Anthony is staring at me. He hasn’t interrupted me once in the last two hours. He has simply watched my face with that expression they all wear, all the drones. I imagine they must be trying very hard to feel the right thing, but I don’t think they are ever sure.
“Would you like to take a break?” he asks. And that’s when I see the strangeness in his eyes. The softness. He’s never looked at me this way before—as if he cares about me.
“No, I’m all right,” I say, voice dry. The quicker we get this done the quicker I speak to Luke. Jesus, even thinking about him makes me all crazy. I reach over and try to push the window further open. The sun is setting and the air is cool, but I can smell everything the rain has left behind and it makes the slight trembling in my fingers stop.
“You don’t look … all right,” Anthony points out quietly.
I decide to tell him the truth, because the trembling is making me afraid. “It’s the curse. For days leading up to it, and weeks after, my body fails.” I stand and cross to the desk. Briefly I show him the blood coming from my gums and my fingernails.
“Josephine!” he exclaims, standing in his chair. “What’s caused this?”
“I just told you.”
“We need to get you straight into the nurse’s station.”
“They won’t find any reason for the bleeding,” I warn him. “I’ve been to dozens of doctors. Not one of them could figure it out. They said that my body was behaving like a body does during organ failure, but none of my organs are failing. You’ve seen my file, right?”
He stares at me worriedly. I know the file he’s been working from is a psych evaluation, because according to the doctors I’ve seen my symptoms have no physical cause and therefore must be caused by mental problems. The best they could do to explain this absurdity to me was to use an analogy about husbands feeling sympathy pains when their wives go into labor. My body apparently sympathizes with my fucked-up head, so if someone can just get some drugs to work on me, then the problem’s solved.
Story of our civilization: all problems can be solved with a bucket load of pharmaceuticals.
“I’m okay,” I tell Anthony gently. “For now, anyway. Let’s keep going.”
He loosens his tie, clearly trying to rid himself of the unruly feelings he suddenly seems to be dealing with. He sits down, puts his glasses on and takes them off again, then looks at me and nods.
I cross back to the window. “I moved out.”
“That didn’t last long,” he comments. “Two months?”
“Yeah. Everything with Luke and me was fast. Out of control. I had this sense that nothing could slow the two of us down except making sure there was no ‘two of us’. I got out of there and went back to my crap box of an apartment. I got a job at a bar where all the girls got tips if they dressed revealingly. None of the men tried to touch me—none of them even looked at me. I got no tips no matter how I dressed.”
“Why?” The doc seems genuinely confused by this.
I level him with a stare. “Tell me the truth, Anthony. If you hadn’t been forced to spend an hour a day with me for the last year, how would you respond to me?”
He doesn’t reply.
“You barely glanced at me for weeks in the beginning,” I remind him. “You knew without needing to be told that there was something different about me. Your instincts were to distance yourself from me, to make sure you didn’t make any contact. You have a basic human awareness of danger that has been incorrectly spooked because your cure causes your brain to send the wrong signals at the wrong times.” I pause and then shrug with shoulders that ache. “Or maybe your sense of danger is spot-on. Maybe your instincts sense the truth your mind can’t believe: that I’ve spilt a lot of blood.”
Anthony hesitates long enough to confirm that this is exactly right. I don’t need him to confirm it for me anyway—I’ve been around the truth my entire life.
“So you left Luke before anything could happen between the two of you,” Anthony says. “A response from your childhood.”
I don’t want to talk about my childhood. I don’t want to blame my problems with Luke on the crap that happened to me as a kid. That seems like the easy way out. It seems like the definition of cowardice. “I left to protect him,” I say bluntly.
“From what?”
“Me!” I snap. “Protect him from me, you idiot. Are you really that dumb?”
“Let’s not get agitated.”
“You make me agitated.”
He obviously doesn’t know what to say. “Do you want to continue? Do you need some water?”
“I’m fine.” God, sometimes all I want is to punch him in the mouth.
“If you get so annoyed by my calm demeanor, then why didn’t you get just as annoyed with Luke?”
I open my mouth but can’t think of anything to say. “Sometimes I did. A lot of the time, actually. But he wasn’t … he was different. He wasn’t as bad as you.” I think for a moment that Anthony is hurt, but quickly realize how stupid that thought is. Nothing I say has any effect on him, except maybe to exasperate him. I swallow and put my hands out the window, turning them this way and that. This slight movement hurts, but I like the fresh air too much to care. Then the blood on my fingernails catches the orange light of the sinking sun and I wrench my hands inside again, squeezing my eyes shut.
She’s coming for me. She prowls at the edge of her cage, but soon she’ll be strong enough to break free, and I’ll be so weak and sick that I won’t even have a chance at holding her back. Doors with locks and guards with weapons aren’t enough to stop her. I don’t know what will ever be enough.
My eyes hurt, so I lean back on the couch and keep them closed while I speak. I picture Luke the whole time, even though it hurts more than my body is starting to.
December 21st, 2063
Josephine
The slaughterhouse stinks of blood. It’s cavernous and has been sitting empty for years, by the looks of it. I climb in through a shattered window and wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Huge meat hooks hang from the ceiling, glinting red with rust. Puddles of old liquid dot the floor, and I pick my way gingerly through them, peering around for any sign that I was here once.
Plastic sheets hang against some of the walls, covered in mold, and I push them aside to try and see the layout of the building. There’s a set of stairs that leads down into an even darker, creepier room beneath the ground. More meat hooks hang in long rows, attached to chains that run the length of the roof. There’s a big green button on the wall and, even though I know my curiosity never leads me anywhere good, I always give into it.
The button is stiff when I press it. The chains creak and jingle alarmingly, and then the tracks in the roof start to move with a long shriek of metal against metal. The meat hooks slowly grind around in a long circle, swinging eerily. My nerves are shot, making my teeth chatter. I can hear something dripping amid the screech of metal, and the smells—I can’t think about them or I might throw up.
I shove my palm into the green button but it seems to be jammed, and the damn thing won’t turn off. Jesus, my hands are starting to shake, I have to get out of here.
I turn and run headlong into someone. A scream is torn from my throat but there are arms taking me by the shoulders and pulling me to a halt.
“Josi! It’s me!”
I blink and realize I’m looking up at Luke. His green eyes are the only bright things down in this pit of death. I let out a choked laugh of relief and extricate myself from his hands. “What are you doing here?”
“Apparently the same as you. Picking dates on the list and snooping around.”
Our eyes meet for a split second and then I look away. There’s a long, awkward moment as the meat hooks swing and creak behind us. The hairs on my arms are standing on end and I can’t shake the fear that creeps further into my heart with every beat. I think Luke’s presence makes me even more nervous.
A shadow moves against the wall, making me
jump in shock.
“A rat,” Luke explains the scuffling sound.
I need to get out of here and away from him, but as I turn to leave something appears in the corner of my eye. I freeze. My heart is pounding. I can’t bear to look properly, but this is why I came.
These are your crimes, your memories. Own them.
Luke’s words echo loudly in my ears and I force myself to turn and look. It’s one of the hooks. No longer covered in rust. There is a body dangling from it, impaled on the sharp metal. A man. He is large and strong, his mouth and eyes open wide in shock. His insides are spilling out of him because his rib cage has been torn open and spread wide like a dripping, pink artwork of horror. Bits of his heart cover the hook protruding from his chest.
I stare, too stunned to move. I can hear my pulse beating in my ears, louder and louder. Ice is moving steadily through every single one of my veins. I’ve never felt so cold in my whole life.
I turn and vomit violently onto the hard concrete ground. My whole stomach comes up and turns me inside out. I heave and heave until my body aches too much to continue, and when I look back at the hook it is empty.
Luke
When I was a boy I liked to pull things apart. Electronics, old car engines, tools, machinery, toys—anything that could be picked into pieces was fascinating to me. I tinkered with things endlessly, always filthy with oil or dirt. I wanted to know how they worked, what they looked like, how they could be broken. I always wondered what it would be like to pick a person apart—I wanted to know how our bodies worked on the inside.
Once I took a kitchen knife and cut open my arm so that I could see my bones and flesh, my arteries and muscles. My curiosity was so strong that it blocked a lot of the pain. It wasn’t until later that I realized we can’t be taken apart as simply as a machine can. And I realized, too, that it’s even more difficult for us to be put back together.
My mother found me in my room, digging around in my arm and she screamed in shock. When I was stitched and back from the hospital she yelled some more, but differently this time. This was in the days when people still yelled. You tear everything into a thousand pieces but you never put anything back together! One day you will have broken everything in your life, Luke Townsend.
*
Outside the sun is too bright. Down a gentle hill of yellowish grass is a wide river. I guide Josephine to it, wary of her shaking legs and chalk-white lips. The fresh air is already doing her some good, and I think the sound of the rushing water is calming too.
We sit on the grass and I wait a long time for her to recuperate. I haven’t seen her for a month. But I’ve been to all of these places, these sites that are the essence of what is wrong with her, and I’ve pretended that she missed me as much as I did her.
Eventually I ask, “What did you see?”
“I killed a man in that slaughterhouse,” she says, her voice detached and cold. “I put him on one of the hooks.”
I frown. “Those hooks are at least six feet off the ground. You’re not tall enough or strong enough to get a man onto one of them.”
She shrugs. “What do you want me to say?”
“What was he wearing?”
“Black.”
“Any physical identifiers?”
“He was big. Strong. Very short hair. Clean-cut looking. That’s all I could see.”
“Are there any assumptions you can make about him?” I prompt. This is important, but Josi shakes her head, looking tired and pissed off.
“I’m going to the next site on the list,” she says.
“Isn’t that a bit much? Don’t you want to leave it for another day?”
She stands and starts walking.
“I’ll drive you. It’s too far to walk.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Please just stop being so fucking stubborn and get in the car.”
“You don’t tell me what to do, remember?”
“I’m not telling, I’m asking. Begging, if you want.”
Josephine doesn’t look at me. She simply walks silently to my car.
The grass grows more yellow as we reach the outskirts of the city. Wide fields scatter the view on either side of the road, but there’s virtually no livestock anywhere. I haven’t seen a cow or a sheep in years, not since they were all moved to private organic farms that produce meat too expensive for more than two thirds of the population to afford. If we keep driving in this direction we’ll soon reach the wall. But I’m grateful our destination isn’t that far; I hate that wall more than I hate anything in this world.
Since the atmosphere in the car is tense at best, I’ve distracted myself by switching the Jag to manual and concentrating on the drive. Josephine keeps turning the radio to dumb crap that she knows I hate, and I keep turning it back just to get a reaction out of her. Once or twice I’m pretty sure I see her lips twitch, but god forbid she let herself laugh in the same vicinity as me since I’m now apparently the enemy.
I follow the GPS and turn the car down a winding dirt driveway. It leads us around a few hills and through some paddocks, and finally to an old, dilapidated-looking farmhouse. There is an enormous barn off to the side, and it looks like something out of a children’s picture book with its bright red door and yellow eaves. Josi climbs out of the car and stares at the barn for ages. I grow impatient and jog up the two steps to the front door of the house. I knock for about ten minutes before anyone appears.
It’s a woman holding a small baby. She peers at me through a window to the left, and then reluctantly opens the door. I wonder what’s made her so suspicious. The child squirms but the woman only looks at me blankly.
“Hi,” I begin, flashing her a smile. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am. My girlfriend and I were just wondering if we could possibly take a look around your property?”
“Why?”
I decide to take a bit of a gamble. “Josephine used to live on this farm, and she wants to show me all her little treasures. You remember what it was like to be a kid—lots of secret places you never shared with anyone. There’s this spot out the back where she buried some of her toys and she’s really excited about finding them again.”
The woman still looks utterly spaced out. She hasn’t responded at all to my gentle, soothing babble. I’m not surprised. She’s blissed out on emptiness and confusion. The scientists behind the cure must be over the moon to see the more extreme results like this—it’s a classic case of a personality that didn’t take well to being messed with. Assholes.
“Do you think it would be all right if we took a little look around?” I press carefully, keeping my smile fixed in place. “We won’t bother you at all …”
“She used to live here?” the lady asks abruptly, her eyes squinting against the sun toward Josephine’s still profile. “When was that?”
“A long time ago.”
“Oh. That’s odd. We moved in only a year ago. The house had been abandoned long before that, I believe.”
“So you just found it empty?”
“Our realtor found it for us. The property had been given to the state because its occupants disappeared—every single one of them. Left no will.” She shrugs, but the story makes a lot of sense to me. I’m suddenly not too sure I want Josephine to remember anything about this place. By the sounds of it, a lot of bad stuff went down. An entire family …
I turn to suggest we leave, but Josephine is already approaching the barn.
“Don’t take too long,” the woman warns vaguely. “And don’t disrupt anything.”
There is patently nothing to disrupt, since the entire property looks to be dead grass, but I nod and thank her before following Josi to the barn. Behind me I hear the woman start to laugh in a low wheeze that makes the hairs on my neck stand on end. I glance back but she’s closing the door and her creepy, deranged laughter is cut off.
“Wait outside,” Josephine orders me coldly, and there’s something scary about her in this moment, so I do as
I’m told.
After about thirty seconds she walks straight back out, strides past me and hops back in the car. I’m not sure what to say when I join her. She refuses to look at me, and there’s a hard line to her clenched jaw.
“Josi—”
“You can never ask me about that place. Not that one. Do you understand?”
I swallow and then I nod, because I do understand.
*
I pull up outside her apartment block. We sit quietly for a while. She still won’t look at me, so I follow suit and stare straight ahead too.
“I’m going to get really drunk tonight,” she announces suddenly. “Would you like to be involved?”
My head jerks around. “Uh … sure.” It’s quite possibly the best offer I’ve ever had in my life. Her smell has filled up the car and I feel kind of heady from it. Since she moved out I’ve been imagining really embarrassing things that I will never admit to. Shit like candlelit dinners and romantic baths, and long walks holding hands. And when I’m not imagining that stuff or doing my research I’m storming around the apartment in a rage. I smashed the best bottle of wine I owned last night. It was worth a fortune and I’d been saving it for a special occasion. I drew it from the rack and felt so resentful that I wasn’t allowed to admit to every one of my feelings that I took the bottle out onto my balcony and hurled it straight down onto the street.
“We’re going to a party,” Josi says.
“Whose?”
“Some guy I met at the bar.” She is clearly demanding a fight but I’m tired of pretending I don’t want her. I can barely remember my adolescence. Josephine is the same. So maybe it’s self-destructive, but maybe we both need to blow off some steam. Maybe all I want to do is enjoy her for five minutes without being reminded that she might be dead in a few months.
So instead of warning her about how dangerous it could be, or pointing out that young men have the least predictable responses to the cure and when mixed with alcohol they can be truly violent, I say, “Good. What time will I pick you up?”