Free Club Monstrosity by Jesse Petersen

would be the obvious choice when someone kills me here.”
    “Well, there’s always the East River,” Natalie said as she rubbed her eyes. Part of her understood Linda’s freak-out. But the other part . . .
    “What is the first rule of hiding our identities?” she asked in a low hiss to keep passing strangers from hearing them.
    Linda sniffled. “D-don’t draw attention to yourself.”
    “Then stop crying, ” Natalie ordered, though she found herself rubbing Linda’s arm in a comforting fashion. “Seriously, you’re going all green, even the cop noticed.”
    Linda gulped back tears and drew a few deep breaths before she withdrew a lighted compact and examined herself.
    “Oh shit, you’re right. Hang on.” With a few expert sweeps of a brush, Linda redid her makeup and suddenly looked like a real-life girl again.
    “Better?” she asked with only a sniffle.
    “Actually, yeah.” Natalie shook her head with begrudging respect. “You’re really good at that.”
    Linda sighed. “Well, I’ve had practice.”
    Natalie couldn’t help but smile. She understood that. She might not have green, scaly skin like Linda, but she had to cover her scars on a regular basis. The summer was a nightmare.
    Linda checked herself again and snapped the compact shut. “My crying is water-related, you know.”
    Natalie stared. “Not all of it.”
    Linda pondered that statement for a moment. “No. I’m emotional. But I kind of like it. It makes me . . . human. Kind of like your sarcasm or Kai’s being a raving bitch.”
    Natalie pursed her lips. She hadn’t thought of it that way before. “Yeah, I guess we all like our human bits, don’t we?” She shook her head. Heaven help her if she was going to start to “get” Linda. “Anyway, I’m going to walk you to your train and I’ll see you later.”
    “What?” Linda’s eyes went wide. “You aren’t coming with me?”
    Natalie shook her head. “No, I’m going home. I’m going to text the others and let them know that Bob has been found . . . sort of. Then I’m taking a hot bath and going to bed. I just want to forget this day.”
    But as they headed down the stairs into the dark, dank subway station, Natalie knew that forgetting wasn’t possible.

6
    The apartment door flew open before Natalie could even start looking for her keys, revealing the pudgy, mousy figure of her roommate, Whitney. She was still wearing the uniform for her job as a waitress in a ridiculous fifties-themed restaurant in the heart of Times Square: a poodle skirt and puffy sweater. Her brownish hair was tied back in a tight ponytail and her brightly painted red lips were pulled down in an angry scowl.
    Not that the expression was different from any other night; she’d seemed pissed pretty much since the moment she moved in.
    They had met via Craigslist a year and a half before when Natalie was looking for a roommate. In the end, she’d chosen Whitney not because they’d connected on any kind of natural level, but because she needed a paying body in the house who didn’t seem like she’d be too nosy. They had nothing in common, from their personalities to their hobbies, but they had always tolerated each other. Barely.
    Today Natalie just wasn’t in the mood. Her head had started to throb about twenty minutes before and all she wanted to do was lie down in a dark room and try to pretend she hadn’t seen Blob dead in a freezer. Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen. She forced a tight, unnatural smile on her face.
    “Hey, Whit—”
    Whitney cut her off. “What the fuck, Natalie?”
    Natalie blinked. She’d seen Whitney annoyed over dishes, music, the state of the bathroom . . . but never really mad . Now her full cheeks were splotched with red and her normally boring brown eyes were bright with what could only be described as rage.
    “What? What the fuck what, Whitney?” Natalie asked as she counted to ten in her head.
    She just wanted to go inside. Why couldn’t