8
It wasn’t much of a training montage. There was no “Eye of the Tiger” playing, that was for damn sure. But slowly, bit by bit, I figured out how to get the foaming mass of rage inside me to rise up, and then how to hold it.
It was all very . . . dark side of the Force.
Unleash your anger, let the hate flow through you, strike him down, et cetera, et cetera.
Except, in Star Wars, the bad guys could strangle people with their minds and shoot lightning from their fingers. All I could do was jerk, twist, and shudder my way forward, one centimeter at a time.
But I was doing it. I was moving.
Slowly, in fits and starts, I maneuvered myself forward, flopping to the side and then onto my back. I must’ve been a load-bearing doll, because the cowgirl, the ballerina, and the schoolteacher all collapsed in a heap.
Sorry, ladies. I’ve got places to be, arseholes to kill, you know how it is.
The absurdity of that thought made me want to laugh, a high, manic, angry sort of laugh that would’ve probably suited my creepy little doll body to a T.
But I couldn’t laugh. I couldn’t do anything but continue to drag myself toward the edge of the shelf. It looked like the edge of a cliff. The wood mottled brown, the varnish cracked, the edge a razor-sharp line.
A part of me thought I should probably be a little more apprehensive of that drop.
I was on the top shelf and my head was made of porcelain, a material not famous for its durability.
But another part of me, the bigger part, was too emotionally exhausted to give a shit.
I needed to get off this bookcase, and there was no way I was navigating a climb when I could still barely move. A little gravity assist wouldn’t hurt.
Sure, it might smash me to pieces, but it wouldn’t kill me.
The impulse to manically laugh bubbled back up. Probably a trauma response. Definitely a trauma response. But so what? I was a murder victim. If anyone was allowed to be a little fucked up, it was me.
The clock was still doing the whole sometimes-fast-sometimes-slow-sometimes-totally-normal routine. I ignored it. It didn’t matter if my perception of falling off the shelf happened in slow-mo action replay or Looney Tunes levels of fast-forward. Either way, I was going down.
It took me a long time, but eventually I managed to flop the front half of my body over the edge. My veil swung forward, lifting off my face, and for the first time I got a clear look at the threadbare green carpet below me.
The spot where I was murdered.
The memory wasn’t gentle. It surged up like a wave of black, polluted water, smashing into me, submerging me, pulling me down. My throat crushed, my fingers clawing, my lungs burning.
Why did Kyle do that to me?
Why couldn’t I stop him?
What’s going to happen now?
I was going to rip Kyle to fucking pieces, that was what was going to happen.
I was going to ride in on Cookie like I was the goddamned Witch-king of Angmar atop a fell beast. He was never going to university.
He was never getting that stupid start-up off the ground.
He was never going to do what he’d done to me to anyone else. He was dead.
With a sharp, ferocious kick, I pushed myself off the shelf.
For a short, terrifying second, I felt my stuffing shift inside me as I fell.
My skirts billowed back, my limbs flopped and knocked together, my blonde ringlets slapped my wide, staring eyes.
A wild, frantic part of me tried to scream.
Another wondered, almost coldly, if it would hurt when I broke.
It didn’t.
I didn’t.
I stopped with a jerk, my limbs snapped forward, my hair dropped out of my eyes.
I wasn’t on the ground. I was hanging roughly thirty centimeters above it.
My stitches screamed in protest as I twisted my head, just enough to see the ratty old hem of my dress snagged on the protruding edge of an ancient encyclopedia.
Fuck. Fuck. No. It was OK. It was good, actually. If I fell from this height, I wouldn’t get hurt. Maybe. I could do this. Just . . .
I kicked my legs, trying to shake loose, but only succeeded in rocking myself gently back and forth. I grabbed on to my skirt, pulling it sharply, but my porcelain hands were useless—palms open, fingers melded together.
I could’ve been a cowgirl.
Heck, even the ballerina’s tutu or the schoolteacher’s hand with an apple glued into it would’ve been better than this.
I hung for a moment, my anger exhausted. The room spun slowly around me, the angle sickeningly strange after so long up high. The birdcages, the sewing machine, the old stripy wallpaper.
There was a puddle-shaped stain on the carpet that hadn’t been there before—big and faint, but enough to be noticeable. I wondered if it was vodka. I wondered if it was piss. People wet themselves when they died, right? I hoped so. I hoped I’d pissed on Kyle.
A rumble, like thunder, but closer, uglier.
Slowly, my stitches pulling sharp at the fabric of my neck, I looked up.
Cookie was standing in the doorway. He was so still that for a moment I thought time had frozen again.
But no. I was still swinging, the clock was still ticking—slower than normal, but not by much—and Cookie was staring at me, hackles up, tail as stiff as a stick behind him.
Hey, I thought, trying to telepathically project the world into his head. Hey, boy. It’s me.
He growled again, the sound slowed and deepened, full of menace.
I racked my mind for something I could do to scare him off. All I could think of was that old poster hanging up at the swimming center. What to Do in Case of Shark Encounter. Someone had crossed out “Encounter” and written “Attack” in spiky red letters.
Step One: Don’t panic.
Step Two: Don’t swim away.
Step Three: Beg God for mercy. This one had been added by the graffitist with the red marker.
The real step three wasn’t much better.
Step Three: Spread your arms and legs, make yourself look as big as possible.
Step Four: If it moves toward you, strike it in the nose, eyes, or gills.
There was no step five, but the red marker had drawn a skull and crossbones at the bottom of the poster.
I couldn’t swim away even if I tried, and I didn’t think I could punch Cookie in the nose either. I summoned up as much anger as I could and spread my limbs, slowly, into the shape of a starfish.
It’s me, boy. Please don’t hurt me. Please don—
Time blurred.
Cookie was suddenly in my face, cavernous maw open, teeth as long as my hand.
Terror roared inside me, wild and desperate.
I kicked and clawed at my skirt, trying to break free, but it was too late.
Cookie’s jaws closed around my middle, hot breath rushing over me like the wind.
He pulled me off the bookcase with a jerk that tossed my head back so sharply I felt a thread snap.
I knew what Cookie did to toys. He ripped them up, spitting out stuffing and cracking any hard bits between his teeth. Then, when he was done, he picked up the pieces, wriggled out the too-small doggy door in the kitchen, and buried them in the backyard.
I imagined the shallow grave, dirt and clay and darkness, pinning me down, crushing me.
I felt like I was choking.
I felt like I was dying.
I felt Kyle’s hands around my neck.
Another blur.
When the world snapped back into focus, I wasn’t underground. I wasn’t in pieces either. I was on the sofa, slumped over on my side, my face pressed against the coarse brown fur on Cookie’s flank. He was curled around me protectively, snoring deep and slow.
I reached out and laid my arm, twitching and weak with relief, gently against Cookie’s massive side.
Thanks, boy.
He kept snoring.
Cookie had never been a super smart dog.
His one trick was “sit,” and even that was a little flaky.
He was also unaware of the fact that he was a big, scary sort of dog.
He seemed to think he was of the small, fluffy variety, and couldn’t clock how terrifying he was to the chihuahuas at the dog park.
But whenever I’d had a bad day at school, he’d always somehow known.
He’d sat with me, thumped his tail against the floor, or just rested his too-heavy head on my lap.
Perhaps that instinct helped him recognize me. If so, he knew it was me and he was keeping me safe. Or maybe he was just saving his new toy for later. If that was the case, I didn’t have much time. Even so, it was hard, against the warmth of his body, to hold on to my anger.
It took me a few minutes to find the strength needed to turn my head and look around.
The living room. Stacks of books, DVDs, and PS2 games, and old brown curtains, too small for the window, kept closed with a line of rainbow safety pins.
There was a pile of paper on the coffee table.
I saw my face printed on the top page, flushed and smiling.
The words below that photo seemed to smear together.
Missing . . . last seen . . . if you have any information . . .
My family didn’t know I was dead. I’d known that was probably the case. Kyle had days to hide my body. Days before Grandma came home. But having it confirmed sucked me deeper into the storm, the violence of my despair raging around me.
My head throbbed, my eyes burned, my stuffing felt clumped in my throat. I wanted to cry in relief, but no tears came.
It was an alien sort of agony. The need for a release that I could never have again. The remembered reactions of a body I no longer had. A body that was probably rotting away in a shallow grave on the outskirts of town.
The TV’s screen glowed gray, not all the way on, but never quite off either.
I couldn’t stop.