Head Like a Hole

by Andrew Van Wey

Good, he could hardly see her now. Just a tangle of autumn leaves and twigs and mud. If he was lucky, no one would notice her for weeks. If he was fortunate, they might get an early snow.

This is actually crazy

At the far end, the main stairs led up to that library he’d glimpsed from the door.

What a long, strange trip it’s been. It’s better to burn out than fade away. Those who don’t hear the music think the dancers are mad.

This was just her swimming pool, its lanes empty and quiet. The other students had already gone home for Thanksgiving. And she was alone.

But she was running out of friends to beat. “Ah, you bitch,” Ray groaned. “Just kill me now.”

Taken out of context, this would be a crazy line to read fr

He licked his lips, heart drumming deep in his chest as the sweet taste of Dr. Pepper lip gloss now danced on his tongue. A taste he had forgotten.

We didn’t kind of fire him—” “Okay, Dad, I get it.”

Oksana. The Tenbury School. The library.

She pulled the car back onto the road. She drove toward the school. She did not notice the truck passing her on the left. A red pickup, its bed covered with a tarp where landscaping supplies rattled about.

“Oksana, huh. So how’s she doing? You keep in touch?” “No, not really.”

She could see smudges at its corners where rough fingers had turned the pages. The sticky outline of a hand, still glistening beneath the harsh florescent lighting. When she cracked the spine, she noticed it immediately. Several pages were missing.

Last night, Gary had poached two bottles of merlot from the kitchen. Together, they cooked veal scallopini in her tiny apartment. They watched City of Lost Children and rolled around in her bed.

Something that put a blush to her cheeks and a spring in her step. Then she’d forgotten it.

They’d asked her to teach home economics instead. As if.

The yearbook office felt too small, too dark. She turned on another lamp and dug further back in the files.

A thing now wobbling closer on wet fingers. —GAVE YOU A CHOICE AND YOU REJECTED IT YOU COWARD YOU SLUT YOU’RE NO DAUGHTER OF OURS NO FRIEND NO ONE WORTH CARING FOR YOU STAY OUT OF OUR WAY AND—

No. She understood where it was going. The radiator.

The pink fingers closed around the eye, sliding inward. The rat followed, tail and hindquarters first. Then its body followed. The last thing Megan saw were its beady eyes bulging out of its face before the shadows devoured it. One eye was blue. The other was gray.

She loaded the missing yearbook pages onto her computer, the zip drive clicking away.

They said their goodbyes and exchanged a friendly hug. Kiki told Megan she was one of the good ones and she wished her the best. It came easy to her lips; the truth always did. Mostly, she wanted Megan to know that somebody cared, and that whatever Megan was after, there was no need to lie.

The girls had been cruel to Chunhee, the guys mostly indifferent. Then, in her senior year, Chunhee had blossomed. She filled out in ways Megan envied, both petite and sharp, long-legged and thin-necked.

They burst out laughing, fear and miles dissolving, just two friends connected by time and memory. And there was more, Megan sensed. A guilt to Chunhee’s words, laden by the silence of years.

“Meg, I really think we should talk, in person.” Megan found herself nodding at the urgency. “Yeah, of course.”

“Good. Here’s my pager number. Put 911 after your number and I’ll call you right back. Got a pen?”

“Chunhee, did we… Did we do something terrible?” Chunhee didn’t answer, but the silence stretched on without a dismissal. Then, “Just hurry on up, okay? I’ll tell you everything, I promise. I’ve been meaning to tell you for years.” And then she hung up.

the tea is teaing

“Oksana… Was she a Russian woman?”

He gave his wife a kiss and stole a pinch of something from the stove, dodging a playful smack of her wooden spoon. He stopped at a magnet-covered refrigerator and picked among the clippings.

The Tenbury School was on the middle-left column, that same page Louis had torn out.

“LT, it’s Graham,” he said . “How fast can we get a cadaver dog out to Louis’s house?”

Jaw on the mother f-ing flooooor

The tentacle lashed out, seizing June by her wrist and coiling up her forearm. With a squeeze, it yanked her forward.

She dropped down onto the floor, used her swimmer’s legs to press up against the underside of the sink’s cabinet. She braced her thighs for an inverted squat and pushed out.

No kelp or hair. No beaks and bone held together by tentacled flesh.

“Strawberry daiquiri?” Cindy asked. “Yeah.” June nodded. “Strawberry fucking daiquiri.”

The sharp beaks. Those puckering suckers. That mariachi player with his empty left eye. June white-knuckled the steering wheel. Why was it all falling apart these past several weeks?

Slumber Party Massacre. Cutting Class. Maniac.

It was crinkling and slowly coming undone. Yellow twine slid through the holes, pulled from within. Then it all fell open.

She sensed a great instinct to scream, to run, to flee and do it now, now, NOW!

A man whose stubby hands wrapped around her, silencing her hopes of screaming and fleeing, and squeezed the wind from her lungs.

Louis knew he was a bad man who’d done terrible things with his heart and his hands.

It was love that compelled him, and it was true what they said: it filled your body with warmth; it made you move mountains; love conquered all.

Like a fisherman of lore, the tides had brough...

I need louis to be so astromonically for fucking real right now

She flexed the other girl’s right hand, rotating it in a small circle. It was her hand now, he supposed. No different than a donated kidney. Perhaps she could teach him this trick, help him grow new fingers, thicken his hairline, or spackle some wrinkles. Was it too much to ask?

He spotted a pink toenail broken from the struggle, and his heart crowded his throat.

He raised her toe to his lips and kissed the broken nail.

So, here he was, kneeling at the feet of his love. Sliding her toe past his lips as he kissed her split nail. He would kiss every perfect inch if she let him.

Distantly, he knew he was crying. Because of what she was going to ask.

Then she kissed him, her lips soft against his. She was in him, always, ever since that first morning on the boat in the bay, the best day of his life. He felt every cell beginning to sing.

He was nodding and crying now; he knew what needed to be done and was proud of his part. He just needed the strength.

A few more pounds wouldn’t kill her, might even size her up a half cup. She never cared for the Kate Moss look.

That wasn’t June. Or, rather, that wasn’t June’s head on her body.