Bodies Are Disgusting (2 page)

She closes the distance between you and pulls
you into her arms. It's nowhere near comfortable enough or close
enough to be classified a hug, but you know that a real embrace is
totally out of the question by the way that your ribs creak in your
chest. You half-heartedly bring your arms up to loop around her
waist while you rest your head on her shoulder. It's familiar and
warm.

You notice that you don't feel the nose-pads
of your glasses digging into your face. At least that explains why
things are so blurry. "Fuck, where are my specs?" you ask, pulling
away and squinting so you can see Amanda's face better.

She scowls (you've always hated it when she
does that because it makes her face bunched up and less
attractive). "They got trashed in the wreck, Doug." It sounds like
she's explained this before. Several times. "You don't remember, do
you?" Her words are heavy in your ears.

Thinking the question over, you realize that
you don't remember a lot of things: your parents' anniversary,
today's date, the tenth digit of
pi
, the German word for
"revenge," what happened yesterday. There are other, infinitely
more disquieting holes, too, but you can't quite bring yourself to
name them. Not in front of Amanda, anyway.

"I don't remember shit." It isn't exact, but
it might as well be the truth. "Just some weird dreams about some
kid who told me to tell you they said hey."

Amanda's expression goes from that bunched up
scowl to looking like she just sucked on a giant lemon wedge. "You
were in a wreck three days ago. Some drunk asshole ran a red light
and t-boned you on your side. You lost a little blood, and they
were worried there might've been some swelling in your brain or
something like that. We weren't sure you were going to pull
through." 'We,' not 'they.' Interesting. You file that bit of
information away for when you're feeling more cogent. She
continues, "You didn't break anything, thank God. Just bruised a
bunch of ribs, but they're watching your lungs for blood clots from
the seatbelt."

On a whim, you ask, "What about the other guy?
He gonna pull through?" You don't actually care about the other
driver one way or another, but it seems like the right thing to
say.

"Died on impact," Amanda responds, sour
expression only getting worse. "I didn't see it, but I heard from
the paramedics that it wasn't pretty. They don't think he was
wearing a seatbelt, and the airbag didn't deploy."

You nod as if that means anything to you.
Listening to Amanda explain your situation has drained all your
energy, leaving you feeling withered and exhausted. You sort of
collapse on the hospital bed, not even really caring that your ass
hangs out of the hospital gown. It isn't like Amanda hasn't seen it
before. Or worse.

"You okay?" Amanda asks.

"Tired," you respond, and it's the last thing
you can remember aside from the warmth of the metal loop around
your finger.

* * *

When you dream, you remember things. You can
remember that the tenth digit of
e
is 4, that it snowed on
the day your parents got married, that
Weihnachten
is German
for "Christmas," that your spare pair of glasses is in your sock
drawer at home, and that your second date with Amanda was a
disastrous affair at a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint. That
particular memory makes you smile, because even though it hadn't
been particularly funny when it happened, it is hilarious in
hindsight. You're both permanently banned from the establishment,
which is no great loss considering the atrocious quality of the
slop they tried to call food.

* * *

It's night again. You can hear the whir of the
A/C unit, can see the glow of the vapor lamps through the slats of
the blinds. The rain is back, harder this time. So is the
stranger.

He (you're fairly certain, now that you can
see definite features, that this short individual is male) perches
on the foot of your bed, posed for all the world like a gargoyle.
With him this close, you can make out a few details about him: his
jaw-line is delicate, his chin is pointed, his eyes are almost too
wide for his face, his hair is chin-length and unkempt, his
shoulders are slender, and he wears some sort of square-necked
tunic with a pair of soft-looking trousers.

He blinks once at you before his face is split
by a wide, toothy grin. "You're
awake
! Finally!" He lunges
forward, supporting himself on his hands so that he does not touch
your tender ribs. "Oh, I'm so glad that you're finally conscious,
Douglas. I have
so much
to tell you."

With his face looming mere inches from yours,
you can see that his teeth are decidedly pointed and his eyes are
almost completely black. It gives you the impression of staring
into the face of a shark-like boy (or, perhaps more accurately, a
boyish shark). Strangely, it doesn't particularly faze you. It's as
if some part of your brain knows that this–whoever or whatever
this
is–is hardly the worst possibility out of many things
you might see on your bed late at night.

You bring your left hand up to his face to
shove him away, but he leans into your touch like a needful cat. He
rubs his cheek against your palm before dragging his tongue up the
underside of your thumb; it's rough, making you revise your
assessment to 'boyish felinoid shark.' You jerk your hand away,
glaring. "What the fuck?"

"Did you like my present?" he asks as if you'd
not said anything. His expression is wide and eager, and it makes
you feel uneasy. He practically vibrates with his
enthusiasm.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking
about," you reply. Your voice doesn't quaver like you expect it to.
You thank whatever merciful deity that has taken pity on you for
small favors. "Who the fuck are you? What're you doing
here?"

The weird little cat-shark-boy laughs. "You
can call me Ori, dearest Douglas. I gave you that ring. Do you like
it? You're wearing it. I assume that you would not wear a gift you
do not enjoy, at least marginally." His grin stays firmly on his
face, and he tilts his neck so that he can rub the top of his head
against your chin.

His hair is surprisingly soft and smells a
little like that time you went with your friends to Cape Hatteras
for spring break in high school. You're awash with the memories:
four hormonal teenagers piling into an old minivan loaded with
snacks, driving for ten hours to reach your destination, ogling the
attractive individuals also vacationing at the beach while
lamenting your blemished skin and un-toned abs. You remember
finally working up the nerve to put on your bathing suit (it was a
plain black one-piece that covered everything important to you at
the time) and jumping into the cool Atlantic water. You'd seen a
little shark, tiny and gray, swimming in the shallows, and it
reminds you of Ori.

Your memory shifts, and the little shark at
your feet takes on the strange boy's face and nibbles at your toes.
A serrated tooth slices your skin, and with a start you jerk back
to the present, with Ori's head rubbing against your chin. You
bring your hand up again and feebly try to push him away. "Stop
that. It's just a ring, and you didn't tell me why you're
here."

He rocks back on his knees, resuming his
initial gargoyle-pose. The grin fades to a mildly amused
half-smile, and his eyes narrow just a little, as if he's studying
you. "It's not 'just a ring,' though I suppose I can see how one
might think so. It's
my
ring. A gift of goodwill. Wear it
always, and it shall bring you luck, I promise."

"You keep avoiding my question," you say as
you let out a short, aggravated huff. You regret it immediately
when your ribs protest. "Augh, fuck."

Ori's smile slides off his face like oil
running down a pane of glass, leaving him almost eerily
expressionless given his animated features just moments before. "I
am here, my most cherished Douglas, because I have always been
here." His words are measured with more care than you thought he
possessed. "You only see me now because of what has already
happened and what will soon transpire, but I've been with you all
along. I saw you be born, I've seen you grow, and, should it
happen, I will be there to consume your bones when you die. If not
before, with your permission."

The eerily somber moment passes, and he
resumes smiling at you. "Do you think Amanda would like a ring? I
think she might." He reaches into the air near his face and flicks
his wrist. A ring, the twin of the one on your left hand, falls in
your lap, weighty and glinting. You don't touch it, and neither
does Ori.

Finally, your lips peel away from your teeth
in a sneer. "You are really obnoxious, you know that?"

He shrugs, a quick jerk of his shoulders
followed by a curious tilt of his head. "You'll come to enjoy my
company in time, I'm sure. But that isn't why I'm here. I came to
deliver a warning, a threat, and a promise."

"That sounds pretty melodramatic. I think I
need to cut back on the trashy epic fantasy fiction before bed."
You aren't sure if you're joking because you're tired of this weird
boy on your bed or if his alien black eyes are starting to unnerve
you.

Your flippant demeanor does not affect him. He
merely continues staring at you, head listing to one side, eyes
wide and shiny. "Oh, I think you rather should as well. But that is
not what I've come to tell you. You see, if you are not very
careful in the coming days, you are going to be slain in a manner
more horrific than your pathetic human neurons can even consider
bending themselves around." He pauses, that eerie sharkish grin
once more spreading across his face. "That's the warning," he adds,
a pronunciation as if you had no clue what the word 'warning'
means.

Suddenly, you are struck by the idea that you
may not be the only one who may need to lay off on the melodramatic
fantasy fiction. You don't say it, though, instead stating, "That
sounded kind of threatening to me."

Ori laughs again, and this time it sounds like
the bubbling of water up from the ground. "Oh dear, no, that is not
a threat at all. You see, it can't be a threat, at least not from
me, because I have no control over that. What I do have control
over, though, is this: you will be presented with a series of
choices, and should you choose poorly, I will have no compunction
about slitting you from stem to stern, bathing in your blood, and
adorning myself with pieces of your hide." His grin widens to the
point that you worry his face might split in half. Jesus, he's just
made
of teeth, isn't he? "Do you see the difference,
Douglas? In the previous instance, I was telling you of something
over which I have no control, to allow you to avoid a terrible
fate. In this instance, I told you of what I, myself, would visit
upon you should you fail me. That is, in essence, a
threat."

The words are a little stilted, and the claims
they make are definitely over the top, but the look of his shiny
black eyes... The word 'unsettling' crawls through your brain
again, leaving a snail's trail behind it. You shiver. "Fine, I get
it. And the promise is...?"

With no warning, Ori surges forward once again
so that his pointed nose is a mere hairsbreadth from yours. This
close, you can see a vague reflection of yourself glittering in his
too-black eyes, feel the warmth of his breath on your face. "This
is my favorite part," he says, and having his mouth so close to
you, you can hear a little distortion to his words, as if his teeth
aren't where he expects them to be. "If you survive, and if you
choose wisely, you shall be rewarded. Just as the depths of
suffering you may endure would stretch the bounds of your
imagination, so would your mind be hard-pressed to describe the
rewards you will reap.

"Douglas, if you succeed, if you survive, if
you
thrive
..." His whole body trembles, and you catch a
glint of something swimming in his sclera. At first, you don't know
what to make of it, but then you see the outline of Amanda's jaw.
The image writhes for a moment, then stills, reformed as the gentle
slope of her shoulder resting against something strange and
organic. "We will be as gods, Douglas," Ori says. "We will be as
gods. I promise you this."

* * *

You have no recollection of falling asleep,
but suddenly it's daytime and the short dumpy doctor is checking
your vitals and making notes on your chart. He tells you that
you're doing fine, that you'll be discharged later that day. Then
he calls in a nurse to help you navigate the task of operating the
shower.

It's frustrating and painful, your limbs are
like rocks jointed with broken glass, and you can count all of the
bruises. Your chest is mottled black, blue, yellow, and green, and
both of your breasts are sore to the touch, but you manage to get
your body scrubbed and your hair washed out with the nurse's
assistance.

Once you've finished and are clad in a
hospital gown once more, you make your way back to the hospital
bed. The dumpy doctor has once again left, but there's another
person in your room. You don't need your glasses to recognize the
lanky man; if nothing else, the way he keeps his shiny black hair
spiked in addition to the low-rise black skinny jeans both tip you
off to the fact that it's Simon. A black canvas bag hangs from one
elbow, which he slings off his arm and onto the bed.