White Space

“Tania,” she said, as if that should be explanation enough. At his frown: “A friend.”

“A friend from where?”

“Here.” They were wasting time. Leaning out a little further, she called again, “Tania? Tania, it’s me.”

A pause. The scuff of a boot over stone. “R-Rima?”

“Yeah. I-I told you I’d come back.” The words just flew into her mouth, as if she was an actor dropped into a scene from a well-rehearsed play. But now she began to remember bits and pieces. She and Tania had been working in the school cafeteria when … when … She skimmed her lips with her tongue. When what?

“Is it safe to come out?” Tania asked. “Did you bring the snowcat?”

“The what?” The boy shot her a bewildered look. “What is she talking about?”

“The snowcat,” she said, relieved. That’s right; I snuck out and found the snowcat. I drove it over. Her hand strayed to the front pocket of her parka, and her fingers slid over the jagged teeth of a key. I grabbed a gun and I left it in the snowcat.

“What snowcat?” the boy asked.

Instead of answering him, she called to her friend, “Yeah, Tania, the cat’s outside.” The words still felt strange in her mouth, but somehow she knew that these were the right words, filling in the blanks of a story still taking shape in her mind. “I found a rifle in the equipment shed, too. It’s in the snowcat. Come on, before they find us.”

“Rima,” the boy said, urgently. “Rima, what rifle? Who are they? What are you talking about?”

She fired off an impatient glance—and then felt a sudden jolt of panic. The boy’s face seemed familiar, especially his eyes, so stormy and gray. But she didn’t know him, couldn’t remember his name. Who is he? Do I know—

“Rima?” The boy reached a hand to her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

Casey. The name flooded into her as if flowing from his fingers. “Yes, I-I’m … Casey, I’m fine.”

“Then what is this?” Casey asked. “Who’s Tania? Who are they?”

Dangerous, that’s what they are. “Casey, I don’t know, I’m not sure.” But this is right; this is the right story. “All I know is, this is what’s supposed to hap—” She caught movement near the chancel rail, a flicker of shadow, and then a girl’s face, white and drawn beneath a thatch of wild black hair, slid above the edge of a pew. “Tania,” Rima said, relieved. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Tania’s eyes, little-girl wide, flitted from her to Casey. “Who’s he?”

“Casey. He’s a friend.”

“From where?” Tania was standing now, a shotgun clearly visible, the barrel pointing at Casey’s chest. “I don’t remember him from class.”

Neither did she, exactly. She improvised. “I found him wandering around when I got the snowcat.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Casey turn another look, but she pushed on. “I couldn’t just leave him there.”

“How do you know he won’t change?”

Change? The word chilled her blood. Change into what? Then she remembered the broken body in the chancery, and those hands that weren’t quite right. “Who is that? Who did you shoot?”

“Father Preston.” Tania’s chin quivered. “I couldn’t stay in the gym, so I ran to the church and Father Preston was here, only he … he … I didn’t want to, but I had to!”

“Stay calm, Tania. It’s okay,” Rima said, and then she was up, breaking out from cover and going to her friend. Casey said something, but she barely heard, couldn’t really understand the words. “Come here,” she said, gathering the weeping girl in her arms. “It’s okay. It’s going to be all right.”

“Nice that you think so.” Tania smelled of charred gunpowder, the oil the groundskeeper—Fred, Rima thought, his name is Fred—used to clean the shotgun, and sweat. Turning her head into Rima’s shoulder, Tania slumped into her. “I’m so scared.”

“It’ll be okay.” Rima slid the gun from Tania’s slack fingers and handed the weapon to Casey. Casey’s face was a mask of confusion, but she could tell from the firm set of his mouth that he would follow her lead.

“Rima, I … I don’t feel so good,” Tania moaned against her shoulder. “I think I’m going to be … I think I might be s-sick.”

“We just have to get you out of—” Then Rima felt Taylor’s death-whisper flexing and bunching with alarm along Rima’s arms and around her middle, and that was when Rima’s mind registered what her hands—so sensitive to the whispers within—were telling her, what Taylor sensed.

There was something else here, under her hands. Not in Tania’s soot-stained parka or whispering in her clothes, no. Rima saw Tania’s face twist as another pain grabbed her middle.

There was something inside Tania.

EMMA Just One Piece

“COME ON!” LIZZIE sprang to a sit. “We got to get the others, quick!”