There’s a logic puzzle about a farmer needing to cross the river with a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain. He can only take one thing on the boat with him, and left unattended the fox’s going to eat the chicken, the chicken will eat the grain, it’s a classic puzzle. I can’t remember the solution.
Someone has to go inside the store to buy Cain clothes. As the naked one, Cain stays inside the car. Cain cannot be left alone with the car, and Aidan doesn’t want to leave me alone with Cain. Equally unpleasant for Aidan is being left alone with a demon, even one sleeping like Cain. I’m not sure if it would help Aidan decide what to do if I explained about the river crossing riddle.
I end up being sent inside to negotiate the midnight megamart crowd alone. Aidan stays to guard over his car and Cain alike. We text continuously to reassure the other it’s okay. At first I pretend to need help eyeballing Cain’s size before we settle on medium. Then Aidan asks if I’ll get him a bottled coffee. Flavor options and then a long series of mutual OK s about nothing follow.
Aidan is painfully relieved when I return to the car. He’s left it running for both the heat and the music, anything to keep the status quo with Cain asleep. The front seat and floorboard overflow with the shopping bags even before I squeeze underneath and around them to make the crowded situation worse.
“Got it?” Aidan asks. He helps get me a little less buried by transferring a few things into the back behind his seat.
“Yeah.” I glance at Cain briefly, which means only as long as it takes Aidan to leave the parking lot. If I keep watching Cain then I’ll be too tempted to wake him up, too tempted to ask if he’s okay. It strikes me as especially cruel that all Cain wanted was a hot shower and a bed, but we’re making him sleep in the backseat of the car with just a cheap throw blanket for comfort.
Aidan’s hand jostles my shoulder. “Hey.”
“Yeah, okay.” I’m already turning around to face out the front of the car again, so I just flash Aidan a meek, apologetic smile. Much as I’ve ruined his life already, the least I can do is spare him the torment of playing chaperone on top of everything else.
He smiles and twists open the bottled coffee. I help clear space for him to use the cup holder, and Aidan settles in with stubborn determination to keep ruining his life. I wait until we’re on the highway, when Aidan’s got the cruise control set. I wait until he’s relaxed and not expecting trouble.
I ask it quietly, put my eyes down at my knotted hands. “Will you go to school tomorrow?”
“What?” He sounds as startled as I anticipated, but I don’t glance up to see his expression.
“Tomorrow, school. Will you go? Promise me you’ll go. I want you to go to school tomorrow.” I tighten the nervous, tangled ball of my fingers. “Will you?”
A long silence between us stretches, even though the minutes themselves are noisy. There’s the rumbling purr of the old sedan’s engine, the spin and rush of the tires over the pavement, the droning beat and wail of the stereo system. I look at my hands. I bet Aidan’s watching the road. Both of us are probably thinking the same kind of things.
Aidan’s only got this last semester and then he’s done, graduated, with the state college already accepting him under early decision. He has a scholarship waiting. He’s going to live in the dorms. I didn’t apply anywhere in-state. We figured it out early that we wouldn’t be going to the same college, resigned ourselves to the inevitability of getting separated this summer. He’d move into the dorms at his school, I’d move into the dorms in mine, there would always be chatting online, texting, we just wouldn’t get to hang out in person anymore. I’d come home for long weekends and holidays, so would he, and we’d see each other then, it didn’t seem like a big deal.
Now Aidan’s right — I’m not getting into any of the schools I applied to, not with the way my grades have been, with the test scores I submitted. Not with the way my life derailed between fourteen and fifteen. I’m not going to college. I’m not going to finish high school. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know my life is over.
Aidan shifts in his seat. “I’ll go if you go,” he says. “I’m not leaving you alone.”
I don’t think if I said my immediate plan was to stay with Cain that Aidan would be reassured. “I can’t go. If I go to school then I’ll have to go home, too. And you said it yourself, I can’t go home. You can, though. You can go home.”
From Aidan I get a sigh and then more silence. I peek up from my lap to watch him instead. Aidan checks the rearview and left side mirror before drifting a lane over. We roll past a slow-moving semi.
“If I show up at school without you, I’m going to get a lot of questions about where you are,” Aidan says. He’s thought it out enough to start arguing with me. “And then who knows if I’ll be able to meet back up with you later. I might get grounded for life. Or at least until graduation.”
I’m hoping exactly that happens, but I don’t say it to Aidan. I just shrug. “I’ll have my phone,” I say.
Aidan shakes his head. “No,” he says softly. He reaches over and touches my leg, pats my knee, leaves his hand there. “We should stick together.”
I promised Aidan I wouldn’t run off again, but if he’s going to be this stubborn than I don’t see how I have a choice. I’m ruining his life. I can’t ruin Aidan’s life. I know entirely too much how painful, humiliating, and terrifying it is to lose control of your life. I don’t want him to be tormented by dead things, I don’t want him to feel isolated from everyone and everything that once brought him comfort, happiness, and a sense of belonging somewhere.
The only place I feel like I belong anymore is here in the passenger seat of Aidan’s car. It’s the only place I feel sane. Since all this started, he wanted so desperately to believe me — to believe in me, that I wasn’t crazy or if I was crazy that I could beat it, I could get over my mental breakdown like it was strep throat or bronchitis. He wanted to help. Seances, ouija boards, anything out of books or off the internet that I thought might work, he was willing to help.
I don’t want to lose Aidan. He’s my best friend. I stare at the steering wheel and wonder if I yanked hard if the resulting crash would kill us. It’d certainly attract a lot of attention and trouble, all those impossibly complicated things about my safe, regulated world that make things difficult for Cain.
Aidan shakes my knee again. “Hey. Ethan.”
“Yeah. Yeah,” I say quickly. I snap my gaze from the steering wheel to the hood ornament and then turn to face the window. I don’t want Aidan able to see me get zoned out like that so easily. I think I must look too obviously devastated, too obviously floundering around in dangerous waters about to make a bad decision.
“What are you going to do?” he asks. Quietly, like he’s dreading the answer.
I shrug and then decide to be honest. “Whatever Cain wants.”
From the corner of my eye I watch Aidan frown, fret, look devastated and floundering in his own way. His desire to somehow help, to somehow fix this, it’s overwhelming. His expression knots my stomach, hurts my chest, I have to look out the window. He’s forever going to be on the safety of the pier watching me swim toward my own reckless self-destruction.
“Maybe kill myself,” I say.
I don’t mean to say it. The words slip over my red-marked lips in the heavy sigh of my breath. I want to snatch them back just as soon as I’ve said them. Quickly I say, “I won’t. I won’t. Sorry. That’s not what Cain wants me to do, I won’t do that.”
Aidan’s silent. I don’t look to see what he’s doing. Driving, assumably, since he decides to take one of the exits, he’s done with the highway. I don’t care what’s happened to put us on this particular stretch of pavement, he probably doesn’t either. He plans to keep moving forward.
At least until I start screaming at him to stop. I dive sideways to grab at Ethan’s shoulder, his arm, the steering wheel, I’m all over him shouting, “Stop! Stop, Aidan, stop!”
“Ethan!” He shrieks my name with cutting layers of panic and tries to shove me off him. His foot finds the brake pedal, the car skids and then cuts to the side as it drifts.
I hear deep, snarling from Cain that announces he’s awake and unhappy with the circumstances. We narrowly avoid catastrophe. The car crunches into a sideways halt on the shoulder, front corner nudged flush into the retaining wall at low enough speed that it’s harmless. A dent in the front bumper maybe.
I burst the door open soon as I can and one of the shopping bags tumbles out with me. I hear Aidan and Cain’s voices overlapping except I’m already running, already gone, flying down the shoulder to get a better look at what I’m pretty sure I just saw.
I’m not exactly certain why my first impulse is to run toward a headless corpse standing in the middle of the highway. I don’t need a dead body — I don’t need this dead body in particular, but clearly my horror movie survival skills are as bad as Aidan’s because here I am running toward something dead. As I realize just exactly what I’m doing, I start to slow from a run into a jog. When the headless motorcyclist turns toward me holding a flashy red helmet, I stagger to a halt and start screaming.
Under the pallor-cast destruction of the harsh streetlights, the dripping length of blonde braid shines bright. A black curve of face shield works with the red shell to obscure the rest of what that braid’s attached to, but I’m not stupid. I can see the gore-topped stump of a neck sticking out of the motorcyclist’s sleek black jacket.
There’s a good thirty feet or so between me and this dead body. I whirl to put more distance between us and collide into Aidan’s chest. He grabs me, but I am a hysterically-shrieking flail of panic and terror for him to try holding.
The dead thing turned toward me like it saw me, like it knew I was there. I see it shift the helmet under one arm and come closer. I let out a blood-curdling scream that’s so loud and desperate it hurts. I kick Aidan in the shins to get him to let me go and then start running back toward the car.
I run toward Cain, specifically. He’s put on the jeans I bought him and gotten out of the car. He has an angry scowl ready for whatever’s woken him. He’s barefoot, shirtless, it’s too cold for only pants but at least he bothered with pants first. I got the inseam length wrong, I obviously got the size wrong, those jeans don’t really fit him. Somehow, that’s what I think about. Better than thinking about a dead thing trying to find me that isn’t Cain. It’s better than thinking about Cain’s arms around me as he catches me, as I literally throw myself at him.
My fingers shake and curl, I try not to claw scarlet ribbons into Cain’s back as I clutch at him. I huddle my face into his shoulder, his neck, I’m trying to explain around fearful sobs about the dead thing except he cuts me off with a brusque — “Yeah, yeah. I got you. Quit shrieking.”
I hide against Cain, press and tremble at him, sniffle some, and feel absurdly calmed by the amused annoyance in Cain’s tone. I hear Aidan’s sneakers hit into the pavement as he comes jogging back, and I ease away from Cain. He keeps an arm around me, half-protective and half-possessive. I see he’s mostly half-asleep, actually, now that I’ve calmed down enough to actually take in the moment.
Aidan slows as he approaches and flicks a wide-eyed, wary look from me to Cain to the car. He left the keys in the ignition. The passenger’s side door is hanging open. The way the car’s wedged against the wall must not have left Aidan enough room to open his door. Everything’s positioned now so that Cain’s directly between Aidan and the car, the keys, he’s between Aidan and me. In the river crossing puzzle analogy, I guess that makes me the chicken who just flapped itself off the safety of the boat and straight into the fox’s jaws.
Cain rolls his shoulder, pops his neck, I guess sleeping in the backseat wasn’t that comfortable. His lazy lack of concern is maddening, it’s utterly intoxicating. It’s reassuring that Cain’s sleepy scowl lacks any measure of fear. He’s looking down the stretch of road to where I guess at least he and I can see the headless body standing there holding its head.
No, not standing — walking. I swallow my own tongue with a moan, get weak-kneed and frantic, I don’t want a headless corpse to walk toward me. Nothing about a headless corpse wanting closer to me is a good thing. Why did I run toward it in the first place? I really am crazy.
Cain rubs his hand over my arm to brisk warmth into me even though I’m in my sweatshirt, I’m not the one between us wearing too little clothing. I’m not shaking because I’m cold; I’m terrified. Cain’s mouth stretches with a yawn before he says, “Get in the car, sweetheart. I’ll handle this.”
He says it bold, cocky, sneering at me like he’s half-amused I need his help, half-disgusted he needs to help me. As I stare up at him and smear the back of my hand under the sniffly-wet drip of my nose, I know I have to look pathetic. I know all kinds of desperate, hopeful heartbreak just burst into my expression because I’m chest-crushingly relieved that Cain’s going to help me. He’s that trifecta of believing me, knowing what to do, and then best of all actually being able to do it. If anyone can help with a dead thing, it’s Cain.
“Thanks,” I hush. A tremulous smile pulls the corner of my mouth. “Um, sorry I woke you. Um, I bought you other clothes, too, there’s a jacket if you want –”
Cain interrupts by pushing me at the open car door. “It’s fine, sweetheart. I’ll survive. Get in the car.” He snaps his fingers at Aidan. He points at me and orders, “Keep him in the car.”
As Cain hunches his shoulders against the chill and starts marching down the shoulder toward the corpse, Aidan stares after him with an expression of pure disbelief. He obviously can’t believe his good turn of luck that the fox just paddled into the river to drop the chicken back into the boat for him. I have got to stop thinking about that riddle and just look up the solution on my phone.
Suddenly Aidan jolts like someone shook him and then rushes at the car. He pushes at me saying, “Get in the car, get inside–”
I start to protest, “Wait, shouldn’t you –?” but Aidan shoves so insistently that I end up in the car first. I scoot into the driver’s seat. Aidan climbs into the passenger seat and then shuts the door. I scramble around to look out the back windshield at Cain.
The dome lights turn off. Aidan remembers to turn on his hazards, he turns down the music. He joins me in staring out the back. “What’s Cain doing?” he whispers. “What happened?”
“I saw a dead thing,” I whisper back. “He’s going to handle it for me.”
Aidan’s hand rubs between my shoulders. Belatedly, apologetically — “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Fine. Sorry.” My attention stays glued to where Cain’s just about gotten up close to the motorcyclist. “Sorry. Sorry, Aidan, about –”
As I watch, the motorcyclist comes to a stand-still while Cain keeps moving forward. One hand lifts from holding the helmet. The dead body hails Cain like they’re friends. Cain lifts his hand right back like they are. I guess they might be. Cain was in that body for a while.
Cain gets closer. The hand Cain has lifted abruptly strikes forward like a cobra, he grabs the hand of the dead body. Cain sweeps with his ankles, pulls on that arm he’s grabbed, and the motorcyclist hits the pavement. The flashy red helmet goes rolling, that gold rope of hair flops around, Cain grabs the helmet in both hands and chucks it toward the wall. When the motorcyclist’s body crawls upright, Cain kicks it back down.
I’m watching Cain fight a dead thing. Cain is fighting a dead thing for me. I can’t fucking believe that Cain’s solution is to fight the dead thing. That’s his plan to make it leave me alone.
I turn and grab for the door, but it opens about three inches before hitting the wall. I jerk it closed and instead throw the car into reverse. A half-second too late Aidan reaches to stop me, except I spin the wheel and slam the gas. Metal screeches over cement as the car separates from the wall.
“Sorry!” I gasp. I adjust the wheel, ease off the gas, I’m going much too fast considering this is reverse and what I’m reversing toward is the highway.
“Ethan, stop. Stop, please –” Aidan’s scared to forcibly interfere with my driving, and I’m too focused on the mirrors and Cain to explain what I’m doing. Last thing I want to do is hit Cain with the car.
Cain notices me coming at him and stops what he’s doing, starts coming at me. I stop what I’m doing, too — I hit the brakes, put the car into park. Aidan snatches the keys out of the ignition, Cain yanks open the car door.
His expression is pure fury, tight brows and scowled snarling mouth. “I told you –”
“I’m in the car!” I flinch deeper into my seat, hold up my hands some to show Cain and Aidan both that I’ll cooperate. “You said to stay in the car! And, well, I’m … I’m in the car.” They’re both just staring at me, almost matched sentiments even if their expressions are different. Neither of them can believe I’m being real right now, that I’m really this dumb.
Cain recovers first. He glances over his shoulder at where that poor dead motorcyclist is trying to find his head. “Fine,” he says. Cain looks back at me. “Scoot over.”
“Wait.” I speak before Aidan can point out he has the keys. I think Aidan might eat the keys to keep them away from Cain. I say quickly, “Wait, wait. Cain — what did he want? The motorcyclist, what did he want?”
Cain stares at me. “Fuck if I know,” he says. “But I handled it. He’s not gonna bother you.” Since I’m not moving out of the driver’s seat, Cain opens the back door. “Where’s that fucking jacket?”
“I’m driving,” Aidan says. He shakes my shoulder to get my attention, because I’m watching the motorcyclist using the side mirror and ignoring him. “Switch me seats, I’m driving.”
“I’m going to go talk to it. The dead thing — the motorcyclist, I’ll go talk to him.” My announcement gets me yet another look of frustrated bewilderment from Aidan, and it’s matched by Cain appearing over the back of my seat with a wary growl.
“Fuck that,” he says. “Fuck that loser.”
“It’s probably my fault he’s out here. Um, you know, that he didn’t go into the light or whatever?” I look to Cain. “Can I help him move on? Is that something I can do?”
Cain knows the answer. I can see it in the way he’s frowning at me, the way I’m fully annoying him now and there’s nothing amusing about it. “I thought you didn’t know shit about being a necromancer,” he says.
“I don’t. That’s why I’m asking you.”
Cain rumbles and snarls with more anger than I really think this warrants considering I’m only asking him a question. He doesn’t have to answer. There’s real animosity in the way he grits through clenched teeth, “Guess you could.”
“Okay. Then, I want to. I want to do that.” I look to Aidan, because finally I’ve founded something I want to do that Cain didn’t tell me to do first. It’s something that involves dead things but not killing anything. I’m thrilled to have anything I want to do that I actually can do, that I’ll actually get to do something with my new life besides fear it. I think Aidan understands because he smiles, looks immensely relieved. I realize I’m smiling at him, we’re smiling at each other.
Everything’s great until Cain says, “Guess I’ll get Princess Abel’s new best friend,” as he exits the car.
I have no idea what he means by that until I see him chase down the helmet and pick it up by the braid. Numb drips over my face like icy tendrils of water. Some noise chokes in my throat and draws concerned background buzz from Aidan. Cain tucks the helmet under his arm as he strides to the headless motorcyclist’s body. Cain gestures angrily, issues orders I can’t hear. Another terribly frightened and sick-sounding moan escapes me as motorcyclist’s body gets to its feet.
Cain keeps a firm hold on the body’s arm as he stalks back toward the car. He’s bringing the helmet with him. I’m choking on either a scream or vomit as Cain jerks open the back door and shoves this body into the car immediately behind where I’m sitting in the driver’s seat. He casually tosses the helmet into the floorboard.
I can’t look at the clotted ruin that caps off the corpse’s neck stump, I can’t look at the matching bloodied stump inside the helmet. I don’t want to be intrigued by the jigsaw-piece shatter of white edged vertebrae. I can’t be inside the same car as a headless body, not even one that’s found its head. Everything fades, I slump into the steering column, dimly register that I’m in the middle of fainting. That’s fair enough compromise, I guess, if I have to stay in the car.