Eighteen: Damsel of Darkness
***
Restitution was in order.
Keltie begged to differ, but that didn’t matter. Upon their return to the detention home (a return that felt more like walking up a flight of steps to the gallows of a medieval execution), she and Marty were immediately detained, separated, and placed into isolation for questioning by the police.
At midnight on Wednesday morning, Keltie sat in a bare room with mind devoid. She needed a shower; she needed sleep. Her body ached. She could barely hear the questions from the other side of the table, coming from a portly, bald policeman who, to judge by his affronted tone, seemed to think he was locked in the room with a murderess.
Where had she been? he kept demanding to know. And with whom? And why?
None of it took Keltie by surprise. Indeed, she and Marty had worked out a simple, plain story to tell by way of response. She told it to the cop now, for the tenth time: She’d met a boy from the other wing of the school; they’d run off together for some fun and wound up in Howling.
“And you stayed at the bed and breakfast there?” the cop asked intensely.
“Yes, sir.”
“How old is the boy you were with?”
“Sixteen.”
“And yourself?”
“Sixteen also.”
He kept on until one o’clock, doing his level best to scare the truth from her with his deep, aggressive voice. But the truth was so ridiculous—and the lies so simple—that Keltie had no trouble fending him off. Let him fight Bolt if he wanted the truth. Let him get his head bitten off and crunched to pieces.
At last she was sent upstairs, with the promise that her parents would be contacted in the morning. A night nurse escorted her through the halls. They were dimly lit at this hour. Quiet and cold. Nevertheless Keltie felt sure there were no monsters hiding in the shadows. Or if there were…fuck it. They could devour her ankles to ears for all she cared. One way or another, she was going to lie down and get some rest.
Fuck the world. Fuck the whole fucking world.
“Excuse me?” the nurse said.
Keltie looked up from her shoes. “Oh God, did I say that out loud?”
They had reached the door to her room. After a bid goodnight from the nurse, Keltie went inside to grab a towel. Then it was back down the dark hall for a shower. She kept it brief, yawning more yawns than the soap had bubbles to clean with. Once returned to her room, she all but collapsed onto the bed, where sleep claimed and healed her like a mother she never knew.
***
March arrived like a lion that year. On the last night of February, a warm front swept north from Oklahoma, hitting Norwalk with heavy, howling winds that knocked down trees and power lines all over town. Most residents accepted the trade-off. HAIL OUR EARLY SPRING! proclaimed one article in the town newspaper, over a photo of a church steeple lying on its side. GIVE OUR REGARDS TO THE OKLAHOMA PANHANDLE! screamed another, this one accompanied by a truck caught nose down in a ditch. A bearded man stood next to the truck with his middle finger raised towards the camera. The middle finger had been blurred out.
For Keltie and Marty, it meant work. Outdoor work in the whipping gales, collecting twigs like a couple of migrant slaves. The field behind the school needed mowing—or so the faculty insisted. But in reality this was just one in a series of useless punishment chores to be completed before summer break. That, at least, was Keltie’s interpretation. Why else had she been told on the day before to scrub toilets in the girls’ lavatory? Or on the day before that to polish the gymnasium floor?
Not that any of it bothered her much. Head down, mouth closed, she worked without complaint. At the end of each chore one of the teachers would check to make sure no corners had been cut. Keltie didn’t worry about this, either. When they told her to do something over again, she did it. When they told her to do it a third time, she did that too.
Studies went in much the same manner. Never one for raising her hand, Keltie was even less a participant now. The only difference resided in seating. As part of her punishment, she’d been forced by the faculty to place her bottom in the front row of every class. Consequentially, she was called upon more often by the teachers whether her hand went up or not, and sometimes for ridiculous reasons.
“Miss Burke!” the computer teacher yelled one day. “What is your personal opinion of Windows 10?”
A few snickers came from the back row. Paying them no mind, Keltie said: “I think it’s deplorable, sir.”
“Do you indeed? And why is that?”
“Because, sir…”
More laughing. Cupped, held in check. This time Keltie glanced over her shoulder to see two girls she didn’t know lying on pins and needles for the awful truth. Not wishing to disappoint them, Keltie gave it.
“The school’s computers used to be pretty slick,” she began. “Now they run like they’re mentally retarded.”
“Quiet!” the teacher snapped at the girls, whose laughter had suddenly overflowed. Then, at Keltie: “Mentally retarded. How lovely. How politically sensitive.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“No you’re not. The Keltie Burke I know is never sorry for speaking her mind. However crude her thoughts may be,” he added sourly.
“I went into the settings page and disabled automatic updates, sir.”
“You did what?”
“It seems to have helped a little. All you have to do is set the network connection to metered.”
“I see. And on how many of our computers did you do this to, Miss Burke?”
“As many as the school would let me use, sir.”
“Miss Burke?” the teacher said, looking more incredulous by the moment.
“Yes, sir?”
“Go to the office. Now.”
It took forever to fall asleep at night. Throughout that spring of 2017, Keltie would lie awake after lights out. Rather than count sheep, she dreamed up patterns on the stucco ceiling—a cottage near the door, a copse by the window. Petty things that took her mind off Bolt for awhile.
Where was he and why hadn’t he come to kill her yet?
This she couldn’t help but wonder whenever she got time alone. Would he suddenly swoop down from the trees on a cloudy day while she picked up sticks? Or perhaps crash through her window one night and snatch her from the covers like a piece of candy? It was impossible to say, because he seemed to have disappeared.
To make matters worse, the other two men in her life—Marty and Cameron—were keeping mum as well. In the middle of March a single phone call came from her dad, in which he explained that Chloe was refusing treatment for her addiction, and had already restocked the trailer with goodies.
“I wish I could get over there somehow,” Keltie said at the front desk phone (her handset had been confiscated until further notice).
Cameron’s voice through the receiver sounded indignant. “Don’t worry about it. Focus on your studies, Keltie. Your mom has her life and you have yours.”
“Dad,” she said, smiling, “are you still trying to salvage some respectability from me?”
“Help me, Keltie-Wan, you’re my only hope.”
This made her laugh, until she noticed Lucinda Cobb frowning and pointing at her watch.
As for Marty, she missed him in a way that hurt so much she became almost ill with longing. When thoughts of a sudden, calamitous death by vampire weren’t controlling her mind, memories of the tall Filipino’s kisses, his touch, and yes, his cock, were. Now that they were forbidden by the school to see each other, there was little she could do by way of compensation. Sometimes she locked the door at night, took off all of her clothes, and lay naked in bed, imagining his hand on her throat (the love of which made her almost want to believe there really was a god), or his tongue between her legs.
“Fuck me, Marty,” she would whisper up at the stucco, “fuck me as hard as you need to, baby, come on.”
Sometimes it worked. She remembered his comment about not liking women whose genitals looked like a national forest, and took to shaving herself smooth in the shower, on the chance he might knock on her door one night with sweet-smelling flowers and even sweeter-tasting kisses. He never did, but having the softness of her sex laid bare for the first time since the age of twelve made her dreams all the more colorful, all the more potent. And oh, how they ran wild when she let them! Memories of their time at Howling Manor carried the day for awhile, but she soon began to manufacture fantasy trysts, each more adventuresome than the last.
In one she was a cheerleader, and Marty had snuck into the girls’ change room to rape her against one of the lockers. With skirt up, panties down, and her wrists pinned against the metal, he jammed her from behind until she almost screamed—at which point she returned to reality under the covers with said scream barely held in check. In another, she was lying on a hard table. Her head hung over the edge, bringing her face to face with Marty’s enormous cock. “Take a deep breath,” he said. “Deepest you can get.” Keltie did, and then his cock entered her throat, cutting off any more air. She waited for him to come. Waited, waited. Pain flitted over her bare breasts. Tightness. But his cock was still pressed deep, still blocking breath. Keltie looked up, pointed to her chest. Air, please. “Do those pretty little lungs need to breathe?” Marty asked. “Do they, sweetheart? Tell me. Tell me!”
Fun fantasies, all. Splendid times under the sheets. She indulged in them almost every night, to the point where topping the previous night’s NC-17 mindshow became a challenge. What more could she do? How crazy could she let herself get?
The answer came from a most unlikely source: Vera’s book of Red Riding Hood. Keltie had taken it partly as a means for study of the dead vampiress’ circumstances on the night Bolt took her life, and partly out of fascination for its lurid cover. As she later found, a banquet for both waited between the pages.
One night near April Fool’s Day, she lay awake in a state of despair, unable to conjure anything satisfactory for masturbation. Then she remembered the cover of Vera’s book—the look of ferocious hunger on the wolf’s face, the expression of terror on the girl’s. Was it still in her bag? she wondered. Her and Marty’s things had been rifled upon their return. They’d lost their phones, but as far as she knew, nothing else.
Keltie stood up. The window curtains were open, and a brief thrill at being naked in front of them shot through her. The bag she wanted hung on the closet door. She reached into it. Her hands found what felt like a spine. Eureka! The wolf was still here, still looking hungry as ever.
Delighted, she jumped back into bed. She was even further pleased not to recognize this version of the story’s author, a man named Jarett Powell. It could only mean one thing—that no traditional retread of the old story was about to unfold.
Nor did it, though Keltie did not remain fixated by Powell’s writing for long. She preferred to let the book’s illustrations—done by another unfamiliar name, Ingrid Bremman—reveal its protagonist’s fate, a fate which turned out to be grim indeed.
The girl never made it to grandmother’s house.
She skipped into the wood with her basket of pretty things and was never seen or heard from again. The whole story was gruesome. Hideous. Appallingly despicable.
Keltie loved every worn, dog-eared page of it. Much to her great appreciation, the wolf turned out to have fetish for breath-play, and exercised it often on the hapless young lass. One of the pictures showed her being held underwater by the neck. In another, she was enduring the bear hug of all bear hugs, with cheeks bluer than Violet Beauregarde’s in that old movie about candy bars.
Over the next few days, Keltie read the book five times. Of course the ending never changed (death came to the maiden at last when the wolf finally lost all control of his appetite and tore her to pieces), but that was all right. Never once did Keltie find herself rooting for the girl to win. Much more fun to watch her suffer.
Is this healthy? a voice always asked when these strange moods came down from their cracks on the ceiling.
Sure, Keltie would think back, it’s only make believe.
Yes, but every so often, how’s about injecting at least a modicum of sanity into your little dream-world? Hmm? Would that be too much?
As a matter of fact...yes. As long as I’m in control of my own craziness I’ll be just fine. Now piss off.
Piss off yourself, bitch. I’m just trying to make you see reason.
Except that Keltie was pretty sure her reasoning worked just fine. She knew the real world from fiction, even now that Bolt—that crazy fucker—had jumped the boundary. She could always distinguish play from work, fun from serious. Nor was she the only female who liked to walk the edge sometimes. Vera no doubt had as well, or else why would she have kept a book like this in her old bedroom?
On the inside of the back cover she found one final picture, presumably drawn by Vera. It showed a large, beige-colored house with pillars and gigantic windows. In one of the windows stood a girl wearing a vacant expression, staring out at the world. Above the picture were the words THIS IS ME written in lipstick red. The house looked vaguely familiar, but Keltie didn’t give it much thought until later on. Instead, she told herself—with an inner smile of satisfaction towards that whiny, reasonable voice—that the girl was her, too. Trapped by the wolf and enjoying its savagery until story time came to an end. Which it did every night, after she grew too sleepy to read.
***
In the middle of April Marty tip-toed behind her in the cafeteria. She was sitting alone with a tray of mashed potatoes and Salisbury steak, dreaming of other things, when a boy in black took the seat next to her.
“Greetings and salutations,” the Filipino said.
Keltie gaped. She hadn’t seen him in over a month. Now here he was, breaking the rules with a sheepish smile. If any of the teachers saw them together shit would hit the fan all over again.
“Hi,” she let out, glancing left and right. Then: “What are you doing here?”
“Keltie, you skinny little bitch!”
She spun in her chair to find Sadie, the tattooed lady, standing next to her.
“Thank you so much for those gym lessons!” she gushed. “Sincerely!”
“Uh…sure,” Keltie said. “My pleasure.”
“Miss Clevenger couldn’t believe her eyes! I didn’t fall off the balance beam once!”
“Cool. That’s great, Sadie. I’m glad.”
“Fuckin’ A it’s cool! High five, slut!”
Keltie raised her hand to have it clapped hard enough to hurt, and then Sadie was gone towards the lunch counter to get down to business. When Keltie turned back to Marty, his smile was still there, but the sheep had fled.
“You teach gym?” he asked.
“I help some of the klutzy girls get by. They pay me with cigarettes.”
“A passing grade in exchange for lung cancer. That seems fair.”
“Nicotine keeps my hands from shaking.” She looked at him for a moment, then touched his hand. “Okay, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, because I’m really glad you’re here. I’ve missed you like hell. But Marty”—she checked over her shoulder again before continuing, in a lower voice—“if anyone in authority sees us together we’re gonna get locked in the basement. Probably until we’re eighteen.”
“How’ve you been, sweetheart?” Marty asked. “Just tell me that first.”
“Marty.”
But his eyes were insistent. On fire with concern. “How’ve you been?”
She let out a breath. “A little okay and a little crazy at the same time, I guess. I talked to my dad. My mom’s all fucked up again.”
“Back in the hospital?”
“No, but she will be. It’s stupid to leave her alone in that trailer. Of course she’s going to drink.” Keltie picked up her fork and stabbed angrily at the Salisbury steak. “They want me to gain weight,” she said, stuffing a bite into her mouth. “The war on prettiness. It’s very political, you know. Fat lives matter. Have you seen what Norwalk High’s cheering team looks like?”
“No.”
“Pigs. Oink! Oink!”
“I’m sorry about your mom.”
A few seconds went by before she was able to answer. She swallowed the bite, along with a few tears, and said: “Yeah. Me too.”
“Attention students!” the loudspeaker brayed. “This is an important announcement!”
“Oh boy,” Marty groaned. “Principal Margot’s on the warpath again.”
“The fecal matter recently discovered under the back porch has officially been determined as human in nature! The person or persons responsible for this despicable act are hereby warned to refrain from further jocularity, or face severe punishment! That is all!”
Laughter rose from several of the other tables.
“Innocent,” Keltie said, when Marty gave her a grin. “But can you believe that crazy woman would talk about poop during lunch hour.” She frowned at her steak, no longer hungry. “So much for getting fat.”
“Any word from Bolt?”
“I was trying to think of how to ask you that same question. No. I haven’t heard a peep.”
“Me either.” One of the teachers suddenly walked past, forcing Marty to hunker down. “What do you think it means?” he asked from the corner of his mouth.
“Either he’s plotting something or he went to Alaska to enjoy the civil twilight. My guess is the former.”
“Yeah, but why would a powerful monster like him need to plot?”
“Because,” Keltie said, touching him on the back, “we haven’t been easy prey.”
“So it’s a matter of him getting down to business?”
She nodded. “Serious business. Next time he comes, I don’t think we can rely on luck.”
Another teacher passed. Marty stiffened for a moment, then began to talk in a strange, high voice. “I loved those shoes you wore yesterday! Oh my gawwwd! So cute!”
“Marty?” Keltie said, flummoxed. “What the fuck?”
“Ssst! Teacher! Pretend I’m a girl.”
“She’s gone, dear. It’s safe to acknowledge your balls again.”
He looked down at his pants, then blushed when he saw Keltie doing the same. “Speaking of my balls,” he said.
She grinned. “Have the nights been rough without your damsel of darkness?”
“A rhetorical question if ever there was one.”
“Can you make it over to my room tonight? I’ll give you all the rhetoric you need.” She felt a hand touch her knee under the table. “Is that a yes?”
“Midnight,” he whispered.
“Ooh! Sneaky. Anything special you’d like me to wear?”
“Black, if possible. Since both of us are up to no good.”
“We always are, Marty,” Keltie said, guiding his hand towards the hem of her skirt. “We always are.”