Page 41

Story: Electricity

We pulled into an unfamiliar driveway and parked. “Where are we?”

“My place,” Darius said, getting out of the car. “Don’t worry, my uncle’s off on a hunting trip.”

“Great,” I said flatly, and followed him up to the front door.

The door opened into a place that was full, literally, of dead things. There were rifles on all of the walls, and animals in different stages of fighting and repose, murderous bears and cud-chewing gazelle, surrounding a couch facing a TV. I stopped on the doorjamb.

“Are you now, or have you ever been, a serial killer?”

He laughed. “Look at me. I’m half-black. This is your people, not mine?—”

“Then your uncle is….”

“My mom’s brother. My mom and dad met when he was stationed at Fort Leavenworth.”

I stepped inside and spotted a wildcat recoiling a paw, like it’d just hurt itself swatting the horns of a nearby jack-a-lope. They were both set onto the same base, some sad taxidermist’s joke. “How can you live here, with all their dead eyes are staring at you?”

“My mom didn’t give me much choice. Plus, the eyes are just buttons.”

I reached out to tap the glass of one, without touching any of the creepy fur. “That doesn’t make it better.”

“Well I wasn’t going to have us sit here anyways. Serious conversations require going downstairs,” he said, pointing to a descending stairway.

Downstairs. Sure. Why not? If I could light things on fire on accident, I was pretty safe from everything…but lighting things on fire on accident. I made a face, but followed him.

The stairs led to a door. Houses, real houses, in Kansas had basements for tornado shelters. And this basement was apparently Darius’s lair.

“Welcome to the laboratory,” he said with a flourish, opening the door and sweeping his arm inside. I was sort of disappointed when smoke didn’t billow out of it, what with the name and his alternate occupation.

It was a dim room, largely because of the number of posters papered on all four, no, five sides, since some were on the ceiling. Comic books, movies, bands, art—a little bit of everything Darius was all over the walls. His bed occupied a corner, and then a small couch, a wide TV, and assorted game stations made up the other half. Everything was neatly organized and stacked—very different from the mess inside his car.

I had never been in a boy’s room before. I didn’t know what to do—the couch was too small for two people, but I didn’t want to sit on his bed.

He made things easier by folding himself up on the floor and I sat opposite him, perched on the couch like it might bite me.

“Where’s the fry containers?”

“Those are in case I get pulled over by an officer with a drug dog. Of course the dog’d be interested in fry-boxes,” he answered. “My turn—you set the Shax on fire?”

“It was an accident.” How much of the story did I have to tell him for him to believe me? I twisted my lips to one side, and decided to start as close to the beginning as I could. “I was hit by lightning a few days ago.”

He studied me again then asked, “For real?”

“For real. It happened. And after that—remember how I held the jumper cables for your car? And all of a sudden the engine worked? And the fire alarm at school this morning? And now the grease fire at the Shax—I’ve got weird powers and I can’t control them.” The words burbled out of me, but his concerned expression didn’t change. I folded my knees into my chest. I stank like burger grease and sweat and the longer he was quiet, the more I wished I could just melt into the ground. “Nevermind.”

“No no no—I can tell you’re serious,” he said, and I looked up. “It’s just…weird. You’d be surprised how many delusional people I’ve had to deal with in my seventeen years.”

“Occupational hazard?” I guessed.

“Yep. But since you’re not currently high and don’t appear to be psychotic—can you prove it to me?” He wiggled his fingers in the air between us, to indicate whatever magic I could do.

I inhaled and looked around, half-of-this-world, and half-of-the-other. I could feel his house around me, all of its wires andvolts, but I didn’t want to try anything if I couldn’t control it. I didn’t want a repeat of the Shax or to fry either of our phones.

So what else was there? I twisted around, looking for something safe—and remembered the marks on my back. “Here—I can show you.”

I turned on the couch and lifted up the back of my uniform, up to just under my bra. First time in a strange boy’s room and here I was already halfway to taking off my top.

I heard him make a low sound and crawl nearer. “Can I touch?”