Beach Reads #5: Murdering Weather

feels like a hundred

Welcome to Beach Reads for Goth Kids. All summer long, I’m sending out short stories that pack a haunting punch: vacation nightmares, heatwave madness, and things that go bump in the cul-de-sac. These will be sticky stories with summery themes, best consumed with a tiny paper umbrella.

Just when you thought it was safe to go to sleep, we present Murdering Weather.

Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash

“Babe, wake up. It’s murdering weather.”

“No. Please.”

“No, it’s not murdering weather? Or, no you won’t wake up?”

“No to everything. I wasn’t even asleep, because I knew you’d be along soon to bother me.” Chastity paused. “There’s no such thing as murdering weather.”

“Check your weather app.”

Chastity didn’t need her phone to confirm they were in a heat wave. Her body, inside and out, was a boiling vat of slime. The bed sheets were soaked underneath her. Her head was on fire. Even her eyelids felt coated in a thin wash of dirty sweat, but still. Murdering seemed wrong.

In the dark, her rusty window unit chugged and wheezed, blowing room temperature gusts across her legs every thirty seconds or so.

Laying spread eagle on top of wrinkled sheets, she tried to meditate on being cool. She imagined visible waves of heat rising off her skin in wavy columns. She slowed her breathing, calmed her heart. She pictured herself comfortable. If she could fall asleep, the voice would quiet.

Truthfully, she feared the number on the weather app. If it had three digits, she might lose her shit. Chastity sighed and her breath was like steam.

“Baaaaabe. Get up. It’s too fucking hot. I can’t sleep. Please let’s go somewhere.”

“Where.” It was not a question, but a dare. Chastity knew where.

“A nice fancy apartment? Penthouse. Uptown.”

“The Eatons’.”

“I didn’t say that.”

But it was in her head already. As Chastity’s nerves shredded night after night in the hotbox of her apartment, a movie of her showing up at her employer’s penthouse played behind her eyes. The hotter it got, the more vivid the movie.

“Tell me.”

“Yes! Ok it’s so easy Babe. You slide right past that doorman with a big smile, jangling your personal keys in the air. The night doorman might not remember you, but the keys are your ticket to first class. Feel it: the sweat on your upper lip condenses then evaporates as dehumidifying machines slurp it up from some hidden utility shaft.”

Chastity imagined her sweat drying. It was hard to remember what that felt like.

“There’s a good chance the Eatons aren’t even home. They’re probably off somewhere with a sea breeze, safely out of reach,” she mumbled, starting to drift off to the sweet bedtime story.

“Exactly. Take that elevator up, tendrils of cold air caressing your head. Imagine it, Babe. Up into the sky where the steaming asphalt can’t get you. Touch that crisp doorknob, taking a moment to anticipate what’s inside: a white marble palace, jammed full of hard, icy surfaces and cold air.”

Chastity pictured the Eatons’ massive double stainless steel fridge. Its bottomless ice maker. Cans of sweet liquid lined up in a shiny row, so chilled they hurt.

“Babe, can you feel that shiver when you go inside?”

Chastity felt herself breathe out a stream of condensed air like a cloud. Goosebumps prickled her arms. The Eatons inhabited a frigid cooler in the sky, perfectly designed for preserving human life.

“Well, not everyone’s life, Babe.” The voice read her mind, like always. “But remember that is not your fault.”

Right. Not everyone welcomes a sweaty, dirty working person from the depths of the outer boroughs into their home at two in the morning, even if the person is suffering. If they were home—and she knew they were—they would not let her stay.

Even though they have room to spare. Even though their central A/C can easily cool a hundred people.

“They might listen if I make my case.”

“Sure, Babe. Oliver Twist it. Beg them for a crumb of cold air.”

Chastity pictured the frigid Mrs. Eaton, her translucent skin powdered and stretched over pointy bones. Her face so lifted that her blue eyes bulged and her thin lips could barely close over her huge veneers.

It doesn’t have to be murdering weather, if she remembers me.

Hi, I’m Chastity. I’ve been taking care of your plants for five years.

Mr. Eaton, easily thirty years older than his wife, licking his pasty lips when the maids walk too close. His icy, delicate hands an atlas of green veins and wiry grey hairs.

It doesn’t have to be murdering weather, if he can share.

The houseplants? And the trees on the terrace? You’ve surely noticed your own plants. No? You have 63 of them, including the parlor palms in the primary bathroom. They are real, yes.

Their horrible overgrown Junior. Every ugly part of him scalpeled, molded, and transplanted into something beautiful. Still sleeping at his parents’ place when he burned through his trust income every month on hotels and private jets.

The guest suite, upstairs? The one with the arbequina olive tree. Are you using it? Could I sleep there for three or four days until the heat wave passes? It’s over 100 out there.

“Enough begging, Babe. This is bullshit. You have the gardening shears in your pocket, let’s do this.”

Chastity didn’t say no.

“Stab them in the neck and you’ll be surprised, even their blood is cold, Babe. I promise you it’s as slick and refreshing as snow melt.”

Chastity knew it was true. The Eatons were frozen. Inhuman. For a moment, their cold blood spilled over her like a burbling spring. She looked at the red shears in her hand, the panicked faces of her employers bleeding out.

“No. Please stop. I don’t want to.”

“Douse your wrists in that blue blood like perfume. Lick the shears, Babe, they taste like a popsicle.”

The voice was right. Cold, sweet syrup ran down her throat. She gagged, but it wasn’t that bad.

“I can’t.”

She saw the Eatons’ pale bodies lined up neatly on the floor, those panicked looks long gone. The cold would keep them fresh for however long Chastity needed to stay. The rest of the summer if she wanted, now they were all dead anyway. Maybe forever.

The air dried the blood on her hands and arms into tight gloves. Her stomach threatened to heave.

“You can’t, Babe? Or you won’t?”

She gripped the handle of the shears until the metal dug into her hand.

*

Chastity squinted her eyes against the burning sun streaming through her window. She looked at her hands, shiny and wet with only her own sweat.

Her jaw ached from clenching and there were crescent moon indents in her palms from squeezing her hands into fists, but she had made it through the night.

The shears were next to her, meaning she had gotten out of bed and retrieved them in the night. Meaning she had gotten that much closer.

During the day, the voice slinked off, knowing its ideas looked flimsy in the sunlight. It was only at night, in that liminal half-sleep state, that it started to make sense.

Chastity picked up her phone, checked the weather app. The heatwave was on. Three more nights to fight it.