Feral (16 page)

“Serena Sims,” she went on, throwing her blazer to the side in order to put her fist on her round hip. “I'm sure we will all choose to remember Serena in our own way. I will remember her as one of the most passionate students to have ever entered my room. Ms. Sims had a love of journalism that made me confident I would see her name in a byline of her own in a major paper someday.

“Now,” she added, her eyes roving behind her wire frames as she observed her students, “as unfortunate as it is, Ms. Sims was not the first student we have lost at Peculiar High. Three of our boys died hilltopping the year before last. A case of accidental alcohol poisoning two years before that. It was a disastrous, heart-wrenching incident, losing Ms. Sims. Something we will never forget. But I guarantee you, she will not be the last student to ever meet such a sad end. And we as journalism students must learn to deal with tragedy—to report it with honesty and compassion.”

She paced through the room, her heels clicking as the reek of cheap musk trailed behind her.

Claire gagged as the scent grew stronger. She swore it reminded her of the stench of cat urine that continuously floated from the bushes in front of her house. She raised her head only to find that Mavis was staring directly at her. Claire's eyes roved over the thick powdery blush that had worked its way deep into crevices of the woman's face. The opaque nude pantyhose and the blue inch-high pumps. Mavis had the look of something bargain-basement, out of fashion. Like something that she and Rachelle would have found at a vintage store in Chicago, so worn-out that they'd have hung it right back on the rack, even if it did cost less than a dollar.

The comparison made Claire ache with sadness. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, crossing and recrossing her legs.

Feeling eyes on her, Claire glanced up to find Rich staring at her. If it were any other boy, Claire might have assumed he was eyeing her rustling skirt. The boys at a school with uniforms spent so much time staring at girls' legs, Claire often figured they were all experts in pleated skirts by the time they graduated. They could all predict how a skirt would behave in a gust of wind, how it shifted when a girl climbed the stairs. Boys at Peculiar High, Claire figured, knew pleated skirts the way her father knew sedimentary rock.

But Rich was different. He wasn't staring at her legs, but waiting to catch her eye. When he did, he raised the fingers of his right hand in greeting.

Claire smiled and nodded. There it was again—that deliciously calm sensation she got anytime Rich was around.

“It is our duty, now, to continue on,” Mavis announced, pointing at the class like she was getting a room full of real reporters riled up about their deadlines—an easy comparison, since they weren't even in a classroom, but the journalism lab, each of them sitting at long tables rather than student desks, their faces illuminated by the glow of computer screens.

“. . . to regroup and move forward,” Mavis said. “And I think we'll be able to do that with the help of a new student on our team.”

Claire shifted again, squirming beneath the stares of the entire class.

“Claire Cain, recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. Her
freshman
year. Her sophomore year, she did some work on a local story that gained significant media attention in the Chicago area,” she went on.

Claire felt herself begin to sweat. Her face burned with embarrassment. The story from her sophomore year was about Rachelle's locker search. About the freshman. The pencil box with the lightning bolts. Intent to distribute.

Everyone was staring at her. Waiting for her to say something. For her to talk about her stories. But she didn't want to talk—not about Rachelle. She only raised herself in her seat, squared her shoulders. Put on the pose of a girl who could win awards for
any
story she chased—even some crummy cafeteria mystery meat exposé.

Slowly, they all began to turn their attention back to their instructor.

“Investigative journalism,” Mavis went on. “I want us all to really think about what that means. We've covered this material. And yet, none of you have really challenged yourselves. Fluff pieces. That's all I seem to be getting—even from the news department. I do believe our news editor could be of more help where that is concerned,” she went on, throwing a bitter look at Rich.

Rich offered a half nod that seemed to acknowledge she was right.

“I'm sure we would all like to show our impressive new class member what we're capable of,” Mavis said. She pointed at a sign-up sheet on the wall. “I would like every one of you to revisit your old ideas. I've made a few notes next to your topics. Talk to each other, move about the room, the hour is yours.”

Chairs scraped; feet stomped the tile. Claire doodled a bit in her notebook, trying to come up with some topics of her own.

But as she tried to focus, she found herself thinking again about how it had been to discover Serena. Her memory was muddled, confused, but it seemed to her that the air around the body had smelled kind of tinny and preserved—like foil-wrapped hamburger patties taken out of the freezer.

The newspaper article and the TV reporters didn't say anything about that—how Serena's body had been preserved by the ice, kept fresh for the ferals to eat. In fact, the paper and the TV reporters hadn't mentioned the ferals at all. Or how the air around Serena's body had tingled with the same kind of danger that had spewed out of the transformers during the ice storm. Or how the puddle of Claire's vomit had steamed in the snow beside Serena's body. How there had been screams for help and pleas to calm down and how one person's voice had only made others wail even louder. How guttural and wild the entire scene had been.

Until Rich had shown up, anyway. Until he'd dragged Claire away from the woods, put her safely in his truck and driven her home.

She wondered, fleetingly, what Mavis would think about that for a topic: “The Five Senses of a Death Scene,” an investigation by Claire Cain. She could tag along with the Peculiar PD, recording the smells and sights of old ladies, frozen by rigor mortis in their beds, and compare it to Serena. She'd go to the coroner's office, record how a day-old, already autopsied body smelled, how the skin reacted when she pressed her thumb into it, and compare that to how the flesh reacted on one of the hilltoppers who were apparently always biting the dust in Peculiar, when she reached through their shattered windows and pinched their still-warm arms.

No matter how she tried to occupy her mind with real topics—decent topics—for the school paper, Serena Sims's death scene kept interrupting her thoughts. She gripped her pen tighter, as though it might somehow settle the dizzy spin in her head.

When she glanced up, Rich's eyes were on her again. He got up from his own chair, slipped into the plastic seat right beside her.

“How are you?” he asked. “The last time I saw you—” He pointed toward the window, in the general direction of the woods.

Claire nodded. “Pretty gruesome,” she muttered.

“Yeah,” Rich said. “Lucky your dad was already home when I called.”

Claire grunted an agreement.

“I mean—I guess your mom—”

“No mom,” Claire said.

“In—Chicago?” he asked hopefully.

“Died in childbirth,” she said. “One of the rare modern-day cases.” Somehow, though, mentioning her mother made her think about how horrible and vicious
that
scene must have been—hemorrhaging to death on Claire's birthday. It made it seem like Claire's entire life had been tainted by violence, right from the start. She wondered if violence didn't follow some people, the same way bad luck trailed after others.

Rich's stare was far too intense for Claire. She didn't want to continue their conversation. She patted his arm, pushed her seat back, and walked to the front of the room, where the sign-up sheet hung. Rich came along, too, right on her heels.

It had been crossed out, but Claire could still see it, near the top of the sheet—
Serena Sims: Basement.

Clare stared at the subject, written in Serena's own neat handwriting—the
s
's curling like ribbon on a Christmas present.

“What's that—‘Basement'?”

“It's nothing,” Rich mumbled. “That's what Mavis and I were trying to tell her, anyway.”

“Oh, yeah?” She paused, intrigued, her mind tumbling over the possibilities. She grinned, feeling it again—faintly, but there just the same: that old spark, that fire. Her love of stories. “I want to finish Serena's piece. Pick up where her research left off,” she blurted.

“Why?” Rich asked.

“Think about it,” Claire said. “What would be a better tribute than to finish her work?”

“A bit ordinary,” Mavis said, crossing her arms over her chest as she approached Rich and Claire. “Not quite what I expected, given your track record. And not exactly what I was hoping for, either.” She leaned forward to add in a hushed voice, “I'd actually hoped you would kick these guys into gear. Hoped you'd really push them.”

“Just for the first story,” Claire vowed. “I'll ramp it up the second time around. I just feel it's really important to—honor her. Serena.”

Mavis took a deep breath.

“Unless there's nothing there, of course,” Claire continued. “If I get into it, and there's nothing, I'll drop it.”

“All right,” Mavis said, reluctantly agreeing. “You've got a short leash on this one, Cain. You're also doing the dance.”

“The dance?” Claire repeated.

“The Winter Formal,” Mavis explained. “I know—one dance is the same as another—but Dr. Sanders requires us to cover all school events. A week from this Friday. Take a photographer.”

“I'll do it,” Rich croaked.

“You're an editor, not a photographer,” Mavis argued.

“To get her settled in. Give her the 411 on working for the paper,” Rich offered.

Mavis sighed loudly through her nose. “You should take it as a compliment,” she told Claire. “He usually refuses to cover the dances. Calls them—what was it again, Rich? Clichés on parade?” She grinned as Rich's face turned pink.

Claire pulled Rich aside. “I'd like to get started on Serena's basement story as soon as possible,” she told him. “This afternoon.”

“The library is the place to start,” Rich said. “For background. I'll take you.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“I
just need to do some research. For school,” Claire said into her father's voice mail that afternoon, as Rich steered toward the public library.

They jiggled along in Rich's truck—the cab was so pristine, she'd actually thought, for a moment, that she should take her shoes off before getting inside. She hadn't had her wits about her enough to notice, the day she'd discovered Serena. But the truck gleamed—and it smelled like a Christmas tree. The smell actually complemented the snow that flew through the air—not exactly a blizzard, but instead, one of those quaint snowfalls in which flakes circled and never seemed to drop.

In the distance, though, the ice storm had given the landscape an odd, cracked, bitten-into look.

“So—I'll—see you for dinner,” Claire promised. It felt lonely talking to a machine that couldn't hear her, and knowing that her father was too far below the surface of the earth to get her message. He wouldn't hear her voice until he came up out of the ground, shucked off his coveralls, and checked his messages before starting home for dinner himself. It felt awful to be so removed from him, like she could scream and scream and never be heard.

Claire had just dropped her phone into her coat pocket when a new message came in. Hoping it was from her father, Claire hurried to read it, and felt her body revving up all over again:
Read article abt girl found. U ok? Pls answer.

The text was from Rachelle. And if Rachelle had just sent it, that meant she was still within reach. Claire could text her right back, and get an immediate answer. The kind of answer that would spark a whole conversation. Rachelle would get tired of typing—as she always used to—and call Claire's number.

Claire envisioned it all—so real to her, she could almost hear Rachelle's voice. She knew how good it would feel to settle back into the shorthand that longtime friends always had. The kind of understanding in which a half-finished sentence could mean more than a thousand texts.

But that shorthand was dead. For the past nine months, Rachelle had treated her like an antique with a crack in it.

You're just feeling a little nostalgic because of the way Becca talked about Serena this past weekend
, she assured herself.

And besides, she was with Rich. On the way to the library.

Claire turned off her phone and shoved it deep into her backpack as Rich parked. She climbed out of his truck, hoisted her backpack onto her shoulder, and took a step forward, toward the single concrete step that led to the door of the public library.

As she stared, her entire body felt as sturdy as a half-melted gummy bear. In that moment, the large snowflakes dancing in front of her face felt sharp, like sleet. Like one last ice storm before spring could settle in. The longer she stared, the more she remembered—voices, laughter. She could see them all, clustered on the steps, smoking. Waiting for her.

“Hey, you okay?” Rich called.

Claire glanced up, hating the look of concern that crinkled his face. Hating that she had cemented herself into place beside his truck. Hating the fear heating her veins.

“Of course,” she said, but clenched her fists as she raised her foot to climb the solitary step.
It's not the same library
, she tried to convince her racing heart.