Poor Things by Daniel Barnett

Author:Daniel Barnett [Barnett, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

♫

A wide rut split the lane, forcing Ash to drive with two tires off the road. When we finally reached Aunt Sandy’s driveway, she braked. “That’s no good. Nope. No sir. No good, no good, no good.”

An enormous fallen tree blocked the way. The headlights burned red against its bark.

“Get my chair.”

“Way ahead of you,” she said. But she wasn’t. She was still sitting in her seat like Nip and Billy, not doing a damn thing.

“Ash.”

“What?”

“My chair.”

“Yeah. Right. Okay.”

Ash stepped out onto the road, her mouth rolled up into itself. She shut the door behind her, cutting off a few wisps off fog that had wandered inside the van. I waited. I don’t know how I did, but I waited. When she came around with Bitchmaster, I let myself carefully down into its seat.

Ash turned her head to the back. “You two. Dingleberries. This is our stop.”

“Where are we?” Nip said.

“You don’t know?”

A pause. “Aunt Sandy’s?”

Hearing her name out loud brought a wash of bile up my throat. I crossed the space between the van and the tipped juniper in three slow pushes. Bitchmaster’s wheels bumped to a stop against the trunk. I leaned forward and gripped the bark. It was damp, slippery. Bit by bit, inch by worming inch, I pulled myself up onto the tree until I was staring into the pink nothing that surrounded my aunt’s house.

A door slammed. Billy had gotten out of the van and was moving after Nip and Ash, his head raised for the first time since leaving his house. Hurry, I wanted to shout at them all. Use your goddamn legs, and hurry! Instead I nodded down at Bitchmaster and spoke in the most even voice I could manage. “Pass that up to me. Someone.”

Billy surprised me by hoisting the chair and placing it on the trunk. Something inside of me came loose then, unraveled like a fragile knot. I let Bitchmaster roll forward off the tree and heard it clatter, heard Ash shout my name as I shoved myself off after it. The hard-packed dirt hammered nails into my palms. I groped for the chair, yanked it upright, and dragged my body into the seat. The throbbing in my legs traveled up through my hips and mated with the knot inside my belly.

“Wait,” called Ash.

Go, shouted the voice inside my head.

Go is what I did. I pushed on the wheels. I jammed on those suckers, and I raced my pain and worry up the path.

I almost won.

Almost.

A tall jaggy silhouette formed into my aunt’s house. The cottage had collapsed, dragging the pitched roof down with it. Amidst the splinters the doorframe stood upright and empty. Pink curled in and out of caved windows. Red droplets leaked steadily from a hanging rain gutter and watered the garden.

No.

The fog began to glow beside the house. A slim figure stepped forward, cupping a light. “Joel?”

There are moments that feel like they last forever, and there are moments you wish could last forever. This one was a bit of both.

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