The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza

  I considered it for a moment. “I’m still not sure I trust her.”

  Fadil was quiet on the other end of the phone. Then he said, “What other leads do we have? Look, you’re the one who needs to understand David’s motives. That list, if it exists, could help. Either way, you need to be careful.”

  He had a point, but we ran out of time to debate it further because Fadil had plans with his parents and couldn’t hang out, leaving me alone on a Saturday night, which, admittedly, didn’t bother me much. I wanted to do some research into Leslie Dippold. I was working under the assumption that the voices weren’t rapturing people at random, and that if I could find some common threads connecting her with David Combs, I might be able to predict who would vanish.

  A few hours later, around ten p.m., my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, and normally I would have ignored it, but I was frustrated by my search, more specifically by the lack of information my search had turned up, and I answered without thinking.

  “Elena?”

  “Who is this?” Music and the chatter of faint voices echoed in the background, but the person who’d called remained silent. “Look, I’m not interested in doing your show or giving you a quote or whatever it is you want from me.”

  “Um. It’s Freddie.”

  That stopped me cold. Freddie was on my phone. This was how all my best dreams began. Freddie called and told me she’d been thinking about me and we talked all night, sharing our lives and our dreams, and, yes, I had the lamest fantasies ever.

  “Freddie?”

  “Look,” she said, “I’m at this party at Tori’s house and I’m hiding in a closet in one of the upstairs bedrooms and Ava gave me a ride but she’s drunk and I really don’t want to be here anymore.”

  So she’d called me. Freddie had called me, though I didn’t know how, seeing as I’d only given my new number out to Fadil, Mama, Javi, and . . . Nope, that was it. They were the entirety of my social circle. But it didn’t matter at the moment. What mattered was that she’d called and I’d let five whole seconds pass in silence and she probably thought I’d hung up, so I’d better speak before she changed her mind.

  “I can come get you.”

  “I’ll text you directions to Tori’s house.”

  “Be there in ten.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  GETTING OUT OF the apartment was easy. I didn’t even have to sneak. Sean had practically grown roots into the couch and I didn’t see him moving anytime soon, so I pretended I was getting a drink from the kitchen, pocketed the keys, and walked out the door. I only knew he’d noticed because he yelled at me not to block the TV when I passed in front of it.

  Tori Thrash lived in a private community near the ocean with a sign on the gate that read “Smile! You’re on camera!” It might as well have said “You don’t belong here, Elena Mendoza!” Thankfully, in addition to directions, Freddie had texted me the code so that I didn’t have to use the call box.

  Even without the house number, I would have been able to figure out where Tori lived. There were cars packed into the cul-de-sac and spilling out into the one road that led in and out of the development. I imagined the neighbors standing in their windows watching the Thrash house with naked disapproval, debating whether or not to call the police. It was certainly different from where I lived. No one there would willingly call the cops, and if police did show up for some reason, it was a given that someone was leaving in handcuffs.

  I drove to the end of the neighborhood, turned around, drove past the house again, and parked by the sidewalk so that I didn’t get blocked in. I checked myself in the car’s mirror before getting out, wishing I’d taken the time to change into nicer clothes instead of the shorts and Star Wars T-shirt I was wearing. My one hope was that I could slip into the party, find Freddie, and sneak back out unnoticed.

  A small, cynical voice in the back of my mind wondered if this was a trap. It was weird that Freddie had called me or even had my phone number, and I couldn’t help thinking that she and her friends might be setting me up for a prank. I’d walk into the house and they’d kidnap me and throw me into the pool or they’d hose me down with pig’s blood, while recording video of it, and post the whole ordeal online. It was the sort of “joke” Javi and his buddies might have played on David Combs. If Fadil hadn’t been with his parents, I would have begged him to come with me for protection, but Freddie was inside, and she’d asked for help, so I sucked it up and went in.

  The Thrash house was the opposite of what I’d expected. I figured there’d be fancy art on the walls and expensive furniture no one was allowed to sit on. Instead, it was homey with a weird Southern charm. Framed photos of the Thrashes were strategically placed throughout the house, and the couch was a plaid monstrosity that sagged in the middle. The mantle over the fireplace and the end tables and every other flat surface were stuffed with knickknacks that looked like they’d been purchased at a flea market.

  The house was objectively trashed. The kitchen counter was covered with beer bottles and red cups and plates with the crumbs of eaten meals on them. The party, it seemed, had moved outside to the screened-in patio, which was a good thing for me. I didn’t even have to sneak around. Freddie had texted that she was in one of the upstairs bedrooms, so I climbed the stairs to the second floor, which was decorated as eclectically as the downstairs, though it was less of a disaster. I poked my head into a bathroom, a linen closet nearly as big as my shared bedroom, and then into a room that I was guessing belonged to Tori.

  “Freddie?” I whispered. “It’s Elena.”

  No answer. The room was dark, but the light from the full moon shone through the windows. A bed stood in the middle of the room, and there was a desk and TV against the wall opposite it. I turned until I saw the closet doors, and walked toward them. I flipped on my phone’s flashlight and opened the closet. Instead of Freddie hiding under hanging clothes, I found shelves full of My Little Ponies. There must have been hundreds of them neatly displayed in organized rows.

  Elena! You’re here! I’ve been waiting so long for you to arrive!

  “Shhhh!” I hissed. “I’m trying to be stealthy.”

  No one else can hear me, silly.

  I pinpointed the voice coming from a pink pony that was smaller than the others and had a pink-and-yellow mane, antennae, wings, and weird pixie ears. I picked her up and held her closer to my face. “What do you want?”

  World peace. Pizza. Not to be in this fucking closet anymore. Those other ponies are bitches.

  I was taken aback by the pony’s profanity. It was weird. “Do you know where Freddie is?”

  Obviously not here, dummy.

  “I don’t have time for this.” I started to return the pony to its shelf.

  Wait! Wait. Please don’t leave me here with them.

  “Then tell me where Freddie is.”

  She’s in the master bedroom.

  “Thank you.” I hadn’t brought my purse inside, so I held on to the little pony after I shut the closet doors.

  You’re going to heal Ben Smith, right?

  “I don’t know.” I crept down the hall, looking for the master bedroom. “If there are more disappearances, won’t those Homeland Security agents come after me?”

  Let us worry about that. We’ve been planning this for a long time, and we won’t allow anyone to screw it up. Not even you.

  “You could save us some time by telling me how the world is in danger and why you’re stealing strangers every time I heal someone.”

  Why do you have to question everything? Do your damn job and heal some fucking sick people already!

  “Do you want me to put you back with the other ponies?”

  I’d rather you melted me into a bubbling pool of plastic.

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  Elena!

  “Whatever,” I said. “I’ll deal with you later.”

  The hallway of a house I wasn’t technically invited into wasn’t the place for this discussion,
so I tabled it and turned my attention to finding Freddie.

  The master bedroom was at the end of the hall, with double doors that led in. There was a king-sized four-poster bed dominating the room, and a pillar of books stood on the bedside table. I found the closet and slid open the mirrored doors. Freddie was sitting in the back corner with her knees drawn to her chest, playing a game on her phone.

  “Freddie?”

  She held up one finger and continued tapping her screen and tilting it around as beeps and explosions popped from her phone’s speakers. “Damn! I almost beat my high score,” she said, and then finally looked at me. “It’s about fucking time. Why are you carrying a My Little Pony? Did you steal that from Tori? She’s going to kill you. I knocked one of her ponies over once and she didn’t speak to me for a week.”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “You ready to go?”

  Freddie nodded. I offered her a hand up, and she heaved herself to her feet. “Did anyone give you any trouble getting in?”

  “No. They’re all out on the patio.”

  “Even better.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant. Would Freddie be embarrassed for Tori and her friends to find out I’d come to rescue her? And that was only one of the many questions I wanted to ask. Why had she called me? Why was she hiding in a closet? How did she get my number? But I figured it was best to wait until we’d successfully escaped.

  “Thanks for doing this,” Freddie said. We walked down the hallway back to the stairs.

  “Sure. It’s not like I was doing anything tonight.”

  “Shit. Did I fuck up your plans?” I shook my head. “Good.” She frowned at what I was wearing. “Nice shirt?”

  “I was serious about not having any plans.”

  When we reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard someone moving around in the living room. Whoever it was, we were going to have to walk past them to reach the door. Freddie pulled me along, either oblivious or unconcerned with the person blocking our path to freedom.

  “Elena?”

  Fadil paused in the midst of pulling back the couch cushions and stood up straight, furrowing his brow.

  “What’re you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you were with your parents.”

  Fadil hung his head. “Yeah, about that.”

  “You lied to me?”

  “Naomi invited me to the party.” Fadil wouldn’t look me in the eyes. “I wanted to tell you, but—”

  Anger flushed my cheeks. “But you thought I’d want to come and then you’d have to choose between your best friend and your new girlfriend?”

  “It’s not like that,” Fadil said. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Whatever.”

  Fadil’s voice rose high and broke. “Come on, Elena. You don’t like these people, and if I’d invited you, you would have sat alone and not talked to anyone and then I would have had to sit with you and neither of us would have had any fun.”

  Freddie nudged my arm. “Can we go?”

  “Yes.” I walked to the door, refusing to look at Fadil.

  “Elena, wait.”

  Go to hell, Fadil, the pony said.

  “Go to hell, Fadil,” I echoed.

  I didn’t speak again until we were in my car. I sat staring at the dash. I wouldn’t have been so angry if Fadil hadn’t lied. All he’d had to do was tell me he wanted to spend time with Naomi and didn’t want me along to cock-block him, but instead he’d lied, probably figuring I was the last person he’d run into at Tori Thrash’s house.

  “I’m not ready to go home,” Freddie said. “You want to go to the beach?”

  I nodded, started the car, and drove toward the beach to find a place to park. Freddie and I carved a path through the sea oats and morning glories down to the water’s edge. The tide was ebbing, but I slipped off my sneakers anyway, to avoid getting them wet.

  “Sorry about your friend,” Freddie said.

  The full moon cast shadows on the sand, and without the lights from the houses, the stars hung brightly in the sky like fireflies. They were so beautiful that if I hadn’t been so pissed at Fadil I would have enjoyed watching them with Freddie.

  “I get that he’s into Naomi and wanted to hang out with her, but the rest of those people are jerks.”

  “Those people?”

  “Yeah. The ones who call me Mary and write ‘slut’ on my locker?”

  “A couple of assholes don’t make them all bad.”

  I heaved an angry sigh. “Then why were you hiding in a closet begging me to rescue you?”

  “It’s a long story and I’m not in the mood to spill my guts at the moment.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Then tell me how you got my number.”

  Freddie grinned. I could see the outline of her teeth even in the dark. She dug into her pocket and handed me a phone. “I kind of stole this from your friend. I think that’s what he was looking for when we ran into him.”

  I triggered the screen and there was Fadil’s background image—a picture of the superhero from his favorite comic book, Patient F. It was definitely his phone. Served him right. I slipped it into my pocket.

  “He didn’t have to lie to me,” I said as we walked.

  “Probably not. But haven’t you ever lied to spare someone’s feelings?”

  “Not to Fadil.”

  “Maybe he’s never put you in a position where you needed to.”

  “So it’s my fault?”

  “I’m not saying that. But look at it from his point of view. He likes a girl whose friends you dislike. He wants to hang out with her. You’re judgmental, obviously. And he figures if he tells you where he’s going, you’ll shit on him for it.”

  “I wouldn’t have done that.” At least, I didn’t think I would have. Either way, it hurt that Fadil thought I would.

  “If you say so.”

  “Now who’s being judgmental?”

  “Me, I guess,” Freddie said. “But I own that shit, so whatever.”

  We continued trudging down the beach toward a cluster of high-rise hotels in the distance, and there was no one else around. In another universe, this might have been a perfect date. Except this wasn’t a date, and the night was far from perfect.

  “So why’d you’d steal one of Tori’s ponies? Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fucking fantastic—she’s going to lose her mind when she realizes it’s missing—but you’re not a klepto, are you?”

  “Says the girl who stole a phone. Anyway, you’ll just judge me for it if I tell you.”

  “Don’t let that stop you. My opinion doesn’t count for much.”

  It counted far more than she thought. Telling Fadil I heard voices had been one thing—I knew he wasn’t going to out me to his new friends about being a freak who talked to tampon boxes and sirens and stuffed baby gods—but I didn’t know Freddie well enough to trust her. And yet I suspected she would believe me. Especially seeing as I’d practically brought her back from the dead.

  “Fine,” I said. “I stole the pony because it asked me to. Begged is more like it. It said the other ponies were bitches.”

  “I’ve always thought those ponies were bitches.”

  “I’m not joking.”

  “I didn’t think you were.”

  Freddie was nothing like I’d imagined she would be, in countless ways. I’d dreamed that when we finally talked, she’d be this sweet, understanding girl I could pour my secrets into and fall in love with and she’d understand me in a way that no one, not even Fadil, was capable of. Instead she was crass and pessimistic and caustically blunt.

  “I hear voices,” I said. “From inanimate objects. Tori’s pony, for instance.”

  “Do you take medication for it?” Freddie asked.

  “I’m not . . . It’s not a mental illness.”

  “Are you sure? It’s cool if it is.”

  “The Starbucks siren told me to save you the day of the shooting.” I blurted it out. And as soon as the words left my mouth, I wasn’t
sure saying them had been a wise idea, but I’d said them, so I kept going. “She told me I could heal you—she told me I should heal you—so I did.”

  Freddie pursed her lips, her eyebrows dipped down, and I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I really wished I did. Why couldn’t mind reading have been one of my miracle powers? It would have made my life so much easier.

  “So that day in anatomy,” Freddie said, “when you were talking to the skeleton?”

  “It told me the world might be in danger and that I’m supposed to help save it.”

  “You hear voices and you have a savior complex?” Freddie shrugged. “You’re a psychiatrist’s wet dream.”

  “I’m not making this up.”

  “Isn’t that exactly what a person with schizophrenia might say?”

  It was a fair point. And I didn’t even have to be suffering from a mental illness to have created a lie that I myself believed. We—human beings, I mean—believe our own lies all the time. Sean, for instance, had convinced himself he was a victim of the system, that forces beyond his control had conspired to keep him jobless instead of his own drinking and laziness. I couldn’t blame Freddie for thinking I might be so entangled in a delusion that I couldn’t see the truth, but I was determined to convince her otherwise.

  “Fact: My mother was a virgin when I was conceived and born. It was proven by a doctor beyond all doubt. Fact: David Combs shot you at Starbucks, and you were bleeding to death on the pavement. Fact: I healed you.” I paused to see if Freddie was going to add anything, but she remained silent. “So with those things being true, isn’t it possible that the voices I’m hearing, and have been hearing for as long as I can remember, are also real?”

  Freddie turned abruptly away from the water, walked toward the dunes, and plopped down in the sand. I followed and sat beside her. “What’s the point?” she asked. “Not of the voices. Of any of it? All of it?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to understand.”

  “The pony didn’t tell you?”

  “The short version is that, supposedly, humanity is in danger. I’m not sure from what. The voices, whatever they are, want to help us. I’m their means of doing so.”