felt a tremble of desire go through him because he was the only one there—he was sure—who knew what was under those boots. It wasn’t gruesome to him. He knew her intimately. He knew her secret.
Carter saw Paul Michael and Lilith looking at each other. He said to Paul Michael, “You know where the word
Kirk laughed, sputtering beer down the front of his shirt.
Carter snapped his fingers at Kirk without looking back at him. “Go get it,” he said.
Kirk ran off and came back holding a sack. It was making squawking sounds and writhing. Kirk opened the sack and handed the chicken to Carter. It flapped its wings in terror and tried to wrench away. Carter held it by the neck.
“What does geek mean, Kirk?” Carter asked like a maniacal teacher.
“It means someone who bites the heads off live chickens,” Kirk answered obediently. He went behind Paul Michael and grabbed his arms. Paul Michael struggled, but Kirk was stronger than he looked. His ropy arms held fast.
Paul Michael thought he might vomit. He wanted to look over at Lilith, but he kept his eyes on the ground. Kirk jerked him back, and his glasses fell off. They lay near Carter’s sneaker, ready to be smashed.
Carter held the chicken up in front of Paul Michael so he could smell it, and its feathers flapped against his face. He tried to move away, but Kirk still had him like that.
“Bite,” Carter said. He reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a pocketknife. He held it up to Paul Michael’s throat. A few people had gathered around, laughing nervously.
It was hard to tell if it was the chicken or what, but Paul Michael felt something swoop down, scratching his face, and then Lilith was there.
Someone screamed.
“You have no idea,” she said, in a voice much deeper and lower than what should have come from the throat of a seventeen-year-old girl, “how big my mouth is. I could take your head off in one bite.”
She grabbed the knife out of Carter’s hand so swiftly and with so much force that he backed away and the bird fell to the ground and flapped in the dirt.
Then Paul Michael broke free of Kirk and she reached for his hand, took it, and began to run. Paul Michael heard a soft shattering sound as his glasses crunched under his feet.
They ran for what felt like a long time, but Paul Michael wasn’t really tired. He thought he might be getting stronger. It was almost like flying.
When they got to the highway, he started to cross, but Lilith pulled him so his back pressed against her breasts. He turned his head to look at her and a car roared by, speeding crazily out of nowhere from around a bend. For a moment he saw her lit up in its headlights.
“Look both ways,” she told him.
She was so beautiful, he thought. He would do anything for her.
They crossed. There was a dry creek bed along the road and a beat-up old black Mercedes parked at the side. They went under a chain-link fence, and she led him down into the creek. It was usually full with water from the mountains, the only proof in Nowhere that the white-capped peaks were real, even in the valley heat. They lay down there, among the river rocks and dirt, looking up at the stars in the sky.
“Why did you want to go to that party?” he asked.
She laughed. Almost coyly. “It’s practically foreplay to watch those pricks acting out like that.”
He took Carter’s knife from her hand. She had been clutching it the whole time.
“What are you doing?” she asked softly, smiling.
He lifted his hair up away from his neck—thinking he would have to cut it off, it got in her way—and exposed the tendons to her. Then held up the knife to his neck. She laughed.
“I don’t need that, silly,” she told him.
When she pulled away from him, his neck was throbbing and her mouth was black with blood in the dark.
“Your turn,” she said.
The Rescue
He woke in the middle of the night knowing he had to go to her. He got into the shower and scrubbed his skin with a rough washcloth until it almost hurt. Got out, wrapped a towel around his waist, shaved. Then he took a pair of scissors and cut all his wet hair off, shaved the remaining hair with his razor. There were a few nicks on his scalp that he dabbed at with bits of toilet paper. He put on a white undershirt and Levis. The jeans were loose—he’d lost weight in his gut. He didn’t put on his glasses. They were broken, gone, lost in the dirt, and he didn’t need them anyway. Paul Michael went outside and began to run. Suddenly he realized he probably shouldn’t have taken so much time getting ready.
He found her old diesel Mercedes parked by the riverbed. Carter and Kirk’s bikes were nearby, and the trunk of the car was open.
He walked up so quietly, amazed at how light and quiet his step had become, and saw what was happening. Carter and Kirk were bent over the trunk. He could see past their shoulders—his eyesight even in the dark and without glasses was different now. They were staring at her legs, and her legs and feet were bare. Paul Michael felt the violation of their eyes on her strange legs and feet. He took Carter’s knife out of his pocket, grabbed Carter by the collar, and pulled his head back so his throat was exposed. Kirk stumbled back and began to run, and Lilith opened her eyes and smiled at Paul Michael. He lunged into Carter, pushing his teeth into Carter’s neck, just breaking the skin a little. There was blood, and he moved back and bowed his head toward Lilith, who came forward and bent to drink like a little girl at a drinking fountain, demurely tucking her hair behind her ears. Paul Michael heard a soft gurgling sound. The taste of Carter’s blood was still salt and sticky on his lips, and he didn’t know if he could get used to drinking as much as he might eventually need. But he wasn’t all the way there yet, anyway. Lilith had said it was going to take a little while. She finished with Carter and mounted him the way she had mounted Paul Michael in his bedroom, but this time doing something complicated and quick to his neck and then tossing him aside onto the dirt. His body looked like a stuffed SpongeBob Paul Michael had as a kid after the dog ate all its stuffing. Lilith looked up at Paul Michael and her face was radiant, her cheeks and lips plumped up and her eyes bright. She grabbed him by the back of his neck and kissed him, sliding her mouth down over his chin and clamping her teeth into his neck. He was instantly hard. This time she drank for a little longer. He felt long, slow waves of pleasure, as if she was touching him below the waist. When they were done, she took the knife and made a suicidal slash across her wrist. She offered it to him, and he tenderly tasted the droplets, then lapped thirstily as more came out. When he was done, he watched as the cut sealed itself up without a mark.
He looked up at her and she glowed, infused with moonlight. “What do we do now?” he asked her.
She tilted her face to the sky, cupped her hands around her mouth, and made a strange, shrieking sound. They waited.
The birds came out of nowhere in the dark, a huge flock of black carrion birds that swept down upon Carter’s body, tore it to shreds as Paul Michael and Lilith watched, and spirited it away without a trace.
“What about Kirk?” Paul Michael said. “He’ll get help. Someone will come.”
“He didn’t make it home.” She squinted into the sky after the last bird. “There will be an investigation eventually, but for now I have time.”
They got into the back of her car, and Paul Michael told her all about Trellibrium. She listened carefully, asking pertinent questions.
“So Norser rescues the princess?” she asked.
He nodded, stroking her hair.
“But they should rescue each other,” she said.
