Adrift in Night Heat

Fredy waits, legs crouched, fingers poised, breath still in the hollow of her chest. Maggie isn’t breathing. The light bulb overhead is flickering, summer heat frying, skins sizzling with the utter stasis of the moment. Fredy can hear Deb’s voice crackling in her throat.

“You’ve killed her,” she warbles. Her voice is terrible. Like someone’s reached inside of her and tangled all the essential bits, jugular twisted. “She warned me. She fucking warned me, and now you’ve gone and killed her.”

“She isn’t dead,” says Fredy. In actuality, she’s not sure. Maggie might be dead. Her chest isn’t moving. Her shoulders are hunched and posed and rigid, corpse shoulders, pinning her chest on either side like a doll’s arms.

Deb looks down at the unmoving bundle, eyes roving over familiar colours, so stiff with fear that she can scarcely move. Fear that this is really happening, that it might be her fault. Maggie was so kind to her. Came when Deb had no one, stayed when she didn’t have to, even though she was only meant to be squatting temporarily. It started out with Deb paying the bills, Maggie always moping, haunting the kitchen at night and seeking out shiny bottles of liquor. Eventually, they were breathing for each other.

Fredy hears Deb make a noise. It might be a scream or a sigh. There’s a tinnitus-like rushing in her ears, the faraway cacophony of beach noise; maybe just blood. 

It had been so easy: wait for Deb to go to work, tell Maggie how much fun it would be. Couple of beers, quick run downtown and then she’d show her where all the best people hung out, the best haunts and dives and little corners of the city that Deb was too shy or too sick or too scared to stumble by. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked, no-- Maggie had turned her down then-- but it was the first time it worked. Maggie was restless, feet shuffling in place. Missing pills and moonlight. Missing the rush and the zip and the electricity of it. Missing it all.

Suddenly, she gives a furtive jerk in place. Deb cries out. She’s not dead after all, which Fredy acknowledges with merely a slow, sleepy blink of her eyes. 

“Get out,” says Deb between clenched teeth. “Get out right now.”

“Didn’t you want me to stay here?” Fredy blinks. 

“Get out before she wakes up. We don’t want to see you ever again.”

Fredy blinks again, syrupy, dazed. Like she’s not there at all.