My Black Beast (4 page)

He thumped his head against the wall of the
shower a few times. He was going to spend forever in prison
probably. That was basically a given now.

The shower was turned off and Lowell dried
himself off and put his pajama pants back on. The girl was still
guarding his clothes and it felt weird to put himself in the same
room as she was without a good reason. He couldn’t help feeling
like he’d adopted some weird family member. And now he looked like
a tool on top of it. Maybe he looked dumb enough that she’d laugh
the next time he brought food.

Lunch was a few hours away. Lowell found the
best smelling shirt he could in the living room and put it on. It
was pretty clean and he was prouder of that than was reasonable for
a man who fancied himself a rescuer of some sort. That level of
responsibility was more suited to people with… cars. And… and
ironing boards.

He had one. Probably. Maybe. From before his
mom accepted that he’d basically given up on things. She’d bought
it in one of those flurries of matriarchal desperation, the sort
where pushing one to get one’s life together becomes a whole
wake-up experience.

He flopped to the couch and his brain shifted
back from ironing boards to the girl again. Imagining where she
might’ve come from was an exercise that felt more like slipping
towards insanity than making real progress. She hadn’t spoken, he
realized. Did she understand English? Did she understand any
language? Maybe she was one of those… like Mowgli in The Jungle
Book. Those kids that are raised by animals. That would explain her
freaky strength.

It was about a half hour after he’d left the
shower that he heard the door open and soft, quick footsteps run
across the hall. If he’d had the TV on, he wouldn’t have heard any
of it, but mostly he’d just been staring at the ceiling. The run
was brief and ended with the quiet but quick closing of the
bathroom door. Lowell thought better of going to try to talk to
her. He heard the sink come on and let go a relieved
sigh.

Maybe she was washing her hands after working
up a nice syrup lather. Or doing who knows what. He turned on the
TV so she’d have some level of privacy and maybe even feel safe
moving back across to the bedroom.

Another half hour passed before the girl moved
back to the bedroom. Lowell imagined she must’ve peeked out a dozen
times. The hours passed uneventfully after that and when early
afternoon hit, the need for some lunch presented itself.

Lowell did maybe three or four cycles of the
kitchen before he decided that there was nothing to cook. There was
a Chinese place that was always solid and he figured the food would
be sort of non-offensive enough that he couldn’t really go wrong.
She knew how to work a sink if not a flushing toilet.

The call was always sped along by the fact
that he’d been ordering from them for ages. The first few times
were a bit of work from that combination of a language barrier and
the impressive quality of cellphone communications. His order was
pretty standard, though, and adding things on went smoothly. There
was the standard Yuxiang chicken, which he took extra spicy, and he
added a fried rice with shrimp and a few other things, in case she
was allergic. She had murdered some kind of demon lizard and eaten
the burrito without complaint so he figured meat was probably a
safe bet.

Within a half hour, the food arrived and there
was an awkward, overly smiley exchange of signatures and food. He
always tipped the Chinese delivery guy well and it had tended to
pay off with quick delivery and hot food.

The bag was pretty hefty. It always seemed as
though the delivery guy was in a competition with himself to fill a
single plastic bag with as much food as he could manage. Still, the
sauce was never spilled when it got to the door, so whatever he was
doing it was working.

Lowell knocked on the door and heard the usual
shuffling. When he opened it, the girl was not under the covers as
she had been that morning but sitting on the bed with cautious
eyes. They narrowed as he stepped into the room with the bag. He
was a few steps from the bed when she started to move with him
noticing.

“
Look, I don’t know if you eat…
well, I know you eat. But I got some Chinese food. I figured that’s
probably fine, yeah?”

His eyes were on the bag in his hands which he
was holding open when a rough but small hand came across his cheek.
He looked up, bewildered. The girl was at the edge of the bed and
she’d reached out to touch his face. What do you even do in a
situation like this? Keep calm. First. This was… probably
good.

She looked him over without ever meeting his
eyes. His chin first, where the beard had been. She touched it and
squeezed and moved to his hair looking over his head as though he
were some sort of new creature that needed close inspection. When
she’d finished touching his head as she liked her eyes darted
around his face, almost confused. Then the smell caught
her.

The girl glanced down at the bag and pulled
the first styrofoam container off the top. She retreated on to the
bed and sat down in the center, inspecting the small
box.

Lowell moved to his chair as she looked it
over. There were forks in the bag so he wouldn’t have to watch her
shovel food into her mouth this time.

She worked out how the container opened and
looked at the shrimp fried rice with skepticism. The smell had
clearly enticed her but the rest seemed as though she wasn’t quite
sure what to make of it.

“
Here.”

Lowell offered over a plastic fork. She
recognized the shape and grabbed it from him without hesitation.
When it was in her hand, she became more curious. She bent the fork
a few times and shrugged to herself, satisfied that it would work
well enough.

The fork buried deep in the rice and came back
heaping. The small girl had no trouble shoving the massive bite
into her mouth. Her eyes opened wide and for a moment Lowell was
convinced her throat had swollen shut immediately. It hadn’t and
she chewed vigorously, swallowing and gasping in a large breath.
She focused her attention on the dish.

Lowell stood and made for the door. “Okay,
don’t choke while I go get some water. And we’re going to have to
talk about taking you home. Or whatever home-like thing you’ve got.
If it’s a box or something, you can stay here.”

When he was outside he muttered to himself.
“Sure, I’ll just adopt you and it’ll be the most normal thing in
the world. A mute, dreadlocked, tattooed twelve-year-old girl that
I found in a pile of rubble. Probably standard paperwork for
that.”

He filled a pair of glasses with water and a
couple of cubes of ice and returned to the room. When he got back
he found all the boxes from the bag were on the bed and opened
along with the little rice towers. The glasses went on the bedside
table and Lowell returned to his appointed chair.

For a few minutes she smelled at everything,
maybe testing for poison. Finally she decided on his Yuxiang
chicken.

“
That one’s pretty spicy, so, you
know—”

Before the warning, whatever good it would
have been, had managed to make it out of his mouth in full, the
food was in and out came the smallest little yelp.

“
Hap!”

A surprised little chirp. A bit raspy, but
youthful and high. Lowell couldn’t help but laugh at it. The tiny
sound was entirely out of step with her demeanor and the surprise
on her face was too much.

The laughing died almost instantly though as
he looked at the girl again. Her face was flushed with terror and
her hand was clapped hard over her mouth. He could see the fingers
digging hard into the skin. She stared at the food until Lowell
shifted to grab the water. Her eyes shot to him in horror and she
flailed back to the corner, kicking the food away and sending it
flying.

He stood and put his hands up.

“
Whoa whoa! It’s okay. No, it’s
okay! Is… I’m sorry. It was really spicy, I didn’t
know.”

She slapped another hand over her mouth and
winced, a tear rolling down her cheek and he realized it. It wasn’t
the food. She’d made a sound.

Lowell’s mouth fell open and he sat down in
the middle of the floor staring at nothing. This was beyond him. He
couldn’t… He had brought her here, but this was not something he
could deal with. His eyes looked up to see her again. She was
pressed tight in the corner, eyes drilled shut and the grip on her
mouth still like iron.

He shook his head. No, no, no. This wasn’t
alright. He stood.

“
Look, look. Uh, god… fuck. Okay. I
don’t know about your whole thing, but it’s… you can talk here. You
can make sounds. It’s okay.”

Fuck, he wanted to stomp and shout and just…
beat the living shit out of whoever or whatever. He forced himself
to calm down and start again, sitting on the edge of the bed,
looking at the wall ahead of him.

“
I don’t know if you can really
understand. It’s safe here. For you. Nothing is going to hurt you.
I won’t let it. I mean, I’ll do what I can. I’ll protect
you.”

He turned to see she’d opened her eyes. The
hands were still across her mouth, but not quite as tightly as they
had been. It was the softest expression he’d seen from her since
the second she’d woken up.

Lowell stood from the bed and began to clean
up the food from the floor around. By the time he had finished and
returned with a rag from the kitchen, she’d put her hands flat on
the bed. There was the low drone of the TV in the living room while
he cleaned up the floor. When he was done he stood up and looked at
the girl.

“
I’ll order some more food. Maybe
pizza this time.” He forced a laugh. “Nothing spicy, I
promise.”

He let out a bit of a sigh and tried his best
to keep things together.

“
It, uh…” He looked at the food.
“Don’t worry about the food. Or… making noise. It’s really fine. It
might be hard to believe that, I guess. Just… you can go back
whenever you want. If I’ve got to go to jail, heh… yeah, I guess
that’s fine.”

He picked up the bag with the ruined Chinese
lunch and looked at the girl on the bed. She was still concerned
and skeptical, it showed.

“
I’m Lowell.” He pointed to himself
with the hand that was still holding the dirty rag. “I never said.
If you need anything, just call me. Or come get me. Or… I’ll check
on you sometimes.”

He turned to leave and as his hand reached for
the door, he heard the high raspy voice strain into the
room.

“
Marka.”

Lowell did everything he could to keep from
whipping around and somehow managed a slow turn. The girl looked
away and pointed, slowly, to herself as he had done. He
smiled.

“
Marka,” he repeated and
nodded.

He turned and left, closing the door behind
him. As soon as it was shut, he let the bag fall to the ground and
ambled over to the far hallway wall. He slid down against it,
gripping the locket he always wore. He couldn’t sit there long, he
knew. He needed to order pizza.

Chapter 4

He’d never sat on his couch
for such an
extended period of time before and it was slowly starting to dawn
on Lowell that it might be a piece of shit. In truth there was no
good reason for him to be sitting on the couch now. Normally he’d
sort of sprawl out on the floor and tuck one of the disused pillows
that were meant to be on the couch up behind him. Somehow, it
didn’t seem like it’d set a good example or something so he stayed
on the couch.

It’s sort of a sad thing when the floor is
preferable to the couch, but it’s not as though furniture shopping
was high on the list of priorities before he took in some abused
magical demon slaying child. Couches were expensive
anyway.

The pizza had gone down fine. He decided to
forgo the pepperoni since it might be a bit much and he didn’t feel
like waiting another thirty minutes to try eating again. Later, he
figured out that he could have just given her a single slice on a
plate, but still he’d hate for her to be upset like she was if the
pepperoni was too spicy. And he brought water along with the pizza
this time.

The sun was down and sitting on the couch had
turned into a game of fidget around the springs. It was exhausting.
The whole day had been exhausting. Dinner would probably be more
pizza. Maybe some spaghetti or ravioli or something on the side. No
point in risking things. The TV had helped wile away the hours. She
didn’t ever call for him and so Lowell kept his
distance.

When the sun was gone and the clock was
pressing eight, he stood up to grab the cordless phone and summon
the pizza guy. The call was short and the phone returned to its
place in the base station. It was an act that half defeated the
purpose of a cordless phone, but he never used it really anyway.
Cell phones are basically all that separate us from the animals
anymore.

Lowell mumbled to himself and poked at the
answering machine buttons on the base station of the cordless
phone. He turned around when he was satisfied with whatever it was
he was doing and saw Marka standing in the hall in her
cloak.