Excerpt: Destroying Alice

Despite being the leader of the Salvagamo clan, Franco never acted like a thug. He was unusually composed, a man of vague words. His silent workers never talked to him, only followed their boss’s commands, eyes straying back every time he turned away. They were a strange bunch of people, always together but never connected.

Then again, I wasn’t one to judge, seeing as I wasn’t part of their clan.

The way I saw it, if I didn’t see anything, I wasn’t involved with anything. I was just an ordinary delivery guy who never opened the packages like he was supposed to, and those boxes could contain drugs, alcohol, whatever, and it wouldn’t matter. Franco paid decently. But even I knew we were strictly on business terms, as far as sleazy business went.

Not a single trace of Barnum and his delivery service remained in the abandoned building. Paintings and posters were torn off. Moved tables left scratches on the empty floorboards. Unpaid electric bills singled out dim light bulbs from the ceiling. The ceiling fan stopped all motion, as if it had been too weak to spin any more. No one would bother to inspect, to even surmise the deals that inhabited the supposedly deserted structure.

The man facing me sat behind a steel desk. Franco wiped a finger over the surface and inspected his digit for dust. We talked about the first delivery I’d make. He said, “You’ll be smuggling a—“ and I cut him off short.

“Don’t care about that.” I held a palm out and my fingers motioned, “Just give me the goods and my money and I’ll be on my way.”

He smirked at the quick response, an empty smile I saw every time I retorted something. But after he passed the bulky luggage over the table, the written address taped on the back, and watched me grip the handle, those lips curled downwards. Franco leaned forward and fitted his fingertips together, eyes flickering at mine. Dull gray mulling, as they often did.

“Just remember,” he spoke quietly, “even though you’re on the run for only a week, you could be found out any day.”

“Who do you take me for? I’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing.” I patted the luggage, contents rattling. “Why would you care?”

“I don’t.” Franco popped another cigar and lit it.

“But I wanted you to know that if you do get caught,” he inhaled, “no one will save you.”

Since when did I need anybody’s help?

His words echoed, his grave face lingered with passing street lamps that dimmed the only shadow on the pavements. Boots sloshed over puddles and mud, but gray clouds growled, warning I had to deliver the next set of trafficked goods before a storm would surface again. The cart’s wheels skidded down the sidewalk, crates secured together from falling down hill.

Squeaks became squawks, squawks of things soaring in the pitch black night that resembled torn pages of books, flapping, fluttering, screeching in the air, air filled with salt and ocean waves. A beam of light scanned the shore until it spotted and recognized my secret signal. Undistinguishable men loaded the last set of crates onto the vessel before making their way off to another country. Their flag flapped in the wind and disappeared in the darkness. If a storm came, tonight would be a rough night.

I let out a long breath, turned from the view of the ship and started walking back. The end of the week was nearly approaching before I’d leave Ginova, but tonight I’d call it a night. Squawks of seagulls died, soft waves crashed beneath planks. Gray clouds chased each other, insisting the moon keep hiding and revealing itself. Then they finally let it shine on a figure standing at the end of the pier.

Under the white lighting of the moon, the figure appeared petite enough to be a girl. Light, wispy hair fluttered from the breeze as she stared not at the moon but the holes in the sky, as if the stars would have an answer, an answer for her lost face, her tiny body in such a vast world of water and land. When she turned my direction, I would have looked the opposite way had she not started waving. I glanced around, but no one else stood. And so I followed.

Waves started exciting, picking up the currents. Planks groaned beneath my boots with each step, beckoning, come, come, closer, closer, but since when the hell could pieces of wood talk? I must have been tired from a day’s work to imagine lumber speaking.

I approached closer to the girl, mixed feelings stirring. Slight nostalgia, that light blonde hair and small face and pale complexion. Familiarity, a faded flower-print skirt, a thin white-blue cardigan, collar bone stuck out above her shirt like a jagged tooth. Realization, dark blue eyes staring back at mine, bright, from the moonlight, blue, from the ocean, an aching look, from an unknown source. I could almost see myself in those eyes, and I realized I looked different too, calm, still, slightly surprised, not like I was back at the library, not like how we both were. Tonight was different from a week ago, tonight something had changed, tonight something was not right.

“I have been looking for you.”

Her whisper nearly drowned in the sea, and her voice quavered slightly, as if she had not practiced speaking in a long time. She spoke like she was cold. But no goosebumps lined on her arms, despite the thin garments, despite her feet so close to the shore the waves could snarl and seize her away in the night. She sounded fuzzy, almost, and the moon gave her a pale white skin. Rain drizzled slightly, tapping my head from my daze, and yet no droplets formed on her flower pattern.

My palms felt sweaty and I told myself it was the rain. “Why are you here?”

The strange girl drifted her eyes to the endless body of water before us, and she tried to search for herself in there but couldn’t. She stood so far off the edge of the dock that, being as thin as she was, even the slightest breeze could push and drown her to the bottom of the angry sea. Maybe I should have warned her not to step too far away, but the next line uttered from her colorless lips left me speechless and forgot everything about the Salvagamo, about the storm that was quickly approaching, about the mystery of her presence.

“I can fully believe you now, that ghosts really do exist.”

The wind bit my face, but it would not stop me from staggering closer with shaky hands, legs, breaths. “Wha… you can see them too?!”

Slowly, hesitantly, the girl nodded.

No one…

The waves attacked the legs of the docks. The planks shook under my trembling feet.

… I thought no one could ever feel the same way I did.

“This—this is amazing! I never thought this would happen! Hey, when did you…” I took several steps forward, reaching a hand to her, “when did you discover you could—“

Something burned. That was all I remembered before the nothingness came, the moment I leaned forward, the second my finger touched skin, for a split second something burned before I completely hurdled to the sea, freezing water nipping at me, vision blurred with drops and blackness and words caught in my throat with water and salt.

The waves roared, delighted in swallowing me up, a new feast for the sea. I thrashed, fought the raging waters until my head could pop from the surface. Gasping for breath, the remains of water choking the back of my throat, glossy beads slipping inside the corner of my eyes, I coughed and sputtered. But the girl stood at the pier exactly where she was, looking down at me, dry, safe, untouched, and even before she spoke I knew what she was going to do.

She dropped to her knees and gripped the edge of the walkway as best as she could. Blonde hair poured over wood, and she clenched her eyes tightly.

“My name is Alice Sutton, and I’m begging you to please help me!”