Spectral Evidence

And besides which: How could it go unnoticed, even if? How could such a price be paid over and over again in a world of sins, DNA and GoogleEarth, of YouTube and datamining, a world drowning in celebrity poon-shots and political blowjobs, where nothing stays secret for long?

Yet: That’s exactly why, Nim suddenly realizes, silent and unmoving amid the rave, completely unconscious of the odd looks she’s getting from the crowd. Veruca thinks she’s stumbled across the greatest story never told, so she wants in. Not to take part, never that—but just to know, to be certain, to be on the inside, for once. If only the once.

So either Veruca’s just batshit and about to get thrown out for spouting craziness all over the host, or…

But Nim shies away from the or, on principle; she doesn’t believe it, doesn’t need to. Forcing herself into movement, shouldering her way through the crowd, sliding between bodies where she can’t force them apart, ignoring the passing gropes and the leered invitations; nothing matters now except heading Veruca off, before she can render both their chances at a genuine life even more remote.

Then—thud, stumble, recognition: anticlimax. Veruca stands (more accurately, sways) at the edge of a small circle ringing the good-looking man and his smoke-wreathed wife. Her face is pallid, her eyes wide and bright, and she clutches the chapbook to her heaving chest like a shield.

A second later, Tom Darbersmere can’t help but see her; his eyes widen, ever so slightly. Almost as though he—

(recognizes her)

He leans towards her, lips moving. Something that might be: My dear. And Veruca, Veruca…

Recoils, falls back. Goes whiter than white. Then backs away ‘til she hits somebody, blunders further, turns tail—

—and flees.

—

Nim follows after, into the maelstrom. Past couples dry-humping up against the door-frames, through room after room of excoriatingly loud music of every possible type, a thousand-song playlist set on infinite shuffle. In one of them, people toss wreaths of lit sparklers back and forth, like they’re putting on some carny magic show. In another, a man hangs from the ceiling by Sundance hooks, a softball stuck with nails held tight in either hand; his friends stand underneath, videotaping the ordeal, as blood drips onto their camera’s lens. Each successive room is hotter, louder, stranger—

Nim wipes sweat away and checks her watch, only to find she’s lost more than an hour. Thinks: ‘Cause time works differently, in here.

Then catches a flash of blonde up ahead, ducking through yet another doorway, and heaves forward again, trying to bridge the gap between them. Ending up somehow caught inside what seems like ten or so feet of bead curtains strung one behind the other, instead—she swims through them, their warm plastic leaving a sticky trail behind everywhere it touches, and spills through to the other side: a cool, dim room so insulated she actually can’t hear the music playing in the rest of the club anymore (though she can still feel the sheer erratic pulse of it coming up, floor acting as a remarkably efficient conductor, even through the three-inch soles of her shoes). The sudden contrast makes her heart slam up against her ribs, beating fast. She pauses, long enough to take it all in—

Dim and spare and hung with red, everywhere Nim looks. And it really must be later on, because the only people in there are Tom, Alicia (lighting a fresh cigarette with a flourish, then flipping her antique silver lighter shut) and a squat woman Nim doesn’t recognize at all: thick glasses behind which her eyes swim like tiny fishes; a corduroy jumpsuit with purple irises printed all over it; beige hair, beige skin, beige voice.

She carries something small and squishy-looking in a baby-harness slung tight over her massive bosom—not a miscarriage that’s been dug up and somehow laminated, as Nim horribly assumed at first sight, but a plush creature of some weird derivation, with a gaze as hooded and squinty as her own. It jiggles back and forth with her breath as she stares down at the table, a tealight candle slopping dangerously between her palms.

Tom, to Alicia: “Not this again.”

And: “I need to know,” Alicia replies, her voice nothing like Nim might have expected—flat, Midwestern, abnormally “normal.” “Especially now. Think you’d feel the same, tai pan.”

“Would you?”

“Yeah. You saying you don’t?”

A spark passes between them, chased with a sigh. “It is your club,” Tom points out, finally.

Alicia grins. “Well, okay, then.” To the woman: “Is it here, right now?”

The woman gives a long sigh, lips twitching feebly, as though she doesn’t want to answer. At the same time, beneath the frame of Nim’s gaze, something stirs; she strains to focus on it for a second, before realizing—

(Oh GOD)

—it’s that thing, that mockery, the woman’s snug-cocooned un-child, kicking out slightly in all directions, like it’s testing uterine waters. While the bulgy eyes blink and the mouth pulses in and out, stop-motion slow, like it’s clearing its throat…and from the woman’s own mouth, a slurred voice issues, hissing:

“…Alwaysss herrre.”

(Like it’s puppeting her. Not the other way ‘round.)

Oh man, I need to get out of here.

Nim backs up, praying Tom and Alicia won’t notice; thankfully, they don’t seem to. Not Alicia, anyhow—who leans forward, brows knit, and keeps on quizzing.

“Is it dangerous?”