Upright Beasts (22 page)

She tore at her hair and looked around the room with wild eyes. She ran a few feet toward one door, then turned and ran back toward the couch. She didn't seem to know what to do, but eventually she threw the axe at the orb. “This is bullshit!” she screamed.

I barely heard Feather yell, “It's not safe out of the cage, go back!” When I turned around, she was trying to shove the creature back out the door.

I'd left the cage door open before we came inside. I'd tried to project a message of peace and forgiveness.

The pink creature was moving toward the Dolan-orb, inching along like a worm. It stopped and turned to Feather. She was chanting her prayer and pushing with all her might. Then the top of the creature, where the rows of spikes converged on the sphincter, expanded open. The creature bunched up and, I guess, inhaled.

Feather's leg got sucked right in up to the knee. She screamed, hopping on her other leg. Her right leg was inside the creature for about three seconds, then the creature spat what was left back out. Fleshless bones hung from her kneecap. She tried to stand on both legs, but the bare bones collapsed with her weight, and she tumbled to the floor. She looked completely confused, and her eyes darted around. Blood poured over the white bones.

The creature did the same thing to her left leg. It sucked it in as she screamed, then spat it out as neat, white bones. The creature rolled a little to the left and regurgitated a pile of tendons, muscle, and blood. Feather was barely moving now. The creature shifted itself to face her twitching arm.

When Iris saw the creature continuing toward us, she shouted, “You aren't coming near Dolan, pus bag!”

I pulled her out of the way just as the thing was opening its hole. Iris struggled against me, but I held on.

Go on, we won't stop you,
I tried to say to the creature. I concentrated as hard as I could.
I am sorry for what the man and woman did to you. We killed the bearded one for you.

The creature's opening was facing us. I could see a strange yellow light inside. It stayed there for a few seconds, then clenched back up. It turned toward the black orb.

By this point, the orb had expanded to the size of the couch. The bottom was still expanding out of the cavity of Dolan. It didn't seem fully formed. A half-dozen thin threads were
wrapped around the appliances in the room. You could hear the hum of the electricity moving through them.

The creature emitted a low rumble, and a part of the orb opened up, like a slit in a curtain.

I saw Clover standing in the other entranceway. She was sniffling but watching intently.

Dad, Dad,
she said in my mind.

Don't worry,
I said.
Stay still and close your eyes.

The creature started to crawl into the opening of the orb. The swarm in my head was intercepting something. It wasn't quite words, but I could tell the orb was its ship, and that the creature was going to return home.

“We have to get outside,” I yelled. “It's going to break through the roof!”

That didn't happen though.

Instead, a jolt of blue electricity surged up the orb thread from the wall socket. The lights started flickering. Clover and Iris screamed and ran outside. I started to follow them, but before we could make it out, there was a loud pop and all the lights shut off. Everything turned black.

I could sense something, either panic or resignation, coming from the creature. I opened a long cut on my calf scrambling out of the house. Iris and Clover were already in the yard.

“I guess the fuses blew,” I said.

Iris smiled and guffawed. Clover was smiling too, but I didn't get why.

“We should move farther back,” I said.

We don't have to. He can't leave,
Clover said.
The vessel was only partially born. He'll have to stay with us!

The air was cool outside, and the stars were shining brightly. We stood out in the yard for a while before the creature
tumbled out of the house. It seemed Clover was right. The pink creature looked confused rolling around the wet grass. No one said anything, not even Clover.

I couldn't tell if it saw us, or even if it cared we were there. Maybe it didn't care about anything now. It inched away in a different direction, moving slowly toward the dark, open woods.

“Yes, leave, you asshole!” Iris finally said when it was almost out of sight. “I hope Dolan's ghost haunts you all the way to Mars!”

I guess it wasn't much of a surprise, but Iris and I didn't last much longer. We made it back to the city intact, but everything that had happened was too much for her. Or maybe we just weren't meant to be.

She moved out of her apartment a few weeks later, saying it smelled too much like Dolan. I never did learn if there was anything more going on there. Soon Iris left the city and flew across the country. She sent me one postcard with a picture of tanned bodies on the beach that said, “Wish you were here to oil me up!” but on the back she had written, “I know it isn't your fault, but that thing that killed Dolan is in your bloodstream. I can't fuck someone knowing there is an alien eye on the back of their neck. I hope you understand. Formerly yours, Iris.”

I'm doing all right though. I'm not as angry as I used to be. When I get worked up, my head throbs, so I have to be calm and let things move through me. The eye on the back of my neck doesn't look too much bigger, but it's hard to tell. I wear a lot of turtlenecks.

Plus, I've got someone to take care of now. Little Clover, who likes to play Nintendo and makes us go out on the roof to watch the sky at night.

What happened to my second daddy?
she asks me.
When's he coming back to take us away to a planet that isn't full of jerks?
She has more of the flesh in her than me, so I don't bother lying to her. She'd know. I say it probably died in those woods. Most likely it got mistaken for a deer by a hunter and shot, or else chewed up by wolves.

But Clover,
I say,
even when we die, we never truly go away.

I don't mean that hogwash about friends and family living on in our memories. I mean that creatures like Clover and me, those with the star-fallen flesh inside us, are not restrained by these bodies. When we die, even the worms and bugs that inspect our remains become touched. Our life force multiplies inside them, creating yet more vessels that crawl through the dark soil with new purpose. They spill out onto the green grass to scatter and grow and spread.

GETTING THERE NONETHELESS

T
hey found the first one behind an abandoned barn. He was tangled up in a mess of barbed wire and leaking opaque purple liquid from holes in his stomach. Tim tried to call Tracy but couldn't get reception. Byrd hit the thing in the face with a stick. Charlotte screamed and snapped a few photos. All the man could do was moan, moan, moan. Then his jaw got unhinged from Byrd's stick.

“Hoorar? Ooorhar?” the man said.

They left him there and went back to the house to get Tracy. Tim kept looking over his shoulder, but nothing burst through the leaves.

It was a really spectacular July day in the country, so hot that even breathing seemed to burn your insides. Clouds of nearly invisible insects hovered everywhere. The four friends were taking a two-week summer vacation in Charlotte's family's cabin. Three months earlier, Charlotte had peed on a stick to confirm she was pregnant. They'd all cleared up time to celebrate before real life really took over.

The reports of the disease were just starting when they'd driven out of the city, but each time one came on, they'd hit scan until they got music again.

“Tracy, we found one of those moaning dead guys!” Tim shouted.

“He means
un
dead guys,” Byrd said.

Tracy was tanning on the roof. She looked down at the upturned faces of her friends.

“I thought he was just sick at first and tried to help him, and he clawed my shoulder like an asshole!” Charlotte said.

“That's awful,” Tracy said. “We need to lock the doors and search for weapons!”

“I wouldn't worry about it,” Byrd said. “He was pretty trapped in that barbed wire.”

“Well, let's get Charlotte to the hospital before she turns.”

“Don't be dramatic, Tracy. It was a scratch, not a bite. Plus, I have this amazing balm made with aloe and goji berries that can, no joke, cure
anything.”

Tracy climbed down the ladder and went inside. Byrd was rubbing sunscreen up and down his arms.

“Tim and I can take care of him later. It'll be a bonding experience.” Byrd swung an arm around Tim's neck and gave him a noogie.

Charlotte came out of the bathroom in a neon-green bikini with Band-Aids on her shoulder. “I thought we could take a dip in the lake. It's more like a pond I guess, but it has a zip line my dad strung up when we were kids. I know, I know. Hashtag tomboy, hashtag redneck. It's fun though!”

“That sounds nice,” Tracy said uneasily.

“I was hoping to get some work done,” Tim said. Tim had been insisting on working on his novel, or pretending to as far as Tracy could tell, even on vacation.

“Work in the shade, dummy,” Byrd said.

Charlotte picked at her shoulder. “That asshole's fingers were disgusting. I'd like to think that even if I was undead, I'd practice some basic hygiene.”

Tracy and Charlotte raced across the pond and pulled themselves onto the far dock.

“I'm going to get a little sun on my boobs now that we're away from those awful boys.” Charlotte arched her back to slide off her top.

Tracy looked out the side of her eyes. Charlotte's nipples were red and enormous. Tracy wondered if babies had nipple preferences. If she ever decided to have a baby, would it find her nipples too small to suckle?

The sun was making Tracy sleepy. Bloated white clouds lumbered about overhead.

“I'd love to just live out here in nature, surrounded by trees and birds,” Charlotte sighed.

“Why not do it?” Tracy said. “I'm glad my parents raised me with woods around.”

Charlotte sat up. “Oh, I meant, like, rhetorically. I'm not raising my kid away from civilization to be a cultureless hillbilly. No offense.”

Across the pond, Byrd and Tim were tossing a football around. Back in high school, Byrd had been the star quarterback, Charlotte was a cheerleader, and Tim had been the second-string punter—at least until he injured his knee junior year. Tracy didn't join the group until she started dating Tim in college, and she still felt like something of an outsider.

Charlotte drummed her belly and hummed a Beyoncé song. Tracy closed her eyes and tried to imagine the warmth of the sun sinking through her skin and cooking her evenly all the way through.

“I think the goal of life is more life,” Charlotte said suddenly and philosophically. “When are you and Tim going to get started on that?”

“We haven't really talked about it.” Tracy had always been told you would see anything you were thinking about in the clouds, but none of them looked like babies just then.

“When our mothers were young, you could just pop them out whenever. But with the cost of help and private schools, you really have to plan these days.” Charlotte rolled over onto her stomach. Her scratched-up shoulder was a few inches from Tracy's face. Most of the Band-Aids had fallen off in the water. There was a shiny yellow sheen developing over the wound. A small dragonfly alighted on it, and Tracy shooed it away.

“Ah, listen to me,” Charlotte said. “If I turn into one of those mommy bloggers who always blabbers mindlessly about her kid, promise me you'll shoot me in the face.”

“Should I bring a knife or something?”

“This baby ought to do her,” Byrd said, patting the shotgun.

They waved good-bye to Tracy and Charlotte, who were sipping margaritas—one virgin, one double tequila—out of jam jars on the porch.

“You boys be careful,” Charlotte said.

“If that tequila's gone when we get back, I'm going to be pissed,” Byrd said with a smile.

The road to the cabin was made of dusty gravel, and their feet crunched as they walked along. The sun was dipping behind the blue mountains, and nighttime creatures were awaking with chirps and growls. It was a little chilly, and Tim wished he had brought a jacket.

“This reminds me of the first time my dad took me hunting,” Byrd said. “He didn't even tell me ahead of time, just woke me up at night and handed me face paint. I think I was eight years old. It was goose season. When we fired on them, hundreds flew into the air, and their wings and squawks were so loud I was too scared to be excited. In fact, I think I peed a little in my camo pants.” Byrd swung the shotgun around in front of him. “Still, there's something about that first kill.”

“I never went hunting,” Tim said.

“Oh, right. I always forget your mother's a vegetarian.”

“Vegan. But sometimes at the beach my father would secretly give me a crab hook. I tried to cook one with a lighter and threw up all over the pier. I guess that's pretty similar.”