“the vandals” by chris castle

Mia waited by her bedroom window for her. She looked down on her street to the pieces of trash that had gummed up and rested in the storm drain. All the things that used to fascinate her now seemed incidental and small. No-one walked down the road now; it was a small town where pre-dawn and after dark was for time spent indoors or in bars and clubs. Chloe appeared, as if on cue, walking away from the curb, with a bag on her shoulder. Mia did nothing foolish, like call out or wave, instead she simply began to peel away from the window and head towards the door. She gently hurried out of the room and noticed with a little amazement that it was not yet dawn.

By the time she stepped out of the house, Chloe was already sitting outside, her back turned and the bag resting by her leg. She turned as soon as Mia quietly closed the door and drew up to face her. Mia was always startled at how quick her reflexes were; in all their time together, she had not once managed to surprise her, or catch her out. It was like she was permanently on alert. Once, she had almost asked her why she always seemed so full of tension but her nerve failed her and she let it slide. Early on, Mia understood that Chloe was a girl who carried secrets.

The two of them set out down the road without a word. Instead, Chloe unhooked the mess of wires and handed her an ear-bud from her mp3. Mia took it and looped it into her ear and waited for the music. The Smashing Pumpkins rolled in and they looked briefly to each other and smiled. It was the double album, the one Chloe had first lent her; it was the first time Mia could remember her smiling. At first she did not know what to make of it, the mixture of lullabies and metal but then she synched in with it and grew to like it, then love it. She wondered sometimes if she had simply tried to like it because it meant so much to Chloe; but then what did it matter? She had looked out to her street, saw husbands and wives with ugly houses and foolishly big cars and realised hers was a small sacrifice. As if to cement the point, each time she turned it up as loud as it would go.

The long road arced left and the two of them began to walk away from the town. The first few cars began to drift onto the street. One or two gawked at the sight of them, walking, linked by wires and Mia wondered if they must have seemed like robots plugged into each other as they marched along. She stifled a smile and made a note to tell Chloe of the thought later, when they were away from all of this and free.

At first she had looked down to the pavement when the stares had come their way, but then she started to face them, feeling defiant. Immediately, the men and women looked away. She felt a surge of pride go through her that she knew was both important and foolish and she resisted the urge to turn and look at Chloe to see if she had seen her. Carefully looking out of the corner of her eye, Mia knew that she had  seen the people staring and did not care. She wondered what she had made of her looking back, whether she felt it was brave or foolish; in her heart, she had the idea that maybe it was both. Yet, it was little acts such as these that Mia did now, because of her. While she was with her she felt emboldened to do the small, simple things that she knew she wanted to do, knew she was capable of doing, but had not dared.

By the time they reached The Loop, it was well after dawn and coming into the working morning. Before they left, they decided to stop off at the local shop to treat themselves to a royal breakfast of pancakes and coffee. The Loop was owned by an old guy and his wife, who seemed deaf but took orders perfectly. As they slid into a booth, the place was busy without being crowded. Mia ordered and smiled as Chloe simply put two fingers up when the old lady turned her way. Mia felt disorientated from taking out the ear-bud; it felt as if she had left a sermon in her ear and couldn’t quite scoop it out. She pushed off and went to the bathroom, Chloe already lost in the menu card and the drawing of the quad-decker waffle; something people had only ever seen on the printed picture and was still regarded as something like a myth in the neighbourhood.

By the time she came out, the water still dripping through her hair and her ears rebalanced, two things had changed; the food had arrived and Chloe was staring intensely at a guy sitting at the counter. He looked familiar in an ugly way; he had either been one of the guys staring at them as they walked the road or he had been in here with his friends on times they had been there before. Not that he was horrible to look at; no he was, on the surface, good looking but he had that sheen that Mia hated about certain men. That you owed them something and worse they felt they could collect maybe in some small gesture, like copping a feel or leering or something else. She slid back into the booth.

She noticed Chloe’s gaze broke away from him as soon as she sat back down and she immediately peered down at the food and made a goofy face. Mia smiled but couldn’t shake the idea that something had happened while she was away. She cleared her throat to speak but then saw Mia looking at her, so clearly and so intently that she couldn’t break it, couldn’t ruin, it by speaking. Instead she lifted her fork in a salute and the two of them began eating.

The food was great, though Mia couldn’t shake the idea that something was wrong; the man sat, stealing glances in the mirror but not bothering to actually move from his spot. The two of them cleared their plates and Mia forced herself to drink her cup of coffee-even though she secretly didn’t really like it-while Chloe drained hers and gleefully accepted her refill. When they were done, they both daintily dabbed their lips with a napkin, copying a woman they had seen in there once who had made just such a gesture after polishing off a three-high waffle house and belching loud enough to break glass. They took the cheque and split it, matching each other’s tip and eased out of the booth. The man did not move, though somehow he felt as if he had edged closer, almost blocking their way.

As they stepped outside, Mia turned to ask what had happened; both of them looked back to the diner and watched as the guy made some joke, shrugged and then walked away to the toilet. The old man working behind the counter shook his head and looked upset. Chloe coolly followed him with her eyes and for a moment and Mia wondered if she had forgotten her completely. She suddenly understood he had asked Chloe to follow him into the bathroom. Mia felt herself rock where she stood and she felt herself stepping back towards the door before an impossibly strong hand gripped her and drew her back. Mia looked back stunned, not being able to translate the strength of the action, the sharp pain of it, to her thin, fragile friend.

Chloe’s eyes did not leave the diner. After a few seconds the man swaggered back into view. He was at his seat when he stopped and slowly looked out to where they stood. Something in him seemed to twitch, as if he knew, as well as Chloe, what it was she was about to do and it was only Mia who was unaware of what was to come next.

The next few seconds roared by in a flash. Before the guy could move, Chloe sank to the ground, drew up and whipped a palm size rock into the windshield of a car six feet from them. The damage it made, splintering the windshield should have been enough. Instead, as the man broke out of his daze and headed for the door, she bolted along the side of the car, running one of the diner’s silver knives down the side of the doors, before jamming it into the tyre. The two of them reached the exhaust and then Chloe gripped her hand with that otherworldly strength again and they ran.

For a few seconds, there were only sensations; the sound of the glass cracking behind them, their footsteps crunching against the stones and the soft thud of the rucksack against Chloe’s back. Mia found herself thinking during all of it, that it was her turn to carry the bag, even as the man screamed behind them. But his words were just hateful noises and didn’t mean anything and she knew he wouldn’t catch them. Even though her blood was pumping and the hand on her wrist was too tight again, she knew they were safe and she understood something that made her heart soar; he can’t reach us because we are young in a way he can never be, ever again.

Chloe slowed down first, even though Mia was breathing harder out of the two of them. They had ducked off the route and the guy had given up soon after and turned back to the car park; Mia wondered if he was more worried about the damage to his car or saving face. Also, in a sharp moment, as they both doubled over, panting and laughing, she thought something else too; she still has the knife. She looked over and watched Chloe breathing hard and realised that she was still totally in control of herself and realised maybe that was what made the guy turn around more than anything else.

The detour was only ten minutes or so, skilfully bypassing the diner and any possible police cars gliding along the road, until they were on the dirt path that led out of town. After they had stopped giggling and replaying the story, they had been quiet, cautious of any sirens or even of the idea the guy might have got a second wind or worse, some ape-friends, but none of that came to pass. Instead, they pitched up on a small knoll that overlooked the small town and the two of them looked back at it.

The small knit of cars all headed towards the local factory; a few other cars veered towards the small parade of shops. They counted six bicycles in all, looking for all the world like ants, as they pulled up next to the cars. No-one seemed to walk, Mia noticed and for a moment that struck her as impossibly sad. She wondered if they would get back in time for all the jobs to finish and see the town go in reverse, all heading back to families, or bars or nothing at all. The two of them had watched it play out before; Chloe had decided that the town at closing time was more pretty; lazily contented and drifting aimlessly home, while Mia had thought the morning had been more alive and full of hope. It was one of many topics they disagreed on. It was one of the things about being an adult that unnerved Mia; the idea of working amongst crowds of strangers or coming home to an empty house. It seemed like some oddly brutal trap that seemed impossible to escape from. Chloe rose up and Mia followed, making a point of snatching the rucksack from her before she could complain.

For a while they followed the dirt path in silence; they were saving the music for a while and instead of talking they listened to the map of sounds that came from the woods. Once, Mia had walked this path by herself. In the morning she had tried to imagine she was being hunted; in the night she’d walked back pretending she was the hunter. It was exciting, both thrilling and sinister, but what she remembered most were the sounds; how in the daylight the noises felt harmless and in the evening, when she had waited to be frightened, they became somehow reassuring. It was one of the first times she understood that she had to experience something to understand it for herself, rather than take somebody else’s word for it.

Chloe was like the walk in the woods that she had taken; she was the only person she had come into contact with who seemed to be lit by experience. In school, while all the others hid behind fashion and spoke like scenes from television, she stuck out like a lightning bolt. Twice, before they had known each other, Mia had seen her fight, first a girl and then afterwards, a boy. Both times she had bled; her nose had been busted up and blood ran down her shirt and yet both times her eyes burned, not with fear or pain, but by being alive. The bullies had seen this and understood; afterwards the boy had muttered to his friends that, ‘a crazy doesn’t know when to quit.’ Mia thought it was the smartest thing she had heard either inside a classroom or anyplace else. She had sought her out immediately and helped stem the blood that was blotting on her sleeves. Later that night, she wondered why she needed to be friends with a crazy girl: Later still, she reasoned that every teenager did.

It was odd to think of her as a teenager, Mia realised suddenly. Nothing about her was immature or childish. Mia was not alone in this, either; she had seen the way the teachers had treated her, how they seemed almost wary of her. People in town, too, seemed to be guarded around her, not talking down to her, or choosing to ignore her when they stepped inside the shops. Once, she had asked Chloe about her family. She had stood perfectly still and mentioned a father who was gone most times and a brother that had died. As soon as she’d finished, she started walking again, as if lingering would make her remember more. Mia didn’t ask again.

Mia told Chloe about her own bruised family soon after, feeling bad for having brought the subject up and almost wanting to make-up; she mentioned her damaged mother. The two looked at each other and it was the only time Mia could remember the both of them being at a lost for what to say. ‘Maybe they should get married,’ Chloe had said and the two of them smiled without any joy whatsoever.

They reached the end of the path and dumped the rucksack. Chloe drew out the pack of cigarettes and lit two, before handing onto Mia. At first she had hated it, now she was dimly aware of handling it; she drew in the smoke in such a way she would not cough, she got a handle on flicking ash without losing the tip completely. A childish part of her felt stupidly proud that by the time she was an adult, she would know how to do these things and would have some sort of advantage over other people. Mia watched as Chloe rooted through the bag. She held up a maths and history text book. Those two lessons were their common enemy; now school was over, the books were not needed. She casually lifted the butt from her mouth and stubbed it on the cover of the first book. As they laughed, she flung the other to Mia who did the same, right over the author’s name. She handed it back and the two books disappeared back into the bag.

As they cut through the track they stopped at the lake; after checking for perverts, they undressed and walked towards the water. Mia wondered if Chloe wore white for the same reason she wore black. They stepped in and howled at how cold it felt at first touch. As they walked further in, Mia closed her eyes, loving the feeling of losing her footing and being immersed in the water. For a few moments she felt weightless and lost. In the darkness, she was aware of nothing but the experience of being wrapped inside the water; this is how it must feel to be her, she thought and even as she felt fear ride over her, Mia smiled.

For a few minutes they kidded around and then they settled down. Mia swam a few circuits, while Chloe roared back and forth and then floated in the centre. Mia went and rested next to her. The two of them looked up to the sky poking out from the thickets and listened to the water moving around them. Whenever I lay on my back, on the grass, in bed, with a lover, I’ll always remember this time, now. She wondered if Chloe was thinking the same idea.

As they walked further into the woods, the sight of the lake slipped away, as did the signs of the blue sky overhead. For a while there was nothing but the overhanging trees and the crunch of the leaves underfoot. When she had walked this alone, this was the part where panic would almost set in. The idea that they were walking away from everything settled into her then, but no fear washed over her. Instead, being the last two people left felt like a natural idea, a good thing. A branch brushed over her forearm and nearly drew blood. A few seconds later, a flash of silver flickered into life and the sound of Chloe parsing back the branches filled the woods. She had not looked back, but she had known Mia had been hurt by the sound of her breathing. She smiled.

The clearing came about so abruptly, the two of them almost bumped into each other. The old house sat just off to the right, as if it had started to lean with time. The ground by it was bare, with dry grass and a few weeds. Without thinking, Mia crouched down and looked for any footprints in the dust and was pleased to see none. She pulled herself and saw Chloe quietly beaming; it was something she had not thought of doing. Mia pitched the bag over to her and stretched. As she looked up, she was surprised to see how dusk was moving in; they had been walking for most of the day. Before it got dark there were thing to be done, but almost instinctively, she began to sit and found Chloe doing the same thing. For a while, they simply sat watching the house, one ear bud apiece, listening to the last few tracks of the album.

The house had a history, no doubt, but it was mostly built on urban legends. It was, of course, a popular place for parties, but had been busted too often in the last few summers to still be an option. At this time of year it was deserted because it was too hot for most people to hike. Also, the kids in town who had money went away and the poor folk went about scoring booze in the next town over. It was too far out of reach to be bulldozed and too sturdy to be wiped out by the weather. Mia supposed if she went to the local library she could have found out about it, but she liked not knowing. The more time she spent in her town, the more she realised a house with a history, let alone mystery, was a rarity in itself. Even if it was owned by ‘Splithead’ McCabe, the mass murderer, she thought and smiled, remembering the earliest spook-story she had heard at school.

The house itself was dusty but surprisingly solid. None of the beams creaked, nor did any of the walls show any sign of rot. As they padded from the kitchen to the other rooms, Mia was surprised at how little damage the other people had done to it, too; in town, graffiti was everywhere, whereas here, there seemed to be very little trace of anything or anyone. As Chloe padded around upstairs, Mia took the knife from the bag and began to carefully carve their initials into the beam overhead in the kitchen. It took a long time and her fingers began to ache as she finished off her own initials. As she stopped to flex her hand, Chloe came up behind her and took the knife from, in that way that Mia was coming to recognise; both strong and gentle. It was how she imagined an adult, a real man or woman, would act. She edged away just enough for her to have room to write, but close enough to watch her work, to follow the speed and the detail. As they stood back and looked at it, Mia reached out and ran her finger over it; it felt and looked as if it had been there forever.

The food was laid out on the porch, using one of the coats from the rucksack as a blanket. It was all their favourite food, with a bottle of water and a thermos of coffee in the centre. The pack of cigarettes rested on the side with the lighter on top and they smoked after each course, pouring a fresh cup of something each time they did. Each time they fished a butt, they set it down on a tray filled with water, to stop the smoke carrying-Chloe’s idea, and Mia thought, her way of recovering after not thinking of checking for footsteps, though she’d never say a word-and watched the stars. By the time they were finished, the moon had broken through and lit them well enough.

After the food, they listened to the music until the batteries ran down. There was something sad about this, something that made Mia understand that this was not going to last forever, that almost made her want to scream. She watched Chloe as she set the ear-buds neatly down on the ground and then go through the rucksack. As she laid out the books, the bottle of whiskey Mia had stolen from her mom’s shelf and a few other things, Mia thought how much older she looked in the half-light, almost like an adult, a stranger. This is how she’ll look when I no longer know her; she realised fiercely and reached for the cigarettes. As she lit the second one, Chloe slipped it into her mouth and then rose up, suddenly walking away to the far edge of the clearing. Mia made to stand up but then understood she was supposed to stay still; instead she watched as she disappeared, lit only by the small ember of the cigarette, as she collected something on the fringes of the wood.

As she matched back, Mia saw she had collected all the branches she had trimmed off as they had made their way here. She laid them, along with a few other, bigger branches in the centre of the clearing, an equal distance between the house and the woods. Mia pulled herself up, putting the junk back into the bag and then scooping up the rucksack onto her shoulder. As she reached the centre, Chloe flicked the butt into the bottom of the pile.

The two of them carefully placed the items into the stack; the paper rubbish they lit first, making sure the billowing smoke moved away from them. With a small cheer, the text books came next and for a long while they savoured the time it took for them to not only burn, but also make the fire bigger.

Chloe reached in and brought out the last two objects; the bottle of booze and the small packet Mia didn’t recognise. Chloe opened it, tossing the packet in the fire, but kept a tight grip on the small stack of photos in her fist. Mia watched as she stepped closer to the fire and began feeding them in one by one; they curled as they caught light and gave off an odd smell. Mia almost took a step forward, when she turned round slowly and carefully handed her six or seven pictures. Without looking at Mia, she went back to carefully burning them, one by one. Mia peered down to what was in her hand and felt her stomach lurch. No, she thought simply; please, no.

Mia told herself that the wind had changed direction and the smoke in her lungs stopped her from speaking. As quickly as the shock rose in her, she fought it down; she told herself she could not feel the horror of what she had seen in the photos seep into her skin. This is what happens when you become an adult, she told herself, as she forced her hands and her heart to stop shaking; you are handed secrets and you keep them safe.  Mia walked closer to the fire and studied Chloe and drew strength from her. Slowly, she crouched down and fed the photos in just as methodically as Chloe did. Mia made herself watch the photo as it lit, just as she did, watching the pictures burn from the centre, so the bodies burned from the heart first and then spread to eat the rest flesh that was captured in the shot.

When it was over, they stood side by side. Mia looked down to her empty hands and understood it was over. Her hands began to shake again, despite the heat of the fire. She drew her palms up to the flames and slowly Chloe’s hand slipped into hers. Together they stilled, until Mia was ready to finish it all, by hurling the bottle into the burning branches. Mia seized the bottle and was about to fling it into the fire when Chloe’s grip tightened, stopping her. Slowly, Chloe led her back, step by step, until they were a full ten paces from the fire. Then, and only then, did she release her grip, and Mia, full of fury at what she had seen and full of love for her friend, hurled the bottle into the orange light. Inside a second it flashed, glass exploding and the flames roaring higher into the sky than she could have ever imagined. Raging as she was, she still flinched as the fire launched out of control. They watched it for a long time.

Chloe’s grip on Mia never weakened the whole time and after a while, Mia found the strength to match her grip and then over power it, until Chloe rocked a little and relaxed, letting herself be held. It would have to be enough; it was all they could do. We could burn the house, she thought savagely. We could burn the whole town for what it’s done. Mia felt herself losing control to that feeling of revenge, when she felt Chloe glancing over to her. She waited to see the same rage, the same anger, but it was not in her. Instead, there was something else, something like relief, or love, that Mia couldn’t understand. Mia kept looking and finally felt the anger subside, even as she fought against it.

The two of them walked hand in hand past the embers and into the house. From there they stepped inside, looking back one last time; suddenly it seemed very far away. Chloe opened the door and Mia closed it behind them. They walked up the stairs to the bedroom and looked out to the woods; the fire was gone now, the hateful pictures no more than dust but the stars still burned bright. One hand in the other, they watched the moon. The night slipped by and neither grip weakened; one stayed as strong as the other until, at last, the morning came.