The bus station was half-filled before her departure. A short, stocky man with two tattoed tears by his right eye scoped her body out, his look long and slow, despite her dumpy grey outfit. The man’s eyes on her body made her think of Rusky’s centipede, always watching.

  Cold filled her belly. She gripped Rusky’s fork, which she had placed in her left pocket. There was something comforting and warm about the metal.

  The smell of rotten milk breezed through the bus station, thick in the hot, humid air. The smell reminded her of Rusky’s excavated leg.

  I wonder what Rusky is digging with now. Poor fucker.

  Her fingers wrapped tight around the fork, ready to strike if Mr. Tattooed Tears wanted to get to know her any better. Holding the fork felt ludicrous, but safe. It was the first safe feeling she’d had in weeks.

  I don’t have to worry about this fucking guy. He can stare at me all he likes. I just walked into The Courtyard, robbed an acid casualty with a fork, and walked out without a scratch. So what if this guy killed two people? Shit, the tattoos are probably fake. He’s a commodities broker slumming his day away at the bus station with press-on tats, looking for intimidation kicks to keep him hard for his little domestic wifey at home.

  Still, if he sits by me on the bus he’s catching this fork in his fucking eye.

  Angie kept her anger at high-tide. It focused her and forced the voices and the ugly LSD edge out of her brain. She could hear her teeth squeaking against each other as she ground them together. Her adrenal glands were dumping hard, flushing her system, priming her paranoia. It felt good.

  It felt lonely. She was angry, untouchable, and detached from the world. Even the bus station flotsam kept their eyes to the linoleum when they walked by her.

  She sat down at the end of a row of blue plastic chairs and hung her head, hoping that the voices from the woods had finally left her. A cold feeling in her snack-saturated belly said they were waiting.

  This is bullshit. If I had some fucking reds I could just pop, pop, fizz, fizz, and float the bus trip away. Things would be quiet. Things would be nice.

  Her pulse doubled. Her dope dreams sounded too much like echoes of the voices that wanted her to sleep, and be calm, and let go.

  She remembered the figures in the woods, their gnarled wood fingers reaching up from the earth, their faces supplicant to the sky, stretched in agony.

  I don’t even know if Kaya is still alive. If what I saw has already happened…

  At 4:27 pm she boarded the bus in a cold sweat.

  ~~~

  Travel time on the shame train. Ugly, slow time on a bus that wheezed and clanked its way to Monahan. No companion in the seat next to her.

  Animals can smell disease.

  Angie felt surrounded. The bus was near packed, and breathing other people’s old air upped her claustrophobic leanings.

  Despite the density of people around her, she felt loneliness at the forefront of her chest, a dull pounding that didn’t fade with time.

  I’m surrounded by people that would cross a busy street with a blindfold on to avoid bumping into me.

  She hadn’t felt like this before. She’d never felt so separate from the people around her.

  Too much time around Cypher. Too much time away from the world.

  She wondered what would happen if she closed her eyes and kept them shut. Could she just disappear? Who would notice?

  Cypher would. She had his money. She had set his balls on fire.

  If I just disappeared, he wouldn’t get the pleasure of killing me.

  The idea was appealing in the worst kind of way—a way that rang true and told her it was dangerous to think too much until she could screw her head back on. She gazed out the window.

  Beige crop fields and beige strip malls with garish neon signs passed by, a homogenized blur of commerce and pavement.

  There weren’t enough distractions to shut out her thoughts and memories, to keep the whispers away. She put on her Walkman and cursed herself for not buying any tapes. She rolled the tuning dial to the clearest station she could pick up and tried to zone on the voices that floated in through the static.

  The hours and miles passed. Angie tried to keep her brain active and angry, to push down the cold fire that sat at the base of her stomach. She forced herself to remember unwanted memories, and listen intently to the voices she could discern amidst the white noise on the radio.

  “…which marks the fourteenth time this year that we’ve seen this kind of senseless murder in Ellis county. Officials are still unsure what has led to this rash of public shootings, and no general profile for the shooters has been compiled. Anne Pushman, 34, of Clover’s Dell shot seven people, including her own children, at a Dari Rite market last August. static… asked why she had done it she replied, ‘Attention must be paid.’ Attention must be paid, people. static …yeah, Jim, I do think that’s from Death of a Salesman. Do you think the crazy bitch owes some royalties? laughter…”

  I’m eight years old. I won’t eat my peanut butter and honey sandwich because the honey tastes gross and has made the bread all soggy and squelchy. Mom puts out an egg timer in front of my plate. The ticking is fast. It makes me nervous. Mom sits across the table from me and stares. She just stares, almost like her eyes are going right through me, and her lids are heavy and she’s breathing loud and slow and I’ve been watching her swallow big black pills all morning. She says they are vitamins. They make her weird. My time on the clock runs out, the bell rings, and mom snaps back into her eyes. Her face remains calm as she grabs my arm and pulls me out of my chair. I hit the floor hard but I don’t have time to cry out because she’s yelling, my mom—Colleen, you fucking doped up old bitch—is yelling at me.

  “Can’t you see them? They are dying, and you won’t eat your sandwich. Give him your goddamn sandwich so he doesn’t die. You don’t deserve it. You should be hungry.”

  There is no one in the room, except for me and mom. She turns away, pulls my sandwich from the plate, and throws it to the kitchen floor.

  It sits there for weeks.

  “...his wife, Margaret Ashbaum, reports that he had been acting distant before he made the decision to stop speaking and eating. She says that he had spoken...static…and she thinks his recent unemployment may have been a factor. She has no explanation for his decision to lie naked in the garden behind his house. Medical officials and county health say that if he doesn’t return to the house soon and begin eating, they will forcefully…”

  I am sixteen. I am alone in a subway bathroom stall, and the floor is wet beneath me, and spotted with blood.

  Peter said he wanted to be there for the birth. It didn’t take him a week after my positive pregnancy test to skip town.

  Nobody was there for the birth. Nobody gave a shit until the transit cop found me. He said I was white as a ghost. I just couldn’t stop bleeding. I held Kaya in my arms, against my chest, for as long as I could.

  I’m sleeping on the street with Kaya wrapped in my coat when the police pick me up. They tell me I can’t have her out on the street like that. The state—they don’t know me and the bastards want to steal my baby—says I’m an unfit mother. They give her to Colleen.

  “…new projections indicate that over 70% of the population will have experienced some form of identity theft within the next three years…”

  I’m eighteen and Colleen tells me it’s about time I start taking care of Kaya. I come home. I spend a week at mom’s hanging out, cleaning up after the dirty old bitch. I sleep in the same bed with Kaya and watch her chest rise and fall in the mornings. She is perfect and calm and her skin smells so clean and good, and I hold my hand above her mouth and feel her warm breath roll against my skin. I hold my hand up against my mouth and try to breathe in whatever is inside of her that makes her so perfect, so peaceful.

  After seven days with Kaya she starts to trust me and smile at me.

  After seven days I can’t breathe. I’m no mother. It’s better that Kaya never know me.

  I don’t even leave a note when I bail. I kiss Kaya on the forehead, walk out the door, drive into the city, and buy a handful of percocets.

  I dream for days. I cry when I’m sober.

  “...Iran will continue to press for development of a nuclear arsenal despite protestations of nearly all…”

  I’m twenty four. I’ve been on a two month ecstasy binge and can barely speak without sobbing, the serotonin drought is so bad.

  I tell Cypher I’ve been thinking about killing myself. I tell him I think I’m hitting rock bottom.

  He says, “Dig in and get comfortable.”

  He hands me another Mitsubishi pill and asks me if I can do him a favor.

  “…committee says that with the opening of the Kinshasa Highway to increased traffic the rate of AIDS infection could cause levels of mortality unseen since the bubonic plague...static…despite the best efforts of educational programs, the rumors of a ‘virgin cure’ persist. Those seen as pure, particularly the young, and often even infants, continue to be the victims of rape, and in some regions...”

  “The secret to making sure it doesn’t happen again, to really let them know you mean business, you know, that you are class A un-fuck-witable, is to get their family. So with Pearson, we put his kid and his girlfriend into trash cans out front of his house. Not all of them, I mean, we dumped a lot of shit, and buried some of it, just to lay up the odds, but we made sure that when him and his neighbors went to throw away the trash they’d catch an eyeful. I mean, can you imagine that shit? Fucking dude picks up the lid to throw away some old Chinese food or some shit, and bam, there’s his fucking little boy’s head staring at him, like, ‘Daddy, why?’”

  Cypher and Kirkenhaur bust a gut. I pretend I’m in dilaudid heaven, barely breathing.

  I try to tell myself that Cypher wouldn’t really do anything like that. I revise history and imagine Cypher was just on some tweeked out fever rant. After all, the guy’s not exactly Honest Fucking Abe, right?

  Still, after hearing what he said, I’m haunted. Every time I see spilled trash, the shit is half human. Ring fingers hanging out from under trashcan lids, like worms crawling free…

  Almost a year later I’m lucky enough to listen in on another conversation. This time Cypher and O’Rourke are talking in a hotel bedroom while I swoon away the end of a whiskey and nitrous bender, holding onto the edge of a toilet, in the dark. Their voices are hushed but urgent, almost joyous. I think I can feel the vibration of their voices through the porcelain I’m clinging to.

  “Jesus, O’Rourke, I can’t believe how easy it really—”

  “You call that easy. Bullshit, man, the old lady almost caught you with her knife.”

  “Yeah, old mama bear was definitely defending her cubs. But she didn’t get me, and besides that part, it was easy. Not physically, I mean, but doing it, really doing it. Getting in there. I looked them each in the eyes. At first it was too much, I had to look away, but then the feeling of power just…”

  “Yeah, it was good. I can see why this shit’s on the rise.”

  “Yeah, O’Rourke, it was so good. Worth doing again. There’s something to it…something I can’t figure out…I don’t know…”

  “Hey, Cyph?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re zoning, dog. Let’s get cleaned up.”

  Cypher steps into the bathroom and flips on the light. My head spins as I turn it, but I can still clearly make out two dark red drops of blood on the front of Cypher’s shell-toe sneakers. I begin to dry heave, but it doesn’t last. My heart’s beating too fast, my eyes go static, and I pass out.

  I up my pill intake and try to sleep as much as possible. I didn’t try to leave him until a month ago. But he found me, and poisoned me.

  I hope he’s still burning.

  ~~~

  The sun had long ago set outside Angie’s window. Her eyes were closed and her head rested against the glass. Her breathing was short, and tight, racing to keep up with her heartbeat while she relived the nightmares inside her head and fought sleep and sadness like they were death.

  She was thinking of the woods, of Kaya’s hands reaching out for her. She’d forgotten she was even on a bus until it slowed and lurched to a stop, the squealing brakes audible over the fuzzy radio voices calmly feeding fear and alienation through Angie’s headphones.

  The bus doors opened, allowing a rush of warm, wet air into the stuffy vehicle.

  The sign to Angie’s right said “Monahan’s Finest Bus Station.” The digital clock next to it read 5:30 am.

  She waited until the bus was empty, gathered her things, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. She turned toward the setting sun and began to walk to her mom’s old house.

  Two blocks from the bus station she felt her belly tighten up and the hair on her arms prickle. Her lips moved against each other. Something stole her voice and spoke.

  Come home to us. We are waiting for you.

  Chapter 6: The Decision to Bury

  After Kaya’s physical exam at St. Matthews she was taken to a hospital room. She cried out for Curtis, just as she had on the street between their houses. Her outburst could be heard even in the waiting room. Curtis was both proud that she was demonstrating to everyone how much she wanted and needed him, and embarrassed that everyone would think that he’d raised a child that was being a pain in the ass. He thought he saw the woman at the nurse’s station give him a cold look. A disgusted Officer Burke came for him and escorted him to her room.

  A tall, middle-aged physician, who couldn’t make eye contact with anyone in the room, explained that despite being undernourished, Kaya was in fairly good health. “But she’s pretty traumatized,” he said. “She should stay the night just for observation.” Then he left the room.

  “Tomorrow,” Officer Burke said, “Kaya will go stay in a shelter until her mother can be found.”

  Kaya said quietly and matter-of-factly, “I’ll run away again.”

  Curtis could see the edges of hysteria in her nervous eyes. He looked to Miss Martinez.

  She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then looked at Officer Burke. “I’ve had this case for a long time. Her situation’s been minimally adequate and she’s had some problems staying put. Took us nearly a week to find her last time she ran away.”

  Officer Burke nodded his head. “Tell you what, Mr. Loew, I’m gonna check you for prior arrests and any outstanding warrants. If you’re clean we’ll consider letting her stay at your place for now.”

  He walked away.

  My juvenile record should be sealed, but what if he has a way to get at that information? Curtis broke out in a sweat, despite the cool hospital climate.

  For just a moment he could smell gasoline and smoke, and hear the cracking of boards that had preceded the collapse of Murphy Hall, the foster home he had stayed in when he was twelve.

  There had been so many eyes on him after that, none of them with any kind of love in them. Just scorn, fear, and blame. He felt as if he had walked through a bad vapor that day, something that he carried with him that kept people at a distance.

  Technically, any information regarding the fire should have been expunged. But if the people at the courthouse lied to him, if those documents still followed him…

  “Curtis, excuse me?”

  Curtis snapped out of his mental drift and tried to pretend he’d been paying attention to Miss Martinez. He furrowed his brow to show interest. He’d seen people do that before and hoped it read true.

  “Do you have a room in your house that could be prepared for her,” Miss Martinez asked, “so she could have her own bed?”

  She’s trying to tell me not to sleep with her. Curtis felt angry and guilty at the same time. He remembered his decision to say as little as possible to these people. They could read him if he reacted. He responded in a calm monotone.

  “Yes, I could fix her up with her own room.”

  “Your house would have to be clean, you understand. We would have to check it out.”

  “Yes.” Curtis knew they would find his place to be spotless.

  “Kaya, Curtis needs to go home now, and you need to rest. Curtis, we’ll let you know whether or not she can come home with you tomorrow.”

  “No,” Kaya whined. “I’ll run—”

  Curtis cut her off. “I’ll be back tomorrow to take you home with me. You get some sleep, Kaya.” He was proud of himself for being firm with her and pleased when she didn’t challenge his authority.

  He left the room and the hospital, but returned an hour later to drop off Kaya’s pillow. It was the one she curled around when she slept. Before he entered the hospital he pressed it to his face and inhaled as deeply as he could. The smell, so delicate and human, made his heart race.

  There was a different woman at the nurse’s station when he dropped off the pillow. She took it from him and offered Curtis a slight smile.

  As he left the hospital and headed home, he thought about that smile, what it indicated the nurse might have thought about him. Curtis had always had difficulty seeing himself. He tended to take his cues from others.

  The woman probably thought it was sweet of him to bring Kaya her pillow. She probably thought he was Kaya’s father.

  Curtis knew that Kaya wouldn’t have been comfortable without her pillow. Bringing it to her seemed like a natural thing to do for his daughter, or cousin, or whatever. He knew what it was like to sleep in a strange bed. It could be difficult. That someone saw what he’d done as a thoughtful thing—the sort of thing a father might do—made Curtis realize that he was being thoughtful, and that others were capable of assuming that this was natural and good.