The Unnoticeables (2 page)

Hey, there's Randall! I should kick him in the knee.

“Randall!” I screeched, getting two big running lopes and knocking his knees inside out.

“God damn it, Carey!” he said, then he tried to get his feet and nail me, but I danced away. A car honked, mad that I was in its precious street. Me and Randall gave it synchronized middle fingers and forgot all about fighting, to become a united front of Fuck You, Guy in Car.

“You like the band?” I said, nodding toward the club.

“Television? Pretentious bullshit,” Randall said through a mouthful of chaw and then spat hot garbage water onto the sidewalk.

Everything was pretentious bullshit to Randall. I wasn't sure he actually knew what the term meant—he once called my chicken-fried steak “pretentious” because it came with gravy on the side.

“Sure, sure, but do you like 'em?” I inhaled the rest of my cigarette in a big crackly, flaring burn.

“Hell, yeah,” said Randall, “they're my favorite band.”

I gave Randall a sideways look, then released a fucking monumental cloud of smoke. I breathed storm clouds; I shot black soot like a dragon; I exhaled the entire Los Angeles motherfucking skyline. Randall coughed and sneezed and shut his eyes.

I took the opportunity to bolt. When he looked up, I was gone. Vanished in a puff of smoke. He spun around, looking for me, but didn't spot me down there, peering around the broken newspaper machine. That would fuck with him all night.

I waited until he turned around, and I crab-walked through the growing crowd around the door. When I was safely out of sight, I downed the rest of my beer and jogged around the corner to see what drugs Debbie had for me tonight.

When I got there, most of her face was gone. She was making a wet slurping sound with what was left of her mouth, and her balled-up fists were drumming the pavement like a broken windup toy. Something big and black stood over her, flowing like a waterfall. Its head was pouring out of where its shoulders should have been, oozing down and over Debbie's chest like fresh tar. Where it touched her, flesh sizzled and flowed away, running down her body like plastic. I must have said or done something then, because it started to retract. It reversed flow, sucked back up into itself, and became something vaguely man-shaped. Its skin shimmered like polluted grease. There were two gleaming brass gears where its eyes would have been. They interlocked and began to spin. The whirring increased pitch and became a scream. It took a step toward me.

“Fucker!” I said, and hucked my empty beer can into the vaguely humanoid mound of acid sludge that was melting my friend. It bounced off the thing's forehead and clattered away down the alley. “She was gonna put out!”

Stop
.

That's a shitty thing to say, I know. I liked Debbie. I genuinely did. She wasn't just pussy to me; she was a friend first. She thought Monty Python was the funniest thing on the planet. She picked the cheese off of her pizza but still ate it. That's just how she liked things: crust and cheese as separate entities. She could do a perfect—and I mean fucking
flawless
—circus-caliber cartwheel, no matter how drunk she was. And yet the first thing I said when I saw her dying was dismissive and sexist and just all around shitty. I know. But here are some qualifiers:

First, when you put up an apathetic, angry shell for long enough, the behaviors you thought were mostly an act start to become your reality.

In other words: If you train yourself to respond like a dickhead in most situations, you find yourself responding like a dickhead in most situations.

Second: I was really,
really god damn hard up.

I lived in a small apartment with three other punks. On any given night, one or two of them will probably bring home a few buddies who'll also pass out on our floor. I'm not a gentle lilac, budding only under the most delicate of circumstances; I don't mind people knowing I'm whacking it. But my ratty, threadbare thrift-store cot was right next to the bathroom, and every time I've tried to masturbate for the last three months, somebody puked right next to my head before I got a chance to finish. It was starting to get Pavlovian: I got half a hard-on every time somebody dry-heaved.

And finally, I should clarify: I wasn't in shock. I had seen these things before. At least half a dozen times over the past few years. A lot of us had. They seemed to be coming after the gutter punks, the homeless, the junkies: Anybody that spent a lot of time fucked up in dark alleyways knew about the tar men.

But all excuses aside, what I said about Debbie was selfish and callow. That's the plain and simple of it. If it makes you feel any better, they were probably going to be my last words.

The dull brass gears in the sludge monster's face were spinning faster and faster. The whine was reaching an agonizing pitch, like a jet engine mixed with a rape whistle, and it was, impossibly, getting louder. I turned to run, but the noise was doing something to my inner ear. My balance was shot. I dropped to my knees. Tried to cover my ears. No difference. The tar man was approaching, slow but steady. And my stupid, useless legs were ignoring me.

I could see it clearer now. It wasn't entirely black. It shimmered in the light, like the surface of a greasy puddle. Charred bits of Debbie's flesh still clung to it here and there. They were cooking. Melting and running away in soft pink rivulets. I could smell it. Smell her. The harsh chemical stink of crude oil mixed with burning steak.

Four paces. Three. I couldn't stand. Could barely move. I reached into my pocket. I pulled out the lighter I'd snaked from Debbie earlier. I flicked it open. I struck the flint against my jeans, and not even checking to see if it had caught, I flung it in front of me. I'd like to tell you I said a little internal prayer, but all I was really thinking was “
fuckfuckfuckfuckfu—”

I felt a sharp intake of air rush across my skin, then a harsh, burning expulsion. I was thrown backward, and scrabbled away from the flaming thing like a wounded spider. The tar man's screaming gears faltered and caught. They whined, paused, jammed, and then flung themselves sideways out of its face. The fire raged harder and faster by the second. The sound was like a train engine spooling up. Higher, deeper, louder; higher, deeper, louder—and then, thankfully, silence.

When I finally pried my eyes open, half afraid that I'd find them burned shut, the tar man was completely gone. Just a greasy smudge and two round brass gears on the pavement.

I felt around my arms and face. My skin was sore all over, like a bad sunburn, but there didn't seem to be any major damage. I considered a cigarette, looked at the oily spot still steaming to my left, and considered again.

I bent and picked up the two singed gears, oddly cool to the touch, and put them in my back pocket.

“Ha, motherfucker!” I spat on the smoking stain. “I'll wear your eyes for a trophy.”

I went to check on Debbie. I had assumed the worst, from the way she'd been twitching when I first showed up. I assumed right.

I said a quiet good-bye and left the alleyway. Please don't tell anybody I pilfered the cigarettes out of her purse before I did.

When I got back out front to the show, the punks were filtering inside, the sound of the next band's guitars already clamoring into the street. Butts were being stomped out, beers were being downed, fresh air was being gulped desperately, and life was going on. I thought about going in with them—about dancing or drinking or doing some damn thing or another to forget for a few hours what I'd just seen, but the thought of all that heat and sweat turned me off.

Our pad was miles gone and I didn't feel like walking, but I recalled stashing Daisy about five blocks from here a few weeks ago. If she was still around, she'd get me home. I turned to leave, then Randall popped up from behind a newspaper machine, screamed, “GOTCHA, FUCKHOLE!” and slapped me hard across the cheek.

My burns flared to angry, visceral life.

 

THREE

2013. Los Angeles, California. Kaitlyn.

For the first time in a long time, I woke to find myself not in pain. A cold flood of fear washed through me. It ran down my chest and settled in my gut. I couldn't remember why waking up without pain was supposed to worry me. The reaction was just instinctual.

I lay in my massive, ridiculously soft bed for half an hour. A king-size memory-foam mattress that fills every single inch of my tiny bedroom, and an accompanying six-hundred-dollar down comforter are the only great and stupid luxuries that I allow myself. I was trying to figure out where the anxiety was coming from, and I finally pinpointed it: I was not sore, bruised, burned, or broken at all, and that meant I was unemployed.

At least partially. I still had my job waiting tables, but I hadn't done any stunt work in weeks. I guess sometime during the night, I finally shook the last stubborn bit of stiffness in my hip from that botched somersault I took while shooting
The Damned Walk … Again!?
So I woke up feeling physically great but with a trade-off of crushing spiritual ennui. For almost this entire month, I had been just and only a waitress.

I sighed and rolled out of bed. I had to roll several times just to reach the doorway and then heave myself out into the hall. My bare feet slapped the cold tile all the way to the bathroom. When I sat down to pee, it really hit me:

I was in absolutely no pain.

Even as a little girl, I would wake up each morning with a very small but persistent ache in my third pinky. Yep. Third. I have six fingers on my left hand. The superfluous little bastard has hurt me every day of my life, except for two: the day when my kid sister died in a house fire, and today.

I couldn't remember anything about the day of the fire. The therapists said I'd repressed the memories, but every once in a while I got this feeling, like terrified d
é
j
à
vu, and I just knew it was some small piece of that day coming back to me. I had that feeling now, when I suddenly remembered, in perfect clarity, waking up with no pain in my sixth finger fifteen years ago. I remembered running down the stairs to tell my mom.

It doesn't hurt anymore! It's all gone!

My mother laughed, picked me up, and placed me on top of the dining room table.

“Are you kidding me? Is this a joke?” she asked.

I shook my head and wiggled my skinny, single-knuckled little digit for her.

“That's great, baby!” she said.

And that's where the memory kicked out. Nothing past it, just a pleasant little short film and then
fin.
But I still had this sick fear that wouldn't shake loose from the bottom of my stomach. Something bad happened after that moment, I knew that much, but whenever I tried to think of the specifics, I could only picture a bright, colorless light and notes of toneless music. Memories defined by their absence.

I flushed the toilet, turned the shower up as hot as it went, and stood under it until the heat made me dizzy and pink. I slid the curtain aside and grabbed for my towel. I was so dazed from the warmth, I almost didn't notice the face staring at me from the other side of my window. I clutched the towel tightly against me, and instinctively screamed.

Jesus, just like some ditzy horror-movie starlet.

To my credit, the involuntary yelp only lasted a second. The tirade of increasingly detailed obscenities lasted for much longer. The face disappeared instantly, ducking away in terror. I barely had time to register a set of puffy red cheeks, greasy stubble, and glazed little eyes beneath a ratty green beanie. Still dripping wet, I threw my jeans and T-shirt on, slipped into a pair of flip-flops, grabbed the biggest kitchen knife I could find, and stormed out of my front door.

Mrs. Winslow, the nice lady that lives on the second floor, who, thanks to a series of misunderstandings, thinks I'm some sort of raging psychopath, gave me an odd look as I sprinted past her, soaked, swearing, and brandishing a butcher knife over my head.

Add that to the list, I guess.

I kicked open the main gate to my apartment building, scaring a little white Chihuahua tied to the side mirror of a brand-new silver Ferrari.

Los Angeles.

I rounded the corner toward the side of the building where my bathroom window looked out, and saw the Peeping Tom.

“Oh, this is a bad day to be a pervert,” I said, advancing upon him, twirling my knife in tight little circles. “I hope you liked my tits, buddy: They're the last things you're ever going to see. I hope my tits keep you warm
in hell.
”

He wouldn't turn around. His back was convulsing oddly, and he was taking quick little breaths.

Oh, God, was he…? Of course he was.

I took a step. Another. I wasn't sure where I was going with this: I was pissed off, true, but I wasn't “stab a hobo” pissed off. I didn't have a plan, but that didn't seem to matter. I was still holding a kitchen knife and approaching a masturbating bum in a dead-end side yard off Pico. Surely the situation would work itself out somehow.

I was just within stabbing range and felt the moment was coming to its head. I wasn't going to knife the guy, but I was at least going to have to say something. Maybe cut him
a little,
just to keep him on his toes. I opened my mouth to speak, then the hobo's stained canvas jacket abruptly ceased its bouncing. His rapid breathing halted. We were both still for a long moment, then he slumped to one side with a sickeningly fluid motion. I saw that one hand was covered in some kind of cancerous-looking sludge. It stank like burning plastic and flowed slowly outward from his body in a thick, rapidly congealing pool.

And just past him, shimmering in the air, was an angel.

I instantly knew it for what it was. I had seen one before, I was sure of it, but I couldn't recall where or when. The angel was an intangible blur of pure luminescence, but within it, barely glimpsed fractals and impossible angles rotated, shifted, adjusted, and disappeared. The radiant blob was bleeding all color out of the world around it. The spaces surrounding the light were colorless. Wan and oversaturated. It was too bright to see, but also too bright to look away. The deeper I gazed into the heart of the angel, the more I became aware of a sound. It was almost too subtle to hear, but the second I noticed it, it became deafening. There was an orchestra of reverberating chimes harmonizing over a dull, roaring static. It was like a thousand beautiful voices singing to drown out a million more screaming. I blinked and the sound stopped. I opened my eyes and it came raging back.