“Is this just a friend?”
Kendra looked at him, then looked away. She closed her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to pry like that.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said. “It’s just sort of complicated.”
“I understand,” he said. “It’s a wonder how any of us manage to be with any other person. We’re all so complicated.”
“I’m not with him,” she said.
“But you want to be?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Though she absolutely knew; she knew without a doubt. She knew at night when she talked to him, told him about her shift. The changes in his breathing, the acceleration of his sentences, the increases and decreases in his vocal volume—she lived for these things. Once she was old enough, once she graduated and moved back home, once Nebraska was behind her for good, they’d be together; they’d finally stop this strange dance they were doing and consummate their attraction.
“He’d be stupid not to be with you,” he said.
Her skin tingled. She looked at John and repressed an urge to embrace him. “He just doesn’t know what he wants yet,” she said. “But he’ll eventually figure it out.”
John’s eyebrows arched. “But he likes us, huh. He likes Quigley.”
“Oh yeah. He loves Quigley. Obsessed, probably.”
“Well, that’s good,” John said.
“I guess,” Kendra said.
John patted her leg, got up, went inside.
After this conversation, these pre-tour chats with John happened regularly. Kendra looked forward to them, so much so that she’d often choose the first costume that fit her just so she could get on the porch. John would bring her a cup of coffee or cocoa, and they’d swing, the chains creaking, the wood biting into her thighs. He’d ask her about school, about her Nebraska adjustment, about her family life, and she’d spill, telling him about her cousin, her aunt, her mother, her father, his death, the move. As time went on, John asked more and more questions about Bryan: Is he an athlete? Is he very competitive? Does he like challenges? And Kendra, thinking nothing of it, responded truthfully: He ran track, yes he’s competitive, of course he likes challenges, we all like challenges, apparently right now his roommate is his biggest challenge ha-ha. John asked if he’d ever be interested in a job at Quigley. (With his size, his build . . . ) and Kendra said no, he had no interest in it whatsoever.
“Ah well,” John said. “Maybe that’ll change.”
Out in the lot, the girls spent their downtime in a twenty-square-foot storage shed that John had converted into a homey respite from weather and boredom. He provided hot chocolate, cider, pastries, sometimes pizza, and allowed the attendants to use it whenever they weren’t mandated outside. On one Friday night in mid-October, drizzly and cool, after they’d just sent the ten thirty group up to the house, they congregated inside.
“Nobody’ll ever win this,” Christy said. Her left eye was painted black, dripping red. From a distance, she looked like she’d been shot. She stood next to the snack table, eyeing a glazed doughnut. “It’s a scam.”
“People have won it,” Sarah said. She sat next to Kendra on the purple couch. “What did they call themselves again?”
“Those four Asian kids?” Christy said. “They were plants.”
“That’s what everyone says,” Sarah said. “But I don’t believe it.”
Christy shrugged. Kendra thought she tried too hard to look aloof. Something about the way she curled her top lip and stood at a small angle from whomever she spoke with—it seemed much too performed. Christy picked up the doughnut, took a big bite. The sides oozed jelly. “God, I’m gonna get fat here,” she said, wiping her mouth.
“You know,” Sarah said, “we should feel pretty lucky we’re even getting to do this. I hear it’s rare that John ever hires people from the community. All the actors? They’re, like, professionals. They’ve done commercials and everything.”
“Right,” Christy said. “They’re professionals. They’re so famous that they came to Nebraska to work at the Quigley House.”
“I’ve talked to a bunch of the actors,” Sarah said. “They have impressive résumés.” She was wearing her black veil again this evening, a widow this time. She’d pulled it up to expose her face; some of the nylon tulle drooped over her left cheek, mixing with her dark hair, making her look like a girl with a terrible haircut. “I think I’m gonna see if I can be an actor next year. I’ll be eighteen next August.”
Christy shook her head. “I’m eighteen now. You think I applied to be a parking-lot attendant?”
Outside, rain bleated against the windows. The wind bent the tops of trees.
“I don’t think I’d want to be an actor here,” Kendra said. “It sounds too physical.”
“All acting is physical, Kendra,” Christy said.
“Well, this seems more.”
Christy rolled her eyes. “God, this rain,” she said, moving from the snack table to the window. “Why is it such a wet fall? El Niño?”
“Makes for a good tour,” Sarah said. “Everything’s spookier in the rain.”
Christy shook her head. “Not if there’s no thunder and lightning.”
Sarah shrugged. “I guess.”
Christy turned to the couch, pulled up a folding chair, sat opposite Sarah and Kendra. Kendra instinctively turned away. It was difficult, she’d noticed, to look Christy in the eye. “Hey, so what do you guys think of John?” she said.
“John Forrester?” Kendra said.
“Duh.”
“He’s okay, I guess,” Kendra said.
“Well, I think he likes me.”
“What?” Kendra said, feeling suddenly hot.
“Yeah. I mean, this was last weekend when I was a little late. When I clocked in, there he was, just standing in front of the time clock, and he says, sort of snidely, ‘Running late?’ and I thought I was in trouble even though seriously it was only, like, two minutes, but anyway, I’m nervous, but then I see that he’s smiling, and I chuckle, say some dumb shit like traffic or something, and he starts making small talk about traffic, talking about how Lincoln wasn’t laid out very well, that there should be a freeway that goes east-west so people don’t have to hit all the lights on O or Cornhusker or Highway 2 or whatever, and I’m just inching to the costume room thinking, If he doesn’t shut up I’ll actually be late, but he keeps talking and then it dawns on me: he’s hitting on me!”
“He was probably just being friendly,” Kendra said.
“At first I’m like, ew, because he sort of looks skeezy, right? But then I look at his eyes and did you know that they’re gray? Like gray, gray, not gray flecks or anything. Well anyway, they’re also very kind eyes, small but kind, and they sag a little—not puppy-dog, but maybe halfway—and I’ll be honest, I thought then, Why not? I mean, he’s the owner. And if I’m staying in Lincoln after I graduate, might as well try for a real job here, right? So.”
“So?” Kendra said. “You slept with him?”
“What? No, Jesus, Kendra,” Christy said. “I just thought about it. But it can’t hurt, you know, to have him like you like that.”
“Gross,” Kendra said.
“Jealous?” Christy said.
“Huh?” She found her way to Christy’s eyes, saw that they were cold and hard. She looked away.
Christy sniffed. “Please,” she said. “We’ve seen you sitting with him on the porch. Having your talks. We know what you’re doing.”
Kendra looked at Sarah. Sarah shrugged. Kendra’s whole body tensed.
“I don’t spend a lot of time getting dressed,” Kendra said, still looking at Sarah. “I sit on the porch, waiting for you guys. He talks to me. I don’t ask him to.”
“Of course,” Christy said.
“You think I’m into John Forrester?” Kendra said, turning to Christy. “Are you fucking crazy? He’s old.”
Christy tossed her hair over her shoulder.
“What do you talk about then? School?”
“Sometimes.”
“You sit on the porch of the Quigley House with John Forrester and talk about school.”
“Yes.”
“Pshh.” Christy leaned back. “Right.”
They fell silent. Kendra stood, went to the snack table, put a piece of cheddar on a Ritz, chomped loudly. Sarah stood next to her, played with her veil. Kendra resisted the urge to slap her for her silence. She took a long swig from a bottled water, tried to breathe slowly.
“So you’re friends now, buddies,” Christy said.
“I guess,” Kendra said.
“Pshh,” Christy said.
“Is that so hard to believe?” Kendra said, feeling her chest tighten.
“Just saying,” Christy said, “he picked you out of the bunch. That’s—interesting.”
“Interesting?” Kendra said.
Christy didn’t respond. She looked out the window.
Kendra’s insides tangled. Though Christy had never said it outright, Kendra knew that she thought of her as a diversity hire: all the actors and crew were white; in fact, the only Black person she’d seen roaming around was an electrical guy named Richard, and he was contracted out. It made sense, then, that Christy and others would see her as a means to infuse color into the aggressively bleached staff. And yet: seeing herself this way in relation to Quigley felt desperately wrong. Sure, Kendra felt violently conspicuous there—she felt violently conspicuous everywhere in Nebraska—but because of John, and because of the costumes and the blood and the masks and the strong, almost unbearable, desire everyone had to be something else, the conspicuousness leveled out; it didn’t suffocate her as much as it did at school. It was manageable, sometimes even invisible.
“I just sit there and wait for you guys,” Kendra said. “He talks to me. That’s it. He’d talk to you too if you were there.”
Christy inhaled deeply, exhaled through her mouth, forming a gray oval of condensation on the glass. “Listen,” she said to the window. “No big deal, okay?”
Kendra closed her mouth.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Christy said.
Kendra shook her head. “I don’t get it,” she said, wondering if Christy was racist or just power-hungry. Maybe a little of both?
“You don’t get what?” Christy said.
“Nothing,” Kendra said. “Never mind.”
For the rest of the evening, nobody talked. They just drank, ate, sat in different parts of the shack. Sarah bit her nails, pretended to be busy at the food table. Kendra sat on the couch, her knees pulled up, her head in her arms. Christy stood by the window, examining the rain, her arms crossed, her face pinched.
At 10:59 p.m., Kendra’s walkie-talkie beeped. On the other end: Marcus Lonetree, that night’s floor manager.
“Contestants returning,” he said. “ETA five minutes. Arriving via Quester. Confirm.”
Kendra held the walkie-talkie to her mouth. “Roger,” she said.
“Roger,” Sarah said.
“Roger,” Christy said.
They walked outside.
Five minutes later, the Quigley Quester pulled into the lot. The rain had petered back to a drizzle, but it was still cold. The door of the big van slid open. Out stepped four contestants: two young men and two young women, college students from Virginia who’d played competitive sports since early childhood. One man had bandages on his face. The other walked with a limp. The women seemed unhurt but edgy, their eyes darting around the parking lot, suspicious. A fifth man—the chaperone—appeared at the van door once the contestants were out. “They’re all yours, girls,” he said. He handed Christy a clipboard. She signed the paper on top. This was how it ended.
The contestants had driven together, so there was only one set of keys. Sarah said, “Who’s driving?” The man with the limp grunted. “Are you okay to drive?” Sarah said. The man grunted again. Christy passed the clipboard to Sarah, who handed it to the limping, grunting man. “Please sign at the bottom,” Sarah said. The man did as told. Sarah gave him the keys.
“We hope you had a good time at the Quigley House!” Kendra said, her rehearsed lines. “Please drive carefully.”
“You people are freaks,” one of the women said.
“Yes, please drive carefully,” Christy said.
“You’ll hear from our fucking lawyers,” the woman said.
From the front seat, the other woman said, “Connie, come on. Get in.”
“Please drive carefully,” Sarah said.
The three girls backed away from the vehicle, stood under the orange streetlamp. In unison, they raised their right hands, waved. “Goodbye!” they said. “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!”
As soon as the contestants were gone, Kendra, wanting to be as far away from Christy as possible, went into the cabin, grabbed her things, and ran alone down the driveway, in the dark, racing toward John Forrester’s infernal house of horrors.
Cell Five
They enter. The screen reads: 18 minutes, 5 envelopes.
It also reads: CONTESTANTS MAY ATTACK.
The light from the screen flickers, striping the room momentarily with thin lines of white. The screen goes dark. They can’t see the clock. They can’t see anything.
Be on guard, Bryan says. They can come from anywhere.
The room is cold. Somewhere distant, a faucet drips. They reach for one another. They huddle.
We only need five, Bryan says, his voice echoing. Five in eighteen minutes.
We just crawl around? Jane says. Like, on the floor?
Nobody’s been here before, Victor says.
Don’t be a bitch, Jane says.
Timbre and cadence take on a rough salience in the dark. Each letter of each word sounds careful, enunciated.
Do we have a plan? Bryan says. He closes his eyes, tries to remember Kendra’s description. Four jail cells, she’d said. In each corner.
Maybe we should look around in pairs, Jaidee says. Maybe Victor and me, and you and—
What, no, Jane says. Victor and me. You and Bryan.
Okay. Bryan pats around, searches, finds Jaidee, engulfs his hand in his own. Good idea.
So we just walk around? Victor says.
For now, Bryan says.
The two groups separate. Bryan hears retreating footsteps, distant. He doesn’t know if they belong to Victor and Jane or someone else.
It’s so dark, Jaidee says.
Madness, huh, Bryan says.
They shuffle around, decide on a direction, sync their footsteps. Jaidee’s hand is bony, slim, smooth.
Tell me something, Jaidee, Bryan says to the dark. Did you ever think that one day we’d be walking around in the dark holding hands? He laughs.
Jaidee doesn’t say anything. They continue to take slow, measured steps. Nothing happens.
How’re we supposed to find anything? Jaidee says.
Don’t worry. Something’s gonna happen, Bryan says. We have eighteen minutes.
From somewhere, Bryan hears a groan. From somewhere else, Bryan hears panting. He hears creaking, clanging, slow, subtle moaning.
You think we’ll finish? Jaidee says.
We’ve gotten this far, Bryan says. We better. They walk. Left foot, right. Right foot, left. Since we’re waiting, Bryan says, why don’t you tell me something. Anything. Something about you.
Huh? Jaidee says.
Just tell me something.
I’m from Thailand, Jaidee says.
I know that. Tell me something else.
I don’t know, Jaidee says.
Sure you do. What about when you were a kid? What did you do for fun?
Silence.
Jaidee?
I wrote a play with my friends.
A play, huh. What was it called?
It was called Belly-Kos.
Belly-Kos. What’s that mean?
It was about a superhero and a villain. It was stupid.
Was it? Or was it brilli
ant?
It wasn’t brilliant. It was really—
ZZZZ-ZAP! A blue light, followed by a shout, followed by swift retreating footsteps. Jaidee lets go of Bryan’s hand.
Jaidee? Bryan said. Hey, man. Where’d you go?
I’m here. Jaidee coughs.
I can’t—
ZZZZZZZAP!
Fuck no, Bryan says, feeling heat course up his legs. He falls to the floor, scrapes his knees. He scrambles to his feet, whirls around, sees nothing. Jaidee! he says. You there? Follow my voice. He tilts his head, shouts to the big black nothing above: Whatever happens, everyone, don’t say it! Don’t say it!
Bryan.
Jaidee?
My shins, Jaidee says from somewhere distant. They’re burning.
I know. I know. But keep cool. Just follow my voice. Bryan takes a few hesitant steps, stretches his arms out in front of him. Victor! Jane! he shouts. You good?
Nothing.
God that hurts, Jaidee says.
My voice, Bryan says. I’m going to stay put. Just follow my voice.
Okay, I’m coming.
I’m over here. Follow my—
Hands on Bryan’s chest, pressing hard, pushing him through the void, farther and farther and farther away. FOLLOW MY VOICE, JAIDEE! JUST FOLLOW MY VOICE! FOLLOW MY— Then there’s tape, and his mouth is shut. He claws at it, but hands hold his hands, hands hold his arms, and though he’s strong, these people are also strong. He hears footsteps everywhere—scurrying, anxious. He tries to open his mouth, rip his lips from the adhesive, but nothing gives, and he’s still moving. He braces for impact. When it comes, it feels like every breath he’s ever taken exits. He can’t breathe in. There is oxygen all around him, but he can’t access it.
What if I actually died in here? he thinks. What would it have been for? Would it have been noble? Would I have been dying for love?
He puts his hands on his knees, bends over. The footsteps withdraw after a loud clang. He’s in one of the jail cells. He must be. He breathes deeply through his nose, tears at the tape, pulls it off. Tears slide down his cheeks. He walks around. His hands meet cold metal bars. He grabs them, shakes them.
Jaidee! he shouts, his voice hoarse. Jaidee!
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