The Afterlife (Siren Suicides, Book 3)

Chapter 12. Fremont Troll

A homeless, mushroomy looking man gapes at me, his face emerging from the folds of his clammy hair like the folds of a sea turtle's skin. His bundle of clothes, one unidentifiable item on top of another, reeks of old urine. His breath is cheap beer and other unpleasant odors. His entire physique is shrunken yet agile for his age. What startles me more is the speed with which he reached me and my own slow reaction. I blame my newly acquired self-confidence, well, the smidge of it that I had, the very thing I desired and the thing that just rendered me blunt and oblivious to danger—though I still believe that this little man can't possibly do me any harm. I study him for a second out of pure curiosity, abashed by his boldness. Of course, on his end, I look like a disheveled teenage girl with a dirty face, clad in an oversized orange fisherman's suit, with her dirty bare feet sticking out like two lifeless appendages.

"What are you doing here? Get out, out!" he squeaks. "It's my spot, my spot! It's m—" His vision clears and his cheeks pull up into a toothless smile, no doubt in a moment of recognition, because I recognize him, too. It's the homeless guy who grabbed me by the arm when I escaped from the Pike Place Fish Market and was on my way to dive into the Puget Sound.

"I don't believe my eyes. Here we meet again, little birdie, so we do. And where are you going this time, pray? Not going anywhere? I see. Came here to spare some change for the old man? Did ya? And who do we have here?" he says, sounding like a frog, croaking in his elderly voice.

I listen, fascinated by his ugliness, repulsed by remembering how he lied, how he blamed me for stealing his money when a cop asked him what happened. For a second, I feel sorry for him, for having rolled down to the very bottom of existence, where anything goes.

Hunter moans to my left, deciding to wake up at the wrong moment. This is not how I imagined our reconciliation, certainly not in front of some homeless guy.

The mushroom man reaches out and grabs my arm.

"Don't touch me!" I say angrily, but he only curls his fingers tighter.

"And why not?" he says, inching closer.

"Because!" I yank my arm from his hold, leaving the sleeve in his grip and causing the jacket to open up. The zipper slider glides down with a quiet whizz. I want to yank more, but don't dare, because then the whole jacket might open up and I'm naked underneath. For a moment, I glare back at him, stupefied as to how to get out of this.

"Oh, those pretty blue eyes didn't let me sleep," he says and crawls toward me even more, shuffling forward on his butt and raising a cloud of cement dust. With his other hand, he clamps on my ankle.

"I bet you got those from your mama, did you? What else did you get from your mama, pretty girl? Let the old man see." His face is within a foot of mine, and I can't utter a sound, paralyzed by his stink and brashness. My inability to believe that I'm attractive kicks in at the wrong moment.

He lifts himself up and reaches into the opening of my jacket. I reel with such revulsion and hatred that—my fear of waking Hunter forgotten—I shriek directly into mushroom man's face, rip the jacket out of his grip, and throw him off me in one movement.

The zipper groans and slides all the way to the bottom, exposing my torso. I don't care. I stand up and stare the mushroom man down.

"You sick fuck!" I yell. "Get away from me! I will kill you, you stinking asshole!" My rage, conveniently tucked away for the purpose of carrying Hunter, blooms anew and I let it out. I found a convenient target for it, for my hunger, and I forget everything else. I have to get this maddening compulsion out of me, it's boiling, it's making me sore.

The world around me wraps into one dark tunnel. Nothing exists except me and my target splayed on the sandy ground ten feet in front of me, in the shadow of the troll.