Teen Frankenstein (31 page)

I raised my glass in salute. “No, thanks. I'm going to forage for food, I think.” That was what lame people did at parties, right?

Cassidy gave a tight smile in thanks, and I wandered off in the opposite direction. I pushed my way through the middle of an Oilerette talking to the president of the junior class.

“Uh, how about excuse me?” said the Oilerette with the blond ponytail, jumping back.

“You're excused,” I mumbled, and knocked back a gulp of soda. The ice clinked together in my glass.

The house was filled with faces that were familiar but that I couldn't quite place. I wandered through the living room, filled with its dead animal heads, where exposed bra straps seemed to be the fashion. That, and drunken staggering that I gathered through my finely tuned powers of observation was supposed to double as dancing. Booze seeped from people's pores, and I caught sour whiffs like bad breath whenever I passed too close.

By now I'd gotten used to the bass and the way it punched at my organs. My whole body buzzed with the music amid curls of smoke that reflected in the dim lights. The air was fresher in the kitchen, where I was pleased to find a bowl filled with tortilla chips and an open jar of salsa that had vomited tomato chunks onto the marble countertop. I cracked a chip in two and popped one half into my mouth.

New stainless steel appliances gleamed from every corner of the room. I ran my hand over the stovetop to a block of wood that displayed a dozen shiny butcher's knives. I wrapped my fingers around one and pulled out the blade, examining the sharp edge. Probably one of those infomercial ones that could cut through a penny.

I fished around in my pocket to see if I had one to try.

“Are you allergic to parties or something?” I whipped around to see Knox open the freezer, realizing too late that I was wielding the point of a knife in his direction. He held up his hands in surrender. “No need for violence, Frankenstein. I'll go willingly wherever you want to take me.” He winked.

“You're going to make me gag.” I replaced the knife in its slot.

“I bet you're into that kinky stuff, aren't you?” The fluorescent light of the freezer lit his face as he stooped to dig for another bottle of vodka to replace the empty one he'd deposited on the island. From the looks of it, he had an endless supply to choose from.

“Hate to ruin your fantasy, but not all geeky girls are closeted sex freaks waiting to be unleashed.”

He chose a bottle and kicked the door closed. “Well, now you're just being mean.” He glanced at my watered-down glass of Coke. “Looks like you could use a refill.”

“It's just Coke,” I said when he took the cup.

He waggled his eyebrows. “How very responsible of you. Okay, just Coke then.”

I waited while he opened the refrigerator and poured me another glass.

“There you are.” Paisley stomped into the kitchen dressed in an identical uniform to Cassidy's. “What's taking so long? The natives are getting restless without their refreshments. And nobody knows where Ashley went. Caroline is freaking the hell out. Thinks she wandered off and—” Her eyes fell on me and then narrowed. “Oh. You've got company.”

Knox reappeared from behind the refrigerator door and handed me a refilled cup. I sniffed it and couldn't detect any alcohol. “I'm being a host, Paize. Chill out.”

“Can you please hurry? Ashley's been gone for, like, twenty minutes, and Caroline is convinced she's been abducted by the serial killer or whatever.” Paisley looped her arm through Knox's, but shot me a hard stare as she dragged him off.

Bored, I wandered out, drink in hand, of my safe hiding spot in the kitchen. A team of guys was holding Billy Ray upside down. He held the keg spigot between his lips and the audience was chanting. “Three … four … five…”

I twisted my head for a better view of a red-faced Billy Ray. Did it taste better from that angle? I watched as the counting grew more and more energetic. Was he able to swallow or was it just sitting there in his mouth about to explode. It was as if we were all spending New Year's Eve in Times Square waiting for the ball to drop instead of watching a sweat-stained white tee creep ever closer to the nipples of an even whiter hairy chest.

The front door opened, and there was a shriek. A lanky girl with curly brown hair ran across the room and hugged a freckled redhead. The redhead turned an unflattering shade of pink. “What's going on?”

The brunette pressed her hands to her friend's cheek. “Where have you been? I thought you were … that maybe someone had taken…” She was slurring her words, but her tears made her seem genuinely distraught.

Knox stood up and raised his hands over the crowd. “New rule,” he shouted. “Nobody leaves. Everyone stays right here in this house. There's a killer on the loose, people.”

There were cheers and hoots. Only in Hollow Pines, Texas, could a murderer turn a party into a
better
version of itself. The beat picked back up, and Billy Ray stepped up onto a coffee table and thumped his fist against his chest. “Who's doing the next keg stand?”

I scanned faces for Cassidy and Adam. Maybe the celebratory mood was contagious, but as I weaved in and out of dancing bodies, I felt my lips working their way into a smile and had the faintest hint of champagne bubbles floating around in my head.

I held my near-empty glass of Coke to the light and then sniffed it again. I shrugged.

When I emerged from the throng, I spotted Adam near the fireplace. I was giddy at the sight of him. Giddy and a little bit groggy. I hadn't known those two feelings went together.
Weird
. The thought was fleeting, and I pushed through the cluster of kids from my school. How did all these people go to my school? That was another weird thing. Why was I hanging out with them somewhere other than on campus? I squeezed my eyes shut. My head was beginning to feel like it'd been stuffed with cotton balls. I hoped I wasn't getting sick.

As I came closer to Adam, I had to squint. He wasn't looking right. His skin had that splotchy texture that made him look like he was coming down with a rare tropical virus. He stumbled and caught himself, using the mantel.

“Smith's wasted!” a boy nearby crowed.

Wasted? I registered this in the back of my mind as my tongue would a leftover bit of chicken stuck to my teeth. Adam wasn't supposed to drink tonight. Hold on. Neither of us was supposed to drink tonight. I flattened my hand to my forehead. The world seemed to have just performed a quarter rotation, and I had to steady myself to keep from spinning with it.

Where was Cassidy? I had to concentrate hard on each face in the room. They lurched in and out of focus. I didn't see her. Adam's knees buckled. A few more hollers of encouragement from the peanut gallery. Adam did indeed look drunk. Obliterated. And maybe he was, but I didn't think so.

I cut across the room—or maybe not cut—since I swerved once or twice. This wasn't good. I squinted at the ice cubes floating around in my drink. What was
in
this? My feet felt three times their normal size, and it seemed as though no matter how fixated I stayed on my target, which was, in this instance, Adam, he continued to jump to my left or right and I'd have to align my path all over again.

“Adam.” I caught his elbow. His name turned my mouth into marshmallow fluff. This wasn't good. I wasn't feeling right. I forced myself to concentrate. Through damp hair, he peered up at me. His arm, hanging from the mantelpiece, supported his weight. He tilted his chin as if to study me. “We have to get you out of here.”

“You're different,” he said.

“I'm fine.” I glanced to either side. Then I put his arm around my neck and began leading Adam, my Adam, down a dark hallway. I chose the first door that was unlocked. I guided him inside, then made sure to turn the latch behind me.

We were standing in the Hoyles' master bedroom. I lowered Adam to the floor on top of a plush oriental rug. The king-sized bed was a four-poster fit for royalty.

Inside the bedroom, the bass was a muted echo, muffled further by the cotton-ball stuffing that had taken over the space between my ears. I stretched my jaw, trying to make my ears pop. Something was definitely wrong. Adam lay on his back. His chin tilted up. His back arched slightly. His breaths were shallow.

“Victoria.” His fingers gripped the air and tightened into fists. I hated the cat-vomit-colored circles that spread out from his eyelids. “You're drunk.”

“I didn't have anything to drink except—” A moment of clarity wormed its way through my foggy brain.
Knox
. I closed my eyes for a moment too long, and the earth took off spinning. My eyelids snapped open, and I used the bed to steady myself. “I'm fine,” I insisted. My arms felt as though someone had filled their veins with cement. How much of that drink did I have? I tried to remember backward. All of it. I was pretty sure I drank all of it.

Adam closed his eyes and for a second lay very still.

I dropped to my knees and shook him. “Adam? I'm sorry.” I clutched his hand. “But I think the game drained you faster than normal.”

He stared up at the ceiling. My thoughts felt as if they were swimming through molasses. I could figure this out. I would figure this out.

I stood up and nearly fell back down. My surroundings spiraled, and I struggled to reorient myself to begin taking stock of the master suite.

There was a large walk-in closet with fancy, sliding racks for shoes and little else. I opened up drawers and found sachets, dried fruits and herbs tied up in bows to make rich people's socks smell floral. I shoved each drawer shut with my hip. There was nothing in here I could use.

I stumbled and grabbed for the nearest thing to keep me from falling. It was a fur coat, and it drooped onto the carpet. I left it there.

When I returned to the main room, Adam's eyes had rolled back into the sockets. “Adam?” I slapped his cheek. He didn't wake up. I considered dousing him with a cup of water but kept looking instead. Where was a generator when you needed it?

Under the bed, in the nightstands, nothing. Finally, I turned my attention to the bathroom. I'd never seen a tub that wasn't also part of the shower before. Again, there was the siren call of a place to nap. I resisted. Instead, staggering, I rummaged through the vanity and other drawers until I found the first thing with a cord: a hair dryer.

I turned it over, feeling the weight in my hands like a gun. I looked at the dryer, then at the bathtub, then again at the dryer. The plan was simple, which in this case was a nice way of saying dumb. But it was science.

I plugged the drain and twisted the knob. Water began pouring into the bath. Next, I went to the clock radio on top of one of the nightstands. The numbers blinked from red to nothing when I tore the wires out of the back. I carried my bouquet of red, yellow, and green wires back to the bathroom.

I pushed my thumbs into my eye sockets. The back of my throat turned slimy with mucus. My hands shook and my insides turned seasick. I couldn't think about what would happen if I was too late. So I focused on getting him undressed, pulling off his jeans and jersey until he was stripped to his boxers. Stitches framed the cavity in his chest that masked his metal plate, and the electrocution scars formed white tree branches across his chest.

“Adam, we have to get you up. We have to get you into the…” My eyelashes fluttered and I swayed. “The tub.” I hooked his arm over my shoulders and together we crawled and dragged him to the bathtub. He collapsed inside, and his pupils stared up at the ceiling. Crossing myself, I poured four shakes of expensive bath salts into the water in an attempt to replicate brine.

I attached each of the wires, per my usual routine, to the rings left open in the conductor plate. Steam billowed into the air and caked the mirrors with fog. I saw Adam, sliced and cabled, for the first time aboveground, and he looked even more grotesque in this position than usual. Almost inhuman. Like a creature stolen from the lab. I wanted to look away. But instead, I switched on the hair dryer, held it over the bath, and dropped it.

 

THIRTY-ONE

It was only on Owen's suggestion that I thought to look into the power of suggestion as a possible source for the subject's “memories.” The power of suggestion is a process by which one person's thoughts or feelings are guided by the allusions made by another person. This psychological process can be so strong as to create false memories. Think of people who confess to murders after a grueling interrogation only to be proved innocent later. However, I've been able to pinpoint no potential sources of allusion that could be creating these memories in Adam's head.

*   *   *

The lights blinked off, swallowing the room in black ink. Orange and yellow sparks burst from the socket and died midstream. There was a thrashing in the tub, like a shark churning up water. Skin flapped on porcelain, thick
thwacks
of suction-cupped flesh. The music stopped cold. Muffled shrieks and squeals trickled through the walls. In the bathroom, where I stood motionless, the noises stopped. I held the air in my lungs and could still hear the shallow pulls of someone else drawing in oxygen.

I fumbled for the light switch and flicked it on. Nothing happened. I must have shot the circuit breaker.

“Adam?” I whispered.

A grunt. I dropped to my knees and slid in his direction, feeling with my hands out in front of me until my palm landed on his arm. I slid my fingers down until I could grasp his hand. He squeezed and, in the darkness, where no one could see, I smiled.

“You're alive,” I said.

“I was never really alive.”

My fingers wriggled around to his wrist, where I could feel the throbbing of the veins underneath. “You have a pulse. You have a heartbeat. You have blood coursing through you,” I said softly.