Nothing But Bones

43: Tiff Kidnaps A Man (For Real This Time)

She finds him near the bottom of the stairs, stumbling with his eyes closed— probably to keep more formaldehyde from getting in— and his nose bleeding. It's kind of silly, if she doesn't think about how atrocious a person he is.

"Boris!" she calls, still a few steps above him. "Come on, man."

He finally finds the lobby— how convenient— takes off running like he's going to find push doors and not a puddle of blood where that poor night clerk should be. Obviously, he doesn't find them. They clearly didn't entirely modernize the Beaverdell Hotel when they rebuilt it, the same way the rotating door at Lake Wonder's only hotel was preserved when they redid the lobby last year. Tiff learned that the hard way yesterday, didn't she? Her hip is still bruised.

He doesn't say anything worth remembering— mostly calling her a bitch, mostly engaging in the kind of hysterics typical to their kind (macabre scientists who keep doing insane shit), like how he's going to snort her bones or put her reproductive organs in a jar. (That would be cool, she thinks. She would love that.) Macabre scientists united by a common theming of working with dead bodies— she doesn't think he's morally close to her in any way, though. Relatively, she's good.

She's about to be the opposite. There's a vase on a side table next to an old loveseat that looks more than uncomfortable. There's a clattering on the ground behind her as Kepler sneaks through the stairwell door before it closes. There's a pretty heavy-looking phone on the desk, askew from where Jo probably fell. These are all things she could hit him with, if she wanted. It isn't illegal to hit a man with a rat, after all. It's just illegal to get caught.

He's close to the desk— and she never took off her gloves. Maybe the blood loss has made her more ruthless or something. There's that old voice in the back of her head again: "Do something crazy. Bite his ear off. Make it good; make it interesting; take out your stomach and show it to him."

Yeah, right. Nothing won't get to her this time. She picks up the vase.

She doesn't say anything. She just brings it down on his head, there in the doorway, with only God and Kepler watching. Shards of green-painted white ceramic fall at her feet and catch on the door handle; water laced with wilting flowers splashes out over the both of them.

He crumples against the door in a way that turns the handle he couldn't find. It's amazing what losing a sense will do to a person, she supposes. Hysteria. Isn't she familiar? When the handle turns, he falls out onto the wet asphalt, a heap of a man. He looks almost frail like this— like he wants to tell her stories about his time in Vietnam and help her reshelve books at the library.

Well, thank god for her habit of clipping her keys to her belt. The plan is half-formed in her mind, but she's going to go through with it anyway.

She knows exactly where the Honda Accord is, since she's the one who left it there and it stands out in a near-empty parking lot with a couple SUVs and a Ford Focus. Key fob shaking in near-bloodless hands, she unlocks the car and starts dragging.

Kepler makes a whining noise.

"Shut up and help me do this."

That clearly wasn't the reason for him whining. Apparently he wanted to help. He shakes himself from side to side like a dog in the rain, grows to twice his usual size, and starts dragging. If Boris is Frankenstein and Kepler is playing Igor, Tiff might just be the monster. At least she isn't the bride.

She's already driving by the time she cognizantly realizes what she's doing— pulling out of the lot, headed toward the road, headed toward god knows where with Boris in the passenger's seat and Kepler, full-size, on his lap and chest. Like a threat. It's all a threat.

This is a horrible idea. But she's already doing it. She might as well keep going.

A few minutes down the road, Tiff has the presence of mind, despite the constant aching of her wounds (like death, she thinks) to turn on the radio and then reach into the back seat for a discarded bottle of water. She uncaps it and hands it to Kepler.

"Pour this on his eyes. To flush them."

There's a curious spark in his eye that she knows well.

Tiff sighs. There's no joy to her voice when she says, "Yeah, fine. You can hold open his eyes when you do it. I'm sure he'll love that."

Honestly, it might be best if he wakes up now. She's satisfied with where they've gotten to: the edge of some fucking woods. She's always at the edge of some fucking woods.

She takes a moment to reflect on the morality of her recent actions. Maybe jarring his genitals is a little much— but can she really say she regrets dismantling the snake? Can she say performing the urostomy was morally wrong? The worst thing she has done today is drag Elton into it. And the night clerk. And the Berrycloths. If she had just done it on her own, things would be cleaner.

Where has all the guilt gone? It should be distressing, this sudden lack of emotion. It isn't calm. Calm is reaching the summit; calm is a certain kind of contentment. It isn't the neverending numbness she felt for those five months she locked herself in the shed last year. It's nothing. It's a total lack.

She looks down at her chest. There's the culprit. Her heart has stopped beating.

That's it, then. She's dead. The only reason she's alive is the stupid rat circus the universe loves so much.

She should feel worse about it. She mostly feels nothing.