Asa is an unwilling sensitive with a fear of mirrors and anything reflective.
Amy is an unwitting empath.
Together they are responsible for murder.
THE SHIPPY SIBLINGS are rarely alone, despite living as secluded orphans on the remains of...
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"WHAT'S WRONG?"
Amy stood above me on the high side of the sandy embankment, a lone spur against the blue sky.
I couldn't form an answer. Instead, I gestured behind me, my arm flapping uselessly like a windsock on an airfield. Amy jumped, landed on both knees, stood, and ran past. I grabbed my head and raked my fingernails along the short, bristled hairs that grew there, hearing her feet hit the water. Memories ruptured the portion of my brain ordinarily sealed. Images of Ma—blistered and blackened, a pig on a spit—boiled like thunder clouds on a stormy horizon.
There was also a dead chicken.
"Jesus," Amy exhaled.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Behind my eyelids, a bright pin dot grew into a well-lit scene: The creek is low. Little to no rain has left it muddier than usual. The water trudges along the bottom, dragging dirt as it travels from beginning to end. A girl stands in the surviving current, submerged to the ankles. The cuffs on her jeans drink deep. Damp spots form below her knees as the tough cotton wicks moisture up. A crown of wild brown hair perches atop her head. Loose curls fall victim to the steady breeze, whipping to and fro on a tether. She pauses. A few feet away lies a dead man. But the sight of ugly decay isn't what stops her. The familiarity does. Death in its intimacy is her constant, and she takes note of its presentation.
I opened my eyes and forced myself to turn around. My legs remained pilings, but my gaze skirted quickly to the gruesome display despite my continued revulsion.
The man lay on his back. (The man I'd stumbled upon not two minutes before, thinking the worst I'd see today was a sun-bloated deer.) He was an off-white color, his malleable skin patchy with dark bruises. He looked as marble-like as I felt, my stomach brick-heavy. His legs trailed into the water, half nestled under a pine log. I don't think he started that way. Either gravity shifted the wet sand, or something—an animal maybe—had nudged him off his axis. The elastic waistband on his nylon athletic shorts maxed out, bitting into his distended abdomen, and the purple crop top, once boxy, now snugged against the curved hump of his naked stomach.
"He's been here awhile," Amy said, covering her nose again with the tip of one jacket sleeve.
I'd remember that smell for days after. (At least, I thought I would). Whenever the shit pipe backed up in the late summer heat or a mangled doe went to waste in the dumpster behind Sterling Hill Animal Control. The gassy scent of rotting flesh snuck into my nostrils and grafted with the hairs and dried snot. Permanent.
Amy made the opposite bank. She beckoned for me to follow, and I did. Proving her wrong about my wussdom overrode the invisible chains on my legs. Cold water filled my sneakers and socks. The hand on my shoulder gripped me hard in discouragement. By the time I crossed the creek, I was completely numb.
