Scorpion Shards

never caught.

The train stopped, Dillon found a seat, and it rolled on. Only now, as the hotel fell farther and farther behind, did he relax enough for the worries to fill his head.

Please, he begged. Let no one be hurt. Please let no one be hurt. The restaurant was closed—but what if a waiter had been setting tables? What if a housekeeper had been vacuum­ing the rug? Dillon was always careful—he was always good at predicting exactly how his little disasters would unfold, and so far there had been no major injuries . . . but he was starting to slip—the wrecking- hunger was making him careless. When the hunger to destroy came, it was all-consuming and didn’t allow him second thoughts. But now in the aftermath of his horrible deed, when his spirit seemed to hang like that piano on the edge of its drop, he could clearly see the ramifications of these awful, awful acts.

People could have died! And I won’t know until I see the news. The weight that now burdened his soul was truly unbear­able . . . yet it was more bearable than the hunger, which always came back, making him forget everything else. He would fall slave to it again, and the only way to escape was to destroy something. Anything. Everything. The bigger the better. The louder the better. And when it was done the pressure would be gone. The hunger would be fed, and the relief would be rich and sweet like a fat piece of chocolate melting in his mouth.

But the wrecking-hunger had been getting worse lately. It didn’t come once a week anymore. Now it came almost every day, pushing him, pressing him, demanding to be fed. Even now as he sat on the train, he felt the hunger again. How could it be? So soon! Wasn’t the piano enough? It was the biggest, it was the loudest, it was the worst he’d done yet. What more did he have to do to be free of this terrible hunger?

The woman sitting next to him on the train eyed him with a look of motherly concern—a look Dillon hadn’t seen for the entire year he had been out on his own. She glanced at his shaking hands.

“Are you all right?” asked the woman.

“Sure, fine.”

And then she touched his hand to stop it from shaking.

“No!” said Dillon, but it was too late. She had touched him.

Her face became pale and she shrank away.

“Ex . . . excuse me,” she said in a daze, and she wan­dered off to find a seat far away from Dillon. Then she sat down to begin the task of unscrambling her mind.

***

“What are you afraid of, Deanna?”

“Everything. Everything, that’s all.”

Deanna Chang’s pale hands gripped the arms of her chair as if the chair were the only thing keeping her from being flung into space. The room around her was painted a hideous yellow, peeling everywhere like flesh, to reveal deep red underneath. The place smelled musty and old.

Faces on fading portraits seemed to lean closer to listen. The walls themselves seemed to be listening. And breath­ing.

“I can’t help you, Deanna, if you won’t be specific.”

The man who sat across from her at the old desk shifted uncomfortably in his chair. I make him nervous, thought Deanna. Why do I even make psychiatrists nervous?

“You can’t help me, okay?” said Deanna. “That’s the point.” He tapped his pencil on the desk. The eraser fell off the end and rolled onto the stained floor.

I hate this place, thought Deanna. I hate this room, I hate this man, and I hate my parents for making me come here to hear the same questions the other shrinks had asked, then give the same answers, and have nothing change. Nothing. Ever.

A woman’s voice wailed outside, and Deanna jumped. She couldn’t tell whether the sound was a shriek, or a laugh.

“I’m afraid,” said Deanna. “I’m afraid of dying.”

“Good. That’s a start.”

Deanna began to rub her pale, slender arms. Behind her and beneath her, the springs within the padding of the chair poked and threatened her through the fabric of the worn upholstery. “At first I was just afraid of walking out­side alone. I thought it would end up being a good thing, because it made my parents move us to a better neighbor­hood—but it didn’t stop when we moved. I started to imagine all the terrible things that could happen to me.” She leaned forward. “That was two years ago. Now I see myself dying every day. I see my body smashed if our house were to collapse. I see a man with a knife hiding in the closet, or the basement, or the attic in the middle of the night. I see a car with no driver leaping the curb to pull me beneath its wheels. ...”

“You think people are out to get you?”

“Not just people. Things. Everything.”

The shrink scribbled with his eraserless pencil. Some­where deep within the building a heater came on, moan­ing a faint, sorrowful moan.

“And you imagine these awful things might happen to you?”

“No!” said Deanna, “I see these things happening to me. They happen, I feel them—I see them—It’s REAL!” Deanna reached up and brushed cool sweat from her forehead. “And then I blink, and it—'

“And it all goes away?”

“Sometimes. Other times the vision doesn’t go away until I scream.”

The shrink in the cheap suit loosened his tie and put his linger beneath his collar. He coughed a bit.

“Stuffy,” he said.

“I’m not safe going out,” said Deanna. “I’m not safe staying in. I’m not safe here—because what if the stupid light fixture above my head right now is slowly coming unscrewed and waiting for the perfect moment to fall and crack my skull?”

The shrink looked up at the fixture, which did, indeed, seem loose. He leaned back, unfastened his collar button and took a deep breath, as if the air were thinning. He was becoming frightened, Deanna noted—just like everyone else did when they were near her. She could feel his fear as strongly as her own.

“I think I might drown,” Deanna said. “Or suffocate. I always feel like I’m suffocating. Have you ever felt like that?”

“On occasion.” His voice sounded empty and distant. He seemed to shrivel slightly in his chair.

Deanna smiled. Feeling his fear somehow made her fear begin to diminish. “I give you the creeps, don’t I?”

“Your mother is very concerned about you.”

“My mother can take a flying leap, if she thinks you can help me.”

“That’s not a healthy attitude.”

“You know what? I think you’re gonna screw me up worse than I was before. Can you guarantee that you won’t? And are you sure this stuff is all inside my head? Are you certain? Are you?” Deanna waited for an answer.

If he said he was sure, she would believe him. If he swore up and down that he could take away the darkness that shrouded her life, she would believe—because she wanted to believe that it was a simple matter of her being crazy. But he didn’t answer her. He couldn’t even look at her. Instead, he glanced down at his watch and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Is my time up?”

“I’m afraid so.”

***

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.”

“Tell me what your sins are, my son.” The priest on the other side of the confessional sighed as he spoke. He must have recognized Dillon’s shaky voice from the many times Dillon had come to confess.

“I’ve done terrible things,” said Dillon, cramped within the claustrophobic booth.

“Such as?”

“Yesterday I broke a gear in the cable house—that’s why the cable cars weren’t running. This morning I shat­tered the glass roof of the Garden Court Restaurant.”