Terrorscape (26 page)

She nodded at the keys. “Are you checking out?”
“So eager to be rid of me.”
“Yes.”

He smiled, and other piece of her splintered off
and fell away. “I'm sorry to disappoint you. But no,
I'm not.”

He looked down at the keys he was toying with.
“Actually, I believe these belong to you.”
He lobbed them at her.

She caught them, awkwardly. Once in hand, she
recognized them immediately; they were the keys to
her dorm, the ones that had been missing all this time.
Yes, there was the fob she had purchased from the
student bookstore, made of soft foam in the school's
colors, gold and blue, and the faded
H
.

“You stole my keys.”
“I merely borrowed them.”
“Why are you acting like this?”
Gavin tilted his head. “What way is that?”

He was right; she was exactly the same. She was
the one who had changed.
“Perhaps you should go,” he said.

Val stood, frozen.

 

“Mm, but first the matter of payment.”

Her mouth dropped and she felt heat rise up her
throat to color her cheeks. “Don't say it like that, you
bastard. I'm not a whore.”

“Your clue, Val, is protection.”

“A rook,” she said automatically. “The castle; it's a
fortress.” It was such an easy clue. Too easy. She
clapped a hand over her mouth. Was that the point?

“Yes,” he said. “Rather ironic, considering.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Now my dear, don't play coy.”
“I'm not.”

“Could it be—do you really not know? Oh my. I
knew that you were naïve, but I never once imagined
that you were stupid as well.”

“Tell me what you mean.”

“Haven't you felt at all different?” He ran the
back of his hand along her belly. “You certainly taste
different. Sweeter, almost. Riper.”

“No,” she said, “no.”

“What's the matter, Valerian? Don't you think I'd
make a
good
father? I do so love children. Of course
there remains the question of what to do with you. I
could marry you,” he mused, “but that would be
according you too much dignity, wouldn't it?”
“I would never marry you,” she snarled.

“You would,” he said, with a deathly calm. “But
you will get nothing but what I choose to give you—
and what I give will only be given when you come
asking on your knees. Who else do you have? As you
told me, you have no friends, no family, who do not
believe you to be either deranged or psychotic or
both.”

She struck him, hard enough to make something
crack. She hoped it was his nose. Probably not. The
windows rattled in their frames long after Val had
slammed the door behind her.

▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

I can't be pregnant.
But she could. That was the thing. She
could
.

Val was the only passenger on the bus. Most
students didn't go this way, and it was too early for
the afternoon commute. She watched
Sequoia Ave
shift
to
1:05 P.M.
on the LED display.

Time had ceased to hold any real meaning a long
time ago. She often felt as if she were in one of those
nightmares where an entire semester had passed in
the blink of an eye only for her to realize at the end
that she had neglected to attend any of her classes.

When she saw the college parking lot she reached
up to yank the stop cord. Some functions, at least,
were preserved by sheer automatism.

The drive pulled up beside the curb and the
swinging motion matched the butterfly swarm in her
stomach.

But is that all there is to it? Or was he lying?

Lying or not, Gavin had never used protection.
Even if she wasn't pregnant, she could have—all sorts
of problems. It simply had never occurred to her to
buy a morning after pill or go to Planned Parenthood
for an STD screening. It had never occurred to her
because that would be admitting to herself that this
was really happening, that it
wasn't
a nightmare.

But the nightmare had happened anyway; in the
face of all else, she had failed to take care of herself
and now she was reaping the consequences.

Was she now paying the price?

“Hey—you pulled the cord. Are you getting off or
not?” The bus driver sounded impatient, and Val
flushed with unhappy embarrassment.

“Actually…where's the nearest clinic?”

 

The driver gave her a look that was equal parts
pity, sanctimoniousness, and scorn. “You'll need to
get on the downtown express line.”

The women at the clinic were very nice, kind and
brisk in their efficiency. They drew some blood in a
vial, made her pee in a cup. They gave her a pap
smear, asked about her period, and studied her
breasts. They took down her cell phone number and
told her the results would be ready in a few days.
They gave her pamphlets she could not focus on, and
advice it was already too late to heed.

Maybe she was infected. Maybe she was rotting
from the inside-out. Syphilis did that, didn't it? Ate
away at you from within, made you crazy.

Stop that
, she told herself.
You stop that right now
.
Was she crazy, or was she sick? What was insanity
if not an illness of the mind?

She returned to campus feeling as despondent as
ever. Now here she was, feeling as though she were
traversing across two great extremes—one real, one
surreal. At the moment, she was unable to tell the
difference.

She was taken aback by the sight of a police car.
Several police cars. Like a horde of sharks that had
just picked up the scent of fresh blood, they were
circled around the lot facing the campus green belt.

A crowd of students and teachers were standing
idle watching as the men in blue uniforms crawled
around the area like ants. Val turned to the nearest
person at hand, a heavier girl in a Jimmy Eat World
shirt. Hesitating, Val said, “W-what happened?”

“They found a dead body in the creek.”
Val sucked in a breath. “Dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Did they say who?”

The girl's eyes flicked over her. “I have no idea,”
she said crisply. She walked away to the other side of
the lot where a group of similarly attired girls were
standing, leaving Val stinging from the slight.

Mary came bounding up out of nowhere, pushing
through the crowd. Startled, Val stood frozen like a
deer in the headlights as the black girl wrapped her
arms around her. Mascara ran down her cheeks in
soupy black streaks.

“Val! Oh, thank God. Val—when you didn't show
up last night, I thought you were with him.”
“With
who?”
Val
yelped.
“What
happened?
What's going on?”

A stone formed in the pit of her stomach where it
sat conspicuously as Mary looked at her with pity.
“Jade. It was Jade. The Nature Club found his body
on their morning hike. He's—dead.”
Dead?

“Val?”

Her lips mouthed the word silently—dead—as if
it were a curse or incantation too horrible to be
spoken aloud.

“Val?”

 

Her name seemed to be coming from the other
end of a tunnel. She disregarded it.

 

He was alive just a—

When? When had she seen Jade last? She had
heard nothing—nothing—from him for days. All this
time, she thought he had been angry at her, and yes,
maybe he had been at first, but this…this was worse
than anything she could have anticipated.

And then there was the box. The horrible box
with the mutilated bishop, overflowing with fake
blood. The warning.

Beneath her feet the ground began to slant. Her
ears rang. Val tried to block out the terrible sound.
This was no accident. Jade had been
murdered
.

Because of her.

 

Because she couldn't solve the grandmaster's
stupid mind games.

 

“Val!”

The
words
were
even
fainter
now,
almost
inaudible. That incessant buzz had taken on the earsplitting quality of a mosquito's high-pitched whine.

A bad smell sliced through the fog. Val opened
her eyes, which she could not remember closing,
coughing, and took in a cloudless sky and Mary's
worried face. A man in white uniform stood by,
replacing a small brown bottle in his bag.

“Are you all right?”

 

Val shook her head. Her eyes were watering, and
it wasn't entirely from the ammonia.
Oh God.
“You
should
lie
down,”
Mary
said,
“that
paramedic, he said you were in shock.”

 

“Yeah,” said Val. “Shock.”

 

“You want me to take you back to the dorms? Can
you walk?”

 

“Yeah,” Val said. “Walk.”

If Jade—she couldn't bring herself to say that
terrible
word,
body—had
just
been
found
this
morning, then his death must have been recent. GM
was nothing if not resourceful, but even he couldn't
run all the way to the college, commit murder, and
then sneak back into his room. Not unless he had
killed him remotely. A trap, poison…

Not unless he hadn't killed him recently.

Val grasped Mary's wrist. She missed the first
time, and had to try twice. “When did he die?”
“I don't think we should talk about that.”

“Please.”
“Val…you're hurting me.”
“
Tell me
.”

“I don't know. The cops said he'd probably been
dead a while before they found him.” Mary shook her
head. “The things they were saying…thank God we
didn't see him. It sounded horrible, just like—”

Just like what? Like the chess piece?
Had he been cut in half?
“Poor Jade. He didn't deserve that.”
“Val, who
does
?”
To which Val did not have an answer.

I never feel safe anymore. I can't be alone. I can't be in
crowds. He's always there, watching me. And I can't
escape. Not unless I die—

Or he does.

“You must think I'm royally fucked up,” Val said,
pushing away from her as the two of them stumbled
into the door.

“I think you're the bravest person I know.”
Bullshit.
She popped a sleeping pill, and waited
for darkness.

Chapter Twenty
Butterfly Weed

How easy it was to hurt her now. He smiled to
himself, toying with the metal object in his hand as he
walked towards the garishly painted building. If he
was being perfectly honest, it was almost too easy.

That dawning horror on her beautiful, ravaged
face, though—that would give him pleasure for days
to come. But it was not mere schadenfreude, nor even
sadism. No, it was far more than that.

What they had was a savage, endless cycle of
avoid and approach, plateau and decline. It was
dynamic, sustaining him as no stable relationship
ever had, and he thrived on it.

A short, dark-skinned young woman passed him
on the stairwell. He recognized her instantly. The
roommate. She glanced his way and he allowed an
absent smile to settle on his lips, a parody of
camaraderie. It worked; she continued down the hall.

He glared at her departing back, irate. He did not
want her to be here. Her presence complicated things.
But only a little.

He used the key to enter. It had been simple to get
a copy done, even on such short notice. Tragic, really,
how morality disappeared in a puff of smoke when a
bit of lucre entered the equation.

The door swung open, revealing a messy room
denoting a female presence. Clothes cluttered every
available surface, and the décor was very much
feminine.
None
of
these
things
interested
him,
however; he had seen them before.

It was the unmarked envelope on the doormat
that held his interest. Black, grainy, almost like thick
crepe. He slid the envelope open and as he suspected,
several photographs spilled out. Polaroids of course.

All of Val.

He reached into his coat and produced another
set. These were fewer in number, and he was the
subject in all of them. He tucked both sets of pictures
into his coat.
The copy wishes to challenge the original.

How tedious. How dull. What a waste of his time.
He did not approve of taking such risks for so little of
consequence, but confrontation seemed inevitable.

The occupant of the room made a sound that
attracted his attention. He picked his way towards the
bed, taking care to sidestep the various obstacles
littering his path. When his shadow fell over her like a
cloak to block out the light from the sun she shivered.

He smiled.

Truly, she was quite lovely. Quick and intelligent,
but subordinate to him in all ways. The perfect mate.
Several minutes passed in silence marked by the rise
and fall of her chest with each gentle breath.

Life fascinated him precisely because one's grip
on it was so tenuous; it could end at any moment.
His eyes drifted to the jar of pills on the
nightstand. He tilted his head to read the label and
then clicked his tongue. Foolish to dull the senses, to
leave oneself so prone. He climbed onto the bed and
knelt over her, savoring the warmth of her inert body.
He ran his thumb over her pulse. If he killed her now,
she would seamlessly slip from dreams to death.

But he would not kill her. Not the mother of his
unborn child.

With the tips of his fingers he tilted her face
towards him and kissed her—gently at first, but when
she parted her lips to inhale he deepened the kiss,
sliding his hand down her breast to lie over her
stomach. She stirred, and her breathing changed.

She had always been slender, willowy even, but
her belly was now slightly distended. Not enough to
show, but noticeable if one knew what to look for. He
nudged his fingers beneath her shirt to cup the taut
flesh beneath. Fertile, lush, and carrying his offspring.
He sketched abstract patterns around her navel and
thought he might even detect the musky scent of her
arousal. His erection strained against his fly when she
made a soft, low sound, causing him physical pain.

Her body wanted him, even if she herself did not.

He was tempted to oblige it, but there was no
pleasure to be had in the act of conquering if it were
not proceeded by a battle. The sentiment was shared
by man and beast alike; even a wolf knew the
difference between a fresh kill and carrion.