up about the head,” Abernathy said, gripping my shoulders. “We have to get this thing out of here!”
“I’m just saying,” I said. “It could have happened to anyone.”
We heard the toilet flush and without a word, Mark shoved me into the closet and closed the door behind us.
“What are you doing?” I began. “The door—”
A large hand clapped over my mouth as footfalls passed down the hall. Little splashes of shadow slid across the wedge of light at door’s base and the echoes quieted.
“Mmmph!” I protested against steely Mark’s fingers.
He held me like that, my back against the warmth of his chest, his heart beating faintly between my shoulder blades. I felt his body relax when the hallway again fell silent.
“If I move my hand,” he asked. “Do you promise to be quiet?”
I nodded into his cupped hand.
“Those were the vampires,” he said. “One look at your face and they would have known what was in this closet.”
“Hey,” I said. “Not once, but twice today I have discovered decapitated vampires and still managed a normal expression in Morrison’s presence.”
“First of all, normal is not a word I would ever use to describe your expression and second, it’s not your face Morrison is usually looking at.”
“Please,” I said. “The only thing he’s probably looking at right now is the back of his own eyelids. And anyway, what I was trying to say before someone so rudely clamped his paw over my mouth—”
“Half the gallery could hear you.” Mark’s harsh whisper was cool on my clammy cheeks.
“All of the gallery is going to hear is me in a hot minute. You locked us in the closet with a decapitated vampire.”
“We’re not locked in,” he said. “I installed this door knob myself.”
I exhaled a long-suffering sigh as I heard the knob being clicked side to side in rapid succession but refusing to turn.
“What the...why won’t this—”
“Because it’s backwards,” I said. “Always has been.”
“I think I would have noticed if the door to my own supply closet was backwards,” he said. The handle rattled more forcefully.
“Right,” I said. “Because you come in here so often to get file folders, tape, pens, envelopes, cleaning supplies...”
“Fuck!” He growled, gave the knob one last try. “It is on backward.”
“You think?” I reached out to poke him but connected with something wet and cold. “Oh dear God. I touched it! I touched the neckhole. Oh God! I have neck meat on my hand!”
“Quit flailing around and let me get it,” Mark said, capturing my wrist in the dark.
“Not so hard!” I said. “It hurts!”
“Do you want me to get it or don’t you!”
At that precise moment, the door flew open to reveal one Joseph Abernathy.
The excitement in his eyes quickly dampened to disappointment when he saw me with my hand frozen in Mark’s grasp, the stump of a neck protruding between us, and the head wedged between our feet.
“Oh,” he said. “I was hoping to find you engaged in far more entertaining pursuits.”
Pushing past him, I raced down the hall to the bathroom, holding my hand away from my body like a dirty diaper all the way to the sink. I washed my hands five times in water hot enough to scald my skin and steam the mirror.
Joseph and Mark stood in identical speculative postures in front of the closet when I returned.
“This would be the third vampire those chaps were referring to,” Joseph said. “And someone is definitely working with a theme here.”
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Humphrey Bogart,” Joseph said.
“No!” My heart sank in my chest remembering the many nights my grandmother and I had spent on her couch, popcorn bowl between us and silvery light from the TV flickering across our faces as we screened the noir-iest of noir flicks. “Not Bogey!”
“I’m afraid so,” Joseph said.
I knelt in front of the crumpled body, gazing down into the cool, silent face.
“I loved Casablanca,” I said. “And To Have or To Have Not really was a masterpiece. Don’t even get me started on Bacall. She had presence, you know? I can totally see why you loved her. I mean, I loved her. Who wouldn’t love her?”
“Hanna,” Mark said, dropping a warm, heavy hand on my shoulder.
“Hmm?”
“Please stop talking to the head.”
There are moments in a girl’s life that cause her to pause and reflect to the circumstances that lead her to a pivotal moment. Hearing this sentence spoken to me, out loud, by Mark Abernathy, was one of mine.
Gone were the days when I thought having three cats