What Kills Me (4 page)

“You know, Zee, I’ve never taken
anyone here before. But you are special. The second that I saw you,
I had to have you. I’ve never seen anything more lovely. I just
couldn’t help myself.”

“Please, don’t kill me.”

“That really isn’t an
option.”

He pulled me back so that he could
look at me. His lips twisted into a sneer. I searched his eyes and
saw no warmth, only a terrifying look of madness, of hunger. He
didn’t look like himself anymore. I clawed at his arm and my feet
slid as I tried to push myself away.

“Mmm. This is my favorite part. The
struggle.”

“Please, Paolo. Just let me go. I
promise I won’t tell the police or anyone about this if you let me
leave.”

He reached over and took the rose off
the collection box. He tapped the bloom to his mouth and raised his
eyebrows.

“Why don’t we play a game?” he said.
“If you can guess my plan for you, then you can go.”

“You—you’re going to kill me!” My
teeth clattered so that I could barely spit out the
words.

“But how?”

He brushed the rose over my nose and
lips. I tried to jerk my face away but his grip was
unyielding.

“Stop!”

“Come on, Zee. What happened to all
your playful energy?”

He hit the rose against the side of my
face and a petal fluttered to the ground like a wounded butterfly.
I felt sick inside.

“Fine,” he said. “You wouldn’t have
guessed right anyway. You girls never do.”

You girls?

“You’re all the same. You’re always so
surprised,” he said. “But I’m going to tell you since you seem to
enjoy full disclosure so much.” He leaned in so that our eyes were
level. “First, I’m going to take you in my arms. I’m going to
stroke your hair. And then I’m going to drink your blood until your
heart stops beating.”

Oh my God.
I gasped but there was no air.

“There’s no use…”

His voice trailed off and he turned to
look over his shoulder as if he’d heard something. I looked behind
him, desperate for someone to be there, someone to save me. For a
moment, we were frozen. I heard nothing but my shallow breath and
my thundering heartbeat.

Suddenly, he released me and swiveled
around to face the altar. I lurched backward.

Run.

He was blocking the door so I turned
and I tore under an archway and down a dark hall. I skidded around
a corner and slammed into a wall. The corridor was bleached by
moonlight from a window up near the ceiling. I twisted a door
handle and hit it with my shoulder. It didn’t budge. I tried
another door across the hall and burst into the room.

It appeared to be an
office, lit by a small lamp on a desk. I dashed around the room
like a trapped animal and tripped over a chair. I cried out, a jolt
of pain shooting through my shin. Beside a bookcase there was a
small opening, a dark mouth in the brick wall. I crouched in front
of the short doorway.
I can’t go in
here.
I looked over my shoulder at the
door. At any moment, Paolo would be in this room. He would be
behind me, dragging me away. I took a breath, stooped, and threw
myself through the passageway.

The tunnel was black. I waved my
hands, trying to swim through the thick murk. Rough stone walls
squeezed me on each side. The ground under my feet became uneven,
lumpy, and started to slope downward. I paused, my breath in
shreds, my heart thumping.

“Zee!”

His voice, singsong and
taunting, from somewhere inside the church shocked me, driving me
farther down the tunnel. I scraped my palms along the walls.
He’s coming. He’s behind me.

I saw light and ran toward
it. A white lantern hung from the tunnel wall, illuminating a set
of stairs. There was nowhere else to go. I scurried down the
stairs, my eyes focused on my feet.
Don’t
fall. Don’t fall. Don’t fall.
The
spiraling stairs were unending. My descent became a
blur.

If this goes any farther,
I’m going to end up in hell.

All of a sudden, my heel slipped off a
stair. I pitched forward, screaming, somersaulting, smashing my
elbow and my hip against hard rock. I rolled across the ground,
landing on my back, tears streaming from my eyes from the blinding
pain. Writhing, trying to catch my breath, I waited for the burning
to subside in my arm and hip.

I lifted my head off the ground,
opened my eyes, and gasped.

I lay in a forest of towering stone
pillars, topped by majestic brick arches. The immense room was
bathed in an orange light. I winced, willing myself to stand.
Flanked by columns, I limped away from the stairs.

“Hello?” I called out. The sound of my
own voice, broken and afraid, pushed me over the edge and my body
shook with sobs. “Can anyone help me?”

My tears were hot on my face. The
pillars around me were carved with undecipherable symbols. I
hobbled further and found the source of the light. Hundreds of red
candles jutted from the ground, the shining, melting wax creating
blood-red pools. They seemed to be arranged around a circular
formation of boulders. When I got closer, I saw that the rocks
lined a hole in the ground.

What is that?

I looked into that black hole and I
shivered.

“Is anyone here?” I said.

I heard the crunch of sand behind me
and I spun around. It was Paolo. He opened his arms as if to invite
me in for an embrace.

“Why did you run from me?” he asked,
sounding surprised.

“Stay away from me,” I
said.

“Don’t be like that.” He took a step
toward me. I stepped back. I felt the heat from the wax through the
soles of my slippers.

“I said, ‘Don’t come near
me.’”

“Is that any way to treat me after I
rescued you when you were lost? After I took you around Rome,
bought you gifts, and invited you to this amazing
place?”

My tears pooled under my chin. I
lifted my heel and found it stuck to the wax.

“Come here, Zee,” he said. “Let me put
you out of your misery.”

Horrified, I staggered back. Time
slowed. Paolo ambled toward me, a smile spreading on his face. I
backed away farther from him, knocking over candles. My heel hit a
small rock. I looked over my shoulder and realized with shock I was
now very close to that foreboding hole. At that same moment I saw
the rock skitter into it. There was no sound of the rock
landing.

I’m going to
die.

“Stop!” A voice shouted. Startled, we
both turned toward the sound. An older man in a hooded blue robe
was running toward us.

Suddenly I was off balance, tipping
over. I was falling. Falling into the hole. I saw Paolo dive for me
with outstretched hands. Screaming, I clawed once at
nothing.

Then there was only black.

I was lost.

I tried to scream but I could not
breathe. I felt as if I was drowning.

I was suspended, submerged in liquid
as thick as tar. I thrashed in this abyss, reaching, groping,
desperate to strike the thing that would free me.

Suddenly I broke the surface. Gasping.
Arms slapping the viscid liquid. Coughing. I gagged, trying to
scream. My mouth was full of the metallic taste of blood. It was
thick like soil on my tongue, up my nose, in my throat.

My hand hit the slimy surface of a
rocky wall. My fingers slid into crevices and I pulled my body up
and against the frigid rocks. I clawed the stone. Gripped the
jagged edges. I pressed myself against the wall, choking,
spitting.

I looked up through the hair matted
against my skull and I saw what looked like a tiny, glowing marble.
Light. I started to climb.

My fingers dug into the stone. I raked
my nails against them. Scraped my knees. Stabbed my ribs on jutting
rock. I lay my cheek against the wall while my toes found
footholds.

Light.

I thought of nothing but getting to
the lit orb, which grew bigger with each upward heave.

Here it is. I’m at the
top.

I grabbed the edge of the well and one
of the boulders came loose. I dropped backward, screaming. The
chunk tumbled into the hole, striking my knee on its descent. I
dangled from the edge by one hand. I swung my free hand back to the
wall and, arms quivering, I pulled myself up. I threw my leg over
the well and collapsed onto the dirt, amid the candles. Heaving.
Exhausted. I saw my hands. They were painted red with blood. I was
bleeding. I was dying.

Strong hands took my limp
shoulders and flipped me onto my back.
Help me.
A man’s face hovered over
mine. The candlelight reflected in his warm brown eyes, and his
mouth moved. He rubbed the hair away from my face.

Darkness started to creep in from the
edges of my vision. I blinked, trying to stop the black from
closing in. I looked at the man through the tunnel. Was I falling
in the hole again?

I heard him say in low, soothing
tones, “Sleep, my child. You’re safe now.” His voice sounded far
away.

I closed my eyes.

***

My mother crouched in the garden,
breaking wilted buds from her purple and yellow irises. Her straw
hat hid her face but I knew that she was smiling because she was
humming. My sister was lounging on the deck with a paperback and
cracking sunflower seeds between her molars.

“Oh no!” My father exclaimed. He bent
over the sidewalk near the pond that he had dug three summers ago,
and picked up what I thought was a big leaf. We ran over and saw
that he was holding one of his fish. It had leaped out of the water
but its golden gills were still pumping.

My father put the fish back into the
pond. It wiggled a few times but started to keel, turning its
champagne-colored belly toward us.

“He’s finished,” Tiffany said,
returning to her book. My mother picked up the garden hose and
sprayed a mist over her flowers.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said. He had
dozens of koi and goldfish but he had nurtured each one for years.
This one had been the size of my pinky when we bought him and had
grown to the length of my hand.

“Maybe we can give him
mouth-to-mouth?” I said to lighten the mood.

My father retrieved a white plastic
stool from under the deck and sat by the pond. I stood over him,
watching him hold the fish just under the water. Every minute or
so, he would bring the koi’s open mouth toward the
surface.

At dinnertime, I called him to come
inside.

“Zee, come look,” he said. He was
standing with his hands on his hips and grinning. I peered into the
water and his golden koi was swimming in figure eights under the
lily pads.

“Hey, he’s alive,” I said.

My father slung his arm over my
shoulder. “That fish was a fighter. He wanted to live. He just
needed a little help.”

In the distance, I heard the thump of
a helicopter. I looked into the clear blue skies and couldn’t
locate the noise. It grew louder.

“Let’s go inside,” my father
said.

“Okay, Dad.”

***

That sound stirred me from
my slumber. I pushed my head further into the pillow to try to
muffle the sound. Wup-wup-wup-wup-wup. My dreams
faded—
Wait, Dad. I’m coming inside the
house. Wait for me—
and my eyes became
unstuck. I was looking at my hand on a white pillow. My fingernails
were caked with what looked like brown mud. My vision cleared. I
fixated on the textured swirls and loops on my fingertips. I had
never seen them like that before. Raised like sand dunes and curled
like spiral shells.

Fingerprints.

A moth flung itself against a
windowpane. It looked like a tiny bird, rising with each powerful
beat of its silky wings. It waved its antennae, two long, curved
feathers protruding out of its furry gray head, and tucked in its
twiggy legs. I saw the moon reflected in its bulging black eyes.
The deep, pounding rhythm. The noise from my dreams.
Wup-wup-wup-wup. I realized that it was the flap of its
wings.

“What…?”

“You’re awake.”

A man clad in a long, royal-blue robe,
belted with a gold rope, was standing at the side of my bed. He
looked almost timid, his hands clasped on his stomach. I recognized
his face, his salt and pepper hair, his sagging jowls.

“How are you feeling?” he
asked.

“Weird,” I croaked. My throat hurt.
“What happened?”

“You fell, my child.”

“I fell,” I said.

I was jolted by the memory of Paolo.
The dark pit. I shot up. The man sat down carefully on the edge of
the bed and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Shhh. You’re all right.”