311 Days
To Go
'So tell me if I can help in anyway,' Adam said casually, leaning back against his rumbling Jeep, scratching at some dried chocolate on his shirt.
'She – Faddim – honeycomb – we made her,' I began, panting, gasping, 'You have to help her, you have to –
'I DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING.' His face was cruel and displeased, for a moment, before a smile took over. 'My assistance is purely charitable. Benevelonce maketh the monarch, to quote the Bard.'
'Adam,' I stammered, 'Fatima was going to get us – she was trying to find food.'
The boys had dragged her out of the boot and lain her rubbery body on the road.
'Looks like she was doing a bit more than that. She try to wrestle a steak off a lion or something? She's all scratched up.'
'She was pushing herself to, to the edge.'
'We pushed her,' said Chan, throwing his palms up in surrender. He was so sweaty that black patches stretched from both armpits down to the bottom of the pillowcase he was wearing as a t-shirt. Only a small spot on his chest remained unsoaked. 'I mean, like, it's like Game Over in this place, know what I'm saying? Too real for this guy. Listen, G, we hassled her til she felt she had to… Just, this morning is so screwed up. She could die, dude, like – like we were gonna kick her out and stuff, 'cause she ate all the food, we never said we wanted her to –
'I wanted to see her suffer,' I said. 'You guys can't admit it, fine. I admit it. There. I'm going to hell. She's been WASTING everyone's food. Eating it at night when she's sposed to sleep like the rest of us. Puking it up. If she had brought back some honeycomb and suffered a few bee stings, I would have been hap – I would've been hap - .' I burst into tears and doubled over, then crawled towards Adam, stopping a metre away. 'Not her,' I gasped.
'The situation calls for a dose of adrenaline, if you please,' Watson said. 'The Lady Fatima could benefit most profusely from your EpiPen, sir, if you'd be so kind. Clock's ticking.'
Esther caught up with us and got so close that her wheels bumped into Fatima's head. It had to have been the first time anyone had ever abandoned Esther, driven away from her. Part of me hoped the bump, the pain of the wheels pinching Fatima's hair would make her eyes open, but Fatti's eyes were sealed shut, and they were a terrifying black colour I'd never seen on a person. Esther pointed a fierce finger at Adam and hissed like a witch. 'What are you WAITING for?'
'Very well,' Adam said, placing the first aid kit on the ground and crouching over it while Anya hovered in the Jeep behind him. He took out the Epipen, held it up to the sun, checked the fluid. 'It's not as if it's going to cost you a million dollars,' he said with a wide smile.
'Thank Christ,' I said, 'You have to inject her. Hurry.'
'Anya. Come.' Anya hopped down from the Jeep and stood in front of Adam. She had a hatchet in one hand and a claw hammer in the other. 'Anya will collect the fee. That'll be nine hundred thousand dollars, please.'
Chan pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Dude, I'ma kick your ass later but for now, just lighten up and give us the meds.'
'DON'T YOU HAVE A CONSCIENCE? DON'T YOU HAVE A SOUL? GIVE HER THE INJECTION.'
Adam moved back a little. He kept glancing at his bodyguard. 'Not until I can trust you.'
'I'LL PAY YOU, CAN'T YOU SEE I'LL PAY YOU?' I flared my fingers at all of my friends. 'He'll give a hundred thousand, and she will, we'll come up with the stupid money, just –
Esther directed her angry face toward me. 'You're the one who made her feel she had to leave, Ede. This is on you. I didn't even care about her midnight snacks.'
'I ain't payin,' Kane said, stepping back from Fatti. 'You shouldn't have to pay… .'
'Don't have my wallet on me, I'm afraid,' Watson said, clearing his throat.
'Agreed: we shouldn't have to,' Eli said, 'Someone – I hate to say it – a certain someone designed for our good friend to leave us at this point in time. I don't intend to contradict that someone.'
My head received a wave of blood that made my skull almost crack open with pressure. My friends were no longer my friends. They were backstabbing me so goddamn much that I was actually trying to please Adam Turing. I wanted to kill everybody. At least Adam was honest about who he was.
'Adam, you listen to me. I will pay you every cent. But LATER. NOT. NOW. SAVE. HER. PLEASE.'
'Internet banking's down,' he said, smiling to himself, too pussy to even make eye contact, 'I can take cash, if you have it… ?'
My cheeks cooled for a moment. It was only fresh tears washing the last coating of saltwater away. I took a huge breath before I gave away everything that would save my family, my dad, my home, my status. 'Farm hedge. By Wall Street, where Northfield Road meets The Boulevard. Look for a broken branch that's dangling down. That's where my money is. But you already knew that, cause you've been stalking us, you homicidal asshole.'
Anya spat on the ground towards me. 'YOU LIE, YOU DIE.'
Adam turned to the Jeep. Someone was hiding in the back. 'KT, you can take care of the accounting, can't you? Attagirl.' KT's face emerged – her cheeks frighteningly painted with red circles that were either blood or lipstick – and she smirked at us and got out of the Jeep. She looked fleshier already, after just a few days in the dark side. Maeve broke away from our circle and embraced KT, an I-haven't-seen-you-in-ages embrace. Maeve was dissing me. There, there, the girls' body language was saying, We need to protect one another from that monster Eden.
Then Anya whispered instructions in KT's ear for collecting my money and she began jogging away, east-ish, toward my money. 'Right, Ms Shepherd: thank you for your business.' He tossed me the lifesaving little plastic pen in a fancy zip-up bag.
'WHAT DO I DO? WHAT DO I DO?'
Adam climbed into the Jeep and Anya whirled around and went to give KT a lift and race to my hedge of money, leaving us in the road.
Watson put his palm on my back and helped steady my jackhammer-hand as I took the lid off.
'It's okay,' he said. 'Good artery is in the thigh. Go for it.'
I stabbed it into the flesh above Fatti's knee and squirted the adrenaline into her. My people sucked their fingers and winced and cursed and muttered darkly.
'I liked your, your, your bit about chicken versus turkey, Fatti,' I said, tears cooling my burning cheeks. My lips were fat and wet and sticky. 'You were so funny, babe. Fatima? Bae? Please quit sleeping. We get the joke, bae. You can stop now.'
She didn't wake up. I raised the injector above my head with both hands, aimed it again at her thigh – and Watson caught my hand.
'Single use only, I'm afraid.'
'WHY WOULD THEY SELL A FUCKIN THING THAT DOESN'T EVEN FUCKING WORK?!'
'I'm glad you asked, because the reasoning behind the dependence on the consumer buying multiple product is actually quite ingenious,' Watson began, 'You see, scarcity is the principle which governs… oh.' He must've noticed everyone looking at him with murderous hate, and fear, and misery. Watson shut up and let me mourn.
I cradled Fatima's face. Each place she'd slapped herself, the flesh was turning from pink to crimson to purple. Her flesh had gone hard and cold like a leather couch. Her eyes were glued shut with something snotty and sticky. There was foam in her nose.
'Stop, honey,' I said into her ear. 'Don't sleep.'
The EpiPen – now drained, now useless – I tossed into the grass. I caressed her quad muscle, tried to push the adrenaline up her veins into her heart. I kissed her cold lips, puffed oxygen inside her and tried to press her heart into action. I tipped her on her side. Eli kneeled beside me and asked God to guide Fatima's soul into – no!
'Don't pray like that, she's – she's not dead. This is so fucking fucked-up.'
'I think heaven needed a little laughter, Eden. Sall good. Be grateful it's not you, eh.'
I clawed at her clothing. I found a bee crawling across her boob, caught it between my fingers and squeezed til goo trickled into my fingernail. I put my face on her breasts and breathed her. I wiped her lips and a sliver of slimy pink flesh fell away from her teeth. She had bitten right through her tongue
*
Kane threw down an oil-stained tarpaulin he'd pulled out from some garage, said we could put Fatti in it.
'Nah,' I said, 'It's not right. I'll carry her.'
Kane helped position Fatti in a fireman's lift over my shoulder. Little commas of curled bees rolled down my chest as they died and let go of Fatti.
'She's too heavy, Ede.'
'Oh, very funny. I'm sure Fatti will really appreciate that.'
'SHE'S HEAVY CAUSE SHE'S A DEAD BODY. YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS. Eden. Quit the mopey shit already. You don't have to punish yourself.'
I glared at my so-called friends, standing around being useless. I chose someone to take it out on, anyone. Eli. 'I think we do have to punish ourselves. I think that's what this is. Don't you religious people have a word for it, huh? Eat shit for a year then we get into heaven?'
Eli put his hand on my shoulder, but he had nothing to say.
For 40 minutes we tore fistfuls of sticky earth out of the ground, not far from the playground, the fort, our kitchen. We wanted to keep Fatti close. There were wolves out there.
After 45 minutes of digging, the grave wasn't deep, but it was long enough. We looked at one another. We couldn't spare any more energy grieving.
We dragged Fatima into the hole, four of us tugging on her ankles and wrists, toeing her, stomping to make her fit in. We scraped and kicked and dumped potloads and skillet-loads of dirt on top of her. The mound on top of her body made it seem like more of Fatima was above the ground than below it.
Everybody looked at Eli to check if God was going to tell us off or not, then we broke into a run.
We would eat, or we would join her.