Unreal City (23 page)

IT WAS WELL
after midnight when we arrived in Isla Vista. All I wanted to do was sleep when we pulled up to the apartment, but I was surprised to find Felix waiting at the top of the stairs. I stopped short, looking back at Joy to see if she could see him too. If she could, she gave no sign of it, so I sent him a cross look.

“I thought you might miss me, so I came along,” Felix sang as he trotted carefully along the railing. Ignoring him, I followed the rest of our troupe into the apartment.

Inside there were already four or five people gathered around a hookah. The air was thick with incense that seemed to have been burned in an attempt to cover up the odor of garbage that wanted to be taken out. We smoked and drank and talked and stayed up much too late for our own good. Somewhere near dawn, everyone crawled off to their respective corners to try and get some sleep and I wrapped my sleeping bag around me like a protective cocoon and faced the wall. I knew Felix couldn’t enter the building until I’d invited him, but I preferred that he keep his distance this night.

We all rose after midday, and went down for a breakfast of the quesadillas the town was famous for. The boys seemed to want to get up to more drinking, but Joy and I decided that we’d rather take a walk than, as one of their friends put it, “pre-game for our pre-gaming”. Booming beats were already shaking the ocean village, and Joy complained of a headache, so I suggested we walk down to the beach to clear our heads.

College kids everywhere were already in costume, drinking brazenly in broad daylight. We passed a house where a group of boys had somehow moved a grill and speakers onto the roof and were dancing and cheering at any girls that passed by while they barbequed hot dogs. In the street nearest the beach, a group of young men wearing creepy masks were spiritedly pushing a dumpster they must have commandeered from some alley. Joy and I smirked, but were relieved to reach the sand. It was quieter down there and we at last had a chance to speak candidly.

“Shouldn’t something have happened by now, Sarah? Shouldn’t it have come back?” she asked me without needing to specify what she meant.

I scratched at the back of my ever-messy hair and sighed. “I don’t know. I thought so, too, but I suppose anything could be happening. I guess that’s why Felix followed us here, to make sure that—”

“Felix came with us?” she asked, looking at me as worry creased her brows. I matched her frown.

“Yeah, I left him at the apartment. You didn’t see him last night?” I asked, dread creeping up on me. She shook her head, and we stared at one another in silence, lost.

“Look, maybe we’re just worrying over nothing. We’re probably just being paranoid,” Joy said in a pinched voice, a ghost of her old smile trying to shine through her worry. “We should just try to have a good time tonight. It’ll do us some good.”

I gave her an uncertain nod and we sat down together on a large, fallen log between the campus’s lagoon and the beach, watching the filthy water flow into the sea through a graffiti-spotted drain. I couldn’t help but think of the writing on the wall that led into Poe’s garden. My eyes flitted down to the log and I saw a question carved into its worn surface that stirred a feeling of melancholy in my chest.

Will I ever see you again?

Night fell and we returned to the apartment to suit up for our wild night. I shed everything of my usual attire for my witch’s robes, but kept my necklace on. Though I’d tried not to dwell on her since my last visit to Unreal City, I still thought of Lea. I wondered if she would’ve been here with me right now, perhaps wearing a matching costume, perhaps supporting both Joy and I through this. As I put the silly hat onto my head, I wondered if she’d known what was killing her at the moment of her death. Had she been able to see the familiar, or was it invisible to her as Felix had been to Joy last night? Or had she looked into its jar and felt her throat fill with water, choking her last breath as she was terrorized by its twisted appearance? The old furnace inside me lit up as I did my makeup. Who had done it? Whose familiar had it been? Who had wanted to kill Lea, or Poe, or me for that matter? I would never get to know now that Joy had claimed the familiar as her own. This tore at my mind until a thought occurred to me.

Do they keep their memories from when they were with their previous masters?

With this question nagging at me, I excused myself and went out onto the balcony where Felix waited. Now that night had fallen, the town was rumbling with the sounds of raucous partying and hooting cries of merrymaking in the streets. Felix blinked at me as I walked up to him.

“Can familiars remember the times from when they belonged to another master?” I asked bluntly.

“Yes.”

“So when Joy’s familiar finally appears to her she would be able to ask it why it killed Lea. Right? It would know everything, right?” I chewed my lip, and he paused for a long while before nodding. I exhaled and looked out at the horizon to where the ocean was. I was so close to knowing.

And what would it be like when I did? Would I be able to let her go, as I had been instructed to do? Would I be freed or would I be crushed? Would I have the courage to tell my mother and father why they would never see their daughter again? Would they
want
to know? Of course Mom would want to know; she was the one who still waited every day to see if Lea’s boyfriend would wake from his coma and explain the details about the night she was murdered—and what he would tell them would sound like the ravings of a lunatic. Of course, I too would appear unsound of mind if I ever tried to explain the truth.

These manic musings were interrupted as Joy came out in her nurse costume and motioned me back inside. We were all going to take our first shots of the night, then try to lose ourselves in the frenzy of the wicked holiday. Whiskey passed my lips; I felt it burn in my stomach. The mood didn’t lighten, but intensified. My laugh sounded like the bark of an agitated dog in my ears, but I laughed nonetheless. We took to the streets, determined to fight our way through the teeming crowd in order to find our way to the street nearest the beach, where many of the parties we’d promised to visit were being held.

My head was spinning in a world of brilliant color and grotesque faces. Masks grinned, bloodied faces loomed, eyes crinkled and mouths widened, warped in the middle of screeching laughter. The howls of drunken ghouls echoed through the streets and chilled me more than any of the displays of gore adorning people’s bodies. Green lights, orange lights, purple lights. Naked torsos and bare thighs caught my eyes. Smooth, plump thighs. Sex and violence filled every corner of this town. We fought our way through the dancing, pushing bodies that packed the streets. Every so often I glanced down to see that Felix still followed me and felt comforted by his eyes. They seemed to anchor me to everything. I could hear roaring now, and I wasn’t sure if it was a bleed-through or some effect of the night.

We arrived at our first house and a French maid greeted us. More alcohol flowed into me—tequila, vodka and orange juice, beer…I stopped keeping track. The room was spinning now, but I didn’t feel sick. I just kept laughing my barking laugh, my gaze fixed on Felix, with occasional glances to see if Joy was having fun. Even while everything else was spinning, he seemed to always be standing still while he watched me—half-protective, half-hungry.

We went on to the next party, and the next, making our way down the road and getting drunker and drunker. Everyone was laughing now. We’d gotten caught up in the wonderful, terrible hive-mind of the town. This was fun. This was what youth was all about. Another hostess greeted us, another pair of half-exposed breasts stole everyone’s eyes. Another drink?
Sure.
If it’s there, why not? This is what living was all about. We started playing a game, but I couldn’t figure out the rules. Joy looked like she was really enjoying herself though, and that made me glad. My stomach burned with anger, however, when Kyle started kissing her on the neck. I stared at them for a minute, then forced myself to look away. It disgusted me. A girl to my left was offering me a pill, and I shook my head as the feeling of nausea became overpowering.

No pills, thanks, only poison for me.

I was going to be sick. I got up without saying anything and made my way outside with Felix at my heels. Now that I was away from the music, my ears hummed. I wondered if they turned it up that loud to eliminate the need for conversation. Did we all have that little to say? We were close to the end of the street now, and I could see the ocean in the distance. Beyond the edge of the asphalt was an expanse where tall grasses grew and a dirt trail led off into the darkness. Out there I could see monstrously large dandelions waving in the breeze, and for a moment I was hypnotized by them. I knew they were just another bleed-through, but I found them beautiful all the same.

Joy and Kyle came out to check on me after a few minutes. I assured them that I was fine, just in need of fresh air. As I went through the motions of getting them to leave me alone so I could be sick in peace, something standing among the dandelions caught my eye. At first I thought it was a trick of the light, but I turned my head in horror when it didn’t fade.

He was there, watching us—the Antler-Man. At once I couldn’t breathe, and I stood staring at it, feeling the blood drain from my face. He was the same. He was still that hideous, malformed, spindly thing with his dripping jawless mouth and beady eyes. Joy followed my gaze, then turned back to me in confusion.

“Sarah, is everything all right?” she asked, and I knew that she could not see him. Something had gone very wrong.

Come to Unreal City…
his voice growled in my head, resonating inside of me.
I miss you. I need you. Come back to me.

“Ev—” I took a moment to catch my breath and kept my face straight. “Everything is fine. I just don’t feel well. I’ll be back in a minute, I promise,” I breathed, not daring to take my eyes off the Antler-Man even for a second. Joy looked there again, and I was sure now. The pact had never been made between them. It hadn’t worked. Something had misfired.

“Okay, if you say so. Hurry back.” Joy wobbled back into the house, but Kyle remained.

“What’s so interesting over there, huh?”

“Nothing, leave me alone.”

“You’re psychotic, you know that? Joy feels sorry for you; that’s why she invited you to this. You need medication,” Kyle said decisively, and I think he actually meant to be helpful with this little nugget. I turned to him, hoping my dislike of him shone as clearly in my eyes as I felt it in my heart.

“One day, a long time from now, you’re going to be deeply ashamed of who you are right now. In the meantime, however, you can go fuck yourself,” I snarled and he drew back, his lip curling.

“You—”

“Get outta my face.” I stomped away from him and toward the familiar, the fear in the back of my chest nullified by the anger I felt for everything. It wasn’t just Kyle. It was my entire circumstance. It was losing Lea. It was the disillusionment of the brief moment of security I’d felt knowing that Joy would be with me forever in Unreal City being undone by this familiar’s presence. Felix bristled as I made my way toward the Antler-Man.

“What are you doing?” he called after me.

“I’m gonna go talk to him. I’m gonna find out everything I want to know.” My voice trembled, but I kept on walking, the wind ripping at the loose gown fluttering around my knees.

“He’ll kill you!” Felix hissed, but I wouldn’t be swayed.

“I don’t care.” The alcohol made me believe I was invincible, constricting the fear that often crushed me when this abomination was near. I crossed from the asphalt onto the grasslands, getting closer by the second.

“
Lea, please stop!
”

This time I did stop. I turned my back on the familiar to stare at Felix, incredulous. An epiphany struck like a bolt of lightning. All at once, everything made sense.

“YOU WERE HER
familiar, weren’t you?” I stammered, staring at Felix as my heart smashed against my ribs. “You made a pact with Lea, didn’t you?”

“I—” Felix’s pupils had become slits and his toothy jaw hung open. He hung his head and murmured out a pathetic little, “Yes.”

“God damn it, Felix—” I crumpled, losing my will to keep going toward the Antler-Man. I knew he was still behind me, I knew he was waiting and watching, but I couldn’t get up the energy to care anymore. My brain tried to think, tried to make the connections, but was impaired by the staggering amount of alcohol I’d consumed.