The Butcher's Husband and Other Stories

by Amy Cross

  “You really don't get how this works, do you?” he continues. “We're all linked. You kill one of our hosts, we just carry on with another.”

  “No!” I yell, setting Larry aside and then grabbing a vase, which I swing at Justin's face.

  He grabs the vase and throws it to the floor.

  I rush at him and try to push him back, but to my surprise he grabs me by the throat and slams me against the wall.

  “It's one thing to fight us when we're stuck to the outside of a frail, dead old man,” he sneers, “but this body is fresh. It's so fresh, in fact, that its heart is still beating. I can feel his panic inside, his strained attempts to somehow escape. But as you can see, you are both heavily outnumbered.” He smiles as more spores drift through the air between us. “Very heavily.”

  “Justin, please,” I gasp, as he tightens his grip on my throat, “you have to fight this. Don't let them take control!”

  “Don't let us?” he replies. “You're far too late for that. We took control of him ages ago. We even managed to write a letter using his handwriting. Aren't you impressed?”

  Before he can say another word, I slip away and run back into the front room. I need to find something I can use as a weapon, so that I can get out of here and fetch help.

  “Stand back!” Larry barks at me. “I'll get him!”

  “No,” I reply, turning to him, “I won't -”

  Suddenly Justin grabs me from behind, pulling me back as he places a hand over my mouth and nose. I can hear Larry yelling my name, but as I try to get away I feel more and more spores rushing into my body. No matter how hard I try to fight back, I'm unable to stop him dragging me to the ground, and after a moment I realize I can barely breathe. My whole body seems to be full of these spores now, and I can only let out a faint gasp as my eyes close and everything goes black.

  ***

  When I open my eyes, I find that I'm staring out across the room, looking toward the window. I blink, but I find that that's about the only part of my body that I can move.

  I try to get up, but I can't even feel my legs.

  I try to call out, but I can't open my mouth.

  I can move my eyes, but as I look around the room I can only see thousands – millions, probably – of spores drifting through the air. I look the other way, and I'm startled by the sight of Justin sitting in a chair nearby.

  Or rather, I assume it's Justin.

  I can't tell for sure, because the figure in the other chair is absolutely covered in mold and spores. He's sitting completely still, staring ahead, but after a moment I see his eyes flick to look at me. Is he paralyzed too? Is he trapped?

  I look down, and to my horror I see that my mold-covered hands are resting on the chair's arms.

  I try to scream, but I still can't move my mouth.

  Filled with panic, I struggle to get out of the chair, but nothing works. For several minutes, I struggle as hard as I can manage, but still the only part of my body that I can move is my eyes. Finally I fall still for a moment as I begin to realize that brute force isn't going to work. I'm in even deeper trouble than that.

  I need to be smart.

  “There's no need to be scared,” Justin says suddenly, and I turn to see that his mouth has begun to move. “We just need to rest, that's all. We've been so busy lately. It'll take a few days to recover.”

  “Then we can decide what to do next,” I reply, as my mouth suddenly starts moving all by itself. “But why go anywhere else? We can just live here like this forever.”

  I try again to scream, but instead my mouth starts laughing.

  “Just rest,” my mouth continues. “You're using up valuable energy. We're going to try to keep you alive in there, we learned a lot from last time with the old man. But we need you to cooperate.”

  Straining with every last ounce of energy in my body, I try desperately to call out, but my mouth is laughing again. Justin's mouth is laughing too, but I'm certain that under all that mold he must be terrified, just like me. Except that if he's been trapped like this ever since he disappeared, he must have lost his mind.

  Suddenly I hear a crashing sound nearby.

  I turn my eyeballs and look to the left, but I don't see anything happening. A moment later, however, I hear another crashing sound, and this time I feel a brief shudder, as if something slammed into the floor nearby.

  I try again to break free, but I'm still held too tight.

  Suddenly there's a loud thud, and I once again feel the floor shudder beneath my feet.

  This is followed, a few seconds later, by a slow groaning sound, as if something large and heavy is starting to split open.

  Finally, this sound is ended by another, louder thud.

  Then silence.

  I have to find a way out of here. It's as if -

  Something slams against my knees, and a moment later I'm shocked to see Larry's face leaning straight toward me. I try to call out to him, to tell him to run, but he leans down out of my sight and a moment later he starts tugging at my left arm.

  No, wait, not tugging...

  He's licking me!

  I start wriggling as hard as I can, hoping that I can warn him to get out of here. Instead, I can only wait as he furiously starts cleaning the mold away from my arm. At first I don't entirely understand what he's doing, but then I realize that I'm starting to be able to feel my fingers, and seconds later I'm able to move my hand.

  I hear another loud crashing sound, and the whole room seems to shudder.

  As soon as I can move my entire arm, I reach over and start desperately trying to claw away as much mold as possible from my legs.

  “What are you doing?” Justin's mouth asks. “Why is that dog still here?”

  Larry shakes, getting rid of spores from his fur, as he continues to try licking me clean.

  Reaching up, I wipe more spores from my face, scratching as hard as I can in an attempt to dislodge them. Finally, in a sudden moment of relief, I realize that I can move my legs properly.

  “Run!” I yell, suddenly lunging forward and crashing down to the floor.

  “We have to go!” Larry shouts.

  Scrambling to my feet, I'm about to run to the door when I see that the huge root is wrapped around the frame, as if it's been tied into a knot.

  “That took a bit of doing,” Larry explains, “and it won't hold forever. We have to get out of here!”

  Before I can react, the root twitches and tries once again to pull itself free. It doesn't quite manage, not yet, but it manages to rip away a part of the wall, causing the room to shudder again.

  “Hurry!” Larry yells.

  I take a step forward, but then I turn and see Justin still sitting in the other chair.

  “Not without him!” I shout, rushing over and starting to furiously pull the mold away from his face.

  “We don't have time!” Larry calls out, as the room shakes yet again.

  In fact, I'm not sure that it's just the room that's shaking. As the root continues to try to free itself from its knot, the entire building seems to be being torn apart.

  “Wait,” Justin's mouth continues, sounding weaker than before, “we just need -”

  I pull a large section of crusty mold away from his face.

  In an instant, his voice changes and he starts screaming.

  “It's okay!” I shout, as I grab his arms and start pulling him out of the chair. Plaster is starting to rain down from the ceiling, and it's clear that the building's going to collapse at any moment. “I'm not leaving you behind! I'm going to get you out of here!”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Crying out in pain, I finally stumble forward and drop Justin. He spills out of my arms and lands against the grass, and I land on top of him.

  Turning and rolling over, I see that Larry is right behind us.

  And then, a few hundred meters away, the entire building starts creaking and groaning as it tilts to one side.

  “Are you okay?” I shout, brushin
g more mold from myself as I turn and try to help Justin. “Can you hear me?”

  He looks utterly shocked, but most of the mold is already gone from his face and upper body. A strong wind has picked up, blowing spores away from us both but it's clear that being trapped for so long has left Justin traumatized.

  “You'll be fine,” I stammer as I crawl over to him. “It was just -”

  Before I can finish, I hear a huge crashing sound, and I turn just in time to see the block of flats tilting further and falling. The entire building lands on its side, and a huge cloud of dust and spores bursts up into the afternoon sky as the ground shudders beneath us all.

  In the distance, sirens are approaching.

  “This might be a silly question,” Larry says after a moment, “but... We don't have to live there anymore, do we?”

  Epilogue

  One week later...

  Sometimes, Jasper, I look back over the events of the past year and I think I must have lost my mind. I think that none of it can really have happened. I think that I must have gone temporarily insane.

  And then I think of you.

  Our years together were some of the happiest of my life, and I still can't believe that they're over. I think about that truly awful moment when I lost you, when I felt as if my life might as well be over, and then I think about what happened after. I think about Larry, and about Justin, and about Deborah and Mr. Seymour, and about that thing that almost destroyed everything. I think about how people would look at me if I started to tell them the truth.

  Which is why I had to write it all down.

  Every moment.

  Every sliver of madness.

  And if people don't believe me, then I can't control that. I'm not sure that I'd believe me, if I hadn't lived through it. There are even moments when I continue to doubt the whole story, when I wonder whether it could still have been a product of my imagination. Deep down, however, I know that it all really happened. And as I sit here now, I come to understand something else, something deeper. Something that I learned from someone who didn't even know that he was teaching me.

  Larry was right. And in order to embrace that fact, in order to face the future, I first have to set down my version of events. Because despite everything else, I know that it all really happened. And I know that it started on the worst, most traumatizing, most painful day of my life. It started when I lost you.

  “Hey,” Justin says suddenly, sounding a little breathless as he comes over to the bench, “I'm gonna get ice cream. Do you want to come?”

  “How are you feeling today?”

  “Fine.” He pauses. “Better, at least.”

  “How's the amnesia?”

  “If you're wondering whether I suddenly remember being encased in mold, then the answer's no. That detective called me earlier, too. I'm pretty sure they still don't believe your version of events.”

  “That's okay,” I tell him. “I find it pretty difficult, too.”

  “So how about ice cream?” he asks again. “It's better than sitting around and worrying.”

  “We'll catch you up,” I say, turning and smiling just as Larry races toward me with a ball in his mouth.

  “Don't take too long,” Justin replies as he heads off toward the shop on the far side of the park. “If they run out of pistachio again, I won't leave any for you.”

  I watch as he goes. He seems okay, considering everything he's been through, but I just wish he'd get his memory back. It'd be nice to have someone else who remembers what actually happened, or what I think happened. As he heads past some kids who are playing football, however, I realize that I'm just glad to have Justin around. It's early still, but I like being around him.

  “Hey, boy,” I bark, as Larry drops the ball at my feet. “We're going for ice cream. Of which you can have none. I don't want you getting diarrhea again.”

  “I won't get diarrhea, I promise!” he barks back at me.

  “You said that last time.”

  “Come on,” I say as I get to my feet. “Bring your ball, too. And don't forget, later I want to read you some more of my ideas. I think I've come up with some great theories about dog language, and I want to run them by you. Sounds fun?”

  “Actually,” he barks, “no, it doesn't.”

  Stopping, I turn and see that he looks sad.

  “I want to be a dog,” he says. “There, I admitted it. Talking like this has been fun, but it makes my head spin.”

  “You want me to slow things down for you?” I ask cautiously.

  “I want you to treat me like a dog,” he replies. “Like your dog.” He steps closer, and I crouch down so that I'm almost at his level. “Being able to talk like this has been great for a while, but I don't think I want to go through my whole life like it. I want to have my tummy scratched. I want to chase my ball. I want to sleep on the bed. But I don't want to have conversations about theories or anything like that. So do you think we could just knock all that stuff on the head?”

  “I'm that boring, huh?”

  “You're not boring at all,” he says. “Believe me, I'd quite like things to be boring for a while. But you understand, don't you? I'm a dog. I want to go back to living like one.”

  I stare at him for a moment, before realizing that maybe he's right. After all, I have Justin to bore to death with all my cockamamie theories and silly stories. Maybe I should be a little better at recognizing that Justin's my boyfriend now, and that our relationship won't work so well if we effectively have a third person between us. And Larry's not a person. I realize that now. He's a wonderful, fun, happy, loving dog.

  “And if you'd like one final word of advice,” he adds, “it's this... If you have literal mold growing on your face, you should take that as a sign that you need to shake up your lifestyle a little. No offense intended, obviously, but no-one should be literally moldy.”

  “Point taken.”

  “Good.”

  “Let's go before he takes all the pistachio,” I say, holding back the tears as I stroke the side of Larry's face and pick up his ball. Getting up, I take a deep breath. “It's been fun chatting, Larry. But you're right. Mistress and dog from now on.”

  “Mistress is a little strong,” he replies as we start walking after Justin. “And I reserve the right to start talking to you again if you and Mr. Perfect ever have children. I will have a lot to say if that happens.” He hesitates.”

  “Oh yeah? And what if -”

  Before I can finish, something slams into the left side of my head. I let out a gasp, as I turn and see that I was just smacked hard by a football.

  “Sorry,” one of the kid says, coming over and collecting the ball before heading back to his friends.

  “Damn it,” I mutter, rubbing the side of my head. “You nearly brained me.”

  There's still a slight pain, but I shake it off as I turn and look down at Larry.

  “Did you see that?” I ask. “That was the most half-hearted apology ever!”

  I wait, but he doesn't say anything. He's simply staring at me and wagging his tail.

  “Why aren't you saying anything?” I ask, before remembering the whole conversation we just had a moment ago. “Really?” I continue. “You're never going to say anything again?”

  He lets out a low murmur, but it's different from his other noises. I guess he's going to stick to dog words that I don't know from now on. Then again, as I rub the side of my head, it occurs to me that maybe he never talked at all, and that the past year didn't happen quite how I remember it after all. Maybe I just went crazy for a while after you died, Jasper. Is that possible?

  Larry barks again.

  “Whatever,” I tell him, before throwing the ball. “Now here's a word that all dogs know. Fetch!”

  He doesn't need telling twice. He races off across the grass, and for a moment I watch as he does a really normal dog thing. He looks happy, and I guess I can understand that. After a moment, however, he stops and turns back to me, and then he does
something that I've never seen a dog do before.

  He winks.

  Then he runs off again, rushing after the grass. He soon manages to catch the ball, and he's already racing back this way. I guess I have to learn not to talk to him in dog language anymore. That'll take time, but I'll get there in the end.

  And I have to stop talking to you in my head, Jasper. It's not fair on Justin or Larry. It's not fair on anyone. Maybe I'll see you again one day, in some dog park afterlife. I hope so. I hope we can all be together again. But for now, I'm going to sign out. I miss you, you silly old hound, and I love you, and I'll never ever forget you.

  Goodbye.

  The Seagull

  I

  Although it burns bright in the mid-morning sky, the sun is in fact a cooling star.

  We are gathered here today to say farewell to Martha Louise Hampton. That's what the priest is going to say in a few minutes. Blah blah blah. Father says that the family members who have come for the funeral are mostly 'unknowns'; the chapel car park is filled with a bunch of second cousins milling about, although I suppose they each think everyone else is a second cousin and...

  It gets confusing sometimes.

  I'd rather not be here. It's my eleventh birthday in three days. I'd rather be making plans for how to spend that day, or working on a science project for school, or doing pretty much anything else except what I am doing. But Father says that I have to be here, surrounded by precisely the kind of people I usually work so hard to avoid. I only recognize a few people, like my dad's friend Arthur Hiller and the Johnsons from down the road.

  And yes, I really am nearly eleven years old. You think I sound older? That's your problem. Not all eleven year olds are idiots. Just like not all idiots are eleven years old.

  ***

  As I had expected, the priest looks friendly. This is undoubtedly a deliberate move on his part. Whoever heard of an unfriendly-looking priest? He puts people at ease. I wonder how long he spends each day, practicing his friendliness? Does he stand in front of a mirror, smiling and unsmiling over and over again, trying to hide any stray parts of himself that don't fit the priest look? Or does it all come easily to him?