Hitchhikers by Kate Spofford

wish my legs would just walk me right over
the side of a cliff.
    monstermonstermonster
    I walk through darkness. I veer off where
there are no roads. I don’t want to be near people. I don’t want to
eat. I don’t want to sleep.
    I drag myself onward.
     
     

 
-34-
    The night is like the empty expanse inside my
brain
    like that black hole inside of that baby’s
skull
    my entire head opened up and immense spinning
wildly overhead. It’s too much, it’s too big.
    (make it stop stop stop)
    I close my eyes and see that little body
there, what I did to it
    you monster
    I open my eyes and still see
    monster
    It’s too much for my head to hold.
    I can still feel her blood on my face.
     
     

 
-35-
    “Daniel, stop.”
    Gentle hands I don’t deserve. I am pushed to
the ground as easily as a blade of grass, away from the tree trunk
I’ve been smashing my head against.
     
     

 
-36-
    I’m not entirely sure how I got here, but
it’s as good a place as any to die.
    There are lots of beams overhead, and I’ve
found a rope.
    With more energy than I’ve had in weeks, I
throw the rope up and over, secure a knot that will hold my
weight.
    Through the soaped over windows, light
gleams, a milky twilight. When I was in grade school, one of my
classmates showed us how to tie a hangman’s knot. “You have to wrap
the rope around thirteen times,” he said. In a corner of the
playground we watched him wrap the rope around and around,
mesmerized by the repetitive action.
    around and around and around
    There is a rickety chair in this abandoned
warehouse. I drag it through the dust on the floor and step onto
the seat. Slowly, to keep my balance, I stand up straight and hold
the noose out in front of my face.
    Through the loop Lila sits, watching me with
sad eyes. I see her, and I see my father, and my uncles, and a
small child, and hundreds of other who are shades, waiting for me
on the other side.
    “I have to,” I tell her.
    Her eyes accuse me.
    “You’ll be fine on your own. Better than
fine. You’re better off without me.” I take a deep breath. “You’ve
seen what kind of monster I am.”
    She has seen. She knows what I am. And still
she is here.
    No. I’m a monster.
    “It’s better this way,” I say, and slide the
garrote over my head, pulling it tight like a dog collar, pulling
it tighter so it’s hard to breathe. I don’t deserve such an easy
death. I should die in terror, my limbs torn apart like those of my
victims. I should die with sharp teeth coming after me, feeling my
flesh being eaten and ripped from my bones.
    That is what kind of monster I am.
    Now Kayla stands before me as I struggle to
breathe, nude, her long toffee-colored hair draped over her. “It
isn’t your fault, Daniel,” she says.
    your fault your fault your fault
    Her voice stabs me.
    “I can’t control it.” My eyes blur. “It’s
better this way. For everyone.”
    “No.”
    She steps forward. She has a shadow. Her
musky woodsy scent drifts up to me, fills all the air I breathe.
“You’re not even really here. I’m imagining you.”
    “They should have told you,” she says.
“Warned you. But that is the way of the pack. The men face it
alone.”
    There is a darkness crowding in. I blink, try
to see what is real. Where is Lila? Is the sun really setting so
fast?
    Her soft hand reaches up and touches my
face.
    “It is forbidden to tell you. You have to
figure it out. See what is in front of your eyes.”
    Kayla.
    Kayla is here.
    it’s too much it’s too big
    I try to step off the chair. There is no one
here who can stop me. There is no one here except in my
imagination.
    A very real hand presses on my chest, keeping
me alive.
    “Listen to me,” she insists. “It happens on
your birthday. Remember your birthday?”
    my birthday
    Today is my sixteenth birthday.
    happy birthday to me
     
     

 
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    happy birthday to me…
    Humming low so no one can hear over the
truck’s roaring engine. My uncle Red was driving; my