Thirty
In another part of the school, Mort held Marla's warm
body in his arms. He kissed her with a depth of passion he was just
discovering within himself. It made so much of what was wrong with the
world right. It would have been enough to change his life.
If only Marla would respond to him.
She didn't. His behavior only confused her. It
repulsed her. She couldn't respond to his passion, because it sparked
absolutely nothing inside of her.
She had insisted they go to the offices to wait for
the administrators to open the school in the morning. He had backed her
against a desk. On her command, Mort had knocked out the lights overhead,
adding more broken glass to the floor within their circle of darkness.
She was soft. She let him kiss her.
He may as well have been kissing a blow-up doll.
Rick had mentioned this problem. At the time, Mort
had thought it funny. So what if she didn't respond? She was a beautiful
girl. Just to be able to touch her should have been enough.
Mort sighed and relaxed. It wasn't working.
"What's the matter?" Marla said worriedly. "Is
something wrong?"
Knowing he'd never be able to explain what was
happening to her satisfaction, Mort hung his head in defeat.
"Just do it," Marla said urgently. "I won't stop
you."
"I don't think it's going to work," Mort said.
Marla grabbed him by his arms. "But it's got to
work!" She shook a piece of crystal loose that had been growing on her
sleeve. "Look at what's happening to me? I'll die if it doesn't work!"
"I can't!" Mort yelled at her and pushed away. "It's
not my fault!"
Marla started crying. Mort wondered if it was for
the first time. He felt a twinge of pride, thinking that even Rick had
never seen her cry before.
"Mort, please. I'm pretty, aren't I?"
He nodded, embarrassed to have to go through this
with her.
"I didn't do anything to stop you, did I?"
Mort shook his head.
"Then why?"
Because you're the Ice Queen. "I don't know,"
Mort said aloud.
"You do know!"
Mort shrugged. "I guess you don't know how is all."
"I don't know how?" Marla was panicky with protest.
"Even cockroaches know how!"
"It isn't that, Marla! It isn't that at all! It's
something you feel, not something you do!"
Marla looked suddenly frightened. "But I don't know
what else there is." Tears ran unimpeded down her cheek. "I thought
girls just let boys do it. What else is there?"
Mort was appalled. How could a human being be so
completely empty inside? A day ago, he would have scoffed at her. He
would have laughed at her. And he would have used her. Now, he felt
something of the same panic and confusion that she felt.
Marla wasn't the only one with a problem. A day ago,
he would have killed for her. Now that he had her, she wasn't what he
needed after all. As corny as it sounded, he wanted to be loved. He
wanted to be needed and appreciated.
Marla was incapable of giving him that love. It was
the thing Marla needed with equal desperation to be able to do. It was
that empty spot inside her that had erected the barrier between herself
and the rest of the world. It was like a wall of crystal through which no
warmth could pass.
Mort clearly saw the connection between them. Marla
was abandoned by the world because she could not love. He was being
abandoned by the world because he was unworthy of love. The injustice of
it made Mort angry, but given a gun that could blow up the entire world
away, or given the power to punish everyone who had ever mistreated him,
he would still hurt inside.
Marla picked at the crystal growing more rapidly on
her clothing. Screaming with frustration, she backed away, swiping at her
hair and face.
"Mort, please make it stop!"
There was only one way to stop a bad dream. They had
to wake up.
"This is impossible," Marla shrieked. "This can't be
happening! She's doing it! She's trying to kill me!"
Becky Marple? Mort had locked Becky and Rick away in
a tool room in the basement hoping to keep them safe from Marla's anger.
And his own. Like hurt animals, they were lashing out blindly at the
world, ignorant of the real source of their pain.
Marla spun in circles. "I'll kill her! I won't let
her do this to me!"
She nicked her finger opening the switchblade. She
clutched it in her fist like a dagger and ran from the offices screaming.
With a groan of frustration, Mort followed in casual, grim silence. Marla
could do no harm to either Rick or Becky locked behind their steel mesh.
Neither would it hurt to confront Becky Marple one last time. Becky had
more clues than any of them to what was going on, and maybe how to stop
it.
Within sight of the door leading to the subbasement,
Mort stopped. Marla stood frozen as well.
Rick and Becky were free, walking hand in hand,
unaware of the danger. It didn't seem so impossible that they had
escaped, but Mort couldn't figure out how Rick had stopped the bleeding so
quick, or cleaned his shirt. The blade had taken a good chunk of
skin from his hand.
Marla was too far gone to notice the discrepancies.
She hid the knife behind her back. Approaching the two, she smiled
maniacally. Mort hurried along the sidewall, trying not to appear
threatening. The last thing he needed was for Kaiser to overreact again.
Mort sensed that it was Marla who was in danger this time.
"Don't do it!" he called out.
Twice she had attacked in a blind rage. This time
she rushed the girl in complete silence and with perfectly controlled
ferocity. Mort cried out his despair. Rick and Becky didn't deserve to
be the brunt of Marla's sickness.
Becky made no effort to either evade Marla or brace
herself for a collision. The switchblade went up in both hands and came
down smoothly…
…and as if truly in a dream and in violation of every
common sense law of physical reality, Marla passed through Becky's
perfectly solid image. Once through, she plunged to the floor, and the
vertical sweep of the blade brought it down point first precariously close
to her own body. Impact with the floor, though, buried the switchblade to
the hilt in her stomach.
Mort staggered and fell against a wall.
Let Becky convince Marla that death was only an illusion. Awake or
dreaming, Marla's sanity could not hope to survive, nor his own in an
outlaw universe in which careless whim and unrelenting terror reigned
supreme.
