FEVERCHAIN 7

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

Voiceover by Emily S Hurricane. It’s cinematic.

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Told mom I haven’t done shit lately, go home early. Let me close.

I want to walk home alone in the dark because I want to see Her. So bad I can’t bring myself to throw away the browning apples. I eat a spoonful of peanut butter, mop, wipe, scrub, empty the dishwasher, linger when I take out the trash.

How many times have I gone outside and stood in the cold, waiting? How many times in the last week? How many times have I thought, maybe Gwen is—

It’s getting bad. I’m reaching out to friends that’ve moved away just to see if they’ll still talk to me. Jordan’s performing in a concert at Atlantic City next weekend and says I should come.

What’s up with me? Oh, you know, the same. Running the diner. Taking care of Smokey, hanging out with my mom and her boyfriend. I don’t say: I met someone. That sounds too serious. But it is serious. How did it get so damn serious?

Gwen flavors my every thought and action. I really wish that wasn’t true. And it isn’t just worry, I miss her. I haven’t spent a cent of the money her dad gave me. Something about it feels unclean, so I’m saving it for a day when I can’t care about what feels dirty.

I clean the windows and stare at the starlit sky, expanding forever beyond the pines, oaks, cedars. The moon over everything, like a giant glowing snowball. “Gwen,” I say, like I’m in a movie. Like I’m looking for a lost dog. Like she’s long gone.

I wait for her silhouette against the streetlamp. She doesn’t come.

I lock the front door and move to exit through the back. While I’m flicking off the lights, BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG.

“Bianca!”

It’s her.

She’s at the front door, shaking it, beating her fist against it. Something is wrong. For starters, she’s half naked in a sports bra and running shorts.

I scramble over, slipping on the slick-washed floor. Don’t break the door down, I almost say, but her eyes are wet and wide in the moonlight, her body screaming danger. Red is smeared on the glass door—her arm is weeping blood. I unlock and open. She limps inside, steadying herself with one hand on a cherry cushioned booth seat. She isn’t wearing any shoes. Her left foot is swollen and purple.

“You were late.” She gives me a wobbly smile.

My mouth is open. I close it, try to get it to function. “You’re—I’m—your foot! Your arm! You’re bleeding.”

“I thought you would be home by 8:20, like usual. You usually close on Saturdays. It’s 8:46.”

“Gwen.” When I touch her shoulder, it’s hot. Hotter than she’s ever been. “Oh god,” I whisper.

“I came to see you, first thing.” She sticks out her purple foot and exhales hard through her teeth. “I needed to see you. It’s so good to see you.”

I try to smile back but struggle, my eyes stuck on her wounds.

“Don’t worry, don’t freak out, but your dog bit me.”

“What!”

“He jumped your backyard fence—“

“No! No! He’s never done that!”

“He did.” She shows me her forearm, the leaking punctures. “He did.”

“No one else was out there?”

“No one was out there.”

“Not Clyde? Not my mom?”

Gwen shakes her head. I don’t know why she’s still smiling. I’m mortified. They let him out unattended. Fucking useless! Clyde probably did it while my mom was cooking, at the store, or whatever.

Gwen touches my face.

I flinch back, look again at the dog bite, Smokey’s bite, the crimson shining on Gwen’s skin and arm hair, the discoloration of a soon-to-be-bruise. The holes—they’re deep. “I can’t believe it.” My eyes well up. “Fuck! What does this mean?”

Gwen blinks. “Nothing, Bianca, nothing. I’m not gonna…” she chuckles, “press charges.”

My Smokey. My goofball. He bit Gwen. He could’ve gotten her neck. “He’s dangerous,” I gasp.

“Not really. I threw him back over the fence. Dogs just don’t like me anymore.” She gestures with her head. “Let’s get away from the window.”

Gwen staggers to the kitchen. Quick, considering she’s mostly using one leg.

“You’re limping.”

“Mind if I—” She opens the fridge, smudges blood on the handle I just wiped. Oh god, she’s bleeding into the fridge. That’s unsanitary. When she turns she’s chewing, holding packages of pork roll under her arm. I look down at her left hand and she’s eating—just eating pork roll cold—the plastic, cloth packaging, everything. She swallows. “Think I broke my foot.”

“How?”

She’s chewing again, not facing me as she lurches around the kitchen. Gwen pauses at the freezer door and leans against it, working her jaw. “I jumped off the roof,” she mumbles.

I want to get closer. But she turns from me, and the hairs on my neck spring stick straight. Blood pumps into my meager muscles, telling me to hurry up and do what? “Roof? Where?”

She regards me with one eye, her face flushed and furious. “My parents’.”

Her parents! I remember my $1000 cash, my duty. But Gwen is staring at me. My phone burns a hole in my back pocket.

“I’m never going back there.” She shows her teeth. “Never.”

Plastic falls on the floor and she’s starting on another one, biting without breathing. She plays with the freezer door handle. Pulls it. A cold blast and she slips inside. Mumbles something.

“What?” I take a step.

“Close the door.”

“That’s the freezer.”

“It feels good,” Gwen moans, mouth full. “Close it.”

“You’re feverish.”

She tries to close it herself. She shouldn’t be bleeding in there, violating every health code known to man. The door is cracked, emitting chilly vapor reflecting fluorescents. “Close it!”

“Okay, okay.” I do, just to get my phone out and text Wade.

Gwen is with me at the diner she’s in the walk-in freezer she’s feverish broken foot

I hesitate. But they need to know.

My dog bit her arm and it’s bleeding

Wade reads it immediately.

Coming. Keep her there. Can you lock it?

Can I lock it?

There’s a latch, I text him.

Padlock it, he responds.

We don’t have one and also what the fuck. My thumb spasms.

No

I pause.

It’s a freezer, I remind him.

KEEP HER IN THERE Bblock door with something

I’m not gonna do that. I could block it with a table but that feels evil. She wants to be in there anyway. I know she has an insane fever but it’s a fucking freezer.

Hope they come quick.

I shove my phone back in my pocket. I have to make sure she’s okay. So I step in the cold closet and her heat hits me; we’re packed between the shelves of hash browns pie crusts burger patties ice cream.

The freezer light is dim, white, flickers. Gwen is eating plastic. Flicker flick. When she’s empty handed her eyes open, bright, twitchy. Red blotches on her face and skin. I touch her wrist and gasp. It’s like a hot pan. I put my back against the door and shiver. She’s getting hotter.

Gwen’s head tilts all the way back, neck straining. “I’m so happy.” She bares her teeth at the low, insulated ceiling. Her arms spread and each hand, one with scabby fingers, grips a metal grate shelf. “I came here to get you.”

Blood is on the floor. The droplet trail she’s left should be easy to follow. Nonetheless, I am afraid for her. I shove my fingers into my armpits, a futile attempt to keep the heat.

I don’t want to touch Gwen when she’s like this. When she’s so totally out of it. When I know her parents are on the way and she’s about to be very not happy.

“Your heart is beating fast,” she says, smile fading. “Why’d you come in here? I need to cool down… My foot’s swollen.” She tries to roll her sole—grimaces. “We need to get going.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“You’re not happy to see me.”

“I am, I am,” my teeth chatter, “I just—you’re hurting.”

“I heard you say my name. Before I knocked.”

Knocked?

Gwen peels me from the door, joints popping. She envelops me. “I hear everything. I smell when you want me.” Her grip on me is so tight, her skin on fire. Her fingers feel longer, the freezer feels smaller. She buries her face into the curtain of dark hair over my neck. Her breath is steaming, congested. Fogs my glasses. “Right now, you don’t want me.”

Caught in a bind, my tongue feels fat and numb in my mouth. Her touch is uncomfortable, but I run my hand through her hair. Try to soothe her.

“I scare myself when I’m right. But I’m always…”

My phone vibrates against my body. Gwen goes rigid. “Right.” Her hand slides heavily down my spine, lands over my back pocket, squeezes the metal rectangle. We both stop breathing. Quietly, she asks: “Why were you typing so fast behind the door, Bianca?”

The freezer hums in a higher pitch. My eyes focus on a blue vanilla ice cream label. The winking cow cartoon.

Gwen’s grip quakes with effort. Heat storms through her teeth. CRACK. We both gasp. Separate. I pat my ass. No way. When I remove the deformed metal, glass twinkles to the floor. My phone is bent, screen shattered. Its titanium frame crushed like tinfoil. By her fingers. I constrict it myself, hard, harder. The metal doesn’t budge. More glass frees.

Gwen’s blotchy hands cover her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

The useless device falls from my hand. I stare at her thin frame—how can she already look thinner? Rashes spread over her exposed flesh. “I’ll-I’ll get you a new one… get you money for a new one.” She presses her palms over her eyes and hunches over. “Oh god. Oh god. I’m stupid. I’m so, so stupid.”

I back against the door again and watch as she folds in on herself and cries. On all fours: “Please.”

I squeeze out her name like an apology.

“This was a mistake. Let me out. Let me out.” She crawls to my legs, shoulder blades slicing frigid air. “Please. They’re coming, aren’t they?”

I don’t move. “Who’s coming?”

“You told them,” she cries. “You… They’re going to hurt me.”

“Who?” I know who. I just can’t believe her. I can’t.

She paws for my phone on the floor and crushes it, even after her fist spurts blood. The sound is horrible. She collapses on her side, turns away. “They chain me. Starve me. Think I’m crazy.”

She could die. It’s so clear to me now. She could die. I’m shaking so violently the emergency latch is hitting hitting hitting my back.

“I’m not crazy. I’m not.” Gwen flips over to plead. “Please move, Bianca. Please. Let me out. Please. Pleaaaaase.”

She isn’t lucid. She’s rolling around on the floor, turning it pink.

“Don’t look at me like—I don’t, I don’t want to have to…” she groans, kicks a shelf. With her broken foot. I cower. The freezer is shrinking or…or I don’t know if it’s the shadows but I swear she looks thinner and longer, her eyes look sunken, her teeth protracted, her nails scratching—I hear her nails grating against the insulation, making white lines through the bloody floor in little abrasive screeches. Flicker flicker. Click, click. Every blink, her bones change.

That can’t be real. It’s—her fever. Am I feverish, too?

“If you’re so scared, LEAVE!”

I flinch so hard my toes seize. Gwen spits, her stare searing into mine. Her eyes—they’re the same. Amish oakwood.

“No.” Gwen’s not gonna hurt me. That’s why she’s crying on the floor. “I care about you.”

Her eyes soften. She squeezes them shut. “They just,” she sobs, “pulled in.” Whatever is left of my phone crunches in her hand. She curls into a tight ball around my nonslip rubber shoes and trembles.

My vision blurs. “Gwen…”

Her spine shakes, independently. Her spine… clicking. I wipe my eyes. In this shitty freezer light, it’s almost as if it’s stretching. Gwen rips at her own hair, dying it bright red, dotted with black phone bits.

I reach, my hand falters. I want to comfort her. But I can’t help but feel her anguish is my fault, that I’ve betrayed her. Everything in my stomach rises, threatening to fly out my throat. I have to close my eyes; I just want it to end, please please end and be over, whatever the fuck was happening needs to stop.

Lupus is FUCKED UP.

Muffled stomping, shouting. Closer. Close. Mayor Dyer’s voice: Gwen! Gwen! Where? WHERE?

The world caves in behind me. Someone far colder than Gwen catches me and I face Mayor Dyer. He points his gun into the freezer. I scream. Gwen is louder.

I’m shoved forward, and I land in the smaller, but surprisingly muscular, arms of Mrs. Dyer. Hard and frigid against my body is a shotgun. I shriek again, squirm from her and scramble under the kitchen table, push myself against a wall like I can make myself disappear. She’s speaking low and soft to me but I ignore it, I can’t hear anything until, from the freezer, someone slams into a shelf once, twice, three times. Packets of frozen fries and hash browns spill, sounding like a dry wrapper waterfall. Mrs. Dyer watches me.

A moment later, the mayor and his son emerge through the cold vapor, carrying a limp, impossibly elongated Gwen. I gasp her name. Wade’s nose is bleeding. He looks away.

“Darling,” Mayor Dyer pants to his wife, head nodding at me. “Handle that.”

Mrs. Dyer crouches in front of me. Her boot squeaks on a blood blot. She sets her shotgun on the tile floor, but has a pistol and huge hunting knife on her hip, too.

I whimper.

“Oh, honey,” Mrs. Dyer whispers, brushing the hair from my face. “Oh. I know it’s hard but I need you to tell me what happened. Gwen is experiencing fever delirium and we’re taking her straight to the hospital, okay? We want to be able to tell them exactly what’s going on, okay?”

I nod.

“So. What happened?”

“She—she came in, bleeding, b-broken foot, really hot, really hot skin, red skin.”

“What else? Specifics.”

“She, um, ate pork roll and,” I breathe, swallow, sniff, “she went in the freezer. She had a rash spreading.”

“Anything else, Bianca? Anything at all?” Her icy blue eyes coax. “Doesn’t matter how strange it is. You can tell me.”

I saw Gwen steam. Her bones stretch her skin. They must have seen, too. “That’s it, really.” I rub my knees. “I think she, um, broke my phone.”

“Oh gosh. I’m so sorry about this, Bianca.” She scans me. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I add quickly. “She was just… really upset.”

“Okay, thank you honey. That usually happens. Thank you so much for helping us.” She takes out her phone. “Pierce and Wade are taking her straight to the hospital. Do you want me to call your mom to come pick you up?”

“Yes, please.” It’s a fucking mess in here now, but that’s tomorrow’s problem. I need home. “D-do you need a ride to the hospital?”

“No, I’m going to pick up some medicine and ice for Gwen at the grocery and walk back.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, thank you.” Mrs. Dyer stands, brushing off her thighs. “I could use a walk right now.”

“And um, Mrs. Dyer?”

“Call me Marie.”

“Why do you all have guns?”

She looks surprised, then laughs, a little strained. “We were out hunting. Gwen, she—she doesn’t like hunting. She stayed home. Then you messaged us. So we went searching right away.” Marie covers her face with her manicured hands. “I’m so sorry you had to see all that, sweetie. And this mess—we’ll pay for anything to get fixed or cleaned, of course. We’ll drop off a new phone for you tomorrow.” Her hands fall. She stares me down. “You must’ve been so scared.”

Marie Dyer stays with me until my mom comes. Explains away all the blood. Explains it away so well I almost believe it. When I get in the car, Marie becomes a dark, thin line against the white, moonlit diner—still watching us, her presence like a grease stain I can’t get out. And she didn’t fully answer my question, but I didn’t fully ask it. Why had the mayor gone into the freezer, gun-first, ready to shoot his child?

The car’s unresolved rattle makes my lashes drip. My breath stutters. Mom pats my leg. Though I don’t yet understand, I know I betrayed Gwen.

Tonight, after Mom and Clyde are asleep, I will take this car to the hospital. With one grand in my jacket pocket.