Fungus of the Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

off.”
    “You need to accept the fact that there’s no escape for you.”
    “Yeah? Take a look at this.” He thrusts his muscular arm through one of the holes, and flexes his bicep. “I’ve been pumping iron in here nonstop.”
    “That won’t help you.”
    “We’ll see, won’t we?”
    I try to laugh away the thought, but I’m still terrified he’s right. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. I’m leaving.”
    “I’m not done with you yet.”
    “I don’t care.” And I step over a crowbar.
    “Come back here, you crazy bitch!”
    I close the door behind me.
    There’s no activity in the hallway, so I enter the master bedroom, where I discover a middle-aged woman strapped to what looks like a hospital bed. She struggles. And the masked girl tosses a glass vase at my feet.
    “Please don’t do this,” the woman says.
    The girl picks up a shard of glass, which transforms into a knife.
    “Help me!” the woman says, looking at me.
    “I can’t,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
    The girl hops onto the table, and sits on the woman’s stomach. Then she begins cutting the woman’s wrists.
    “Stop!” the woman says, flooding the room with blood.
    The girl laughs.
    “Who are you?” I say.
    “You know who I am,” the woman says.
    I wade through the blood and lean in close. “If you answer my questions, I’ll help you get away from her.”
    “OK.”
    “Who are you?”
    “I’m your sister. Meghan.”
    “Why are you in a hospital bed?”
    “I tried to kill myself two years ago.”
    “Who is this girl?”
    “I don’t know, but she looks like you when you were a child.”
    The blood level rises above my eyes, and everything’s red, and I smell cinnamon.
    I turn to the girl. “I think it’s time we take off that mask.”
    The girl swims away.
    And I follow. Downstairs, the girl’s sitting on the leather recliner, switching her knife from hand to hand.
    “You shouldn’t play with her,” the octopus says, on top of the TV. “She’s not nice. Why don’t we watch the princess movie instead?” He presses a tape into the VCR, and on the screen, there’s Rhianna in a white dress, riding on a unicorn.
    I kneel in front of the recliner. “I’d like to see your face.”
    The girl snarls, and points her weapon at me.
    But I don’t move. “You need to show me.”
    “No.”
    “Please.”
    “No!” The girl turns away from me. “I’m a monster.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “You saw what I did to Meghan.”
    “That wasn’t real, Rhianna. You’d never hurt your sister like that.”
    “You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
    “Actually, I do. I also know you’re uncomfortable in that mask. There aren’t any holes to see or breathe through. Why don’t you take it off for just a little while?”
    “If I do, you’ll want to kill me.”
    “I won’t. I promise.”
    “You’re a liar.” She doesn’t sound too sure of herself.
    Therefore, I take this opportunity to reach out.
    She stabs my hand, over and over, but I don’t stop.
    I can’t really touch her, of course, though part of her wants me to see her. And so, I’m able to pull off the mask.
    “Don’t look at me!” the girl says, covering her face with her hands.
    I pick up the hand mirror that appears on the coffee table. “Look, Rhianna.”
    “No!”
    “You’re not a monster, Rhianna. Look.”
    She does. And she sees that underneath the mask of the little girl, there’s a little girl.
    “I don’t understand,” Rhianna says.
    “You will,” I say.
    Without the mask obstructing her eyes, Rhianna cries, and the ice above her begins to melt.
    “I think you should move,” I say.
    Rhianna takes my advice just in time.
    Because the chunk of ice splits in half, and an old man falls onto the recliner. The two pieces of ice shatter on the floor, while the man stands, carrying a snowball.
    He heads upstairs.
    I glance at the spot where Rhianna was standing, but she’s already gone.
    So I follow the man.
    And with every