reddest

“Goddamnit, Mary.”

He was on his lucky. “Great. Just great,” August spat, grabbing the last cigarette and throwing the empty pack on the ground among empty red Solo cups and an empty handle of vodka. He fished around in his pocket for a lighter as he walked in the dark, muttering to himself, drunk and irritated. “This bitch takes off in the middle of the party to God knows where and I’m out of cigarettes. Fuckin’ great.”

It must have been three or four A.M. by now. It was the end of the summer and it was dark and there was this eerie fog that clung low in the sky, casting a reddish orange haze beneath the streetlights. He had watched her shadow as she ran out the door, past the porch, into the fields, beyond whatever’s out there in a wild flash of energy, as if she’d never been so happy to be outside. Hell if he know where she went. Mary didn’t hang around him and the other guys often, and even August didn’t know half the people Duke invited over tonight. The house was packed from basement to porch, where people spilled out onto the half-broken patio furniture, spilling drinks and sharing spliffs.

Duke was August’s last connection to college other than Mary. They were never great friends, but it was something to do while he was stuck here for the summer, waiting for his lease to be up and his life to move on. Nothing ever happened in this town – the people around here were just leeches for cheap beer and a place to party. It was getting old. August was too good for this. Their idea of fun was getting drunk and fucking in the cornfields behind Duke’s house. No one really took care of it, patches of scorched earth between what they could salvage, so Duke didn’t care who wandered around out there. Including Mary. Where the hell is she?

August kicked a dented can of PBR into a bush as he trudged through the fields. The cicadas were screaming so loud he almost yelled back. Even at night it felt like he was walking through a sauna out here,  the back of his shirt damp with sweat. After four years of getting used to it, he wasn’t bothered by the heat and humidity – tonight, though, it was much worse than usual. Maybe it was all the beer, warm in his gut from the freshman fifty that never went away. Maybe –
Mary. Shit. I should probably go look for her.

Earlier that night, they were talking and standing close when she reached for his hand, saying something he couldn’t hear. They had stepped away from the party into the back room because August wanted to make sure she was okay. He had met Mary at a party just a year back, and he had been around her enough to know what Mary was like when she was drunk. She became a socialite and then a recluse, taking shots with strangers then running off. August was staring at her eyes, a pool of dark too hard to tell where her irises started and her pupils began. Her hair framed her face in a sheet of light brown hair, covering part of her face as she talked. He wasn’t listening. He was thinking, if he could just reach out, move the hair behind her ear, take her face into his hands… She wanted the vodka bottle – grabbed for the wrong hand. August blanched, both happy and terrified. Is this it? He thought. Is she making a move on me? Instead, her fingers graced his palm and he held her hand like an idiot until she realized he didn’t have anything to offer her and she politely stepped away. Her palm still felt warm in his. August held one hand in the other and looked out across the corn field.  

Maybe she’ll sweat it out and come back. He thought. I mean, Mary kind of wanders around when she’s drunk anyway. She’s probably fine.

“And yet, here I am…” he muttered to himself as he began to walk. After the vodka incident, August saw her just an hour or two later, and she was with that sleazy kid, Erik, the one that all the girls seemed to flock to and fall over themselves for even though he thought his eyes made him look like a lizard. Even Mary. August couldn’t believe it. He had watched from the hallway while she leaned into Erik, so small as he towered over her while she twisted her long brown hair between her fingers. She was laughing. He couldn’t see her face as Erik put one hand around her back and placed a small white square into her open mouth with the other. August’s hands clenched into fists then. She clamped her mouth shut, pausing for a moment before whispering something in Erik’s ear. August stared as Erik’s hands moved up her shirt, revealing flashes of skin. He lingered for a minute too long before Erik noticed him standing there and winked. “Hey, Gus!” He shouted from the hallway. August was already halfway down the stairs. “Did you wanna join in?” August tripped as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “Fucking weirdo!” Erik hollered after him. He was laughing. August didn’t stick around long enough to tell whether or not Mary had laughed, too.

But when Mary turned up just minutes before, stumbling through the crowd in the living room with a still-smoking joint in her hand, shirt missing, the whites of her eyes stinging red – those big brown eyes… she looked desperate. What for, he had no idea. She needed something. She was in a hurry. She looked him straight in the eyes and ran out the door. August figured that meant he was supposed to follow. She was too proud to ask anyone for help, but he knew she needed it.

So, there he was. In the fucking corn fields.

August didn’t know how but he got all the way out to the line of trees, most of them dead or dying. It got denser as it went on. In the distance, he could see a shadow of a building. You’ve got to be kidding me. August knew it about as well as he could have without ever having gone inside – the thing had been here since long before he got to this town, and Duke and his friends had forced him to come out here half a dozen times while they spray painted the walls, drunk and dumb. It was some kind of hospital, or at least, it used to be. Rumor was that they started demolishing the thing after too many people complained about the conditions there, but for some reason, they abandoned the project halfway through. Everyone made up ghost stories about it, especially Duke and his group.

Even though August knew Duke was just trying to fuck with him, the place gave him the creeps. Not that he’d ever admit it. A mass of brick and concrete and tile, empty rooms and hall ways were left at the mercy of sledge hammers, spray paint, wandering passersby – like Mary. She had to be in there – there was nowhere out here she could have gone for miles. Damn her. She didn’t have to run off all goddamn dramatic like that. Still… he was worried about her. She was too wild to take care of herself. August knew she was better than this – it was Erik’s fault, anyway. Whatever he gave her – that slimy fucking guy – he wanted to take her away from him, make sure she was okay.

But that didn’t mean he was happy about it. “Mary, where the hell are you?” He shouted into the emptiness. The hospital looked to have about four floors, or at least, it had at one time. The floor caved through in some places, the walls missing in others, so the whole thing became a mess of cement and tile he didn’t know how to navigate. Not much remained in the rooms that gave it away for a hospital, even the yellowed flower wallpaper torn of or covered by graffiti. A sound came from the far end. Footsteps, maybe a cough?

“Not fucking cool, Mary,” he yelled out again. She probably isn’t even listening to me. It echoed against the back wall, or at least he assumed, because he couldn’t see that far in front of his face in the darkness as he entered. There were windows sporadically lining the walls, some of them missing their glass, but it didn’t do much to help in the moonless night. August stared at the floor as he walked up the stairs, peering around in the darkness. Watched for holes.

August pulled out his phone, using it like a flashlight. Dust flitted in the light as he shined it in each corner, climbing the stairs. The light made everything even more eerie; August worried about what he couldn’t see as he poked his head into different rooms and corridors, looking for her. Finally – top floor. Back corner. Mousey brown hair, dressed in all black: a skirt and a sweatshirt, from what he could tell, although it looked far too big for her. August hesitated for a moment, sensing something was off.

“You owe me a cigarette, you know that?” August said, half joking. She must have heard him now, but she didn’t turn around.

“I’m like, really scared of heights, August,” she spoke suddenly, ignoring what he said. Her voice sounded detached from what she was saying.

She was sitting at the edge of the half-demolished floor where the frame of the building met the dismantled wall, or at least, where the wall should have been. Her legs swung off the edge – she wasn’t wearing any shoes. Careless. August blinked, drunk and disoriented and dizzy from the heat. “You are?”

“Yeah.” She said. “I just found out.” She was shivering.

* * *

Mary was staring down at her feet – at the ground below morphing farther and farther away, blurring at the edges. In the distance, she could hear the party, lo-fi music barely registering above a white noise that felt unexpectedly normal between the sounds of the cicadas and God-knows-what rustling around in the trees outside. Some kind of bizarre dream.

August was watching her. She could feel his eyes on her back now, just like she did as she took off across the cornfield, just like she did at the party. His eyes felt like hands, her father’s hands, Erik’s hands, the hands of everyone who had ever touched her, big and calloused and apt to break a glass if they squeezed too hard. They were prying her around, finger by finger. She wouldn’t let them. Mary fixed her eyes out into the dark, looking for something else to stare at. It was 4 AM, maybe later. Moonless. Might as well be blind.

“Then what are you doing up here?” An accusation veiled by concern. She heard him sigh, and then, “here, let me just–” Hands. A thousand of them, real now, crawling along her back to her waist, and then the other side, threatening to wrap around her like a snake. What was he trying to do, pick her up like a baby?

Mary flinched, almost jumped, yanking her torso away. “Don’t touch me!” She screamed. Touch me, the walls echoed back, one big empty block of cement and space.  

“I can handle myself,” she added, gentler this time. She barely slurred, stammered on self. Her legs felt heavy, begging for the below, for something solid. She pulled her knees up to her chest. Everything warm.

“Yeah? You sure?”

She hated the sound of his voice, the tone. It invaded the silence she had been trying to find. Everything got so overwhelming in there – the sounds, none of them real, belonging – she needed space. Solace. After Erik gave her that tab she wasn’t sure it was actually going to do anything -- but an hour later she was going up as he panted and spat over her, trying to tell her she was pretty. When he went to the bathroom after, she scrambled in the dark, searching for a semblance of clothes on the floor. She took what she could find – underwear, bra, skirt, someone else’s sweatshirt. Good enough. Slipped out the door before Erik could come back in to kiss her sloppily on the face, naked but for his socks.

Now Mary stood up. She took her time pushing herself off the floor, remembering what it was like to stand again. She threw her arms up beside her in the darkness, a balancing act. She didn’t turn to face August, not yet.

“What the fuck did Erik give you, then?” He pestered on.

“Mm, who wants to know?” She was annoyed – what did he care about Erik? It’s not like I’m dating August. Jesus. We aren’t even sleeping together. So he really needs to shove off with whatever reason he thought he had to be following me around like this, asking about Erik and shit like he’s my keeper. But her voice sounded chipper as ever anyway, sing-songy and light – she liked the way it vibrated in her throat, putting one hand on her neck and closing her eyes. She was shaking, despite the stifling heat.

“Me. I want to know.” August said, breaking her thoughts. She opened her eyes again, irritated.

“Aaaaaand?” she replied.

“And– goddamnit, is that a cigarette?”

She could’ve sworn that if she hadn’t side-stepped away his hands would have swiped out into the dark, grabbing at her sweatshirt, taking what he wanted. Hands always reaching out. “Stop that,” she said, almost on accident. She hadn’t really been looking at August til now – he hovered around 5’10” but would tell anyone who asked that he was 6’. He was chubby, not yet grown out of his baby fat. His hair fell in his face in awkward waves, that skater boy look that she might have adored when she was 13. A beard lined his jaw, growing in uneven patches. He was shining a phone light at her face, bright as hell against the dark of the building. “God, and turn that light off. I can’t see anything in here if you have that thing on.”

“What?– shit, Mary, just gimme one of those and let’s go back to the party and get you some water, ok?” She hated his tone, but the light clicked off. Mary felt her eyes adjust again in the dark.

He was talking to her like he would some misbehaving child. “Asking a kid for cigarettes,” she thought out loud, and then laughed. She couldn’t stop laughing. It was the funniest thing she’d ever heard of in her whole life. “Oh my God, you’re a fucking riot, August. You’re killing me.” She was doubled over, hands over stomach, her eyes watering. It hurt to laugh: it only made her laugh harder. “I can’t breathe,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she was laughing so hard. Everything felt light. Also unreal.

Without waiting for him to come up with the right “wh-” word, Mary tossed a cig in his general direction. “Here.” She said, and started walking off, not really in any particular direction. She felt better than ever yet on edge, something crossed between the feeling when you’re not supposed to laugh and the feeling before a panic attack. The high went in and out – moments of lucidity anchored her to the world, but she wasn’t entirely convinced she belonged to it. Lost in her thoughts, her foot crashed into an empty cardboard box, left by whoever else must have wandered up here. It skidded across the ground and then fell through the floor; she listened as it hit the ground, in sync with August’s lighter.

“Where are you going?” and then, “Goddamnit, be careful! What’s wrong with you?”

Like a cardboard box was out to get her. Right.

“We should really get out of here, Mary…” he went on again. Mary rolled her eyes.

“We should really get out of here,” she mocked. “Why? You scared?”

August made some scoffing noise like he was offended. “Um, no.” He said, unconvincingly. He was lingering close behind her like an extra shadow – ha, in a place like this. It was so dark in the building she could barely see in some places – in others, windows (or what was left of them) casted strange shadows through the rooms in uneven patterns. Mary kept walking, her eyes on the floor, bare feet feeling out the path in front of her. It was like walking up the stairs and always expecting another, a shock of space where she expected solid ground. No rhythm or rhyme to it. More like a puzzle. A game. Every time she looked down at the ground, she felt as though it had changed, like that weird creature in Alice in Wonderland erasing the path behind Alice as she walked. How bizarre, she thought, starting to laugh again.

“It’s like lava tag,” she mused out loud. “Except the floor is just the floor and if it just doesn’t happen to be there, well… it’s lava!” She laughed. He was glaring at her – she could feel it. One thousand hands pushing on her back. “Don’t fall in,” she added. She was very amused by this. The ground swirled in front of her.

“Not funny, Mary. You’re drunk.”

“Ummm, rude.” She said, sounding hurt. “At least I know how to enjoy myself, unlike someone...” She continued her game, balancing from beam to beam where the floor was missing. Toward the back of the empty expanse, a threshold, leading down a narrow hallway lined with numbered doors. Mary stared down it, hesitant. The threshold felt weird, some kind of invisible boundary. She eyed it with suspicion as she crossed it, holding her breath. The ground was solid here, steady. Still, she ran her fingers along both walls, wondering why it was so closed in.

For a while, he let her move through the rooms and corridors in silence. She could still feel his eyes on her, but she relished the quiet. All she wanted to do was get away from that party, back to something that didn’t involve getting the spins on Duke’s parents’ bed, apologizing to their picture frames on the dresser. Or yelling at. She wasn’t sure.

Mary unzipped her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist as they stepped into another room. She was sticky with the heat. She fished a sharpie out of her bra, mostly just a thin layer of black lace. She always kept a sharpie in there, alongside her money, ID, lighter, whatever she could fit. Her skirt didn’t have pockets. Skimming her eyes around the room, she looked for a blank spot along the wall between all of the graffiti. Words and drawings morphed into bizarre collaborations; bits of lyrics scrawled in ballpoint pen beside spray-painted dicks and names too intricately drawn to read. There. Just above the window – at least, the opening where the glass once was. As she perched on the narrow frame and scribbled on the fraying yellow wallpaper, August started talking again.

“You shouldn’t do that…”

She regretted his presence immediately. Should’ve just told him to leave earlier.
“Listen, Gus, do you have a reason for being here or do you just get off on ordering me around?” She snapped, jumped down from the windowsill.

“What’s it say, then?” he said, ignoring her question. He sounded guilty. Good.

“If you can read it you can read it,” she giggled. Darted into the next room.

“I’m just saying, Mary–” August sighed. “Look, just – whatever you’re on, you’re obviously not in your right mind so let’s just, like, go back and get some water and chill out okay? I just don’t want – okay, I don’t know if this is, like, weird or anything but like, honestly… uh, I’ve been wanting to hang out with you more since we got here, like, just the two of us, y’know, and I’m leaving the first week of September, so, y’know, if you wanted to like, do anything, I was thinking…”

Mary wasn’t listening. Pain suddenly shot up her foot, white hot, all senses directed downward into one sharp point. Her vision blurred and doubled as she looked around – broken window and broken beer bottle scattered across the floor in the half-light. “Fuck,” she gasped, almost soundless. She felt strange in her body, unable to grasp that it belonged to her, even the pain.

“Shit, that bad?” August laughed nervously from the hallway, getting closer. “I guess I saw you with Erik earlier, um, you’re not like, you’re not like together or anything, right? Mary?”

Mary didn’t notice as August ran in, more horrified than she was. She stared at her foot with relative separation. “How’d’you feel about blood?” She was sure she asked, but she couldn’t hear herself speak. She lifted her left foot off the ground and wiggled it in his direction. She wondered if he could even see it in the dark – one large piece of glass sticking out from the sole of her foot, the soft part. She watched in horrified fascination as red dripped down to the end of the shard and onto the floor. She was sure it hurt, but she couldn’t feel it anymore.

“Holy shit! Holy shit. Mary, are you okay? Come here – let me look at it.”

She eyed him warily before sticking her foot out closer to him. “Just, like… pull the glass out, please.” Reddest glass she’d ever seen.

He stared at her like she just handed him a gun and asked him to pull the trigger. “I- he can’t,” he stammered. His eyes seemed to glow in the dark like an animal, both threatening and terrified.
“Useless,” she muttered, pulling her foot closer to herself and balancing awkwardly on one leg. She was flexible, but her sense of balance was shot, especially now. She hopped toward the nearest wall and leaned against it as she inspected her wound. August just stood there, staring helplessly.

“Well?” She prompted.

“Uh– I–” he stammered. “Should I go get help?”

“No, Jesus, it’s fine, just like, go grab me a Band-Aid and some rubbing alcohol, I got this.” She paused. She wasn’t sure if she meant it – the glass was lodged pretty decently in there. Fuck. The last thing she needed was a trip to the E.R., drunk and high and not to mention without insurance. Mary laughed, not sure what she was supposed to do. It didn’t seem real. I need another drink, she thought. “Could you get me some real alcohol, too, please?” she slurred. Her mouth curled into a smile.

He stared at her, wide-eyed. “Okay, um, don’t do anything. Just, like, sit here and don’t touch it and I’ll go get help. I don’t think you should take the thing out ’cause – um – I heard like, you’re not supposed to ’cause it’ll just bleed more so just, um, stay here for a sec okay?” August was backing up toward the doorway.  “And umm, okay, I’ll be back. It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.” He was out the door faster than she could respond.

Mary didn’t watch him as he left. She was still admiring the rapid decline of her health, an affixed fascination across her face. With a sudden jerk, she yanked the glass out between two fingers, feeling the air rush up to meet the cut or the blood rush to meet the air – she wasn’t sure which. She looked around. It was bleeding a lot. She could find her way out, right? Mary hesitated. She couldn’t walk on this, not in here. She shimmied out of her underwear, glad she hadn’t bothered to wear anything cute for this shitshow of a night. She tied them in a tight bow around her foot – as close to a tourniquet as she was going to get. Good enough.  

“Well,” she said, staring at her foot. “Just you and me now.”

It was getting lighter – just barely. That liminal space before the sun rose but you know it’s coming. Her vision swirled before her, making jarring movements every time she heard the pound of August’s footsteps down the stairs or the songs of the cicadas out in the cornfield. Beyond that, Duke’s house. Beyond that, the road.

Mary sat back against the wall, laughing.