Bedbugs (45 page)

Beside me, to my left, is a man wearing a fancy three-piece suit of dark blue. His necktie is a design of squares with dark circles in the center. It looks amazingly three-dimensional against the blinding white glare of his shirt. He is leaning forward with both hands on the arms of the chair in which I sit.

In front of me, a little to my right, stands a rather attractive, dark-haired woman. She is wearing what looks like a white laboratory smock. It swells out due to her ample breasts. She has a syringe in one hand, and I can see that a needle and the plastic tube of an IV feed have been taped to my exposed left forearm, which is strapped to the other arm of the chair.

Perhaps the most shocking thing I notice is the color of my own skin. It is pasty white, almost gray, and looks exactly like the senseless, immobile clay I imagine it is.

“V
ery good, Mr. Sinclair. That is correct,” the man in the three-piece suit says, smiling broadly as he leans closer to me. “I’m holding up two fingers.”

His features don’t look quite so cartoonish, but they are still horrifyingly animated as the smile spreads across his wide face. His teeth look big and flat, and for an instant I am consumed by the fear that he is going to dart forward and bite me.

“I know it must be difficult for you to speak, Mr. Sinclair,” he says, “but if you please, can you indicate with either a sound or a motion of your hand that you understand what I’m saying?” He glances over his shoulder. “Is this acceptable to you, your honor?”

A
s I stare at him, the halo of light that surrounds his head gradually blends from vibrant blues and purples to deep, fiery reds and oranges that shift across his features like flickering flames.

Unaccountably, I feel the cold, hollow stirrings of hunger.

Yes . . . hunger!

“M
y name is Raymond Charles, Mr. Sinclair. I’m a lawyer. I’m representing you in this case.”

I
want to ask him exactly what case that might be, but I’m fairly certain that it has something to do with the night I was mugged and tried to fight back. I realize that I must have been wounded, and I wonder if I have been in a coma all this time and am just now coming out of it.

“Y
ou may remember that, on the seventeenth of December, you were accosted on your way home from work by a young man. Do you recall that incident?”

“. . . yes . . .”

I
t takes every bit of effort I can muster to say that single word, which reverberates like the heavy clang of metal in my ears.

“M
r. Sinclair, I am informed that we don’t have much time, so I must get directly to the point. I have to ask you, do you think you would recognize your assailant if he were to be presented to you?”

I turn away from Mr. Charles, sensing that the painful stirrings of hunger inside me are only intensified whenever I look at the glowing curtains of red light that surround his face. The fleshy folds of his skin fairly vibrate with energy and life. I try to concentrate on remembering exactly what happened that night—when?

How long ago?

It could have been days or weeks, or it could have been several months or years.

I have no way of knowing.

The image of my attacker’s face swirls into my memory like a face looking up at you from underwater. Dark hair, shifting in heavy, oily curls, swirls around his face. Eyes, dark and liquid, slide nervously back and forth. Thin, tight, almost bloodless lips are pursed, and the pale skin above his upper lip is marked by the faint wisp of a mustache. His skin is greasy-looking and pimply, but it is what I see
inside
those eyes that I remember most clearly.

Fear. . . .

Fear and silent desperation.

“. . . yes . . .”

E
ven as I say the word, I see this boy’s face materialize like a mirage in front of me. It, too, is surrounded by a sparkling sheet of red light, and the gnawing hunger that is churning inside me intensifies until it becomes excruciatingly painful.

This hunger is now the only pain I know.

The woman, apparently a doctor or nurse, says something to the man who has identified himself as my lawyer, but her words are lost to me as I stare again into that boy’s dark, desperate eyes.

“I
s this the man who attacked you, Mr. Sinclair?”

I
hear the words, but they mean almost nothing to me. The gnawing hunger that is growling like a disease inside my gut is more demanding. I am distantly aware that my mouth has dropped open, and my teeth are grinding back and forth as I strain forward, but the strap across my chest holds me back. I try to raise my arms, but they, too, are firmly held in place by my restraints.

“. . . yes . . .”

“I
object, your honor!” a voice suddenly yells, sounding in my ears like a sudden clap of thunder.

“Overruled.”

“I ask you again, Mr. Sinclair, and if you can, I would like you to speak a bit louder for the sake of the jury. Is the man standing in front of you the same man who accosted you on Irving Street on the night of December seventeenth and, at gun point, demanded that you give him your wallet?”

“. . . yes . . .”

“I
f it please the court, I would like it noted for the record that Mr. Sinclair has identified the defendant, Mr. Leroy Peterson.”

“So noted.”

“Objection, we haven’t established the credibility of this witness.”

“Overruled. Who better to identify his assailant, Mr. Applegate, than the murder victim himself?”

“Your honor, I think we’re losing him again.”

W
hen the woman speaks this time, even through the boiling pain of my overwhelming hunger, I recognize the edge of panic in her voice.

All around me, there are explosions of shadow and light, blending and swirling in an insane riot of color and sound. I am dazzled, confused, and the only clear thought I carry through this confusion is that I am hungry. . . .

Hungry!

“Y
our honor, I realize that this is a rather unusual request, but I would beg the court’s indulgence to allow me to ask if Mr. Peterson would please step forward and touch Mr. Sinclair on the hand.”

“I object! This has gone on long enough. It’s well past the point of morbid curiosity.”

“May the court ask, Mr. Charles, exactly why you are making such an unusual request?”

“I beg your indulgence, your honor, but it is an ancient tradition that, if a corpse is touched by the murderer, the wounds which were inflicted by that individual will begin to bleed again, thereby identifying the murderer.”

A corpse!

What the hell is be talking about?

I’m not a corpse!

V
oices explode around me, but I am so consumed by hunger and the numbing fear that embraces me that I don’t understand a single word. Stark terror squeezes me with a mounting pressure that soon becomes intolerable.

“I
object! This is patently absurd! Why, this is a . . . this is medieval superstition we’re talking about, not modem jurisprudence. Your Honor, I would like to request that these entire proceedings be declared a mistrial, and that the—”

“Please calm yourself, Mr. Applegate. In light of this rather unusual situation, which is certainly something I’ve never experienced before, please instruct your client to do as Mr. Charles has requested.”

I will not.

“You will, or I’ll find you in contempt of court.”

E
very fiber of my being is charged with tingling jolts of electricity. The raging urge to eat . . . to kill . . . to rip into the throbbing, living flesh so close to me is absolutely overpowering, filling me with a spiraling insanity. I feel myself thrashing wildly against the restraints. My head begins to reverberate with a loud, crashing sound that I soon realize is my teeth, gnashing together. Hot, sour saliva floods my mouth and the back of my throat, and then—through it all—I feel something else.

I feel a touch . . . like a pin prick . . .

On the back of my hand.

It sizzles and crackles, but for only an instant; then dark, rolling clouds churning with thick clots of ropy gray and black descend across my vision. All colors fade, and once again I am clutched by the sensation of being frozen into immobility. My muscles go rigid. My bones feel like iron spikes.

I can feel the touch on the back of my hand for less than a second, and then the dull leadenness seeps like poison throughout my body.

“Oh, my God!
Look!
” a voice suddenly cries out. “He . . . he’s bleeding!”

I
am so lost in my own internal agony that I can’t distinguish whose voice it is.

I no longer care.

It sounds so impossibly far away I would cry . . . if I could.

“I
t’s true! The stomach wound is bleeding again!”

“But that’s impossible,” I hear someone say. It might be the judge or it might be the man who claims to be my lawyer.

“A corpse can’t bleed!”

I
am past caring as darkening waves descend and engulf me, pulling me under with powerful, irresistible surges. All of my senses are dimming. The last thing I hear before everything resolves into pitch black again is a faint, echoing voice.

“That will be all for now. Thank you, Dr. Murphy. You may return Mr. Sinclair’s body to the morgue now.”

—for Ed Kramer

Transcript of a conversation with Ajut, a member of the Inuit tribe.

Part One:

I
am an old man now, but when I was a child, I recall fondly how my mother would tell us children stories at bedtime. These stories were told to entertain us and, at times, to frighten us into good behavior; but no tale she ever told us scared me half as much as something that happened during my eleventh year. This tale was told to me by Ootek, my father’s brother, and it was all the more frightening because he insisted that it was true.

Now, I never believed him, of course, at least not until a year later when he took me out onto the ice and showed me the fire-blackened hull of the big wooden sailing ship from the south. Then, in my twelve-year-old wisdom, I allowed as how some of his tale
might
have an element of truth in it . . . but not much. I was young and didn’t know much, I admit.

I understand now that I no doubt didn’t want to believe what I heard, but I will tell you the tale as it was told to me, more than sixty winters ago, and you can judge for yourself. In fact, we are within a two-day journey of the old ship, so if you would like, I could take you there to see it.

I remember food was scarce that year, as it often is for the People. Kaila the Provider had not supplied our men with nearly enough seals and whales during the annual summer hunt. For long periods of time, the sky remained dark and cloudy even during the summer, when the sun never sets. When winter came, and snow and darkness filled the sky and covered the ground, and the wind howled like a woman in pain outside our igloos, we remained inside our igloos many days at a time. Only a fool would dare to go outside when Paija the Evil One was prowling about, looking for anyone foolish enough to brave the long winter darkness alone.

Ootek, my father’s brother, lived alone. His wife, Howmik, had died the spring before when the ice upon which she was walking split open beneath her weight, and the
inua angkuni
, those great ghosts who live below the ice, caught her by the feet and dragged her under to dwell with them. No one can gaze long upon the faces of the
inua angkuni
and keep his thoughts straight afterwards. Howmik was alone at the time, so no one saw any of this happen, but what happened proves that the
inua angkuni
are always looking for someone foolish enough to be out on the ice alone. Howmik’s footprints were found on the edge of ice near the open water, and everyone in our village could read the story those tracks told.

Throughout that winter, Ootek kept very much to himself, rarely coming to visit even when we offered to share with him the meager supplies of our food. During the long, dark winter, he made a habit of going out for long walks in the night. Even when the wind howled like Amow the wolf, and the snow drifted like thick smoke across the ice, he would go outside, telling no one where he was going or what his intentions were. My father suggested to my mother that Ootek’s wife had returned to Ootek in the form of an
ino
, and that he was spending his time sporting with her in the frigid darkness. Of course, I believed him because I know many truths about the spirit world. Just because I am now a Christian, it does not mean that the spirits and demons of my people have all disappeared.