What?
I make the mistake of looking down at my abdomen. Red. So much red—a river of it flows from the hole in my stomach onto the ugly white dress. The realization that I’ve been shot fills my head with a wave of dizziness that sends me to my knees. Landing on the injured one should have hurt, but I don’t feel anything. Adrenaline floods my veins, then follows the rest of my blood as it leaves my body.
A burning, hot sensation like a throbbing infected molar chases away the numbness. The throbbing isn’t just on my front, but at the small of my back too. Did it go all the way through? I reach around to touch, and yes. It did.
Ellis is talking. His mouth moves but his words are muffled.
He frowns, annoyed.
“I—”
—was justshot,asshole, I try to say, except I’m not sure I’m able to speak at all. Is this shock? Am I in shock?
“You think youdidsomething with this?” Ellis waves the whistle to indicate the building around us. “Do you think youchangedanything? ‘House fire killed everyone on our leadership retreat. It’s a tragedy. Donate to the GoFundMe. Attend our workshop on personal growth through grief.’ We’re gonna go viral! We’ll get thousands at the next conference. All of them desperate for someone to tell them what to do. How to live a meaningful life. You did me a favor.”
He coughs hard, then wipes at his eyes with the hand holding the whistle. It smears some of the blood from Emma cracking a pot on his skull. “I dropped the knife, so I can’t do this the right way. It was ceremonial, but it was tradition.”
He pulls one of the little black cicada stones from his pocket and tosses it at me. It hits my chest, bounces off my thigh, and lands in the blood pooling on the floor.
“What people don’t understand is that tradition isimportant, and that ritual ispower.”
Before, he spoke with gravity. It almost felt holy. His words now are rushed and interspersed with coughing from the smoke.
“We offer this sacrifice—to you in supplication. May you deem us worthy—of your gifts in exchange.” The god doesn’t move, so Ellis gives two sharp whistles. “You’re not coming back out for a while. Better eat up.”
The god’s nostrils flare. Its mouth twitches. I blink and suddenly the god is crouched on the floor. It’s so long, so tall. A low chittering comes from the back of its throat. It’sthe sound a predator makes when it wants you to know it’s there, lurking just out of sight.
I try to move away. Nothing’s working right. Vertigo pushes me down till I’m on my back, looking up at a board-and-batten ceiling.
Ripley is only a few feet away. I hope she’s gone. I hope if it eats her, she doesn’t feel a thing.
The god lowers its head to the wound in my midsection. A searing pain makes the breath catch in my chest and a whine comes from my throat. I want to push it away. I want to smack this fucker in the face, but I can’tmove. With the blood loss and the chloroform and the head injury and and and so many ands—I can’t do anything but take it.
I can’t do anything
—but take it.
I’m so fucking tired. I’m so completely exhausted down to the marrow in my bones. Numbness is an ocean, and I’ve been submerged. Whatever it’s doing at my midsection is no longer a priority. I can’t muster the strength to look anywhere but the tacky paneled ceiling.
Eat me,I think,so that I no longer have to breathe. Consume me so I don’t have to carry the burden of thought. I want my head to be empty and the contents spilling onto the sheets. I just want to sleep.
The ceiling is obscured by the face of the god. It hovers over me like a sleep-paralysis demon come to life. Red paints its chin and shines on its teeth. Rotting-meat smell overpowers the scent of smoke. A bullet had torn a path through its pectoral, leaving a cavity of raw meat behind. Ellis must haveshot it after he busted through the front door. A glint of metal stands out from the exposed flesh. Behind it is something round and pulsing. Black ichor weeps from that wound and its mouth and all the injuries marking its body. It drips onto me, stinging the cracks on my lips and coating my tongue. I cough, but it only sends the liquid deeper down my throat.
I find enough strength to press my hand against its chest. Its skin is cold and quivering and ithurts.Itachesall over. It’s déjà vu again. It’s the searing pain of skin meant to be kept in the dark being desiccated by the sun. It’s a yawning pit of hunger that, no matter what’s thrown into it, can’t be filled. It’s the consuming hatred for the things keeping you locked in a cage, alone and in an unnatural, ineffective dark.
I try to push the god and the sensations it’s pouring into me away. Even when emaciated and dying, it’s immovable.
And itisdying.
Or maybe I’m confusing the feeling of my own death with the god’s.
I think it’s both.
I mean, why not, right? Why not die in the same way I’ve lived? Why not let this god eat through all my vital parts? Not that there’s much left. It’s the end of the feast; only the dregs remain.
Your parents were alcoholics who resented you? Here’s a kidney, Mom. Hope that helps.
You’re so happy for me to be part of the incoming freshman class, but there’s no money left for scholarships? No worries, here’s my pinkie finger lobbed off with a butcher knife. Surely this will taste good going down.
