Authors: Shannon McKenna
So. A plan. She’d compensate for the drug, with her own more-or-less solid map of reality as she remembered it from her old, unaltered days. Solid. That was her. Nina Christie, solid as a rock.
She focused on breathing, to calm the terror that bubbled and fizzed. She opened her eyes, face turned from Peter. Her gaze brushed over a petite black girl with intricately braided and beaded hair, staring down at her red peep-toe sandals. The look on the girl’s face sucked her into a slipstream of emotions: shame, fear, dread . . .
. . . keep the baby? How’m I supposed to feed a baby if Tyrone doesn’t
want it? Ma’ll throw me out, she hates my guts already. . . .
Nina refused to flinch. Solid as a rock. Stay calm. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t look at faces. Looking at faces triggered it.
At that moment, a heavy man with a suit and a combover sat down next to her. His massive body pressed against hers. The contact made the volume of his thoughts blare in her head.
. . . stuck-up prick. I’ll teach him to talk trash about me, that lying son
of a bitch. Firing me in front of Pam and Miriam, fucking bastard . . .
I’ll burn his house with his whole fucking family inside—
Nina jerked to her feet. The guy’s eyes were half closed in his heavy face, lost in his revenge fantasy. Reveling in the image of burning his ex-boss in his bed, the man screaming while flames licked—
It hurt her head. She felt lacerated, stabbing lights blinding her. She wanted to vomit. To be alone, in the dark, in the fetal position. She stumbled down the subway car, trying not to touch anyone, look at anyone, shoving through a dense web of thoughts, feelings. Wispy trails clung to her, the strongest ones wrapping around her like cobwebs.
. . . just can’t face another round of chemo. . . .
. . . God, I wish he would call me. Why isn’t he calling me . . . ?
. . . where will I find money to buy Angie’s meds this time . . . ?
. . . rat bastard. Probably boning that man-stealing whore right now,
this very moment . . . dirty bitch . . .
Nina flung open the door at the end, gasping for air, and launched herself out onto the jointed metal platform. The noise hurt, but not as much as the contorted emotional worlds inside other people’s heads.
And she’d always considered herself an empathetic person.
Hah. She had no clue. No clue at all.
The next car was as crowded as the one she’d left. She couldn’t face the gauntlet again, so she clung to the door handle outside, teeth clenched, bones rattling while the train spat out of the tun-nel and into a station.
Get a grip.
She couldn’t just cower between the cars on a blind subway ride to nowhere.
Toughen up, girl.
Those people at the hospital had been chasing her, specifically. It had to be related to Helga Kasyanov. She did not believe that her pursuers were, in fact, zombie ghouls. Her map of reality did not stretch that far, and never would. But seeing them as a symbol of death was a message from her subconscious mind that they meant her ill. She’d seen their eyes as they chased her.
She’d felt their evil. She was convinced. And so? What now?
The F train slowed. Coming up on Second Avenue, which reminded her of . . . she groped, and the lightbulb lit up in her overstressed brain. The driver! Yuri Marchuk lived in Alphabet City! He knew what Helga had said, and she needed a translator for Helga’s recording, now that Asshole Aaro had withdrawn his linguistic help. True, some legwork and phone calls would find her someone else who was competent, as Aaro had so helpfully pointed out, but she was on the verge of a breakdown on a random subway ride, and voilà, she had ended up in Yuri’s neighbor-hood. It was fate. Why look farther? Assuming the guy spoke English at all, of course, but hell, she could try.
As if she would meekly wait on Aaro’s convenience. Jerk. It pissed her off all over again, thinking about his grudging offer to call her back when it suited his schedule. Giving her attitude after what she’d been through. She was going to have words with Lily, about exposing her to such a butthead. Rude, insensitive, provocative son of a
bitch.
She wrenched open the door to the subway car as the train shuddered to a stop, waiting until the others filed out. She cringed mentally, held her blanket of gray, fuzzy mental static tight around her.
No cobwebs clung to her this time. She felt them tickle her consciousness, but they didn’t snag. She was grimly amused.
Getting her back up about Asshole Aaro’s bad manners had steadied her nerves. To the point where she could actually keep a shield up.
It was kind of funny. Almost.
She fished in her pocket for the address that Bruno’s friends had procured for her as she slogged her way up the endless flights of stairs. She emerged onto Second Avenue, blinking in the blazing sunshine, and oriented herself to walk east. Three avenue blocks, then left onto B, and up a few short cross streets, and—no. Wait. What on
earth
. . . ?
Her neck prickled. A snarl of cars blocked the street entrance to Yuri’s block. The sidewalk and street seethed with people.
She edged closer, checked the address. Consulted the map, the street signs. This was the place. Short, narrow, cramped buildings. Flashing lights. Cop cars. Uniforms swarming. Yellow crime scene tape. Ambulance. An air of grim emergency. Goose bumps popped out on her neck.
She looked around for someone to ask. Spotted a young goth woman with lots of facial piercing. She revved up her shield of gray fuzz, and braced herself, just in case the makeshift barrier didn’t hold.
“Do you know what happened here?” she asked the girl
“They killed Yuri Marchuk,” the girl replied, her eyes bright and shining with unsavory excitement. “Tortured him and killed him! He was my downstairs neighbor! Holy shit, it totally could’ve been me!”
Horror blotted out everything for a moment. The girl’s words blurred, then comprehension blared back. “. . . cut him to pieces!
Marya came home from work, found him all cut up! Marya’s coming out now!”
A square, frizzed, bottle-blond woman in her thirties was being escorted from the building, flanked by police officers.
Eyes wide, staring at nothing. She stumbled as if she couldn’t quite feel her legs.
The police officers escorted her toward a waiting ambulance.
Her hands and shirt were stained with blood.
The sun blazed down, but Nina shuddered with cold. Her teeth clacked. She’d lost the thread of the girl’s prattle. Couldn’t look away from Marya’s frozen, staring face. It was dragging her in, pulling . . .
Oh, no. Oh, please, no. Not her. Not this.
Like a magnet sucking her straight into the other woman’s experience. Mind, heart and body. It hit her like a hammer.
Papa.
Shock, disbelief. Blood. His face. His hands. His ears. His eyes.
Oh, Papa. Images, superimposed over the mangled red mess on kitchen floor that could not possibly be Papa.
Holding her in his
arms, feeding her
vareniki
. Yelling, laughing, breath heavy with vodka.
Playing with her son. A good grandpa. His hands. His ears. His eyes.
God, his eyes.
Images assailed her, gruesome, bright-edged. Colors surreally bright, especially the awful, arterial red. She couldn’t separate herself from Marya’s trauma. It was too strong, too loud. It blotted her out.
The girl’s voice poked like a needle jabbing. Her hand clutched Nina’s sleeve, tugging. “. . . you OK? Hey! You on drugs, or something?”
Nina blinked. Her face was wet. The ambulance was pulling away, pushing its way through the crowd. It took Marya with it.
Yellow crime scene tape fluttered and snapped in the gusty breeze. The images retreated as the ambulance did.
She was Nina again, but she didn’t feel like herself. She felt like a year had gone by, a lifetime. Tears ran down her face, into her nose. She was sitting on the cracked, dirty sidewalk, on her butt. Second time she’d whacked it that day. It hurt, dully. “I’m OK,” she said, struggling to her feet. “Weak stomach. It’s so awful. Sorry.”
She backed away.
Don’t run. Stay calm.
She spun, looking for . . .
what? Shifty-eyed zombie ghouls, staring at her from a parked car?
Tortured.
That poor guy. Keep walking. Keep going. Slow and steady.
Nobody here. Nobody here.
She’d honed the vibe. Every item in her wardrobe was chosen to be unnoticeable.
Her phone buzzed. She fished it out of her purse. It was Shira, a colleague at New Dawn. She held the phone to her ear. “Hey.”
“Hey, you. Feeling better? Have you found someone to translate that audio file yet? Because I might have, if you haven’t.”
“No, not yet.” She blurted it out. “He’s dead, Shira.”
“What?” Shira’s voice sharpened. “Who’s dead?”
“Yuri Marchuk, the cab driver. The one who dumped me and Helga at the hospital. Someone tortured him to death. There are cops everywhere.” She stumbled on a pavement crack, barely caught herself.
“My God! Nina! Where are you? Are you out in the street somewhere? You left the hospital? What the hell were you thinking?”
I wasn’t thinking. I was running for my life from zombie ghouls.
She bit the words back. That would only confuse and terrify Shira, and her own personal terror and confusion was enough to deal with. She spun, in a slow, wobbly three-sixty, scanning the street for who the hell knew what. “Long story,” she said. “Tell you later. I’m in Manhattan.”
Shira made a disapproving sound. “Well, that makes my call pointless, because I’m at your house right now. I used those spare keys you left for Derek last week. I was going to pick up some things for you. You know, a toothbrush, a book, some panties, whatever. But you’re not at the hospital anymore, so to hell with that.”
Nina was touched. “Oh, Shira, that was sweet. Thank you.”
“Oh, and a guy came looking for you today, right after I got back from visiting you at the hospital this morning,” Shira went on.
“A guy?” Nina’s spine prickled nastily. “Who? What guy?”
“He said he was Helga Kasyanov’s brother,” Shira said.
“Sergei. Doesn’t look a thing like her, though. He said she’s a schizophrenic, dumping her meds, and that she thinks her family is trying to poison her. He can’t imagine how she’d have access to anything other than her own antipsychotics, which is toxic bad news for you, but not fatal.”
“What? You just told him everything?” she burst out. “About me? Everything that happened with Helga? The syringe, and all that?”
“Ah . . . ah . . . well, I, uh . . .” Shira stammered.
“He was lying, Shira!” Her voice shook. “Helga didn’t have a brother! She was married, years ago, but she emigrated with her parents when she was fourteen. She had a daughter, but no brother!”
“Oh. I . . . wow. Well, I told this guy about the recording—”
Nina winced. “Oh, God. Don’t tell me, let me guess. He offered to translate it, right? I bet he’s just a prince of a guy.”
“Nina. Back off. I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”
“What did you tell him?” she demanded. “Did you tell him which hospital we were in?”
“Well, ah.” Shira sounded confused. “No, not exactly. He just, ah, guessed it. In fact, he guessed a whole lot of stuff. It was weird. Like, I would find myself talking about stuff that I hadn’t known I told him.”
“What did he look like?” Nina’s heart thudded.
“Ah . . . Nina. You’re overreacting, and I don’t appreciate—”
“Just tell me, goddamnit! What did he look like?”
“OK, OK! He was tall, dark, pretty good looking, some acne scarring, forty, maybe. Nice clothes. Expensive. Flirtatious. Satisfied?”
“Dark, you said? Not bald?”
“No,” Shira said. “Lots of hair. Dark. He had a ponytail, a slick little playboy one.”
“Was he with a woman? A blond, pretty one?”
“No, he was alone. Stop snarling. I don’t know how I ended up telling the guy so much, but I was rattled by what happened to you too! I judged it to be more important to get a clue what might have been in that syringe. I made a judgment call. I screwed up. Sorry, OK?”
“OK.” Nina peeked over her shoulder, scanning the stream of cars. “Did you tell him my name?”
“Of course I didn’t,” Shira snapped. “He already knew your name.”
Then how had he found her? Why was any of this about her at all? She tripped over a broken bit of sidewalk, as images came at her, horribly vivid. Sickening realization, along with it.
They tortured him. Cut him to pieces.
Papa. Oh, God. Your hands. Your ears. Your eyes.
Yuri.
Yuri was how they had found her. Oh, poor Yuri.
She pressed her hand against her belly, sick and faint. Shira continued to talk, but Nina’s arm dropped. The thin, tinny chatter from the phone had lost all meaning. She thumbed it off as her mind spun, feeling for a pattern, a plan. A way through the maze.
If the ghouls had tracked her to the hospital, they could certainly find her house. But why would they bother? Because of something Helga had said to her? And she hadn’t even understood it.
Her phone beeped. A message from Shira. The number that the mysterious Sergei had left. Huh. Maybe she should just call the guy. Maybe he’d explain everything. Or make her an offer she couldn’t refuse. She could beg him to call off the monsters. She’d do anything they wanted, if they would just make it all go away.
Her snort of laughter disintegrated into tears. She could see it now.
Nina Christie, bargaining with zombies, torturers, and murderers, with some coin she didn’t even know she had. Yeah, that was bound to turn out real well.
She had to go home, risk or no risk. She didn’t have anything to tell the police that wouldn’t get her locked in the psych ward.
She didn’t have a close enough friend nearby to ask for help, not with something as scary as this. She needed clothes, a passport, her laptop.