Lunatic Fringe (18 page)

“
Always did prefer dots to
feathers, if you know what I mean,” he said with the timbre of a
grizzly bear. They laughed together: hers false, his oblivious. His
heavy footsteps sounded across the planked porch and around the
back of the tavern. The Pack waited.

Lexie whispered to Renee, “What’s going
on?”

Renee brought his fingers to her lips,
her eyes trained on the man and Sharmalee as they approached the
corner around which the women hid. Before they got there, though,
he threw his weight against Sharmalee, pushing her against the
wall. The air escaped Sharmalee’s lungs with a muffled ‘ugh’ as he
rammed his body onto hers. Sharmalee forced out a breathless
“no.”

On the echo of that denial, Renee
barreled out of the woods. She leapt, her airborne body traversing
a distance of at least twenty feet, landing heavily his shoulders.
The man’s bulk collapsed beneath Renee’s like an empty aluminum
can. The rest of the Pack ran from behind the tavern and set upon
the downed man. Blythe drew back her leg and kicked him across the
jaw, unleashing a stream blood from his mouth and nose. He growled
and gurgled, drunk on booze and pain. Sharmalee leapt from the wall
and dug her foot into the small of his back, holding him to the
ground. The women worked fast. Jenna threw a black hood over his
head while Hazel knotted the rope around his wrists. He tried to
wrestle against his attackers, but the combination of pummeling and
the hood reduced his struggles to flailing.

Lexie ran to the Pack, but as she
watched the girls beat the man bloody, she started to retreat. She
stood in the yard, frozen in uncertainty. Her brain screamed, but
her throat refused to follow suit. She was able only to watch the
scene unfold as if in a dark dream.

Blythe pulled the man to his feet.
Hazel tied a rope lead around his neck, and Blythe yanked him into
the forest like a reluctant dog. The Pack walked through the woods,
pulling the man behind them and kicking him in the stomach every
time he stumbled to his knees. He coughed and cried but did not
speak.

Lexie caught up with them, trailing
Mitch.

“
Mitch,” she pleaded in a
whisper. “What are we doing?”

“
Shh,” Mitch whispered
back. “He can hear everything.”

“
But--”

Mitch just shook his head. “Trust
us.”

The Pack stopped in the desolate north
woods, not far from the Den’s backyard. The gibbous moon shone grey
light on forest floor, casting long shadows against a cave, upon
which stood a rusty iron door. Corwin opened the door, which
protested with an ear-searing creak. Blythe pushed the bound man
inside. The cave stank of urine, sweat, and blood. Lexie gagged as
the odor hit her. The women filed in and Hazel lit a lantern.
Blythe kicked the man in the stomach and he fell to his knees. The
hood over his face puckered as his sucked in breath. He coughed and
sputtered, gasping at the word “Please.”

Lexie stood with her back pressed
against the steel door, her knife’s sheathe digging into her
hipbone. She wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans, watching the
women’s faces.

Jenna caught her eye and walked to her,
placing one open palm on her sternum and whispering into her ear,
“You’re safe. Just watch.”

The other women formed a tight circle
around the man. Blythe used the rope to pull his torso straight,
wrenching his arms back. With a nod from Blythe, Hazel ripped the
hood from his head.

“
The fuck?!” he sputtered.
Blood streamed from his nose, caking in his bristly
mustache.

Corwin, her fingers clenched around the
brass knuckles, threw a solid fist into his already bruised jaw. He
crumpled, whimpering, to the floor. His lower lip was sticky and
red, split with blood and swelling.

Blythe kicked him in the stomach,
forcing more blood and spit from his mouth with a cough.

“
You like attacking girls,
Frank?”

“
What?” he
whimpered.

“
You heard me!” she shouted
as she kicked again.

He groaned, “She came on to
me!”

“
That’s not what we mean,
Frank.”

“
I don’t know what you’re
talking about!” he pleaded, his ham-hands curling into purple fists
behind his back.

“
You’re a liar,” Blythe
growled, “and a beast.”

He shook his head, a wild panic in his
bloodshot eyes.

“
You don’t remember Emma?
That sweet blond you took a chunk out of last month?”

“
You’re crazy.” He wept,
the tears carving clean paths down his bloodied cheeks.

“
Her parents remember. Her
sisters remember. We remember. Why the hell don’t you?”

He shook his head, drops of blood and
sweat flying like water from a dog’s coat.

“
Alright then,” Blythe
said, delivering a solid kick to his chest.

His body heaved as he struggled to
remain conscious.

“
Please,” he whimpered so
quietly that it was little more than a movement of bloodied lips.
“I have kids. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“
You dug your own grave,
Frank.”

The women set in on him, taking turns
beating the breath out of him.

Lexie covered her eyes. “Jenna, make
them stop.”

“
Trust me, Lexie,” Jenna
whispered, the sweetness of her tone betrayed by the blood wetting
her dark clothes. “This is all part of the process. You can get
rares to change before the moon by spiking their adrenaline. We
need to be sure, so we have to be rough.”

“
It’s too much.” Lexie
winced with each strike.

From between her fingers, she watched
the man cry, beg, and struggle to rise between blows.

Blythe back-handed him repeatedly
across the face, and he took each hit with a grunt and a
whimper.

“
What the hell?” Renee
muttered.

“
Why isn’t he changing?”
Hazel asked.

Blythe glared at them both and beat the
man with increased fervor.

“
Blythe,” Renee reached
out, her hand hovering over Blythe’s arm, as though afraid to
interrupt the violence. “I don’t think he’s going to
change.”

Blythe slammed her boot into Frank’s
jaw, sending him careening onto his side. His head cracked on the
stone floor, and he fell limp, unconscious.

“
Blythe!” Corwin
said.

“
WHAT?!”

The girls all froze.

“
Maybe . . .” Sharmalee
whispered, “we got it wrong.”

“
The fuck we
did!”

Blythe grabbed the man’s hair in her
fist and pulled him up. His jaw hung slack, blood covering his face
and shirt. “CHANGE FUCKER!” she screamed as she kicked him in the
gut.

“
Blythe, STOP!” Renee
shouted.

Blythe ignored her, continuing to beat
the limp man. No one stepped forward to stop her.

“
I can’t--” Lexie pushed
Jenna aside and flung the door open to the blessedly cool, clean
air.

“
Wait!” Jenna
called.

But Lexie was already running. As the
door slammed shut behind her, she thought she heard a whimper
become a snarl. She didn’t stop to find out, running until her
lungs and legs burned and the sky turned indigo with the impending
sunrise.

Her feet carried her miles to the
south, where the Rogue River widened and roared around huge
boulders. The foliage was lush and evergreen here. The air smelled
like fresh rain, washing from her brain the odor of that malevolent
place. At the riverbank, the sky began to glow in that blessed blue
of pre-dawn, and she finally stopped to rest. The earth was mossy
and clean. Wrapping her sweatshirt tight around her body, Lexie lay
on a soft patch of earth, letting her eyes flutter shut, feeling
that, for the first time, she was safe in the sunshine.

Chapter 12

A rustle in the underbrush tickled
Lexie’s ears, waking her to the full daylight and sweat-slicked
skin. She swallowed hard to moisten her cottony mouth. Her stomach
shuddered and her muscles clenched against her movement. The river
burbled, cool and lovely, not ten feet away. She crawled across the
rocks to lean over it. She dunked her whole head beneath the flow.
The cold water swirled through her hair, tossing it like sea grass.
Above the water, the sun baked her skin, but beneath the surface,
all was fresh and invisible and quiet. Her toes curled with the
sensation and the relief.

Breath expended, Lexie pulled her head
out of the water, whipping an arc of droplets from her long, soaked
hair. Cool water dripped down her shoulders, soaking her shirt and
waking her up. For once, though, she didn’t want to be awake. She
didn’t want to think about last night, the man, and what the Pack
may have done to him.

Behind her, in the brush, Lexie heard a
rustling, a footstep. Reaching to her hip for her knife, she
whipped around to find a familiar face. Archer stood at the wood’s
edge, her hair down, her sleeves rolled up and her left hand
holding a dead rabbit by the ears.

Lexie’s breath caught in her throat.
She tugged the hem of her sweatshirt over the knife, as though she
had something to hide.

She forgot the apology she had
rehearsed as she lay in bed each night. She struggled to quiet her
mind, focusing instead on Archer’s hair as it framed her face, the
way her hips moved as she left the protection of the forest, and
her strong fingers clutching at the rabbit. Her grip on its ears
raised its eyebrows in a comical expression, even as the rest of it
hung morbidly like a half-stuffed toy animal.

“
What are you doing here?”
Lexie asked.

A smile curled at Archer’s lips.
“You’re in my backyard.” She gestured down the river to where it
bent and escaped the tree line, beyond which sat her cabin. Lexie
relaxed and smiled at her dumb luck.

“
Hungry?” Archer said
finally, presenting the rabbit.

“
God, yes,” Lexie
sighed.

“
Excellent.”

The cabin was beautiful, like a
hand-made extension of the forest itself. Lexie hadn’t gotten a
good look at it when she fled after her last visit. Now as they
walked along the riverbank as it cut through the meadow separating
the cabin from the forest she could appreciate the whole place: It
was a simple cottage, made of stacked Douglas fir logs that reached
sharp, perfect corners. On the second floor, where the roof reached
an apex above Archer’s sleeping loft, redwood shingles covered the
outer walls. The windows were paned and shuttered, the glass uneven
and cloudy, as though centuries old. A simple eaved porch extended
from the side door, the planks of which were splattered with dozens
of muddy bare footprints. A pair of dirty work boots sat next to a
sea-grass welcome mat. Just beyond the porch, a chopping block of a
stump held an ax, its blade buried in a cleft on the surface. A
simple woodshed held stacked logs and an array of hanging tools,
hand braided fishing nets, and half-finished furniture
projects.

The inside was more familiar, but no
less lovely: the rough logs forming walls, the propane tank
speckled with rust aside the stove, the deep tin sink, the foraged
herbs drying against the window. On the counter sat two plates, two
mugs, and some jars that Lexie assumed doubled as glasses. Lexie
saw little food anywhere except for a pair of apples and a bunch of
carrots that sat alone on the counter. The window above the sink
was cracked, and thick dust caked the sill. It looked as though
this cabin had been abandoned for years, and was just now receiving
a second chance at life.

Lexie wandered through the room,
breathing in the memories of the previous month. Her eyes grazed
the fireplace, and a shiver of delicious remembrance swirled
through her body. She placed her hand on the back of a chair to
steady herself. As soon as the pleasant memories flooded her nerve
cells, the blood and screams replaced them. Lexie wanted to share
the events of the prior night, if only to dispel their horror, like
the voicing of a nightmare. But she did not yet have the words to
ask for absolution. Instead she sought to dispel her overwhelm with
idle chatter.

“
Is it weird not living in
a modern place?” Lexie asked.

“
Modern, how? Like having .
. . ?”

“
Heat?”

“
I have heat. I have a
fireplace and a stove.”

“
Hot water?”

“
I prefer cold
water.”

“
Even for
showers?”

“
I bathe in the
river.”

“
What?!”

“
What?” Archer said with a
chuckle.

“
How do you not die? It
must freeze over in the winter.”

“
In the winter I take
showers,” Archer grinned.

“
Good lord.”

An awkward silence fell. Lexie worried
she had insulted Archer when she was just flirting. She would stop
flirting.

Archer broke the silence. “I would love
a washing machine.”