily on my shoulder. I don’t even know which direction to go. I can’t tell one tree from another, can’t tell north from south. Every darkness looks equally deep. The trees are too thick here to see the stars.

  We move forward and with every step, the voice in my mind grows louder. The one saying, I am lost, I am lost. How did I get here? How did everything go wrong so quickly?

  There is another world where everything went differently. Another world unfurling behind me like a white flag. I could have gone home. I could have made it so Brandon got away unscathed. I could have stood like a shield while he escaped.

  I could have stayed. That instant before I ran, when I met the pastor’s eyes and they looked sad and scared and kind. There was a whole world in there.

  I take a step and then another step and then I stop. I think I’m going to cry. I think I’m going to collapse. Just curl up in the dirt and wail until someone finds me. They’re looking for me, aren’t they? They’re out here trying to find me. I could just let them.

  “What is it?” asks Brandon.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I’m lost.”

  He shifts his weight, grunts in pain. I turn to look behind us. Maybe we should just try to find our way back to the road. I open my mouth to say so.

  And then she is here.

  From the darkness beside me she appears, stepping forward as silent as a ghost. She stretches a thin hand out to touch my arm.

  She has put on a pair of black tights, though they are so crisscrossed with runs and tears that they can’t be much warmer than no tights at all. It’s cold tonight, getting colder. She has on the big puffy coat, too, and the brown knit cap, and her shoes, a pair of sneakers I got from the thrift store double discount bin. They were white when I got them, but are now unrecognizable, gray-black with caked mud.

  “Lee,” I say. “I’m sorry.” For what, I’m not entirely sure. She should apologize to me, too, but I won’t hold my breath.

  “There are too many people,” she says, quietly, and I know what she means. The once-empty forest, infested.

  “I know.”

  “They want us.” She looks very afraid, very tired. She sleeps during the day, usually, but she wouldn’t have been able to with people nearby.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “We’ll run away. They won’t find us.”

  She glances over at Brandon. Neither of them says a thing, but something unspoken seems to pass between them. This is what they wanted. What they both wanted.

  “Take us to the tree,” I say. “Our meeting tree by the cemetery. Please.” She’s the only one of us who could find the way in the dark. She knows these woods so well.

  Her little plastic heart purse is strung by its rope strap across her chest. It’s like she knew somehow. Got all dressed up, all packed up, ready to go. Maybe she and Brandon had been planning this for years. A way to lure me away from town, to paint me into a corner so tight I had no choice except to run. Just another story that isn’t mine.

  But I could still go back, could still give up. It isn’t too late. I am choosing this. Choosing the same way Mama did.

  I take my sister’s hand, reach my other hand out for Brandon. I pull him forward and he stumbles along after us.

  Once, in the distance, I hear people shouting my name. But we keep going, moving through the dark like we are part of it. Nothing but shadows. Nothing but ghosts.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  We walk in a line, holding hands like children on a field trip. My sister in front, me in the middle, Brandon at the back.

  Lee tried to run, but Brandon couldn’t keep up. We had to go back for him, had to help him to his feet. Maybe he’s just drunk, I thought. All those beers back in the other world. You’d think being shot would sober you up.

  But we move as fast as we can. My sister leads the way. Out here, she is a better guide than any star. I follow behind her, try to focus on nothing but her. The back of her head, her snarled hair, her torn tights. Try not to think about how hopeless this is. Even if Savannah somehow manages to drive Dakota or her mother’s car away, surely they’ll notice before she gets very far. I try not to think about that. I follow my sister. In the darkness, the flowers on her new dress are all different shades of black. Everything in the forest at night is black and silver, like a silent movie. Savannah and I watched one on her phone once. A man stood perfectly still and silent while a house fell around him. While the whole world fell apart around him.

  We are going downhill now and my feet keep sliding on the fallen leaves. I recognize an uprooted tree that I know isn’t far from Queen of Heaven.

  “We’re nearly there,” I whisper.

  Brandon’s hand slips out of mine.

  I stop, jerking my sister to a halt. Behind
me, Brandon’s dropped to his knees. His head bobs forward like he’s falling asleep in class.

  “Brandon?”

  His breathing is ragged and shallow, his eyes are shut. I kneel too, grab his shoulders and shake him gently. “Come on,” I say. “We’re nearly there.”

  He doesn’t answer and I can see, in the filtered moonlight, that our makeshift bandage didn’t keep the darkness from spreading.

  There’s too much. Too much of it outside his body. Panicked, I press my hands against his side. My gray hoodie has gone black. It’s soaking wet. There’s blood all down the leg of Brandon’s jeans. I think, wildly, of trying to gather the blood up somehow, pour it back inside him.

  I shake him by the shoulders again. He slumps forward, his head falling against my shoulder. I wrap my arms around him to keep him steady.

  “It’s okay,” I say, because I think that is the sort of thing you are supposed to say in these situations. What do I do, what do I do? “You’re going to be okay.”

  I can feel his chest rise and fall. This is my fault. We need to go to the hospital. His head is heavy as a stone on my shoulder.

  His breath rasps out, barely audible. His chest rises and falls. Rises and falls.

  Doesn’t rise again.

  “Brandon?” I say. I push him away from me, hold him out at arm’s length. He’s gone heavy, motionless. He is drunk on the night, I think. He has passed out. Right?

  That must be all. He just needs to sleep it off. Tomorrow, he’ll be fine. He has to be fine.

  I shake him by the shoulders. His head flops around, chin banging against his collarbone. I press my ear against his chest, try to hear a heartbeat, feel the rise and fall. It must still be there, but too quiet, too slight. I must just be missing it. I press my fingers against his wrist, searching. I shake him again. I keep saying his name. Over and over.

  He isn’t gone. He can’t be. He was just here.

  When I look up, Lee’s standing behind him. She’s leaning down, prying my fingers from his shoulders. She pulls him away from me. I’m frozen, kneeling in the dirt. Not sure I could move even if I wanted to.