Coraline
I stare at my phone and think about how to answer the text there.
Have you been at Agnes’s place?
And then I just don’t answer, stuff my phone into the front pocket of my hoodie.
Grant is slouched on my bed when I get back to my room, leaning against the stuffed animals and throw pillows that are piled
high.
“Get out,” I say, almost out of habit. I don’t really care if he’s in my room. He flops back on the mattress instead, puts
his sock feet up on the spread.
“Ew,” I say. “Get your disgusting feet off my sheets.”
“Want to play Red World?” he asks, ignoring me.
“Don’t you have to study for chem?”
“Just one game,” he says, holding up his iPad, offering me his goofy smile.
I push him off my bed, and he rolls dramatically onto the floor, landing with a thud on the beanbags there.
I put on my headset, grab my iPad, and enter the game.
He’s already in the locker room, choosing his skin.
Tonight, he’s a werewolf, clad in a torn-up denim jacket, holding a chainsaw.
The Wolf is ripped, and snarling. The complete opposite of my geeky, wimpy brother, who in spite of his size is tenderhearted.
Literally will not even kill bugs, carefully removes flies, spiders, even mosquitos outdoors instead of screaming and smashing them like I do.
They’re alive, Coraline! They have meaning!
I keep a lower profile on Red World. My avatar wears a simple black dress with tall lace-up boots, rocks a pink crew cut. My weapons of choice are carried in
a messenger bag, not immediately visible. Aunt Ana likes to talk about the pit viper. How it’s small and slow, doesn’t dart
off on your approach. It doesn’t have to. It’s the deadliest snake in the world. One bite and you’re done. Hence my name:
Viper.
In my bag I have a silver blade, Chinese stars and magic beans, deadly potions, harming herbs, also a first aid kit to tend
to wounds, which is often more powerful than the ability to hurt.
Grant and I make a good team in Red World. Brawn and brains. Sometimes you need both. We barely talk at school. Honestly, I actively avoid him because he’s so fucking
needy, always asking me for money, wanting to sit with my friends at lunch. But in the game, we slay.
“What’s up, mofos?”
It’s Autumn. Red World must have notified her that we were dropping in. Grant and I exchange a look. Because as much as I love my lifelong friend
and she’s a literal genius vying for the valedictorian spot at school, she is a liability in Red World. She is always getting killed or getting me killed. I’m constantly having to rescue her. And she has no assets—no Red Coin,
very few weapons, just the minimum of skins. And her avatar? Honestly, it’s embarrassing. “Fairy” has wings and an iridescent
shift dress, striped tights and pink shoes. She can fly; so that’s something.
I give her a high five on the game because I love her, and because in the real world I’m the liability a lot of the time.
I wouldn’t be getting higher than a C in pre calc or chem if not for her.
We’ve had each other’s backs since kindergarten.
And her parents only let her play Red World on the weekends, so it’s not like I have to deal with it all the time.
“Let’s do this,” she says, as the timer counts down.
“Slay,” says Grant, making his voice deeper.
Gawd, they are such hopeless nerds.
And then we’re in. Looks like we’ve landed in Haunted Amusement Park, and as soon as we hit the ground we’re fighting off
the zombies. The Wolf uses his chainsaw to behead a few of them. I fling a Chinese star, getting one right between the eyes.
Fairy is running away, screaming.
“Let’s try to find the Purple Diamond,” says The Wolf when Fairy calms down and returns.
“I’ve never seen it,” I answer, feeling a jolt of adrenaline: it’s a huge find that doubles your Red Coin balance.
“So hey,” says Autumn over my headset. “Wasn’t your aunt dating that guy who they found dead today?”
I blow a pouch of paralyzer dust into the faces of a couple of zombies coming up from behind us and they all fall to the ground
stiff as branches, then turn to red dust.
“Yeah,” I say, feeling a little flutter of unease.
“Are you freaked out?”
“They broke up.”
When Mom told us about Paul, I could tell that she was doing that new thing she’s doing since we all started therapy—speaking
more softly, asking about our feelings.
You spent some time with him at that July 4th barbecue, she said. Which was like a hundred years ago. So this must come as a shock. Would you like to talk about your feelings?
She sounded like our family shrink. At least she’s trying to be less of a controlling hard-ass.
Honestly, I never pay attention to Aunt Ana’s boyfriends. They’re like NPCs in the game. They’re just there. They don’t interact,
have a point, talk. They’re just set dressing essentially.
But that guy? He was creepy and weird. When he shook my hand, I got a weird feeling in my stomach. I caught him watching me when I took off my cover-up by the pool. I didn’t like the way Ana acted around him—meaner, edgier, somehow not herself.
The 4th of July barbecue wasn’t the last time I saw him.
“I don’t even really remember him,” says Grant, staring at his iPad.
“The tall one,” I said. “The one with the hair.”
Thick and shiny brown, it was all coiffed and stiff like LEGO hair.
I feel like my mom wanted to say more when we were talking about it but then didn’t. Also, she was looking at me like she
does when she thinks (or knows) I’ve done something bad and she’s just waiting for me to admit it. She’s been off and rattled
since we got home.
Ana, who was lying on the couch when we got in, left without saying goodbye. Usually she doesn’t leave, stays through dinner,
is annoying.
Then my mom went into the basement, to the room she thinks no one knows about. She only does that when she’s really upset.
“Do we have to go to the funeral?” asks Grant.
“Doubtful. I mean, we didn’t really know him.”
“You guys must be freaking out,” says Autumn. Her avatar Fairy is doing a little dance, and I have to zap a vampire that comes
up behind her.
“Yeah, I guess. Maybe a little.”
That seems like the right thing to say even though I couldn’t care less. And anyway, it doesn’t even seem real, like something
you would hear about on a true crime podcast.
“My mom knew him,” says Autumn. “They were on some charity committee together. She’s been crying all day.”
That makes me a little uncomfortable, like maybe I should be feeling more than I do. But something I’ve learned—you can pretend
to have the right feelings, but you can’t fool yourself into feeling something you don’t. I’ve tried.
“Yeah,” I say, trying to make my voice heavy. “It’s so sad.”
Another look from Grant, who knows me better than anyone. He’s wearing a ridiculously oversized T-shirt with some Lord of
the Rings map on it. Mordor Fun Run, it reads in old-timey lettering. We don’t simply walk.
Autumn is about to say something else when her avatar disappears into a burst of rainbow glitter. Behind her stands a towering
leather-clad, muscle-bound beast with a purple mohawk who we know in the game as Black Dahlia.
“There was no need for that,” I say into my headset.
“I just can’t deal with her tonight.”
“No one invited you.”
“Grant did.”
I look over at my brother, who avoids my eyes now but is turning a bright red. He has a mad forever crush on Dahlia; that’s
her name in the real world. Which I honestly don’t get. She’s not even that pretty; she’s got issues, is always in trouble.
“Hear about that guy who got killed?” says Dahlia. “They buried him in the park.”
“We knew him,” Grant jumps in. “He dated my aunt.”
“No shit?”
“Used to date him. They broke up a while ago,” I correct him, feeling a sudden rush of defensiveness for Ana. Family protects family. No matter what. A mom-ism, of which there are so many.
“My sister works at the ME’s office. They’re saying poison.”
My throat goes a little dry. A text bubble pops up on my phone.
My phone pings and there’s a text from Autumn: Wtf? She killed me for no reason.
“That’s messed up,” says Grant vaguely, though he shoots me another look.
I think about one of the other times I saw Paul.
He was with a woman, not my aunt. That’s when I knew for sure he was a bad guy.
I put him on “The List.” The list I keep of people I don’t like, who have hurt me, or someone I love, or who are just objectively bad.
The list is getting pretty long. The only people who know about it are Autumn and Ethan.
So, what’s your plan for these bad people? Ethan wanted to know.
I don’t know.
And is there any way to get off the list if you’re on it? And what if someone is just having a bad day when they wind up on
your list?
That’s Ethan for you. He’s a deep thinker. Me, not so much.
Grant’s avatar runs off to fight a group of zombies. Black Dahlia gives chase. Together they make short work of the undead.
I follow. I have to use some of the energy in my first aid kit to reattach The Wolf’s arm when it gets macheted off, spewing
digital blood everywhere.
The sky is turning pink. There’s not much time to find the doorway to the next level.
“Hey,” says Dahlia. “It’s over there.”
I see it now, too. She just saved us.
“Check it out,” I say. “Behind the tree. What’s that? Is it the Purple Diamond?”
Grant looks at me. “There’s no time.”
The Wolf starts moving toward the exit. But Dahlia heads over to the tree and I corner her there. No one, and I mean no one, fucks with the people I love.
I take a Chinese star from my bag, spend extra Red Coin for a death shot, and hit her right between her eyes.
“What the actual fuck?” she says, before her avatar disappears into a cloud of black glitter.
“What did you do that for?” asks Grant, scowling at me.
“I don’t like her.”
“You don’t just kill people you don’t like, Coraline.”
We both run then, heading for the doorway, and make it through the portal just before the red sky closes in and we both die.