The Death Doll (11 page)

DEARLY DEPARTED

Jerri couldn’t move.  She couldn’t breathe.  She sat lamely on the floor beside the hospital bed where she collapsed, watching her feral husband flail against his restraints like a wild animal.  Her eyes and cheeks burned from unending tears.  Her heart ached as if it had been stabbed.  Her beloved Xing was dead, what remained was an affront to the kind man she married in a bitter and dying world, and she didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.  She could’ve ripped that bastard Pat apart for this, or worse: feed him to her husband.  That would’ve been fitting.  Then he could’ve known the pain he had just inflicted on her.

Gilda walked in and scooped her off the floor, stroking her hair despite holding dead weight.

Jerri sobbed into those bony shoulders while condolences and other soothing words bounced right off of her.  She was glad Gilda didn’t say everything would be okay.  It wasn’t at all.  She didn’t want to be coaxed; she wanted blood and an end to her husband’s suffering.  She just didn’t have the strength to do either herself.  Yet.

Didi and Cody ran in with the Herrins.  Didi stopped at the door while Cody rushed to Xing’s side, stopping when the body snapped at him.  “How did he get infected?” he asked.

Gilda shrugged.  “I don’t know.  We followed all the cleanliness rules. I sterilized before I worked him.  I did everything I could.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jerri said through her sobbing.  “Pat did this.  He should be like this, not Xing.  Not my Xing.”  She went limp again as she cried harder.  Gilda struggled to hold her until Paula helped keep her up.

Cody regarded her with sympathy but said nothing.  He obviously didn’t know what to do.  How could he not?  The answer stood in the doorway.

Sean touched her shoulder and smiled.  “It’s going to be okay.  Cody will fix him.”

Jerri regarded the naïve farmer with disdain.

Cody winced at him.  “I’ll what?”

Sean’s smile gave way to confusion.  “Aren’t you going to wake him up like you did Didi?”

The suggestion filled Jerri with hope, but Cody looked offended.  “It’s not that simple.”

Sean frowned.  “What do you mean?  You can do it, right?” 

For the first time since its inception, Didi walked into the Clinic.  She stared down Sean as she approached him, then grabbed his wrist and placed his hand on her crotch. 

Sean quickly snatched his arm away.  His wife shoved her way in between them to defend her man, shouting, “What the hell was that?”

“Pretty intimate act, huh?  Touching me there?” Didi’s nose crinkled over her daring grin.  “I should feel all tingly and vulnerable, shouldn’t I?”

Paula looked like she was ready to tear Didi apart. “Look, I don’t care if you’re—”

“But I don’t,” Didi said coldly, then pointed to her head, “because I can’t feel anything but this.  I couldn’t get wet enough for you to put it in me, I couldn’t feel it if you did, and I couldn’t cum no matter how big or skilled you were.  I pissed all that away when I killed myself.” 

Sean and Paula stared agape at Didi until she grabbed his shoulder, yanked him into position between Jerri and Xing’s body, and shouted at the thoughtless farmer.  “Now you want to put her husband through all that after everything I just told you?  Sure, we can bring him back.  We could enhance him just like me.  We might even be able to get his dick to work so they could be husband and wife again.  Of course, even
if
he doesn’t eat her, he would still infect her.  He will never feel her embrace again.  She will never bear any more of his children.  No matter what we did to him, they can never move forward.”

Each point hit Jerri as if it had been aimed directly at her.  Her knees buckled again, but Gilda kept her up.  She could’ve wept again, but the thought of Xing enduring even half of what Didi described paralyzed her.  All Sean and Paula did was gawk at her dead husband.

Didi yanked Sean’s arm.  “Still think we should bring him back? Is that what you want?”

Sean finally took his arm back, but never looked away from Jerri’s flailing husband. 

No, not anymore.  He was dead.  Jerri had to accept that, no matter what Cody could do for him.  She wanted him back so much, but not like this—not like Didi.  Not a shell she could never please, and certainly not in any way that stopped them from being as free as they were together.  No, that was gone.  All of it.  Because of Pat.

A hand fell on her shoulder, and she realized Paula was right in front of her.  “What do you want, Jerri?”

She looked into everyone else’s eyes, absorbing ever ounce of their pity and sorrow.  Then she stared into Xing’s fading brown eyes.  For the faintest second, she wondered if he would want to try to resist feeding like Didi just so they could be together again, or if time would reveal a way around the plague, but the thought—the fear—of what he would be like with the kids left her only one decision.  Neither she nor their triplets would be safe with him like this.  He always had poor impulse control, and it wouldn’t be fair to subject him to the endless pain Didi endured.  She didn’t want him to suffer any more than he already had.  He deserved better than that.  He deserved to be free.

She passed Paula and stood before Cody, mustering up all the courage she had left for the next few moments.  “I want to say goodbye.”

After a few seconds of Cody’s
are you sure
gaze, he faced Didi, who seemed to acknowledge whatever look Cody gave her by walking behind Xing and forcing his head to the side. 

From there, Cody removed his mysterious device from its case and granted Jerri’s request.

*****

Xing’s head ached like never before.  Aside from whatever was splitting his skull like an ax, he felt cold, hollowed out.  He thrashed and grunted, trying to shake the pain away when he noticed he was strapped down to a hospital bed.  He couldn’t feel the straps.  He couldn’t even feel his arms.  As he tried to figure out what was going on, he found Jerri staring at him along with Gilda, Cody, Didi, and two of the newcomers.

The newcomer
, he remembered as the painful beating replayed in his mind.

“Where is he?” Xing asked, but no one answered.  “What happened?  What’s the matter?  Is it bad?”  Everyone just stared.  “Jerri, what’s going on?”

Tears spilled from his wife’s eyes while Gilda held her tightly, but no one said a word.

Didi placed a hand on his chest, but he couldn’t feel it.  At all!  He started to panic.  “I can’t feel your hand.  I can’t feel—” He glanced around at all the sullen faces until he couldn’t take anymore. “What happened to me?”

“You’re dead,” Didi said.

He stared at her in wide-eyed disbelief. 
Dead?  No, I’m right here.  Have you been smoking something? 
He hyperventilated, so he knew he was still breathing.  He looked down at himself and, despite the wounds he couldn’t feel, he was still moving.  His confusion reminded him he was still thinking.  He faced Jerri and immediately thought of how much he loved her, so his heart still worked. 

Then Didi touched his cheek, which he couldn’t feel, either; he didn’t even know it was there until he saw it.  This wasn’t happening.  “No,” he uttered.

“It’s true, baby,” Jerri said as she slowly approached, which was when the smell of her hit him like a drug; skin, blood, hair, and everything else that was all woman struck his stomach like a lightning bolt.  He reached for her, but she recoiled in terror.  He kept trying to touch her, but he just couldn’t.  She was right there, and he couldn’t reach her.  If he could—

“
Hey
,” Didi yelled, startling him.  Didi didn’t smell like that; only leather and chemicals.

As he faced Jerri again, he realized he hadn’t reached for her with his hands.  He had tried to
bite
her.  Thoughts of devouring her multiplied in his head, making him more anxious yet hungrier.  He wept, but the frenzy within gnawed at him more than his remorse.  His wife reached for him again, but he shouted for her to stay back, which shocked her in a way that shamed him.  He wept again, but no tears flowed.  He really was dead, and he wanted to eat everyone in the room—everyone but Didi. 

“You’re dead, too,” he said, to which she nodded.  He faced Jerri.  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t, baby,” she tearfully replied.  “I couldn’t.”

“The Panel kept my secret to keep everyone safe,” Didi said, but he kept looking at his wife.  “Hey, look at me,” Didi snapped, drawing his attention again.  “You’re hungry, right?  You want to feed, don’t you?  Feed on them?  On her?”

“No,” he replied, but deeper urges told him otherwise, demanding release.  “Yes.”

Jerri gasped as she shuddered, the horror in her eyes breaking Xing’s heart.

Didi jerked his face back to her.  “How about your children?  You want them, too?”

The children! 
“Where are the kids?  Are they safe?”

“Not from you,” Didi said.  “You don’t want them to suffer like this, do you?  To be your next meal?”

He wanted to argue with her, but his mind filled with images of eating everyone who crossed his mind, including his babies.  He wanted so much to comfort his wife instead of letting the elderly nurse do it, but he wanted to consume both of them more.  He wanted to know how Didi could resist and if she could teach him how, but he couldn’t risk slipping with his family.  He tried to fight the urge with all of his might, but the hunger burned in his brain like fire and he desperately needed—

No, he couldn’t live like that.  He couldn’t put her or their beautiful children through that.  The horror of the situation forced him to stop moving.

“That’s right,” Didi said.  “Just relax.”

“How did you do this to me?” he asked as calmly as he could.  “Why—”

Cody stepped forward.  “We woke you up because Jerri wanted to say goodbye.  What do you want?”

Xing mulled over what his silent heart wanted, but what his mouth wanted made the question easy to answer.  “Please hold me down,” he asked Didi.

She nodded, moved behind him, knelt, and clasped her hands on his forehead.  He barely even felt the pressure.

Jerri warily approached with a sad yet hopeful smile.  She gave him the Chinese greeting he taught her, botching it once again. 

He laughed softly and rendered his reply.

She laughed through her tears.  “I never could get it right, could I?”

“You tried,” he said.  “You always try. You’ll take good care of the kids?”

She sniffled, but forced a brave grin and nodded.  “Of course, baby.”

He wanted to wipe her tears away, but he wanted to bite her cheek more.  He could probably reach her if she would just—

He fought the hunger again, but his head pounded with it.  He couldn’t take this anymore. 

She cautiously kissed his cheek, which took all he had in him not to take advantage of—and Didi’s grip when his resolve failed.  She backed away and told him she loved him in his language one last time.  The fact that she always got that right made him smile. 

“I love you, too,” he told her. 

His beautiful wife smiled, something he was glad to see in the end. 

He looked up at Didi.  “I’m ready.”

Didi released his head and approached his arm.

“I don’t want you to see this,” he said to Jerri.

“I’m with you all the way, baby,” she said as she grabbed his restrained wrist.  He wanted so much to bite it—no, to feel it.  “Just look at my face.”

Xing wanted to argue, but he couldn’t.  He wanted her face to be the last thing he saw. 

“Where’s Rachelle?” that new lady Paula asked.  “I didn’t see her at Assembly.”

Didi glared at Paula.  “You want to give us a minute here?”

Paula backed down, but she looked anxious.  It made Xing wonder if anything happened to that young spitfire and all that warm blood pumping through that luscious skin—

Didi slowly drew her sword and positioned its tip directly onto his forehead.  Not even able to feel the sharp blade, he was more resolved than ever to end this.  This wasn’t assisted suicide; he was already dead.  This was mercy.

“Protect her,” Xing pled.

Didi nodded with a smile.

He looked again at his wife one last time, whose smile lit up the room.  That heavenly smile would greet his children every morning and bed them every night.  It was all he could ever—

*****

Paula gasped when Didi thrust the blade all the way through Xing’s head, and the man went mercifully still at last. 

Jerri bawled hard and long into Gilda’s shoulder.

Didi closed Xing’s eyes and slowly removed the blade, preserving what was left of their electrician with dignity.  While Cody salvaged his strange device from the corpse’s brain, she gently touched Xing’s forehead, abdomen, and each shoulder, never taking her eyes off of his peaceful face.  “The Lord bless and keep you,” she whispered.

There was no more doubt in Paula’s mind that this dead woman cared.  Deeply.