Experiment in Terror 05 On Demon Wings (12 page)

turned its head to look our way.

“No,” I said, my face going beet red. The thing was, I did

feel like he hid it on me. I could see his beady little face as

he came up to the line to place his order, like he had this

whole thing plotted out. When I wasn’t looking, he’d take the

syrup to mess me up, and then put it back. Make me waste

my time. Make me look crazy.

“I’d just like my drink then. Please,” he added, with false

politeness.

“Wel , you’re not getting your drink until you say you’re

sorry,” I said.

The store grew quiet. So quiet I could hear the edges of

his newspaper fluttering from the waves of shock that I was

sure were hitting him. I couldn’t quite believe it myself but I

couldn’t stop myself, either.

“Perry, I don’t think you’re feeling wel ,” Mikeala said,

placing her hand on my arm and gripping it hard.

I glared at her and ripped my arm out of her bony grasp.

“Oh, don’t you try and coddle me,” I said. “I know when

I’m being made to look like an idiot. And that’s just what this

guy is doing. Doesn’t like the look of me, thinks I’m

unstable.”

Someone in the back of the shop let out a smal laugh

and my blood boiled inside my head. I’d find who did it, find

them and kil them.

“Perry,” Ash’s voice said from behind me. It was soft and

shaking. “Can I talk to you for a second, Perry?”

He asked so politely, so…afraid, that it caught me off-

guard.

And I realized what I was doing. I was fighting with a

customer over a bottle of syrup.

As if everything slowed down, I saw Mikeala’s

awestruck, angry face, her smal mouth open in shock, I

saw Hipster Glasses’s fingers clutch the newspaper tightly,

I saw Ash’s sunny face clouded over in fear, and maybe

pity, and I saw myself, bitter, red-faced and seething from a

reality that wasn’t quite there.

I looked at everyone, the faceless blurs in the crowd,

then I turned around and ran into the back room. Ash

fol owed me and tried to calm me down, tried to get some

sense of what was happening, but he couldn’t leave

Mikeala out there al alone and I was no help whatsoever. I

couldn’t begin to explain a thing except that I wasn’t myself.

I wasn’t wel . The only thing I was good for was keeping out

of the public eye, and with a quick phone cal to Shay, I was

sent home for the rest of the shift.

The ride home was absolutely miserable. There’s real y

nothing worse than riding in the rain and even though you’d

think I would be used to it from living in the Pacific

Northwest and al , it stil sucked. But it suited my mood,

suited the level of defeat I felt from the meltdown with the

customer.

How could I have been careless, to let my emotions get

the best of me like that? I was acting out of character and

succumbing to my own paranoia that there wasn’t

something right with me. I just couldn’t seem to get my head

screwed on properly, couldn’t seem to focus and bring

myself into the present, into the here and now. Even the ride

home, with the nasty, cold rain and the wind that picked up

as I rode and battered me from the side, even that felt like it

happened to someone else.

I cal ed for my mom but she was out, so I went upstairs to

my room, each step rising above me like a mountain, and

crawled right into bed.

I lay on my back for a while, just staring up at the

speckled ceiling. I was numb and grateful for it. I knew there

was a whirlpool of feelings just churning beneath the

surface, waiting to come out. Al I had to do was think about

how scared I was and how alone I felt. Al I had to do was

wish I had someone at my side who would know what was

wrong with me and do whatever they could to fix me. I had

that once and I didn’t have it anymore. If I thought about that,

the tears would never stop coming, so I pushed the

thoughts away.

Rol ing over on my side, I spied a pamphlet that my

mother had brought back from the hospital, sitting on my

bedside table. I picked it up and flipped through it. It was al

about miscarriages and the recovery process and was

littered with poorly drawn cartoons. I was surprised it wasn’t

cal ed
So, You’ve Had a Miscarriage!

I wondered if losing time and accosting customers were

part of the side effects. There was mention of heavy

bleeding and cramps, but that al stopped a few days ago. I

suppose since my pregnancy (it was stil weird to refer to it

as that) wasn’t even one term, I got lucky. Though nothing

about my life seemed the slightest bit lucky anymore.

The other thing the pamphlet mentioned was how every

woman reacted differently. Some women were distraught

beyond repair and needed to mourn the loss. Others didn’t

feel much of anything. I stil didn’t know how I felt but I knew

my body was healing at a much faster rate than my mind.

Sometimes I felt like I didn’t even know who I was anymore.

Even though it was the afternoon and a weak sun was

pushing apart the rain clouds and streaming in through my

windows, I fel asleep with tears teasing the corner of my

eyes and the pamphlet folded open in front of me. When I

came to, it was almost dark. The clouds had rol ed back in

and a wind rattled the window pane every couple of

seconds. A layer of frigid air seemed to descend from the

ceiling and I shivered intensely, bringing my blanket in

closer around me.

There was a knock at my door but before I had a chance

to panic, it opened, revealing Ada.

“I didn’t think you were home,” she said, hovering in the

doorway, backlit from the hal .

“I was napping. It’s freaking freezing in here, isn’t it?”

She shrugged. She was only wearing leggings and a

lacy tunic. “So what do you want?”

“Huh?” I asked.

She crossed her arms. “I’ve got to get ready. I’m going

out with Layton. What is it?”

I frowned at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Wel , you just cal ed me,” she said impatiently.

“No I didn’t. What do you mean?”

“Yes you did,” she said as she gave me a strange look.

“You were just yel ing Ada, Ada, Ada.”

I sat up. “Nooooo, I wasn’t. I was sleeping.”

She raised her eyebrow. “Sleeping and texting?”

“What?”

She sighed and came over to the bed, flicking on the

bedside lamp. I watched as Ada accessed her text

messages. She pointed at the screen with her slender

finger.

“See.”

I looked. There was a text from me saying
Ada, come

here, I need you
and her response
B rite ther.
I obviously

hadn’t sent it. The time said it was sent three minutes

earlier. I had been asleep and I was pretty sure my phone

was in my purse by my bed.

I told Ada so and she brought it out. My phone was in

there, as I thought, but when we went to the texting app, I

saw the same outgoing message.

“So you don’t remember sending this like two seconds

ago? You don’t remember cal ing my name?” Ada asked.

She sounded casual enough about it but I could tel from the

slant of her brow that she was starting to worry.

I debated about lying to her to save some face but I

couldn’t.

“No, I don’t remember. And to tel you the truth, I don’t

remember painting my nails the other day either.”

“Maybe you’re sleepwalking. And sleeptexting. And

sleepprimping.”

“What’s next?” I grumbled to myself. Things were getting

more out of control by the minute.

“I don’t know,” she said, straightening up and tucking her

phone into the waistband of her leggings. “Just don’t start

sleepfucking.”

“Ada!” I admonished her.

She smiled and shrugged, delighted for having offended

me. “So there was real y nothing?”

“Well
now
there’s something. I’m doing things and not

remembering them! Do you have to go to the movies

tonight?”

She sucked in her lip. “I don’t have to but I want to. I

haven’t been with Layton outside of school al this week.”

“I thought you were going to break up with him,” I said.

“Maybe that’s what I’m doing,” she told me.

I nodded to myself. I wasn’t going to keep her from doing

something she needed to do just because I was scared. I

mean, what could Ada do anyway except take my mind off

of things. And maybe prevent me from sleepfucking, God

forbid.

She put her warm hand on my shoulder and squeezed it.

Then she paused as she stared at my face. “What’s wrong

with your eyes?”

I felt a strange, sickening fear tighten the muscles in my

back.

“My eyes?” I shook my head slowly. My voice trembled,

“You tel me.”

She leaned over and tilted my head so that it was facing

the light more and looked directly into my eyes. A

frightened expression spread across her face.

“What is it?” I asked frantical y.

“Your pupils…are…are huge. Like, so fucking huge. You

look like you have, like, shark eyes. Are you on something?

The fear spread up my spine. I leaped out of bed, nearly

getting tripped up by the covers, and ran over to my mirror.

I gasped and the room started to spin. I reached out for

the corner of my vanity and held myself up, stealing glances

at my face. I couldn’t bear to look head on.

Shark eyes were a good way of describing it. My pupils

were so unbelievably wide that only a thin ring of color

encircled it. And the weirdest, scariest, creepiest thing was

that the color wasn’t blue, as it should have been. But

brown. A golden brown.

“They’re brown!” I cried out.

“What?” Ada came over to me and gave me another

examination. “No they aren’t, they’re blue. And horrifying.”

I looked back at the mirror. My pupils were stil huge but

the ring of color was the cornflower blue of my own eyes.

The brown was gone. Maybe it was never there.

“What did you take?” she asked me. “You promised you

weren’t going to do drugs anymore, Perry.”

I was shocked and actual y offended at her accusation. I

wanted to protest angrily but I could see how hurt she was

just by thinking it.

Looking at her honestly, with my funny eyes, I said “I

didn’t take anything, Ada. I haven’t done drugs for who

knows how long. Haven’t even touched the stuff. I’m not on

anything. Not even those painkil ers.”

She was hesitant to believe me. I couldn’t blame her. I

must have done a number on her back when I was her age.

I was one stupid teenager.

“But what if you’re sleepdrugging,” she said quietly.

I took one last look at my scary-assed face and brushed

past her to my closet.

“Now you’re just being ridiculous. Where would I even

get drugs from?”

“Where did you get the nail polish from?”

“Wel , I guess I picked it up at Walgreens,” I said, glaring

at her, “right next to the crack cocaine aisle.”

I put a Baroness tee on and a hoodie and hopped back

in bed. Ada was stil watching me.

“Aren’t you going out?” I asked her, not wanting her

company anymore.

“Are you going to be OK?” she asked.

“I’m not on drugs,” I insisted, my tone laced with

annoyance.

“If you say so,” she replied. “Cal me, though, if you need

anything. Just try and make sure you’re awake when you do

it.”

She gave me a compassionate smile and left the room,

closing the door behind her.

“Patronizing bitch,” I mumbled in a strange voice. I

quickly clapped my hand over my mouth, horrified at what

came out of it. I didn’t mean to say that. I wasn’t even

feeling it. Or was I?

I had to distract myself. The more I focused on what was

happening, and the peculiar way I was feeling, the more

scared I got. I almost felt there were two parts inside me

arguing with each other. One was very mean and wanted to

do mean things to Ada, Ash, my parents. The other side

was fearful and cowering. At this rate, the mean side would

win. I would be Mr. Hyde.

I picked up the remote and flicked on the TV. Though it

was plugged in again, I hadn’t watched it since the incident

the other night. A note of terror tugged at my heart in

anticipation of something supernatural happening but

everything looked normal and bright. The episode of

Friends
where Ross and Chandler have to pivot the couch

was on and the laugh track was coming from the speakers.

I giggled despite myself and settled back in my bed,