Burnout (14 page)

“Hey,” they said in unison. I looked at them, and the bottom dropped out from my stomach. They were a couple of randoms, sketchy-looking men with dead eyes and sunken cheeks and unshaven faces. Suddenly the tiny little park felt too small, and I looked through the gate
and saw that the sidewalks were filling with parents and kids in costumes, out trick-or-treating before dark, and I wished I had said yes when my dad asked if I wanted to come out to Greenpoint and go trick-or-treating with him and the Tick.

I looked at Seemy, seeing if she was joking about their very fake-sounding names, and I saw maybe she didn’t look exactly the same. She looked thin, washed out. She made me think of the word “sinew.” Her eyes had grown, or her face had shrunk, I wasn’t sure which one. Her pupils looked too big for her eyes. I wondered what she had taken. I wondered how long it would last. I could feel the tiny bones in her freezing cold hand as she squeezed.

I wanted to get out of there. And I wanted to take Seemy with me.

I could have just started walking, pulled her with me. Turner and Hooch were watching me, like they knew what I was thinking, like they knew what I was going to do. The sound of my heart thump-thump-thumped in my ears and I made myself look right back at them.
I’m not afraid of you,
I thought, and it’s like I said it out loud, because both of them wrinkled their mouths into ugly smirks.

I was about to say something to Seemy, about to walk and pull her with me, about to tell those assholes that if they touched us, I would scream bloody murder. Seemy nudged
me. She was holding a half-empty soda bottle. “Sip?”

“I don’t drink anymore,” I said quietly, my eyes still on Turner and Hooch. “You know that.”

“It’s just soda. Vanilla Coke. Your favorite.” She nudged me again, and when I looked at her, she looked so hurt I took it from her and took a drink.

“Thought you was calling a friend,” the one called Turner said.

“I did! This is Nanja!” Seemy wrapped her skinny arms around my waist. “My best, best friend. We
always
hang out on Halloween together.”

“She’s your friend?” Hooch asked. Then he and Turner looked at each other and started laughing, low grumbly wet laughs. “Looks more like your bodyguard.”

“We thought you was calling a
hot
friend,” Turner said. “We thought it was going to be a party.”

“But I told you, silly, I already have plans!” Seemy laughed. She wagged a finger at him like he was a naughty child, giving me a desperate sideways glance. “I always spend Halloween with my Nan!”

She was afraid. My pulse quickened and I did my best to grin, slinging an arm around her. Her shoulder bones poked into my forearm. “Are you ready?” I asked her. I started to turn her around, barely glancing at Turner and Hooch. “We have friends waiting,” I told them.

With our backs turned, I whispered, “Let’s go, Seemy. Just walk.”

I tried to move her forward, but she stood firm. She looked up at me. “They won’t let me leave.”

I glanced back, saw them both stand slowly, watching us.

“What do you mean they won’t let you leave?” I whispered. “You can just walk away. Watch, like this.”

I took a step, pulled her with me.

“Hey.” Turner moved fast off the bench, stepping in front of us. “Where you going? Thought we were all going to party.”

“She’s partied enough,” I answered, trying to move around him, glancing behind me to see Hooch still sitting on the bench, head tipped to the side, watching.

“Not nearly.” I think he was trying to chuckle, but it came out a dry rasp. “She’s just getting started.”

“We’re leaving,” I told him. He stepped in front of me again. Bastard. I had an inch and at least ten pounds on him. I imagined cracking my fist against his chin. I was scared to hit him, though. I didn’t want him to hit me back. So instead I asked, “You want to hear me scream?”

He gave a half smile. “Kind of.”

It took me a second to realize Seemy was pulling away. “Relax, Nanja,” she said nervously. “We’re all just going
to hang out for a while, then we can leave. Right?” She directed the question at Turner.

He nodded. “Sure, we’ll just all hang out for a little while and then you can leave.”

“Seemy.” I tried to step closer to her, so I could lower my voice and speak without them hearing. She took a step back. “Seemy,” I said again, stepping forward. She stood on her tiptoes, pulled on my arm so I bent over, and then whispered in my ear. “They’ll find us.” I pulled back, looked at her. Her lower lip quivered. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Then she stepped away. “Come on, Nan,” she said. “Come out with us for a while. It’ll be fun.”

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” I asked, leaning in to stare into her face. Her eyes were almost all pupil now, black holes in her head.

Seemy looked at Turner, and Turner looked back at Hooch, and the two men laughed.

“Guess it kicked in.” Turner said.

“What kicked in?” I asked.

“Liquid Gold.” He cackled, wiggling his fingers at me like he was casting a spell.

I grabbed Seemy’s chin and looked into her eyes again, letting go as Seemy pulled free. She glared at the two men. “You told me it was just vodka.”

“What’d you give her?” I demanded, stepping up to Turner.

He laughed. “Told you. Liquid Gold.”

“I don’t know what that is,” I snapped.

“You’ll find out!” He cackled again.

“What do you mean?” He didn’t answer, he just looked at Seemy. “Seemy?” My heart started pounding. “What does he mean?”

Her chin dropped and I heard her sniff. “They said it was just vodka.” She held up the Vanilla Coke bottle. “I’m not . . . I’m not thinking right.”

“You dosed me?” I yelled. “What the hell, Seemy?”

Turner and Hooch cracked up laughing. I glared at Seemy. As angry as I was, I wasn’t going to leave her there. “Seemy, come on,” I said, taking her arm, “let’s go. We have to go.”

But then something went wrong with my brain. I felt it. I could feel it changing. I could feel something like cold syrup seeping in and I was watching Seemy and she was watching me and I said again, “We have to go.” But I think my voice might have sounded weird, now because Turner and Hooch kept cracking up. Turner said, “We have to go!”

And then we were walking out of the park and . . .

Darkness. Like the space between pictures in a slide show. It was just for a moment.

And when the show started again, we were walking with them even though we didn’t want to be and even though I wanted to run away. But Seemy had her arm through mine, and I didn’t know if I could get her to run away too and my body felt so strange and my head hurt so much and I didn’t know how I would do anything ever again.

We were walking and walking down sidewalks crowded with people in costumes. Turner and Hooch were on either side of us. Bookends. Or jailers. They wanted us to go with them somewhere. I kept blacking out. A minute. Maybe five.

Darkness.

They kept making us turn corners.

Darkness.

First they said we were going to Turner’s apartment, and then they said to a friend’s place, and then they said they had a room at a hotel right in Times Square.

Darkness.

Everyone and everything I looked at was swimming and swaying and jerking and twitching. It was getting dark out, and the streetlights and the store lights and the apartment lights were all pulsing out different rhythms.

Darkness.

We were walking for a long time and Turner or maybe Hooch said, “We’re almost there,” and then all of a sudden
Seemy said, “We need costumes!” and she ran in front of Turner and pulled me with her. We ran into Ricky’s, and even though there was a line out the door, she just cut right to the front. She turned around quickly, held up her hands to push back on Turner’s chest. “Wait outside,” she ordered. “Our costumes are a surprise!”

Darkness.

I was in the dressing room with Seemy. The dressing room was tiny, just enough room for a little leopard-print-covered stool and a mirror on the wall. She held two pink dresses. There wasn’t a door to the dressing room, just a vinyl curtain decorated with hula girls that ended a foot away from the floor. I pressed my back flat against the wall, a wave of dizziness threatening to knock me over. I let myself slide down until I was sitting on the little stool and held my head in my hands. “I keep losing time, Seemy. I keep blacking out.”

“I know. Me too,” she said, nudging my arms out of the way with her hip and sitting on my lap. She dropped the dresses on the floor. And then we were looking at each other in the mirror and it was so familiar, the way we looked together. She was so small, and I was like her dark shadow sitting behind her.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and buried my face in her back. Darkness.

“We have to get away from them,” Seemy said. I could feel the vibrations of her voice against the bridge of my nose. I moved my head so I could rest my chin on her shoulder. “I know,” she whispered. “I have a plan. I’m going to save us.”

But then she just went real still, and even though she was looking at me in the mirror, I could see she couldn’t see me. I could feel myself slipping into darkness and I shook my head hard to wake up, and the movement jostled Seemy back into herself.

“I’m going to save us,” she said again.

“Come on out!” We looked down and saw Turner’s boots at the bottom of the curtain. “We want to see.”

“Hold on!” I called to him. “We just need a different size.”

“I told you!” Seemy slipped off my lap and stuck her head out of the dressing room to say to Turner, “You have to go wait outside.” Turner grumbled, and Seemy said, “It will be worth it, promise!”

She pulled back into the dressing room and squeezed my hand as we watched his boots under the curtain. They stayed put for a moment, and then they were gone. Seemy held up her hand, counting down from five on pale fingers, then she stuck her head out of the dressing room for a second. “He’s gone,” she said breathlessly.

Darkness.

“Nan! I said he’s gone.” Seemy was next to me, shaking my shoulder.

“Let’s call the police,” I said.

She shook her head frantically. “No cops!”

“But why, Seemy?” Something about what she said didn’t make sense, but I couldn’t make my brain figure out the thoughts I was trying to think. “Why no cops?”

“Because.” Her eyes went even wider. “Turner and Hooch . . . they have something on me.” She poked her head out of the dressing room for a second again. Then she leaned close to my ear and whispered with sour breath, “I’ve been doing bad things, Nan. I could go to jail.”

She nodded off then, standing up, her eyes this time rolling back into her head, her mouth dropping open. I caught her as she fell, sat her down on the stool. She opened up her eyes, stood back up, and picked up the dresses off the floor. “We have to hurry before they come back inside. Come on. Get dressed.”

I looked at the dresses. “But we haven’t paid for these yet.”

She wrinkles her brow. “I did, Nan. You were standing right next to me. We have to hurry!” she whispered urgently, wiggling out of her clothes. I felt my jaw go loose at the sight of her shrunken body. She stepped into one of the dresses and yanked it up, spinning around so I could
zip her up. Her back looked even worse than her front.

Darkness.

“Nan, please!”

She was shaking me again. I zipped her up slowly; her body looked so brittle I didn’t want her to crack.

“Now you!” she said, holding out the other dress. I looked at the tag. It was a size small. “The lady says there are no larger sizes. I’ll help you get it on. Come on.”

She had to stand on the stool to get enough leverage to yank the dress up, and she could barely get it to zip. As soon as I took a breath, it split a little down the side, but at least that made it easier to breathe.

“We have to hurry,” Seemy said, reaching into her pants on the floor and pulling out a jar of white face paint she’d lifted from the store. She opened it and stuck her fingers in and held my chin still with her other hand, quickly smearing the paint all over my face. She looked at our reflections in the mirror, and I finally figured out what her plan was.

“You can still tell it’s me,” I said, and her eyes filled with tears. “Hold on.” I got my black Sharpie out of my backpack. “Use this for the eyes and mouth.”

She nodded and pushed my hair back away from my face, rested her hand against my face as she drew. The fumes stung my eyes, made my nose run. She circled my eyes over and over again, making the skeleton eyeholes go
all the way down to my cheeks. She pressed the pen hard on my mouth, scribbling back and forth and back again. When she was done, I looked terrible, like a lunatic clown, but I still looked like myself.

“We have to cut off your hair,” she said. “They’ll know it’s you.”

Darkness.

She was walking into the dressing room with scissors. It hurt because my hair is so thick that she half cut, half sawed it off. It fell in loose ropes to the dressing-room floor, tickled my bare legs. We stuffed the hair into my backpack along with my clothes, and then I did her makeup. We left her hair because it was so short anyway. “We’ll take wigs on the way out,” Seemy said. “We should go. Put on your shoes.”

First I got out my pen and wrote a message on the wall. Because I didn’t know if Seemy could save us. I didn’t know if anyone could.

We heard Turner’s gravelly voice cut through the noise in the crowded store. “Samanthaaaa . . . where are yoooou?”

Seemy grabbed my hand. “We have to go. We have to stay awake.”

“But our clothes . . .”

She kicked my backpack under the stool and peeked out the curtain. “We’ll come back for it,” she said.

Darkness.

We were running through the store and knocking into people and displays and racks of costumes and we burst out the front door and knocked right into Hooch.

Turner came out with my backpack and our shoes. He said he saw our little note.

They made sure to hold on to us after that.

Turner was mad, but Hooch thought it was funny.