Itch: Nine Tales of Fantastic Worlds (7 page)

I glance out the open cruiser door at the good Senator and his entourage. Carl checks his phone. Jeremy and the other two Secret Service men fade into the shadows. But the Senator stands out in the rain. His plumage glares bright among the Capitol’s elite. He’s a human groomed for his special job.

Suggestibles like the Senator pop up as randomly as the sensitives. Sometimes they’re in a position where they’re an asset. Mostly not.

My kind hasn’t had control of a president in quite a long time. Which, I believe, is one of the reasons for the attack tonight. We can’t control what skitters if we can’t hunt without worrying about the authorities.

So that son of a bitch standing on the curb between Carl and his Secret Service detail is, unfortunately, valuable.

To us. To the humans, not so much.

I glance at Mary. She’s a better human than her husband. Smarter. Wiser. More attuned to what the world needs. She thinks. Considers. Observes. Centuries ago,
she
would have been the one we would have chosen. Not her raping and pillaging husband.

But times have changed.

Next to me, Mary doesn’t move. She stopped blinking too, and watches her husband through the plastic divider between the cruiser’s front and back seats, her hands precisely held on her lap. The fingers of one hand splay over the other. Her joints look ready. If she needs to swing, curling her hand into a fist will happen automatically.

She’s unconsciously signaling to me a willingness to listen, but she’s doing it without submission. “I thought monsters stayed in dark corners.” Her eyes slowly blink. Once. “And in halls and behind closed doors.”

And she’s signaling that she wants the truth.

I think she figured out what’s about to happen and was ready for me when I walked out of the rain and into the seat next to her. She’s just wondering how I’m going to do it.

“They do.” I twist again, angling toward Mary.

Slowly, she turns her head. Her eyes track to me first, her face and mouth following. The yellow light from the streetlights outside fights with the blue of the halogen in the cruiser’s cabin and makes her look like a ghost. Or maybe I’m having a premonition.

“Why do these things happen?” She seems to be asking more for the attacked woman than for herself.

Little bits of gore and blood dot Mary’s clothes. The rain kept it from drying completely. Her sleeve is ripped and her hair a crazed mess.

“How did you get away, Mary?” Once the coyotes on the trash heap start killing, they don’t stop until they kill every living thing they smell.

She closes her eyes. “I ran.”

I suspect she did more than run. I suspect she fought it off. “The report looks like you were soliciting the hooker.”

Mary pinches the bridge of her nose. “I was giving her cash for a bus ticket. And a phone number for a… doctor.” A sob hits. She can’t hold it anymore. “When the hounds start sniffing around, asking about what I do, it’s going to ruin him with his base.” She flicks her fingers at her husband. “But I can’t
not
help, you know? I can’t.”

“I know, Mary.” The ecology here is wrong. Messed up in ways I can’t describe. She’s not the part of the system that needs eliminating.

“What was it? Is it something we need to fight? How many people are vulnerable?” She’s not begging for her life. She’s not asking the political questions. She’s not playing.

“We think there’s been a population boom. Like rats in a landfill.” Which is why we need Santiago.

She closes her eyes and a high-pitched snicker escapes, one revealing the fear she’s hiding. But she doesn’t shake her head. She stays in the same alert posture. “He’s in your pocket, isn’t he?” She waves at her husband again.

“He’s… helpful.”

“What needs to be done?” Now she shivers, as if it’s dawned on her the true nature of the danger she’s in. But she represses it.

“We need containment.” I need the unfettered ability to inspect the walls around this landfill. I need support I can send in to exterminate the monsters. And I need human secrecy. But I don’t tell her that.

“Will containment protect other women like Sylvie?”

Her words come out a whisper and I blink as if she’s the one with the glamour, not me. This woman who’s been married for decades now to the arrogant fool standing out in the rain has been doing her damnedest to
help
. And no one’s noticed.

“Yes, it will.” I can promise her that. I can give her that one boon, no matter how difficult the delivery.

“Then I will do what you need.”

I nod. My fingertips heat one last time. It’ll look like heart failure brought on by the stress of the evening. The press is kinder to the dead than they are to the living. The Senator’s handlers will make the necessary spin.

“I’ll take his place,” she says.

I yank back my hand. “What?”

Mary Seenly-Santiago’s shoulders straighten. Her back elongates. “I’ll step into his shoes. Can you get me appointed to finish out his term? I’ll run in his place.”

Sensitives don’t cooperate. Their fear makes interactions difficult. They’re standoffish and often violent.

Mary continues to watch her husband. “I have connections into the city government he doesn’t. We could use those. Do you have people in the correct federal agencies? What appointments need to be made? Judges? Department heads?”

I was wrong. Mary Seenly-Santiago isn’t a canary. She’s something much, much better. And much more rare.

“Is there a consistent cover story? One I should adhere to?” It’s like, at this moment, she’s moved beyond what had been a threat to her person and she expects me to do the exact same thing.

“There is.” I rest my hands on my lap much the same way Mary had before.

She nods. “What’s the protocol here? How do we bind our contract?”

“With blood. It’s the way of my people.”

Mary still watches the men. “Then I give you the blood of my husband.”

This binds us.

I tip my head toward the officers. “Tell the detective the truth, Mary. You did not see the man clearly. You saw only a large, black, lumbering figure. And when Sylvie screamed, you ran.”

“I will.” She doesn’t take her eyes off the men. “I want Carl with me. He’s valuable.”

I nod again as I swing my legs back into the rain. The raindrops dancing on the cruiser’s hood fill this world with a low drone. It’s the sound of the garbage shifting on the pile.

When I stand, I see Carl look up from his phone. He’s smart. Watching me and not his boss. Mary’s right. He’s valuable.

From inside the cruiser, I hear Mary’s voice. “Please tell the detectives I’ve calmed down enough that I wish to make a statement. And that I very much want to help them catch the monster who did this.”

“I will, Mary.” I step away from the car, toward the yellow line separating me from Senator and his attendants. Yes, he’s a suggestible. Yes, he has power. But he’s a mollusk, and not a bright one, at that.

I yank up the collar of my coat thinking I might yet get home to my wonderful husband tonight. Enjoy the beauty of the evening.

Two of the three Secret Service men watch the street corners, their gaze directed away from me. Jeremy, though, knows where to look.

My fingertips heat one last time. I touch my arm ring.

Jeremy nods, his gaze on my fingers more than my face. His big beefy hand lands on the Senator’s shoulder. I hear Santiago mumble something that sounds all too much like
know your place
.

I realize what I was picking up from Jeremy earlier. What it is that augments his sensitivity. Jeremy carries the faint whiff of another realm.

Somewhere, at some time, another of my kind gave him a boon that made him the best at his job. Jeremy
comprehends
.

I step to the side and allow the men to see Mary, knowing full well that she watches them with keen eyes, looking the part of the leader she truly is. I also loosen my glamour, so they see the true threat in front of them.

Terror makes the Senator’s body rigid. Surprise makes his face and his mouth and his gestures round. He’s clueless.

Carl opens his mouth but snaps it shut when he sees my true face.

Jeremy understands. “Sorry, sir. Looks like your wife wins.”

This time, when my fingertips heat, I don’t pull them back.

Tomorrow, when the sun comes out from behind the clouds, I’ll work on that appointment for Mary. And I’ll make sure Carl and Jeremy have what they need to help her through her grief.

~ ~ ~

Sometimes, the past, present, and future are… weird.

Willa swallowed the marble
. It happened fifty years ago, or maybe five, I don’t know. It might yet happen. Time isn’t something I see anymore. Changes don’t register in my eyes. It makes picking up fresh milk difficult.

But I taste it. The 80s have this starchy plastic flavor, like chips that have been left in a baggie on the dash of a crappy Ford Taurus in the center of the parking lot of the world’s largest shopping mall on a blisteringly bright August day. The 90s sit on the tongue like that recipe you loved so very much as a kid but thought you’d update the spices so they’d be more “adult.” Turns out it wasn’t all that good in the first place, and now you regret all of it, especially the expensive saffron you drowned your new version in.

So yeah, I taste your stupid past. It rolls around on my tongue like someone shoved a jawbreaker into my mouth and is holding my lips closed because I keep gagging. Or, in this case, a marble instead of candy.

In the corner, Willa’s nattering about something. I’d brought her new clay, like I do every day, and she’s making beads. She’s got old lady skinny hands, the kind that curl up and look splotchy even though her skin’s too thin and her blood vessels and tendons show. Or they will. Again, I don’t know. Can’t see time.

But I see this place. Nursing homes don’t change. It’s like a little corner of astringent clarity in my fucked up life. I don’t look at the people. Too many ghosts.

I hear Willa’s words. It’s not like I’m unstuck in time or something stupid like that. My brain’s still grinding through all its spurts of electrical and chemical motion in its perfectly timed dance. God, if my body was unstuck I’d fucking die. Seriously, has no one ever thought this through? I’m here, aren’t I? Thinking in a linear fashion. So dead, not so much.

Time affects me, I just got this dumbass disability, that’s all.

Willa’s room smells like glue sticks. It makes me think of kindergarten and lots of yelling and the need for adult supervision. Which, of course, all these warehoused old people need, or otherwise they wouldn’t be here, and neither would I. I volunteer. Give them some smiles and some chatting and help them with their arts and crafts.

Sometimes it’s extra hard, since I don’t look at them. At least not the way they want to be looked at. I
do
see the needs time creates. The dependence. The shuffling from one point to another not because you want to, but because you have to.

But the old folks, they don’t concentrate on their needs the way the young ones do. Their needs are sort of just there, floating around them like so many moldy six-pack rings and trashed plastic shopping bags. Sometimes their necks get caught in the handles and they choke to death, but for the most part, they dogpaddle on by, slowly but surely headed for that gleaming far shore of the end of it all.

But Willa here, she’s kind of determined. Her room’s this big bright space—it was supposed to be a double but her family’s rich—and she’s got her special old person adjustable bed and her special old person heated recliner for watching her giant special rich person wall-mounted high-res monitor. And she’s got systems.

They’re in a cabinet under the monitor. I hear them buzzing in there; my guess is that she’s running a full server node along with a couple of gaming consoles and probably some random regular shit. I’m not sure. Can’t see what’s behind the locked metal doors.

And when I say I can’t see it, I mean that literally. Whatever she’s got going never comes out. Never sees the light of day. Never changes even though it changes all the time.

It’s distracting. I work with her today, like I do every day, doing this crazy crafty thing with the obnoxiously bright jewelry-making clay I bring her, the polymer stuff, because she’s good with it and makes these little ball beads the nursing home sells for lots of money as a fundraiser. I just think they’re fleecing the inmates, that’s all. Old people labor to bloat the salaries of management, because God knows they don’t pay the staff worth shit.

Which is why I’m a volunteer. The head therapist, a round woman named Rhonda who likes her clothes as smoothly curved as her knuckles and her ass, is constantly telling me she’d hire me on, “But there ain’t no funds for it, darlin’. Sorry, sweetie.” Then she’d smile, or will smile, because I have no idea how many times she’s said this to me, or will say it, or is saying it right now. “Can you please go check on Willa? You two got a rapport.” Then a sniff of her circular nostrils. “You make them all feel so special.”

Yeah, I make old people feel special. I’d walk out of Rhonda’s office, her couch’s weird scent of artificial flowers following me out like some overly dependent poltergeist. She changes up the fake floral smell enough I form memories around it, at least. Lilac in the spring, lilies in the summer. In the winter, she likes pine, but every so often she’ll mix things up. Throws in some cranberry.

At least I’ve got that. Otherwise, I see my encounters with Rhonda for what they are—one of the many identical pushpins tacking my life onto the bulletin board of this place’s existence.

Willa’s looking at me now. I think she’s concerned and maybe a bit surprised. Can’t tell. Can’t see how she’s changed since we sat down across from each other here in her cavernous room inside this old people warehouse. She’d set up a card table under the big window overlooking the “green space” between the A and B wings of the building. It sits askew to the window’s frame, a little off-center and turned so it angles just enough anyone sitting on two sides would have to look over their shoulder to see the door.

The other two sides have a perfect view.

Willa always sits with her back to the door. Me, I sit where I’m supposed to.

The table never moves. Like the building, the card table never changes. Not an inch in either direction, not a twist or a march or a rip in its black vinyl covering. Nope, the table doesn’t see time, either.

Which was why I like visiting Willa. That, and her curious trove of hidden computer hardware.

She taps the table. “Honey, blue or red?”

I blink, suddenly aware that this is a choice moment, one where I might be able to anchor a memory if I try hard enough. Maybe if I lick one of her beads while asking her the date, I’ll get to make a fixed point in time.

I try every so often, more because I want to know where I am in my own life than because I care. The pushpin stuff—the “we’d hire you…” and the daily drives to work and the monthly paying of rent, they hold me to the world. But where I am on the board is anybody’s guess.

Well, not anybody’s. I suspect Willa could make some sense of this for me, if I asked her. But she’d ask
me
all sorts of questions. Stuff like “What, exactly, do you see when you look at me?” and “Does your sense of ‘no change’ ever change?” Stuff college kids ask. Which she might be, honestly. I never did ask why she was in here. Why she couldn’t live on her own. Or why her rich family didn’t want her around.

Usually, families warehoused their old people, so I went with that assumption and figured the old lady hands I saw and not the smooth supple dancer’s hands were more likely the current hands of this woman.

Yeah, dancer. She used to dance. I see it mixed in because the change from being able to dance to missing it the way she missed her lover or husband or whoever it was who haunted her life—
that
change huddles in my blind spot, just like all the others.

Maybe she would dance, sometime in the future. Maybe she did it now, when no one was watching.

Not that I care all that much.

I look at the two blobs of polymer clay sitting on wax paper in the center of her card table. They’re both this off-white, semi-dirty pearlescent color underneath an overlay of process tint. Which one changed to red and which to blue when the tint was added, I couldn’t tell.

So I did what I always do—took a pinch of each, sniffed them, and held them to my lips as if I kissed the most precious thing in the world.

Willa thought it was funny. And stupid. And boring. My guess is her reactions flowed through the surprise of “Isn’t that quaint!” to “Why the fuck do you keep doing that?” I shrug it off. Nothing else I can do.

Not that Willa would report me or anything. But still, my unchanging volunteer world was all I really had. Sure, I’ve tasted my car—I do it often enough I can tell you it’s a low-end recent model American hatchback. It tastes like beer and boredom and “Bohemian Rhapsody.” But it’s a fucking
car
. It doesn’t talk to me.

The polymer tastes more bitter than plastic. It’s fresh enough it doesn’t have a long swath of stale warehouse sitting, which is nice. And there’s a distinct past to product colors. It has something to do with batch processing and dye manufacture. I can’t even begin to understand.

I’ve learned to recognize it. Lucky for me, it’s surprisingly similar across multiple industries.

The left blob tastes red. But the right one tastes
green
.

“Willa,” I say, “it’s not blue.” Then I smile, because it seems to be the best thing to do.

She’s a dancer with blotchy hands again. An old woman in a warehouse with equipment in a metal closet old people don’t have. But rich people do.

My Willa, the enigma.

“Oh.” She holds the blob of polymer up to the light streaming in through the big window. At least I think it’s streaming in. The time overlay of day-night-cloudy-sunny-snow-thunder makes the vault overhead this flat, colorless thing that isn’t gray but is.

Sometimes I wish I could lick the clouds. Then, at least, I could anchor something other than the mishmash of haze I see every goddamned time I open my door or roll down my car window or glance out Willa’s giant pane of warehouse glass. The closest I get to knowing the weather is the taste the air leaves in the back of my throat, but that doesn’t change fast enough for me to get anything other than one season or another.

Everyone has a decade they paid the most attention to, and that’s what I taste. For Rhonda, it’s the stale plastic 80s. For a couple of the nurses, it’s the “I should have known better” ironic 90s. For a few, it’s the tight-assed 00s and their inability to give a fuck. Those nurses leave a faint hint of decay on my tongue and I try to stay away from them.

But for Willa, it’s not an obvious decade. I breathe in the air around her and I taste something that doesn’t make sense: Clarity and freshness. It’s like
her
decade tastes like oranges. Fresh, organic, just-picked real oranges, off a real tree that’s been lovingly cared for by a real farmer in a real place somewhere in a state with fresh air and mountains at your back.

Willa, for some reason, bursts on the tongue as if she was some one-of-a-kind, artisan foodie’s dream.

Like she’s a fucking movie star.

She holds up the “blue” glob and twists it side to side in what I could only assume is the sunlight pouring in through her huge window. “Well now, how did I miss that?”

In the light, she probably can tell its true color. Me, I just see a blob. She sets it down and it makes a sucking sound when it hits the card table. She mumbles something about Christmas and holiday cheer but I don’t catch it. I’m too busy staring at the locked metal cabinet full of buzzing systems.

The door’s open.

I’m pretty goddamned sure it
is
open—wide open, right now. And I didn’t even lick it.

It wouldn’t have a taste, anyway. I’m pretty goddamned sure of that, too. Why, I don’t know. Time changes everything, so everything has a taste. Except the metal door.

And the card table.

And Willa’s shiny, sun-filled, movie-star decade.

“What’s in the cabinet?” I ask. I’m supposed to be helping with arts and crafts, but I don’t think Willa cares about beads right now. She’s watching me. Or will be.

“Honey, are you okay?” Willa asks me in return, instead of answering my question. Then she mumbles something else I don’t understand.

I swear the air is buzzing so much it’s got a smell, like electricity. It’s got that “oh shit” scary flavor, the one that sits in that place between the back of the tongue and the underside of where your nose smells things when there’s a big storm moving in. The kind that makes so much lightning the dark sheets of rain shimmer like you’re inside a glow tube.

That flavor that says you’re inside of something dangerous.

Willa drapes her old lady dancer hand over mine. I feel her touches, or will. Or maybe this is another repeated pushpin in my life—Willa comforting me. Making
me
feel special.

“Would you like something to drink? Water or orange juice?” She’s fiddling with the polymer clay, forming exquisite little round balls so fast I wonder if she’s that talented or if I’m not following because my brain’s screaming that I need to crawl into a bathtub and pull a mattress over my head.

“Willa, I gotta go.” The electrical taste is so strong now I’m gagging and I know I’m gagging right now, sitting on Willa’s folding chair in front of her card table, in her magically huge and bright room.

It hadn’t really dawned on me just how big it is. Lots of rooms overlap for me—where I am, where I was, where I might go all make a “room” so I stopped paying attention a long time ago. Can’t tell them apart unless I lick the walls, which I’ve tried. But paint is paint is paint.