Chapter Text
Fillthee
It was not going to be a good day. Isis knew this within fifteen seconds of waking up, or more exactly, when she rubbed her eyes and saw that the cage was open.
“You gotta be kidding me,” she groaned, rolling out of bed and nearly tripping on a pile of clothes. She’d found out the hard way that the rats could open the door, so her solution was to tie it shut with a rubber band.
That had lasted all of two days. The rubber band was currently in bits on the floor under the cage. She knew exactly what happened: Nibbles had lived up to his name and chewed through it.
Isis peered into the cage, unsurprised to see both him and Michael Myers gone. The other two, older than the younger pair by a year, were lounging in the hammock. Only Idaho Potato’s tail was visible, but upon his brown rear, Lord Fatso rested his curly-whiskered head, blinking his black eyes up at her.
“Don’t you remember the talk we had?” she sighed. “About keeping him in line?”
He merely blinked up at her. Don’t blame me, she imagined him saying, I’m too old for this shit.
Her alarm clock beeped, startling her and Lord Fatso. Contrarily, Idaho Potato only lifted his head and shot the alarm an annoyed glance. Isis slapped it off and began the rat hunt.
The other night, she’d found Michael Myers under the couch and Nibbles in her closet, but neither of them were there today. She searched the entire trailer, even her mother’s room, and found nothing. Not even the ritz crackers could conjure them from wherever they lurked — until a familiar grey furball zoomed out from under the TV stand toward her.
“Nibbles, if you chewed up any of those wires, I will kill you,” Isis told him, relieved, as he crawled into her lap and grasped a bit of cracker.
By this time, it was nearly six-thirty. Half an hour scouring their tiny trailer, and she had to choose between showering and eating. Showering of course won, since she was dusty and sweaty from the rat hunt. She returned a squirmy, protesting Nibbles to the cage, relinquished the rest of the crackers to Lord Fatso, and headed to the bathroom. Michael Myers would show up eventually.
By the skin of her teeth, she managed to catch the bus, but the trade-off was having to feel her wet hair on her back, soaking into her shoulders. Her sweater was too flimsy of a barrier and her scrunchie had vanished overnight.
When the doors of the bus opened, Isis bolted from the seat and nearly ran into the school, gathering her hair into a ponytail even before she reached the lockers.
“Kelsey,” she burst out, nearly tumbling into a locker door. The kid next to Kelsey’s locker turned to frown at her before pulling out a textbook. “Do you have a scrunchie I can borrow? Please, I need one…”
“Yes, God, Isis, chill,” her best friend laughed, pulling a magenta scrunchie over a spiked bracelet and off her wrist. “Sorry it’s pink, I swiped it from Mackenzie.”
“I don’t care.” At last the hair was off Isis’ shoulders, although the damp spot of her collar clung uncomfortably to her skin.
The rest of the morning was uneventful. Kelsey wasn’t in any of Isis’ morning classes, and the pair didn’t have many friends other than Jake Vespucci and Kyle Merker…and Nicole Gaines. Nicole was more Kelsey’s friend, so while she and Isis shared biology together, they didn’t speak to each other. This was more due to Mr. Jenner assigning them Punnett square worksheets than anything else. Either way, Isis was grateful Nicole didn’t have a chance to speak to her — until lunch.
“You look almost like a prep today,” was the first thing Nicole said to Isis when the latter sat at their usual lunch table. “Didn’t have time to put on makeup?”
The boys and Kelsey fell silent and stared at Isis. “Yeah, no,” she said, shifting on the bench. “I was looking for my rats. They escaped the cage again.”
Kelsey gave a chuckle and turned back to the boys, her brown eyes trained on Kyle in particular. Go on, eat your food, Isis told Nicole silently, savagely, so you can look in the mirror and hate yourself later.
Small, thin, and pale, Nicole was the Hot Topic poster girl. She had her piercings done at a salon, unlike Kelsey and Isis, who’d pierced each other’s eyebrows with safety pins. Nicole had managed to pin down the aesthetic without a single hint of failed cheerleader turned goth (Kelsey) or Eastern Pennsylvania trailer trash (Isis). And all three girls knew that if a guy was a target, he’d go for Nicole.
Except maybe Kyle, who seemed unusually into Kelsey today. “You guys should come by my house later,” he said. “My brother got something cool at a bazaar in KOP.”
“No one is interested in his weird Nazi stuff,” Nicole told him, rolling her eyes. “Someone needs to tell him we’re in America — "
“It’s not a historical artifact,” Kyle cut her off. “It’s a baby python. All yellow with red eyes — it’s kick-ass.”
“Who would wanna see that?” Nicole scoffed, wrinkling her nose.
“Come on, Nicole. Snakes are metal — "
“I wanna see it,” Isis blurted before she could stop herself. Again they all stared at her for an awkward second until Kyle gave her a nod of approval.
“Isis wants to see it,” he echoed, “so now you have to come.”
Kelsey wasn’t going to miss a chance, no matter how slim with Kyle, so of course she agreed. “Alright, we’ll take your bus home.”
On the way back to their lockers after lunch, finally away from Nicole, she remarked to Isis, “Wow, I didn’t think you’d agree to that. You’re not worried about Kyle’s brother?”
“Uh…why? Should I be?”
It took a few seconds for Kelsey to reply; they were caught up by a gaggle of freshmen. Their hooting and hawing grated Isis’ nerves, but they brought their ruckus with them as they turned the corner to A Wing.
“You haven’t heard the stories about Andy Merker?” Kelsey asked once they were reunited. “Hell, I think I’ve told you some of the stories. Remember that huge brawl at the fair last year was because everyone got drunk off that crazy moonshine he was selling? Kyle said he took one shot of the stuff and couldn’t walk.”
“Yes, I’ve heard the stories,” Isis told her, recalling a particularly heinous one that Kyle had told them with glee in his voice, something about sacrificing a virgin. “But he’s never home, so we won’t see him.”
A sinking in her stomach accompanied her words: Until now, she hadn’t even considered the possibility that Andy Merker would be at his own house. They’d been to Kyle’s a few times and his brother nor his parents had never been around.
“Yeah,” said Kelsey unconvincingly, sensing Isis’ unease and changing the subject. “Damn, I wanna catch Kyle, but he’s probably having a smoke.”
She held her pack of cigarettes though the pocket of her hoodie, giving it a wistful squeeze.
“Go to the courtyard,” Isis said over her shoulder on her way to her own locker.
“I dunno, Trevor McElroy says Rahm’s been on the prowl all morning. I need another detention like I need a hole in the head.”
Isis didn’t think her stomach could sink any lower, but she felt it pressing into her bowels as she realized with horror that she’d forgotten her history report on the kitchen table.
No, wait, maybe she’d put it in her bookbag. Please, please let it be in here, she prayed, rummaging through her bag, already knowing it was futile. She could picture the paper clearly on the kitchen table, The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand in her neatest handwriting. I’ll give it a once over, she’d determined last night, and then put it in the folder. With the commotion of the rats, it had never made it.
“Fuck!” she hissed, letting the bookbag drop to her feet.
“What’s the matter?” Kelsey called over.
Isis let out a long breath, shoving the bag into her locker and pulling out her textbooks for the next two periods. “I forgot the history report at home.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kelsey wince. “Shit, that blows. What are the chances Rahm doesn’t notice?”
“Slim to none,” Isis said grimly, slamming her locker shut with more force than intended.
All throughout geometry, she felt her skin crawling and her stomach prickling. They had a test on Monday, so she really should’ve paid attention, except her mind couldn’t even form thoughts, let alone focus on math. She untied her hair and rubbed it against her cheeks, not caring if anyone saw her, or that there was a big bump in her hair from the scrunchie. The ticks of the clock were either too slow or too fast.
The bell shot through her skull. With heavy limbs, Isis picked up her textbooks and dragged herself up the flight of stairs to C Wing. To her doom.
Come on, she scolded herself. It wouldn’t be that bad. It was the first time she’d gotten in any sort of trouble all year. (Granted, it was October…) Perhaps he would be lenient with her for this.
She could’ve laughed at her stupidity if her throat wasn’t completely closed. Midlands’ history teacher, Mr. Rahm, and lenient didn’t go together. He was the strictest teacher in the entire school with a penchant for humiliation. No one ever acted up in his class, not even Kyle Merker or Dave Healy.
When she walked in, he was sitting behind his desk as usual, eyes lowered to a stack of papers. He dressed in all dark colors, navy or brown or black. If not a scowl on his handsome face, he had a sneer of derision or — and this was when you knew you were in trouble — a completely blank expression. He spoke perfect English, but his German accent gave his words a sharper edge even on the rare occasions they weren’t soaked with contempt.
Students were neatly stacking their reports on the left side of the desk before taking their seats. Isis crept as slowly as possible to hers, keeping her eyes on his inclined dark blonde head. Please don’t look up, she willed him in her head. He listened, keeping his eyes on the papers as she slid into her chair and set her textbook upon the desk.
Kelsey was already seated behind her, once again picking up on her distress. “See?” she whispered, leaning over her desk. “He didn’t notice.”
Isis could only mash a finger to her lips, too nervous to speak. A mild diversion came in the form of Kyle Merker’s wallet chain dragging across the stack of papers on Mr. Rahm’s desk and taking them with it, sending them to the floor.
“Oh, sh — darn,” he amended quickly, dropping to his knees. Laurie Hauser took pity on him and helped him gather them up. Mr. Rahm gave him only one glance of contempt before setting aside his own papers and taking one out from his desk drawer. The attendance sheet, by the way his eyes scanned the room.
Once he checked everyone off — only Miguel Cordova was absent — he stood up and his eyes swept the room again. The other teachers usually had to clear their throat or hush them to quiet them down before starting the class. In contrast, everyone quieted themselves in the hall before entering Mr. Rahm’s classroom.
He picked up another stack of papers and dropped them onto Dylan O’Connor’s desk. Dylan jumped up to pass them around.
“In preparation for your test next week,” Mr. Rahm said, “this is a study guide for you to use your textbook and fill out. However, you will not be copying a single word from the textbook — your answers will be in your own words, to show that you understand what came before these events, and how they happened.”
What he meant became clear when they looked at the three sheets of paper stapled together: Twenty questions about the start of World War I with no multiple choice answers like they’d hoped. Instead, six rows of lines under each question.
“What is it, Mr. Duvall?”
“What if we need more room for our answers, sir?” asked the meek and nerdy Caldon Duvall.
“Use scrap paper now, but on the test, you won’t have this option, so I suggest you learn how to be concise.”
Mr. Rahm sat back on his chair and slid over the stack of papers he’d been looking at before the start of class. Isis felt her shoulders loosening; perhaps he wouldn’t check the papers until later or even tomorrow. Then she could hand it in and there would be no punishment. She clung to this hope, tightening her trembling hand around the pencil.
The questions and looking up their answers provided a helpful distraction until Isis glanced up about halfway through the period and saw that the stack of reports at the corner of his desk was gone. Maybe he just put them away, yes, that’s it, except he was flipping through a stack, counting…
Oh, hell. He was counting the reports and comparing them to the attendance list. Her stomach, already compromised, turned to lead.
“Everyone stand up.”
They knew what was up instantly: Someone hadn’t turned in their work. A jarring ritual last month, now standard procedure. They stood still, waiting for Mr. Rahm’s customary next words:
“When I call your name, take your seat and continue working,” he said. “Kyle Merker.”
A scuffling of chairs as Kyle sat down while Mr. Rahm set the report on his desk and moved on. Isis had to wrench her hands away from her hair and hold them at her sides.
One by one, students’ names were called until she was the only one left standing. Her classmates’ expressions were mixed: Most were relieved, some were sympathetic, and some were eager to see a public scolding of someone who wasn’t themselves.
All of the eyes on her were already uncomfortable, but all of them put together weren’t nearly as awful as his. Light blue, like the innards of a glacier that had never seen warmth or light. The cold blue of a winter sky. And narrowed with contempt.
“Come here, Miss Delahunt.”
Isis had no choice but to walk over to his desk. She couldn’t bear the look on his face anymore, dropping her eyes to his hands.
“Where is your report?” he demanded.
“It’s, um, at my house, sir,” Isis stammered, feeling her cheeks flush. “I did it, I swear, I’ll bring it — "
“Why is it there and not here?” he cut her off. “Surely you were aware of the due date?”
“I - I was, sir, I meant to put it in my bookbag,” she rambled. Shut up before you say something dumb! “I wanted to read it over before handing it in but then I forgot because I was too busy trying to catch my rats.”
Too late. A chortle came from behind her, followed by the clapping of a hand over a mouth.
Mr. Rahm’s glare beamed through her skull. “Do you think you’re being cute? Because you’re not. Let’s see how cute you think that little attitude is during your detention on Friday. And if that report isn’t on my desk tomorrow morning, don’t even bother bringing it in. It’s already ten points off. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Go sit down and finish the study guide before you forget that, too.”
The silence was heavy as she crept back to her seat, wishing she could disappear. Fortunately, that seemed to be the end of the punishment, but he’d pulled out his trusty stack of detention slips.
The bell rang, disturbing the silence. He called out for Isis to take her detention slip. “Do not be late,” was all he said as he passed it to her.
“God, he’s such a jerk,” Kelsey consoled her on their way downstairs to their lockers. “Why can’t he just dock ten points off the paper?”
“Because he loves humiliating his students,” said Dave Healy from behind them. He spoke from experience: A few weeks ago, he and Trevor McElroy had been caught whispering to each other, so Mr. Rahm had them stand in each corner of the back of the room like kindergarteners.
“Whatever,” Isis mumbled, not wanting to talk about it anymore. As soon as she reached her locker, she shoved the history textbook, the detention slip crammed between its pages, deep into her bookbag.
During gym, their last period, the dread from history class receded. By the time the final bell rang, she was feeling better about the situation. What was one detention?
“Not shit,” Kyle Merker assured her on the walk to his house from the bus stop. “You basically just sit there for an hour. Some of them will let you do homework or study or whatever.”
“Even Rahm?” Isis asked.
“Uh, well…” He cast his eyes down at his dirty Vans. “I’ve never actually had a detention with Rahm. But I can’t imagine it’d be that different.”
Kyle’s house was superior to Isis’ in that it was an actual house but nonetheless small and cramped and cluttered. Still, he insisted they take their shoes off, his mother’s old rule beaten into him. The reason behind Kelsey’s initial reluctance became clear when she finally conceded, revealing pink socks adorned with red hearts under her combat boots.
“A little too early for Valentine’s Day, isn’t it?” Kyle snickered, causing her cheeks to tinge pink. “I’m just teasing you, sweetheart. Come, let’s see the snake.”
Kelsey, buoyed by the pet name, followed him down the tiny, dark hall while Isis trailed after them. He went not to his own door but his brother’s at the far end and knocked.
“Wait, is he in there?” Kelsey whispered.
Her question was answered in the same second by the door opening.
“Oh, you’re home,” said Kyle, taken aback.
“No shit, Sherlock,” said the boy — the man — an older version of Kyle except his hair was lighter brown or maybe that’s because it wasn’t gelled and spiked like Kyle’s. If Isis had to guess, he was at least twenty, and while he looked almost like a normie in plain Levi’s and a plain black t-shirt, there was something dark about him.
“Damn, I didn’t know you were bringing chicks,” the infamous Andy Merker chuckled, giving Kelsey and Isis a once over with deep blue eyes. “What’s the occasion?”
“They wanna see the python,” Kyle told him.
Andy shrugged and stepped back, waving a hand toward the glow just beyond the door.
They filed inside. It was fortunate that Isis came last, because the room assaulted her, holding her in place. She looked around, expecting to see Nine Inch Nails or Marilyn Manson and instead got Hitler and other various Nazis. Black-and-white pictures of rallies, blown up and tacked onto every blank spot on the walls, only broken up by the red flag with a glaring black swastika hanging over his bed like a bizarre headboard.
“Oh,” she blurted, taking it all in. The air was thick and still, scented with weed, cologne, and whatever bedding was in the tank. Her eyes finally landed upon it and spotted a yellow, scaly body half-buried in the bedding.
Like Isis, Kelsey had been too busy looking around to notice the snake. She didn’t seem to have much interest in it, even when Andy took it out. The snake awakened and coiled around his arm, causing her to recoil.
“It won’t bite you,” Andy said, giving her a slightly lopsided grin.
“Yeah, you don’t really resemble a baby mouse,” said Kyle before making a chomping sound, miming a snake’s mouth with his hand. Kelsey let out a high-pitched giggle, though she kept such a distance, the back of her knees were pressed against Andy’s bed.
The snake was mostly white, not yellow like Isis had originally thought, but with patches of egg yolk yellow in a pattern all the way to its tail. Andy held it loosely in his hands. For a minute, it simply rested its head against Andy’s forearm, on which Isis noticed a tattoo, some amalgamation of skulls and fire. Abruptly, the snake lifted its head and aimed its red-eyed gaze at her.
“Can I hold it?” she asked before she thought better of it.
“Of course you can hold him, he’s friendly.” Andy extended the snake, letting Isis take the cool body into her own hands.
She’d expected him to slither all over her, but he simply nestled his head in the crook of her elbow, staring at the brothers reproachfully with unblinking red eyes. “What’s his name?”
“Hmm, I dunno,” Andy said. “I just got him. Any suggestions?”
“Josef Goebbels,” she replied, the first name that came to her mind, probably from the Nazi posters.
The boys laughed while Kelsey frowned, slightly bewildered. “Josef Goebbels it is,” Andy chuckled. “Speaking of names, I don’t know either of yours. Way to be a gentleman, Kyle.”
“I’m Kelsey,” Kelsey said before Kyle could open his mouth, “and she’s Isis.”
“A pleasure,” said Andy before pointing at Isis’ chest. “A fellow Nine Inch Nails fan? What’s your favorite song? Let me guess: Closer.”
“Well, if we’re speaking only of The Downward Spiral, it’s Ruiner,” Isis told him, distracted by Josef Goebbels attempting to slip up her sleeve. “Mostly because of the ending — it’s dark and heavy at the end, but without the screaming in Eraser, although that’s my second favorite.” Who cares, a snotty voice said in her head.
Oddly, Andy did seem to care, nodding thoughtfully. “That’s a good one,” he said.
“Funny you should mention Eraser,” Kyle piped up. “Since that reminds me of something else Andy got recently. Maybe he’ll show us that, too?”
Andy shook his head. “I don’t think the girls want to see that if the snake freaked them out. Well, maybe Isis, but these are two very different things…”
“I want to see it,” said Kelsey in hopes of redeeming herself.
“It’s cool,” Kyle said, gesturing to the closet door next to the tank. “Come on, Andy, show us.”
“Fine…”
Even before he opened the closet door, dread akin to what Isis had felt during history class clenched her stomach. Whatever Andy was about to show them was Not Good. Sure enough, in a cardboard box he’d stuffed in the corner of the top shelf was black steel that fit perfectly in his hand.
Isis’ uncle was a hunter, so she’d seen rifles, even shot one before. Andy’s gun was much smaller and yet somehow more terrifying. It was too easy to shoot, she decided. Without her awareness, she was cradling Josef Goebbels to her chest.
“This one you can’t touch, sorry,” Andy said, that half-grin pushing up his cheek.
Kelsey’s face was pale, her brown eyes wide with fear. She shook her head, backing away and nearly tripping over the bedpost.
“I don’t wanna touch it,” Isis said. “In fact, I would prefer you put it away so I can pretend it doesn’t exist.”
Andy blinked, surprised. Isis was expecting a protest, especially when Kelsey shot her a furtive dirty look. But he simply placed it back in the box and shoved it back in the closet.
“Don’t worry,” Kyle joked, “that’s not the first time Andy’s heard that from a girl before.”
“Look who’s talking,” Andy shot back, but he was grinning.
“Kelsey, we should get going,” Isis said, gently pulling Josef Goebbels off her arm and placing him back in the tank. The red lamp nearly burnt her arm on the way back out, making her wonder if he’d been cold the whole time she’d been holding him.
For once, Kelsey didn’t protest or narrow her eyes. “Yeah, my mom’s gonna flip if I’m not back by dinner.”
On the way out of the house, Andy said, “You girls should come back on Friday. I have something planned.”
“I have detention,” Isis said, pelted with dread all over again. Just when she’d forgotten about it.
“Skip it,” said Andy from very close behind her.
“Well, it’s with Rahm, so no.” She winced against the sunlight as they filed through the front door.
“Oh, Rahm.” Andy and Kyle were both exchanging grins for some reason. “The SS Elite.”
Isis was relieved to see that Kelsey didn’t seem to know what they were talking about, either. While Kelsey and Kyle hugged on the front porch, Isis stood to the side, noticing Andy’s eyes on her. They reminded her of Mr. Rahm’s earlier that day, seeing into her.
“Goodbye,” she muttered awkwardly as the two brothers disappeared back inside the house.
She didn’t know what to make of it all. Of Andy, of the gun, of the detention — all bad things and yet, somehow, the day hadn’t been so bad. And the evening was even better when Kelsey’s mother dropped Isis off home and she saw that Michael Myers had returned.
Of course he was tearing up the throw pillow, his tail hanging off the couch, but she’d take what she could get. She dropped her bookbag onto the floor and tossed the pillow to the side.
“There you are, silly boy,” she said, holding out her hand. Michael Myers crawled up her arm and nestled himself into the hair at the nape of her neck, allowing her to take that goddamn history report and tuck it neatly into her bookbag. Friday might be a bad day, but today…
…well, she’d had worse.