FEVERCHAIN 21

Lesbian werewolves, et cetera. FEVERCHAIN is a contemporary horror-romance serial set in the fictional Pinetown, New Jersey.

Voiceover by Emily S Hurricane, my hero and favorite villain!

---

There’s pain—not period pain in my breasts—it’s deeper. A big splinter twisting through my fleshy little heart into my stomach and crotch.

Only two things relieve it: masturbating and screaming—usually not at the same time. Every morning I wake up crying, tangled in my sheets, sweating. Bad dreams I can’t remember.

It’s the end of March, and tonight, the moon will be full. Makes me sick. With excitement.

Last week, police interrogated me. For real this time. Interrogated Mom and Clyde too, and a bunch of other people. Not sure exactly who.

The cops didn’t catch Gwen—soccer legs. And she knows the woods, better than the park rangers, I’ll bet.

But where is she? I told the police she’d talked about running away, hitchhiking, “your guess is as good as mine.”

While the internet, which I’ve stopped checking, believes Gwen killed her family in addition to Reverend Kerrigan, the police don’t. That’s because some of them saw the bodies, their missing flesh, split bones, fang lacerations, and figured there was no way a person did that. I sort of took cops’ hints and said yes, what happened at the funeral was that Gwen had a psychotic break, and there were already warning signs that something like that could happen.

Opinions in Pinetown, however, are split. Emilio’s “possessed by the Jersey Devil” theory has gained traction. Mostly with other kids and Ms. Pileggi. She moved away because of it.

Thornton claimed to Mom that he’d “seen this in Vietnam.” Not sure if he meant somebody’s throat getting ripped out or what.

Sheriff is about to get in trouble for shooting every coyote he sees. He had two other cops ask me questions—he just sat in the claustrophobic interrogation room and watched me. Cold eyes. Didn’t take notes.

He doesn’t come to the diner anymore. No one does, except strangers. Reporters. Worst of all: bloggers. I had a dream about one, (April Spencer). I cut her open with giant scissors and film reels spilled out in curls, covering my feet—Emilio would love it.

At the diner, I work exclusively in the kitchen now. Mom rotates from the back to the front, kitchen door always swinging when there are actually customers. We need someone else to help at the counter, but no Piney wants to work here. We’re cursed like a cold; no one wants to catch it.

Cutting onions gives me an excuse to cry. Mom bought me a finger guard, but I’ve already managed to stick my thumb with the knife. Oops.

I’ve been playing with the flap of the skin loosened under my nail—the cut curls around the side of my thumb into the meat through my fingerprint. Doesn’t even hurt, but it bled a lot when I peeled the bandage away. Red turning brown on my lavender comforter and I don’t care. Menstrual blood stained sheets. As long as I don’t go clean it, no one in the house will see it.

I don’t let anyone in my room except my husky.

At 5 p.m., I drag Smokey from under my bed and barricade him in my bathroom by shoving my dresser in front of the door. I haven’t had the strength to make more of a plan than this.

Find my old Bluetooth speaker, which is powerful for its size, and turn up some music to cover any weird sounds from his transition.

Unlock, relock my bedroom door and collapse on my unmade bed. Smell sautéed tomato and garlic creeping towards me from the stovetop.

As the sun goes down, the ache in my chest sharpens, makes me wrench open my window. Swear to god, I hear a howl. Faint and sad. Far, but not too far. I gasp, scramble to turn down the music’s volume, lean through the window for a better listen, tip and fall into the scrubby grass. It isn’t even that cold anymore. Pleasurable under my bare hands and feet.

“Fuck it.”

Into the pines I go. What am I supposed to do, ignore that howl? I can’t die like I have been, gradually.

A river of coyotes runs past me, pelts, eyes, teeth, tongues reflecting moonlight. They’re drenched in it, drink it. They rustle soft between wet pants and snapping sticks and firecracker leaves. I imagine their fur between my fingers, wiry, then soft.

They don’t look at me. And I feel a chill.

It hits me on the way back that the coyotes were running away. Away from what? From her?

I look over my shoulder. No, she’s not here. I sense something, but not Gwen. Whatever it is, it soothes the stinging throb in my chest. Still, I feel… tricked. I’ve tricked myself.

Must be losing my mind. How many coyotes were there? Eight? Ten? More? Am I dreaming? Pierce my palms with my nails, which have grown uneven, and decide I’m probably awake.

As I prepare myself to crawl back through my window, Smokey’s high whine pierces the pop song. I shouldn’t have left him. Add that to the long list of things I shouldn’t have done, but it’s too late. “I’m here, bud.”

He barks twice in pitches of distress. Danger! Danger!

“I’m back, alright? Relax.” Gotta get inside before my mom investigates. I lift myself and slide into my room, relieved to land on two feet.

He barks again and beats at the door with fists, knuckles rapping sloppily.

“Sh!” Fine, I’ll close the window. When I do, I feel a pang, a computer error ping. Wonder again whether the coyotes were real. Wonder whether the howl was even real because sometimes after listening to synths for hours on blast, I start hearing things—

“Bianca?” Mom calls. “Bianca, what’s that knocking?”

“Nothing!” I turn up the music on my laptop, taptaptaptap.

“Nothing?”

Smokey whines. The air smells bad. Does he already stink?

“Just Smokey!”

I spy shadows from her feet through the crack under my door. The handle rattles gently; she touches it like it’s my hand. “Dinner’ll be ready in ten, okay?”

“Okay!” taptaptap…

The shadows retreat, and suddenly, I want to cry.

Instead I’m forced forward, my hand spasming on the keyboard. My face is ground so hard into the mattress I can’t get air. It’s like a truck hit my head, now it’s stalling there, the weight of it, three-ton pressure. My arms and legs squirm and I feel damp jeans with my toes, rough fingers in my hair, keeping my head down.

I hear smacking, smacking, SMACKING as a mouth moves to my ear. I hear her swallow the gum, and her voice singes, sprays hot spit. “This is my patience, pig. This is my patience, ending. You should’ve stuck to your own species, you selfish—” she pulls her face from me and I feel her convulse, my lungs start screaming “—mmmm, mm, oh, you’re not gonna like this, baby!”

Rainy Williams lifts me and I gasp just before her hand clamps over my mouth—smells like dirty pennies and burns like a black road under the sun. The spindly bones in her palm shift and stretch over my lips. Her nails poke, drill.

Smokey screams like a man; a pop chorus blares.

“Wait,” Rainy grunts. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

Her heart pummels my back and my body bakes, sweats so much I could almost slip free, but her grip’s digging into me, drawing blood.

“Know why I’m losing my cool? Guess.”

No, please, wait, let’s talk, let’s get outta here, but all that comes out is: “Nggghhh!”

“You know—you know what you did. You ruined her. You fucking totaled her, so I’m gonna give her a real reason to hate me before I snap her neck and start over. It breaks my heart, baby, it does. But she’s too much trouble, you’ve made her too much trouble. The pigs want her more than me, and she’s got no sugar to make up for it. Not one goddamn granule. Now I’ve gotta start all over, like I always do—that doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s lonely, baby, I’m alllllways hurting. All I’m asking for is a little sympathy, yeah? So I want to meet—I mean, eat—your mommy, daddy, and doggy. Then maybe, juuuuusssst maybe, you’ll start to understand how I feel.”

Try to jerk my head but her finger-joints are pliers, palm bolted to my flesh. I shriek: RUN! try to warn them, but it’s snuffed out to a low, incoherent muffle. Smokey barks and beats on the door, seems to catch on to my failed distress signal. Mom’s gonna come check on me and him, force my door open, get herself killed. Quiet, I say but can’t say. Calm down, calm down Smokey.

I jerk again, stamp my feet on her boots, try to raise my arms but hers is around me like an hot iron bar.

Rainy’s laughter sprays my neck. She wheezes, and her claws stab through my cheeks and gums, only stopping to scrape my teeth and the bone under my eye. Rainy shakily licks blood from the thumb she’s stuck in my face. “No… You don’t taste like multi-millions…”

My dresser topples over with a slam that quakes the floor and the bathroom door bangs open. Smokey-man’s dark figure seizes us, and I’m dropped as I hear an ear-splitting yowl behind me. I crawl away and scream: “RUN! RUN! DRIVE! DRIVE AWAY!” Smokey-man is flung over me—hits the corner of my room, shrinks to a whimpering slouch. The howling and flesh tearing aggravate and expand behind me, heat licking the back of my neck, I adjust my glasses and look.

A silver beast is becoming, the scar on Rainy’s elongating head cracking and tearing down the side of her neck ‘til it meets her shifting, hulking shoulders, and another head emerges from it. In an instant, twin wolf faces snarl in hellish harmony. The left head, the new, still wet head—its eyes gleam wide and wild with wrath, but the right head’s eyes have been punched into red-black holes. I slide away numbly, hit the opposite wall and turn to Smokey-man. His shag-carpet chest is heaving, and his black-nailed thumbs are bloodied. Good boy.

Stomping echoes down the hall. Rainy’s left head, then her right, swivel towards the sound.

“Bianca?!” Clyde roars. My door handle shakes violently. “Bianca?!”

“NO!” My throat rips. “RUN! SHE’LL KILL YOU! RUN AWAY!”

The door handle breaks and I wail. But it was already too late. Clyde’s wielding a baseball bat, but he’s ripped apart before he can react in a silver flash. His disembodied arm hits the ceiling, painting it and landing with a meaty thud. Mom sees it too, screams and slams her bedroom door. Then I hear it splinter.

“No!” I bawl. “Please! I’ll do anything—”

With a set of jaws on each leg my mother is dragged into my room and I cannot look away. I cannot look away as Rainy’s heads take turns gouging into her.

I leap. Onto the back of the wolf-thing. I yank its tail into my mouth, and sink my teeth as deep as they’ll go. I suck the rank, seething blood through the fur. I growl, I gnash, I groan.

The house is breaking—it sounds like thunder and glass busting. Night blasts through the opening, and I feel the beast pull forward, out of my weak grip and into the jaws of another.

I hear familiar snarling, and the air charges with Gwen’s musk. She’s too late. She’s too late, I tell her so.

A fever takes me and my mouth runs dry as I watch a sandy wolf and a black one trap Rainy at the end of the hall outside my opened door. The black one glances at me with Erica’s eyes.

Clumsily, I crawl to Mom, the wet snapping of jaws and pop music like a storm above me. Her stomach and chest have been ripped open, her organs half-consumed, some trailing past her head and I can’t even see where they end.

Her eyes are wide, dark lashes trembling with the rest of her, each shallow exhale peppers her lips with blood.

I don’t know where to touch her, so I don’t touch her. I don’t know. Her mouth moves, her gaze glides slow to me. If she says something, I can’t hear it over the entangled beasts shaking the house and denting the walls.

Frantic, I pat her pockets for her phone. It isn’t there.

A low crack and a high cry distract me. Thoughts fissure.“M-M-Mom,” I shiver. Try to refocus. When I open my mouth again, my teeth fill the ever expanding space. My own tongue gags me. Mom, her face dims, but I see her react. Her brows twinge with worry, worry for me, while her guts hang out.

My heart explodes, splinter splitting and my body grows around it, consuming and regurgitating itself with searing heat. I collapse in a heap of resetting joints beside her, limbs and spine spasming.

I want to tell her I love her, but I can no longer speak—BLOOD, MEAT, so much of it and Rainy will die. She cries for Sienna and Anna but they are not coming, there are no new scents on the wind. She will die crying and alone. MOVE, let me do it.