Sentry paladin beginning.., p.7
Stay Crazy, page 7
Enlightenment is suicide, Em thought.
"Exactly."
"I'll get your pictures. I'll take them at the break." She checked her phone. Almost time.
"Thank you, Em. Is that enough pleasantry for you?"
Em rolled her eyes, hoping that Escodex could detect and interpret it, and tore the box from her ear. She stocked the rest of the case, then went to the back room, where she fetched her phone and brown paper lunch bag from her locker.
In the break room, she huddled in a corner and pretended to be engrossed in a copy of the company newsletter, Newstown USA. Stealing glances over the top of the pages, she took out her phone and started snapping pictures.
None of them paid any attention to her. If they saw the phone, they didn't care. Em took stills interspersed with the occasional thirty-second movie until the phone was almost out of charge. Then a beefy hand covered with black fur clamped on her arm.
"Who are you?" Em said before she realized that the man wore a nametag reading "Tony." Idiot.
"I'm Tony, the night manager. What do you think you're doing?"
Think fast. "I'm writing an article about how great our store is. For, um, this," she said, indicating the copy of Newstown USA.
"No, you're not." Tony snatched the phone from Em's hand. "You’re being weird."
"Give it back!" Em made a desperate grab for the phone.
"I'll bring this up with Lars when he comes in. You’re off nights. Lars told me to keep an eye on you." Tony shook his head. "I should have listened."
"Lars?"
"Pendleton." Tony slid the phone into the pocket of his Dockers. He shook his head. "Writing an article. Did you really think I'd buy that, Em?"
"Miss Kalberg," she said, as she cast her eyes at the dirt-streaked tile floor. His name is Lars?
Chapter Eleven
"Let me in, Em! You've been in there for almost an hour!"
Em turned on the blow dryer to drown out her sister's yelling. It worked, at least until her sister barged in, rage smeared over her face.
"I'm getting ready for tonight."
"I need to get ready too. I'm going to a midnight prayer circle."
Em put down the blow dryer and picked up a bottle of blue nail polish. "That sounds like a lot of fun."
"Do you always have to be sarcastic?" Jackie shimmied her way between Em and the sink and turned on the faucet.
"Whore of Babylon." Em stamped off to her room to try on outfits. This evening had to be perfect. Denise was Em's only pre-breakdown friend, and she intended to keep her. Em had already coached Kevin on what he should and should not say with regard to her situation.
"I'm going to say that I'm thinking about doing the next semester as independent study," Em had said. "That'll cover me in case her family ever sees me around town." Unless they saw her at Savertown USA. She’d cross that bridge when she got to it.
"Should I tell them you're on the Dean's List?" Kevin had said, rolling his eyes.
"That might help."
While Em looked through her closet for something suitably festive — did she have anything except shapeless dark sweaters and jeans? — her mother came into the room.
"Big night for you, huh?"
"Does this look okay?" Em held a low-cut purple blouse up to the black linen skirt she had salvaged from the back of her closet.
"It looks fine."
"I think it might be too small now. I've gained some weight. You know, from the —"
Em's mother took her by the shoulders. "You know I love you very much, don't you, Emmeline?"
"Okay."
"And I'm very proud of you for putting yourself out there and going to this thing."
"It's just dinner, Mom."
"You never had a lot of friends. I thought you were just being difficult on purpose or something. But now that I know why ... there were so many wasted years. If I would have been more observant —"
Em pulled away from her mother. "This is making me a little uncomfortable."
"I'm sorry." Em's mom said, backing up a few paces. "I'm just feeling emotional right now."
"What are you doing tonight?"
"Oh, I'll just stay here. I'm bushed," she said, though she didn't seem all that exhausted.
"Gonna watch some Wes Summersby DVDs?"
A raised eyebrow. "So what if I am?"
"I'm not saying anything. Have fun." Em started packing her bag, hoping her mom would get the hint and leave.
Mom seemed in no danger of going anywhere. "If you need me to pick you up, just call."
"Kevin will drive me home." Em zipped the bag closed. "I need to get dressed now, Mom."
Her mom shook her head as if clearing it. "Of course."
Finally. Em propped her desk chair under the doorknob and slipped into the too-small party clothes.
Em and Kevin met Denise and her boyfriend Ben at the all-night diner in Clear Falls, the one that was not a Denny's. There had been talk of meeting up at an all-ages club in Pittsburgh, but the seven inches of snow on the ground dictated otherwise. As Kevin guided his sister's Pontiac into a parking space, Em fidgeted with the cuffs of her blouse.
"Remember what I told you to tell her," she said. "No getting into specifics. You don’t know a lot about me because we just met a few weeks ago. Anything you say might conflict with what I told them on Christmas. In fact, you probably shouldn't talk unless one of them asks you a question. Let them think you're the strong silent type."
"Yes, ma'am," Kevin said, rolling his eyes.
"Oh, come on. It's only one night."
"Yeah, until the next time. Right?"
Em brushed back his hair. "Don’t be upset."
They sat on the low wall near the restaurant and waited for Denise and Ben to arrive. When they showed up, Em was embarrassed. Denise had wrapped herself in a very flattering wine-colored dress, and her boyfriend wore a nice-looking sport jacket without tie. All four of them were overdressed for a diner, but all Em could think about was how much better Denise looked. She shifted her bag in front of her gut.
"You look great," Em said, trying to smile.
"Thanks."
The hostess seated them under a chrome grill pried from the front of a ‘57 Buick. After ordering, Denise and Em huddled in close together, leaving the men blinking at each other across the mosaic-covered table.
"Remember that Mr. Foster in art class?" Denise said. "Did you hear he got busted for indecent exposure last year?"
"No, really?" High school gossip didn't filter through the Savertown USA retail-industrial complex.
"I'm sure glad I only have to be in Clear Falls for vacations and summer. This town is so constricting. Don't you think so? I mean, there are worse places than this, but smart girls like us don't belong here."
"Ain't that the truth." Em played with her straw.
"So where do you go to school, Kevin?" Denise said, directing her gaze at him.
"I, um, don't. I'm taking a year off."
Em wanted to hit him. Sure, she hadn't coached him in advance — who could have guessed that Denise would want to talk about him? — but it wouldn't have killed him to blurt out "Penn State" or even "Harvard." She gritted her teeth and fumbled for an excuse. "Kevin's doing independent study. He's a very self-directed learner. In fact, I'm thinking of doing the same thing next semester."
"Oh, I see." Denise’s smile drooped slightly. "So where did you two meet?"
"Laundromat. Hey, look, Galaga!" Em said, pointing toward the video game cabinet at the back of the restaurant. "Kevin, let's go play a game."
"But the waitress is here."
"Give us a few minutes," Em said, smiling at the waitress in what she hoped was a sweet way, although it probably just looked creepy, like everything Em ever did.
Once they were over at the machine, Em bared her teeth at Kevin, and punched him in the arm. "What are you doing? You're going to give us away!"
"If anyone's going to give us away, it will be you and the way you're acting right now."
"You take that back!"
"Is everything okay over here?" a passing busboy said.
"Everything's fine," Kevin said. "Come on, Em. Let's go back to our table."
He didn't even want to be here, Em thought. I dragged him into it. She hid her face in her palms. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Em, are you okay?" Denise said.
Em nodded. "Yeah."
After a few sideways glances between Denise and her boyfriend, the meal resumed. The waitress dropped off the bread and took their orders.
"I just love the atmosphere here," Denise said, twining her hands with Ben's. "It's so retro."
Em could barely breathe with all the carefully constructed artificiality pulsing around her, but she forced herself to nod at her friend's statement. "Yeah, far out."
"So, how long have you two known each other?" Ben said, the first words he had spoken all night.
"Oh, Em and I go way back," Denise said. "Since kindergarten, isn't that right?"
"I think so. We were both in the afternoon session."
Moment of silence. "I didn't go to kindergarten," Kevin said quietly.
Well, thank you for that stirring piece of information, Einstein, Em thought. But she shrugged, smiled, and laced her fingers with Kevin’s, the mirror image of the Denise/Ben tableau.
"Ben and I met at the Museum of Modern Art. I was feeling awfully lonely, so I took the train down into the city —"
Christ, Em thought, she's been away for one semester and already New York is "the city." She squeezed Kevin's hand a little tighter.
"And I heard this man with a Pittsburgh accent asking for directions. So I look over, and what do you know, he's cute! So we got to talking, and one thing led to another, and it turns out we grew up two hours away from each other. Isn't that funny?"
"That's really, um, awesome," Em said.
"We’re going to rent an apartment in Brooklyn next summer if we can find people to room with."
The food arrived, steam rising from the plates like mountaintop mist. "Uh huh," Em said, unrolling her silverware set. She smoothed the napkin across her lap.
"Boy," Kevin said, "this looks good." Em shot him another warning glance, but he seemed not to notice.
"So," Denise said, after taking one dainty bite of her food. "How are things at Oberlin? You know, a lot of people from high school are really jealous of you for getting in."
"Oh, it's great. Totally cool."
"Yes, but what are you taking? And how many credits?"
"Um, twelve. Mostly basic classes."
"Honey, you'll never get ahead taking that kind of a load. Now, look at me. Right now I'm taking eighteen credits. You have to want to work, Em. After all, you only get one shot at this."
"I'm happy with my course load." Em took a bite of her sandwich.
"You may not be a few years down the road."
Ben clapped his hands together. "Hey, I know, why don't we stop talking about this? All in favor?" He raised his hand.
Em smiled and raised hers too. She kind of liked Denise's boyfriend, even if he dressed like a prep school student and lived in New York City. Kevin, meanwhile, stared at the table in silence.
Denise playfully rolled her eyes. "I can see my advice isn't wanted."
Em reached for her fork to scoop up a bite of Kevin's pasta primavera. And that's when she saw them.
There were bugs swarming over the silverware.
Not real bugs, Em could see that much, she wasn't an idiot. They were gleaming, silver bugs, with long segmented legs and feelers tipped with grain-sized transmitters.
They beeped at her and talked amongst themselves.
Kevin's hand clamped on her shoulder. "Em?"
She glared at him. "What?" Couldn't he see that he was embarrassing her?
"You dropped your napkin."
"Oh." Picking it up, Em thought she detected a feeling of tension in the room, a rubber band strung tight over Denise and Ben's heads, ready to snap! She smoothed the napkin over her lap and smiled with her lips screwed tight. "Thank you."
Denise sat frozen, but Ben started to eat. As he raised his loaded fork to his mouth, one of the silver bugs took a swan dive onto his lower lip, and scurried into his oral cavity. Ben swallowed.
"Did you see that?" Em hissed at Kevin. She hunkered down so Denise and Ben couldn’t see her. This is disgusting.
"Maybe we should leave," Kevin said, his voice so low Em could scarcely hear him. "I’ll get the check." He stood. Denise and Ben were oblivious, lost in a private conversation.
Em pulled at Kevin’s arm and hissed in his ear. "No! I do not want to leave now. We are going to have a nice dinner, with my friends, and I am not going to let you or him —" she pointed in the general direction of a waiter, "— ruin this for me!"
"You need to chill out, Em."
"Fuck you." She pushed her plate away; even someone as low-class as Em couldn't be expected to eat food filled with thousands of microscopic bugs.
"Except they want me to eat it," she said, replying to herself. "Maybe that's how they want to control me. Do you think that's true, Kevin?"
Kevin sighed. "No, I don't think it's true."
"I mean, look at them. So pretty and perfect. How do they get that way, hmm? By poisoning me. With science."
"You need to keep your voice down."
Em's fist hit the table before she was aware she'd even raised it. "Don't you tell me to shut up!"
Denise and Ben looked up. Their eyes shone silver like the carapaces of the insects positively swarming over the dinner plates. Shrinking back into her chair, Em drew her hands to her chest and her knees to her hands. They can hear me. I’m speaking out loud.
Denise met Kevin’s eyes, a conspiring glance. "What’s going on?"
Kevin shook his head. "She ... she’s not well. I think we should go —"
"Yes, I understand." Denise ran to the front of the restaurant for the check, while Ben sat dumbfounded like a wax mannequin.
Kevin gripped Em’s wrists in his hands, but she kept them crossed corpse-like over her body Like I’m in a coffin, Em thought, like I’m already dead.
"You’ve fucked it all up, Kevin."
"You’re welcome, Em," Kevin said, a slight frown on his face. Em closed her eyes, the afterimage of the insects still burning on the inside of her lids, in a place where she could never, ever wash them away.
Chapter Twelve
"But you have to give me my phone back!" Em yelled. "It belongs to me."
"You were taking pictures of your coworkers without their consent," Pendleton said as he fiddled with his red, white, and blue tie. The cell phone sat between them on his rusted metal desk. "You know that's not allowed under the rules of the Savertown USA employee handbook."
"I think American law trumps the handbook."
"Why were you doing this, Em?"
Em twined her fingers around one another. "I told you. Well, I told Tony. It's for a project."
"The employee handbook says I am to confiscate personal devices being used on company time," Pendleton said. A copy of the handbook was spread out over his desk. "It doesn't say anything about giving them back."
Hot tears poured down Em's face despite her best efforts. "I can’t afford another one."
"You should have thought of that before." Pendleton sighed. "I'll give it back this one time. Don't let it happen again, or I'll fire you. With or without your 'special needs.' We have rules here at Savertown USA."
"Thank you, sir. It's more than I deserve, really."
Pendleton handed the phone back. "Cut the crap. I know what you think of me and everyone who works for this company."
Em slipped her phone into her pocket, holding a hand on it to make sure it didn’t get away. Should she thank him again? She settled for meeting his stony gaze across the table. As she got up to leave, a loud bang! rang out from the other side of the store.
"What was that?" Em said, as all the blood rushed from Pendleton's face and he burst from the office. But somehow, she already knew.
They found the manager of the Sports and Outdoors section slumped over in a folding campsite chair on display, his lower jaw ripped from his bloody face. Yellowed teeth peppered the aisle like candy corn. His eyes were open, vacant, his soul a snuffed candle. A nametag reading "Doug" remained pinned to his ruined vest. Pendleton jumped into action, ordering a cordon drawn around the scene and the customers evacuated.
Em ducked behind a shelf. Bile rose in her throat as she spotted a loose tongue out of the corner of her eye. She felt detached, apart from the blood-spattered wreck of a human in front of her.
Cry later, she thought. Act now.
"He shot himself," said the stammering, pale stock girl who worked alongside Doug. "He just — picked it up and ... and ..." Her teeth rattled loud enough to drown her words.
"What do you mean he shot himself?!" Pendleton screamed, pointing at the display of AR-15 rifles with a "Great for Holidays" banner over them. "These guns aren't supposed to be loaded!"
The woman looked up at Pendleton through a haze of tears. "Well, it was."
"Take her outside," Pendleton said to the security guard who had just shown up. "She'll have to talk to the police when they get here."
"Will do," the guard said, leading the shrieking girl away.
"Get back to the break room." Pendleton said to nobody. His voice cracked as he spoke. "Nothing to see here."
Em pressed her ear to a can of tennis balls. Escodex, it's happened again!
"I know. Just now I noticed a concurrent rise in the entity's energy level."
You didn’t stop it?
"What could I have done? I’m only a voice here, Em." There was a break in the transmission, which felt almost like a sigh. "We need to speed things up. You'll have to work extra hard for me if you don't want your friends to keep dying."
