Barracuda

Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey is not a real doctor. Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey is not a real human being. Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey can take off her skin like a coat and walk the world in fishform, breathing air like water and water like air. There is not one of us here that Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey would not like to eat, but she wants to eat my best friend Rita the most.

Rita is wonderful, not just because she knows everything.

Rita is wonderful because she’s the only person in here who still laughs, I mean laughs for real. Everyone else brays or howls at the moon or cackles. Rita just laughs, and really only when something is funny. She laughs like a person might outside.

“Come on, Gretchen,” says Rita. And at once we’re flying the halls in our nightgowns, only going where we’re allowed but going there as fast as we can. The art room. The game room. The cafeteria. We run. She laughs like a child and I smile, because I can’t breathe, and because if Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey ever hears me laughing she’ll take Rita away from me.

“Rita,” I say, most seriously, as we sit down at last to cool our heels in the art room. Clarence is there. He’s coloring with crayons. Clarence is the braying type, but he only does it when you talk to him.

“What is it, my love?” she says. I blush. I always blush when she talks to me like that. I think it’s because my heart gets bigger and makes my blood go faster and stronger against my skin. I used to worry that Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey could smell it. Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey can smell blood, you know. But she can only smell it when it’s out in the open. Like the time Jeanine cut her wrists and they had to take her to the hospital. I saw Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey there, circling, circling. I had to scream for a nurse before her skin started to peel off like her lab coat before a meal.

“Why do you stay here?” I ask. I keep my voice low so that Clarence doesn’t think I’m speaking to him and bray and bray like a donkey. “You’re special. You can leave any time you want.”

Rita looks at me for a long time, and there is sadness in her eyes. I know she didn’t want me to know that, and for a long time I didn’t want to tell her, but I heard the doctors talking. She’s special. She didn’t cut her wrists like Jeanine, or howl at the moon like Nicholas. She brought herself here. She even drove her own car.

“Why are you here, Rita?” I ask.

“You’ll remember one of these days,” she said. “And until you do I’m watching over you.”

“Gretchen,” a voice like the crashing of a wave in a thunderstorm. Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey was calling my name. “Come with me please.” She only called people away for “discharge meetings.” Those were lies. No one ever came back in after a “discharge meeting.”

I look at Rita. Her eyes are sad. Does she know? Or can she only see my fear?

“I’ll come with you,” she whispers.

“You can’t,” I hiss. “She’ll eat you too.”

“Gretchen,” Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey calls again. “Please come to my office. We haven’t got all day.” Rita takes me by the hand and we walk over. Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey looks chagrined.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “These meetings are confidential. Only immediate family members-“

“I’m her sister,” Rita says. “Rita Champlain.” I look at her like I am seeing her for the first time. No wonder she was so like me in so many ways. No wonder our bodies synchronize with the ease of migrating birds. Sisters. Why didn’t she tell me?

“Very well,” Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey steps aside and lets us enter the office. She closes the door and I wait for the sound of rending flesh that will foretell the coming of her true form. But the sound doesn’t come. Instead, she walks to her desk and sits down. Her glasses are wide in front of her eyes like the glass encasement at an aquarium. “So you’re the sister,” she says.

“Yes, Doctor,” Rita says simply. I can’t stop stealing glances at her. My sister. I didn’t even know I had a sister. I have no memory of before the hospital. Only here, and only the ever present danger. Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey may be seated, but she never ceases movement. If she did she would die. When she speaks, she leans far forward in hear chair, but only for a moment.

“I heard that you checked yourself in to watch out for her, is that true?” Rita nods, no hint of regret in her green eyes. “You have nothing to fear for her,” she said. “I am more concerned about you.” I nearly leap out of my chair. I knew it! I knew that Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey wanted to eat Rita the most. I can’t let her hurt my sister! But Rita puts out a hand and I place my palm against hers and I know instinctively that she wants me to wait. Settle. Hear what is going to be said.

“Why is that, Doctor?” Rita asks.

“To be frank, Rita,” she says, getting to her feet again. “You’re healthy. You’re in perfect health I would say. It can’t be good for you to be spending all of your time with the mentally ill, delusional…like your sister.” I freeze.

“Delusional?” she asks. Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey nods.

“Oh yes,” she says. “Do you know that your sister thinks I’m a monster?” Rita looks at me. There is an unfamiliar look on her face. The first look she has ever given me that I haven’t been able to read. “She thinks I want to eat you, Rita.” My face was hot with a different kind of blush. Delusional? “It would be better for both of you if you left now. I know your car is still in the lot. The keys are at the nurses’ station. Rita, you have your whole life ahead of you.”

I’m about to tell her to go, when she shakes her head curtly.

“I’m not leaving,” she says.

“Well then,” Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey straightens her posture and stands a foot taller than before. “I supposed I shall have to eat you both.”

She unbuttons the top button on her shirt and finds a zipper pull there. I turn to Rita and she is looking at me urgently.

“Gretchen,” she says. “Close your eyes.”

The sounds I hear when my eyes are closed are like nothing I have ever heard. The zipper, then the sound of ripping, peeling, snarling, screeching. I keep my eyes closed for the whole time.

Almost.

I peeked. I peeked between my fingers just long enough to watch Rita in her birdform tilt back her head and swallow Doctor Mirabelle Sharkey whole.

Once Rita puts back on her suit of skin and her dress, she takes my hand and we walk to her car. The key is in the nurses’ station. And there is no one stopping us. Not anymore.