Zion's Fiction Read online

  I concentrate and touch her again. “My name is …” I think.

  “My name is…” Stephanie stands in front of the class. Her inner gyro puts her at first period in Mrs. Craig’s class. She’s in the first grade. This is her first day of school. “Stephanie Jean Reynolds and I live in 1421 North Shadeland Avenue.”

  “That’s enough,” Mrs. Craig says. “Thank you, Stephanie.”

  Stephanie nods and sits down.

  I break my touch with her and look at Professor Bendis. “Her middle name is Jean, sir.”

  “All right. Very good, Ms. Watson. Step back.”

  I nod, and move back.

  Professor Bendis calls on another student and puts her through the wringer. And then another, and then another. He asks each of them a different question, he guides each of them through a different set of memories. But he doesn’t touch Stephanie again, not even once. In the five seconds he touched her, he accessed more information than all of us did in two hours.

  And through all of this, Stephanie’s immobile face rests there, unmoving, still perfect though dead, while the rest of the world frets around it. I watch it rock slightly, only a millimeter in every direction, when someone touches it. Everyone touches it at a different spot.

  Mark touches her on the cheek. Suzy on her shoulder. Greg hesitates, and touches Stephanie’s temple.

  And Stephanie jiggles ever so slightly whenever someone pulls his fingers away, as if her face and the finger were glued together.

  The class is done after two hours. We’re all in a hurry to get to the next class. Professor Bendis reminds us that tomorrow we should reconvene here and not in class.

  While they leave, I have to put the body back in the freezer.

  I move as slowly as possible, waiting until they’re almost all out the door and their backs are definitely turned to me. As I slip the sheet over her face, I touch her for only a second, making it seem like an accident. And as I do so, I concentrate on the flutter you get when you’re in the beginning of a relationship, the butterflies in the stomach you feel when it’s the real thing, when …

  Stephanie sits there, alone in her bedroom, her cheek squished against the wall. Her gut burns, physically burns, with what I know to be fear and insecurity. Her feet—now in socks—feel as though they’re a hundred times more sensitive than she’s used to. Her feeling of butterflies in the stomach is ten times stronger than mine.

  She thinks about yesterday, about the kiss they had, the buzz it gave her, and it feels like blood actually fills her eyes and blots her eyesight. She slides her cheek down the wall of her bedroom slowly, playing that kiss again, exhilarated, fearful.

  I can’t help myself, and I surf to that memory, to that “yesterday” in his apartment—

  I am in the kiss. I am feeling Michael’s tongue, Michael’s lips, on mine. I see only his eyes, wild, blue, innocent, lovely eyes. I close mine as I kiss him, and he slips his hand down my shirt. His warm fingers on my breasts feel like—

  The contact is broken, and I’m back in the morgue. I hadn’t even broken stride. I wheel her a few more seconds, then look behind me, at the door.

  Professor Bendis is standing there, looking at me. His face is expressionless, but he saw me. I know he saw me. And I know he knows what I did.

  He doesn’t move. Either out or back in, he doesn’t move.

  I turn around, certain my face is red, and finish wheeling her into the freezer. I put her in, and close the door. I check its temperature. I fiddle with it, to create an impression that I’m very busy. I recheck the freezer door. I open it and close it again. I look at the temperature again. There’s nothing more I can think of, so I finally turn around.

  He’s not there. Probably hasn’t been there in quite a while.

  I hate myself.

  I lock the morgue and head for my next class. My heart is hammering. It won’t stop.

  I don’t know what this feeling is. Is it the excitement? Is it the butterflies? That kiss?

  No, it’s the feelings of blood blotting the eyes, love pumping through her, stronger than her, stronger than me.

  My heart won’t stop hammering.

  I walk into Professor Willis’s class, and sit down.

  The other students’ heads turn to the door. I follow their gaze. It’s Professor Parks.

  “Alexandra Watson,” she says.

  Oh, what? “Yes.”

  “Come with me.”

  Everybody’s looking at me now. I stand up slowly, looking down. I make my way to the door. Why did I have to sit so far away?

  She leads me out and shuts the door to the class. We’re standing in the corridor.

  “Did I do something, Professor Parks?”

  “No. I need your key to the morgue. Open it up for me,” she says.

  I realize I’ve been staring at her blankly for a few seconds longer than I should have, when she says, “Let’s go.”

  I follow her down to the morgue. I look at her from the back as she walks. She dresses exactly as she looks: Controlled, powerful, smooth. I’ll never get to be that.

  We reach the door. Half her class is already there. No, my mistake. They’re juniors. Half a class is their class.

  I put my key in the lock and realize I can get to touch her again.

  Did he love her? Are they still together? I mean, were they still together when she died? Did she find someone better?

  I stand over the fridge without remembering getting here. I open the door, and just as I wheel her out, just as I’m figuring out how to touch her accidentally, I see that the students and Professor Parks are looking at me. They’re like Bendis. If I touch, even accidentally, they’ll know. They’re telepaths. They know what a touch does.

  I act businesslike. I don’t touch. I stand back and let Professor Parks stand over the body. Professor Parks approaches the gurney and removes enough of the sheet to reveal her face.

  “All right,” she begins, addressing the class. She then stops and turns her attention to me. “Thank you, Ms. Watson. You can go back to your class, now.”

  What? “But….I’m not supposed to leave it unatten—”

  “We’ll take care of it,” she dismisses me. “We’ve all done this before. We’ll put her back in the freezer and close the door behind us. You can go. Come back when class is over and lock the morgue. There are no vandals here.”

  “Now …” she turns her attention back to her class as I begin to walk out “… if you think that what you did last year when autopsying the dead was exploring the mind …” I open the door, and let myself out. “… you’re about to learn that it was child’s play compared to what we’re going to do n…. “ I shut the door behind me.

  I go back to class.

  Once class is over, I run down to the morgue and go inside. The room is empty. The light is off. Stephanie’s in the fridge.

  I wonder—

  I could lock the door from the inside….

  No.

  I leave the room and lock it behind me.

  I go to the cafeteria. All my class is sitting together. A weight on my shoulders just got heavier. I buy some food and sit with them.

  “So who’s going to read who?” Greg says, his eyes gleaming.

  “What do you mean?” Megan sits opposite him. She’s attracted to him.

  “They’re going to set us up in pairs, you know. And then the pair is going to read one another’s mind all year long, just like Parks said.”

  “Don’t be stupid. One of us is leaving. We’ll be an odd number.”

  “So what do you think is going to happen?”

  “Everybody is going to read everybody.” Rebecca says it like it’s obvious.

  We catch ourselves looking at each others’ faces.

  Greg laughs and shrugs. “Maybe they’ll do a mirror thing. I always wanted to try that with another telepath.”

  “What’s a ‘mirror thing?’”

  “Well, for example. Alexandra reads my mind, and sees what
I think of her.” He smiles at me and winks. He’s coming on to me. God, this is shit. “Then I read Alexandra’s mind and see how she perceived what I thought of her. And then she reads my mind, and sees how I perceived that. And so on. And so on. And so on. And the more times it happens, the farther it will be from the original thought. I always wanted to try that.”

  “Hmm …,” Rebecca says calmly. “I don’t know why you have to do it just on how someone perceives you. You could do it on every thought, on every image we see, on every sound we hear.”

  “Which one of us do you think will be the one to make it?”

  “Me, of course,” Rebecca says immediately. She smiles, but she beams at us, I’ve never failed in my life.

  Greg laughs, amused. “Actually, it will probably be me. The only thing I’ve failed at in life is failing. Boy, I’ve tried to fail, I’ve tried to get myself kicked out, and I keep getting the best grades.” He laughs again, and he doesn’t care that no one thinks that anything he said is even amusing.

  For the first time, I look around me.

  All the rest of the students are here. One or more of them came in last night and smeared me with toothpaste. Was it the ones looking at me? The ones not looking at me?

  I hate this place.

  Going over to next period, I get called to the morgue again. During the day, I get called one more time. One for each year, I guess.

  The classes over, I head back to the dorm. I stop. I look at the entrance.

  Jeez, what’s the matter with me?

  I should go to my room.

  Fuck this. I’m going to make sure Stephanie’s okay.

  I lock myself inside. I keep the lights off. I walk, as silently as possible, to the freezer.

  Feeling things with my hands, I pull her out. I move aside most of the sheet.

  I touch her.

  And I’m smack inside the kiss, the same kiss I’ve been living in since I touched her seven hours ago. It’s stronger here. It’s stronger in her dead mind than it is in my live one.

  —How did you meet him?—

  Her thoughts disappear.

  I delve into the kiss again, and surf from there backwards, until they are no longer touching—

  I move forward, my movement creating her thought, surfing through an existing memory—

  She’s sitting on the floor, leaning on the sofa, looking at her notebook. Her inner gyro says that this is night and that she’s in Michael’s apartment.

  Michael is behind her, on the sofa, looking over her head.

  “Oh, man, this is uncomfortable,” Stephanie says. She wiggles her back. Then, after she convincingly seems uncomfortable, she shifts her position and moves aside, in-between Michael’s legs, her back still turned to him.

  “There. Much more comfortable.”

  He’s shown interest in her before this. She’s shown interest. She’s been manipulating things all night, so that he hardly has to do anything to make the first move. But he still has to do it. He has to want her enough.

  She asks him about a question in the notebook she had placed on her knees.

  He leans forward, trying to read it. He obviously realizes now how close he is to her, and suddenly he looks at her. He smiles, and she smiles back. He almost laughs, and her body sends out a buzz of pleasure. And suddenly the hand she can’t see caresses her far cheek. She leans her face into his hand, the world forgotten. And his lips are on hers, and they are in that familiar kiss, and her body goes wild as most of it grows alive with pleasure. Everywhere he touches, everything he does, is perfect. It’s like her brain is melted and all she is is her body and her skin.

  All right. All right.

  I take my hand away. Her face more than jiggles this time. She almost stuck to me.

  Did it get hotter in here since I came in?

  I could go back to the moment any time I want. I just … need to calm down a bit.

  Wow.

  Someone else’s touch has never had such a powerful effect on me.

  I look down at that face.

  Wow.

  Who are you, Stephanie? I caress her cheek.

  All I see is the ceiling, but Michael’s hands are all over my naked body, and they are inside me, and the pleasure blots out all other senses. The pleasure comes in waves and waves and waves that spread out, that annihilate the rest of her mind. It makes her body one. It nulls her mind.

  I break contact.

  I look at her. More. More. More!

  I run it over and over and over again, the waves that continue even when he no longer touches her.

  All right. All right. I should stop. I should do something else. After all, her entire life is there, behind that face. Everything she ever thought, everything she ever dreamed, everything she remembers. Everything.

  How like me are you, Stephanie?

  Her face does not answer.

  When were you betrayed, Stephanie?

  Were you ever betrayed?

  I caress her again.

  “Don’t you understand how bad it makes me feel!” Stephanie is screaming at the top of her lungs at her mother. Stephanie is sixteen and in her living room. Can’t you get it through your head! Do I have to scream at you every single week about the same thing?” Stephanie’s mother has agreed to another family meeting at Grandma’s, when Stephanie has tried to establish time and time again that she would go any other day but Sunday, that Sunday was her day, her private day for herself. “Can’t you see—can’t you see—how bad it makes me feel!” And the tears come out. “Do you like making me cry?”

  “Stephanie, how can you react like this when all we’re doing is going to see Grandma?”

  “It’s not Grandma; it’s the fact that it’s Sunday.”

  “But it’s just a few hours.”

  Something sinks inside Stephanie. A helplessness. “This is how I feel, Mom.”

  “Well, then you should do something about that. Change the way you feel. You’re being ridiculous.”

  A wave of incredulity washes over Stephanie. “Mom. What about all those times, all those arguments with Dad? That he doesn’t understand you. That you can’t help what you feel. You should know. You should get what I’m saying. This makes me feel bad.

  “We’re going to see your Grandma. You love her and she loves you. Why are you giving me such a hard time?”

  And suddenly it dawns on Stephanie that every time her mother complained about Dad not getting her, not being considerate, that was her trying to get her way. When the shoe is on the other foot, she makes everything about her. That’s how she gets her way. For Stephanie’s entire life, Mom has always made it about her. And Stephanie fell for it. And all the work Stephanie ever did, and all the times she put herself aside to help Mom, all the times she sacrificed her time, her precious time, to do what Mom wanted and to make her feel good—that was for nothing. She has never appreciated it, has never noticed that Stephanie was helping. All she wanted was more, more, give me more, Stephanie.

  Her mother is inconsiderate, blind, deceitful, and, worse than that, she has ignored Stephanie all her life, ignored who she really is and everything she’s done.

  I stop.

  I need to stop for five minutes.

  I sit beside her and look at the rest of her body. There is something gruesome about this. There is something unfair in having such a great body even though you’re dead. There’s something beautiful in having someone lie there, prone, ready to reveal all her secrets.

  What secrets are you hiding? What deep, dark secrets can you tell me?

  “I only care about myself,” she tells Margaret. They’re both fifteen, sitting outside Margaret’s house. “I don’t care about other people. Everything I do, everything I ever say or do is just a show. Sometimes I forget, I get carried away, and I actually believe what I’m faking.”

  “Are you faking it with me?” Margaret looks at her, vulnerable.

  “No,” Stephanie touches her cheek. “I think you’re the only per
son who understands me. I think you’re the only person I really love. No one knows that I’m just a phony.”

  —Another “secret”—

  “Jee-zus,” Margaret is saying. They’re both in her dad’s car. Stephanie is driving, her heart is racing. “Am I glad you’re driving. I would have hit the dog.”

  Stephanie missed the dog on the road, but a memory flooded through her mind. Her “secret.”

  That first day she drove alone in the car, and she ran over a cat. She had seen the cat run into the road and she had swerved. And then she had felt that horrible bump. She hit the brakes and had stopped in the middle of the road.

  I see it now—

  She steps out and looks back. The cat’s head is squished, and the rest of its body keeps trying to walk in the air, jumping, turning, while its head is glued to the road. Five or six other cats gather in the middle of the road, and look at it, not understanding.

  The cat’s body spasms in place. And it is her fault.

  She gets back into the car and drives away.

  Fifteen minutes later, she comes back. The cat was is now a piece of meat on the road, having been run over many times now. Even its friends had forgotten it.

  She never told anyone. She hated herself over that.

  No. These were not as dark as I had hoped. I need to find the right emotion, the right memory or thought that will give me access to the really deep places.

  I need to think about this for a day.

  All right. That’s enough for today. Still. I just want to see one more thing. I just want to see—

  —Michael—

  —Michael—

  —Naked—

  He stands there, naked. I’m sitting in bed, curled up between his sheets, as he gets up to go to his apartment before he goes to his job.

  “Michael,” I say. Stephanie says. Stephanie.

  He looks at her. “Yeah?”

  “Before you get dressed, give me my glasses.” She points to the table.

  He reaches for the table, and I see the folds in his stomach, the ribs stretch. He stops halfway, and looks at her.

  “You want to see me get dressed?”

  “Yes,” she says. Playful. God, she’s so happy.

  He smiles back. He likes it. He gives her the glasses.

  His image becomes clearer still. It didn’t look hazy before. Stephanie’s mind must have embellished intelligently, accurately, and unconsciously.