I had completely destroyed three grown men.
-38-
Early morning sunlight is filtering through the soaped over windows of the warehouse when I come to, stiff from the cement floor. I rub my cheek. How did I get on the floor? Behind me the chair is smashed into splinters and there is no trace of the rope.
Lila is not here. Nor is Kayla. I sit up, sitting up and wrapping my arms around my knees. A violent shiver passes through my body.
I’m alone.
Around me are prints in the dusty floor. Paw prints from Lila, shoe prints from me. And footprints. Bare footprints.
I’m not sure how long I sit there staring
see what is in front of your eyes
when someone enters the warehouse.
Senses alert, I determine that this is not Lila
(or Kayla)
but someone else, human. Female. There is another room to this warehouse, and this is where she enters. Her footsteps on the concrete do not hesitate. She has been here before, many times. She closes the door behind her and scrapes a heavy object in front of it. Her high heels click along. Things are moving.
I could sit here in this dusty room where she must not come very often, hidden. I could keep her safe from my Other, the killer side of me. And yet…
After last night I feel like a barrier has broken. I stand, brush the dirt off my pants. Then I walk to the door separating me from this person, and push it open.
There is a gun pointed at my face.
“Who the fuck are you?” she demands.
I stare at the round hole in the little black 9mm. Just last night I wanted to kill myself. A bullet to the head would just about do it. I close my eyes.
“I asked you a question,” the girl demands. “Come on. I’m not gonna shoot you. Just don’t attack me or make any sudden moves or anything, okay?”
I open my eyes. The black hole is gone, replaced by the face of a young girl – about my age. She has bleached blonde hair sprayed into a poufy mess, and garishly bright make up. My eyes are drawn down to her outfit, which is awfully revealing for such cold weather. A mini skirt and a tube top, boots with spiky heels.
“Why don’t you take a picture,” she says.
My gaze drifts to the floor. “Sorry.”
“Hey, whatever. I’m used to it.” She puts the gun into a little plastic purse, bright purple, and sits down on a mattress in the corner to pull off her boots. I get a nice view up her skirt and I turn my whole body away, my face turning hot.
“You don’t have to be shy. You’re squatting here, right? Me too.” The boots come off and land in a heap on the floor. She stretches her toes and the joints snap and crackle. “Not much of a talker, huh?”
“Sorry,” I say again.
“I’m Candi,” she tells me. “What’s your name?”
“Dan.”
“You got anything to eat?”
“No.”
“Any money?”
I think about the pocket change in my backpack. “Nope.”
“None at all?”
“Uh, a dollar and some change. Does that make a difference?”
She screws up her face. “You really don’t have any money.”
Pulling some blankets over her, she lies down on the mattress. I don’t know how long that mattress has been out here, but it stinks. Although it looks a hell of a lot more comfortable than the cement floor.
“Yeah, so, I’m gonna sleep now.” She closes her eyes. “I’d offer to share, but you’re broke.”
“Oh.” It doesn’t make much sense to me for a long time. Maybe because I’m still hungry and out of sorts from last night. Eventually I realize what she means, and start apologizing again.
“I–I’m sorry. I guess I’ll take off then?” I say this quietly because she looks like she’s sleeping. I’ve turned to go back into the other room to get my backpack when she speaks.
“You don’t have to go.”
I stop but don’t look at her. I should leave. She’ll just end up dead
like that little baby like all those others
if I don’t. I should leave.
I don’t leave.
I crawl into the space under the covers she makes for me, and I lie there in her cold embrace while she sleeps.
-39-
She wakes up around the time the sun starts fading. “Hmmmm… what’s up,” she says to me, stretching.
The warehouse has all kinds of hidden treasures. Candi lights some candles, then pulls out a little camping stove and proceeds to heat up some soup in the can. It’s broccoli and cheddar. I never really liked it, but my stomach growls anyway.
“You hungry or something?” Candi asks with a smirk.
“I guess so.” I roll over and stare at the wall. I shouldn’t be hungry. I never want to be hungry again, if hungry means doing what I did.
“Here,” she says a few moments later.
I flop onto my back. She’s holding out a mug steaming with hot soup.
“I don’t have any spoons, but you can drink it.”
The mug warms my hands. Maybe I should let myself starve to death. Or will my hitchhiker take over when I get too hungry and kill again? Despite my stomach growling, I don’t feel hungry. I feel numb.
“You gonna stare it all day or drink it?”
I look up at Candi. Her makeup has smudged under her eyes, making her look very tired, and her hair is all frizzed up and knotted in the back.
“Cuz, you know, I wouldn’t mind eating it if you’re not going to.”
She glares at me until I take a sip.
“That’s better. Man, you’re skinny. I bet you weigh less than me. What are you doing out here anyway? You a runaway?”
“I guess,” I say. Maybe three years ago I was a runaway. Now I’m sixteen and I’m headed back home. Maybe. If Lila doesn’t come back I’m heading south again. “You haven’t seen a dog around, have you?”
“What kind of dog?”
“Light brown, about this big. Pointy ears.”
“Nah.”
“Oh.”
“Did you lose your wittle puppy?” Candi sticks out her lower lip and juts her hip out at me. “Poor baby.”
“Whatever.” I crawl out of bed and head into the other half of the warehouse.
“Hey! It was just a joke,” she calls out. “Jerk.”
I look around for my backpack. I must have stowed my winter coat in there, because I don’t have it on. Of course, I can’t remember having it on at any point in the recent past. Another reminder of just how out of my mind I’ve been. I wonder if I imagined the whole thing with the rope and the noose and Kayla. It’s completely impossible that Kayla was here. Naked. In the middle of November in Nebraska.
My backpack is not here.
I slam through to Candi’s end of the warehouse. She jumps. “Did you take my backpack?”
“What? No. I didn’t even know you had a backpack.”
“Yeah, right.”
She glares at me. “Look, dickhead. You’re the one who showed up at my place, okay? I didn’t invite you here. If you lost your shit, that’s on you.”
“All I know,” I say testily, “is that we’re the only two people here and my stuff is missing.”
“Dude, I knew I should’ve maced you when you came in. You’re a fucking psycho!”
I slam back into my end of the warehouse and wish I hadn’t. The cold is starting to get to me. No winter coat, and the windows aren’t keeping out the icy air. Tucking my hands under my armpits I pace back and forth. Where could my stuff have gone?
Maybe I left them somewhere. It doesn’t help that the clothes I have on are ripped and stained and tied together. Lucky my sweatshirt is black or there’d be blood on it.
For the hell of it I ransack the deserted end of the warehouse, shoving aside crates and boards and piles of trash. Nothing.
Then: brilliance! I return to the splintered chair and close my eyes and breathe. The cold
makes it hard to pick up the scent. Mostly I smell myself, but there it is, a whiff of Lila. And something else. Lilacs. I laugh softly.
Unfortunately there was nothing in my backpack that would smell. I follow Lila’s trail anyway. It leads to the door.
Even the handle is cold, and I only open it for a second before shutting it again. The wind blows right through me. That second is long enough for me to see that there is a fresh layer of snow from last night. No tracks of any kind.
I go back into Candi’s side. She glares at me and demands, “What?”
“Can I b-borrow your blanket?” I can’t stop shivering.
“For what?”
“T-to warm up.”
She looks at me, then moves away from the mattress. “Knock yourself out.”
I wrap the piles of fabric around me and rock back and forth, trying to stop the chills. I can’t help watching what Candi is doing. She’s leaning over a cracked mirror, reapplying her makeup. She’s wearing tight pleather pants now. She’s got a big bruise on her arm.
“What happened to you?” I ask. She looks at me in the mirror. “Your arm.”
“None of your business,” she snaps, and goes back to her eyeliner. “What do you care, anyway? You’re the one who looks like he got attacked by a wild animal. Did you stick your clothes in a wood chipper or something?”
“No.” I sound defensive and look down at the floor.
“And, like, why is your neck all bruised? You look like someone tried to strangle you. Plus you probably haven’t showered in forever.”
“What about you? There’s no shower here.”
She snorts. “I smell better than you.” The smile fades from her face. “Sometimes my clients make me take a shower before… you know.”
Normally I try to avoid thinking about those nights when I was younger and took truckers up on their offers. But now that Candi has reminded me, many of them did ask me to take a shower. Usually at that point I hoped they were just being nice. Eat some food, take a shower. Then they wanted something back for all they gave.
I feel like throwing up.
“That’s rude,” I say finally.
“Really.” She turns from the mirror and looks at me with one hand on her hip. “What do you know about manners?”
“Not much, I guess.”
For a few minutes we are both silent, listening to the tapping of snow on the windows, then Candi pulls out a small radio and turns it on to a pop music station.
I lie down and watch Candi getting ready. In the warm haze from the candles and the blanket, I fall asleep.
-40-
When I wake up the candles are still dimly glowing but Candi is gone. In the dark outside the windows, bright white snow is falling at a fast clip. My mind is curiously free from worry, although there is much I could worry about: where Lila is, what I’m going to do in the middle of a blizzard without a winter coat, even whether or not Candi is okay. I wonder when Candi will come back, if after dawn is her usual time.
Hours pass. The candles flicker.
I can’t say whether I sleep or not, but suddenly I become aware of someone opening the door in the other part of the warehouse. I must have been asleep – how else could I have missed the sound of footsteps crunching through snow?
I’m on all fours, crouching beside the door that separates the two halves of the building, peering through the crack between the door and the frame before the intruder has even fully opened the door. My entire body is ready and tense. Cold is no longer an issue.
Practically in slow motion, the outside door swings all the way open. I strain to get a view of the intruder but all I see is a sliver of jeans, a slice of long hair. Another girl? The wind blowing in offers more than my vision. A girl. A familiar girl, wrapped in my scent.
“Kayla?”
My voice is high and squeaky. I push open the door and stare. Kayla. She’s here
(it wasn’t a dream)
And she’s wearing my coat, my extra pair of jeans. Probably my extra t-shirt under the coat. Carrying my backpack, too. But mostly I’m staring at her face.
She’s real. I have to walk right up to her
See what’s in front of your eyes
and put my hands on her face, feel her skin, smell her woodsy scent, before I am sure: this is real.
(how much else is real?)
“You’re really here,” I say. A smile is growing on my face.
“Duh,” she says.
“You took my coat. I was cold.”
She stares at me. “I would have frozen to death going to get help for you if I didn’t.”
I’m so happy to see her that I don’t understand why she sounds angry. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“What’s wrong? God, Daniel!”
She drops the backpack to the floor and shuts the door, starts peeling off the gloves.
“First, you can barely take care of yourself. Second, you refuse to control yourself. And third, you freak out at the drop of a hat. You can’t even figure it out after three freaking years. Seriously, it’s like you’re blind. Or retarded!”
Shut up you little retard – slap –
“Don’t call me that,” I snap at her. I blink, trying to keep away the blackness that suddenly pulses in and out.
Kayla takes a deep breath and says through gritted teeth, “Let’s both just calm down, okay?”
More deep breathing from Kayla. I clench my fists up tight and then let the tension go. I don’t want to hurt Kayla. I was so happy to see her – why did she have to ruin it?
“It’s good to see you,” I tell her.
She looks up at the ceiling and laughs. “Yeah. Good to see me. Okay.”
I’m so confused. “How did you get here?”
At this she rubs her face with her hands, like she’s wiping away a smile. “Okay. Let’s go sit down. There’s a bed, in there, right?” She indicates Candi’s room.
“Uh, yeah – ”
“Come on.”
Pulled along by my sleeve, I follow Kayla into the warm glowy room and sit beside her on the smelly mattress.
“Well, this is cozy,” Kayla says, looking around.
“Yeah, this girl named Candi lives here.”
“Girl? You mean prostitute?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s what she does.”
“No kidding. I could smell it a mile away. Disgusting.”
I’m not sure what to say or do. Luckily, Kayla takes over. She turns to me abruptly.
“Look, Daniel. I know it was traumatic for you and all, but do you remember anything about what happened that night you… that night my dad and your dad and Uncle Red died?”
“What do you mean? I don’t remember killing them, but I know I did.”
Kayla bites her lip. “Um, okay. How about if I ask it like this: did they look any different before you killed them?”
I know what she’s talking about but I can’t bring myself to say it. “I was sick. What I saw… it wasn’t real. I was hallucinating or something.”
“What did you see, Daniel?”
my father curling up, his arms growing and thinning and his face too, his mouth stretching and his joints bending in ways they should never bend, all the while his eyes on me… his yellow eyes
“No. It wasn’t real.”
“What did you see?”
“He– he– ” I grip the thin quilt. I shake my head but that image stays with me. “He turned into a monster. He was a monster!”
“Not a monster, Daniel,” Kayla says gently. “He turned into something. What did he turn into?”
“A wolf,” I say.
-41-
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Kayla smiles at me encouragingly. How can she be so calm?
“It’s impossible. People don’t turn into wolves. That’s a story, a horror movie. Not real.”
“Think about it,” she says. “You don’t remember seeing me at all since you picked up that stray dog you
called Lila?”
“Yeah, but those were just dreams – ”
She shakes her head. “Daniel, I’m Lila.”
I stare at her. Sure, her hair is the same color as Lila’s fur, and she has the same warm brown eyes, but it’s impossible. I bury my face in my hands. “I must be hallucinating again. Maybe Candi drugged me with that soup…”
Kayla sighs.
And waits.
It all runs through my head. Those dreams of Kayla where she’s naked, when I fell asleep holding Lila. Those mixed up things from when I tried to kill myself. The footprints and paw prints on the floor.
If Kayla can turn into a wolf, then all those times I blacked out… I must have become a wolf then. I was a wolf when I killed all those people… that little baby…
“You’re wrong,” I tell Kayla.
“You just have to accept it–” she starts.
“No. You’re wrong. My father did turn into a monster. And I’m a monster too.” In a whisper I add, “I’m a killer.”
She puts her hand around my shoulders and pulls me to her. “The wolf is the monster, not you. You have to learn how to control it, that’s all.”
I push her away and glare at her. “I just have to learn how to control it? What do you think I’ve been trying to do for the past three years? I killed a fucking little kid, for Christ’s sake! I’m a goddamned monster!”
“Daniel, that… that was an accident. And it wasn’t totally your fault.”
“How can you say that? I was hungry and I smelled that little girl and then I ate her! Maybe ‘the wolf’ did it, but that was me licking my lips after I chewed open her head!”
dizziness
“Please, Daniel, hear me out.” Kayla’s voice has risen in panic. It’s like she can feel the monster trying to take over. “That kid was already half-dead by the time you found her. There’s another… we’re being followed. They set a trap for you. They are the monsters, the ones who spilled her blood, knowing full well how hungry you were. You were starving and suffering from hypothermia, and you smelled fresh blood.” The dizziness has subsided, but it still doesn’t make sense to me. “I would have done the same thing if – ”
“If what? If you were a monster?”