Page 9 of Sick Bargain

“Are you alone?” I ask her.

“What kind of stalker question is that?” She levels me with a look of disgust.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone at night,” I tell her. “It’s not safe.”

“I can handle myself, thanks. Bunch of fucking sickos here anyway.”

I bristle. The tremors start in my fingertips and slither up my forearms. A haze clouds my mind, and the blood rush that had been fading sparks back to life. She notices.

I taste her terror, but she’s severely lacking in survival skills. “God, you’re just like the rest of them.” She’s goading me when she should be running. “Fucking sick. All of you.”

I have three things I hate and one trigger word. And she just pressed my big red button.

“Sick,” I repeat.

She’s backing away from me now, her heels sinking into the grass of the plots she steps on. “I’m… I’m just gonna go. Fuck this contest.”

I don’t want to kill someone when their back is to me, so before she has the chance to turn and run, I grab her by her slender throat and inhale her scream.

“Sick,” I repeat a second time. I’m shaking all over, lost in the frenzy and triggered by the word. When her big eyes meet mine through the mask, I lift it and show her just how sick I really am.

Her second scream never leaves her throat. I snap her neck and listen to it gurgle to a halt.

5

LEFT FOR DEAD

REMIEL

I thoughtI’d be better in a crisis. I grew up here, witnessed more horrific shit than anyone should in one lifetime, and know how to thrive in fear.

But this isn’t fear. It’s a morbid fascination that’s rooting me to the spot and rendering me useless. Because although I’ve seen a multitude of dead bodies, I’ve never seen the moment of death. I should go over there, figure out where all the blood is coming from, and try to support her twisted neck until emergency responders get here. But I’m not doing that because the rattling inhale of her lungs has drawn all my attention.

“I give her six minutes.”

He steps out from behind a tree, his black mask with a purple face is lit up by the moonlight coming through the canopy of leaves. I’m so enraptured by the dying girl that I barely even stiffen at his arrival.

I don’t recognize her as a local, but the glowing stamps on her skin mark her as a clubgoer from The Neon Demon. She’s dirty, as if she was dragged through the forest or thrown down an incline. Her head is cracked open somewhere, spilling all that blood, and her body is covered in gashes. How did she get here?

“What do you think she’s thinking about?” he asks.

Her lungs rattle again, and then her leg twitches, and I don’t know which one to focus on.

When he shifts, I finally startle, but my feet still don’t move. I don’t know if I recognize his slightly modulated voice, but his presence seems familiar. A smell I can’t place but feel nostalgic about. Maybe it’s because of last night, or maybe I know who hides under the mask. From the corner of my eye, I can see his black clothing and the glow of the purple spotlighting the space next to me. His boots don’t crunch the leaves, and he’s otherwise still, but a waft of weed clouds the air in front of him when he exhales silently, the mouth hole in the mask wide enough for smoking.

“Six minutes isn’t a lot of time when you think about it,” he says, watching the disaster in front of us, not doing anything about it either. “Barely a drop in the time of her life. What do you think, she’s nineteen? Twenty, maybe? All that life comes down to these six minutes.”

That should jar me. The reminder of life and death and the six-minute expiry date she has on her should get my feet moving, rushing across the forest floor to staunch all the blood. At the very least, comfort her in her time of death. Logically, I should call the fire department and try to keep her alive long enough for their paramedics to get here.

But my hands stay at my sides, and my feet stay in place because, again, I’ve seen a dead body, but never a death. Does she feel anything, or is her neck completely broken?

“Wanna look?” he asks.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Shock? Am I in shock? Would I know if I am?

I don’t answer him, but when he takes another inhale from his joint through the hole in his mask, moving just enough to jolt me into motion, I take a step forward. He follows.

It’s the early hours of a new day, this girl probably only living ten minutes tops of the first day of September. The night is cool but wet, rain hanging in the air and a fine sheen of mist dampening my clothing. The moon peeks through the leaves every few steps, but it doesn’t show me anything worth latching on to. I don’t know why I’m so... calm.

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