32
A strange sort of calm settled over me. I wasn’t scared of him.
Why would I be? He looked so small, so pathetic, stumbling over loose bits of stone, shirt untucked, tie flopping long and loose around his neck.
He had his phone’s flashlight on, and the beam of light spilled down and puddled around his feet, illuminating fancy square-toed leather shoes, already caked in dirt and mud.
It had worked. My plan had worked. I’d brought him here. I’d done that.
I wasn’t an adequately competent business administrator. I was an epic business administrator. The sort that could bully another business administrator into sending their CEO out to a remote location, alone, at night.
If that’s not highly advantageous business strategy, I don’t know what is.
All I needed to do now was scare him. Scare him into confessing.
Scare him into revealing something. Scare him so badly that he’d never be able to hurt anyone ever again.
That should be easy. He was, after all, a coward piece of shit, and I was, after all, a ghost. Being spooky was my whole brand.
But even if I did mess up, even if all the rattling chains in the world wouldn’t change him, I was keeping him off balance, I was keeping him confused, I was keeping him busy.
Too busy to notice his wife was out of town for the evening.
Too busy to figure out that there might be other pieces at play.
It’s worth a shot. That was what I’d told Nicola. That was what I’d told myself as I’d wriggled through the cat flap, as I’d staggered across town, as I’d dialed in his company’s number. It’s worth a shot. It’s worth a shot. It’s worth a shot.
And it was. After all, what was he going to do? Kill me?
The thought made my spider legs rattle with a toxic mix of bitter, silent laughter and sick, churning rage.
He swiveled toward me, squinting. “Hello?”
He couldn’t see me. Or perhaps he could but, in the darkness, didn’t think I was anything other than a shadow, a stone, or a discarded pile of scrap metal.
Either way, he didn’t bother to shine his phone’s light in my direction.
He just turned back to the screen with a mumbled curse and started tapping.
Slowly, silently, I reached up with one claw and squeezed the ancient GoPro duct-taped to my carapace. The red recording light blinked on.
I hadn’t expected to get this far. I hadn’t tested the camera. I’d just fished it out of the back of Nicola’s drawer, taped it on, and set out. Hopefully, it’d be able to capture something. A panicked confession. A desperate plea. A frantic—
My phone began to ring. It was one of those old ringtones, a high-pitched string of digital chirps, hollow and off-key. The notes bounced around the dark, empty lot, off the half-finished walls, and around my hollow porcelain skull.
This time, Kyle did shine the light in my direction, but too high. It went over my head, illuminating nothing. He swore again, louder.
I hadn’t expected him to call me back . . . but I was glad he did.
I flipped open my phone and jabbed the glowing green call button.
“Hello, Kyle.”
My voice crackled from his phone, small and swimming in static. He had me on loudspeaker. That was good. It made this next bit easy.
“Hi,” he said, voice oddly thin, hands shaking. “Is this . . . eh . . . Stacy from—”
“Stacy James from Earnsway Construction Suppliers?” I replied, my tone pitching up until it was peppy, pretty, and professional. “Is that who you were hoping to reach?”
“Yes. Are you her? I was told there was a shipment arriving at the construction site, but I’m here and—”
“I’m sorry. Stacy’s not available right now. Isn’t that a shame. I guess you’re going to have to talk to me.” My voice dropped as I spoke, became rough, became mean, became me. “And, bad news for you, I’m not interested in discussing any shipment.”
“Who—” he began.
“You know who I am.”
I heard his breathing through the phone’s speakers, rushed and ragged.
“You’re . . . you’re Nicola Novkovi?. This is AI. This is—”
“My name is Lucy May McQuinn,” I said, the words ugly and unnatural in the air. “You came to my house. You waited by the door while I put my dog in the other room. You pinned me down on green carpet and strangled me in my Hello Kitty pajamas. Would an AI know that, Kyle?”
Kyle spun around, the light from his phone dancing from shadow to shadow, his heavy breathing duplicated by my phone’s tinny speakers.
“I could sue you,” he said, fast, angry, scared.
“You understand, you fucking freak? I could end you. I thought you got the message last time. But I guess you’re too fucking desper—”
“Nicola isn’t here.”
“Bullshit she isn’t. I know it’s you. I know—”
“It’s just you and me, Kyle. Just like it was that night. Just you, and me.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Rage rushed through me, arctic cold and screaming like wind, like rain, like the storm at the end of the world. Brutal, bestial, biblical.
“You did this,” I snarled, my bolts twisting, metal joints squealing. “You did all of this. Not me. You. Why did you do it?”
The world blazed white as his light finally landed on me, blinded me. I didn’t care. I didn’t care if he saw me. Actually, I wanted him to see me. I wanted him to understand what he’d made me . . . and what that meant for him.
I dropped the flip phone in the dirt at my feet and slowly, mockingly, waved one claw at him.
“Is this some sort of joke?”
“Why’d you do that to me, Kyle?”
“I never did anything to you that you didn’t want,” he said, voice rough.
“You’re crazy. You’re fucking crazy. This whole setup is insane.
What? You think you can bring me out here, make a scary toy, use a dead girl’s voice, and I’ll confess?
You’re sick, Nicola. You’re sick! I’m married to Ginger.
What happened between us is ancient hist—”
“My name is Lucy May McQuinn. You killed me. You held me down and—”
He stormed toward me, sudden and fast, the white blaze of his phone’s light blinding me, not giving me any time to react.
The only thing I saw was the square toe of his leather shoe as it struck me, hard enough that my metal limbs snapped back, a bolt shearing out of my joint.
I scrambled away, shocked, though I wasn’t sure why.
I should’ve known he’d do this. I should’ve—
He kicked me again, hitting me directly in the middle, sending me flying.
I spiraled through the air, limbs flailing, vision a blur of white light, moonlight, his light, and deep inky darkness. I crashed into a puddle, clawing frantically, but my metal feet slipped off the mud, the dirt.
I saw Kyle striding forward, shrugging off his blazer and throwing it into the dirt.
“I don’t care what you think you know!” he yelled. “You’ve got nothing. Nothing. You’re just a sad loser who couldn’t let it go. If you had anything against me, you’d be at the police station. But you don’t. You’re nothing, Nicola. Nothing.”
He grabbed me, fingers clenching tight around my Meccano limbs, yanking me up into the air.
I grabbed at his wrists, my claws sinking into his skin, drawing blood, but he didn’t let me go.
He’d dropped his phone. It lay on the ground, the light shining up, painting the underside of his jaw, nose, and brows, transforming his eyes into black pits, his snarl into a dark, gaping hole.
I could see the lines of his grimace, carved deep and familiar into his skin, smell the stale stink of his sweat, hear the angry, wet hiss of his breath.
“Lucy May McQuinn died years ago,” he snarled. “No one cares about her anymore. No one but you.”
You killed me, I tried to say, but the words stayed silent, trapped in my mind. I’d dropped my phone, lost focus. You killed—
He threw me down into the ground. Hard. Hard enough that I felt one of my limbs bend and another break. Hard enough that the back of my porcelain skull crunched as it hit the dirt beneath me. Hard enough that, for a single, shocking moment, I thought he’d killed me again.
I lay there, muddy, stunned, limbs shaking with fear, with shock, with grief rising, raging through me, as violent as it had been when I’d first detached from my body, limbs numb, throat a knot of agony.
He’d pushed me down, held me down, crushed the life out of me.
And now he was going to do it again. He’d turned on me so quickly, so easily.
Just like last time. I should’ve known. I should’ve been ready.
He lifted his foot to stomp down on me, crush me.
I screamed, harsh, angry. The time stream pushed at me, rough and choppy and mean. I wrestled it down, frantically, desperately, smashing myself into the current, begging it to hold.
Kyle slowed, then stopped, frozen, like a statue.
I scrambled away from him, bits of broken porcelain trailing behind me, my legs squeaking and wobbling with each step.
Hopelessness throttled me, choked me, pressed me down, my throat collapsing, my lungs burning, my fingernails clumped with blood and skin.
Except I didn’t have fingernails. I didn’t have lungs either.
I was already gone, already dead, clinging to a flimsy, fragile old toy because I was too scared of letting go, too scared of what lay beyond, too angry, too sad, too pathetic to just accept what had happened.
I collapsed several meters away from him, clutching my metal limbs, as if that would make the storm throttling me any kinder, as if that would hold me together when everything felt like it was falling apart.
He’d killed me.
He’d killed me and he didn’t even care.
I knew that. It shouldn’t have been a surprise.
But somehow, hearing it in his voice, seeing the twist of his face, feeling the squeeze of his fingers, made it real all over again.
He’d done this to me. He’d done all of it.
And he didn’t care. Not enough to come forward.
Not enough to admit it, even here, even now, in this dark, empty place.