Projector

By

Daniel LeMoal

Daniel LeMoal lives and writes in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His most recent short story, “An Obtuse Argument Against Foreign Products,” appeared in the summer 2006 issue of On Spec.

* * * *

There is no such thing as a hit man in The Pegs. There are undercover police officers putting the sting on bitter husbands and wives before they cash in on life insurance. There are liars and lowlifes trying to make a quick and lasting impression on other criminals. And then there are people like me.

I’m not a bad person. But I am a drug addict. I’ve spent most of my adult life taking money and never paying it back; it’s one of the few things I’ve ever been good at. But somehow, I always knew the business end of running an addiction would bite me in the ass. I’d end up in jail. Or worse.

Somewhere along the way, I made the mistake of borrowing money from a man by the name of Napur Nospharrat. Nospharrat routinely loans out five hundred dollars to losers like me and considers it a hidden investment. Looking back, I would have been better off robbing fuel depots.

Here’s the thing: when a man like Nospharrat calls you on your cell at 2 a.m. and says that he has a job for you—and then asks how your mother and father are doing—you realize that you have been bought—body and soul. Make no mistake: I’ve burned my parents for years. I’ve stolen their money, their car, and even my mom’s few pieces of jewelry. But I still love them, in my own marginal way.

“Are you crying, Andy?” Nospharrat asks, his voice sounding low, rich, and well rested. I’m surprised to find I still have a few tears left in the tank, or maybe it’s because the last of the Ursa Major ran out hours ago. I look around my mold-encrusted hotel room and watch the walls push in towards me. Nospharrat is everywhere.

“Don’t be afraid,” he continues. “This is a good opportunity. If you do this favor for me, I’ll freeze the interest and cut your principal in half.”

This means nothing to me. I can’t keep ten dollars in my pocket for more than fifteen minutes; that other two hundred fifty might as well be $2.5 million. But maybe I can earn my family a few weeks of living.

“All right. I’m in,” I say, feeling the first pang of withdrawal in my guts. “Just tell me what you want done.”

“No. You and I don’t talk ever again. Get in the car downstairs and you’ll meet with middle management.”

“Thank you, Mr. Nospharrat.”

“And one more thing, leave your cellular and wallet in the hotel room.”

I stare at the curtains as the wind pulls them out the open window. I could easily make the jump; it’s only a second-story room. But to be honest, I don’t care one way or the other anymore.

Mainly for my parents, I write a quick note and shove it in the waistband of my boxers:

My name was Andrew Jessop. I was 26 years old.

* * * *

I half-stumble down to the lobby and promptly get collared by Stokes, a low-level meathead that Nospharrat keeps on the payroll. Like every other associate of Nospharrat’s, Stokes looks like he’s just walked out of a boardroom. I haven’t met one piranha yet who doesn’t like to play dress up.

“Cotton Andy,” Stokes grins, leading me through the front doors by the collar of my T-shirt. “What’s new?”

“Lay off,” I snap, pulling out of Stokes’s grasp. “I already told him I would do it.”

“And your word’s as good as fucking gold, right Andy?”

“I’m not stupid,” I say. “It’s not like there’s anywhere to run.”

“If you weren’t stupid, neither one of us would be here,” Stokes says. Yawning, he points me towards a taxi.

When I get into the vehicle—a Zulooc 350—I find myself in a car full of people like me. There’s Albert, a runny-nosed “cub” who is a complete write-off. He won’t be alive come two months from now. Greenway, by contrast, is in it for the long haul. He’s probably at least ten years older than me, hiding a perpetual smirk under an overgrown mustache. Audrey, the last member of our little band, is a hard one to peg. She’s young. There are still braces on her teeth and she’s managed to keep most of her looks. Her bright green eyes are hidden by a massive layer of black eye shadow and stringy brown bangs. But she has that non-committal stare that’s all too familiar. Six months? Six years? Hard to tell when she’ll check out.

The thing with Ursa Major is that you know it’ll end up killing you. Some might drop out early, but there is the chance—if you’re lucky—that you’ll get a good ten years or so. All you have to do is maintain your balance. I was good at that. Binge if you must, but make sure to eat often. Sleep and shit at least twice a month. I was able to churn out the bulk of the CGI for two Northern Star movies under that simple formula. Of course, after seven months I was unemployable: in full psychosis and headed for the first of many crashes.

Once a bearhead loses their job, they usually take up other hobbies to consume their hyper-productivity. Mine was storyboarding—not on a computer of course, that was sold off ages ago—but by hand, on any shred of scrap paper I could find. My planned animated opus didn’t have a real title yet. I just called it Untitled Ursa Major Project. I still remember the day when I stared at my accumulated storyboards completely straight, fresh out of rehab. Each drawing was a precise mini-masterpiece, a shining example of the bear’s autistic perfection; but if there was a story in the collective whole, it was lost on me. I tried for days to figure out what the drawings meant, before I finally relapsed.

* * * *

Stokes gets behind the wheel and crams the rest of us in the backseat, like he’s taking his kids to the movies. He elevates the Zulooc into a glide and drives straight from the Boons to the lower-lying flood districts, flying by endless streets of river silt and water-damaged stilt-houses. It all looks like wet cardboard to me. The withdrawal is coming on full force now, so I close my eyes and concentrate on trying not to vomit.

Audrey is the first one to get edgy, tiring of our seemingly endless tour of the city’s lowlights.

“So what exactly are we supposed to be doing, then?” she says, her voice implying the bearhead’s usual threat: you wouldn’t like me if I was bored.

“Wrong W,” Stokes says. From my vantage point in the back seat, he’s just a set of teeth floating in the rearview mirror. “Not what—who. Who, in this case, is Bob Keeney.”

At this point, Stokes may as well be speaking Japanese. A string of drool oozes from Albert’s lips. If you listened closely, you might be able to hear the faint buzz of four brains trying to connect the dots.

“You want us to kill somebody?” Greenway finally sputters through his mustache, the smirk gone now.

“Good guess,” Stokes says. “And the answer is yes. Keeney’s a projector, an employee of ours who went AWOL.”

A projector. That explains why Nospharrat wanted four druggies for this assignment. The only brain a projector can’t play with is one that’s already fried.

Stokes hands me a small slip of paper with an address (White Horizon Apartments, Room 519) and a shiny new cellular phone. He also passes around a small photo, a headshot of Keeney, I assume. Keeney doesn’t make much of an impression. He has the sort of face that would try to sell you insurance. By the time I’ve passed the photo over to Greenway, I’ve already forgotten what he looks like.

“Is he a 360?” I ask.

“That’s not important,” Stokes lies.

When it comes to dealing with projectors, that’s all that matters. There are plenty of low-rez types who can hit you with the odd hallucination for a few minutes. But a true 360 can pull a whole city block of people into a full-blown movie. A projector can’t read your mind. They don’t have to. You’re going to read theirs, and that’s just all there is to it.

“Why are we killing him?” Albert asks.

“That’s not your problem,” Stokes says. “All you need to know is that he walked out on an exclusive contract with Mr. Nospharrat. End of story.”

“I don’t want to kill anybody. Can’t we just beat the shit out of him or something?” Albert says to Stokes, obviously still confused about the nature of our employment. I cringe and shrink down in my seat, seconds before Stokes turns around and punches Albert square in the face. Despite the blood spurting out of his nose, the blow doesn’t appear to have registered in Albert’s brain.

“Just do what everybody else is doing and you’ll be fine,” Greenway says, obviously feeling sorry for the kid.

“Fucking druggies ... real nice vibe we’ve got going on in here now,” Stokes complains to himself, before snapping out of it. “Never mind that. The good news is that you’re all going to get nice and wet before we send you in. Compliments of Mr. Nospharrat.”

Despite the fact I’m sick and scared out of my mind, I feel a lurid grin of anticipation spreading across my face. Which says a lot about why I ended up here in the first place.

* * * *

We make a pit stop at a Chitalian restaurant, the kind that’s always closed. Definitely one of Nospharrat’s many properties. Stokes orders us a round of beers and promptly seats himself at another table for a midnight snack.

“Eat well, you elitist fuck,” Greenway mumbles, glaring over at Stokes, while Albert stuffs a paper napkin into his nostrils to stop his nosebleed.

I have to admit that Greenway is low class, even by druggie standards (I guess I’m a bit of an elitist myself). But he’s funny. He has a dozen different theories as to why Nospharrat is using projectors. One is that Nospharrat needs at least three to help run his whorehouse on the north end. A quick illusion makeover can patch a banged up prostitute in seconds.

“He might not even be using actual humans in that place,” Greenway says, obviously troubled by the thought that’s just crashed into his brain. “Maybe he has the place filled with farm animals ... or mannequins ... or has the johns doing each other. Nobody’d know the difference...”

And then he starts talking about the convenience of using a projector in the fast-paced world of narcotics. Place a projector adjacent to the buy area and you could sell a suitcase full of flour for a million. Most traffickers get a junkie to test the product on site. With a few well-placed hallucinations, no one would be the wiser. Other budding entrepreneurs run strings of shooting galleries on nothing but projectors and placebos.

“These are vile times,” Greenway says to himself, shivering. “They should shoot every last projector in the head. Or give them all a lobotomy at the very least. Public safety and all of that.”

“Too much money to be made,” I tell Greenway. “C’mon, are you telling me you wouldn’t drop a few dollars for a nice, clean hallucination?”

“That’s what drugs are for,” Greenway laughs, exposing a mouthful of half-rotten teeth.

Disgusted, I turn away and look at Audrey, who’s slumped halfway under the table.

“He’s going to kill us,” she says, glancing over at Stokes.

“Not yet,” I say. “Not when Nospharrat can still fuck us for a while longer.”

Stokes seems to sense the negative mood from our table. He pushes his chow mien away and strides over to us.

“All right kids, it’s time for your medicine,” he says, emptying a small pill bottle onto the table. Eight small, white tablets roll out. “Take two each.”

“What is this?” I ask Stokes, as I separate out two pills with an index finger.

“Meet your new Major,” Stokes says. “Just swallow them. We’ve got a schedule here.”

“I don’t swallow the Major,” Greenway complains. “I smoke him.”

“Greenway,” Stokes says, suddenly grabbing him by the shoulder. “If you don’t take those pills now, you’ll be smoking the corner of this table.”

Stokes gets his point across. Greenway complies by licking his two pills directly off the table, like some anteater from the world’s sickest zoo.

Audrey breaks the stifling silence at the table with several involuntary squeaks. Her pills are already long gone, and her eyes are starting to pop like a manga heroine.

“Is it good?” Albert asks her.

“It’s not the bear, but whatever it is, it’s real,” she says, getting flushed and pink. “Not very strong though.”

Once we’re convinced that the lab rats are going to live (to be honest, I think we only wait about 30 seconds), Albert and I swallow our pills. Audrey’s right, the drugs are weak, but they do the job. As we leave the restaurant, the concrete fizzles and glows in the rain.

“Nothing like tonic for the troops,” Stokes winks, before he shoves us all back into our death cab.

* * * *

Forest Green is a misnomer. It is an endless suburb of white high-rises and grey condos, all competing for the minimalist equivalent of absolute zero. Home to software grunts and accountants who will never own real estate, despite their relative successes. But it beats living in the mold and mud.

Stokes gets us past the gates by flashing a knowing smile to the lone guard. The gate road leads us through an architect’s rendition of a petrified forest. Between the cement branches I catch a glimpse of a broken-antlered deer, staring back at us with the soulless eyes of a statue. This lone stab at architectural flavor quickly gives way to the usual strip mall banks and grocery stores, and eventually block upon block of apartment buildings.

There was a time when this was all I ever wanted—a Forest Green apartment, a girlfriend, and some disposable income. I was willing to cut corners to get it. Just like half the people living out here right now—muscling out the employment competition with brain stimulants, sleep nullifiers, personality amplifiers, and whatever the next breakthrough in personal-achievement pharmaceuticals might be.

The popular theory is that two generations of pill-popping proletariat produced the first generation of projectors. Some might argue that was the only positive side effect of the endless line of “office enhancers.” But I suppose that really depends on what projector you talk to: the one who’s making a decent living in the streets or the poor soul who’s locked up in a government laboratory or sanitarium. For all we know, Bob Keeney might just be another projector who finally lost his mind.

Within minutes, Stokes stops the Zulooc beside a sound barrier wall that’s veined with artificial creepers. He hauls a briefcase out from under his seat and gives us our first look at the artillery: four simple stubguns (probably kept under a remote safety, if Stokes values his life) and several slim metal tubes.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” he says. “The best strategy is to simply get into his unit and take him out immediately. Don’t waste time mouthing off or trying scare him. Get a couple of good body shots in with the stubs, and then...”

Pausing, Stokes reaches under his seat again, this time handing Greenway a small vibrasaw and backpack.

“What the fuck is that for?” Greenway says.

“Mr. Nospharrat wants the head and hands,” Stokes says quietly. “He wants to set an example in case anybody else gets ideas about going AWOL.”

Greenway releases a deep, rattled sigh, but I can’t tell if he’s upset or not. He simply packs away the vibrasaw and looks out the window.

“What if Keeney isn’t alone?” I ask. “He might have hired out protection.”

“Then you use these.” Stokes grins, holding up one of the slim metal tubes. “Defib grenade. It’ll drop everyone in the place. I’ll get the signal on my cell if any of you pull a pin.”

“The defibs are a last resort,” Greenway says, trying to make serious eye contact with each of us. “I’ve already had two heart attacks, and I’m not exactly crazy about getting another jolt with one of these.”

“What were you expecting, a company medical plan?” Stokes barks. “Use the defibs or take your chances in a shootout. But just know that if you fuck this up, there’s some things that are a whole lot worse than dying.”

With that bit of motivational therapy, Stokes hands us our weapons. In about two seconds, Audrey is pulling the trigger on her stubgun, trying to shoot Stokes through the back of his car seat.

“Haha, that’s cute—stupid but cute,” Stokes laughs, as Audrey continues to pull the trigger to no effect. “Those safeties aren’t coming off until you get inside. But trust me, I’ll remember this the next time I check in on your kids.”

Audrey breaks down hard, but we manage to get her out of the car without further drama. Stokes points us toward a dog park that lies at the foot of Keeney’s apartment tower. Even though it’s the middle of summer, all of the trees are stripped of leaves, as though the entire park has been sprayed with napalm. It looks like nobody’s bothered to pick up after their dog either.

“I’m heading to the end of the block,” Stokes calls out the car window. “I’ll keep in touch with our intel in the building. If the situation changes, I’ll call you.”

“And once it’s done?” I ask.

“Punch the preprogrammed number on your cell and give me confirmation,” Stokes says. “Then you get to go home. Sorry, but you’ll have to find your own limo ride back.”

“What about your souvenirs?” Greenway says, holding up the empty backpack.

“Give it to the gentleman in unit 623,” Stokes says. “He knows where to send it.”

With that, the Zulooc veers away from us. We reach the park and take cover behind a half-dead oak, peering up at the lights emanating from Keeney’s fifth floor window. Allegedly, it’s the only occupied unit on the entire floor.

“Shit, he’s seen us already,” Albert hisses, and crouches down.

Up on the fifth floor, a solitary shadow leans against the living room windowsill. With Keeney’s face just a blank shadow, it feels like an all-knowing, hidden eye is taking in everything at once—the skyline, the dog park, and the half-assed firing squad lying in wait.

“Even if he does see us, he isn’t running,” Greenway notes, snuffling.

Just then, another, much larger shadow disrupts the glow from the apartment window. A sumo-sized figure emerges, wrapping a thick set of arms around the smaller human form.

“Shit! Who’s that then?” I say, as the two shadows appear to gently dance to unheard music. “Stokes said this guy was supposed to be alone.”

“Well, call Stokes up and tell him his intel man is on drugs too,” Greenway says.

I look across the park to the end of the block; of course, the Zulooc is nowhere to be seen. As I hit the speed dial on the cellular, the first smack of nervousness hits my system. Stokes picks up on the first ring.

“There’d better be a good reason for this call,” Stokes’s voice crackles. “I know there’s no bloody way you’ve got to the projector already.”

“Where the hell have you disappeared to?” I say. “I thought you were waiting at the end of the block.”

“I just turned your safeties off,” he says. “Blame Mom-of-the-Year. She’s made me paranoid.”

“Forget that! Are you sure Keeney’s alone up there?” As I say this, the larger shadow lumbers out of view; the smaller form seems to have simply vanished. “From down here, we’re seeing at least two people moving around in that apartment.”

“I just talked with 623 a minute ago. He’s kept a wired eye on that door for days. Keeney’s alone.”

“623 is sleeping on the job. Something’s not right up there.”

“You’re armed and ready for this. I don’t care if there’s one person or twenty up there. Get it done!”

I wait too long before answering. What Stokes says next isn’t worth repeating, other than to say he reminds me exactly where I stand in life. Audrey takes one look at my face and knows the score.

“God, let’s finish this and get out of here,” she says, pulling her hood down over her eyes.

Albert, however, isn’t budging. He sits down at the base of the tree and shakes his head. “We need to call this off. Keeney’s obviously hired out protection, or he’s in our heads.”

“You keep missing the point,” I snap. “If we don’t get popped upstairs, Nospharrat will still have our heads by the end of the night. Either way we’re history.”

“And what about my brother? What about your kids, Audrey?” Albert says. “What’s Nospharrat going to do to them when we’re gone?”

Of course, no one has the answer. Greenway stares at the backpack and chokes out a withered sob. I realize with sudden vehemence how much I hate these people. Nothing’s worse than staring into a mirror and seeing yourself just as you are.

* * * *

They must be in a hurry to rent rooms at the White Horizon. The hallways shine with fresh white latex and someone has even made sure all of the fluorescents are working. Industrial orange air-freshener has asserted military control over the usual apartment-related odors. But other than that the building is barren: no wall of fire, no pit of cobras, or any other hallucination to scare us away. For some reason that depresses me almost as much as anything else.

We take the stairs. The exertion pumps more of the drugs through our veins, and by the time we hit the fifth floor landing, the mood has become considerably less humane. When we reach the door of unit 519, we’re nothing more than four rats: cornered, agitated, and ready to bare our teeth.

“Shoot everything that moves,” Greenway mutters from behind us. I aim my stubgun at the bolt lock and pull the trigger. The first pulse ruptures the lock and doorknob with ease, while the second cracks the entire door in half. Albert kicks the remains inward and we go storming through the gap. Waving my weapon in an arc in front of me, I scramble into the bedroom. Other than a bare mattress, it’s completely empty.

“Nothing?” Greenway asks, as he appears in the bedroom doorway.

“No! No!” I pant with fear and confusion.

“Bathroom’s empty too,” Albert reports.

We reconvene in the living room and exchange puzzled glances for a few minutes. Other than some leather furniture, the unit looks unlived in. It’s certainly free of sumo-sized bodyguards.

Suddenly, Greenway raises his stubgun to the wall.

“Give me a fucking break,” he growls, aiming at a set of eyeballs floating in the floral wallpaper. “You’re going to need better camouflage than that.”

A man-sized section of wallpaper walks toward us, its arms held high above its head. With a slight ripple, the floral pattern disappears and a shivering, naked Bob Keeney materializes before us.

“Okay, okay. I won’t try anything else,” he says in a weak voice. Keeney looks like he hasn’t had a meal in a long time. Still, he has enough bravado to size us up for another moment. “You know, a mind’s a terrible thing to waste. I could have put on quite a show for you.”

“Trust me, you’re a little late with the anti-drug speech,” I say. “Who’s in here with you?”

“I’m alone,” Keeney says, lowering his voice. “But we have to get out of here ... now.”

“Enough,” Greenway says, brandishing his stubgun. “We saw somebody else in here. Or was that another magic trick?”

“That’s ... my son.” As Keeney says this, he involuntarily folds to his knees and starts crying.

“Where is he?” Greenway shouts, getting more manic by the second.

“You won’t see him now,” Keeney says. “He’s scared. But please, lower your voice.”

“He fucking should be scared,” Greenway says, shoving the stubgun against Keeney’s forehead. “Tell him to get out here now!”

Keeney almost starts to laugh.

“No, no. He won’t. He’s just a baby.”

At this point, Albert flinches and points to the black sofa, where the decaying body of woman, bloated and blue, has suddenly appeared. Long dead, by the looks of it; the straps of her nightdress cut into her inflated arms like parcel cord. All at once, the smell of death floods the room. Greenway doesn’t take this development very well.

“Now what the fuck is this shit?” he shouts. “Enough of the smoke and mirrors.”

“I’m not doing it,” Keeney moans. “It’s him. I’ve been trapped here for days and days and days.”

Albert’s throwing up now, while Audrey simply backs out of the living room. Me, I can’t take my eyes off her. A rusted stain covers the lower half of her nightgown, and her hands are frozen in a reaching out position. God wants me to see this up close. I deserve it.

“Make it disappear,” Greenway commands, pushing Keeney’s head against the wall with the barrel of his stubgun.

“I can’t, she’s real,” Keeney stammers. “That’s my wife.”

“Why’d you kill her?” Greenway asks.

“I didn’t do it,” Keeney cries hoarsely. “He did.”

“Shoot him, Greenway,” Audrey shouts from the hallway. “Stop talking to him and just do it.”

“He came weeks early,” Keeney continues. “We just weren’t ready. He was hungry all the time.”

Finally, Greenway has had enough. He points his stubgun at Keeney’s legs and pulls the trigger. Keeney’s thin knees fold backward and he’s writhing on the floor.

“Hyaaaagh...” Keeney’s screaming now, trying to grab onto Greenway’s pant leg. Greenway pulls back, like he’s shaking off ants, then he kicks Keeney three or four times in the head.

That’s when the room goes white hot, and it feels like my eardrums are shredding inside my skull: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ... and everyone falls to the floor, and I see that Greenway has wet himself, and I suppose I probably have too and EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ... it stops for a brief moment, and all you can hear is the sound of five scared people, in agony.

“He’s not going to let us leave,” Keeney moans in defeat, just before his head disappears in a cloud of red vapor. Greenway keeps pulling the trigger on his stubgun, destroying most of Keeney and the firewall behind him.

“Greenway! No!” I yell, and the high-pitched shriek starts again: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ... and I start to feel my stomach swell. I twist on the floor and see Audrey behind me, her eyes rolling up into the back of her head, the pin of her defib grenade hanging loosely from her index finger. In seconds, a thick pulse of electricity cuts through the room, taking out the lights and my consciousness with it.

* * * *

I’m back in Keeney’s bedroom when I wake up, gagged and hogtied. Audrey’s beside me, also bound and gagged, her eyes large and streaming with tears. I turn to my right just in time to see the top of Greenway’s head being blown off. No sound of discharge, of course, just the click of Stokes’s finger and the wet impact.

“Fucking druggies,” Stokes says, wiping the barrel of his gun on the mattress. “Real nice vibe we’ve got going on here now.”

I roll over and see that Albert is already gone. Audrey starts shaking and screaming as Stokes shoves his gun into my neck.

“The thing is, the head and the hands were important,” Stokes says. “They were part of an overall public relations message that needed to be sent. To the next projector who might decide to run out on his job just to play house.”

Stokes spits on the rug, as if making a parting shot at Bob Keeney and his failed domestic dream.

“You should all know by now: if you go against Mr. Nospharrat’s wishes, he punishes you.” Raising his gun to my forehead, he continues, “You have nobody but yourself to blame.”

“No, please,” I start blubbering, even though neither Stokes nor Audrey can probably understand a word I’m saying. “Greenway did it. I couldn’t stop him...”

But Stokes freezes, his face taking on a puzzled expression. He drops his gun and grabs his chest with both hands. In seconds, his face and neck have inflated to twice their normal size, but he does not explode. Instead, he hovers to the ceiling and hangs there, like a captured helium balloon. With a small shudder, Stokes groans and half of his insides spill out of his mouth.

That’s when the boy finally decides to show himself. The defib pulse should have killed a small child; there’s no way around it. Unless he was hiding in the bathtub, or made himself ... disappear. But inexplicably, there he is, sitting quietly at the edge of the bed.

“He’s only a baby,” Audrey cries, having worked her gag off.

Whatever his name is (if Keeney and his wife even had time to name him), he’s the smallest baby I’ve ever seen; a dried piece of umbilical chord sticks up from his belly like a small horn. His skin is clean and white like only babies’ skin can be. But his eyes look very, very old.

“Oh, my little boy,” Audrey starts cooing, half out of her mind. I cringe and wait for him to scream again, but Audrey’s voice seems to have a calming effect. The baby smiles and starts to grow in size, getting fatter and happier until he almost fills the room entirely. The world starts to hum: MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM ... and I feel a flood of relief coming over me, even as Audrey’s eyes close and her skin starts to turn blue. I stare into his toothless smile, which is still almost as bright as the sun.

“I’m ready,” I tell him, as I remember what happiness feels like: having someone hold you and knowing that it will never, ever fade away.

* * * *