Puts her hand on the door, poised to push. And hears Veruca’s voice from inside, twinned: once via phone, once through the wood itself, but shit-scared either way. Suddenly dropping to a dull, tiny whisper, cold inside and out, as she breathes—
“—Nim, stop, keep out. Somebody’s here.”
The phone gives a half-silent pop! , drained battery abruptly dead.
Yet Nim hears another voice fading in, nevertheless—well, not hears it, exactly. More like remembering what it must have sounded like when somebody else heard it, a long, long time ago. A juvenile voice, pitched high, with that wandering edge that usually means drink, or drugs, or particularly high fever, saying…several things at once, it seems like, each sentence butting up against the one before, overlapping slightly. Like so:
I’m cold…Where you goin’, man? You said I could watch TV… Can’t move my legs…Why won’t you look at me? I’m right here, man…Just look at me. Please…
Nim can’t stop herself from applying her full weight against the handle, leaning steadily inwards. The door flaps out and back, spitting her into a washroom so ultra-cold and bright it’s practically Kubrickian—and as Nim looks up into the mirror, for one split second, she thinks she sees somebody standing behind her, a shadow quivering against the crack between jamb and post on the nearest stall’s door. So she turns, finds it gone; turns back, and finds the room is suddenly properly dim. All except—
—that other stall, the one within easy arm’s reach with its own door swinging half-open, a single black Nike trainer-encased foot…
(Veruca’s)
…wedged between hinge and jamb, not letting it rebound, let alone come to a full entropic stop.
And: God, Nim thinks again, though it’s not like she believes in one. Not officially.
Because Veruca’s inside, of course. Propped up on the toilet, pants securely fastened, that book wide open in her lap. But Nim can’t think of much to do about it except take “The Emperor’s…” from her, gingerly, holding it up by the corner like it’s sticky; let the spine flop open to expose its ill-glued core, its cracked and fraying threads. or press 911 on speed-dial, hoping she was wrong about her phone, while simultaneously averting her eyes—resolutely determined not to look down, not to try and read over her dead friend’s shoulder.
Kneeling there, touching the book with as little of one fingernail as she can manage, like she’s afraid it’ll rub off on her somehow, its rough cover slick and dirty as dead scale under her hand. And then there’s this sound from behind her, from the corner—somebody who doesn’t really need to breathe doing it anyway, deliberately clearing their no-throat, so she won’t crap herself with fear.
Child-light footsteps approaching, wetly, from behind her. A skinless little hand, slimy on her shoulder. An unwavering, pitiless light like a fifty-bulb night-shooting rack igniting with no perceptible warning, back-haloing the floor, the stall, Veruca’s sprawling corpse…
…while the voice, that voice, repeats every one of the phrases Nim heard through the bathroom door over again in an endless, profane loop: no ending and no beginning, just—pollution, ripples spreading outwards. Curdling everything in its path.
Just look at me, man. I’m right here. So…look.
(No. Not gonna.)
Can’t move. So cold.
(I’m sorry for that, kid. I really, really am.)
Yeah? Then turn around, right now. And look.
(You can’t make me.)
Oh no?
(Is that what you think, little geeky girl?)
You’d be amazed what I can do, I only take a mind to.
Heart bruising itself against her sternum from the inside, a muscle-and-valve jackhammer. As the voice keeps on, never raising, never falling. Never slowing. Never stopping.
He said…he was gonna take…care…of me…
Nim sits there on the bathroom floor with her eyes closed and two fingers jammed deep into the book, still automatically holding Veruca’s place for her, as hot red tears run down her face to drip on the bright white floor below. Sits there until it stops talking, until she’s almost certain it’s gone away for good. Then keeps on sitting there anyhow, hips and knees burning, cold creeping up through her pant-legs; her eyes still downcast, still shut lid-tight, afraid to open them again, in case.
Until, at last, somebody else comes in to pee. And the screaming finally starts.
—
Though the cops get there surprisingly fast, by the time they arrive, the Speed’s already cleaned itself up (and out) with alarming efficiency. No more blood-sports in the corners, no more pot-stink or bad behavior. Even the soundtrack manages to reel itself back a notch or ten, s
o nobody has to shout to make themselves heard while they give their deposition.