Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [89]
Tiny closet of cracked tile and yellowed walls, the faint smell of disinfectant and the thicker smell of piss. Two stalls without doors and a dented and empty paper towel dispenser. Niki went to the sink, turned the knob marked H, then waited to see if the water would ever get warm. Her reflection in the cracked mirror over the sink stared back at her, disheveled, wind-chapped cheeks bright in the white-green light. She looked at least as misplaced, as ineffectual, as she felt. Her round face lost in the ruins behind her, broken into glassy pie slices that converged between her tired eyes. She noticed a spot of something dark at one corner of her mouth: a streak of grease from the van, or dirt or…
Blood. Spyder’s blood.
Niki grabbed for the handkerchief, soppy cold, and scrubbed at the stain, and then shame at her horror, that there might be something in Spyder’s blood more dangerous than her own. She dropped the white cloth, plop, back into the rust-stained sink.
The water isn’t ever going to get warm, Niki, not tonight, her pecan-shell eyes said from the broken looking glass, eyes that looked suddenly older than the smooth face they were plugged into, the eyes of someone who ought to know better than to have ever wondered if the water was going to get warm.
What happened back there, Niki?, remembering that moment in the parking lot at Dr. Jekyll’s, something there and then gone again, but something left behind, too. And suddenly the cold in the little restroom seemed to press at her, deep-sea pressure, liquid cold, and she gasped.
A whisper somewhere behind her, from the stalls or the hall outside or right into her ear, something dreamed, maybe, and forgotten on purpose. It isn’t hard to drown, not if that’s what you’re after….
Niki turned off the faucet, quick twist and the water stopped flowing, squeezed out the handkerchief; she left the light in the restroom burning and hurried back to Keith’s apartment.
Spyder didn’t flinch when Niki touched the wet handkerchief to the cut on her forehead. It was deep enough to need stitches; Niki was afraid that if she rubbed too hard at the dried blood, she’d see bone underneath. She dabbed, gentle as she could, and fresh blood welled up along the half-moon slash, ugly loose flap of meat as wide as her thumb.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know that’s gotta hurt.”
“Yeah,” Spyder said, soft chuckle, “Like a motherfucker.”
Now Keith and Daria were together on the mattress, Mort on the floor next to them, the Thunderbird just about gone. Theo had picked through the boxes of clothing, had come up with a couple of raggedy flannel shirts and a ridiculous-looking toboggan cap, Play-Doh blue with a huge lavender pom-pom sewn on top. She’d jammed the cap on over her fallen pompadour, wrapped the shirts around her double-breasted polyester jacket and sat back down under the Nirvana poster.
“You’d be a lot warmer over here,” Mort had said, had patted the floor beside him, and she’d told him to go fuck himself, that she’d have been warmer in her own goddamn apartment.
Niki had barely begun, and already the handkerchief was filthy crimson and she was just smearing the same blood and grime around and around. She considered going back to the restroom, rinsing it out and starting over again, but the thought of another stroll down that hallway made her shiver, the thought of her reflection in that fractured mirror. Instead, she tried wiping it clean on the carpet, silently dared Keith to object; he didn’t, of course.
“You don’t have to do this,” Spyder said quietly.
“I just wish you’d let us take you to a doctor.”
Now there was a bloody splotch on the carpet, and the handkerchief was still a useless mess. Niki looked around the room, spotted a crumpled Taco Bell bag nearby.
“Just a second,” she said, and