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“I’m sorry!” he bawled. “I don’t want to! It’s not me! I don’t want to do it!”
He pixelated into a minotaur. His minotaur. Sketlios the Earth Mage. The minotaur dropped my cat’s corpse on the kitchen floor. I think I knew what was going to happen. I just couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t fair. I didn’t do anything wrong. We’re in a movie now. Everything’s A-OK in the movies.
Simon beat me to death on my birthday with his monochrome minotaur fists, stripped me naked, and stuffed me in the refrigerator for Jason to find. He cried the whole time.
I love you, Marsupia.
For honor and King Minos.
We will avenge thee.
It’s almost over. I was only barely alive when he crammed me in here. I tried to hold on. I tried really hard to not die.
Boomer fucks love it when you fail.
• • •
I guess my photographs will sell now. My hard drive is solid fucking gold the minute my breath stops.
I can’t bear to think of Jason’s face when he finds me. Us. Simon shoved MacArthur in the crisper drawer. I wish I could feel his fur. It would be comforting. But there’s a sheet of glass between us. How will Jason ever be able to get over it? To forgive Simon? To unsee my blue fucking face smashed up against week-old pizza? But then I think—and it’s almost the last thing I think—about that avenging thing. Be
cause they will avenge me. I know it. I know it because we’re in a movie now and I know how movies work. This is the second-act break. I’m an accepted part of the structure. Jason Remarque will kill Six Figure because Six Figure killed me. It will be an amazing battle. Really fill the seats. And when it’s over, he’ll move on to bigger and better villains. He’ll be the kind of famous I was gonna be. Eventually, he’ll start dating again. Someone who understands the responsibility. The stakes. Though he’ll probably never get another cat.
I try to cry out. One last effort to be not dead. My lips won’t move.
I belong in the refrigerator. Because the truth is, I’m just food for a superhero. He’ll eat up my death and get the energy he needs to become a legend.
Goodbye, broccoli.
Goodbye, grape juice, not from concentrate.
Goodbye, farm-fresh butter.
Goodbye, MacArthur the Genius Cat.
Goodbye, Nikon F1 camera with a red strap.
Goodbye, gallery system.
Goodbye, Jason.
THE HELL HATH CLUB VS. ETERNITY
Samantha Dane is almost melted enough to stand. We all help her up, even Pauline. Bayou drapes one of her arms over her shoulder. Daisy gets the other. Julia kisses the top of her head. Nobody says anything about her wearing nothing but a refrigerator. When they find her body, they’ll put her in something nice and modest that has nothing to do with her and she’ll wish she’d stayed like this.
It’s all right. The dead don’t do shame.
The Hell Hath Club walks its newest member out into the Lethe Café, into music and moonlight and steaming cups of nothing that taste like remembering. Her frozen blue skin gleams like the bottles behind the bar. We help her into the booth, hold her hand, slip her a joke or two to make her smile.
What’s the difference between being dead and having a boyfriend?
Death sticks around.
She smiles. Samantha’s smile is as strong as a superpower. Neil brings her a drink and waggles his claws shyly. When she lifts it to her chapped lips, there’s a key in the cup, attached to a novelty skeleton keychain that says Elysian Arms Apartment 14.
“What do you know? You’re just downstairs from me,” I say. “The neighborhood’s gone to hell, of course.” I wink. She winks back.
Quarter Inch Bleed starts up a new song. The crowded dead roar joy. Gail steps up to the microphone, her tinsel-wrapped rhino horns proud and thick as horns of plenty, her long, sleek black fur gleaming like ink in the stage lights.
