This Girl Who Was A Ghost, page 6
part #2 of Near Future Series
Sammy pulled her hand back. “Cut my fingers off!”
Leo leaned in, studying the image. “It is a rather drastic means. There may be a way of stunting the growth.”
“I’ll choose stunting. I’m running out of pocket room as it is.”
“Refrain from using the fingers then, especially anything taxing.”
Sammy leaned back. She wanted to go to the park on Fourteenth Street tonight. It had a long row of tall trees. It’d be like flying.
Leo jotted something down. He was always making notes.
“So you’re going to talk to Cindy?”
“About what?” He seemed distracted.
“About not going.”
“I’m sure she’ll find an adequate living arrangement somewhere else.”
“Maybe I’ll find adequate living arrangement somewhere else too.”
Leo turned to her. “Are you going to play the haunting ghost next door?”
“The last thing I’ll tax these fingers on is hanging you upside down out of a window.” She marched back to her bedroom and slammed the door.
Chapter Thirteen
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Sammy lingered at the edge of the Fourteenth Street Park. Four guys were passing around their second cannabis vapor, and it looked as though they were in no hurry to leave. The trees running down to the end of the park were good swinging trees too.
She bounded out and down the street, wondering if she should head toward midtown and get something to eat. She wanted to do something to help Cindy, but if she’d stayed at the apartment much longer, she might’ve done something she’d regret. She shoved her hands into her pockets, overstuffing them. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t swung through the trees.
Sammy crossed Broad Street at Twenty-Second and found a crowd had gathered at the park on Twenty-Third. Two food vendors ringed them in on opposite sides. She blended, strolling along the side of the taco vendor. He had a few tacos made and wrapped up, ready to go for an onrush. Sammy squeezed in between the vendor and the crowd, pretending to try to get a view.
A couple approached and ordered two chicken taco Supremes. Sammy slithered her hand behind the back of the vendor’s cart, feeling her way around to the wrapped tacos. When the guy handed the couple their tacos, Sammy swiped the two wrapped ones from the cart. She drifted along the back of the crowd, finding a spot where it was dark enough. She unwrapped the tacos and devoured them, better than any bot food. She stood on a bench to see what everyone was looking at. It was just a handful of people talking. Was it a protest? Nobody seemed to be riled up, though.
After a few minutes, she realized it was a play. She scanned the crowd, looking for anyone collecting money. Sammy emptied a box by the trash bin and walked around the edge of the crowd. “Enjoying the show?”
She had her hood up, making her voice do all of the work. She gave it a whiny quality, figuring it sounded needy that way. Then she followed it up with, “Thank you so much,” saying it as if the person had just saved her life. One lady had tears running down her cheeks and gave Sammy a few bills.
Sammy stood by the edge where the crowd split around the show. It was bright where she’d have to cross, almost as if it were the stage even though it was just a lit-up part of the park. She emptied the box, a pretty good haul, and thought it might be worth going out and around to get to the other side.
There was someone in the back with a hood up over the face. If she were going by height and shoulders, she’d say it was a guy. Was he hiding something? It was too warm for a jacket, even for her. She crouched down and looked up to get a better view. She could see his chin, which didn’t look right. Could he have some kind of deformity? He leaned over the lady in front of him, who turned and pushed him away. The guy stumbled back, showing the same mask as the creepy stalker by Sammy’s apartment. A few others gathered around him, taunting.
The guy backed away and shouted something that sounded like “cunts.” A few picked up stones and pelted him. He dashed out, and Sammy followed. He crossed Fifth and jogged down Twenty-Fifth Street. One transporter after another sped along the avenue. He was out of sight by the time Sammy crossed. There was no sign of him on Twenty-Fifth or Broad, which cut into Twenty-Fifth, but she couldn’t see too far up Broad since it angled away. Sammy raced up Broad and stopped at the end of the block on Twenty-Sixth Street. Damn! She’d lost him. She ran up Twenty-Sixth, turned left on Sixth Avenue, and trotted back to Twenty-Fifth. She searched up Twenty-Fifth, then back down to the park. The guy just vanished.
Sammy hiked back to the park. Why was that guy wearing a mask? Who was he and what was he doing at the park, and then at the apartment? Halfway up the block, someone stepped out of the shadows and into the overhead streetlight. The figure turned back as if expecting someone behind him. It was the masked man!
“Hey, you!” Sammy yelled, running after him.
He sprinted down the block and up Fifth.
Sammy stopped by a girl on the ground. “You okay?”
She rushed over and tapped the girl’s shoulder. The girl rolled on her back, eyes bulging and showing her final thoughts of terror, chest bloodied, a rope mark running across the throat.
Sammy stepped back, feeling as if she was going to crumple. She looked toward the park. “Bastard!”
She raced to the corner and turned up Fifth. The guy ducked into a transporter about a hundred feet away. Sammy grabbed onto the overhead streetlight, sling-shotted to the nearby tree, and swung to the next tree. The transporter turned on Twenty-Sixth. She leaped, grabbed onto the street sign, and hurled herself toward the top of the car. She grasped hold of the transporter’s back storage compartment.
The guy glanced back. He wasn’t wearing the mask.
The transporter turned up Sixth Avenue and was headed toward midtown. She hoped he wasn’t going uptown. It was getting a little chilly on this thing. The transporter slowed, then pulled over to the corner of Thirty-Eighth Street.
The door swung open. Sammy dropped off and was ready to pounce, but something was off. His jacket was different. Did he change? As he stood, she could tell he was shorter. He couldn’t change that. Sammy flipped her hood over her head. The transporter drove off, and the wrong guy trotted up the steps to a townhouse.
Chapter Fourteen
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Sammy climbed through the window. She dragged in Cindy’s white terry-cloth robe and still felt a little raw about the girl who was killed last night. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the girl’s face.
Leo sat at the dining room table, looking over the scanned images with endless fascination. He glanced over at her. “Stealing her towels now?”
“It’s a robe. She was going to leave it behind.” Sammy slipped it on, quelling a chill. The robe had a powdery floral scent.
“Come to grips with her leaving?”
“The only thing I’ve come to grips with is you being a jerk.”
Leo sighed, turning back to the screen.
“I think she’s going to stop by to say goodbye. That’s what normal people do.”
He gave her an “uh-huh,” looking up at the screen, then back down at his pad.
“This is your chance to not be a jerk and tell her she doesn’t have to go.”
“I thought I made my position clear.”
“Guess you didn’t hear the part about being a jerk.”
“Apparently, we have different opinions on the matter.”
“Jerk!”
“I found this interesting note about blood flow to the fingers.”
Sammy turned away from him. “I don’t talk to jerks.”
“This may concern why you’re always hungry.”
“Why are you here, Leo?”
“Because I live here.”
“Living in an abandoned building… Working in the Pleasure Palace for a sleazeball… Making pills so you can have all these gadgets. Why, Leo?”
“Why not?”
“Are you hiding from somebody? Wanted by the law?”
“I suppose we’re all hiding from one thing or another.”
“Is that why you won’t help Cindy? Trying to save your own hide?”
“We all do what is in our best interest whether we admit to it or not.”
“You’re saying I’m being selfish by trying to help Cindy?”
“I’m sure the bond you have with her provides you some satisfaction, which is in jeopardy if she were to leave.”
“So being friends with someone is selfish? You really are twisted, Leo.”
“I endeavor to see things as they are.”
“You’ll die a lonely old man.”
He turned back to his screen. “One can only hope.”
Sammy strolled into the living room and plopped down on the sofa, tugging the robe’s hem over her unseen legs. It was a little long on her, coming down mid-calf.
“Do you wish to hear my latest findings?” Leo asked from the dining room.
Sammy leaned her head back and closed her eyes. The dead girl’s face popped into her head. She replayed the events of her going up Broad instead of Twenty-Fifth, then she’d switch it and confront the asshole and save the girl. Would she have killed him?
Leo drifted into the living room, saying something about blood flow.
Sammy folded her arms. “I’m not listening.”
“It’s for your own well-being.”
She closed her eyes and plugged her ears, humming to drown out anything he had to say.
He shouted something.
Sammy smiled at the thought of rattling him for once. She opened her eyes. “Shit.”
Cindy was standing by the opened door. “Leo?”
Leo spun around. “Yes?”
Sammy tried to keep small as she climbed the back of the sofa. Could she slink over the side and take off the robe?
“You were yelling, so I wasn’t sure if you said to come in or not.”
Sammy sat on the sofa’s back, but her feet depressed the seat. She inched up the wall, drawing her feet up.
“So what can I do for you?” Leo asked.
“I just wanted to say goodbye and to thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
He would’ve done nothing if it weren’t for her.
“That’s quite all right. Glad to help.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to pay you back.”
“Consider it a lesson in civility, a hard-fought lesson.”
“I’ll be leaving soon, waiting for it to get a little dark so no one will spot me.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“Manage?” Her voice cracked. “I can’t manage anything.” She stood in the middle of the room, sobbing.
A tear rolled down Sammy’s cheek. If there were a way she could help somehow…
Leo shuffled his feet. “These things take time.”
“Ever since Sam left, things have been getting worse.” Cindy dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “I would’ve died if it weren’t for Sam, you know.”
“I’m sure you’d do the same for her.”
“If I knew she was sick somewhere, I’d go right there and help her. Don’t know if I could do as good of a job, but I’d try.”
Sammy smiled, knowing there’d be no one else she’d want by her side if she were sick.
“Sam always told the twins that they were stronger together. That’s how I feel about me and her.”
Sammy nodded, wanting to hold her.
“Maybe I was meant to die, and she just delayed it.”
No, sweetie, no.
Cindy gazed down into some dark void. “You think there’s a place you go after you die?”
“I don’t…”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if there were places to go.”
The wall fell away. Sammy somersaulted over the back of the sofa and onto the floor. She raised her head.
Cindy stepped out from behind Leo. “Sam?”
Sammy gazed down at her legs. She wasn’t blended.
Chapter Fifteen
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Sammy shoved her hands behind her back but couldn’t feel her fingers. “Hi.”
Cindy stared, eyes slightly squinting as if she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. “What… What are you doing here?”
Something was wrong with her hands. She desperately wanted to look at her hands. “I’m recovering.”
“You’ve been here all this time?” Cindy asked, looking back to Leo, who was no help.
“How long has that been?” Sammy asked, stretching her fingers to grab hold of something, anything.
“I thought you were dead.”
Did she even have hands? “I’m alive.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” Cindy said, her voice cracking.
Sammy looked to Leo for help, but his gaze was fixated on the sofa. What was he looking at?
“The only two people I thought cared about me were lying the whole time.”
“I care, Cindy. It’s just that… It’s complicated.”
“Afraid I won’t understand because I’m too stupid?”
“No, it’s not complicated that way… Not that you couldn’t… Here,” Sammy said, pulling her hands out from behind her back. “That’s why.” Sammy didn’t even look at her hands, afraid of what Cindy would say.
“Why what?”
Sammy expected a scream or at least a gasp. Her hands looked small and stubby. Were they normal size?
Cindy ran out, sobbing.
“Cindy!”
Leo rushed the sofa and snatched up what looked like one of her fingers. He held it up close, turning it this way and that. “Fascinating.”
Sammy flexed her fingers. “Do these hands look normal?”
Leo dashed to the dining room. “I’m sure I have specimen bags.”
Sammy swallowed. Her fingers were on the sofa and at least a couple on the floor.
Leo hurried back, wearing latex gloves and carrying clear plastic bags a little too small for their intended purpose.
“What happened, Leo?”
“Apparently, you shed your fingers.”
“Nobody sheds fingers. How could I do that?”
“Cervids shed antlers by changing hormone levels. Did you experience any changes that could’ve precipitated such an event?”
Sammy stood. “I felt bad for Cindy.”
“We should take blood samples.”
Sammy plodded away.
“Don’t you want to know what it was?”
“Not that badly.” Sammy walked out and tried the door to Cindy’s apartment, but it was locked. She knocked but no answer. “Cindy?”
“Go away.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thought you cared.”
“I do. Who got you the groceries last week?”
“Leo got them for me.”
“Who do you think put him up to it? Do you think he would’ve done it if I didn’t make him?”
“He didn’t care either?” Cindy said through sobs.
Sammy pounded the wall. “Can’t say anything right.” She turned back, wondering if she should get the key.
The lock unlatched and the door creaked open enough for Cindy to stick her head out. “Are you wearing my robe?”
“You weren’t going to take it.”
“You’ve been spying on me?”
“I was worried about you.”
“So worried that you couldn’t wait for me to leave before taking the robe?”
She felt like a jerk now that she thought about it. “I was cold, and it looked warm.”
Cindy swung open the door. “Want something else? Maybe some shoes?”
Sammy looked away from her glare. “Okay, I was a jerk. Happy?”
Cindy’s shoulders sagged. “Sam, why didn’t you at least call?”
“I didn’t have a phone, and I had these weird fingers, so I couldn’t call if I had one.”
“You were right next door.”
“I looked like the swamp creature from the lagoon.”
“Sam?”
“If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you.” Sammy grabbed her hand and dragged her to Leo’s apartment. There was one finger left on the floor. She picked it up, but it was lifeless and foreign to her now. It wasn’t the thumb or middle finger, but other than that she couldn’t match it.
“What are you doing with that?” Leo asked.
“I’m trying to figure out which finger it was.”
Leo took it from her. “You shouldn’t be touching it.”
“Tell her, Leo. It’s okay, you can tell her.”
“Tell her what?”
“About the shedding of the fingers.”
He carried the finger to the table, where a long strip of cellophane wrap was waiting. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What are you wrapping up then?”
“It looks like octopus arms to me.”
“Yeah, but what is it?”
“I’ll be studying it the next few days in order to make a determination.”
“Oh, he’s good about talking around things.”
Cindy’s nose crinkled. “It looks like squid.”
Leo nodded. “They’re in the same subclass.”
“See, that’s why I stayed away, because I had ten fingers just like that.”
Leo folded the cellophane over the dead finger. “Are you still feverish?”
“Feverish?”
Leo turned to Cindy. “I told her not to exert herself, but she insisted on doing something to help you.”
“She was sick? Why didn’t you say you were sick?”
“I’m not sick.”
“Fever can lead to hallucinations.”
“See how he talks? He implies everything and says nothing.”
“I’ve been treating her after she ingested a biological agent. The effects have been very concerning. I thought it was best for everyone to keep her isolated.”
“Still saying a whole bunch of nothing, Leo.”
“There were times she’d walk around all day naked.”
