Offerings — II.2 & IX.4

This post consists of two excerpts: the first takes place early in the story and the second one much later. I paired them together because a) I thought it might be fun, in a sadistic sort of way, to show the reader a “before and after” of the two primary characters without all the in-between stuff; and b) to contrast a more character-driven segment with a more action-driven one.

Content warning: Lots of coarse language; some sexual references; description of suicide

2010

Mel was sure of it now — someone had told Izzy. The change in her demeanor likely went unnoticed by most of the guests, but to him it was like a light switch. Perhaps because it was so clearly directed at him.

The tell had come while he was talking to cousin Nardo. Their conversation had turned to music — a topic in which Mel was not especially well-versed , but that nonetheless promised a conversational lifeline. Mel was withering under the effort of making small talk with his simultaneously more athletic and more cultured peer, and found unexpected relief when Nardo mentioned a band he’d recently seen play whose name Mel recognized.

“Oh yeah!” He snapped his fingers. “Izzy showed me a video of them one time; they were playing at, oh…” He turned to Izzy, who was at the opposite end of the kitchen island and scowling at her phone.

“Izzy!” he called. She didn’t look at him but he soldiered on. “What’s that radio station that keeps having those indie bands on for live shows?”

“KEXP,” she replied, voice flat and eyes still downturned.

“Right. Yeah, their show on KEXP was really good.”

“Yeah I think they’ve played there a few times,” Nardo confirmed. He didn’t seem to have noticed Izzy’s frost, or was at least unsurprised by it. But it was all Mel could see, and he soon found himself incapable of pulling the conversation along any farther. Nardo didn’t seem to mind and eventually drifted off with a grumble about the lack of booze.

Now Mel stood alone at the island, picking at a pan dulce and cursing his relatives. The only family members at this gathering with whom he felt comfortable were unavailable — Dad and Tío Berto were ensconced in front of a football game with the other uncles, his cousin Guillermo had vanished with his girlfriend, and Izzy was in one of her moods. Worse still, Mel was convinced he himself was the cause of that mood.

It was probably Tía Adelma who had blabbed. The youngest of Dad’s seven siblings, she delighted in being the self-appointed black sheep and had been trying for years to groom Izzy for a similar role. Izzy neither wanted nor needed the help, but Adelma insisted on cornering her conspiratorially whenever she found an opportunity. And if Mom had shared the news of Mel’s decision with anyone — which, in her rapture over it, she likely had — Adelma would have heard and accosted Izzy about it. She had likely done so this evening.

Mel looked into the black-speckled countertop and now cursed himself. His request for secrecy of his parents had been too polite, too deferential. Why hadn’t he insisted more strongly — especially in regard to his sister?

That was obvious, of course. There are no secrets with family and there are definitely no demands made of parents. Mel had learned both those things shortly after learning to talk.

But he had never intended to make this a secret. He had just wanted to tell Izzy himself, when the time was right. When he knew how.

“Oh! Mielito!” a middle-aged feminine voice keened from somewhere behind him. Insides curdling with preemptive embarrassment, Mel lifted his head — Izzy had vanished — and turned to find Tía Xochitl bearing down on him. She landed in a splash of cosmetic fumes and kissed him on each side of his face.

“I was hoping you’d be here!” she exclaimed, stepping back to gaze at him as if he were a statue. Her crimson nails were wrapped around each of Mel’s forearms and he forced a grin, frozen as if in a dentist’s chair.

“In the flesh,” he deadpanned.

“So exciting!” she exulted; then, remembering herself, lowered her voice. “You becoming a priest, I mean!”

Mel gave a laugh that was more of a cough. “Well, seminary doesn’t automatically –”

“I was just telling Benny the other day, how sad it is there aren’t more priests these days. After all the scandals, and the churches closing. Whole churches! Closed and sold, because a bunch of lawyers figured out how to take the Church’s money. Ay, it’s awful.”

Mel squirmed, feeling an obligation to correct his aunt’s understanding of what had caused the Spokane diocese’s bankruptcy. But he was either not brave or not foolish enough to attempt it.

“And even then,” she sighed, “not enough priests to go around. That’s why it’s so good what you’re doing, Mielito. So brave.”

Mel hated taking compliments, especially from older women. He shrugged up some irrelevant modesty. “I dunno; I just figured I had to give it a try sometime.”

“Well, not many boys are willing to! Most at your age, they’d rather be…”

She began to recite a well-practiced litany of masculine vices, but Mel tuned it out almost immediately. He had spotted Izzy, now leaning by the front door and looking directly at him as she sipped some tamarindo. He thought he could make out a humorless grin behind the rim of her glass. As Tía Xochitl prattled on, Izzy averted her eyes and headed to the basement stairs.

Mel couldn’t tell if she wanted him to follow or if she was just sneaking out for a smoke. If the former, then too bad: Xochitl was only just getting wound up and Mel didn’t know how to extricate himself.

Izzy was neither in the basement nor on the back patio when he did finally get the chance to check. She had disappeared altogether, in fact, though her car remained down on the curb. Mel tried for a time to quell his anxiety and stay engaged in the party, but that proved predictably impossible.

He then attempted a benign attachment from his worries about his sister, his frustration with the family at large, his sense of isolation, all of it. He’d read something about that recently, maybe in Introduction to the Devout Life. The notion that you can foster a kind of peaceful acceptance of your psychological dysfunctions, even as they afflict you. Sometimes, fighting one’s demons just strengthens their grasp, and so Mel decided to try not fighting.

Soon that too proved futile, if not altogether incoherent. He told Mom he was tired and would head up to his room, even though guests were still around. Rather, his words told her while his tone asked permission. She mercifully granted it, but with an eyebrow of concern that meant an examination would be prepared for him in the morning.

Whatever, he thought as he climbed the stairs. Sufficient for the day is its own evil.

He just wanted to blow an hour or two on League of Legends and then sleep. He prodded his conscience with the idea and prayed it wouldn’t lash out at him. It rolled open one dragon-eye and growled.

Never tire in pursuing virtue.

If only these novices understood the enormity of hours wasted in idleness and false diversion!

Come to Me, all you who labor…

…who actually labor, I mean. Not whatever you’re doing.

Mel sighed outside his bedroom door, eyes burning and thoughts like a sandstorm. Fine. Vespers and bed instead. He needed to get accustomed to the Liturgy of the Hours anyway.

And you haven’t said your Rosary.

The thought was like stepping in a puddle. The prayers would only take about twenty minutes, but that time would feel like an hour, the mantras blurring into a miniature eternity of worn words and sentiments.

Maybe. Maybe the Rosary too. Which actually meant yes. Now that he had thought of it, he would be unable to dismiss it at all. Because he was such a good boy.

His conscience lowered its smoldering head but kept that eye fixed on him. Mel ground his teeth and opened the bedroom door.

Izzy was inside, on the desk chair, one leg curled up under her and the other pushing the chair around in a lazy arc. Mel halted in the doorway and made a kind of “uhk” sound.

“Oh hey,” his sister said in a friendly tone that belied her blank expression. Mel tried to act offended rather than just confused, and quickly realized he did in fact feel that way.

“Hey,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

She shrugged. “Oh, y’know. Just wanted to check on my little brother.”

“Why?” Mel demanded, rankled both by her sarcasm and the big-sister concern that may have been genuinely hiding beneath it.

She grinned and nibbled on the nail of her pinky. “Because it’s a big step you’re taking.”

Mel lowered his head and shoulders. “Listen, Iz. I’m sorry. I was going to tell you; I just–”

“Oh I’m not mad about you not telling me,” she clarified, her swiveling picking up pace a bit. “I’m mad about you doing it in the first place.”

Mel was first nonplussed by her bluntness, then angry at himself. Some corner of him had subconsciously hoped for empathy from her, or at least tact. But Izzy had a way, with him anyway, of not only allowing her words to express her true feelings, but ensuring that they did. Especially when those feelings were venomous.

“I’m… sorry you feel that way,” he murmured at last. The tension sagged out of his shoulders — he was not worth a check on her anger. He should have known better. He should have expected persecution. And, failing that, smothering by the world’s Tía Xochitls.

“Well, I’m sorry it apparently doesn’t matter to you,” she replied.

He had told himself he wouldn’t take any of her bait, but this was already too much. “Of course it matters to me!” he bristled.

Izzy arched her eyebrows. “Actions speak louder than words.”

“What does that even mean?!” Mel spat. “How does me going to seminary affect you at all? I’m not trying to convert you or drag you back to Mass or anything!” His heart raced with the helpless fury of a younger sibling losing an argument. He had always lost against Izzy.

“It totally affects me,” she replied. The chair had stopped swiveling. “Now it’ll be Mom and Dad and you against me. Forever.”

“That’s –” Mel spluttered as he choked back the expletive.

“What, Mel? That’s what?” Her eyes glittered. “Bullshit? That what you were gonna say?”

Mel stared determinedly up into the corner, face and eyes both burning now.

“It’s like you’re trying to prove my point,” Izzy scoffed. “This ‘faith’ or whatever… it’s such a fucking straitjacket on you, you can’t even say a dirty word without having a nervous breakdown.”

“Well…” Mel pushed the words through his cottonmouth. “You can’t seem to do much of anything without swearing, so.”

“Mmm, wow. Touche.”

“Or getting stoned.” Mel winced internally, cursing his lack of temperance in letting that one through. Izzy looked at him like he were a stranger puking on the subway.

“Maybe,” she hissed. “So what? At least it’s me getting stoned. At least I don’t, fuckin’…” She threw a hand in the air, searching for words. Mel savored the rare fumble despite himself.

“Least I don’t bend over and ask the Pope to stick a hand up my butt and make me his sock puppet,” she finally finished. Her face wore the full big-sister smugness now. “Sure, I drink. I cuss. I get high three times a day or whatever. And–” she gasped theatrically — “worst of all, I engage in sexual relations with other women!” A hand to her mouth, nails the color of night-blooming flowers.

Mel forced himself to meet her glare and send it back, but gave up after only a few seconds. His face was hot and cold at once and there was a whirlpool in his chest. His sister loathed him. He disgusted her.

Izzy dropped her hand and her theatrics. “So yeah. Whatever, Mel. I don’t give a shit, because I’d rather be myself than somebody’s slave.”

Mel looked into the corner again. “What if you’re still a slave anyway?”

He could practically hear her eyes rolling. “Oh right, right. Wages of sin and all that. I always forget.”

“Are you done?” Mel snapped. He looked at her then at his bed. “I’m tired. I want to go to sleep.”

She pursed her lips in a moment’s mime pondering, then slapped her knee and bounced out of the chair. “Sure thing, bud!”

She fairly skipped over to the door while Mel ground his teeth. How did she do it? Why did she do it? Every movement, every word fine-tuned to grate and belittle, all because she was so defensive of the titles she’d chosen for herself. Atheist. Lesbian. Black sheep.

“Sleep tight, bro,” she sang as she left the room.

“‘Night,” Mel replied, barely audible. It took all his strength to keep from slamming the door after her.

2022

Izzy awoke to gravel chewing into her shoulder blades. She saw only the ripple of gray clouds and jerked onto her side, looking around. She was in the parking lot. The truck sat where it had been before, maybe fifty feet away to her right. She scrambled to her feet and patted herself down, feeling naked.

A car grunted through the intersection at the corner of the lot, drove alongside it, then passed behind the truck and away. Izzy wondered how long it had sat at the stop sign, if it had been watching her. She found her keys and moaned with relief — thank God she had worn something with real pockets. Her car, too, remained mercifully where she had left it. It was the only one in the lot and looked witlessly exposed as a fat rabbit in a field. The truck’s driver side window seemed to gaze at it hungrily.

She lurched toward the car and almost fell as gravel skidded underfoot. Her phone — that was in the other pocket, her license and credit card hugged to it tight in a silicone sleeve. Good. Time to get out of here.

Izzy jabbed the unlock button three times and the car chirruped awake. As she arrived at the door and yanked it open, a thought hissed out of nowhere:

They have Mel.

She froze, grabbed the awful idea and pulled at it, looking for the roots. She couldn’t trace them. Why would they have Mel?

Because no one else does. They’ve taken the body.

The body…

She remembered what she had seen, that snuff-film glimpse inside the truck’s trailer. Nausea surged through her, cold and wet, and she collapsed into the driver’s seat.

The police. She should call the police. A goddamned serial killer had set up shop in the church parking lot and she was an eyewitness.

The door was still open and she’d left one leg hanging out of it. What the fuck — why wasn’t she across town by now? She jerked her leg inside with a queasy grunt, slammed the door and locked it. Why wasn’t she out of town by now?

Because they have Mel.

Bullshit. There was no reason to think that. He wasn’t one of the bodies hanging in –

Did you see any of their faces?

Throwing up was suddenly an imminent possibility. She swiveled and peered across the litter in her backseat in a panic, looking for an empty bag or box. A couple of sweaters, her backpack, gas station receipts… The search was enough of a momentary distraction that the feeling passed. She faced forward again.

The shape of the church filled the windshield: a wide, shallow triangle with darkened windows. The stained glass was muddy and indistinct. Her thoughts slipped into each other and she couldn’t remember — was she about to drive away or not?

Call the police. Right.

She struggled to dig her phone out of her pocket and entered the unlock code incorrectly twice. Once she had it open, she somehow couldn’t find the phone app. It should have been muscle memory by now, but somehow… Why was she calling the police again?

Because of what she had seen, yes. But had she even seen it, really? All she had was that one image of naked bodies, suspended upside-down and backlit by a sulfurous glow.

The picture was hazy in detail but murderously vivid as a whole. She couldn’t bring herself to hold it in her mind and examine it objectively. Only a flash. She might have been mistaken. It might have even been a nightmare — she’d passed out in the parking lot for fuck’s sake. Her brother had just committed suicide and there was no telling what freakouts the human brain might perform in response to that kind of stress.

Mel was gone. Her brother was gone. He’d done it himself.

A sob began to claw at her throat as she held the phone up to her ear. It wasn’t until the ringer began to sound on the other side that she realized she hadn’t dialed the police after all, but Agnes. Izzy made a panicked effort to remember why she’d done that; what on earth was she planning to say? She tried to decide whether to hang up, and was maybe but not certainly about to do so when the ringer was cut off.

“Izzy, hi! What’s up?”

“Hi, Agnes.” She paused in agony and then forced out some words. “Um… sorry. I dunno, I just –”

The sob came up — tschuuk — and was immediately followed by another. Izzy took the phone away from her face in a vain effort to withhold the noises, but Agnes responded at once.

“Woah, hey. It’s ok, I’m here. I’m listening.”

Izzy clamped her eyes and lips shut, then sucked in a breath as quietly as she could. More words wouldn’t come.

“What’s going on?” Agnes pressed; then, placatingly: “Take your time.”

“I um, I… I’m at the church. I think they have Mel here.” Did she really think that? What did that even mean? Why did she have to be so cryptic? She could hear Agnes absorbing her words and searching for a response in the silence that followed.

“You think Mel is at St. Thomas?”

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. You remember that truck, the one that was hanging around his apartment?”

“I do, yes.”

“It’s here, in the parking lot.”

“Oh.” Another silence. Agnes was waiting for her to continue but Izzy found herself stuck again. Ishmael spoke in the background and Izzy flushed. Why the hell was she unloading her problems on a single mom?

Some clicking and fumbling came across the phone. Agnes gave an affirmative to whatever her son had asked, then: “Do you want to come over?” she offered. “Tell me about it?”

The proposal made Izzy aware of how uncomfortable she was having the truck out of sight. She imagined it rolling away silently while her back was turned and whipped around.

It hadn’t moved. She didn’t turn back.

“No. Thank you, but no. I think I’d better stay.”

“Okay. Did you see anything? Have you called the police?”

“Um…” The image began to form again. Izzy rubbed it out. “Maybe. I’m not sure.” She finally turned back around and awkwardly probed for the ignition with her key.

“Alright, well… I think you should call them, okay?”

“Mm-hmm.” The key just kept ramming into the side of the steering column until Izzy finally bent over and aimed it.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re not sure it’s worth calling. Let them sort that out.”

“Okay. Yeah, okay.” She started the engine. If nothing else, she’d give herself a clear view of the damn thing.

“We’ll come to you. Be there in five or so.”

“No no!” Izzy insisted, horrified as petty social embarrassment threatened to pile itself on top of everything else. “You’ve got Ishmael at home, I don’t–”

“Hey,” Agnes pushed back, “he’s a big kid, he’ll be ok. I’d like to be there for you if it would be helpful.”

Izzy pulled forward and began to crank the steering wheel. She wanted to protest further but her brain didn’t have room for it. “Um, ok fine. I mean, thank you. Ok.”

“Just sit tight. See you in a few.”

“Sounds good.”

The car was now half-turned enough to give a clear view of the truck. Izzy put it in park but left it running. Apart from the sound of her engine, the lot and its environs were lifeless; it was late March and the world was ugly.

She waited. Calling the cops felt premature now that her horror and panic had sizzled down somewhat. She had no desire to let detached professional eyes rake over her and snidely ask about her consumption habits. Something needed to happen first.

After a few minutes, something did. Another car pulled up to the intersection, but turned right instead of moving through. It immediately made another turn into the lot and Izzy felt a drawstring yank tight somewhere in her guts.

It was one of those old-person cars, a Buick LeSabre or something. Completely unremarkable. It occurred to Izzy that it might just be one of the elderly women who seemed to haunt churches at all hours, but it soon became evident that was not the case. As the car drew to a stop next to the truck, she saw that the two figures inside were men.

Izzy sank down in her seat and craned her neck at the same time, cursing herself for not thinking to move someplace less conspicuous. If either of the newcomers approached her, she decided, she would charge right past them and go out the way they had come in. Perhaps it would take them long enough to crank back up, turn around and follow her that she could lose them. It wouldn’t be the first time in her life she’d taken such a gamble.

The driver was a hulk, sporting artificially black hair that folded over his ears and across his eyebrows in a perfect bowl cut. She could have sworn he was wearing lipstick too. He looked like a frat boy who’d done a poor job of dressing as Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.

The passenger was much more lean and disheveled, and clearly some kind of Latino. In fact — Izzy’s heart curled into a knot — his overall frame and face shape looked very much like –

It was Mel.

Izzy’s limbs all went into action at once and suddenly she was out of the car, wide open under the bone-colored sky. She clutched the edges of the car door and screamed his name once, twice, three times, each cry longer and louder.

He looked in her direction and she felt rather than exactly saw his eyes dial into hers. Holy God; Jesus Christ; he was alive and he was here, he was there he was right there and –

Mel’s jaw fell slack and his head dropped; the whites of his eyes rolled up as the pupils remained locked on her. The face was no longer Mel’s but that of a corpse: one freshly hung, strung up by its own belt in an empty apartment at full dark where there was no light but the frying streetlamp dissected from outside by cheap plastic blinds and no noise but the chitter of crickets and an AC unit kicking on for no one and no one else was around for miles and miles and –

He spoke, the words coming to Izzy although they did not pass her ears and leaving his mouth though neither his jaw nor lips moved:

COME HERE.

She throttled her cries into a whimper and sank down to the gravel, one hand groping for the door handle. Her stomach spasmed and a hot wave surged in her throat. A klaxon sounded in her brain. He’s dead he’s really dead you’ve seen him and now you’ve seen what dead looks like it looks dead dead dead dead.

Her throat made an awful grinding noise that echoed across the empty plain of rocks and concrete and brown grass, and she finally did throw up. One heave and it was done. She made a sound that was half a groan, half a wail, then spat.

A rhythmic crunching noise registered from somewhere to her right. Footsteps. The other one was coming.

“No!” she hollered, scrabbling back to her feet. The brute in bad drag was nearly on her already; she could have hit him with the lazy toss of a rock. “No no no no no!!” She fell back into the seat and slammed the door hard enough to cut off her legs. She locked it. He arrived.

His wide creamy face came right up to the glass and his palm flattened against it, pink at the knuckles. She could see now that he was in fact wearing makeup. His face was noticeably paler than his forearms; tiny discolored cracks appeared in the topcoat around his nose, along his jaw, under his eyes. The lipstick — that, she somehow noticed, had been expertly applied. Now that he was so close she could see his real lips did in fact have a rounded, girlish quality, accentuated rather than smothered by the raspberry shade smoothed over them. His lips and eyes were actually rather beautiful.

He slapped his other palm against the window as well. “Come and see!” he crowed through a wide bleached grin. “Goodfriend wants to show you! Come!” Izzy recoiled, almost lying backward across the passenger seat.

Then something exploded behind her head. She jerked back up with a shriek and faced the other window.

A thick web of white and green cracks bloomed in the center of the glass. Mel stood behind it, his eyes pointed at nothing in particular. He drew back his bare fist and rammed it forward again. PKSSHK! Izzy twitched but made no sound this time as another web appeared next to the first. The glass bowed inward but did not shatter, the shards held in place by protective film.

Mel spoke again, wordlessly, the message filling Izzy’s head in a voice that was not his: COME HERE COME AND STOP BREATHING STOP JUST STOP COME AND STOP BEING I CAN SMELL YOU STOP –

She clamped her hands around her head and pressed her lips together but a sound escaped through her nose — a slow, escalating whine. She had to get away from him, she had to get out –

Another monstrous cracking thud as he struck the glass a third time. His hand, his poor hand… like the time a wayward pitch had smashed it in a high-school baseball game. She had been there and seen the aftermath; seen his fingers curled and bruising as he grimaced behind silent tears. Why –?

PKSSHK! She screamed again and raked for the door handle behind her, only to see the doll-man she’d forgotten was still there, a mass of pink and white and black pressed up so close she could have smelled his breath if not for the glass.

“Fuck off!” she sobbed. “I’m calling the police!” She had no idea where her phone was now. His eyes were huge and green, his lips slightly parted, glistening. She recalled how they had watched the pet tarantula they’d kept for a time as kids, waiting as it stalked the crickets they dropped into its terrarium…

A fourth impact, and now a succession of tearing and stretching and tinkling noises as the Mel-thing pushed through the flap of shrink-wrapped ruin behind her. She felt herself going slack; waiting now, not fighting, hoping that some kind of reason or explanation would come to her. The dull knowledge that it would not fell onto her like a snowdrift.

Not-Mel’s not-voice was still a clamor on her head, blaring the repeated command that she give herself up, let herself go. As if it were somehow her own will that held her thoughts and organs together and she could (should!) simply choose to cut them loose and drop into the dark. The voice that wasn’t really a voice issued this command with absolute conviction and zero emotion. No human in Izzy’s experience had ever spoken that way. A person’s words were always tinged with some emotion or other; doubt or hope or wishful thinking. Not so the thing currently prying and grunting behind her (yes, it was making real noises now, unhurried pig-like vocalizations). It did not scream, cajole, berate or bluster. It simply knew that Izzy must give herself up to it and be obliterated. It informed her of this bare fact over and over and over again.

Something yanked at the heel of her boot — a fingertip, she knew. The Mel-thing grunted again. But the noise was different this time, at least for an instant: a low whine of pain rather than effort. Perhaps it was him after all. Hope and sick pity suddenly flared in Izzy, a hot yank somewhere in her sternum. She wanted to raise her head, to see him there as he should have been, to get out of the car and take her hurting little brother down to the ground and gently put his head in her lap and soothe him.

Hey, it’s ok. I’m here. Everything will be ok.

But it was not, and would not be.

Tears came and her terror evaporated in a void of grief. Fingers glanced off again, her ankle this time. They hadn’t gotten purchase but they would soon. Izzy drew her knees up as far as she could and waited.

Suddenly the rending commotion ceased and light washed over her. The car bounced — the doll-man had left the window and launched himself across the hood on his hip. He landed on the other side, grabbed the un-Mel by the shoulder and whisked him away, toward the back of the truck.

Something new was happening. A new sound like rushing water. Tires on gravel. Izzy raised her head and looked toward the lot entrance. Terror and helpless relief sloshed into each other as she saw a weathered gray Impala roll toward the demon car. Agnes was here — but what could she possibly do? What might they do to her?

Obscure rattling noises issued from the rear of the truck as the Impala approached. Izzy was afraid to look into the windshield this time, half expecting to find another corpse face there rather than that of her friend.

But it was indeed Agnes there, her face low and hard as if trying to focus through a migraine. She lurched up next to the LeSabre, cut the engine and turned to say something to –

Ishmael, in the passenger seat.

Izzy felt another flash of terror. The thought of him falling into the hands of that blushing bowl-cut psychopath was one her mind immediately censored. That could not happen, therefore the boy could not be here. Yet here he was.

Ishmael said something to his mother. She closed her eyes, wincing, and cupped a palm to her mouth as if to hold back vomit. She nodded and got out of the car; Ishmael stayed put with his eyes fixed on the truck. Izzy felt a new sort of fear as she realized she had no idea who these people really were.

Agnes scurried over to Izzy’s car, hunched down like she was expecting gunshots.

A juddering squeak came from the truck as its rear doors opened. Izzy rose up on her elbows and tried to look toward the sound, but the doors were out of sight. No new terrors emerged, not yet. She sagged back again and stared up at the blank dome light, unsure now if she cared. The terror had suddenly drained away. She was so tired.

“Oh my God!” Agnes froze outside Izzy’s shattered window, staring in alarm over the wreckage of glass that covered her prone body. “Oh my God, Izzy! Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Izzy turned her head and stared into the dashboard. Buttons, dials, symbols; a stylized seated figure with an arrow pointed at its head. Direct AC, a punch in the face. Who gives a fuck? Imagine making those buttons for a living. Dead on your feet. Who gives a fuck?

“He’s here,” she added at last. “Mel is here.”

Agnes pulled the door open and began sweeping glass from Izzy’s legs with her bare hands. “You sure you’re not hurt?”

“Yes.” Izzy was barely aware of her own voice.

She looked past Agnes, out the rear window, then jerked up onto her elbows again. The doll-man now stood by the back of the truck, fists at his sides. He was staring across the parking lot toward the other two cars.

The blankness in Izzy’s brain was replaced by a single siren thought: He has Mel. He has Mel. He has Mel. Then the thought grew a little: He killed Mel. She longed for a grenade, a shank, a gun. A brick to push through that fucked-up geisha face. She sat all the way up; more glass fragments fell from her in a sheet.

Agnes placed a hesitant hand on Izzy’s foot. “Can you come with me?” She glanced over her shoulder, also clocking the doll-man. His attention was still across the lot. “Please, Izzy. At least come and sit in my car until the cops get here.”

“They’re not coming.” She finally met Agnes’s eyes. “I didn’t call. I don’t think they can help with this.”

Agnes closed her eyes and dropped her head. Izzy could see the part in her hair, the dirty blonde going brown at the roots; a crack in her skull. Izzy felt reality race back. This poor woman had already given her so much.

“I don’t know if they can either,” she admitted from under the curtain of hair. “But there’s not much else we can do.”

“I just need to try.” Izzy willed the flatness out of her voice. “I need to try and get him –”

Suddenly the doll-man was screaming. “What are you doing here? Get out!!”

The words were addressed not to the women but Ishmael, who was now standing out in the open, near the cab of the truck. Izzy’s torpor snapped away and she glanced at Agnes in a panic.

“Why did you bring him?” she gasped.

“Get lost, boy!” the doll-man shrieked. He leaned forward, fists and feet still rooted. “Both you and that bitch who popped you out! Get out before I wipe off your afterbirth on the gravel!”

Ishmael had been perfectly still and inscrutable, but now his eyes lit up and he screamed back. “Be quiet!”

The doll-man made a noise approximating laughter; a single hysterical bark. “I don’t care what you say! I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAY!”

Izzy switched her eyes from the boy to the man to the woman. Agnes had withdrawn from the window. Her face was in her hands and desperate, indistinct whispers issued from behind them.

“Leave him and be quiet!” Ishmael hollered again. His eyes burned low; his brows were arched but unknitted. His baby face wore the intensity and grim joy of a long-expected schoolyard brawl.

“What is happening?!” Izzy hissed at Agnes. The boy’s mother put fists to her eyes and shook her head.

“Don’t, Izzy, don’t. It’s –”

“I know who you are!” the doll-man roared, still fixed to his post. Izzy had the absurd realization that he was afraid. “You’re the reason I do this, you half-breed mutant piece of shit! You’re the reason! I’ll kill you, goddammit, I’ll kill you!!”

Izzy beat her way out of the car, ignoring Agnes’s cries and protests. She had no idea what to do but she had to do something.

“BE! SILENT!” the boy shouted, so forcefully that Izzy felt her own throat rubbed raw. “LEAVE! HIM! NOW!”

Izzy ran toward Ishmael, a hum low in her brain driving her to at least get between the boy and the predator. In the corner of her eye she saw the man lurch — but he moved away, whipping around behind the truck. Metallic thuds; the grind of rocks under her boots; the howl of hinges.

Agnes was silent.

The boy was running after the man.

“NO! Ishmael!” Izzy cried after him, but he did not slow or even turn his head as he tore over the gravel. “No no no!!”

****

Thanks for reading! If you feel up to going the extra mile, now it’s time to flash back to high-school lit classes and answer some questions. Any and all thoughts you have in response to the following would be super appreciated — DM me on Insta or Twitter (@sensoremotor for both) or shoot me an email at powersjf@gmail.com.

How is the dialogue?

• Is it realistic?
• Do the characters’ “lines” indicate something of their character?
• Do Mel’s and Izzy’s “internal dialogues” make sense?

How is the prose?

• Does it give you a clear mental picture of the setting and action?
• Do you ever get confused about where things are spatially?
• Does it get bogged down with unnecessary detail?
• Does it call attention to itself (e.g. w stylistic flourishes or weird word choices)?

How do the characters feel?

• Do their words and actions generally make sense, based on what you know about them so far?
• Are there any instances of behavior that feels confusing, abrupt or otherwise out of character?
• Consider your emotional reaction to any/all of the prominent characters (Mel, Izzy, Agnes, Ishmael, the “doll man”). Are they intriguing? Irritating? Sympathetic? Amusing? Etc.

Overall, how would you describe your emotional reaction to these two scenes? Pay attention to how they actually make you feel, not how you think the author wants you to feel.