Chapter Three

"Need I remind you of the risks in angering him? Your petty attempts at flattery will not sway his hand. Whatever he is, he is at the very least, incorruptible."

 

Gina had been having a great day up until she almost hit the naked girl in the middle of the street. Slamming on the brakes, she screeched to a stop and stared at the girl. She looked maybe nineteen or twenty—no younger than Gina herself—and seemed to be inspecting Gina’s car with idle curiosity.

Gina had lived in Eston long enough to know there were no nude beaches nearby, so why on Brovar’s green earth was this girl naked?

Rolling down the window, Gina cursed her curiosity.

“Excuse me,” she said, leaning out the window. “A-are you okay, ma’am?”

The girl stared at Gina, squinting. After a moment, she let out a bloodcurdling screech that nearly shattered Gina’s eardrums then and there.

“Uh…” Gina said. “Are you, like, in danger?” She looked around to see if anyone was chasing the girl, but there was hardly anyone around, save the few cars that zipped by in the other lane, each slowing down so their drivers could gawk at the poor girl in the road.

“Okay,” Gina said. “Do you need a ride or something? I don’t wanna leave you here if something’s wrong.”

Nothing. The girl just opened her mouth, moved her tongue around, looked a bit confused at herself, and went back to staring at Gina.

“Okay,” Gina said. She had half a mind to call the police or an ambulance, but the cops would probably make everything worse, and an ambulance would put the poor girl in debt, so she opened her side door and gestured to her. “Get in,” she said.

The girl took a while to respond, but eventually she seemed to grasp Gina’s meaning and climbed in the seat. Gina turned around, ruffled around the pile of used gym clothes in the back seat, and handed her the cleanest athletic shorts she could find, along with a T-shirt.

“Here,” Gina said. “They’re not the nicest, sorry, but they’ll work.”

The girl took the clothes and started stretching them, inspecting them inside and out, and altogether doing just about anything one could think of to do with clothes beside putting them on.

And, of course, Gina was left there waiting for this weird girl to figure out what clothes are, all while trying to be polite and look away, only to come back every few moments to try and explain how to put them on.

“Look—the shirt goes over your head,” she said, miming the action of putting a shirt on.

Miraculously, the girl copied Gina’s movement perfectly, donning the shirt in a swift motion while saying in a flat, monotone voice, “Look—the shirt goes over your head.”

Gina gawked.

The girl’s lips curled up into a strange semblance of a smile. “Here,” she said. “They’re not the nicest, sorry, but they’ll work.”

“Uh…” Gina said. “I, uh… huh.”

Once again, Gina had no idea what to make of this situation. As the girl figured out on her own how to pull the shorts on, mimicking everything Gina had said thus far, Gina contemplated what had led her life to this moment. Sure, living in a city by the beach had its downsides—sure, there were weirdos here and there. But this? This was… this was a lot.

Sadly, there was only one thing to do.

She pulled out her phone—one of those newfangled touchscreen things—and called Vonveir.

“Hey, Gina,” Von said, “uh, are you alright? I mean, how’d it go with your parents?”

For a second, Gina almost blurted her exciting news, but she held herself back. “Better than I thought, but that’s not why I’m calling, Von. I—uh—I found a naked girl on the street, and I’m bringing her to the apartment, okay?”

A pause. Von cleared his throat. “Well, okay. Um… I guess, thanks for letting me know before you brought a girl over? Last time was a bit awkward. Are you feeling okay?”

“No, Von, I’m not feeling okay, and I’m not bringing her over to fuck, I’m bringing her over because I think she’s been, like, trafficked or something.”

“Hold on, what?”

“Yeah, man, I know. I found her on the side of the road by the rock beach off Eighty-Nine, butt naked. There’s nobody around, she must’ve walked miles, she clearly doesn’t speak Boraki, and she screamed at the top of her lungs when she saw me.”

More silence. “Shouldn’t you call the cops for this?”

“Brovar’s ashes—okay, she’s obviously foreign, obviously alone, and she might be a bit… slow, too. All the cops’ll do is deport her ass, and she’ll probably end up worse off than she already is. That’s a no-go in my book. Don’t you know a bunch of activist people or whatever?”

“Yeah, I guess I can ask Clenard for help, but I don’t know anybody who works with… this kind of issue. Maybe take her to a hospital?”

“She doesn’t look hurt, but maybe? I could call an ambulance. Do they deal with this kind of thing? I think she might just need a place to stay for a while, and I don’t want to put her in medical debt or anything. I don’t know, what do you do when you find someone lost in the middle of nowhere? Fuck, man, I’m freaking out.”

“Okay, okay, just bring her here, Gina. It’s gonna work out, I promise. We can get her cleaned up and take her to the hospital, and we’ll get through this. Here—I’ll get some soup or something going, and I’ll text Clenard and see what he says.”

“Okay,” Gina said, taking deep breaths. She figured he’d still be worried about her, so she took a moment to ease his mind. “Uh—and about my parents? I actually think they’re fine with the whole thing.”

“Wait, really?”

“I know, right? My da’s always been a big-time retentionist, but I guess he’s… actually onboard with me being gay, somehow. Took one look at me and said, ‘whale oil be dorned, luv, never quite figgered how ladies were ’tracted to blokes anyhow.’”

“Whoa. Better than my da took it at least. Huh. Honestly, Gina, I’m really happy for you.”

“And Ma’s not too far off, either! She usually just agrees with whatever Da says, so it doesn’t surprise me. Honestly, I was gonna gush about it when I got home, but… you know.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll definitely see you when you get home, and I’ll get, like, a hot towel or something.”

“Thanks, Von. Thank you so much—you’re a gem.”

“Alright, drive safe.”

Hanging up, Gina rested her head on the wheel. The not-so-naked girl leaned over and stared at her some more with those sparkling, green eyes of hers.

“Okay,” Gina said. “Okay, let’s do this.” She pulled off the side of the road and started driving toward the city. It only took twenty minutes for her to wind her way through all the tourist traffic and get out of the crowded beachfront hellscape that was the summer rush. Eston was one of those towns where, in the winter, you could drive all the way through town without seeing a soul; in the summer, though, no such luck.

After winding around the line of crab-shacks on the edge of town, she finally made it to her apartment, a ramshackle old motel some landlord had converted into last-chance housing for the destitute. And destitute she and Von were. They’d known each other since they were kids, even used each other as beards for a long time. In her eyes, he was family—to the point where they even shared a car. Neither could afford to get another one, so it worked out. Mostly because it had to work out.

After Gina parked in the cracked, unpainted parking lot, she took the girl’s hand and dragged her up the outside stairs, hoping they didn’t run into those two or three cops who hung around the area, knocking on people’s doors at random. After weaving around their neighbors—a quiet, elderly couple who sat out on the balcony every day from sunup to sundown—Gina unlocked her front door and led the girl inside.

Von stood in the center of their living room, his pink bunny slippers clashing horrendously with his checkered flannel bathrobe. He held an old, red towel, stained with runoff colors from the washing machine, and handed it to Gina.

“Alright,” he said, “I’ve got a soup on, I’ve cleared out my bedroom just in case, and Clenard said he’d be here in a half-hour. He said the hospital was a good place to take her, but he said to wait until he gets here.”

“Okay,” Gina said. She sat the girl down on the grubby, grey couch in the living room and rushed into the kitchen to spoon some soup into a bowl. By the time she got back with the bowl, the girl had gotten out of the chair, walked over to their TV stand, found an oversized snow globe on the shelf, and started trying to fit it into her mouth.

Von was occupied texting whoever Clenard had gotten him in contact with, leaving Gina to rush over, ready to pry the big glass ball out of the girl’s mouth. Then, she watched in horror as the girl’s jaw unhinged, and she took the entire snow globe into her mouth at once.

Crunch.

As she bit down, a fountain of whatever possibly toxic liquid filled snow globes dribbled down her face. She chewed the shards of glass idly, examining the other assorted knick-knacks Von kept on the shelf while Gina and Von stood there, gaping at her.

“Call an ambulance?” Gina said.

“Uh,” Von said, looking at his phone. “Y-yeah, okay.”

“Holy shit,” Gina said as the girl shot them both a toothy grin. Her teeth looked decidedly non-bloody for someone who had just shattered a glass-and-ceramic piece of décor in her mouth.

The girl then fixated on an old, framed photo of Von and his big brother, which they kept right under the TV. Captivated by the glistening brass frame, she started trying to cram that into her maw as well, but it was about eight inches wide, so it just didn’t fit.

Until, somehow, it did. Gina had no idea how it happened, but the photo frame seemed to distort, the air shimmering around it. It was the same size as before, and so was the girl’s mouth, but somehow, this thing that was obviously too big fit perfectly inside the girl’s jaw. Pain lanced through Gina’s mind as she tried to comprehend what happened, but the girl paid no mind. Once again, glass crunched as she lazily chewed.

Von dropped his phone.

“What the fuck did you bring home, Gina?” he asked.

Just then, Clenard burst into the door. He was around five-foot-ten, stocky, and wore a novelty T-shirt that said, “Don’t talk to me when I’m GAMING.” He’d brought a big, bulky first aid kit and went straight to Von, giving him a peck on the cheek.

“Alright,” Clenard said. “What did I miss?”

Neither Von nor Gina answered him.

“Guys? Is this her?” he asked. “Guys?”

Then, he too watched in horror as the girl warped space around another piece of oddly sized glassware—a flower vase this time—fit it into her maw and chowed down.

Then, she turned to them and repeated in that strange accent of hers, “What the fuck did you bring home, Gina?”

 

Hello, friends! If you're enjoying this story, consider supporting me on Patreon! If you'd like more stories, I post new chapters to my mainline series every Monday and Friday, and I upload a new short story every other Wednesday! Below are some of my other stories.

The Old Brand-New: Lena lives in a lonely mansion, but one snowy night, a vengeful clone of herself comes to make her pay for the life she never got to live.
Little Comforts: The world ends, and two men, Dan and Andrew, must rush to the shore for safety, pursued by a vengeful soldier and the remains of her family.