Page 4 of Out of My Flocking Mind

“What do I want? I want to taste you.”

“If you mean like a meal, no thank you. If you want to taste somewhere else, well, who am I to say no?” My chest ached as I struggled to slow my racing heart.

“I don’t give a fuck about your flesh”—his words still gave me no idea about what he meant—“but your mind is a different story. That’s where the real flavor of a person is, in their memories, their thoughts, their desires and their fears.”

I recalled the way my neighbor had rolled on the floor, a sinking feeling pulling me down. Was this a Mind Spirit? Some of the more powerful empaths and telepaths could access old memories, and a few of the really crazy ones weaponized it. I’d never experienced such a thing, but I had a feeling it wasn’t all that pleasant.

“You’re a Mind?” I asked.

“So you aren’t just some human. Figured as much when I felt the fucked-up way your mind works, but I’ve done this to humans, to Graves, to Natures, to Weres, to other Minds, and none of them feel like you. So what are you?”

“A problem, mostly.”

“Make all the jokes you want—they won’t help. I’ll dig down as deep as I can, until your mind shatters into a million little pieces that I can taste, that I can swallow and steal and savor.” His words sprang from his lips like snakes and slithered across the edges of my mind.

Which was where we had to be, right? The lack of any actual space around me, the way I couldn’t find the floor or walls or reality, it meant we had to exist inside my mind.

It’s a lot less cluttered than I would have expected…

I mean, it wasn’t a nice neighborhood or anything, but it wasn’t the teardown I’d pegged it for, either.

“You’re trying to distract yourself.”

“Usually I’m distracting to others.”

A shadow came closer, but even still, I couldn’t make out his face at all. It was as though my brain blocked it out. Or perhaps that was something he managed? Either way, it unnerved me to hear his voice, to see his form, but not be able to tell who he was. I didn’t think I knew him, despite a strange sense of familiarity.

“You like to use jokes to mask your actual feelings, don’t you? You laugh and play off any situation so no one figures out how terrified you really are.”

“Being afraid takes being smart. My mom always said I wasn’t smart enough to be afraid.”

“You’re still hiding. You might be the most frightened person I’ve ever met, afraid of everything, especially what’s inside your own head.”

I gulped, hating the way it felt as though he stared right through me.

“I wonder what your first memory of fear was. What was the first time you hid behind a laugh? The woman you interrupted my time with was already growing boring, but you? I have a feeling I could feast on you for months or more.”

I shook my head and tried to back away, but I couldn’t seem to move, or perhaps I did, but he moved faster? Whatever it was, I couldn’t put any space between us.

“Show me,” he whispered, causing the world around us to shift and twist, the darkness folding in on itself and reforming so fast that my stomach rolled like I was on a carnival ride. The world was bright again, and it took a long moment for me to recognize where I stood.

“This is my old home,” I said, then spotted a young girl on her knees, in front of a faded coffee table, a broken, worn-down crayon clutched in her tiny fist. She scribbled on the coloring book before her, not coming close to staying inside the lines. She focused on the page, staring so hard as though to block out the world around her.

And what a world to block out…

The place was clean but run down. Dark spots—signs of repeated roof leaks—stained the upper walls and ceiling. Dingy linoleum squares covered the floor of the trailer and sweat trailed down the girl’s forehead since they had no air conditioning.

“That’s you, isn’t it?” the man asked.

I nodded before I could help it, watching the girl I’d been. I wanted to crouch down and tell her it would be okay, that things would get better. I wouldn’t have believed it back then, of course. Back then, my entire world had been just this, just a dirty trailer and hours alone, as my mom did everything she could to support us on her own. Hell, a four-year-old shouldn’t have been home alone, but what choice did she have?

A noise at the door made the younger me twist, her familiar blue eyes wide in fear. I didn’t remember this, but as I watched it, it felt true. This had happened even if my conscious mind couldn’t recall the details.

The girl got up and rushed behind the couch, crawling into the narrow space between the wall and the old piece of furniture, then into the small space inside the frame of the couch. Watching her go, I remembered how dark it was inside the couch, how cramped. I rubbed my hand against my arm, a scar still there from when I’d gotten caught on the sharp edge of a spring there.

“You spent a lot of time there?”

“My mom knew about the hiding place, told me to go there if anyone showed up.” I whispered the answer, feeling the same fear that rested inside young me.

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