Decimate Read online

  The anger in her father’s voice had given way to a pain that made her chest get tight. She prayed the pain medications would take the feeling away.

  Eventually, she told herself, the tests and the examinations would find a claw mark or some evidence of a bite. Maybe even a patch of fur caught in her hair or her clothes. Then her dad would have no choice but to accept the truth.

  They never did.

  And in the end, her dad’s version of the truth tore them all apart.

  I

  The Crash

  Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.

  —Laozi

  1

  Poe Huntley makes his way up the aisle of the crowded plane. Every few rows, he spots the guy who stabbed him in the gut and changed his life. Makes sense, he thinks. The stress of traveling for the first time in a year has stirred up old phobias.

  In the months after it happened, he saw his assailant on every crowded sidewalk, in every snaking checkout line at Duane Reade. His AA friends thought this was nuts. They’d heard the story many times: how he’d been so high on the subway ride to the Bronx that night that he’d hallucinated spirits fluttering outside the windows of the train, all of whom looked and sounded just like Dua Lipa. How he’d been awake for forty-eight hours by the time the knife plunged into his belly. The point was, would he even recognize the man if he saw him again?

  Yes, Poe insisted. Drawing faces was his passion; the part of his brain that remembered noses, eyes, and eyebrows still worked even after he’d firebombed it with eight balls of coke and whatever else the most attractive guy at the party had offered him.

  But he knows the flashes of bushy eyebrows, equine jaws, the little peeks of serpentine neck tattoos he keeps spotting among the male passengers are all just products of his anxiety. He only boarded a few minutes ago and already he’s sick of making awkward eye contact with any guy who looks remotely menacing.

  Instead, he focuses on the harried mother he’s stuck behind. Her two toddlers, both of whom are trying to take each empty seat they pass, are angel-faced cuties, but they’re slow, and Poe would really like to use the bathroom before takeoff. One of the downsides of getting sober is his new addiction to caffeinated beverages.

  As he zombie-walks toward his seat, his mind drifts back to that dingy apartment building in the Bronx. He feels the blood pumping through his fingers in a wet, warm rush, remembers his dim amusement over the fact that the guy who’d just stabbed him was running away, abandoning his own apartment.

  Poe had wanted to cry out, You’re the one who lives here, dude, but he couldn’t manage words, just a gasping, dry cough that was more astonishment than fear. One minute they’d been arguing about the money he’d been sent to collect. Next thing he knew, he was on the hallway carpet, hands soaked red. He didn’t black out, never lost consciousness. No white light. Just a searing pain that felt like a charley horse traveling the entire left side of his body, seizing even his neck in its twisted grip. Then came the sense he might have soiled himself before he realized it was the feel of his blood pooling in his groin and the crack of his ass.

  During the hours he’d spent in the ER afterward, he heard every other word the doctors said because his own thoughts kept drowning them out: Something’s over, and if it’s not my life, it’s the way I’ve been living it. The last time he’d spent that amount of time in the hospital, he’d been ten years old and helicoptered in with a mouthful of dirt and a broken arm and a headache so bad he thought his skull would split. Everything had gone to hell soon afterward thanks to so-called decisions made by the so-called grown-ups in his life. This time, Poe was the grown-up. This time he could draw himself a new story. In short, he could clean up his act.

  And that’s pretty much what he’s done.

  Sobriety has been good for him, but it’s also exposed a part of himself he’s been drowning for years, something that’s led him to fill the notebook in his backpack with pages full of entries that would probably get him institutionalized if his sober friends discovered them. But the notebook will either save his relationship with his sister or sink it, and their relationship’s been on life support ever since she threw him out of their mother’s funeral for being a babbling, sketched-out mess. So he’d say the chances this trip will be either a success or a failure are pretty even. He reminds himself of his real purpose. To share information. That’s all. What Claire chooses to do about it will be her choice and not his.

  Poe makes it to his aisle seat, exchanges a nod and a smile with the woman who’s already settled into the middle of their row. Her cherry-red pantsuit has silver buttons so big you could serve hors d’oeuvres on them, but she’s briskly unpacking her laptop, which means her penchant for bright colors isn’t a sign of a chatty nature. Excellent.

  He tugs his phone from his jeans pocket. Claire’s got classes all morning, but he wants to text her something gentle and sweet, something no response required. Something that makes this whole trip seem a lot more normal than it is.

  She seemed happy when he first emailed a few weeks before. Probably because she’d thought he was dead. Didn’t know a thing about the stabbing, but she knew how he’d been living since he was fifteen. When he told her he’d racked up a year of sobriety, that he had things to make up for, things to make right, she warmed to the idea of a visit, and this gave him hope.

  He’s about to start typing when a text pops up.

  I’m getting uncomfortable. When are you telling her?

  Poe sighs so loudly the woman next to him glances his way before refocusing on her computer.

  The notebook he plans to present to his sister that night wouldn’t have a single entry in it if it weren’t for this guy, his Eyes on the Ground. Maybe Poe should be more patient with the guy’s discomfort over what’s to come. He stops short of thinking of him as a spy. The title suggests subterfuge and deception when all they’ve done is share information Poe didn’t have access to in New York.

  I’ll tell her everything in just a few hours and I will keep your name out of it. Don’t worry.

  U won’t be able to keep my name out of it. Just let me know as soon as you tell her so I can explain. Deal?

  Deal.

  No little dots. No response brewing. Safe to put the phone away for now. He pulls his backpack from under the seat, roots through it for the little Moleskine notebook he splurged on. Now that he’s settled into his seat and committed to the six-hour trip, he needs to rehearse his presentation down to the last word. What he has to tell Claire is almost as nuts as the things their father’s been shouting on YouTube ever since that night in Glacier National Park.

  The difference is, Poe has proof. A mountain of it.

  And that’s good, because his sister’s a total ballbuster who won’t accept anything less.

  Claire Huntley is usually eager to approach Leonard Doyle’s office door. When he’s not in a meeting or on the phone, he leaves it open, a message to the students of Arcadia Heights High that they’re free to call on their guidance counselor whenever they’re in crisis.

  She’s not a student, but she’s brought him plenty of her dramas over the years. After her mother announced she wouldn’t pursue treatment for the cancer that had spread through her body, Claire practically took up residence on his cushy office sofa. But even before then, she’d been determined to make him her mentor from the moment he’d addressed her orientation session for new teachers. “What I’ve learned in all my years in secondary education is that none of us are broken, just molded,” he’d said to a rapt classroom of eager young hires. “And we can continue to work the mold for as long as we’re alive. The key isn’t genetics or our past; it’s strong hands.”

  Molded, not broken, she’d written on the inside cover of her shiny new planner that night. Leonard had been describing the many students who’d passed through his office over the years, but Claire had wanted to believe it was true of her as well.

  And Poe, she thinks now.


  Leonard looks up from his laptop. He has a face like an illustration of a man who would have been used to market candy to children in the 1950s, before various human predators made the idea seem creepy. A long mouth that smiles easily, a round dimpled chin, and apple cheeks. Everything about him seems fatherly, if you don’t use Claire’s actual father as a comparison.

  But the smile he gives now is strained. He’s as uncomfortable with this visit as she is.

  Ironic, since he requested it last night by text.

  His blinds are slightly cracked and angled down, pouring the late-morning sun into a fierce river along the baseboard behind his desk. The hedge just outside his windows is ablaze. When Claire moved to Southern California with her mother after her parents’ divorce, the year-round sunlight felt like a relentless bully compared to the short gray fall and winter days up in Spokane. Now she treasures it. It expels shadows, reveals potholes and other destructive traps the Pacific Northwest likes to shroud in rain and mist.

  The office is one of the more spacious on campus and crammed full of upholstered furniture more suited to a family’s romper room. The intent is to relax students into dropping the defiant poses they’ve been tricked into believing make them more mature. Today, Claire has no plans to kick back. She’s not a teenager. And occasionally, given their age difference and the paternal nature of their relationship, she has to find subtle ways to remind Leonard of this.

  “Have a seat,” he says.

  “On a schedule today, I’m afraid. I’ve got juniors next and—”

  “Poe’s coming. Is that tonight?”

  “This afternoon, actually.”

  “Meeting him at the airport?” he asks.

  “Can’t.”

  Leonard nods, probably taking note of her succinct answers. “Is he staying with you?”

  “He’s taking an Uber to a Travelodge close to my house.”

  “Smart. I mean, you’re confident he’s sober, right?”

  “Says he’s got a year.”

  It’s his emails that have convinced her. When he was in the thick of his addiction, he’d often send her reams of discursive nonsense he’d composed while sleepless and high. He called it poetry; Claire called it word salad, which didn’t stop her from printing out the emails and going through them with a red pen looking for coded signals he was in danger, maybe being held hostage by some lowlife he’d fallen in with. A fruitless endeavor, considering her brother had chosen danger as a lifestyle at age fifteen. But since he reestablished contact, his emails have been clear and to the point, and so have the first, hesitant texts they’ve shared. That said, every time she sends one, she braces for a response that would make William Burroughs proud. So far, he’s stayed in Hemingway territory. Concise and to the point.

  “Still, good thinking. On your part,” Leonard says.

  “You know we had this conversation yesterday, right?”

  Leonard clears his throat, settles back into his chair.

  “Thalia Vale,” he says.

  “It’s a difficult situation,” Claire answers.

  “I’m aware. I’ve been monitoring it.”

  “OK. Good.”

  “Delete the account, Claire.”

  Dammit, she thinks, and even though it feels like a defeat, she pulls his office door closed behind her. “Who told you?”

  “No, no. I’m not playing that game.”

  “With all due respect, it’s not a game. I’m a grown-up, and I’d like to know who betrayed my confidence and—”

  “Oh, cut it out. We don’t fraternize with students on social media outside of specific school-sponsored Facebook groups. It’s school policy.”

  “Which it’s not your job to enforce.”

  “Claire.”

  “She’s being groomed, Leonard.”

  “We’re looking into the rumors. We know there’s been a shift in behavior.”

  “And dress. And eyeshadow. About five layers of it. And she’s not going to tell you a thing.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you’re a man.”

  “But she’ll tell you everything if you impersonate a teenager on Snapchat?”

  “It’s going pretty well so far. She’s been bragging about the gifts men have been sending her. One of the guys is from Long Beach, she thinks. I should have names before long.”

  “Real names, no doubt. Just like the one you’re using with her. Have you reached out to the parents?”

  “The mom’s not in the picture, and the dad says everything’s fine and offered to take me out sometime and help me relax.”

  “Gross,” he whispers.

  “Listen, Leonard. Can we talk about this after Poe leaves? I’m sorry if I—”

  “Delete the account, Claire, or I’m going to Principal Pearsons.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “I am very, very serious. Arcadia Heights is lucky to have you, and I won’t let you mess that up with a stunt like this.”

  “Nobody’s there for that girl. Nobody.”

  “You’re not either. Some teenager you invented is.”

  Claire feels her cheeks flush. “An Amazon gift card for fifty dollars and a Samsung Galaxy. I think she’s doing cam shows, but I can’t prove it. Anyway, that’s what one of the guys bought her. Figured you should know since you’re taking over her case.”

  “We’ll all keep an eye on her. In the meantime, have you tried buying her coffee? You’ve got a talent for sneaking up on these things the right way. They trust you.”

  “Five times. She’s not having it. Why do you think I went the Snapchat route?”

  “I’ll see what I can do. And I’ll keep you updated if you delete the account.”

  “See you later, Dad.”

  “If we bring your dad into this, we’ll be here all day.”

  On any other day, this remark would have earned him a laugh. Not today. When Claire steps out into the hall, she almost runs smack into Deanna Ruiz, who’s clearly been eavesdropping. The fact that she wears her nurse’s stethoscope over her chest doesn’t make her look any less like a frightened younger version of herself.

  “Traitor,” Claire mutters.

  “Don’t be mad.” As Claire heads for her classroom, Deanna matches her step for step.

  “Too late,” Claire says.

  “Claire, it was crazy. I had to tell somebody you’d actually listen to. I’m just your drinking buddy, apparently.”

  “I did listen to you. I just didn’t do what you said. There’s a difference.”

  “Are you deleting the account?”

  To keep Deanna from following her into her classroom, Claire turns at the door to face her.

  “Come on, Claire. I’m worried about her too, but this is too far. If you get found out, someone’ll think you’re the criminal.”

  “I was just trying to get names.”

  “Was. Past tense. So you’re deleting the account? Great!” Deanna smiles and bats her eyelashes.

  “I’m considering it.”

  “This is about Poe. You’re stressed out he’s visiting and—”

  “I have a therapist, thanks.”

  “Yeah. And when was the last time you saw him? Oh, that’s right. Three months ago. Just so you could get your . . .” Deanna raises one hand and moves it back and forth like she’s shaking a pill bottle to see how many are left inside.

  “That was too far,” Claire whispers.

  “Maybe,” Deanna whispers back, eyes to the linoleum. “Sorry.”

  “I’ll delete the account. But if she ends up being a Dateline episode, I’m taking you and Leonard to her funeral.”

  “Claire!”

  She closes her door before Deanna can follow her inside.

  Once she’s shut up in the relative quiet of her empty classroom, she heads for her desk and unlocks the drawer in which she keeps her purse. Suddenly it feels like a liability having the pill bottle on campus with her, now that she’s made the mistake of c
onfiding in a colleague about it. She can count on one hand the times she’s had to swallow one of her little blue friends on school grounds.

  Her bigger mistake, she thinks, was falling in with Deanna’s Girls’ Crew. Someone with Claire’s past should only make friends in controlled, sober situations, not over big fruity cocktails at the Cheesecake Factory.

  Deanna and her friend Charmaine, a PE teacher and coach of the girls’ softball team, had formed their little social group in response to the controversial news that some of the male teachers had a guys-only soccer team they were using to build comradery, which, according to several students who ran into them in the park, was also where they’d come up with a crude ranking system for the most attractive female teachers. In the interest of female solidarity, Claire had finally accepted one of Deanna’s invitations and somehow wound up with that thing that had always eluded her up until then—work friends.

  Then she’d started telling them too much about herself.

  Leonard had called it “opening up.”

  After a few weeks of letting her hair down over Tropical Tiki Punches, Claire had slipped and revealed how her father had done his best to inform anyone who would put him on their wacko podcasts and YouTube channels that something terrifying and unearthly had happened to her and her brother during a camping trip when she was twelve. That the brief flash of white light that had knocked her and Poe off their feet and left them with baffling injuries wasn’t the result of a bear attack he’d failed to prevent, as the authorities believed, but some sort of paranormal event that traveled light-years just to screw up their camping trip.

  For what it’s worth, Deanna had texted her the next day, I did some Googling and you seem super grounded for someone who was abducted by aliens. Claire had laughed for what felt like a solid minute. It was good to laugh with someone about that part of her life. God knows her mother had never found any of it amusing.