Monster Nation(58)

TEGRETOL(Carbamazepine), 1600 mg. Take three times daily with food.

'That's for the, the, the seizures,' he sputtered, taking it away from her. 'I have some canned tuna fish, would you like that?'

'Yes,' Nilla said. She studied him as he moved around the side of his house that might be considered his kitchen. 'I guess that explains how you were able to see me, even without my aura. Were you born like this?' she asked.

His shoulders tightened as he worked a manual can opener. 'Yes, I think so. I saw' saw ghosts, ghosts sometimes, when I was, little. Still do. It got so much worse during puberty. I couldn't take it, just couldn't' they sent me around to the hospitals but the drugs, they just' there's something very wrong with my brain, I know that. I know that! It leaks. It leaks and it, it doesn't always. It doesn't always work, the tin foil doesn't always' I'm so terribly sorry. I'm stuttering, aren't I?'

'You saw ghosts,' Nilla said.

'Yes.' He set down the can of tuna in front of her and she knocked it back into her mouth as if she were drinking a shot of whiskey. It curbed her hunger for a few seconds but then it returned as strong as ever. 'Dead people, the, the memories, the memories of dead people that get stuck here. In this world. Nothing ever gets forgotten, see, it, it's like a vibration, a vibration in a kind of, well, a string, and it keeps vibrating forever, it gets fainter over time. You know. Like a violin string, if you pluck it. It'll keep vibrating and even though you can't hear it after a while it's still' it's still''

She knew her eyes had gone very wide. She couldn't help it.

He was saying that memories were never really lost. Her memories.

He wouldn't look at her. He took down a can of spam from his shelf and peeled back the lid. He set it down on the table in front of her. When she didn't touch it he shifted it toward her an inch or so. She lifted her spoon.

'No,' he said, answering the question she hadn't asked.

'Why not, damnit? Why. The f*ck. Not?'

'I can't return your memory to you because I haven't seen it. I haven't seen your ghost, Nilla.' He had calmed down considerably. Maybe he was afraid of her and his fear was keeping him quiet. 'I don't' pick and choose. They just come to me. If you were still alive, maybe. But then you wouldn't need your memory back. And you wouldn't be here.'

The can before her was empty. She couldn't even remember the taste of the spam.

He sat down on the edge of the table. 'There are things you need to know. You didn't come here by accident. I lead you here myself.'

Nilla placed her hands in her lap. 'Maybe if you just. I mean you. If I stay here, for a while, maybe my ghost will come here. Maybe it will come looking for me.'

'It doesn't work that way,' he told her, dismissing the notion in a way that made rage bubble inside of her. What could be more important than recovering her memories? 'Please, we don't have much time! I guided you here'the occasional thought I put in your head, telling you to head down this valley or to skirt that road. There's something you need to know, Nilla. There's a man up in the, the, the mountains east of here, I've touched his mind many times. He's done something horrible. Something truly terrible, like, I see a fire, this fire that will burn up the world. He knows what he's done. He's consumed with guilt and'and'and''

'Just answer me, alright?' she said. She stood up very fast'fast enough to have given herself a head rush if her blood could actually move anymore. 'You know so much about me'my new name, the fact that I'm undead, what I like to eat. Why can't you just look inside my head and find out who I really am?'

'I told you, it doesn't' Nilla'Nilla, you need to, to'. This guilty man, he.' He shivered violently and she wondered if he was about to have a convulsion. A low, mooing sound rattled up and out of him. She could smell the fear on him'the adrenaline breaking down in his sweat, sour, acrid. 'You, you you''

'Just calm down!' She moved around the table and grabbed him by the shoulders. The hunger rolled through her innards and she really, really wanted to take a bite out of his neck, out of his golden energy. 'Just'I know I'm scary right now, I know I must be monstrous to you but you have to calm down!'

She let go of him in disgust when he soiled himself. He slumped down to the floor. She felt a desire to help him, to move him over to his bed but it would probably just rile him up more. There were a lot of questions she needed answers to but she was just going to have to wait.