The Curse and the Camazotz (2.3)

I’m under so many layers I look like some kind of Shay plushie. Plushay. My teeth have been clenched together for the past fifteen minutes because if they start chattering it feels like I’m being shot at. It’s nighttime, and I’m alone with Antoine, and he’s wearing short sleeves.

If there’s a monster out here, I want it to kill me now.

“Still no dead animals.” Antoine says, deadpan, finally sharing my frustration. When we got to the neighbourhood an hour ago, before dark, he was a little ray of sunshine. This is way better. I don’t feel like punching him anymore and I can complain all I want.

“We’re not gonna find anything. Whoever it is is attacking cats and dogs, which means they’re afraid of people finding them. A bunch of idiot teenagers combing the streets is just gonna convince them to skip a meal.”

“You agreed to this.”

I did.

“You agreed to… slicing up your arm, that doesn’t mean that was a good idea.” I say.

I know it’ll make him mad, but… I have to talk to him. The first few weeks we see each other after a summer apart and I make him bleed so bad he passes out. Bite his arm like a fucking cannibal to make it look real. I’m having fucking nightmares about it.

He turns around and shifts his arm to hide the scar.

“Hey, it wasn’t your fault. It was my idea. We all agreed.”

“Maybe we should stop agreeing to stupid shit that puts us in danger. ‘D solve a lot of problems.” I snark.

He sighs and leans against a dumpster.

“You don’t wanna be an Outliar, do you?”

He’s not mad. The truth of who he is shines out from his shadowed face like sunlight. He doesn’t blame me, doesn’t feel betrayed, wants to make me feel safe in whatever I’m gonna tell him. He wants to make up for leaving me alone for so long, having his own stuff to deal with. He wants to make me happy because what he asked me to do, it messed me up. It would’ve messed up anyone who had to see it, let alone cut into him themself, heard the gasps, watched the blood flow.

I sigh. Okay. No lying, Shay, he’s too sweet.

“I don’t give a shit about being an Outliar, dude. I want to be your friend again. This crap, this is being your friend, and don’t give me any bullshit about it being okay to keep my distance, because you want us to be friends again too.”

“Wow. I, uh…”

“I wanna be… chez Antoine. Back in middle school, you were my only friend because you don’t make me feel like shit for not being perfect. So I’m not gonna make you feel like a freak for helping people, even if it’s stupid and reckless and sucks and it’s cold outside and I have to… stab you with a knife sometimes. That’d be… that’d be really bullshit of me if I just left you alone and let you think you’d turned into the kind of asshole I always complain about.”

You better appreciate this. You’re getting Honest Shay. You know how rare that shit is?

He smiles the same broad smile he gives to everyone to reassure them, but this time, he capital-M, capital-I Means It. Relief floods my veins, even as I try to think of anything but veins. I Meant It too. He did something unspeakably cool, saved a life for no reason, and that deserves a reward. That should be how the world works. Fair. Fair to people like him.

“Thanks. You’re sure it’s okay we didn’t talk over the summer, ‘cause I—”

“Oh, god, who cares! Of course not, of course we’re cool, did you not hear me dude? Let’s just go find this… dumb freak. Serial killer who only hunts dogs, what a stupid premise. It’s like the world’s worst detective comic.”

The disengage. Instant classic. You do it on someone who’s not fundamentally insecure, the whole situation’s golden until you get deep with them again. Antoine’s gonna be riding the high of this for a month. That’s worth a little honesty. And the price really is just honesty, not actual vulnerability. Vulnerable means you could get hurt, and Antoine couldn’t hurt a fly’s feelings, let alone a friend’s.

His phone’s flashlight passes over a piece of garbage and he suddenly starts yelling and swearing like he saw a ghost. I roll my eyes, look, and freeze.

It’s not garbage. It’s a dead cat, ripped up like roadkill. Holy shit.

“Jesus! Okay, shit, we found the monster, I guess.”

“Do you see the monster? Or the… person, or whatever?” I say, trying to stay neutral on the thing’s identity.

It’s hard. I can see every detail of the torn-up animal on the alley pavement, even from here, and it’s hard to believe a human could have done it. A human besides me, an intrusive thought says. I glance involuntarily at Antoine’s arm, then at the mangled corpse. It looks chewed, stripped to the bone. Eaten, not killed for sport.

There’s no difference between a cat and any meat at the supermarket. Not biologically, not nutritionally. This isn’t like Cell—Jet says the vampirism, the drinking blood, has something to do with him being unable to metabolize iron properly, or something. We were stupid. I was stupid, I could’ve talked them out of this! It has to be a monster, it can’t be a person—not a sane person, not someone doing this for halfway normal reasons like, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, Cell.

Something jumps in the corner of my eye and I scream. Antoine takes a second to react, and when he looks it’s gone. I was always faster. I’ll always be faster. It’s part of the curse.

I saw it, skittering and whipping around, and I saw what it was attached to. It was pale and brown and edged like a locust. Its tail was barbed and frantic. It climbed. It must attack from above.

“Ant, we are getting the fuck out of here.” I say firmly.

He doesn’t say a word. We book it down the alleyway in the opposite direction, me holding onto his arm to keep up—or jerk him out of the way if something happens only I’m fast enough to see. My heart’s pounding and my legs are a numb blur underneath me, but it feels natural somehow. Anxiety’s a hell of a drug and I’ve worked up a tolerance. For once, the curse feels good.

It might not matter. I can hear it clattering against drainpipes and shingles and fire escapes, following, so fast and high it might as well be flying. Antoine’s pale, scattered, not ready for this. It isn’t something he can charm. He’s not used to it. All we have to do is get somewhere where there are other people—it’ll be fine then.

Other people. Shit! Jet! No, wait, Jet’ll be fine, but Sylvia, she’ll run headlong at this thing if she gets a whiff of mystery. Fuck!

The noise fades a few degrees. I think we’re faster.

“Ant, call Sylvia! Tell her we’re leaving, okay!?”

“Now!?” he shouts, looking back down the haunted, empty streets for the monster as he hoofs it up the pavement.

“Anytime you feel like, let’s just—make sure they’re safe!”

We stop in a streetlight and pant and stare. The rooftops are quiet. There’s clattering in the darkness but it could be anything. Wind, ventilation, a squirrel. Antoine takes out his phone with shaking hands and punches in Sylvia’s number like he’s done it a hundred times. He probably has.

I don’t blink. Things are quiet. Too quiet. Where is it? Why am I not hearing it move?

Wait. There it is.

“Sylv? Yeah, Sylv, it’s not a person, it’s some kind of… look, I don’t know how big it is or anything but it chased me and Shay down the street. Yeah, we’re okay, just, get out of Snowdon, okay, we’re gonna leave this one to O’Hagan I think.”

“Nobody ever said that.” I hiss.

“Okay, okay,” he says, clearly getting the same message from Sylvia, “we’ll talk about it, just tell Jet to go home, okay? We’ll talk about it later.”

I nudge him as he hangs up.

“It doesn’t want to come into the streetlight.”

“You mean you can see it!?” Antoine says, his voice rising in shock.

“Shut up. Yeah, it’s up there. It doesn’t want to come down here ‘cause of the light.”

He glances down the street at the next light. “So if we get to the main road…”

“Yeah.”

Man, are we pathetic. It takes us like five minutes to work up the courage to run to the next streetlight, and we scream like barbarians on our way there even though logically, I’m pretty sure the thing already left. I lost track of it, at least. We take a few deep breaths, then do the same thing all the way to the street. I’ve never been happier to see headlights and advertisements.

Terrified panting. Broken laughter. A shout of exultation—I don’t know if it’s me or Antoine, honestly. That was great. Like our very own horror movie. I’m so fucking happy I never have to do it again and Jet is going to be normal about this now. We almost died! The next vote is going to be 4-1 we leave parabiological bullshit alone. Shay 1, monsters 0. Finally, I can just—

“Hey, Shay…” Antoine says between deep breaths, clutching his hurt arm with his other hand, “what happens to Fionn when he pokes around here again?”

With a flashlight. At night. Like how Cell’s cousin’s friend or whatever described it.

I shut my eyes. All the joy and adrenaline in me scatters, like cockroaches do when you turn on the lights.

We have to warn Fionn O’Hagan. It’s a moral imperative.

I hate being a superhero.