In Perfect Tandem

• Trigger Warnings

  The fab four: Swears, nudity, death, and gore.

I was standing in the door of our reception, or Erin's office, depending on who you asked. That's where I first saw her. She was wearing ragged jean shorts and a black tank top, sitting with her legs crossed on a foldable chair. It was her legs that did it for me. The kind of legs you just want to wrap around your neck and hang yourself with. She was talking to Erin and didn't notice me come in.

"My sisters couldn't make it," she was saying. They'd bailed on her at the last minute- on her birthday, no less. Not that you could tell from the tone of her voice. She didn't sound bummed out in the least. If anything, she sounded happy.

"And you still want to go?" Erin asked. "Alone?"

The woman bobbed her head. She was weirdly enthusiastic for someone who'd just been stood up. Maybe I should have figured something was up. If I was smarter, or even just a little less distracted, I probably would have. As it stands, I guess I was too busy trying to take her all in. From the moment I saw her, I was smitten.

Erin wasn't quite so enthused. She kept thumping her foot and flitting through her desk- finding stuff to do with her hands. Maybe she felt intimidated by the woman. Maybe she knew what Cal would try to do the moment he caught sight of a pretty thing like that.

"I've been looking forward to this," the woman said.

Crushing one of our promotional pamphlets, Erin let out a sigh. Our 'reception' wasn't much to look at, just a dingy little trailer we'd repurposed the year before, right after the drop zone changed hands. Adorning its stippled, metal sides, spray-painted in big, beautiful, blue letters, was the name of our fledgling business – SKY DIVAS – encircled by a dozen silhouettes all parachuting into oblivion. Erin drew the logo up herself. Back in the day, she'd gone to school to become a graphic artist.

It was hard not to feel bad for her. Erin sacrificed a lot for Cal, and still, somehow, their relationship imploded every other week; every conversation they had ran the risk of devolving into a screaming match. As for me, it was kind of like being stuck with a vestful of C4 and a dead man's switch for my two best friends. Given they were in the middle of one of their 'off again' phases, let's just say this woman showing up was bad news... all bets were off on what Cal might attempt.

Erin cleared her throat. "And you're sure you don't want to postpone?" She sounded more than a little desperate. "Even if you cancel, we can still give you a partial refund."

"I want to go," the woman insisted. "I've been waiting a long time for this." She smiled and I caught a glimpse of her lips. She hadn't so much as said hello to me, hadn't even clued in to my existence, but I could already feel a blush creeping up my collar like a rash.

Suddenly, Erin glanced in my direction; following her lead, so, too, did the other woman. I froze. In a weird way, I felt underdressed. There I was, half in my jumpsuit, fresh off the tarmac, my helmet in one hand, a soda in the other- practically trembling with embarrassment.

"Hey," I managed.

What you have to understand, this woman, her face was... startling. There's no other way to describe it. She wasn't beautiful, not in the usual sense, but then it's not like she was unattractive. She was pretty in the way certain fashion models can be, like, borderline uncanny valley, if you know what I mean.

And this wasn't the result of plastic surgery, or lipo, or a botched rhinoplasty or some shit- as far as I could tell, it was just the way her face was sculpted. There was just something a little off about it, something a little alien. Even if I couldn't comprehend it, I could sense it, yaknow?

Thinking back, the reason I couldn't put my finger on it was because it wasn't any one big thing, it was a mess of little ones. Her cheekbones and chin, for instance, were just a little too sharp. Like, poke your eye out sharp- and her eyebrows, they rested too high up on her forehead. She had a long, tapering nose, and nostrils so tiny they were virtually non-existent. Her lips, likewise, were too pink, too thin. But it was her eyes, most of all, that disconcerted me. They were unnaturally wide- almost too big for their sockets.

Except for some soupy, dark red mascara, she didn't seem to be wearing any makeup.

I'd be lying if I said she didn't give me the creeps. And yet, I was entranced. It was a weird mix of feeling. Never in a million years would I have thought this girl was my type. I would have swiped left, so to speak, because, and again, I can't stress this enough, there was just something off. Her face was too perfectly symmetrical, too serrated. She looked like a doll.

She smirked, as if reading my thoughts. The veins in her temples were startlingly blue, visible from all the way across the room. "Hey."

I took a deep breath. "S'up?"

"I was just telling Meg here that she still has a chance to back out," Erin said.

Meg continued to stare at me, boring a hole into my already burning cheeks. Something in her expression suggested she knew I'd been hovering. "What do you think I should do?" she asked. "Should I go on my own?" Her eyes glimmered. Too late, I realized, we were in the middle of a staring contest.

"Well, if you've been looking forward to it, why not?" I finally managed. Erin might have hoped I'd deter her, but it's not like it would have made a difference. "Unless you're scared, that is."

I gotta say, I was surprised at myself, taunting her like that. It came out a lot smoother than I would have expected.

Aiming down the sights of her chin at me, her eyes bulging beneath her bangs, Meg grinned. "Not if you're not."

"What about your sisters?" Erin interrupted. "I can refund you for them, at least."

Meg shook her head slowly, her eyes trained on mine. "Let them bleed," she said. And then, abruptly, she turned away. "I heard something about a birthday discount?"

Erin snorted.

"Some older guy mentioned it on the way in?" Meg pressed.

Must have been Turner, I thought. Old perv.

Suddenly, Erin cast me a look as if to say don't you dare. She met Meg's gaze. "We discontinued that."

"Do you own this place?" Meg asked. I had just given her the tandem rundown, much slower than I might have the average person, if only to prolong our time together. Simple stuff – when you land, pull in your knees, basically. Ultimately, the tandem master – Cal, in this case – was the one responsible for her safe return. Her only real job was to fall.

Anyways, seeing as there was still some time before departure, we took a stroll of the grounds. In its heyday, SKY DIVAS consisted of a landing field, the gravel runway, some packing tents, the firepit, and our own mini trailer park. Two of the trailers were under 'company' jurisdiction: reception and a gift shop/convenience store of sorts, one that sold stupid knick-knacks – mugs, coasters, and keychains – with our logo on them. Other than that, the multitude of trailer homes belonged to the regulars who spent most of their free time – and money – doing what they loved best. Leaping out of airplanes.

All in all, it was pretty small, as drop zones go, but hell if we didn't have ambitions.

"I'm a co-owner, I guess?" I had to think about it. Back then, I'd yet to reconcile with that fact. I was barely 30, and I'd contributed virtually nothing at all to our start-up costs. Cal had paid my share, as well as Erin's, on the condition that we do all the work. You can't say he wasn't generous with his parents' money.

"I mean, Cal's got the biggest share," I confessed. "But I'm one of the founding fathers... He comes from money, so..." Now why the hell had I said that? I was digging my own grave, where Cal was concerned. I was making the man out like he was Bruce Wayne.

Thankfully, he'd yet to emerge from his trailer, but when he did... I knew Meg and my time was limited. In a weird way, it was Cal's sleaziness that saved me. I doubt I would have been able to phrase a proper sentence around Meg, let alone have sustained a conversation with her, if I thought I had a chance in hell. I guess I figured, if it's a lost cause anyways, why not just be myself?

"I worked here under the previous owners, packing chutes to cover the cost of my jumps... Cal was living off his nest egg. He sorta stole his parents' RV, so that we'd have a roof over our heads, but anyways, once I got enough jumps in, I started teaching and filming tandems, raking in some extra cash up until Cal convinced his dad to lend him enough money to buy this place and– by that point, he'd been jumping long enough that I guess his parents assumed it wasn't a phase, and uh... voila." I gave a little flourish.

Meg grinned. All teeth. I couldn't tell if she was only feigning interest. "How'd you get into it in the first place?" She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "Skydiving, I mean."

That was a complicated question. I gave her the short answer. "Cal took me for a tandem on my 18th birthday. I guess I just... fell in love."

"With flying?"

I shook my head. "With falling."

She smiled again, blinking those bugged-out eyes. They were almost like a pug's, the way they seemed to protrude from her face. There was no getting used to them. She was unsettling and enticing in equal measure.

"You're an adrenaline junkie," she teased.

I chuckled. "I wouldn't say that... I'm not looking for a bigger and better fix. I have no interest in jumping off of mountains."

"I see," she said cryptically.

I felt compelled to justify myself. "It's like... getting paid to ride waterslides all day."

"Getting paid to film people going down waterslides, you mean."

I shrugged. "Is there a difference?"

We passed through the untenanted gift shop, through the front and out the back. On a busier afternoon, we might have had someone manning the counter. The drop zone had been bustling most of the day, but now, with 5pm rolling around, it was mysteriously vacant. This though there was still plenty of light left and the sky was as blue as it gets. I found it strange, to say the least. It was summertime. We should have been bustling.

"Is it usually this empty?" Meg asked.

"Maybe the weatherman made a bad call." I looked up. The nearest cloud was still a few hours off.

"Shame," she said. "I wouldn't mind meeting more of your friends."

"Ah, they'd probably just try and convert you."

"Convert me?"

"To a funjumper. Someone who does this full-time."

She smirked. "You say it as if you're some kind of cult."

I shrugged. "Maybe we are."

We circled back around to the communal firepit, one surrounded by a haphazard circle of lawn chairs and benches and bean bags, all generously 'donated' by our faithful clientele. "Does Erin jump?" Meg asked.

I laughed. "No. She works the business end, handles, I dunno, PR... bookings... the website, all that stuff." I didn't really know the full extent of her role. "She's great at it." That much was true. After she took the reins, we saw a massive uptick in customers. "I don't know how we'd get by without her."

"Well, it's good you appreciate her."

That caught me off guard. "I guess."

We continued on past reception. Past Cal's old RV.

Kit, our only full-time pilot, was napping in a hammock tied up between two trailers. A quartet of stray cats were curled up, either in his lap, or on the lovesacs beneath him. Meg stopped to briefly admire his baseball cap, one of the hot ticket items from our gift shop. It had the word WHUFFO printed on it. She pointed curiously. "What's that mean?"

I deliberated. "Trade secret."

She raised her eyebrows and folded her arms. "And what about the birthday discount? Is that a trade secret too?"

I pursed my lips.

"And why was it discontinued, might I ask?" Her eyes flared with curiosity.

"I don't wanna say."

"I won't tell anyone." Before I knew what she was doing, Meg had slithered her pinky around mine, wide eyes boring out at me from their sockets. Her pupils ballooned. "I promise."

I sighed. "It's not the birthday discount... it's the birthday suit discount."

I wasn't sure how she'd react. Cal usually had a pretty good gauge of whether or not a given woman would be affronted. I only saw him get slapped... six, maybe seven times?

Meg betrayed nothing. "Who came up with that?"

"Cal," I said. "He gives- gave an 80% discount to anyone who'd jump topless."

"Anyone?"

"Well... any woman."

"Provided you get to film it, I'm guessing."

"Yep." I held my tongue. She seemed to let that sink in. I was hoping we could change the subject. Maybe I was even hoping she'd be pissed.

Instead, "Does it hurt?" she asked.

I blushed an even deeper shade of red. "I wouldn't know."

She grinned mischievously. "Well aren't you boys naughty." For the life of me, I couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"Wasn't my idea," I said.

"No... but you are the cameraman."

Truer words. "I thought you didn't care for discounts?"

Meg poked my cheek. "Oh, I don't."

I gulped. Cal definitely wouldn't pass up the chance to take a bite out of this girl if she went through with it. Especially not what with him being a free man. Think of the devil.

"Well what do we have here?" Cal said, hanging half out of his RV. Surprise, surprise, he was shirtless.

I was right about one thing. All it took her was one look at him. "You must be Cal," Meg said. From the way her eyes narrowed, I knew I'd been all but forgotten.

It wasn't long before I excused myself. Cal took Meg on another tour and I, tired of third-wheeling, figured I'd pay Erin a quick visit before our jump, maybe get to the bottom of why the dropzone was so deserted.

I passed Turner along the way. If SKY DIVAS was like an extended family, then Turner was our creepy uncle. Cal got a kick out of his antics, but Erin and I kept him at arms length. I gave him a quick nod as I passed. Company must have been slim pickings if he didn't have some poor sap to chat with. It didn't do much to offset my unease.

In reception, Erin was sitting right where I'd left her, staring into nothingness. I rapped the wall, calling her to attention. "You alright?"

She blinked and rubbed her eyes. "Cal steal her off you?" she asked bitterly.

I admitted that he did.

"Fucking bastard."

I felt bad for Erin. She was faithful to the last, always bending over backwards to make things work. As much as I loved Cal, I could freely admit he was a dick. And yet, whenever Erin came pounding on my door, threatening to leave, I was the one who'd convince her to stay. Sooner or later, I'd say, Cal will come to his senses.

In retrospect, I wasn't doing it for her. Yeah, we were friends and I prized her company and all that, but at the end of the day, the fact is the business would have suffered without her. She wasn't obsessed with jumping, and that's exactly why we needed her: she kept us grounded.

"Where is everyone?" I asked. "It's a ghost town."

Erin glanced at me, shifty-eyed. "I don't know."

Right. Standing in the door to the trailer, I stared up at the sky and said, if only for something to say, "Clouds are comin' in hot." I remember thinking they seemed a lot closer than before, though not close enough to reach us before dark.

"Didn't you get weird vibes off that chick?" Erin asked. She was chewing her nails, looking  like an addled ferret.

"She's nice," I murmured. It wasn't like Erin to attack the other woman- typically, she laid blame where blame was due. At the same time, obviously I knew what she was getting at.

Erin's eyes flashed. "Did you tell her what the birthday discount is?"

I sighed. "She asked."

She scoffed. "I bet you'd love that."

She often did that. Mistook me for, or at least spoke to me as if I was, Cal. I got heaped with all the shit she couldn't say to his face. Anyways, I knew she was in pain, so I kept quiet. It was coming on time to fly, and I was itching for a fix.

"I'll come see you when I get down," I mumbled, non-committal.

Erin didn't bother to reply, just went back to staring into nothingness, clicking and unclicking her stupid pen.

Meg opted to cash in on that birthday discount after all, though she'd waived the whole 'discount' part of it. In all of Sky Divas history, that was a first. I couldn't help thinking Cal had some sway over her decision – by the time I got to the runway, the two of them were already thick as thieves, but hey, who was I to judge?

In any case, Cal was intent on squeezing the most out of the opportunity. He got Meg all bundled up in her harness and strapped to his chest a lot sooner than was strictly necessary. He wore her the way a kid wears a front-facing backpack, giggling and slightly boastful at the abjectness of it. At least Meg seemed to be enjoying the attention.

Our plane was a scrappy, little, four-seater Cessna, one we got in a package deal back when Cal bought the DZ. It was old and small, but light on fuel and reliable enough. There were four of us jumping, not to mention Kit in the driver's seat. Turner filed on board first, Meg and Cal clambered in second, and I took up the rear, snagging the spot situated directly across from where Meg was snuggled up in Cal's lap. I tried my best to keep my eyes averted, but it was harder than you might imagine, given I was supposed to keep the camera attached to my helmet trained on her for the entirety of the ascent. That's part of what she was paying for, after all.

Typically, I'd get about 50 minutes of footage and then whittle those down in editing to the best six or seven. Every jump followed the same three-act structure – runway through ascent, freefall, and landing. You get them up to where the chute is pulled, then back off, yank your own, and hit the ground first in time to capture them from below. Splice a few classic rock songs, glue one to each act, and voila, a cherished home video. I was partial to anything with falling or flying in the title – Freefallin', Learn to Fly, Fly Away – original, I know, but customers rarely specify what songs they want. Was any of it strictly legal? Hell if I know. I wasn't a particularly good video editor, but I was fast.

But yeah, so I found myself in the difficult position of having to keep my head positioned such that it was facing Meg, while also keeping my gaze primed to my hands.

Meanwhile, across from me, Meg was squealing with excitement, straining against the harness's straps, all but raring to go. Turner, sitting to her left, egged her on, while Cal, her throne, was peeking over her shoulder, staring full-on at her breasts and wearing the biggest, dumbest grin of all.

No doubt he figured he was getting laid as soon as we landed, before the adrenaline wore off. I wondered what he thought of Meg's face, her eyes, in particular. He shifted her around in his lap and it occured to me he might be trying to disguise an erection. The thought made me wince. Whatever the case, if there was a boner digging into her spine, Meg didn't seem to mind.

I was busy trying to scour that image from my head when she kicked my foot. "Hey."

I met her eyes, blushing. "Yeah?"

She grinned devilishly. Angling herself towards me, she pulled Cal half out of his seat. "You scared?"

"I've done this over a thousand times." I let that sink in. "Of course I'm scared."

Meg giggled and settled back into Cal's lap, screwing her hips back and forth. Happier than a pig in shit, I could see Cal's knees twitch. I wondered if she was doing it to him consciously.

"Everything good to go?" Kit asked. He looked back at us from what passed for the cockpit. He wasn't much of a talker, Kit, but he was a decent guy.

We all gave our thumbs up. The engine sputtered to life. Next thing I know, we're blasting down the runway, achieving liftoff, all that jazz.

"You should come again," Turner was yelling at Meg. He was an older man, but he had a lot of experience. In the air, I mean. "Bring your sisters!" He had to scream to be heard over the roar of the engine. "You can all get the birthday discount!"

Turner was the type to cackle at his own jokes. Cal joined in. And Meg? Meg beamed right on back.

Fast-forward thirty minutes. I kept my head on straight, my eyes in my lap, but I was starting to get a bit claustrophobic – overheated, even – which is rare for me. Every now and then, Meg's feet would brush mine, or her fingers would seek out my knee. On the one hand, it couldn't be helped, we were crammed up like sardines. On the other... I couldn't help but feel like she was taunting me.

I checked the gauge on my wrist, just for something, anything to look at. It was getting mercifully close to showtime.

Suddenly, Meg made a noise, a strange sound coming from the back of her throat.

"Did you say something?" I summoned the willpower to meet her eyes, but she merely craned her neck and shook her head, smiling that same sly, inscrutable smile.

And that's when I noticed it.

Who can say when it started.

"Your mascara." I pointed. At first I thought she was crying, that maybe she was too scared to jump. Nerves happen, it can't be helped. On second look, however, I realized she couldn't have been crying. For one thing, the smile. For another, her eyes weren't watery, though they were... bigger than I'd remembered seeing them last.

"What?" she asked, cupping her ear.

I pointed at my own face. How the hell could she not feel it? A droplet of blood-red mascara trickled down the slope of her cheek and off the sharpened point of her chin. It splattered against her chest, took a detour between her breasts, and burrowed into her navel.

She kicked my ankle. I looked up. She was smiling, wider now, her eyes distended.. Swollen. Her temples throbbed.

"Your-" Drip, drip, drip. Red streaks pooled in the corner of her lips and rained down on her thighs. "Your mascara!" I screamed over the roar of the engine.

I remember Turner gawked. "Don't cry, girly!"

Meg hitched an eyebrow, even higher than normal... too high. It disappeared beneath her bangs. "This eye?" She pointed at the wrong one, which, lo and behold, sprung a leak. Tilting her head, Meg probed the socket with her perfectly manicured nails, smudging mascara like a seal against her hand. "Oops." She placed a wet, red finger into the corner of her lips.

It was Turner's turn to look perturbed. Leaning back in his seat, he spared me a dumb grin.

Meanwhile, Cal was trying to get my attention. He gave me a confused look, a look of concern. I can only imagine what my face looked like in that moment.

The next second, it was like a dam burst. Meg's cheeks were flooded, inundated with red. Her eyes were growing, I was positive, protruding from her head more and more with every second. They were the size of golf balls. For the second time that day, I found myself engaged in a staring contest. "Are you okay?" I whispered hoarsely. What else was there to say?

Meg swabbed her face with the base of her wrist, smearing a long, sinuous streak of red across her brow- war paint.

"Jesus Christ," Cal murmured, practically crossing himself. To my knowledge, he wasn't religious. Turner's intermittent, disbelieving chuckles petered out. This was no laughing matter.

Whatever it was that was leaking from Meg's eyes, it sure as hell wasn't makeup.

I racked my brain for a reasonable explanation. Could it be an embolism? An aneurysm? Something brought on by air pressure?

Cal said something, squirming a little, fumbling with the straps of his – their – harness, the thing binding him to whatever it was that was seated in his lap. I tried to swallow, but there was no spit in my mouth. My ears were ringing. I startled at the sound of Kit's voice. "Everyone buckle in," he was imitating a commercial airliner – "we are approaching our destination."

"What's going on?" Cal's voice materialized. He sounded anxious. Before he could get a buckle undone, Meg slung her head back, butting his nose. "Fuck!"

Turner whimpered, cowering, utterly useless. Not that I was of any more help.

Cal began to spasm, grappling desperately with the harness. "Guys, get her the fuck off me!"

Meg looked well and truly indifferent. She licked the blood from her lips, staining her teeth and tongue a ruby red, as if she'd just eaten a mess of cherries. Her eyes had grown at least three sizes. She winked at me, and as she did, a bubble of blood formed and popped in my direction, spattering my face. It smelled of iron. It tasted... gamy.

I didn't know it at the time, but the blood had stained my camera's lens.

"We need to turn around!" Cal screamed, still holding to the illusion I'd long since abandoned. That whatever the fuck was happening could be explained. That this thing in his lap was... human.

The second he managed to fumble off a clip, Meg's hands leeched to his wrists. She held them in place like twigs.

And that's when Cal began to really panic. He begged. "What's going on!" He tried to knock her off, but she had him pinned. He met my eye, screamed my name.

"You boys are so overdramatic." Meg rolled her eyes. Somehow, while we were straining to be heard over the roar of the engine, her voice was clear as day.

The whole lower half of her face was a crimson mask. It wasn't just her eyes, bulbous, pulsing, stark against their bloody sockets, no, her every feature had stretched, ever so subtly, out of proportion. The nose, flatter and longer, the chin and cheeks, sharper, the eyebrows, all but gone.

My lungs shuddered in my chest.

Meg leaned towards me, peeling Cal up and out of seat as she did so, as if he weighed nothing. She was taller now, taller than she had been. Taller than me. I was powerless to move as, with one clawed hand, she viciously pinched my cheek with enough force to pierce the skin. I felt her thumb inside my mouth, a nail grating against my teeth. I tasted the blood on it.

To my right, Turner, balked and shrank further into himself, hyperventilating. I was dimly aware the whole plane smelled like piss.

In the next second, Meg removed her thumb from my mouth, cupping my cheek almost longingly. I didn't move. I couldn't. Tremors wracked my core; I shook like a jack in the box trying not to spring.

"Everything alright back there?" At long last, Kit spared us a glance. "What the-?"

All of a sudden, Cal let out a shriek like nothing I've ever heard before or since. He writhed against Meg's back, thrashing in place, a last-ditch attempt to detach himself. She swiveled ever so slightly, just enough for me to see the spikes, thin as fish bones, slowly breaching out from the nodes in her spine and skewering Cal's abdomen. She did it like a girl trying to show off a new dress, meeting my eyes, gauging my reaction. Her neck and head tapered, stretching further still. Her nose was nothing more than two long slits.

"What the fuck!" Kit screamed. The plane jostled. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him fumbling for the emergency parachute.

I raised a shaky hand to my cheek and probed the newfound hole. For the first time all flight, Meg pursed her lips, dropping the smile. She seemed to feel almost... bad about it.

At least until the moment she threw back her head and I got my first good look at her teeth, twice as many as I remembered- they sprouted haphazardly from her gums and the roof of her mouth like stalactites and stalagmites vying for space in a cave, growing longer and sharper and- and then everything went to shit.

Meg's body corkscrewed. She clamped her lips to Cal's, as if kissing him, full on, on the lips. Even over the engine I could hear his muffled, wet screeches. It didn't occur to me to help him. Not when he cried out my name. Not even when Meg ripped her head back, tearing through the tendons in his cheeks with a squelch so that I could see right into my friend's face, so that I could admire his picture-perfect, blood-stained teeth. His jaw literally hung on its hinges.

Turner screamed. Giving Meg as wide a berth as he could, he catapulted over my knees, threw open the door to the aircraft, and tumbled out. Kit wasn't far behind.

But the plane, I remember thinking. We only had two, we couldn't afford to lose it. And so I sat frozen, watching Cal suffer through his death throes, gargling to himself, fumbling with the straps of his harness as if it would ever make a difference. Meg yanked his wrist with such force that, even over the engine and the screech of the wind, I could hear it snap.

I caught one last glimpse of her mouth, opening wider and wider. One last glimpse of Cal's half-a-tongue, wriggling like a worm. One last breath. And then flight or fight kicked in. I chose flight.

Bursting out of my seat, I left my friend to die.

I slipped out of the open door as fast as I could, forgetting the footrails, forgoing safety in favor of speed. Spinning in freefall, I looked back just in time to see Meg and Cal, trapped in a lover's embrace, leaping out behind me. Either he had wrested control long enough to get to the door, or...

I made myself into an arrow, plummeting as quick as I could, reaching terminal velocity, but two bodies fall faster than one.

Ahead of me, Turner and Kit disappeared into a cloud. It was clear skies an hour ago, and now- What the fuck happened? A second later, the same cloud rose to greet me.

Suddenly, I was dewed with what I thought was precipitation. Then I saw the limbs. A fragment of a leg flying to one side, an arm hurtling into oblivion. It was as if a bomb had exploded, as if Kit had just been hit out of nowhere by a supersonic jet. I was covered in blood. With barely any time to think, let alone act, all I could do was brace myself for impact, hoping against hope nothing blew me to smithereens.

On exiting the cloud I saw, not too far below me, that Turner had managed to escape Kit's fate, if only temporarily.

Had he been able to hear me, I might have warned him. Who knows what good it would have done. There were maybe two seconds where he might have had time to react, or at least pray for salvation.

From out of a turgid, blistering storm cloud in the distance, I watched something swoop. I only ever saw its silhouette, snagging just a glimpse of the great span of its thin, fibrous, skeletal wings, replete with veins and arteries, like skin stretched to its breaking point, of its giant eyes, of its spiked chin. Within the blink of an eye, it latched to Turner's person and disappeared.

So Meg's sisters had come after all.

I closed my eyes. There was nothing I could do except fall. Fall until one of the those things caught me, to enjoy that fleeting moment of weightlessness, the closest thing to being in the womb. There was no way I could avoid them, given what I'd just seen. And besides... I had to pull my parachute eventually.

I waited as long as I could, the lowest altitude I could pull without guaranteeing death, knowing the whole time it was no use. I was trapped in mid-air, hurtling towards oblivion, at the whim of a creature I could neither dodge nor comprehend.

And then there was a great whoosh. An ear-splitting shriek. And the whole world went black.

I woke up on the cold, hard grass. There's a failsafe installed into all parachutes such that the chutes automatically deploy at a certain altitude, just in case the diver gets knocked unconscious. The wonders of modern technology. I came to, trapped beneath the fabric, wondering what the hell just happened. I thrashed about like a kid trapped in his sheets after a bad dream, panting and sweating, until I unearthed myself and arose to find the world... empty. Utter darkness. Hours must have passed.

All I knew was I was in a field somewhere, with no idea of how to get back. I felt around my head, hoping to use the camera to guide me, but my helmet was missing. Whatever slammed into me must have knocked it clean off my head. I was slick with dried blood, but I wasn't missing any limbs. Other than the hole in my cheek, I'd gotten off rather lucky.

Maybe they dropped me by accident, I thought. But then, why didn't they just come pluck me up, finish me off?

I rose, trembling all over, looking for something to navigate by. Everything ached and there was a strange taste in the back of my mouth, almost acidic. I had no idea where I was, but as long as I wasn't knocked too far off course, the dropzone would be walking-distance. Then I spotted it, a great flame brewing farther on, too big to just be the firepit. I felt my stomach drop.

It took a good fifteen minutes to get back to Sky Divas. I was so dazed I didn't even take off my chute, my canopy dragging behind me like a giant placenta. When I finally arrived, I found the tents and trailers all either burning or mangled beyond belief. All around me, charred shards of metal lay scattered about. Everything was flecked with blood. The only building left intact and relatively unharmed, I was surprised to find, was reception.

I creeped over, navigating by the light of the flames. It wasn't just the trailers, I realized. The planes were totaled, too, reduced to sizzling heaps of corrugated sheet metal. Somehow, the Cessna we were in had been diverted back to camp. My stomach seized up as I replayed everything that had just happened.

The next thing I remember was a moaning sound, a keening that snapped me back into focus. It was coming from reception. I froze, dead in my tracks, and debated whether to continue. The sobbing continued. Holding my breath, I charged into Erin's office.

She sat there, at her desk, right where I'd left her. If it was possible, she looked even more dazed than me. I cupped my stomach, feeling like I might throw up. "What happened?" I asked.

"I didn't think..." she trailed off. She barely seemed to register my presence.

Just then, there was a clunk above us as something alighted on the roof. I ducked instinctively and motioned for Erin to do the same, to hide beneath her desk, but she didn't move. She just kept mumbling to herself. Her eyes were vacant. "Erin!" I hissed.

From above, I could hear the soft clink of talons scraping metal. Something was creeping above us, coming nearer the entrance. "Erin..." I tried once more, desperate.

I don't know what I was thinking. It's not like we would have stood a chance. I turned to where Erin's eyes were settled, on the door outside, and decided, fuck it. I straightened my back and hardened my expression.

Something poked its head in, upside down, such that its hair hung in long, scraggly strands and only its mischievous, overlarge, green eyes were visible. I held my breath. But Meg was only paying us a visit.

There was a crash. Something else landed on the roof, this time with a real bang, nearly caving it in. I looked up for merely a second, and when I glanced back, Meg was gone.

Steadying myself, gathering my courage, I strode outside to see what she – they – had left. A parting gift.

Neither Meg, nor her sisters, were anywhere in sight. Instead, in their place, was a body. I pulled myself up onto the roof and stood over it. They must have dropped him from quite a height. His body was eviscerated, his eyes gouged out, his spine pretzeled. What was left of Cal wheezed once, then its breath petered out. His mouth was chock-full of some regurgitated, greyish substance. Somehow, they'd kept him alive all that time.

Shaking in my boots, I doubled back into the trailer and sunk down against one wall, my head in my hands.

"I didn't think..." Erin said again.

I've yet to hear her say anything but in the time since.

When the cops came, they couldn't get a word out of Erin. Some assumed she was in shock. Others assumed she was guilty- that it was all a ploy, a get-out-of-jail free card. They assumed she'd been up to some bad hijinks, that she torched the place for revenge on her unfaithful boyfriend. They insisted she tampered with and sabotaged the plane.

Whatever the case, she got what they said she wanted: she ended up in a mental institution.

As for me, I kept my mouth shut. Not so much that they'd think I'm crazy, not so little that they'd have any reason to doubt my innocence. I mentioned nothing of Meg's transformation, nor those things in the sky. I said I'd been on the plane one second and that the next I was on the ground with no idea what happened. They chalked it up to a freak accident, or at least they said they did.

Then these plainclothes people showed up, bustled everyone out, and went over everything with their fine-tooth combs. Things were hush hush after that. They listened to my bullshit, took it with a grain of salt, and then asked me what actually happened. The truth and nothing but. So I told them. They agreed to pay me a handsome sum under the condition that I not accept any more interviews. That I keep on keeping my mouth shut.

Within the span of an hour, before they could ever really get a foothold, the media circus was dispersed. Somehow, the whole incident barely made the news. In what story they did manage to spin, I got lucky. By some miracle, I wasn't killed in the initial explosion, though a shard of metal punctured my cheek. It still didn't explain when Kit and Turner's heads severed heads showed up, nor the fact that there were bite marks in Cal's face.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

It's been three years and I've never been to visit Erin. Not to say I'm not tempted. It's just that, if I'd be visiting her, it'd be for the wrong reasons, and I don't know if I could help myself but ask... the wrong questions.

Every now and then I think about it. About Meg. Sometimes it's before she transformed, sometimes it's during the transformation, and sometimes, it's what I imagine she looked like full-fledged, her true form. I see her in my nightmares, but then that's not exactly fair. It would be more accurate to say that I see her in my dreams. I don't dream about Cal or Erin, just her, and when I do, well... let's just say I don't wake up screaming.

I keep a close eye on the news. Parasailers disappearing, missing flights, stuff like that. The thing is, were she so inclined, she could pretty much prey on anyone anywhere, and when you start adding missing hikers into the mix, things get complicated pretty quick.

Other than that, I've tried to get on with my life. I work for a different drop zone on a different coast. I made a brief effort to get out of the game, but I fibbed before. It's just as much a lifestyle as it is an addiction. My new boss doesn't pay me as much as Cal did, but we get along alright.

And besides, it lets me keep an eye out for her. Every time I jump, every time I pass through a cloud, I like to imagine her swooping in. When I edit videos, I watch out for any mysterious silhouettes in the distance. It's hard to explain. See, part of me just wants to forget, but another part of me, a more primal part...

I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to see her again.