Aftertaste

by Andrew Post

  Jolby and Chev play a video game for a while, the room filled with bleeps and bloops and the clatter of controllers being worked feverishly. Galavance fast-forwards some and when she hits play again, there’s a lot of shouting and the sound of feet shuffling back and forth. One voice is pleading. “Dude, stop, please.”

  “You can’t tell anybody,” another voice says, no one she recognizes. It sounds like they’ve been gargling nails. “I can’t let you.”

  “But we killed that dude.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It was like self-defense. He wanted to kill me. He said so, dude.” Hearing the slight shrill tone to that, the same as when Jolby gets defensive, Galavance’s scalp goes numb. He sounds horrible, but it’s definitely him.

  “Stop trying to touch me, man.” Chev sounds scared.

  “I just wanna talk to you. You’re being crazy.”

  “I’m being crazy?”

  “Quit walking away.”

  “You need to tell Gal what’s going on.”

  “No. She can’t know. I can fix this. You have to help me.”

  “I’m trying to, dude, but you’re not making it easy, freaking me out like you are. Dude, what are we gonna do? What’s the plan?”

  “You gotta help me with the monster. So we can sell it when we’re through.”

  Chev’s reply is heavy with doubt. “I’m trying my best, dude.” He is placating Jolby.

  “You can help me another way, if you don’t wanna help me get parts anymore.”

  “Sure, dude, anything.”

  “Will you contribute?”

  “Contribute what? I told you I only make so much at the Pizza Shack. I’ve signed over the last three paychecks to you, whole.”

  “Not that. Contribute in another way. You can help more than with just money.”

  “What? Why are you looking at me like that? Quit it, dude.”

  “I’m not looking at you like nothing, dude. Just come here, talk to me.”

  The figures pass in front of the camera. And, bringing the camera close to study its tiny pixilated screen, Galavance sees Jolby. One side of his face is stained green, like he’s been smeared with Halloween makeup. When he speaks again, harsh and guttural tones, only now can she pick out her boyfriend’s voice. And she can’t believe it. The thing on camera is growing greener before her eyes, following Chev around the living room in slow circles—passing in front of the camera once, then again. Her heart is in her throat.

  “I said come here,” Jolby says, with a snarl, leaping out of frame. Galavance hears—but doesn’t see—Chev make a strangled sound, the sound of begging. The work lights throw their shadows onto the wall, and she watches as Jolby’s silhouette, in the middle of strangling Chev’s, changes. The head grows large and bumpy, hissing down at Chev in his grasp, who is gurgling and pleading for Jolby to stop. Galavance shuts the video off, unable to take anymore. Looking away, she makes accidental eye contact with Chev’s corpse, just across the room, staring at her.

  God. To think dirty underwear used to be her biggest concern. Her boyfriend is a murderer. This truth does not go down easily.

  Zilch slides over one of the lawn chairs. “Sit. You look like you might pass out.”

  “I can’t sit. I can’t. My fucking boyfriend killed his best friend.”

  “I know. We have to find him,” Zilch says. “He might hurt someone else. He could be doggy-paddling across the swamp right now, on the hunt for his next victim.”

  “Stop,” Galavance says. “I don’t want to think about that.”

  “Do you think the guy or gal he might currently be murdering wants to be thinking about it?”

  “This isn’t my fault.”

  “I didn’t say it was. But we need to find him.”

  “I know,” she says. “What do you think he meant, that whole thing about making Chev ‘contribute’?”

  “Again, I’ve got nothing.” Zilch desperately wants a cigarette. “We need to find him. So let’s just sit tight, wait until I get a ping on the compass again, and try to talk some sense into him.”

  “I don’t want to be in here,” she says. “It’s hot and I think I just want to go …”

  “Weird, isn’t it? Suddenly not having a home.”

  She nods, solemn. “Yeah.”

  “You get used to that too,” he says. “Just like anything else. But it really is like a phantom limb, isn’t it? Well, I suppose you wouldn’t know that—you got all your parts, it seems. But, trust me, that’s what it’s like.”

  “Is this you trying to make me feel better?” She keeps glancing at Chev’s body. It’s like his eyes are tracking her. “God, do we have to keep him in here? I mean, I feel sorry for what happened, but … it’s like he’s looking at me.”

  “I’ll move him.” Zilch steps past her, crossing the living room, his shoes clunking on the bare plywood floor. He bends and takes a solid grip of the plastic encasing Chev and hoists him up into his arms. Galavance turns away just as the corpse’s head loosely lolls on the gimbal of his neck, facing her with dead eyes. He pauses in the doorway and turns, holding Chev like he’s carrying his dismembered bride over the threshold, and turns to face Galavance.

  “Want some good news?” he says.

  “That would actually be pretty great right now,” Galavance says.

  “Far as I can tell,” he says, “the change isn’t permanent yet. He’s still going back and forth. I saw him once as the creature, then as himself the next day, before he changed again right in front of me. There might be a chance we can still get that thing out of him.”

  She doesn’t know why but it seems like Zilch has something more to say. The look he is making—pitying, apologetic—makes Galavance wonder. But right then she isn’t sure if she can take any more bad news. Chev was a sweet guy. He didn’t deserve to be murdered, especially not like that.

  “I’ll do everything I can,” Zilch adds, and steps out into the garage. She watches as he eases Chev to the cement floor of the garage. There are a few tools scattered around, and some kind of glitter on the floor everywhere. She bends and presses her thumb to one of the flakes. It’s red on the other side—some paint that’d been chipped off of something. She looks up and notices the shelves bolted to the garage wall; among the tools on them, hidden poorly, are car parts. A headlight, a hub cap lying half under a rag, a chromed gear-shift knob.

  “Seems Jolby was operating a one-man chop shop out of this place,” Zilch says, looking around. “Kind of stupid, seeing as how they were trying to sell this place, weren’t they?”

  Galavance holds up a hand toward Chev’s body to block it from view. “They couldn’t even show the property before the house itself was complete. No one besides Jolby and Chev ever set foot in this place. Sometimes he’d get mad when I dropped by to surprise him and wouldn’t let me in. He said it was fumes one time, other times I thought maybe he … had a girl in there or something. Guess that would’ve been better, huh?” She chuckles, then feels sick about it.

  She watches as he scans the wall of the garage, staring at the various car parts. He seems to be focusing on one headlight in particular and its dangling wires—like his thoughts are actually elsewhere. “He was hoarding parts. Taking more than he’d ever have any use for.” He faces Galavance. “It’s pretty common with were-folk; came across a guy once that made what looked like a beaver’s dam in the attic of his own house made out of nothing but shredded newspaper and his own hair.”

  As much as Galavance tries not to picture that, she fails. “So, what does that mean?”

  “There should be more here. If he’s had this thing in him for as long as we think, then he’s probably been stealing car parts for just about as long. There’d be more here. That or Chev was cleaning up after him. Or maybe Chev found his trove of automobile-related treasure, and that’s when Jolby told him what he was. My point is: Where is it all now?”

  “I don’t think my car could have another mod put on it. Same for his car.”

&
nbsp; “Then maybe he’s got another project somewhere,” Zilch says.

  “What kind of project?”

  Zilch shrugs. “A spaceship to take him—and the parasite—back to home to Planet Ick? Dunno.”

  “Where would he keep it, though? I mean, he only has this one property and our trailer lot was tiny. He doesn’t have any friends besides Chev, and Chev lives—lived—with his mom. Her garage is packed close to bursting with antique dolls.” Galavance takes a step closer to Zilch. “Level with me. Have you ever been able to avoid killing a person who’s a were-thing? Can you just take the bad part of him?”

  She’s standing very close to him. Zilch feels the news swell in his throat, like any second his Adam’s apple is just going to pop and all of this awfulness he’s been carrying around, like Jolby cheating on her with eleven different women and hiding it for years, is just going to come gushing out.

  It’s on the tip of Zilch’s tongue, but he doesn’t say it, partly because it’s not his place; it should be Jolby’s responsibility to air out his dirty laundry. And who’s to say that the cheating wasn’t caused by the same thing making him transform and tear his best friends to shreds, too? Sex and violence are base behaviors, things most monsters can’t get enough of.

  He has to look away from the face she’s making. She really believes he’s a good guy, deep down.

  “I haven’t before,” Zilch says finally. “but that doesn’t mean I won’t try. Look, let’s go back inside and sit down for a minute. I think you’re probably running on fumes by this point.” He escorts her back into the door and once she’s inside, starts to pull it closed behind her, staying out in the garage.

  “You’re not going to come in?” she asks, like she’s afraid to be left alone in the house.

  “I’ll just be a minute.” He nods at one of the Budweisers lying on the floor. “Crack one of those and take a load off.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Check the evidence.”

  “Do you really need to call it that? He was a person.”

  “Well, you just called Chev it, didn’t you?”

  “I meant his body. That’s an it, isn’t it? If there’s no person inside of a body, they’re kind of just like … furniture, aren’t they?”

  “Stay with me,” Zilch says. “Pinch yourself if you have to. All I’m saying is: I phrased it that way for your benefit, calling Chev’s body evidence.”

  “I’m all right. I’m not a delicate flower.” She nods to herself, mostly convinced. “I mean, can’t you just leave Chev alone? He suffered enough, I think.”

  “Can’t. I have to know what we’re up against. Did you see any other parts around?”

  “Car parts?”

  Zilch says nothing, grim-faced.

  “No,” Galavance says finally. “I didn’t. You don’t think Jolby … ate his best friend?”

  “Maybe. He clearly didn’t eat all of him, if that helps.”

  “Not really.”

  “Anyway, I think Jolby’s condition has changed since our previous encounter. He certainly wasn’t powerful enough to rip a person limb from limb last time. And not only are there no parts lying around, but I didn’t see anything he may’ve used to cut Chev up with either.”

  “You think he did that to Chev with his bare hands?”

  “Can’t say until I check.”

  “Need me for that?” Galavance is frowning.

  “No, but you can watch if you like.”

  “If it’s all the same,” she says, taking a seat in the lawn chair, “I’ll just stay in here I think.”

  “That’d probably be wise. Come get me if you hear anything. Maybe try to get some sleep.”

  He can hear her scoff through the door after he pulls it closed. “Sleep. Yeah, fat fucking chance of that.”

  Zilch prepares a makeshift operating theater in the garage. He hoists Chev up with a grunt and drops him onto a sheet of plywood set across two sawhorses—only a small spurt of Chev goo shoots out in the process. There’s a toolbox in a corner of the garage, and he goes over the meager assortment at his disposal. Most of it’s for cars—socket wrenches, oil filter wrenches, and only one blade. Turning it toward the naked bulb above him, Zilch can see the knife is dinged to hell and it’s sticky with some acrid-smelling black gunk. Apparently, before realizing that tooth and claw could come in handy when stealing car parts, Jolby had used the knife for jimmying loose whatever he was after.

  Zilch decides the knife, even dirty, will suffice for what he needs it for and doesn’t bother to clean it. Chev, by this point, is well past worrying about infections.

  First, the plastic. With one slice down the length of the sheet, blood gushes out and over the edge of the plywood operating table. Zilch hops back, trying to avoid getting any on himself, and he’s only partly successful. It’s still somewhat warm, and to make matters worse, a powerful odor quickly hits him with the power of a slap to the face.

  Zilch latches a hand over his nose. “Jesus, Chev. What did you eat?”

  But it’s not decomposition he’s smelling. Chev has been dead less than a few hours. Nor is it the smelled of torn guts, either. Unfortunately, Zilch knows that smell too. No, this a different brand of stink altogether. Swampy, almost sweet in a way, but concentrated.

  He takes the plastic off, rolling Chev out of it. Guts come loose and uncoil, tumbling over the edge of the table, dripping some mustard yellow substance onto the cement floor. Zilch rolls Chev onto his back again, and his head swings loosely around using the momentum to look up at him. And the eyes roll towards Zilch, too. Using two fingers, he closes Chev’s staring dead eyes.

  It’s pretty gross, admittedly, but Zilch can’t help but snap back to culinary school right now, butchery class to be specific. The first few weeks were learning the charts of different cuts. The animals were drawn up on charts like mapped territories. He and his fellow students had to be able to name each part as the chef instructor slapped the end of his pointer at them. Then, one day, Zilch walked in with his class to see a dead cow lying in the middle of the room, ready for the knife.

  “Jolby did a real number on you, didn’t he?” Zilch says, leaning in close to study what remains of the young man’s arms—they look torn, yanked off, the shoulder muscles shredded. The spine is twisted, snapped like a twig, rendering Chev half the man he used to be. It doesn’t surprise Zilch that Jolby is capable of this feat of strength—just the other night Zilch got flung, bodily, like a Frisbee. But the fact he did it to his best friend is the worrying part. Why?

  Jolby could very well be past help, Zilch considers. Finding a pack of smokes on the workbench with one gift-from-the-gods cancer stick inside, Zilch desperately wants to fire it up, thinking it’ll help him process, but he’s without a lighter. He heads back into the house, keeping quiet because he suspects Galavance may’ve taken his advice and found someplace to lie down a while. Instead, he finds her in the living room with the TV on and a videogame controller in her hands.

  “Hey,” she says, half-engaged. “Was I being loud?” She’s piloting a fishnet-clad heroine on the TV, pummeling bad guys.

  “No.” Zilch finds himself partly hypnotized by the video game’s manic speed and flashing colors for a moment. “You’re fine. Got a lighter?”

  Galavance snatches the barbecue lighter from the floor and tosses it to him, hands springing back onto the controller before her on-screen heroine on her mission of revenge is overtaken by street toughs. “Jolby plays video games when he’s stressed. He says it helps. Thought I might give it a try.”

  “How’s it treating you?” he says, lighting his smoke.

  “I’m still thinking about everything. Numb. I guess this is probably how people become alcoholics, huh? Personally I’d rather have booze but I hate beer and that’s all they have. So, video games it is. What’d you find out?”

  “Good news is I don’t think your boyfriend’s gone cannibal. Think being the operative word there.”

 
“Bully for him, if you’re right. Too bad me and a few hundred thousand Frenchy’s customers can’t say the same.”

  Zilch chooses not to remark on that.

  In his silence, Galavance, hammering buttons, says: “Do you think he’s going to be all right?”

  “That’s hard to say,” Zilch says. “It’s out of my hands now that a human life has been taken. Unless I get word to approach things differently, I’m going to have to, you know, put a stop to him—to use a tired expression.”

  Galavance, on screen, loses a life when three chainsaw-wielding ninjas efficiently chum her character. “Kill him, you mean?”

  “We’ve gone over this.”

  “Can you ask them to change their minds?” she says, restarting the level.

  “Who?”

  “Your people.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. I can’t negotiate; I have nothing to barter with. It’s either I follow the rules or …”

  “Or what?”

  “I’ll get an F and it’ll hurt my self-esteem,” he says, because right now he really doesn’t want to get into the specifics. He was just at his folks’ place for Chrissakes.

  On-screen, Galavance double-jumps with a katana in hand and slices a Medusa-like thing in two, mid-air. “So? I got all kinds of bad grades in school.”

  “I don’t actually get graded,” Zilch says. “Think you could turn that noisy-ass thing off and actually look at me?” She doesn’t. “I have no choice here. I have to put Jolby down. And, you know, I’m kind of surprised you’re as bothered by that as you are, given what kind of guy he is.”

  She keeps playing, making it to the next level. “He didn’t kill Chev. The thing inside used Jolby to kill Chev.”

  “Tell me something. Do you love him? Like actually love him? Do you miss him when he’s not around? Do you dream about him, other than to drive a lawnmower over him? After a long day, do you look forward to spend some time with—?”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m saying … maybe give it some evaluation. Maybe he’s not such a great guy, and if, you know, he happens to take a permanent vacation, perhaps that’s not the worst thing in the world.”