Dawn rose. Melanie sat in the road until a car honked her out of her stupor. As she rolled to the curb, the screech of the tires reverberated in her ears like a scream.

She wanted to scream. Oh god she wanted to scream. But her throat was too dry and scratchy and hurt.

Everything hurt.

Melanie stared at her apartment building. It stood there like a brick in the mud, the patio door still wide open from when her mother had…

Her mother would be furious seeing all the bugs that were getting in. Mosquitos swarmed inside like a cloud and a single hornet buzzed into the gaping hole in the screen. Melanie remembered the day her dog had bitten that hole into being.

The dog, a little schnauzer named Mippy, had gone feral that day. It was scratching and biting and clawing everything in sight. The vet said it may have been the stress of the move but Melanie had always suspected something else, something evil, behind her little Mippy’s behavior. The hole in the screen had been her mother’s last straw. Mippy had been rolling around on the floor, growling and squirming like it was having a seizure, and then it had gotten up and taken a huge bite out of the screen door. The very next day Melanie and her mother had taken Mippy to the vet to be put down. Melanie remembered little Mippy’s face then, completely calm and shy. Mippy knew. People say dogs always know. Melanie hadn’t believed them until Mippy looked up at her as if to say it was sorry and please I deserve another chance. The vet wouldn’t even let Melanie stay in the room when they did the injection. Melanie remembered her mother letting out a relieved sigh. She remembered hating her for it. Somewhere in the back of Melanie’s mind, staring at the ripped hole in the screen, shivering in the chilled morning air with her knees scraped on the curb, Melanie still hated her mother for that.

But then Melanie remembered her mother running toward her and Grivgas and the way her corpse had flopped along the ground like a ragdoll as it was dragged away.

Everything was wrong. Everything was so very wrong.

Melanie should be groggily dragging herself out of bed right now; that or ignoring the alarm until she heard a determined kick on her bedroom door. She should be mumbling at her mother from under the covers for “five more minutes” and she should be rolling the blanket back over her head to sleep for another half-hour. Then she should be slumping out of bed as her stomach growled and heading to the kitchen for burnt pancakes and a lecture about keeping up with classes. That’s what she would be doing on a normal morning.

Melanie already missed “normal mornings.”

There was someone behind her. Melanie’s watch beeped, telling her the bus would be around the corner in only a few minutes. Thankful for a distraction, Melanie turned and stood up to see whoever was standing there.

He was average height for a highschooler, more lean than lanky but still on the skinny side. Melanie wondered why she had never noticed him at her stop before. His shocking pink spiky hair surely would’ve stood out to anyone. He looked like a juvenile punk rocker. Heck, he was even wearing leather.

She must’ve been gawking because he gave her the dirtiest look and said, “What are you staring at, bitch?”

Melanie broke down right there in front of him, all sobs and apologies and anything she could think of to say about how horrible she felt. The guy looked positively taken aback but he didn’t say anything. Melanie’s bag had fallen off her shoulder; a mess of granola and chocolate bars, a water bottle dripping near the rim, a Ziploc bag of cashews, five comic books and a toothbrush tumbled out in one giant heap. Her laptop and charger were about to slide out on top of it all, but the punk rocker leaned down and caught it before it could. Melanie sniffed, still crying, and shoved the contents of her bag back where they belonged.

“Look,” the punk rocker said with only the slightest hint of sincerity, “Sorry your life sucks okay. You were just looking at me funny. Sheesh.”

Melanie was still nothing but a bundle of sobs and whines when the bus rounded the corner, heading towards the bus stop. The punk rocker made haste in getting on the bus to sit as far back as possible. He plopped down and opened the only thing he had been carrying, a tattered red notebook, to a new page and plucked the pencil from behind his ear to scribble.

If you asked Melanie after the fact, she wouldn’t be able to tell you why she got on the bus. Maybe she was looking for something resembling normalcy. Maybe she just got on because it was there in front of her. Whatever the case, she got on the bus and she took her seat in the eighth row. And when the doors squeaked open at school, she got off and actually went to class.

The day went by in a muffled daze of crowded halls and the stench of bad cafeteria food. Melanie only snapped back to reality when she rounded a corner in the Eastern hall of the school and slammed right into someone. They both fell back and Melanie stumbled to her knees to pick up her laptop and that bag of cashews.

She didn’t even think to look at who it was until he said, “You’re the chick from the bus stop.”

God, as if her day couldn’t get any worse. “Sorry,” Melanie said, eager to get out of there and to her next class. The two of them picked themselves up and wiped themselves off. “Um. Class,” Melanie said and turned to leave.

The punk rocker caught her sleeve. She turned to face him. Her face was emotionless, like porcelain. “You wanna tell me what that was about this morning?” He asked.

“No.”

The warning bell rang. Two minutes to get to biology. The punk rocker wouldn’t let go of Melanie’s sleeve. “Why you gotta be so difficult? I know you didn’t break down just because I called you a bitch,” he said.

Her teeth were grinding. Melanie clenched her fist and felt the heat from within rise to her face.

And then she slapped him. It shocked him enough that he let go and Melanie sprinted off to biology.

She was too far away to hear his nervous titter, too far to see him rub the side of his jaw and smirk.

Biology was hell. Not only did Melanie arrive late and get a dean referral, they were going over anatomy. No matter what else she tried to focus on, Melanie kept fixating on her mother. A technical drawing of the leg muscles implanted the image of her mother’s left leg bending awkwardly to the side as she hung from Grivgas’ slime-filled mouth, of the click-click-click as her black pumps clacked along the pavement in and out of potholes. The circulatory system reminded Melanie of the blood dripping from her mother’s abdomen; the scrapes of her knees that left bold reddish lines on the street that got blurrier the farther Grivgas dragged her. It was the respiratory system that made Melanie lurch and puke over the side of the lab table.

It was her mother’s last words she remembered that time. “M-melanie… M-melanie…”

The teacher wasn’t very sympathetic when he asked Melanie’s lab partner to escort her to the nurse’s office and her lab partner was too grossed out to inquire about anything. They walked briskly to the nurse’s office without a word and then Melanie’s lab partner scampered to return to class.

Melanie sat and shivered in the nurse’s unbalanced chair. The nurse was an obese, big-boned woman with scraggly hair tied up in a bird’s nest. One tiny squiggle of gray-brown hair slithered out of her headband along with a bead of sweat in front of her right ear. The nurse bustled in and out of the room, fussing over what type of form would be appropriate in this sort of situation. When she finally got to examining Melanie, Melanie had (at least temporarily) gotten over her nausea.

“Alright then,” the nurse turned her attention to Melanie, “Melanie, wasn’t it? So you vomited in biology class? Have you eaten anything strange in the past few days? Do you have any flu-like symptoms? Fever, stomachache, nausea, that kind of thing?”

“No.”

“Well do you still feel like you might throw up?”

“No.” Melanie thought to herself how stupid she must’ve been for coming to school today. Then again, it wasn’t like she could bring herself to go back home. She had mastered the art of ditching in seventh grade, but now that she had nothing left to return to her “epic ninja skills” seemed so pointless.

She wanted to sleep. She told the nurse so.

Melanie ended up going back to class with a little slip of paper that said she was fine now and wasn’t allowed to leave campus unless she puked again. She used it as a fake hall-pass and hid in the bathroom for an hour. It was eerily silent in there when classes were going on. She expected at least one person to come in but no one ever did.

That is, until the bell rang. Melanie knew better than to stay in the bathroom during passing period and shoved past all the blonde preps as they entered the bathroom in one giant cheerleader cloud.

“Hey watch it!” One of them said to Melanie as she pushed them out of her way.

Melanie had somehow managed to get out of the bathroom and down the hall past the clot of chattering idiots near the cafeteria when she spotted her old getaway door. With a quick glance about the hallway, Melanie took her only chance to race to the door and escape.

There he was again. The punk rocker, hands placed deliberately in the pockets of his leather pants, was waiting right outside the metal door leading to the football field when Melanie burst through, ready to make a break for it. She skidded to a halt and swallowed. The door swung closed and slammed, locking them both outside.

“And she’s a ditcher too! Can’t wait to see what other tricks you got up your sleeve,” he said with a crooked smirk.

“Look who’s talking, stalker.” Melanie glared. If she ever got in a fist fight, today would be the day. No one was left to yell at her; no one was left to dish out groundings and chores. No one was left to care. And this guy, this punk rocker jerkoff, was seriously asking for it. “Why the hell do you want to know what’s going on with me anyway? You got some sort of fetish, dude?”

The punk rocker pulled his hands out of his pockets and marched closer. “Excuse me if I want to know what could possibly make someone so upset they ball their eyes out in front of a stranger! Excuse me if maybe I want to help! You know, you’re the same as everyone else, whining about how much your life sucks and then going and judging everyone else! I don’t even know why I bothered cornering you!”

“Aha! You are a stalker!” Melanie enjoyed a twinge of triumph pointing that out.

“That is so not the point,” growled the punk rocker.

A faint breeze whistled the grass. It seemed like forever waiting for someone to speak. Then the punk rocker kicked the dirt with his buckled boots and shook his head and started stomping off towards the football field. And Melanie followed him. He intrigued her just as much as she intrigued him.

The sun baked down.

“You really wanna know?” Melanie said. They were sitting now, neither of them caring about the grass stains that were sure to be on their bottoms when they got up.

Frustrated and sarcastic, he said, “Yes. I really want to know.”

Melanie spewed her story with the matter-of-factness that only someone who didn’t themselves believe it actually happened could pull off. “Mom told me she was gonna kill dad with a chainsaw but chickened out because of her fish and I ditched the other day and found a giant road kill eating slimy monster who came and ate my dead mother when she ran after me to tell me to come back when I was going to run away and leave for good and then I just sat there at the bus stop until morning and then you called me a bitch and here we are.” She didn’t even take a breath until she was finished.

“Shit.”

“Yep.”

A silence, then, “That’s fucked up.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Melanie said and sprawled on her back to look at the sky with an exaggerated grumble. “I’m so tired.” All she wanted to do was sleep. Forever, if possible.

“So if this story of yours is really true, then you don’t have anywhere to go, right?”

Melanie didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about anything anymore. She rolled over to her side to face away from him.

“I never got your name.”

He just couldn’t shut up, could he? Whatever. “Melanie,” she yawned. The sunshine felt nice. It was the only nice thing she’d felt all day. She wanted to savor it but a cloud interrupted, stealing it out of the sky and forcing Melanie into uncomfortable half-shade. She would’ve complained about that if it were any other day, if she didn’t feel like the world was against her, if she weren’t so goddamn tired.

“I’m Steve,” The punk rocker told her, “But people call me Kendo for some reason.”

“That’s nice.”

“You look exhausted.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Kendo got up and wiped himself off. “If you’re gonna sleep, do it somewhere less obvious. I know a way to get outta here without attracting too much attention.”

Melanie rolled onto her back again and stared up at him. His silhouette darkened in her vision as the sun jumped out from behind the clouds.

“You’re crying,” Kendo said and knelt.

“No I’m not,” Melanie said, expecting to sound passive, but when she heard herself she knew it was true. She took a breath so deep that she almost choked on the air. It was all she could do to suppress the whine in her throat. “No. I’m not,” she repeated even less convincingly.

Melanie refused Kendo’s hand, slapped it away. She would not give him the satisfaction of helping her. No way. Not today. Today sucked and it was going to stay that way and Melanie reveled in it; that sickly comforting notion that things couldn’t possibly get any worse. As soon as she tried to make her life better, it would fall apart twice as hard and three times as fast. It happened before. It would happen again.

It happened yesterday.

Clack-clack-clack.

Melanie must’ve looked really out-of-it because Kendo was waving his hand in front of her face when she snapped back to reality.

“You still with me?”

The bile was rising again; Melanie shook with a cold chill that lingered in her shoulders for far longer than it should have. Swallowing hard, she rose on bendy, unstable legs and started running. She could hear Kendo yelling after her, feel the blood pump all the way into the tips of her ears, smell her tears and sweat and salty skin, remember everything she felt when she had first encountered Grivgas. All that fear, all that regret, everything from the writhing squirrel beneath its ooze and its single eyeball that swirled around in its own fleshy petri dish to the way its slimy skin tumbled over itself when it grabbed her mother’s twisted body and stalked away like a movie monster.

Melanie remembered what it had said; she remembered its nonchalant, even curious tone.

“M’melanie.”

Her heart was pounding so hard, so fast; it matched her quickened strides. She thought if it beat any faster it might explode.

Why? Why was she running? She knew she had nowhere to go. She could hear Kendo’s heavy flopping faux-combat boots encroaching ever faster.

“Wait!” He was yelling after her, over and over.

Melanie didn’t know when the school had faded out of view. She couldn’t remember sprinting past Lake Avenue and Centre Drive, couldn’t recall winding in and out of the trees in Gracemary Park. All she knew now was that she was out of breath and sucking in as much oxygen as she could with every inhale. Kendo jogged for the last few steps and bent over to catch his breath too.

“Damn,” Kendo said in a gasp, “You can run.”

Melanie ignored him. She looked at the busy street in front of her. An open-roofed corvette honked as it swished past.

Then there was another car speeding closer, a car Melanie recognized; a white four-door sedan with a dent in the front bumper. Her mind flashed back to her mother flipping over the top and crash-landing with a horrifying thud, thump-thump and the roaring tires as the driver sped away. Tingling with anticipation and anxiety all muddled into one decisive emotion, Melanie took one step out onto the road.

What a perfect way to end the day.

Only, Melanie didn’t count on Kendo being there, didn’t count on him pulling her out of the way just as the driver began to swerve.

And she most definitely didn’t count on landing on top of him so hard he toppled over.

Kendo gazed up at her with a twinge in his eyes that may have been understanding and may have been pity. His grip on her shoulders tightened.

“Please,” he said wholeheartedly, “Don’t do that again.” The white sedan was already a mile up the road. By now the traffic had slowed enough so that there were only one or two cars driving by at a time.

Anger swelled in Melanie like steam in a covered pot. She wrenched her shoulders out of Kendo’s grip and yanked herself off of him. “Why would you stop me! Why! Don’t you get it? I don’t have anything left! And now you’re getting in the way! Just leave me alone! I never asked for your help and I don’t want it and I especially don’t want you stalking me wherever I go!”

“Melanie-”

“Get out of here!”

The pity in Kendo flipped to sheer ferocity. “You listen to me,” Kendo said in a low growl, rising back onto his feet to tower above Melanie, “Don’t you ever do that again, you got it?” His eyes flashed with fury for a moment and then it was gone and he resigned, sighing ever so long and loud. “Just don’t,” he reiterated quietly.

Melanie didn’t respond. She wouldn’t admit to him that he had scared her for a moment.

And watching the cars stream by, she wouldn’t even admit to herself that he’d changed her mind.

Kendo leaned over and extended his hand to Melanie. “Look,” he told her, “I’ve been where you are right now. You think there’s nothing left to live for, no one left to go to. But there always is. There’s always someone.”

Melanie glared at him with every ounce of enraged passion she had in her. Still, his hand remained outstretched, ready to lift her up if she would only just reach for it. The zooming car engines were giving Melanie a headache. Hours seemed to pass with Kendo standing there, a statue with his arm extended and beckoning.

That tired feeling returned to Melanie in a violent wave. She felt dizzy. She didn’t really mean to grab Kendo’s arm, but it was the only thing within reach to help stabilize herself so she didn’t fall backward.

Kendo helped her up, firm and gentle. “I’ve got you,” he said. Then he looked out at the road and craned his neck around to see the setting sun, all the while keeping Melanie’s hand in his. He told her he was trying to think of what direction to take.

A thought struck Melanie. She groaned the most deeply annoyed groan Kendo had ever heard; it was a whine and a moan mixed together and then lengthened, getting louder and louder until finally it was loud enough to scare away the pack of ducks that were waddling on the other side of the street.

“What’s wrong?” Kendo asked, confused.

“My bag,” Melanie grumbled, “It’s still at school, in the football field.”

“Wanna go back for it?”

The wind grew chilly. Melanie shivered. Her stomach growled. “Well it’s just that my food was in there.” Now that Melanie was focusing on it, her stomach hurt. It felt like it was churning in and out and over itself. She hadn’t eaten much of anything and her lack of sleep was catching up to her too. Running had been a horrible idea. She was beginning to feel hot, sweating way more than she should in the cool weather. Her head swam and tiny particles of light danced in front of her eyes.

She felt her knees buckle and faintly heard Kendo’s voice, but then the world was black.