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ELL’S HUNDRE Horror Fiction Sampler Vol. 3

Featuring Excerpts from:

Thespians: a tragedy by Remy Fink • Dear Demon by Dennis Mahoney • A New Kind of Clean by Ellie Foumbi & Iain Reid

Hell’s Hundred is a Horror Fiction imprint from independent publisher Soho Press. Named after the once bleak, now chic New York City neighborhood of SoHo—formerly known as “hell’s hundred acres” for its grim industrial facades and deadly fires—Hell’s Hundred provides fertile ground for new nightmares to take root. HELLSHUNDREDBOOKS.COM

TABLE OF CONTENTS: pg. 4

Thespians: A Tragedy Remy Fink

On Sale May 4, 2027 pg. 28

Dear Demon

Dennis Mahoney On Sale July 6, 2027 pg. 50

A New Kind of Clean by

Ellie Foumbi & Iain Reid On Sale January 5, 2027

The theater-kid cliché “If I don’t make it by the time I’m 30, I’ll die” takes a dark, literal turn in this dazzling horror debut . . .

September 29th, 2022 The ringing phone woke Sandra from a dreamless sleep. She rolled and reached for the receiver, following the call in the dark. “Chlo?” she said, bringing the phone to her cheek. Silence on the other end of the line. “Hello? Chloe, is that—” “How’d you know it was me, Ma?” “You’re the only one who still calls the landline,” Sandra said, rubbing her eyes and looking at the clock. A pale green 3:42 a.m. came into focus. “What’s going on, sweetie? Is everything all right?” Silence, again. “Chlo—” “I want to come home for my birthday.” “I thought you were having a party with Alyssa.” “I was, but . . .” Chloe trailed off, her voice replaced by labored breathing and a faint clicking sound. A chattering. “Chloe, honey, are you there?” “Huh? What were you saying, Ma?” “Your birthday party. I was asking about—” “No. No party,” Chloe said. “I just want to come home.” Rob grunted on the other side of the bed. Sandra swung her feet to the floor and sat up. She turned away from her husband. “Well, Dad and I—and your brother—we’d all be thrilled to have you here to celebrate, but—” “I’m packing now. The next train is in—it’s in an hour and a half. It’s . . . I’m going. I’ll be there soon.” Chloe paused. “Hey, Mom?” “Yes?” “I love you.” “I love you too.” “Can you tell Dad? Can you tell him I love him too?”

“Of course, but are you sure you’re oka—” Click. When Sandra pulled up to the train station, Chloe was already standing alone by the tracks. She wore a winter parka and a scarf. Her cheeks were rosy, and her lips were pale. She shook with a steady shiver. Sandra looked at the display on her dashboard. The outside temperature was sixty-eight degrees. On the ride home, Chloe gazed out the window with the brim of her faded Red Sox cap pulled low, vaguely concealing the two Band-Aids stretched across the bridge of her nose. She spoke only when spoken to—yes, no, uh-huh—and turned around every few minutes to stare at the empty back seat. Chloe spent most of the day bundled in blankets, watching black-and-white films on Turner Classic Movies. When Sandra offered to turn on the heat, Chloe tilted her cap down over her nose and shrugged. The family ate a wordless dinner, forks and knives clinking against their plates. Chloe’s brother, Antoine, doodled in his sketchbook while Chloe pushed mashed potatoes around. “So Chloe,” Rob said, taking a final bite of meatloaf, “any good auditions lately?” Chloe set her fork down. Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, standing up and pushing in her chair. “Thank you for dinner. I love you all. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry . . .” She slipped out of the room and ran upstairs, her feet thumping against each step. “Robert,” Sandra said. “What? She always likes to talk about that.” Later, when Sandra went upstairs to check in, she heard Chloe talking on the other side of her bedroom door. Chloe spoke with the tight rhythm of a phone conversation but without the pauses of an actual two-way chat. She seemed to be saying the same thing over and over. A sort of jabberwocky incantation: “Jordot Eel, Jordot Eel, Jordot Eel.”

Sandra leaned close and pressed her ear to the door. And only then, stifling her breath, could she pick out the true wording of her daughter’s mantra: “You’re not real, you’re not real, you’re not real.” Sandra got to the grocery store twenty minutes before it closed. As she walked down the baking aisle, she called her sister Jillian. “Remember how, back in the day, leading up to my 30th birthday, I went through a little bit of rough patch?” Sandra asked. “Little bit of a rough patch?” Jillian said. “You crashed your car and dropped half your savings on a handbag. I’d hardly call that a little—” “Okay,” Sandra said, “the details aren’t important. But do you remember what helped me get over it?” Jillian thought for a moment. “Mom and Dad threw you that surprise party. The whole family came.” “That’s right,” Sandra said. “Well, I picked up Chloe this morning, and she seems to be experiencing a bit of the same thing I did. I think she could use some support. Can you help?” “Say no more. I’ll get the invites out now.” The next afternoon, Sandra’s plan was in motion. Chloe was out of the house, running errands with her brother, and all the guests Jillian had wrangled on short notice had arrived. Sandra was frosting the cake when Jillian poked her head into the kitchen. “Just got a text from Antoine,” Jillian said. “They’ll be here in two.” “Be right out,” Sandra said, licking icing off her finger. She grabbed the decorative “3” and “0” candles and pressed them into the cake. Before she left the kitchen, she took a long-stemmed lighter out of the drawer and placed it on the counter. The living room was chaos: Family and friends diving behind couches and chairs, whisper-talking at each other. “You stepped on my foot.” “I didn’t step on it, you put it under mine.” The twins, four-year-olds Dylan and Donna, ask-

ing, “Grandma Jillian, when do we get to eat cake?” Jillian shushing them and shutting off the lights. There were footsteps on the front path. A key went into the lock. The handle turned. The door opened. Jillian flipped on the lights. Everyone popped out and screamed, “Happy birthday, Chloe!” But Antoine stood in the doorway alone. “Where’s your sister?” Rob said. “I don’t know,” Antoine said. “What do you mean you don’t know?” Sandra said. “You were supposed to bring her here. What happened?” “I guess I sort of . . . lost her.” The jacket slows Chloe down, but she fears that if she takes it off her skin will frost and her blood will freeze, and her brittle body will crack and shatter. She can’t see it, but she can feel its presence. Knows it is near. She looks over her left shoulder, then her right. She sees nothing. But the cold. The cold doesn’t lie. The cold tells her it’s close. She breaks into a sprint, charging down the center of the street past houses where she used to play make-believe with the neighborhood kids. Her limbs are stiff and heavy, her steps strained and limp. The harder she pushes the slower she moves. Like running in a dream. When she can run no more, she collapses to the ground. The pavement meets her knees and rubs her palms raw. There is a blur in her peripheral vision. A hand lands on her shoulder, another on her face. A weight pulls down on her cheeks and mouth, and a thousand screams fly across the sky. A shadow blocks the sun. The cold gets colder. And all is dark. “How do you just lose your sister?” “We were almost inside, but she said she forgot something in the car.” An-

toine shuffled his feet and brushed his orange-dyed hair out of his eyes. “I only looked away for a second to get my keys, but when I turned back, she was gone.” “Did you check the car?” Sandra said. “Yes, Mom, obviously I checked the car.” “How was she? How did she seem?” “What?” “Was she happy? Was she sad? What was she like?” “Hon, I think you’re overreacting,” Rob said. “She probably just figured out it was a surprise party.” “You saw her yesterday. Something was wrong. Don’t tell me it wasn’t. Antoine, answer the question.” Antoine hesitated. “She was quiet, I guess.” “We need to look for her.” “Hon—” “Robert, please.” “Grandma, does this mean we’re not eating cake?” one of the twins, Dylan, blurted out. “Shh. We can eat cake when Chloe is here.” Jillian turned to Sandra and whispered, “Is everything all right?” “Just start looking,” Sandra said. “Everyone start looking.” Sandra went outside first, calling Chloe’s name. Rob followed. “Chlo?” he said. “Chlo, we don’t have to do the surprise party. You can come back now.” The rest of the party joined the search. The adults checked their cars and rang the neighbors’ doorbells. The twins made a game of looking for Chloe, competing to see who could yell her name the loudest. Sandra walked down to the street. Next to a manhole grate, she spotted a crumpled piece of red fabric. She approached the fabric, picked it up, and ran her finger over the stitching of the embossed B on the faded baseball cap. “Sandy? Rob?” Jillian called from the backyard gate. Sandra stood up. “Did you find her?”

Jillian’s face was pale and hollow. “You should come see this.” Sandra speed-walked to Jillian. “What is it?” she said. Jillian motioned toward the shed in the corner of the backyard. The wooden door was open. Sandra walked across the yard, flattening damp autumn leaves beneath her feet. She reached the shed and folded her fingers around the rusty handle. Party guests gathered behind her. Sandra craned her neck and peered through the crack in the door. A bitter, fetid scent curled its way out. She wrenched the door open. In the center of the shed, a tarp hung over an uneven and lumpy something. A slick liquid had pooled around the edges of the tarp, darkening the unfinished wooden floor. Sandra stepped forward and pulled the tarp back. In the tarp’s place lay a gasoline canister, knocked over on its side, dripping from its nozzle. “Is she in there?” Rob said, pushing his way through the crowd. Sandra shook her head. Rob peeked over her shoulder. “What’s that doing out?” he asked. He lifted the gas can with one finger and bounced it up and down. “It’s empty.” “There she is,” little Donna said, pointing. “Can we have cake now? And why isn’t Cousin Chloe wearing any clothes?” Everyone turned toward the house. With their attention fixed on the shed, they’d failed to notice the young woman who had stepped out through the sliding glass door. Oh my gods and good lords spread about the yard. Jillian reached down and covered the twins’ faces. “Look away,” she said. “Close your eyes.” “But the cake,” Dylan argued, wriggling free of Jillian’s grasp. “She’s holding it.” Jillian looked up. Chloe stood on the deck. Her face was a savage mask with bloodshot eyes. The corners of her mouth stretched down into a deep and wicked frown. The birthday cake Sandra had prepared was balanced upon Chloe’s hands with the decorative “3” and “0” candles flickering atop

the buttercream frosting. “Chloe, honey,” Sandra said, inching forward, “what’s going on? Do you need help? What are you—” Sandra stopped. Chloe’s dirty blond hair was wet. The liquid dripped from her split ends to her freckled shoulders and bare chest. It trickled down her soft belly, settling upon the sharp cliffs of her hip bones and pooling in her navel. Tiny droplets dotted her forehead and gathered upon her eyelashes. She did not blink. The wild flame of the candles danced in the wind, whipping toward, away, and back toward Chloe’s gasoline-soaked abdomen. “Blow it out,” Sandra said. “Chloe, blow out the candle.” Chloe raised the cake level with her mouth. For a moment, it looked like she might listen to her mother and blow out the flame. But rather than part her lips, she held her frown and lowered her face to the cake. Before the tip of her nose touched the flame, the gasoline vapor ignited, and her body was a bonfire. Sandra wailed and ran toward her daughter, but Rob grabbed her and held her back, pulling the taut fabric of her blouse as she thrashed and heaved. Everyone went quiet. Even the twins were silent as the girl burned—too young to understand, but old enough to feel. They watched. Chloe stood, enveloped in the blaze, cake melting and dripping like magma through the webbed flesh between her fingers. She did not cry out. She did not flinch, even as she collapsed to the ground and her limbs curled inward upon themselves like paper. She was a silent prayer. The 30-year-old, burning down to nothing, frowning in the mighty pyre.

October 8th, 2022 “So you’re an actor?” Jesse looked at their reflection in the darkness of the rainy airplane window and swirled a lock of their curly black hair around their finger. “Excuse

me?” they said, finding a lone gray and plucking it out. “An actor,” said the man in the next seat over. Jesse turned to face him. He looked to be about forty with a stubbly beard. He wore a pair of dark sunglasses over his eyes and stared straight ahead at the seat back in front of him. “You’re an actor, aren’t you?” the man said. “I am,” they said. “I’ve acted, yeah.” “Theater?” “Yup.” “Film?” “Mhm.” “Television?” “All of the above,” Jesse said. The man nodded. “Let’s see,” he said, rubbing his chin. “You started on the stage young. You were the lead in all your high school productions. Everyone you knew was always saying, ‘Remember me when you’re famous.’ You went to college for acting. A conservatory. Thrived there. You did New York for a while, but it wasn’t what you thought it would be, so you decided to give LA a shot because if you’re going to struggle you might as well do it in the sunshine. But now you’re discovering that sunshine only goes so far and you’re wondering what your next move will be.” “I’m sorry, have we met before?” Jesse said. “No,” the man said, taking a sip of wine out of his plastic cup. “But I do know you.” Jesse perked up. “Really? Have you seen—” “I know you because I am you. Or rather, I was you, ten years ago . . .” “Oh.” “A listless actor, technically still young enough but not getting any younger, drifting around, hoping a dream role would fall out of the sky into my lap—” “Please don’t say fall out of the sky when we’re on a plane.” “Pardon me. Hoping that a dream role would . . . float down like a feather

and land on my lap, and all my problems would be solved like that.” The man snapped. “But the years started to pass, and I kept looking up at the sky, waiting for that dream role to come down, but all I saw was clouds. Dark ones.” “So what’d you do?” “I asked myself the questions you’re starting to ask now: How do I continue in the life I’ve chosen? How many more years of this do I have in me? How am I going to make a living? Where does acting fit in? Do I even still like it? Or is it just something I’ve done so long that I don’t know how to do anything else?” “And what did you land on?” “It was hard for a while. A lot of doubt, a lot of wanting to quit. But then it came to me. An epiphany, like a gift from the gods.” “And what was that?” “Teaching,” the man said with a self-satisfied tilt of the head. “Acting classes for kids. Performance-based daycare.” “Daycare.” “At the time, I was making my rent babysitting for this wealthy couple in the hills. To keep the kids occupied, I used to do these little movement exercises and improv games with them—anything to wear them out enough that they’d fall asleep early and I’d get paid to relax. Well, when the parents caught wind, they flipped. It turned out that they, like every other set of parents in LA with disposable income, viewed their kids as future movie stars. And when they offered me double what I was making just to incorporate an hour of acting classes into my usual babysitting, I thought—maybe there’s something here. I started advertising a little bit, hanging up flyers, talking to parents at grocery stores, and it just snowballed. I went from going to people’s houses for individual lessons to renting out a studio to opening my own studio. Now I have three locations, and I’m getting ready to expand to a fourth.” “That’s great.” “It is, but it’s hard to keep up with the demand. That’s why I’m looking to hire people like you—friendly, personable, conservatory-trained—to come

work for me.” “Teaching kids?” “Inspiring the next generation.” “That’s very kind of you,” Jesse said, “but I’m not a teacher. I’m an actor.” “You’d get to act. All day long. In front of the most rapt, enthusiastic audience imaginable.” “At a daycare.” “I know how it sounds, and if I was your age I would have said the same thing. But it’s a good gig. Benefits, competitive pay, steady hours. And it can be a lot of fun. Very fulfilling.” “I—” “You don’t have to answer right now. Go do whatever you need to in New York—what is it? Family? Friends? A funeral?” “Yeah, how’d you—” “My deepest condolences. But please, take my card, and when you’re back on the West Coast, we can set something up.” The man pulled a business card out of his wallet and handed it to Jesse. “Who knows? This might be exactly what you need.”

The plane landed at JFK just as the sun was beginning to rise. The acting teacher got off the plane before Jesse and disappeared into the crowd. Jesse stayed behind for a moment by the gate. They reached into their pocket and pulled out the business card. They looked it over, flipping it between their fingers. Contact information on one side, an etched illustration of the drama masks on the other. Jesse looked up one more time for the acting teacher, then folded the business card in half between the two masks. They threw it away in the first garbage can they found. Olya was out of control. Screaming, kicking, flailing. Doughy little hands

clenched into tight fists. Upset because she needed to nurse, refusing to nurse because she was upset. Two diaper changes already. All before five in the morning. Stop it. Stop it, please, Abby whispered. Just eat. You need to eat. Olya continued to flail. Abby rubbed the pad of her index finger up and down Olya’s nose and forced a nipple against her mouth. Olya pulled her head away and let out a screech, triggering a deep, masculine groan from the bedroom. Abby’s eyes shot to the door. She listened. A creaking bed, footsteps, a doorknob. Viktors emerged. He wore a gray hoodie, gray sweats, and white socks. Imprints from his pillowcase branched from the bulging veins of his forehead to his cheek. His eyes were thin canoes, crusted at the edges. What’s the problem? Viktors said, his northeastern European accent more prominent in his groggy state of half sleep. No problem, Abby said, producing a smile. She just doesn’t want to nurse. Viktors grunted. Give her here. Abby handed Olya to Viktors. He took the child and bounced her, whispering to her in Latvian. She stopped crying. Now try, Viktors said, handing Olya back to Abby. Abby offered Olya a nipple again. Olya latched and began to nurse. See, easy, Viktors said. I’m going back to bed now. Wait, Abby said. Viktors stopped and looked back at her. I might be gone by the time you get back, Abby said. So I’ll pump and put a few bottles in the fridge. “Gone? Where are you going?” “Poughkeepsie.” “What’s a po-kippie?” “Poughkeepsie. It’s upstate. Not that far upstate. I’m going to—sorry. Chloe, my college friend, her funeral is today.”

“You never told me this.” “I did. I told you my friend—” “You told me your friend passed away, which is very sad and I’m very sorry, but you never said anything about going upstate.” “I thought I did.” “Do you know what time you’ll be home? I have a lot of work to do, and I can’t watch Olya that whole time.” “I don’t know exactly.” “Not too late, please.” “There might be people I haven’t seen in a long time.” Viktors scratched his side. “But, yeah, I won’t stay late.” He walked back to the bedroom. Olya unlatched and let out a cry. To: garyb@venturamanagement.com From: dperez93@gmail.com Subject: ATTN: Gary – Pilot: The Sharpest Edge Dear Gary, My name is Dante Pérez. I am a Brooklyn-based screenwriter seeking representation. I’ve written a mystery/thriller pilot that, based on your previous clients, I believ would be a good fit for your roster. Title: The Sharpest Edge Logline: A hard-drinking detective comes out of retirement when a serial killer he let slip out of his grasp 30 years ago starts killing again. Paired with a naive rookie, the detective goes down a dark rabbit hole in his search for the killer. Comp titles: Se7en meets Criminal Minds If you’re interested, I’d be happy to send the script your way. Best,

Dante Pérez “I feel really good about this,” Dante said, proofreading for typos. “I listened to a podcast with this manager, and I catered my script to fit just what he’s looking for, so he has to like it.” “I feel like everyone we know is having kids,” Mariella said from across the kitchen table, her eyes down on her phone. “I couldn’t find his email address anywhere, but I was able to find one of the other managers’ emails. Someone who works at his company. And then, using the formula, I figured his out.” “Kelly from work just had a little boy . . .” “What do you think sounds better? A serial killer he let get away or a serial killer he let slip out of his grasp?” “Sam and Katie did their gender reveal a couple weeks ago . . .” “Get away is cleaner language, but slip out of his grasp is more dramatic.” “Sofia announced that she’s having twins next month . . .” “Are you listening?” Dante said. “Huh?” Mariella said. “This is important. I’m talking about my—I’m trying to decide about my submission.” “Sorry, say it again.” “Do you like get away or slip out of his grasp better?” “I don’t think it makes a difference.” “Of course it does. What do you—this is the pitch for the whole show.” “Then get away. Did you see Thomas’s post?” Dante switched slip out of his grasp to get away. “Who?” he said. “Thomas. From my pottery class.” “Oh, right. Thomas. His girlfriend’s the one who works at HBO.” Dante stood up, went to his closet, and began flipping through his clothing. “I tried to network with her after we met at his party, but I never heard back. Her loss,

though, honestly.” “No, no, this is a different girl. A new one. They met, dated for six months, got married, and now they have a kid.” “Six months?” Mariella shrugged. “He knows what he wants.” Dante tied a tie around his neck. “How old is he?” “Thirty-four.” “I guess that makes sense.” “Why do you say that?” “People move faster with that stuff when they’re older.” “He’s not that much older than us, amor.” “You know, I think I like slip out of his grasp better. Do you really like get away more?” “I like what you like,” Mariella said, looking back down at her phone to scroll through more baby photos. Dante pulled a black blazer out of his closet and slung it over his shoulders. “Okay, well, I gotta go.” He kissed Mariella on the head. “You’ll be around tonight?” “I don’t know.” “Let me know. I love you.” “Love you too.” Dante walked out to the door, then stopped and came back into the apartment. He opened his laptop and changed get away to slip out of his grasp. Zachary Downing is on the ground again. His head is throbbing, his neck stiff. His nose is clogged and his unbrushed teeth are thick with tartar. He reaches out and pats the hardwood floor until his fingers find the flimsy corner of a pack of cigarettes. Retrieving a cigarette, he places it between his chapped lips and strikes a match. The cigarette cherries. On his back, with the ash fluttering down onto his sleeveless undershirt, Zach smokes the cigarette down to

the filter. When his eyes are focused, Zach clambers across the floor and pulls himself up using his desk chair for support. After a swig of lukewarm beer from an open can, he checks the time on his phone. He drops the can to the ground, runs to his closet, and digs out his suit, then scratches at a stain on the suit pants with the nail of his index finger. The stain mostly comes out, but leaves behind a ghostly residue. In the bathroom, Zach steadies himself against the sink while he unleashes a stream of dark urine into the bowl. He brushes his teeth and runs a comb through his hair. As Zach steps outside, a thousand spears of sunlight stab his eyes. He pulls down his aviator sunglasses (the same ones Marlon Brando wore in The Wild One) and cowers like Adam from God. Hangovers, Zach is used to, but this, having to be outside in broad daylight, was not in the character description. He runs down the sidewalk, hops a turnstile, and goes up the stairs to the elevated train platform. While he waits, he glances down at the gold Rolex watch on his wrist. The time is off by at least four hours, and the date wheel is stuck halfway between the twenty-ninth and 30th. Zach gives the watch a shake, but the frozen second hand does not move—disappointing, but unsurprising for a cheap knockoff he’d bought from a stranger on the street. It had been almost five years since he’d picked up the faulty timepiece as research for a role. At the time, Zach was two years out of college and active on the New York theater scene. He’d met a playwright at a small theater festival who said he’d written a play called The Bull and the Bear and that Zach should audition for the lead. The writer sent the script to Zach, who promptly devoured it. The story was that of Bill Keery, a young, misanthropic hedge fund manager who, after the death of his mother, embarks upon a twisted odyssey of sex and despair with an aspiring painter named Emma. The dialogue was realistic and sharp, the tone gritty and nihilistic. The script was everything that had drawn Zach to acting in the first place, and he had to have the part.

For two full weeks before the audition, Zach introduced himself as Bill and responded only to Bill. He got an expensive haircut because that’s what Bill would have done, bought the gold knockoff Rolex Datejust because that’s the model Bill would have worn, and cut off all communication with his mother, because Bill’s mother was dead. One night, he snuck into the Goldman Sachs building in lower Manhattan and spent two hours sitting at an actual hedge fund manager’s desk, going through spreadsheets and familiarizing himself with the Bloomberg Terminal. On the weekend, he went to a rooftop lounge on Fifth Avenue. He ordered bottle service as Bill, snorted healthy lines of cocaine through a one-hundred-dollar bill as Bill, and later that night, when he penetrated a PR intern in a bathroom stall, she called out, “Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill!” Everything was Bill, Bill, Bill all the time, and when the audition arrived, Zach was ready. “Name?” the casting director said. “Bill Keery,” Zach said, giving his Rolex a polish and checking the time like he had somewhere better to be. He was offered the part on the spot. The first two weeks of rehearsal, which focused on the section of the story where Bill met Emma and the two fell in love, were a delight. Zach and his costar, Rebecca, had electric chemistry, which extended outside of rehearsals into drinks and dinners, and even one late-night tryst. But in the third week of rehearsal, when they reached the part of the story where Bill’s mother died, Zach grew moody and irritable, with the brunt of his rage directed at Rebecca. Zach insulted her, demeaned her, pecked at her flaws. At one rehearsal, during an argument scene, Zach grabbed Rebecca and shook her violently. The moment was not in the script, and the next morning, when Zach arrived at the studio, the playwright pulled him aside and informed him the production would be moving forward without him. The Bull and The Bear, without Zach, was an instant success. It received top reviews and leaped to sold-out shows at the Public Theater, then to Broad-

way, bringing its two lead actors with it. Meanwhile, Zach spent the next few years desperately searching for new roles. It took a while, but he did find them. Without a theater or an audience, he played an unemployed actor, a manic depressive, a medicated manic depressive, an off-his-meds manic depressive, a disappointment, a self-loathing curmudgeon, and a failure, all of which led to his current role: a hungover travesty with a broken watch showing up late to his friend’s funeral. The scene: MOURNERS gathered around an open grave. Among them are Jesse, Dante, and Abby, as well as Sandra, Rob, and Antoine St. Claire. A PRIEST delivers a sermon. PRIEST. But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed. It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the— A cough off-stage. ZACH enters, stumbling in. Everybody looks at him. ZACH. Sorry. The priest continues his sermon. Zach walks over to Dante and Jesse. ZACH. (Whispers, loudly) Long time no see. JESSE. Shh. ZACH. Dante, how’s it going? DANTE. Shhhh. ZACH. Nice to see you too. Jesus Christ. The priest pauses and looks up at Zach before continuing his sermon. Zach takes out a cigarette and lights it. DANTE. What are you doing?

ZACH. What? DANTE. You can’t smoke here. ZACH. Why not? DANTE. You know why. ZACH. We’re outside. DANTE. We’re at a funeral. ZACH. Chloe would have wanted me to smoke. ANTOINE ST. CLAIRE. Would you shut the fuck up? ZACH. (Takes a drag of his cigarette) Sorry. End Scene. “So you never see her out in LA?” “Not really,” Jesse said. “We were supposed to hang out a while ago, but she canceled. Twice.” “Figures.” “I think she’s just really busy.” Dante sipped his drink and leaned against the bar. “Or she just thinks she’s too good for us now. I mean, she didn’t even show up today, and she and Chloe were roommates.” “But did you see the flower arrangement she sent? That thing was huge.” “Whatever. She gets enough attention from the rest of the world. We don’t need to talk about her too. How’s your family? How’s everyone doing?” “They’re fine. Mom’s in Pennsylvania selling houses and living with her new husband. Nora’s in Chicago practicing at some big firm—” “Practicing what?” “Law.” “Nora’s a lawyer?” “Mhm.” “Like Norrie Nora. Like that annoying kid that used to follow us around all the time when we were in middle school. She’s a lawyer now?”

“Yup.” “Does she do entertainment law?” “Corporate.” “Bummer. I bet she makes good money, though.” “I haven’t asked.” Dante shook his head. “Little Norrie’s a lawyer . . . And what about your dad? What’s he up to?” “Frank’s in Newark . . . being Frank.” Dante pictured Jesse’s father. The wild mane of ink-black waist-length hair, the faded tattoos of dragons and naked women up and down his arms, the leather vest with metal spikes on the shoulders and a Judas Priest patch on the back. “He still trying to do the whole rock star thing?” Dante said. The bartender placed a fresh round of drinks on the bar. Jesse grabbed theirs, then sighed and took a big swig. “He doesn’t know how to do anything else.” “It’s a shame the family chose to do a closed-casket funeral,” PJ was saying on the other side of the pub. “It would have been nice to see Chloe’s face one last time.” “I don’t think they chose to do a closed casket, PJ,” Zach said. Abby’s phone vibrated. She checked it under the booth. A message from Viktors: What time will you be home? Getting late. Abby typed: Went to a bar with friends after the ceremony, catching up. PJ rubbed at the condensation on the side of his beer glass. “I just can’t understand why she’d do it.” “She was 30 years old, working in the service industry, with no real life or career prospects,” Zach said. “It’s not that far-fetched.” “But aren’t you about to be 30, working in the service industry with no real, uh, um—” “Indeed I am,” Zach said. “I’ll be 30 in exactly 30 days, and you can bet

your ass between now and then not an hour will go by when I don’t think about a way out of all this shit.” Abby deleted her response to Viktors and typed a new one: Ceremony ran long, heading out now. “You don’t mean that,” PJ said. “I certainly do. Now if I was in Sierra’s position . . .” “Don’t tell me you’re talking about her too,” Dante said. He’d just walked over with Jesse, crossing paths with Chloe’s brother, Antoine, as he left the bar. “I’m so tired of hearing about her.” “I’m not talking about her,” Zach said. “I just brought her up to illustrate the point that if you’re successful and things are going your way, then good for you, live your life. But if you aren’t, and you don’t see things getting better, then there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Chloe-ing yourself.” “Jesus, Zach,” Jesse said, sliding into the booth next to Abby. “She’s only been in the ground a few hours.” “Yes, and I’m honoring her legacy by saying that the choice she made was justified. I mean, we’ve all thought about it at least once, haven’t we?” “I’m not entertaining this conversation right now,” Jesse said. “Dante, you’re a writer. I know you fucking think about it.” “Could we please change the subject?” PJ said, shuffling in his seat. Zach smirked. “Sure, PJ, what would you prefer to talk about?” “I don’t know. How about, uh . . . what’s everyone working on?” The table went quiet. Abby looked up from her phone. Jesse set their drink down. Dante broke the silence. “Well, what are you working on, PJ?” “I did a commercial recently.” “Wow, congrats,” Abby said. “What was it for?” “A pharmaceutical company. It wasn’t a big thing, but it was a step for me. You wanna see my line?” PJ stood on his chair. He cleared his throat and placed his hands on his bottom. “Itching, burning. My hemorrhoids are out of control.

I can’t take it anymore!” Patrons around the bar turned and looked at PJ. “Bravo.” Zach cackled. “Now take a seat, hemorrhoid boy.” “And I can take a seat, thanks to ProctAID—the third most trusted name in hemorrhoid relief.” PJ took a bow. “What about you guys? Jesse, how’s LA?” “The wildfires aren’t nearly as bad this year.” “Any good projects?” “My agent’s working on some things.” “That’s good. What about you, Dante?” “I have a pilot I’m shopping around.” “You aren’t writing for the stage anymore?” “Since the pandemic, there’s a much bigger market for television, so I’m trying to ride that wave. It’s a cop thriller.” “Different,” PJ said. “Your work was always so character-driven.” “Character-driven doesn’t sell. But my cop show is basically guaranteed to take off. I really followed the formula.” Dante picked at the peeling corner of the label on his beer bottle. “Abby, what about you? Working on any new pieces?” Abby fidgeted with her phone. “I’m a mother, so the only thing I’m working on is raising a human being.” “Oh, yes.” “Of course.” “The most important work of all.” Zach pounded his fist on the table. “Well, the only thing I’m working on is finishing this fucking drink.” He raised his glass. “To Chloe!” he said, then tilted his head back and chugged. When he finished the beer, he slammed the empty glass on the table and stormed out of the bar. “Glad to see he’s chipper as ever,” Jesse said. “Everyone reacts to grief differently,” PJ said. Abby looked down at her phone again. She deleted her previous message and typed: On my way. Train is super delayed. Sorry!

The door slams behind Zach as he stumbles out of the bar. He leans against a brick wall and fishes a bent cigarette out of his pocket. He slips it between his lips and takes out a box of matches. “What’s everyone working on?” he mocks, striking a match against the box then throwing it to the ground when it fails to light. He strikes another match and the head flares, throwing a dusky orange cast on his stubbled chin. “Fucking obscene,” he mumbles, the cigarette bouncing between his lips as he lights it. He shakes out the match then spits onto the pavement. For a while Zach just smokes. Smokes and thinks of Chloe. It’s been months since he’d seen her last. She’d stopped by the bar one night during his shift. Had a drink. Was feeling down on herself. Discouraged. Frustrated with how her auditions had been going, how she felt like she was losing out on parts because she didn’t have the ri33ght “face.” He’d reminded her that casting was an unpredictable process. Fickle. Told her she was talented and should keep going and that if she needed a scene partner for self-tapes she should call him. Weeks went by without any contact, and when she finally did call, Zach had slept right through it. Somewhere in the distance a train horn blares. Zach takes the last drag on his cigarette, then flicks the butt to the ground, sending a cluster of sparks skipping across the pavement. A cold wind blows. A chill runs through Zach’s body. And he feels, suddenly, that he is being watched. The street is dark and painted with shadows. A candy wrapper blows around on the sidewalk. A swing sways back and forth, hinge squeaking on a vacant playground. Zach scans the dim windows of the parked cars, looks into the shady alleys between brick buildings. Soon, his eyes land on a distant streetlamp. Beneath it, a tall, slim figure stands unmoving, silhouetted in a pool of yellow light. Zach shivers. He is one step from the comfort of the bar, but the figure’s posture and stance are laced with menace. Zach’s limbs stiffen. A standoff ensues. The figure stares. Zach stares. The figure stares back.

When the figure steps forward, Zach recoils and lunges for the door. Before he can grab the handle, the door swings open on its own. Dante steps out, drink in hand. “You okay?” Dante asks, looking at Zach’s face. “I’m—yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Zach says. “You look upset.” “I’m just cold. It’s cold out.” “Well, I wanted to let you know that there’s a train back to the city soon. If you want to close out your tab.” “Yeah . . . yeah, I’ll be right in.” Dante goes inside. Zach stays behind. He turns his head slowly back toward the base of the streetlamp, but the street is empty and the figure is gone. The cold lingers for a few seconds then drifts away as fast as it came.

Claire Maple sat in the dark, watching herself in the broad mirror behind the bar, and felt a triple threat. The woman in the booth. The man to her right. Booze all around her like a sweet summer haze. Any one of them could spark the night into danger, especially with Claire’s proclivity for friction. She was forty-eight and bore the marks of every rough year. Half her skin was inked, most pretty poorly. She had innumerable scars, inside and out. Her mid-length hair was dark with streaks of gray, though not as much gray as someone might expect from a woman who had weathered decades of storms. She favored jeans and tees, like an old-school hesher, having forged her aesthetic in the heavy-metal ’80s. Despite her wear and tear, she was vigorously fit. She exercised. She ate more quality than crap. But the dark half-moons beneath her eyes were a warning. It wasn’t hard to see herself in twenty more years as a jumble of bones and tough, smoked meat, barely held together with tattooed leather. If her body were a bar, it would look like Blotto’s. Claire scanned the room. What a great fucking dive. A working-class establishment. Long, narrow, dim. Open nine to five . . . p.m. to a.m. The “front” door was an emergency exit that opened to a back alley. The bar was on one side, booths on the other. There wasn’t a single square foot, including on the ceiling, that hadn’t been graffitied or hideously stained. The house beer was Blatz. They always had coffee. The rearmost wall had a pay phone, a cigarette machine, and a Rock-Ola jukebox. Almost no one checked their cell. There was no TV. People came to drink. Maybe talk. Maybe fight. The bartender/owner was a dude named Otto. Back in the day, he’d been the bassist in a hard-rock band called Luciforce that never made it big but briefly toured with Motörhead. He used to drink with Lemmy after every gig.

Lemmy nicknamed him Blotto. That impressed Claire a lot. The only other employee was a gargantuan woman who helped behind the bar, hauled kegs, and bounced bad patrons. The woman’s name was Agatha. People called her Ags. Claire had frequented Blotto’s ever since she drifted into the minor Northeast city of Woodscrew. For better or worse, the bar was exactly what she wanted. A place where she could sit with a predatory hunch, drink hot coffee, and scrutinize the shadows. Tonight, she kept her focus on the woman in the booth, ten feet behind her left shoulder. Claire had watched her in the mirror for the last quarter hour. She was a twentysomething with curly blond hair and thick penciled eyebrows. Short and underfed. Seriously drunk. She had the kind of fresh face that would curdle in a year when all her bad habits finally caught up. The woman scraped a section of the table with her fingernail. A small puff of smoke floated off the surface. She was etching in the wood. Generating heat. Claire wasn’t quite ready to deal with that yet. Her energy was dull and her spring felt jammed, like a switchblade nobody had oiled in a while. Another cup of joe would do the trick, she decided. In the not-so-distant past, she’d have opted for whiskey, firing up her guts with a few quick shots. She hadn’t drunk in years, and almost liked the fucking wagon, but tonight she felt the urge fermenting in her cells with the color and nostalgia of a sunshine buzz. She visualized the last time she’d crashed from a bender. A suicidal kiss. A windowpane exploding. The memory of shivering and sweating in a jail caused her, for the moment, to cling to her coffee and activate a better string of lights in her brain. Then the man to her right, threat number three, closed the gap between them and took the stool beside her. She’d sensed his “subtle” glances for fifteen minutes. He was mid-thirties. Black. Physically imposing but somewhat doughy. The logo on his shirt was an arm with a plunger. He smelled like cologne and day-old sweat, as if he’d freshened up quick after cleaning gunked

pipes. “I’m Reggie,” he said. “I’ve seen you here before.” Claire kept her eyes on the woman through the mirror. “I’m a regular,” he said. “Actually, I live here. My apartment’s the entire third floor. So this is basically my home. Casa del Reggie.” When Claire didn’t answer, Reggie kept going: “I’m a plumber for a local outfit. It isn’t glamorous, but hey, it’s steady cash. People always need a plumber but disrespect the job. They act like it’s dummy work. Gripe at the expense. They hate needing me to fix a system they rely on.” The woman in the booth caught Claire looking. It felt as if the mirror might crack from their connection. “What do you do?” Reggie asked. “Independent means,” Claire said. “You don’t look rich. No offense.” “I didn’t say rich. I said independent.” “How’d you swing that?” “Blood money.” “Ha. So drinks are on you?” “Nope,” Claire said. “I’m fucking with you.” Reggie laughed. “Drinks are on me.” He summoned Otto with a wave—Let’s get this party started—and ordered two tequilas without asking Claire. Otto knew better. He poured one shot, slid the glass to Reggie, and tipped a glass pot over Claire’s mug. “Coffee?” Reggie said. “What’re you doing in a bar?” “Nothing,” Claire said. “Which I’d rather do alone.” He knocked back his shot and smacked the glass down. “Naw,” Reggie said. “You came here for something. Probably a reason you barely understand. You want to know why? You’re programmed to be here. You think I mean society, the media, whatever. But that’s just the surface. It’s so much deeper. You’re following a script everybody follows. But I’m not afraid to act out of character. I figured out the secret. We’re literally

coded.” She pivoted her stool and finally turned to face him. “Are you using the word literally literally?” “We’re all ones and zeros.” “Huh,” Claire said. “Where we work, who we screw . . . even what we think. The choices in our lives are out of our control. But there are little ways to break the code. Especially together. It’s the only way to really be alive,” Reggie said. In her periphery, Claire sensed the woman in the booth. She was eavesdropping, watching them intently from the dark. “You don’t believe me,” Reggie said. “You think you’re in control. So tell me why you don’t want to talk to me tonight. You seeing someone?” “No.” “You not into Black guys?” “No.” “You not into guys?” “I’m an omnivore.” “Then why?” he said. “You can’t call it choice if you don’t have a reason.” “Maybe,” Claire said, “I don’t like you.” Reggie looked flash-burnt. He did a bad job of hiding his emotion with a sharp half smile that was closer to a grimace. “Fine,” Reggie said. “You want to be alone. But first I’m going to buy you one real drink.” He summoned Otto back and took Claire’s mug, as if deciding it was time to cut her off from coffee. She faced him from her stool, near enough to smell him. As much as he repelled her, she was shamefully attracted to the lingering aroma of tequila on his breath. When Otto came over, Claire said, “Fuck it. Reggie here is buying me a whiskey.” Otto frowned without frowning. He knew she was sober. On the other hand, Otto used to raise hell with Lemmy, and he rarely interfered when

anyone was drinking. “Make it a double,” Reggie told him. “Make it a pint,” Claire said. “Of whiskey?” Otto asked. “That’s over ten shots.” Claire looked at Reggie. He was dumb with incredulity. “You’re buying, right?” “Yeah,” he said. “Put it on my tab.” Otto poured Reggie’s shot and filled a pint glass for Claire, just about emptying a half-full bottle. The bar had gotten crowded with night-owl drinkers, and quite a few people noticed what was happening. A group of five, wearing mechanic’s coveralls, formed a semicircle to watch. Claire and Reggie clinked glasses. Reggie did his shot. The whiskey fumes alone gave Claire a wild rush. She raised up the pint, pausing for a toast. The booth woman stared. Reggie did, too. “To freedom,” Claire said, “and its dangerous mistakes.” Then she hopped off her stool and gave the pint to the mechanics. “Compliments of Reggie. Enjoy yourselves, fellas.” “Yo,” Reggie said. “I bought that for you.” “Mine to share,” Claire said to a raucous cheer of laughter. He stood and grabbed her elbow, hard enough to hurt, and the two of them exchanged razors from their eyes. “You know what you are?” Reggie said. “You’re a sim. A fucking drone. You’re a copy of a copy of a self-driving car.” “I thought you were going to say bitch, but okay. Now let me go before you self-drive to the hospital.” When he didn’t ease off, one of the mechanics moved to intervene. “Wait,” Claire said. “Know what rhymes with Reggie?” She reached behind him, got a grip, and shocked him with a wedgie. He

dropped her elbow and twisted at the waist to get her hand, but once he spun away from her, she really got leverage. Pulling the elastic. Ripping up cotton. A foot of tighty-whities stretched up his back until he finally lost balance and crashed against the bar. She let him go and stepped away. Ags, the giant bouncer, came to throw him out. She took him by the arm and said, “Come on, Wedgie Reggie,” and the crowd went nuts, hollering and laughing. “What about her?!” he said. Ags was undeterred. She dragged him to the door, like a teacher with a brat, and shoved him outside with the alleyway trash. He’d been bounced from his home . . . and the nickname would stick. Tough, Claire thought. That was all his choice. Her heart rate bounded and her nerves felt hot. Now, more than earlier, she ached for a drink. Whiskey from the pint had sloshed onto her hand, and she fought a strong urge to lick it off her skin. But there was still another threat that needed her attention.

Claire approached the booth with the drunk woman she’d been watching in the mirror. The woman had a bloodshot eye and a fresh bruise on her right cheek. Empty pints and shot glasses littered the table. Another pint in her hand was half full. The woman’s other hand lingered near a symbol she had carved into the lacquered wood. Claire recognized the symbol and touched it reverently with her fingertips. Three letters, ornately designed and expertly rendered: DIO The logo of Ronnie James Dio, Claire’s favorite singer, who popularized the rock horns in the glory years of heavy metal. She’d worn out his cassettes in her middle-school Walkman and drawn the same logo innumerable times. “Righteous,” Claire said. “You know he based the rock horns on his little Italian grandma’s corna gesture? She used it to ward off evil.”

The woman’s hair hung in her face, but one clear eye gave Claire a malevolent glare. “I don’t meet a lot of young Dio fans,” Claire said. “But you’re older than you look.” The woman tensed so hard her forearms flexed. Claire took a seat on the opposite bench. “Don’t,” the woman said. Her voice was oily gravel. “What are you doing here tonight, all creepy and alone?” “Get lost. I mean it.” “That guy at the bar,” Claire said. “The one I wedgied out the door? He’d say you’re programmed to be here. I disagree. I think you’re here on purpose, even if your purpose sucks.” The woman raked her hair to the side and faced Claire boldly. A whiff of scorched wood moved across the table. “I know, I know,” Claire said. “I made a scene because an obnoxious stranger wouldn’t take a hint and beat it. And now I’m acting just like him, sitting here with you. Fair enough. I’m a hypocrite. But you’re something, too.” “What’s that?” she said. “A demon.” The woman’s face retracted, as if the skin around her skull had tightened in surprise. She appeared extra keen and quickly dead sober. She also looked intrigued, like a cat with a bug. “You can drop the innocent-human routine,” Claire said. “I’m not demon police. But I do have something in common with longtime cops. They have sharp eyes. They can spot an addict, clock a dealer, and tell who’s carrying a gun inside their jacket. As for me, I’m not infallible, but put me in a crowded bar and I usually know who’s making bad choices on their own . . . and who’s being steered.” The woman clenched her pint’s thin glass and said, “How?” “Instinct. Experience. Subtle clues and tells. Although, I’ve got to say . . . tonight? Your burning claw was hard to miss.”

The woman laid her left hand on the table. Her index fingernail was long, black, and twisted, like a talon that had terribly distorted from disease. She gave Claire a coy but sinister grin. “Let’s start again. Hey. I’m Claire.” She offered a handshake and the demon accepted, leaving a small, burning scratch on Claire’s inner wrist. “Your name means bright and clear,” the demon said. “Like Lucifer.” “Don’t worry. I’m not the boss checking up on you.” “I know. He never does.” “What’s your name?” “Nyx. With a y.” “What does that mean?” “Sleep and death and dark,” Nyx said. “From the goddess of the night.” “Don’t tell me you’re an ancient force that inspired Greek mythology.” “Nothing that awesome.” “So you’re just a run-of-the-mill demon with a bitchin’ name,” Claire said. “You’re female?” “I’ve been in every kind of body,” Nyx said. “But in my gut, so to speak, I’ve always felt male.” “And tonight you’re in this body. Who is she?” “No one special.” Claire gestured to the woman’s bloodshot eye and bruised cheek. “Her shiner looks fresh.” “It is. It hurts.” “Is that how you got her? She was fighting with a lover or something?” “Boyfriend,” Nyx said. “A real barn burner. People in distress always think they have their guard up. But she was so emotional and open, I poured right in like gas through a funnel.” “Why’d you possess her?” Claire asked. “You’re the demon expert. Why do you think we do it?”

“I’m asking about you. What do you want with a drunk, beaten-up body on a Thursday night?” “You know how it is, slumming in a bar. When the night gets late enough, you take what’s available. What are you doing here?” “We’ll get to that,” she said. “First, I want to hear your real voice. Not a shit-faced millennial’s hijacked larynx.” Nyx straightened up, lengthening the woman’s neck and slowly breathing in. “O foolish people,” Nyx said. “They have ears and hear not.” His voice was dark and luscious. A male baritone. The bedroom voice of someone in control. Its strangest quality was the psychological uncanniness of seeing the mouth move and knowing someone else was speaking. But it was more than simply hearing a man’s voice coming from a younger woman’s head. Claire felt, as she had with countless other demons, as if she were having an internal dialogue in which a stranger’s voice was genuinely answering her thoughts. “Your turn,” he said. “What do you want with me?” “Why would anyone talk to a demon? Personal gain.” “Ah. So what’s it going to be? You want me to hurt your enemies? Impart secret knowledge? Or are you going to whip out a cross and shout at me in Latin?” “I want to talk.” “That’s it?” “I’m slumming in a bar and taking what’s available.” He paused as if considering a risky temptation. “I don’t get to do this very often,” Nyx said. “What?” “Talk with someone who believes in demons . . . and doesn’t treat me like a genie or a mushroom trip.” “Well, you’re in luck,” Claire said. “I believe in you, and I’m not asking for anything. We can talk like ordinary strangers in the night.”

She felt the blinding effect of being glared at directly. The more she stared back, the less she could see him, as if the two of them were dueling with sunstruck mirrors. Why was eye contact always such a harrowing experience? Every time, it felt like a trick or a test. Not to mention she was looking at a face that wasn’t his; it felt like all the times she saw her own reflection and couldn’t help thinking: Who the hell is that? “How old are you?” she asked. “About fifty,” Nyx said. “Me, too. How were you born?” “I don’t know.” “No sulfurous stork rising from the depths? No pair of elder devils conjuring their spawn?” “My earliest memories are from the seventies,” he said. “Just impre sions, really. Like a carousel projector of random old slides. I can’t even tell how much of it was real. Everything I know gets carried body to body, so it feels more elusive than knowledge in a brain.” “Who taught you how to live and be a good little demon?” “Myself. Trial and error. Questionable peers.” “Same with me,” Claire said. “What about your parents?” “I can’t tell if I’ve spent half a century unlearning everything they taught me, or becoming more and more like them.” “Do you still talk to them?” “They died when I was young.” “But do you still talk to them?” “Yeah. I guess I do.” “Look at us,” Nyx said. “A pair of plucky orphans, making our way in the world. Tell me something important you learned when you were young.” “You first,” Claire said. “A big life lesson from a questionable peer.” “All right,” Nyx said. “I’ll tell you about V.” “Have you ever heard what limbo is like? My time without a body is

disorienting . . . dark. I’m helpless, and hazy, and almost nonexistent. All I can do is feel around, searching for an opening into the physical world. A vulnerable person. Someone on the verge of losing who they are. And when I do possess a body, it’s like breathing after drowning. It’s the only way I ever feel solidly alive. But possession’s always temporary. Most people reassert their personality after a while. It’s hard to hold on before I fall back to limbo. Stealing slices of life is all I’ve ever known. “One summer, I wound up in Wildwood, New Jersey. I was ten years old, give or take. I’d spent a decade, my whole childhood, drifting through limbo and temporary bodies. But then I met another demon who lurked around the beach. He was older, maybe twenty, and his name was unpronounceable. I’ll call him V. “We were both lost in limbo, feeling our way around, and kept finding people to possess in the same spots at the same time. Like a pair of drunks meeting in the same hard bars. V and I spent the season together on the boardwalk, surrounded by tourists . . . people out of their comfort zone. Vulnerable. Loose. We looked for easy marks. Planned where to meet. Talked and shared stories in the bodies we possessed. “Back then, my possessions lasted an hour or two at most. I’d find myself adrift and hope to get lucky, seeping into bodies like water into a sponge. But V was streetwise and skilled. He took me under his shadowy wing and taught me new tricks. He showed me how to read people’s weaknesses, use their strengths against them, gain more control. V could make possessions last entire nights. And he could do it on purpose by riding their emotions. Kind of like a surfer following a wave. “But even for V, the waves always broke. He got madder and madder that he didn’t have a body of his own, and he started acting cold and secretive around me. I was still so young, I didn’t know what to do. He was the only friend I’d ever had. I didn’t want to lose him. “One night, late in the summer, he told me he’d been visiting a fortune teller on the boardwalk. He’d met her in the body of a tourist he’d possessed...

and the teller had immediately known he was a demon. She claimed to know secrets about his existence. Our existence. I wanted to meet her, too, but V wouldn’t let me. He said he didn’t trust her yet. He had to go alone. The most I could do was watch them from a distance when he went into the shop and talked to her in private. “And then he went missing for three days and nights. I felt around limbo, searched the beach, and possessed tourists to visit the fortune teller’s shop. But the shop was always closed. There was no trace of V. “On the fourth day, I was in the body of a local junkie when I spotted the fortune teller weaving through the boardwalk crowd. I chased her in a panic. If she took off forever, I might never find V or know what had happened. I caught her by the arm and spun her around to face me. “She said, ‘Oh . . . it’s you.’ “And I knew right away it was V inside her body. I was so relieved, I hugged him. But he didn’t hug back and seemed repulsed that I’d touched him. He said he’d permanently claimed the fortune teller’s body. I was thrilled and surprised and totally amazed, peppering him with questions and thinking this was it: My whole life would change when he let me know how. “My possession of the junkie was wearing off fast. V started walking and I fought to keep up, worried I would lose him if I slipped back to limbo. I begged him for answers. He didn’t say much. Only that the fortune teller had allowed the possession. She’d had some ability to channel V inside her. But he wouldn’t say how he’d convinced her to surrender, or how I might find my own willing host. “I got so frantic the junkie forced me out. The boardwalk vanished. Everything was gone. I flailed in the dark, reaching out for anybody weak to possess, and made a desperate leap into a three-year-old boy. I felt his fear when I took him. His tininess and softness and overstimulation. He must have wandered off and gotten lost in the crowd. I felt the same way. Just as lost. Just as small. “I spotted V in the distance and chased him into a parking lot, toddling along on little rubber legs. I caught him by the calf and hung on tight, but

he shook me off like toilet paper stuck to his shoe. I landed on my ass and bounced on the ground. “‘Beat it, kid,’ he said. ‘I have everything I need.’ “He walked away again, and before I could scramble after him, a woman rushed up and knelt down beside me. She held my hand and yelled to V, ‘Hey, is this your son?’ She sounded furious. She must have seen him shake me off his leg. “‘He isn’t mine,’ V said without turning back. “Then the boy’s father appeared, looking like a caricature of guilt and relief. He scooped me into a hug and talked to the woman, thanking her and saying how his son had wandered off. Fifty feet away, V was getting in a car. I kicked and squirmed and wailed in a full-on tantrum and everybody looked at me. Everyone but V. “I saw him start the car and drive out of the lot. The dad rubbed my back and shushed me, really sweetly. I wanted to claw his eyes out. I had to get away. And then I tumbled into limbo, deeper than I’d ever been, and felt so lost I hoped I would die.” Claire listened to his story with a sizzle up her spine. Channeling ability. Permanent possession. Just like V, she kept her mouth shut. She looked across the table, at the face in the gloom, and didn’t see a young, drunk woman in the booth. The anecdote had changed things. She saw only Nyx, a demon who had once been a scared little boy and, forty years later, probably still was. “Did you ever find him?” Claire asked. “No,” Nyx said. “What lesson did you learn?” He finished his beer and left a scum of fizzy suds on the glass. “What I learned,” Nyx said, “was that I was on my own. But I also learned to hope that permanence was possible. A whole self. A true place in the world. It’s been my childhood wish ever since. The one thing I want. The only thing that matters.” He opened a hand, laid his claw on the palm, and drew a scratch down

the life line. “You know what burns me?” Nyx said. “Every human has a body automatically from birth, and most of you complain and treat it like junk. Like burdens, or cages, or nonstop problems. You say it’s too fat. You think it’s too weak. The tits are too small or the nose is too big. It always needs to eat, sleep, or get itself fixed. You whine, whine, whine over something I would kill for.” “Haves and have-nots,” Claire said. “The oldest fight. Well, here you are now with a temporary body, and all you do is drink Blatz and carve on the table. Where’s your ambition? Your infernal joie de vivre?” “I try to make the most of what I get,” Nyx said. “But some nights, it’s hard getting over the futility. No matter how often I change skin, or see the world with new eyes, I’m always just this. Lonely. Bored. Me.” “A demon with depression.” “I’m almost suicidal. But even if this body died right now, I’d just tumble into limbo and keep on existing. My spirit and my thoughts are unkillably alive. I don’t know why I’m here or how it all ends . . . and I can’t even off myself. Talk about hopeless.” “Why were you born? What’s your purpose? What happens when you die? I hate to break it to you, dude, but your problems aren’t special. I’ve thought the same things every day. Every night. With or without a body, it’s shit you’ve got to deal with.” “Have you?” Nyx asked. “To the outside eye, you’re not exactly a model of existential health.” “You don’t know anything about me.” “Then it’s your turn to talk. Tell me one thing that left a real mark. A childhood story. One that has teeth.” She didn’t have to think very long to pick a story that was often in her head . . . parents, teeth, and all. “I was six. Out of school one day, I don’t remember why. It was warm but not summer. Probably spring break.

“My mother only worked part-time at that point, because she had to play parent on the days I was home. Not that she was keen on parenting or playing. She’d feed me breakfast and encourage me to occupy myself. Fostering independence and free-range youth. Neglecting me, in other words. Don’t= bother Mommy. “This one afternoon, I ate lunch alone and went outside to explore. Our yard was pretty boring, but our house was surrounded by wooded lots. We were outskirts suburban, not quite rural. I liked wandering through the trees and scrubby weeds, playing the adventurer, looking for interesting things. Bottle caps. Soggy magazines. One time, I found a pocketknife with somebody’s initials. “So I’m out in the junky wilderness that day and I see our neighbor’s dog. This vicious German shepherd they kept on a rope, tied to the porch. His name was Hans. He was dirty. Neglected. Seriously psycho. He’d go bonkers if he saw you, barking and straining at the rope so hard you’d swear his whole head would pop off at the collar. And that particular day, he’d snapped the old rope. I was hundred feet away but saw it dangling behind him. I stared at him and froze. He stared at me, too. And then I took off fast . . . and Hans came running. “I made it to an isolated power transformer in a small, barren field. One of those things on a concrete pad, surrounded by a square of chain-link fence. Signs that said danger. high voltage. keep out. I jumped onto the fence and climbed inside. Five seconds later, Hans hit the links like he meant to bite through. “So there I was, trapped in a cage with a killer outside, completely out of sight from anybody’s house. Hans was straight-up feral. He didn’t lose interest. He didn’t wear out. He slavered and snapped, and paced and paced, and now and then he’d lunge and cannonball the fence. “I yelled for help. No one came. There weren’t a lot of other kids in the neighborhood, and most of the adults were probably at work. I worried my mother wouldn’t notice I was missing. Or that she’d come out looking and

Hans would get her. I was scared the police would show up and arrest me for ignoring the keep out signs. “I was trapped there for hours. Thirsty. Hungry. Tired. I peed in there—I had to—and then I felt ashamed of the puddle I’d made. I felt so alone. The sun dipped below the trees, leaving me in shadow, and Hans kept pacing round and round the fence. He was bug-eyed and panting. Absolutely crazed. “Right before dusk, I had an idea. “I took my T-shirt off and waved it near the fence. Hans hit the links, trying to attack it. I did it a few more times to really rev him up, and then I swung the shirt up so it dangled off the top of the fence. Hans jumped to get it but couldn’t quite reach. I knelt down and waited, and every time he leaped, I reached through the fence and tried to grab his rope. It was three feet long, still attached to his collar. Eventually, I got it and pulled the end through. He couldn’t jump when I was holding it, and tried to pull free. I wound it around my wrist so my grip wouldn’t slip, and leaned back hard to counteract his weight. And then I tried fastening the rope to the fence. I struggled with the knot. He almost bit my fingers. But finally, I got it and the knot held tight. “I climbed the opposite fence, hit the ground, and ran like hell while Hans went bananas, yanking so hard I thought he’d break the fence. “When I got home, I expected my mother to be hysterical or mad. I’d lost my shirt. I’d peed on the ground. I couldn’t let her know everything that happened. So before she saw me, I bolted to my room for a new shirt, and decided I would lie when she asked where I’d been. I’d say I bumped my head and lost consciousness awhile. That happened on TV. She wouldn’t be mad at that. “I walked into the kitchen just as she was coming out of her bedroom. She looked me, and checked the clock, and then she said, ‘Your father’s late,’ and started making dinner. She told me to set the table. Flumped place mats in front me, clattered out the flatware. “Half an hour later, my father came home. He kissed my mother on the cheek, popped a beer, and asked me how my day was. “I just said, ‘Good,’ and then we had dinner.”

Claire had fallen into the telling and ignited all her senses. It was a story she remembered but didn’t often feel. Impressions swirled around her, coming from the bar but sloshing in her head, the way an ordinary night smears with a dream. Her father’s yeasty beer. The tang of spilled urine. The angry-dog swelter of the tight-packed crowd. “What happened to Hans?” Nyx said. “He must have pulled loose or chewed through the rope. I spied through the trees and saw him days later, tied to his porch again, still going nuts.” “His owners didn’t care that he’d been missing, either.” “Nope,” Claire said. “They just bought a new rope.” “And you started learning you were on your own.” “Same as you.” “And you kept on learning.” There it was again, she thought. The kid-gut queasiness of swallowing the blame. It didn’t make sense but she’d felt, all her life, that aloneness was somehow essentially her fault. “I had plenty more lessons after that day,” she said. “From my parents. From questionable peers. From God.” “You talk to God?” “I’ve tried. Haven’t you?” “I’ve prayed to God. I’ve prayed to Satan.” “How’d it go?” “How do you think?” “We imagine someone’s there to help us,” Claire said. “Higher up. Farther along.” “Smarter. Stronger.” “But parents are only grown-up children.” “And higher powers are blankets to hide under when the room’s too scary.” “And atheism’s nothing but an absence of blankets.”

“We know better than to ask for help anymore,” Nyx said. “The best we can do is find kindred spirits.” “Misfits who fit with other misfits,” she said. “You see why I possess people. It’s company. It’s comfort.” “I see what you’re doing.” “What am I doing?” “You’re trying to seduce me.” “I’m not the one who forced a conversation,” Nyx said. “You want to be seduced.” “You don’t know what I want,” Claire told him. He cocked his head to one side and spiked up an eyebrow. “You have the born-again crackle of recovery,” he said. “So tell me: Whya bar?” “Maybe I like being around people.” “And you beelined directly to the demon in the room.” He leaned across the table like a criminal informant. “You’re here because you can’t stand being with yourself. It’s not the first time, either. You can’t get out of yourself, so you let something in. You’ve probably tried love. Selflessness. Religion. Sex and drugs and alcohol. But you always end up exactly where you started, in a weird little cage with a wolf outside.” “German shepherd,” Claire whispered. “And since there’s no way out, no matter how you try, what you want is someone with you. Inside the cage.” She forced her eyes downward to the booth’s dark grain, but she could still feel the spirals of his pinwheel gaze. The bar’s cacophony had thickened to a dull, cotton aura that his words seemed to cut like lightning in a cloud. “Maybe. I don’t know. Fuck,” Claire said. She reached to hold his hand, as if he’d pulled her by a string. “I like myself,” she said. “But it’s brutal sometimes, knowing I’m the only one who needs me alive.” He laid his other palm atop Claire’s knuckles, sandwiching her hand with

warm, smooth pressure. Their skin seemed to melt together like butter. She looked at him and concentrated hard to truly see him, squinting though the blur of a raw, teary eye. “I get it,” Nyx said. “I’m still that kid wailing at the beach.” “Was your story even true? Demons lie.” “So do people.” “If both of us were lying, what does any of this mean?” “We can bond over lies. It happens all the time.” She kept her face locked—stoic, composed—but a tear wet her cheek and she dabbed her burning eye. “Let me in,” Nyx said. “You don’t have to be alone.” “I’m scared of disappearing.” “You know it won’t last. It’s a one-night stand. At least we’ll be together instead of on our own.” She could feel their connection like she felt her own blood, flowing from her fingers, through her arm, to her head. She swore she almost saw him in the woman he’d possessed, demonically distorting the features of her face. Claire knew what he was doing. He was feeling her, too . . . waiting for the just-right moment to invade her. She yanked back her hand. Nyx looked jarred but cooled himself quick, a lothario at ease in a game of hard-to-get. “Want to hear something else I learned from my mother?” Claire asked. She pinched a contact lens out of her irritated eye, wiped away a tear, and let her vision sharpen up. The filmlike lens balanced on her fingertip, held up between them so Nyx could have a look. “My mother talked to demons, too,” she said. “She could draw a demon’s energy partway inside herself. Like only into her hand, so the demon who was with her could write with a pencil. They interacted that way. But she controlled the possession.” Nyx watched with her a gleam of thrilled recognition. She put the lens on the table, where it sat like half a bubble.

“That wasn’t all,” Claire said. “Once the demon’s energy was partly in her body, she could channel it. Contain it. Into the pencil, for example. Then the demon would essentially be bound to the wood. She never really taught me, but I got that from her.” She took his empty pint glass and smelled the aroma, lighting up a vast constellation of nostalgia for her father and a thousand other things she had lost. She wished it were full. She wished she could drink. “Know what else I learned?” she said. “I fucking hate demons.” His eyeballs flashed with sudden realization. Claire raised the glass, slammed it onto the lens, and sucker punched Nyx straight back to limbo.

My eyes spring open, darting around the room. Getting my bearings. Where am I? I sit up, gasping, and see the crumpled audition pages beside me. I must have fallen asleep. The towel slowly falls from my head. It’s not really a dream when it’s a memory. I have to lean over to grab my phone from the nightstand, but I can’t reach it. I notice a strange gap between my bed and the nightstand. I didn’t move my nightstand, did I? I get out of bed and pull the furniture back in place, touching the bed. I check my phone. Almost noon. Why do I do this myself ? Why can’t I be more organized, better prepared? Why am I always running late? I snatch mybag, the pages, stopping to fill my coffee mug from Liv’s machine. I sprint out of the apartment building, running to Betty, tumbling into the driver’s seat like a drunk. I glance at myself in the rearview mirror, cursing at the heavy bags weighing down my eyes. My eyes are usually my best feature, or so I’ve been told. Not today. Now I wish I could wear dark sunglasses, hide them. I put my coffee mug in the cupholder and connect my phone to the car’s radio. That’s when I notice a missed call from an unknown number, and a text message. NEW ADDRESS . . . AUDITION LOCATION HAS CHANGED. PLEASE GO TO 8679 CHERRY ORCHARD LN. I plug in the new address into the GPS. An hour away. I’m going to be late. Drop my phone into one of the cupholders, take off. Be bold and fall forward. If you want to change your life, you’ve got to walk into the unknown. I take a sip of the bland coffee. City gridlock to busy highway to a quiet country road. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself on your deathbed staring at the ghosts of all your regrets —the trips you didn’t take, the ideas you never developed, the things you never said to that person you loved from afar, all the time you wasted being scared to live, to love, to conquer your fears.

I take in the changing landscape. Sky, trees, fields. No buildings. No cars. No people. What a contrast from the city, the only place I’ve ever known as an adult. Death is coming for us all. We might as well make use of the time we have. Incoming call. I glance at the caller ID. UNKNOWN NUMBER. Again. I accept the call on speaker. “Hello,” I say, trying to sound professional and friendly and confident. It’s the accented man from yesterday. “On your way?” He doesn’t even say hello. Rude. “Yeah. There was some traﬃc leaving the city. Would have left earlier if I’d known.” “ETA?” “Like thirty minutes out.” The man sounds like he’s driving too, or standing near a piece of industrial equipment. There’s a hum on the line. The connection is spotty. “We need additional info from you.” “Okay. What info?” “How old are you?” “You mean, how old do I play?” “No. You. Your actual age.” “What for?” “Insurance.” “Insurance for what?” A deep, guttural cough. Phlegmy. He clears his throat. “For the product you’ll be advertising. Normally you’d fill out this form in person, but since you’re running behind, we need to do it now.” “Ah . . . twenty-seven.” “Height?” “Five four.” “Weight?”

“Don’t own a scale.” “Ballpark is fine.” “Like one fifteen.” “Are you right-handed?” “Left.” “Marital status?” “Why do you need to know that?” “Just reading what’s on the form.” “Single.” “No preexisting health conditions?” “No.” “Did you attend any secondary institution?” “What?” “Did you go to college?” “Sorry, what does that have to do with the audition?” “A simple yes or no will suﬃce.” “No.” “Next of kin?” I’m generally stumped by this one. He might as well shove a golf ball down my throat. “No one.” “No next of kin?” “That’s what I said. I’m an orphan.” “No other living relatives?” “No. None,” I say, my tone getting sharper. “Great. All I need is your signature and you’ll be good to go.” “Can sign when I get there?” “They won’t let you in without this form signed. Company policy. It’s all very standard. Just say your name and then say that you agree to the terms and conditions of the audition.” “Maleba Djalo. I—”

“Your real name.” “That’s my legal name.” “That’s beautiful. I like it better than Missy, actually.” “Maleba Djalo. I agree to the terms and conditions of the audition.” “You’re all set. Break a leg.” He hangs up first, abruptly, and I shake my head. Fucking weirdo. But I don’t care how weird he is. It’s worth it if I get this. I set my phone down on the passenger seat and continue along the two-lane highway, lost in thought, pondering the bizarre call, the surprise audition, the rare opportunity. I think about Mom. I think about trying to reestablish our relationship. Apologize. Start over. But it’s hard to shake the awful thing I said that day. I can’t worry about that right now, about her. She said some nasty shit too. Something up ahead, a cloud, a large formation, billowing. It’s not a cloud. It’s fog. I don’t slow but keep driving until I’m right in it, until the dense fog is floating all around me and Betty. With almost no visibility, I finally decelerate. Betty’s yellow check engine light starts blinking on the dash. It’s overheating. I smack the steering wheel, twice, three times. No! Fuck. Fuck. Not today! I push ahead, Betty fighting me, until I make it out of the fog. I’m met by more change in the landscape. I’ve never seen grass so green. Fields that just go on. I pull over onto the road’s shoulder, shut Betty off. I dig around in the trunk of her car until I find the half-empty jug of coolant. I walk around to the front. I unlatch the hood and open it, pouring the remaining coolant into the engine. Slam the hood closed. Before getting back in, I linger outside, letting the coolant do its thing. My gaze drifts out to the field on my right. Farmland, bordered by forest. Seemingly untouched by anything unnatural. A few clouds spot the sky. It’s so peaceful. Serene. I become transfixed, moved, emotional, by the beauty around me. And then, as if an invisible finger flicks my earlobe, I’m aware of where I am. Up ahead on the shoulder of the road, not far from where I’m standing, a

small bird. It’s not sitting on a tree branch or telephone pole. It’s resting on the ground. Right in the gravel. It doesn’t appear injured. But it’s not moving at all. I very slowly step closer to it. Trying to be quiet, so as not to startle it. It’s so fragile. Delicate. I don’t know birds, but it might be a dove. With each step, each crunch of the gravel, I’m expecting it to fly away, as most birds would. But it doesn’t. It stays still. I’m so close I could reach out and touch it. I bend down, delicately reaching my hand out. And then I touch it. I touch the bird. The feathers are impossibly soft. It still doesn’t move. I pull my hand back. It’s almost as if the bird is looking right at me now, as if it can’t move, as if it’s frozen in place by an unseeable force. Just then, a car zooms by, and I almost fall over. When I look back, the bird is gone. I return to Betty, get in. It takes a few tries, but the engine starts. I floor it, gravel spitting out behind me as I peel off, eventually coming to a stop at the road my GPS tells me I’m supposed to turn onto: Cherry Orchard Lane. It’s a narrow gravel road. I’m taken aback by how it looks as if it’s just been created recently, cut into the grass and dirt and earth. New. I never would have thought I could describe a gravel road in the middle of nowhere as new, but that’s what it looks like. Untouched. No tread marks worn away by use. I would swear the gravel was dumped and set this morning. Each tiny piece of rock in its place. I turn onto the road. Fields all around me. Dense forest. Dirt shoulder. Newly dug ditches on either side. Wild greenery and vast, endless sky. I don’t see a sky like this at home. Never this color. This is like a whole different world. I open the window and let the air rush in on my face. There, up ahead, I spot an unblemished sign with the street name. It has to be brand new. Cherry Orchard Lane. Your destination is on the right. Up a winding road curving up a slight hill to reveal a house. It’s not what I’m expecting. For some reason, I had luxury in mind. Or at least modern, deluxe, shiny. This house isn’t old. It’s not a Victorian mansion. It’s just very . . .

plain. It seems out of place here. It seems more like a house you might see in a 1990s suburb. The first word that comes to mind is forgettable. But this must be it. There is no posted address, but the only other structure around is a new build still under construction, about fifty yards away with a big mound of gravel and dirt in front of it, as well as a construction trailer. I turn into the driveway, park. I sit for a moment, touching up my makeup in the mirror. Looking at myself. Telling myself not to fuck this up. I can’t fuck this up. I can’t blow this. Go in there and own it. If I’m being honest with myself, I am desperate for this. It might be my last chance. I am desperate. I need to use that. 2:56 p.m. I take a couple big gulps of air, then slap myself, softly, on the cheek. And then again, firmly, twice, on the other one. “Come on, bitch. Let’s go. Don’t fuck this up.” I compose myself and quickly run through the copy one last time. “Imagine waking up every morning in your master bedroom to a glorious lake-view sunrise, making breakfast in a kitchen complete with brand-new stainless steel appliances, marble countertops, natural stone flooring. Spotless living for all. Air Free. A new kind of clean . . .” A new kind of clean. A new kind of clean. A new kind of clean. Feel good. Feel ready. Big exhale. Kick my door. See you in a bit, Betty. A new kind of clean. A new kind of clean. A new kind of clean. There have been updates to the house. I can see that now, approaching, walking closer. Fresh paint on the outside. The metal roof looks new. Four metal numbers beside the door. 8679. The front door itself is thick, solid. The door seems totally out of place. Almost industrial. I’ve never seen one like it. I notice movement from an upstairs window. Hard to see from here, but it appears to be an older woman. A mess of gray hair. I don’t want to stare. I look off to the side. I need a moment to steady myself. I need to look put together. Confident. Relaxed. Charming. Sophisticated. They need to feel like a star just walked in. I step up onto the porch, ring the bell. Nothing.

I ring again, wait. I hear three distinct clicks, one right after the other, and before I’m ready, the door drifts open. But no one is there to greet me. “Hello . . .” I step inside, cautiously. No sign-in sheet. I look around, taking in the space. It’s an empty room. Unpainted drywall. Concrete floor. No furniture. A bare foyer. Right above me on the ceiling is a metal sphere with holes in it. Maybe a smoke detector. For the briefest of moments, a glimmer of pink shines off the orb. I look back over my shoulder. No one’s here. Just me. Nothing indicates an audition. Is there an obvious place I should wait? I stand for a minute. Maybe two. Looking around. Barely moving. Now’s not the time to be timid. It’s the time to be bold, brave. I take a big breath. I walk ahead several steps through an open door, turn left into a living room. What a difference. Unlike the foyer, it’s finished and designed beautifully. A black, leather couch. A coffee table. A stereo and speakers. Paintings on each of the walls. Another metal smoke detector in the ceiling. It occurs to me that this doesn’t feel like an oﬃce or a set. It feels like someone’s actual home, as if the owner has set it up but hasn’t moved in yet. That’s how ordered and uncluttered it feels. Have I just walked in on some stranger’s house? A stranger who isn’t expecting me. A stranger who is obsessed with minimalism and order. Who lives like this? I wonder what they would think if they saw how I lived. If they saw the places where I grew up. If they saw my room now. My apartment building. If they saw the interior of Betty. I do love their style. I wouldn’t change anything about it. From the couch to the color of the walls. It’s exactly how I would have designed it myself. I pull my phone out of my pocket. What are these guys selling? Last night, I googled AIR FREE. One result popped up. I clicked on the link. A website with a green background and the words from the script: A New Kind of Clean. Coming Soon. That was it. No other information or details. “Hello?” I say again, louder. I listen, hoping to hear something.

A voice from another room. Some steps. Anything to indicate I’m in the right place. But there’s just me. My own voice. “Excuse me, hello.” There’s no way I caught them off guard. They set the time. They knew I was coming out here. They must have already given up on me. 3:09 p.m. It’s over. I missed it. How could I have blown this? Finally I had a glimmer of a chance. A bit of potential. Of hope. A step toward what I’ve desperately wanted. I’ve come all the way out here for nothing. I’m trying my best to hold it in. Not to cry. I can do that on the drive home. I hold my head in my hands. Count to twenty. I wander farther, looking for tissues. I find the kitchen. There are huge windows on each wall, and directly above me is a skylight. The counters are bare, not even a coffee machine. I glance around quickly, open drawers, cupboards. No tissues anywhere, not even a dish towel. Maybe no one lives here. Maybe it is just a set. A place they’ve rented for this audition. It’s not the first weird audition I’ve been to. I’m horrified and ashamed to recall some of the sketchy places and people I’ve exposed myself to in the name of landing a job. It’s the nature of the industry. It’s about putting yourself out there in more ways than one. I use my thumb to wipe the sides of my eyes, where I can feel tears forming. I open the fridge out of curiosity, not hunger. Glass bottles of water. There’s no food of any kind. I shut the door, and I’m startled by a presence. A man. Tall. Not old. He’s just standing, looking at me. “Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to scare you. You must be Missy.” “Yes. Sorry I’m late. I’m never late. Like, ever. I had car trouble. I didn’t know who to call.” “It’s all right. We understand.” “I came all this way, so I figured I’d just beg for a shot—” “Calm down. It’s all good.” “Really?” “Of course. I can’t turn you away now that you’re here. I’m Thomas. Did they tell you I’d be here to greet you?”

Now I can smile, relieved, as I shake his hand. He has a firm grip, but a softness. He uses moisturizer. He holds my hand for a beat longer than I’m expecting. “No,” I say. “They didn’t tell me much.” He is definitely a very pleasant surprise. “They can be aloof. Would you like something to drink?” “I’m okay,” I say. “I was just . . . looking for tissues . . . in the fridge . . .” He laughs. Despite what he’s saying, why do I get the feeling that he wasn’t expecting me? That he wasn’t here to greet me because he didn’t know I was coming. It feels unplanned, unexpected. “It’s the first place I’d look as well,” he says. “That fridge is quite seductive.” “This whole house is,” I say, swiveling my head in a full panorama. “Would you like a tour?” “What about the audition?” “The tour is part of it. It will be useful for you to see the space.” “Oh. Okay. Yeah. Is there any place I can clean up first?” “Why? You look great.” I grin again, look away. My cheeks flush. I can feel it. I can’t remember the last time a man made me blush. “Where is everyone else?” “Who?” “The other actors? Thought I saw one upstairs.” “That’s Violet. She’s helping me with the audition. It’s just us here. Follow me. I’ll show you around.” I trail Thomas down an immaculate hallway. Like the kitchen, it’s spotless. More art on the walls. Not much else. No clutter. No disorder. The emptiness is soothing. We pass two sitting rooms and a dining room with a large wooden table and chairs. It’s all state of the art. All expensive. In each room, I notice the metal circles, up high, in the corner, where the

ceiling meets the wall. Some are flat, but some are slightly larger, and protruding, like in the dining room, a three dimensional orb shape. “There were lots of custom adjustments,” he says. “That was the main goal in the design. For it to feel unique to us. All very clean.” My mind wanders. I start to imagine the woman who comes to this house once a week to dust, mop, do laundry. I bet she’s an immigrant. Does she lounge around pretending she’s home? I used to do that in some of the hotel rooms I cleaned. I would have never quit if Josephine and I cleaned houses like this. I don’t see a speck of dust, not a single dead skin cell floating in the air. From the looks of it, Thomas must not make much of a mess. He strikes me as the organized type. Balances his checkbook. His shirt looks like it was just purchased, not dry-cleaned but brand new. I can always tell. I don’t know how, but I can. A sixth sense developed from years of cleaning. I wonder if he changed just for me. There’s nothing better on a man than a crisp white shirt. I check out his legs, his back, his butt. He’s lean, fit. Veins protruding on his arms. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always been drawn to men’s arms. Hands and arms. That’s my thing. His triceps bulge slightly as he moves, hugging his shirtsleeves. He must lift weights and eat well. I bet he gets his eight hours of sleep a night. He spends a lot of time on his body. Maintaining it. You can’t look this good by accident. “So, Air Free is like a real estate company?” “Yes,” he says. “In a certain way. Not like other real estate companies, though.” I’m spellbound by the place. The design. The feel of it. I never would have guessed it was so gorgeous from the outside. Does h e actually live here? The outside was so plain. A structure of wood and metal. Inside is brand new, chic, understated, modern luxury. He—they—clearly have money. Lots of it. I’m not used to being around people like this, people with money. My mind races, quickly sussing out how I should navigate this new territory. I can’t be my normal cynical get-the-fuck-out-of-my-way self. I feign politeness. Another mask in my toolbox. I can do anything for the right incentive. I’ve never been in an

apartment, or house, this clean. Ever. “Don’t you think it smells good?” he says. I haven’t noticed any smell at all. “I don’t really smell anything,” I say. “Yes, exactly,” he says. “That’s the point.” He leads me back toward the living room, passing an indoor garden lining a shelf under a window. It’s home to a variety of herbs, flowers, and plants. All healthy and vibrant. “Are those night lilies?” “You know your flowers,” he says, the smile in his eyes growing. “They’re my favorite.” The first time I saw a night lily was in Crazy Rich Asians. I was fascinated by the ceremonial depiction of the flower’s nocturnal bloom. It was hypnotizing. I looked it up immediately and discovered its scientific name. Epiphyllum oxypetalum. It only survives for a few hours after it blooms. How dramatic. You have to be at the right place at the right time or you’ll miss it. Planting a flower like that in an indoor garden is a bold statement. Beauty is fleeting. Seize it while you have it. Thomas is certainly making the most of his time. Need to show him that I am too. I can’t help but run the tips of my fingers over the couch as I follow him. It feels good to touch the velvet. I see a gap between the couch and the side table, the same one I saw this morning between my own bed and nightstand. How strange is that? My eyes drift up. Mounted high on a wall is an antique tool, a saw, with two wooden handles. “What’s that?” “An old piece of farming equipment we found in the field out back. Felt like a memento from an earlier era. A relic.” He walks over to it but doesn’t touch it. Just looks up at it. “It’s called a silage knife. A bit rusty, but it’s cool-looking. Kinda badass, up there on the wall. We embody a rebellious kind of nature here. Going against the trends. Making our own path, that kind of thing. It fits

with that.” He continues toward a stairwell leading upstairs. I follow, wide-eyed. “You from the city?” “No. I moved there a few years ago. After Josephine died,” I lie. “Josephine?” “My mom.” “Sorry to hear that.” “We weren’t close.” He stops and turns to face me. “Did she not approve of this?” “This?” “What you’re pursuing. Your acting.” “No, she didn’t. Or anything else I did,” I say. “It’s a shame she’ll miss out on your success. There were lots of people in my life who never believed in me either. At some point you have to realize you can only rely on yourself. No one else can save you. Just have to say fuck ’em, is how I see it.” “Yeah,” I say. “Couldn’t agree more.” Another long, empty hallway with a series of rectangular windows along one side. Above the last one, another metal sphere. I’m starting to think they aren’t smoke detectors, but more likely speakers. To play the same music throughout every room in the house. I peer out the window, at the trees, the wilderness. “Any bears out here?” “Haven’t seen any. There are definitely wolves, though. Foxes. Coyotes. Birds. Lots of birds. Too many.” Thomas smiles and opens the door to a bedroom. “And this is you.” “What do you mean?” “Your room. Where you’ll be staying. For the audition.” “Honestly,” I say, “I’ll just need, like, twenty minutes to prepare, and I’ll

be good to go.” He crosses into the room. I stand still where I am, at the door. “It’s an overnight audition,” he says. “The casting oﬃce should have mentioned that.” “They definitely didn’t.” “Damn it. They always fuck something up. Sorry for the miscommunication. There’s absolutely no pressure for you to stay.” “Can’t I just audition now?” “It’s a bit more complicated. We’re taking strict precautions with this campaign because of the unique features of the product. We can’t risk any information leaking before it’s launched.” “That’s why he had me sign that form?” “Correct. Whoever is selected will be the face of the company, indefinitely. It’s a big commitment, Missy. But definitely worth it.” Indefinitely. Even when I’m old and gray? My heart leaps at the idea of not only landing this job, but that it might sustain me for longer than I thought. But indefinitely? Sounds like one of those soap operas that go on and on and on until actors die. Do I want that? What if I get sick of being the face of Air Free? What if I want to do something else? What if I’m offered something else? Could I break my contract? I virtually slap myself back into the moment. Now is not the time to question. First, I need to book the job. I’ll deal with the terms later. I’m sure there will be exceptions made, under the right circumstances, for the right opportunities. So many big stars started on the small screen. Butterflies flutter around me. “He told you I’m nonunion, right?” “It’s not a union job.” “Oh. The casting guy said it was.” “He must have been mistaken.” I’m not sure what to think at this point. How could he be mistaken? Isn’t it his job to ask these questions? To have the right information for the actors

he sends out? “You’re working with Diamond Casting, right?” “I didn’t set up the job.” I didn’t question it. Didn’t question him. What if he wasn’t from Diamond Casting? But he had all my information. He must have been. “Is the pay twenty . . .” I can’t finish that question. “It’s a hundred-thousand-dollar buyout. Plus all the other perks that come with the campaign.” Holy shit. I look past Thomas, out the window. What would Mom think if she could see this place? If she could hear what he’s saying? She wouldn’t believe it. The face of some big company. National campaign. TV ads. Indefinitely. “Other actors stayed the night?” “Some. Not all. You’re our last candidate.” I step in, sit on the edge of the full-size bed. It’s firm, as if it’s never been slept on. I’m not sure what to think. Stay or go. I’ve dodged a few scams in my day. I suppose this could be another one, but how would they rope in a casting office? I wasn’t familiar with the weirdo who called me, but he had my information. My phone number. My email. He must work at that office. At Diamond Casting. I’ve never been there in person, never met any of the casting associates. Perhaps he’s new. That would explain his slightly unprofessional tone. All the possible scenarios of things that could go wrong: I’m alone. Unarmed. In the middle of nowhere. Far from the city. I don’t know this company. I don’t know Thomas. He’s charming, elegant, hot, exactly the kind of person they would send to scam a young woman like me. They know wet panties are a strong antidote to common sense. That’s why honeypots are so successful. Could he be a honeypot sent to scam me? My thoughts barre down an even darker rabbit hole of sex trafficking and organ harvesting schemes. If I disappeared, who would come looking for me? I told them I have no next of kin. I quickly dismiss these stupid thoughts. Who would miss me anyway? Certainly not Liv. She would fill my room

with another desperate soul. Josephine would only miss not having someone to drop off her meds. After calling me incessantly, she’d probably keel over and die. That would be the end of it. There would be no search party or alerts on my behalf. On the other hand, the casting office knows about this. My disappearance would immediately be traced back to them. I suppose they could say I came and went, but suspicion would hover over them, especially if other actresses were to disappear. Would I be the first of many or just the last gullible idiot? What if Air Free is a shell company set up to mask the identity of the real company so they can better cover their tracks? I couldn’t find anything on them when I looked online earlier. That was a bit strange. Oh my God. Air Free may not actually exist. What if—Missy, get a grip, I tell myself. A company would not contact a casting office to kidnap an actress to traffic her or harvest her organs. They would snatch some poor soul off the street, do it cleanly, quietly, in the dark of night. No witnesses. No paper trail. This opportunity must be real. It could be the break I’ve been waiting for my entire life. Even if it’s not, what’s the worst that could happen? I avoid Liv’s caustic energy tonight, which I’m convinced is slowly killing me, and spend the night here, in this gorgeous, clean home with this gorgeous, clean man. The odds of this being some ruse to kidnap me are much smaller than the odds of this being an experience I will never forget. “Look,” he says. “I don’t want you to feel pressured in any way. You’re obviously not prepared.” “I am. I’m always prepared,” I say, standing again. “What I meant is, take a moment to think about it. If it’s not possible, we totally understand. I’ll reimburse whatever fees you incurred to get here.” Thomas crosses back to the door. “I can stay. I just . . . need to get my things.” “Are you sure?” “Definitely.” “Wonderful! We have everything you’ll need—towel, toothbrush.”

“I’ve got one in my car.” Always prepared. Thomas’s face softens. He has beautiful bright eyes. For the first time since arriving, the first time in weeks, I feel myself relax. It’s not a big deal. It’s one night. He’s nice. I can’t throw this away. If I do, I’ll always wonder what could have been. Regret is worse than failure. “If you need anything, let me know.” “I will. Thank you for the opportunity. You won’t regret it.” “I know,” he says. “I’m really glad you’re staying.” He smiles and walks out. Alone, I finally take in the spacious but simple room. Small dresser, cupboard, window, and metal sphere. It’s immaculate, spotless as if no one has ever stepped foot into it until this moment. All set up as if it were waiting for me.

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