Heartless Read online

  “Look out,” I cried, and I swung my wet towel at the curtains. The flames sizzled and smoked as I swung again and again. Soon, they died down to a low, shimmering smolder. Eli stopped my arm from swinging, and then tugged the remaining fabric down from the curtain rod. He stomped on the dying embers.

  “That was close,” he said, as Lucy collapsed on the bed. “What in God’s name is going on?”

  “I don’t know, but…”

  Once again, I was cut off, this time by the shrill cries of the fire alarm as it roared to life throughout the building. Never one to enjoy a good, high-pitched alarm, I brought my hands to my ears as the sound cut through my head in a whole new way. “Make it stop,” I shouted.

  “It’s the smoke from the fire,” said Lucy. “We have to go. Quick, blow out all the candles!”

  “I can’t go out like this,” I said. “People will see me!”

  Our voices grew louder and louder to be heard over the alarm’s shrieks.

  “I don’t know what to do!”

  Meanwhile, Eli went around the room, blowing out all the candles and stuffing them into drawers and closets. He shoved the remnants of the burnt curtain beneath the bed. “Lucy, get your coat,” he said, ignoring our panic. When she didn’t respond, he added, “Now. We’ll meet you in the hall.”

  She ran to her room through the bathroom in the sudden, loud, and velvety darkness.

  I turned to Eli. “What about me?” I said. I hated the pleading I heard in my voice, the fear. I hated needing anyone to tell me what to do, but I was out of ideas. “Are you going to shove me under the bed too?”

  “No,” he said. “They’ll search the rooms to see what set off the alarm. You have to get out of here too.”

  “But I’m falling apart!”

  “So we cover you up,” he said. “Don’t worry, you’ll see.”

  And he reached over and picked up a blanket from my bed. He draped it over my head, then wrapped it under my chin, kerchief-style. “Here,” he said. “Hold it like this. We’ll keep you in the shadows. No one will even notice you.”

  He reached through the blanket, took hold of my arm, and led me, the reluctant one this time around, out into the teeming chaos of the hall.

  Outside, students clustered around each other, huddled together for warmth. Eli, Lucy, and I stood apart, in silence, beneath a copse of trees. As I watched people hold onto each other, clinging together to conserve body heat as firemen entered the dorms, I thought about what this would have been like the week before. I pictured the three of us, on a normal night. Eli would have stood in the middle, and he’d have held Lucy and me close, an arm around each of us. We’d have been like the three amigos, all snuggly and warm and normal. Just like all the kids around us.

  Instead, we stood apart, and though Lucy and Eli stood protectively between me and the rest of the Calvin Hall student body, no one touched. Lucy hopped up and down in the cold, her own comforter pulled tight around her, covering her coat, her hat, her arms and legs, as she froze, untouched in the night.

  Eli had been wrong. To me, standing in our self-contained silos, we were as obviously hiding something as a kid sneaking out of a candy store with a fistful of licorice.

  I felt more alone than I’d ever felt. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit something so hard my hands would bleed.

  I wanted my blood back. My normal life. My old problems: fights with Eli, trouble in Chemistry. I was sick of this new life, this new normal, and I’d have given anything to be up in my bed, safe and warm and no longer undead.

  But it wasn’t meant to be, and even our new normal was soon interrupted.

  “You kids causing more trouble?” said a dark, husky voice behind us. “Somehow I’m not surprised to see you here.”

  We all jumped and turned.

  “Crap,” Eli whispered. I heard him, though, and I shot him a warning look that he probably missed in the darkness.

  Officer Strong stood, leaning against a tree, watching us. I melted backward as Eli and Lucy stepped forward.

  “Officer Strong,” said Lucy. “So nice to see you again. Aren’t you freezing? I’m freezing.”

  Eli was less friendly. He only nodded in the officer’s direction.

  Strong looked right at me. “I’ve been keeping an eye on things around here,” he said. “Don’t want you to turn up missing again, do we, Miss Hall? I see you and your boyfriend have patched things up?”

  I gave Lucy a look, begging her to take over, but she hesitated. So I nodded. “Yes,” I said, as brightly as I could muster. “We had a long talk after you came by this morning. It was a stupid fight and we’re back together.”

  Why do you care? I silently asked.

  Strong turned his gaze on Eli, who stepped closer to me, though he kept his arms pinned at his sides. “So,” Strong said. “I don’t have to expect any more phony reports.”

  Lucy laughed. Hard. To my ears it sounded fake, but I knew her better than most, and I hoped Strong wouldn’t notice. “Oh, Officer Strong,” she said, and walked closer to him. “You’re so funny.” She slid her blanket back from her head, letting it fall prettily around her shoulders.

  She looked like a snow queen, and he finally noticed. “Lucy,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your last name earlier.” He smiled at her. “You look different from earlier, don’t you?”

  I’d seen that look on the eyes of plenty of boys and men before. Lucy had that effect on them. She noticed it too.

  “It’s probably because I’ve showered,” she said, tossing her head and laughing. “So tell me, are you stalking me?”

  I thought I saw a dark cloud pass before Strong’s eyes, but it was probably just a flicker of light.

  Nearby, the fire truck turned off its sirens and the firemen climbed back in. A cheer went up among the students as lights suddenly blazed forth from Calvin Hall. The crisis had ended; the power was back on.

  Strong laughed. “No, I’m just making sure nothing else goes wrong for your friend here,” he said. “They like me to keep an eye out after a report like the one your boyfriend filed goes down. It’s not that unusual. Especially in light of…” He trailed off, staring around him as other students began filtering back into the dorm. He held out a hand to keep us there.

  “In light of what?” Eli asked. He sounded aggressive, angry.

  Strong shot him a warning look. “Watch it, buddy,” he said. The he glanced around again, the look of someone convinced he was being followed. “I guess I can tell you three this. Can I trust you to keep a secret?”

  We exchanged looks, the three of us, and all nodded, solemnly, like little children taking a sacred vow. Lucy even held up a hand, pinkie outstretched, in typical pinkie-swear fashion. No one else swore with her, though.

  “All right, then,” Strong said, dropping his voice a few decibels lower. “Let’s just say that Miss Hall’s disappearance isn’t the first disappearance that’s been reported among young, college-age girls recently. And let’s just say she’s the first one who’s turned back up, seemingly fine. But let’s also say that the police chief is worried, and asked me to keep a special close eye on Miss Hall, and also on the ambassador’s daughter. Lucy, I hear that’s you?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Because if an ambassador’s daughter turns up missing, it would mean big things, even bigger than we know, could be afoot. So it’s my job now to keep an eye on you both, to make sure nothing further goes wrong.”

  “But Officer Strong,” I said, my voice strained and tense, “I was never missing. I told you that.”

  He gave me a look, eyeing me up and down. I pressed myself further back into the shadows. The chaos surrounding us had died down as all the students reentered the building, and suddenly we four stood alone outside the dorm, in the darkness.

  “I don’t think I believe you, Miss Hall,” Strong said, and then he turned his glare on Eli. “I’m not sure I believe any of you. But until I have proof, I can�
��t do anything but watch, and wait, and make sure things move smoothly from here.”

  With that, he turned on his heel and strode off into the night, his boots crunching in the snow.

  “What the…” Eli said.

  “Heck,” Lucy finished for him.

  I let my blanket fall to the ground and covered my face with my hands. Closing my eyes, I willed my thoughts to stop churning. Nothing Strong said would matter, if only we could find the people who did this to me and convince them to turn me back into a normal girl. Then we would be fine. That had to be the priority.

  When I dropped my hands, I saw Lucy and Eli staring at me, their skin pink and vibrant and alive in the cold. They looked concerned.

  “Screw it,” I said, taking each of them by the arm and heading back toward the building. “Screw it all. Let’s get back upstairs. There’s still that boulder in my room we need to deal with.”

  From the OoA files, dated February 15

  Memorandum:

  Efforts to apprehend Subject 632G-J have been unsuccessful. She is proving wily, whether she realizes it or not. She remains in public places, heavily surrounded by other students and faculty.

  If we are unable to return her to the lab and our study within the next 48 hours, damage to her person will become irreversible; we will be faced with no other option than termination of Subject 632G-J.

  Retrieval efforts redoubled. We must bring her in quickly and silently. She is a valuable success story that must be studied further.

  Additionally, new subject identified. She will be Subject 679G-L. Photo to be provided with official Subject Memorandum.

  Back in the comparative safety of my room, strong breezes blew my remaining curtain like an unmoored ship’s sail in a squall. Eli hurried to close the window, hiding the gaping hole in the screen with a pane of cloudy glass. Beside me, Lucy shuddered.

  “There it is,” she said, and I followed her gaze to the large, smooth rock in the center of the floor. Tied to it, like something out of an old gangster flick, was a piece of folded paper.

  “Don’t touch it,” said Eli. “It could be laced with something.”

  “Laced with what? Something to make me deader? Doubtful. So, my note. My rock. Mine.”

  Eli glanced at Lucy. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, but she nodded, and so did Eli.

  I approached the rock with caution. I wasn’t afraid of any hidden disease for myself—I’d have hugged a leper, just because I could—but I had to admit there was a chance the rock concealed an explosive device. I didn’t want to blow up my friends.

  To that end, I paused. “Why don’t you two wait in Lucy’s room, okay? No arguments. Let me look at it by myself for a sec, just in case.”

  “In case of…” Lucy began, but Eli grabbed her arm.

  “She’s got a point. I think we should listen.”

  But they both stared at me, concerned and weary, as they backed slowly away into the bathroom. I waited until I heard the bathroom door on my side click, and then the one on her side as well.

  I knelt beside the rock and picked it up, bracing for some kind of detonation that would end my misery right then. Nothing happened. No sound came louder than the rustling of notebook paper beneath my own papery skin.

  The string attaching the note to the rock was basic, everyday twine. I’d seen string like that at Eli’s before. He and his roommates used it to tie up collapsed cardboard before their monthly trips to the recycling center. I knew I couldn’t untie it, not with my fumbling fingers anyway, so I stood up and walked to my desk.

  I had a pocketknife in the top drawer, given to me by father before I headed east the year before. “You never know when you’ll need a knife,” he’d said.

  “Thanks, Daddy,” I whispered as I slipped the blade out and locked it into place. I set the rock down and ran my fingertip over the blade to test its sharpness. The blade slid right into my finger, without hesitation, and I dropped it.

  “Jo,” said Eli, his voice muffled through two thick doors. “Are you doing okay in there?”

  “Never better,” I called back, a reflex-reaction, as I stared at the clean line etched into my fingertip. The cut went deep into the pad, and when I pulled the skin back, I saw the white, parched muscle below. I felt no pain as I stared in silent sadness.

  “I miss having blood,” I whispered to myself, staving off the urge to pop my injured finger into my mouth. That gesture wouldn’t be necessary anymore.

  Then I nodded to spur myself back into action. “I’m opening the note now,” I called, picking the knife back up and slicing through the thin twine. I unfolded it, my fingers shaking, and glanced at the contents. “It’s….um….they have really bad handwriting.”

  Eli burst back through the door. “That’s all you have to say about it?”

  Lucy followed. “What does it say?”

  “It says you’re in danger. It says you should go now.” I dropped the note on the desk and went back to my bed. Eli and Lucy ran to where I’d left it. I let them read. It would only take a second.

  For there, scrawled in handwriting barely legible, in a thick, coppery ink that I wasn’t convinced wasn’t blood, was a cheap joke, a kick in the gut while I was already down, and a threat against the two people who were trying to help me survive:

  I’ll get you, my pretty. And your little friends too.

  “Screw ‘em,” said Eli.

  Lucy took the note to our bathroom and burned it in the sink, setting it on fire with the same matches she used to relight the scented candles in my room.

  “But that was evidence,” I said, weakly, while I sat in my bed, too overwhelmed with grief and fear to move.

  “Evidence of what? Of their sick sense of humor? Or of their intent to get Eli and me, too? Either way, I’m with him. Screw them. Let’s get back to work.”

  So that’s what we did. We searched hundreds of real estate records for the mountains surrounding campus, but nothing looked familiar to me. Hours later, without having made any actual progress, Eli left, promising to return in between classes the next day. Lucy, looking deflated, headed through the bathroom into her room. They were tired, I could see that. I was, too, on some level. Tired, frustrated, angry. But my body and mind, even after lying still and unplugged for hours, refused to rest. It just kept on ticking. Chugging. Thinking. Working. No matter how much I wanted to sleep, it didn’t happen.

  I tossed and turned. I read a bit of Romeo and Juliet—required reading for Professor Lewis’s class that week—but then I went back to the computer, staring blankly as I flipped from house to house to house.

  Finally, around five a.m., I gave up and got out of bed. In the flickering candlelight, I pulled off my clothes and stood naked in front of the mirror. The flames cast shadows against my body, adding dents and dimples to my already mottled frame.

  The day’s activities had been unkind to me. The staples on my stomach tore away from the skin in some spots, and two in a row had pulled completely out near the bottom, opening a gaping hole in my lower abdomen. The bandage around my electrical cord was dingy and gray, fraying around the edges. I yanked it off, disgusted by the sensation of crust detaching from skin, and then I grabbed a nearby coil of gauze and started to cover up the hole in my stomach.

  When I was done I stared some more. My arm hung at my side, splinted but still crooked. The fingers on my right hand were black, ugly. On my left hand, one finger was attached by duct tape, thanks to Lucy’s clumsy handiwork. And everywhere, my skin was gray and hard, like marble. I hadn’t lost weight since the morgue, but I looked skinny and malnourished as my body began to collapse in on itself. And my eyes were the worst: white where they’d once been blue, pupils dilated and vacant, obvious even in the dull candlelight.

  I was dead. I didn’t need a mirror to tell me that.

  What I needed to find was someone to help me. To fix me. That was all that mattered.

  Because I wasn’t ready to be dead. Not then. Not yet. And since my friends
were sleeping, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

  Slowly, in the dancing candlelight, I pulled on a pair of baggy sweatpants, roomy enough to accommodate my bandages and cord, then a T-shirt and hoodie. I slid my feet into a pair of boots, and left my room.

  Let Lucy sleep, I told myself, glancing at her door as I slipped in silence down the long hallway and headed for the stairs. She needs the rest.

  Outside Calvin Hall, night sat heavy atop the snow. The moon was set, but stars danced in the clear black sky. The whole campus was asleep. I passed Strong’s police car, parked in the fire zone in front of the dorm. The car was running, puffing plumes of exhaust behind it like a sleeping dragon, and he sat inside. His head was tilted back against the headrest and his mouth hung slack, a tiny pool of drool glistening in one corner. As he breathed, deep, heavy breaths, the puddle wiggled, dangerously close to spilling over his bottom lip. I stood and watched, entranced for a moment, until the mountains beckoned.

  Come here, they said in voices deep and dreamy. The voices of those who came before, I thought. Our forefathers. Come here and we’ll take care of you. We’ll show you the way. Let us help you.

  I wanted to believe. I trudged through the snow in the direction from which I’d come the day before: down the hill, behind the English Department, then back out into the wilderness. It was nice, feeling neither cold nor fatigue. I was a machine. So long as I was properly charged, I could keep going and going and going.

  So I did. Alone in the dark, I was no longer afraid. I walked slowly, methodically, carefully retracing my steps, but taking time to look around me. I absorbed the dark, the wild beauty of the mountains around me. I would accomplish everything.