Ferocious

21. Showing Me

Joshua came up the stairs, the cool evening air ruffling his hair.

"Hey," he whispered, hands shoved in his jean pockets. "It's good to see you." He leaned against the opposite side of the doorframe from me and we stood talking like that for five minutes before I worked up the courage to invite him in.

My mom was cooking. She covered her surprise when I told her a boy from the band was here to see me, smiling instead. She invited him to stay and eat with us, but he declined. He was almost scared of her.

I tried to imagine a life where I was scared of meeting a boy's mom who invited me to have dinner with the family.

In my room, we both found a wall to sit down and prop up our backs, our feet separated by half an inch of air. He told me about the stupid shit the guys in the band were doing during practice instead of playing and how badly they needed me back.

I wanted to go back. I wanted to forget that I ever snuck into Levi's house and saw a dead girl pissing on his bed right before a vine shot out of her mouth and she came running after me.

Reality check. What I had seen couldn't be reality. What I was doing here with Joshua – chatting and joking – was. I could ask thousands of other people their opinions, and they would tell me to get help if I told them the things I'd seen.

Later, at the table my mom said I wasn't allowed to talk to Alicia anymore. Her parents had forbidden any contact between us and my mom said she had to agree with them. It was for the best. There was something dangerous between the two of us, as though we were constantly bringing out the worst in each other.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before," my mom said over her spaghetti. "I didn't want to hurt you. I know you are friends."

"It's okay," I replied. "I can't talk to her right now anyway."

My mom nodded, but I couldn't read her emotions. Relief? Probably.

And on Monday I went back to school and pretended nothing had ever happened. I acted as if I and the whole town of Allsbury was perfectly normal. The hardest part was hiding my surprise when I would turn around and be face-to-face with something disgusting or horrible.

Do you ever expect to see a donkey carcass in the school hallway? I didn't. Every single time something nasty popped up, I had to bite back a scream.

And that damn donkey rotting away right in front of my chem class. I was trying to walk around it without seeming to, and it started kicking. Its bloated intestines spilled out on the carpet and the smell—

I managed not to vomit.

I found myself constantly checking for my scissors in my bag. Their cool, sleek blades calmed me.

Several weeks like this went by. I was wound tight with the constant fear of seeing hideous things, but at the same time strangely numb to them. I knew the visions would come, but not when. Each time one appeared, at least I knew the wait was over for another few minutes.

I pretended everything was fine. I avoided Kaylee's darting glances whenever I startled and her haunted questions. What is going on? How do we get rid of it?

I didn't have the answers.

"Don't do any more research in the town's history," I told her during a study period in the library. "No more digging. We just hang on until we're old enough to get out of here."

"What about Levi?" she asked.

The one question that killed my resolve to get out of here and forget this place. What about Levi? What about his older brother Sean who I'd never been able to admit to that I had a crush on him?