New Title 1

by Essig, Robert

  “Enough wood, Miss Fleicher?”

  I looked down and nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

  He hesitated before leaving. I could feel his eyes on me, but I wouldn’t look up. I can only imagine what I must have looked like when he came into the room. If the expression on my face mimicked anything close to what I had felt in that moment—desire, lust, unadulterated passion—Blake may have gotten the wrong impression considering what he’d said to me last night about his desire for…mature women.

  I had to get out of the room. The youthful vibrancy I had felt was rapidly dissipating. My aches and pains were returning two-fold. Salpsan stared at me, his eyes brighter than when he’d awakened this morning. I looked away when I felt his heat spread through my retinas and into my forehead. Whatever it was he possessed me with, I wanted nothing to do with it.

  I left his room and went into the kitchen. Helping myself to a bowl of porridge, I took a seat on an ottoman in the sitting room, not tasting the porridge but eating it mechanically for the nourishment. I was hungry for answers, not food. I considered the possibility of the supernatural. What I experienced through Salpsan was dreamlike, mysterious. I had not only felt young again, but I seemed to have harnessed some dulled sense within my heart that was so frequently accessed as a youth during so many years of life exploration. I realized, not for the first time but more truly, that I was closing in on death. There were far less good years ahead of me than behind and the thrill of being alive, as BB King put it, was gone.

  My arthritis was so bad I could hardly hold onto my bowl of porridge. I couldn’t tell if the pain was worse or only seemed that way after my experience with Salpsan. I’d been feeling old, frail.

  Lost in a world of my own thoughts, I was startled at the sound of Mister Adler descending the spiral staircase. He joined me on the ottoman. His smug grin of assurance had returned, which, strangely enough, had given me some comfort.

  “So, how’s our patient doing, nurse?”

  I wanted desperately to speak with Adler; however, I could do without the self-assured attitude that, only seconds ago, was comforting. There was nothing comforting about this man. He seemed to pride himself on making those around him feel low. I could see it in the gleam of his dark eyes, the slight upturn of his coy grin.

  “Mister Adler, we need to talk. I appreciate you understanding my needs in caring for Salpsan; however, I need to know more about him. What can you tell me? Where did he come from?”

  “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  Yes, I did. “No.”

  Adler pulled an embroidered metal cigarette case from a pocket within his loose-fitting jacket. He flicked it open with one hand, pulled out a brown-papered cigarette, and placed it in his mouth. Cupping his hand around the tip of the cig as if there had been wind blowing in the house, he lit it with a lighter, tipping his head back and sucking a deep inhale that caused the cherry to crackle. The fragrance of cloves hit me as he spoke again.

  “To be perfectly honest, Miss Fleicher, I have no idea where he came from. I don’t know who or what he is, and I certainly don’t know that his name is Salpsan, so I can’t help. I have to wonder how it is you know that.”

  “I suppose he told me that was his name.”

  Adler nodded. “He won’t say a thing to me.”

  “Can you blame him? The way you treat him and all.”

  “You should have seen him when he came through. You wouldn’t blame me.”

  “Came through. I don’t follow. What does that mean?”

  Adler raised his eyebrows. “Do you consider yourself open-minded?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Are you prepared to accept the existence of something most people cannot?”

  I remained silent, staring into his eyes as if willing him to continue.

  “Salpsan came from nothing, out of nowhere—at least nowhere that I know of. He isn’t human—I know that—but if you asked I couldn’t tell you what he is.”

  “How long has he been sick?”

  “From the moment I saw him. That’s why I contacted you.”

  “He was defensive, then? Correct?”

  Adler chuckled. “I wouldn’t remove those restraints if I were you. I’ll say that much.”

  He then lifted his shirt, reveling a number of bandages, some of them dotted with blood that had soaked through.

  “His appearance caused me reservation, but the claws sealed the deal. I had to use a club to combat him. If he hadn’t been sick and coughing he probably would have ripped me apart.”

  There was a moment of silence between us. What once seemed preposterous was now viable, real. What I’d experienced in that room with Salpsan could not be explained, nor was I ready to attempt to explain it to Mister Adler. That he was trying to bring the creature back to health after it had torn his chest open was astonishing. I think most men would have had the primal reaction to brain the beast, particularly considering Salpsan’s frightening physical attributes.

  I said, “So what do you propose you are going to do if I succeed in bringing Salpsan back to health?”

  “I want to find out where he came from, don’t you?”

  I responded with a question that I should have inquired about before I agreed to the job.

  “Mister Adler, what is an American doing in an old house in the hills of Spain. Just how does that American stumble upon something as unique and anomalous as a creature from, presumably, another world?”

  His maddening smile remained etched across his face; however, there was something subtle in the eyes that changed.

  “That is none of your business, Miss Fleicher. I hired you for a specific job. I understand that you need certain information, and I will let you know everything I can; however, you are not here for chitchat and all that getting to know you bullshit. Is there anything else you would like to ask me concerning Salpsan?”

  “You realize that the chance of me bringing him back to health is poor, right? I’ve said it several times, but he needs a doctor if you really want to try to help. Everything about him is unusual.”

  Adler stood. “Then what makes you think a doctor can do anything?”

  He walked away, leaving me alone on the ottoman.

  Chapter Five

  Night Two

  I spent most of the day in and out of Salpsan’s room. There wasn’t much I could do, but the fire had to be fed. I found the room to be so uncomfortably hot that I couldn’t stand being inside for a great length of time. In minutes I would break out in a sweat. Salpsan didn’t sweat. Probably do to his unusual genetics.

  I began taking notes. The first note had to do with not only his high tolerance to heat, but his desire for it. I couldn’t measure Salpsan’s health by normal means such as temperature and heart rate. I intended on getting an EKG reading, but soon realized that it would only confound me.

  Night was a better time to spend in his room. The cold seemed to chill the stone walls right to the core. The raging fire in Salpsan’s room was stifling yet favorable to wearing extra clothes and wrapping myself in a blanket.

  “What do you eat?” I asked him.

  He must have been famished and parched, but he reacted to my offer of water as if it would have burned him like acid, and he put his nose up to any morsel of food as if offended. I didn’t even consider feeding him intravenously. For all I knew, our food would have killed him.

  Fidgeting, clearly agitated by his restraints, he turned his head as much as he could to look squarely into my eyes. Words harnessed slow and calculated, he said, “I can show you.”

  “Yes—”

  And then it occurred to me that he might have been requesting that I remove his binds. I would have loved to do so—he must have been sore—but I couldn’t take that risk, not after seeing Adler’s scars.

  “I would like to see, but how can you show me? I cannot let you out of your restraints.”

  He expelled a gust of hot air that smelled like sweet sickness mixed with sulfur. He closed
his eyes and straightened his head, once again facing a ceiling he must have been becoming intimately familiar with.

  After placing a fresh log on the fire, I sat next to Salpsan wondering if what I was doing there was all for naught. There was so little I could do that I felt helpless, even ashamed, as if I had been letting down not only Mister Adler, but Salpsan as well. I began to wonder what I had really come out here for. Was it the money? Not as much as I thought, though now that I was in the thick of it I was depending on that money. Looking deeper within, I realized that I missed helping. Because of the stigma the American media had placed on me I couldn’t so much as volunteer if I liked. No one wanted to hire Miss Kevorkian. The media loves a scandal, and they certainly enjoyed bastardizing me for what was really a moment of unabashed compassion. Would they have been happy to see what had become of me? Reduced to the caregiver for a monster.

  I felt drowsy. The deep blue flames of the fire, those little ones at the very base of the wood, drew me into a hypnotic trance that was wonderful for allowing my mind to run free. It felt like I had been honest with myself for the first time in weeks, perhaps since I began preparing for this job, convincing myself that I needed it to pay the rent, to buy food, to live.

  I must have drifted off. I woke into a terrible chill that burrowed through my bones and into my marrow. I shivered and reeled, rubbing my hands up and down arms lined with gooseflesh. It only took a moment for me to realize that I was outside.

  Outside!

  A small cloud of foggy breath drifted into the night from an audible gasp. Behind me was the house, dark and leering. I couldn’t see light from even one candle in any of the windows, which gave off the eerie quality of an abandoned building.

  There was no way of telling just how long I had been out there, but from the death chill that nearly dropped me to the ground, I would say it had been a while. I attempted to take a step but could hardly move, and then something warm grasped me from behind. I looked down and saw fingers wrapped around my arms, tipped in ragged claws. There was a moment of alarm that was instantly replaced with a growing warmth that was so soothing and welcome that I could not possibly banish my captor.

  “Salpsan?”

  “Yes.”

  His voice tickled my consciousness. It was as if he could speak to me telepathically, some kind of thought communication that, in any normal capacity, would have been terrifying. I accepted his mental voice as warmth radiated from his grip, slowly removing the death chill.

  He let go of me and I turned to face him. Out of his touch I felt scared, afraid. The cold bit deep and I would have done just about anything to feel his warmth again.

  Salpsan stood there like a gargantuan malformation of a Grecian God, a beautiful thing to behold, even in his monstrousness. I shivered, my teeth chattering. His body was so hot that I could see tendrils of steam rising as the cold tried without success to penetrate his very being. I could have rushed into his embrace; however, there was that deep-seated reservation of something we’re taught from a young age to fear, something abstract and unknown.

  “I can heal you,” he said in my mind.

  His hand reached up, palm out. He placed it on my chest. Heat radiated from him, through my chest and into my heart. At first I thought it was the end, that his aggressive action had perhaps induced a heart attack. I felt simultaneous exhilaration as his fire hit my bloodstream and flowed through my entire body, driving out the cold, the pain.

  In silence I stood there, eyes closed, the cool of night settling on my face, my arms, evaporating from the warmth. The dampness of fog and drizzle cooled for but a moment, a brilliant feeling like a pool on a hot August day. It wasn’t a numbing sensation, yet I felt no pain.

  I felt like a young woman again. Not only physically, but mentally.

  “We don’t have much time,” said Salpsan.

  Opening my eyes, I realized that he had begun to walk ahead of me. I took several quick steps to catch up with him, so light on my feet, so full of life. Walking side by side, we took to the rolling hills. Salpsan breathed heavily, almost snorting like a wild hog. His legs were hairy, strong, his feet lurching out from thick tufts of bushy hair, dark like raw mammal meat, each toe ending in a black claw similar to those on his fingers but smaller, some of them chipped and broken. His pelvic region was thick with hair that traveled up the center of his stomach a few inches before fading away. His chest was somewhat human, speckled with bumps and protrusions like rounded rose thorns.

  We came to a field. I couldn’t say how long we had walked, for I had been too transfixed on my companion to be wary of time. Everything was wrong yet felt so good that I banished any thoughts of reservation. I just walked with this monstrous thing, this demon that breathed like a beast and walked like a God.

  “There.” He pointed to an animal pen fenced with random lengths of wood. “A goat.”

  There were a number of sheep and goats huddled together for warmth, nestled into a corner of the pen. As we stood there, it felt as if I had been staring through someone else’s eyes, watching a life lived through a projector and waiting in terror for the climax. However, even in terror I wanted what Salpsan had to offer.

  Like a pupil beneath a teacher’s wing, I followed Salpsan into the sheep pen, navigating the rickety wooden fence without a care to the aches and pains that only an hour ago would have crippled me from such activities. I managed the fence like a feline, crouching with my hands palming the wood between my separated feet, keeping an uncanny sense of balance before I leapt into the pen, animalistic, brazen, out of my mind.

  Salpsan wasted no time before taking to the sleeping animals that became startled awake, stumbling over one another in attempt to seek refuge. With measured skill he reached out, grabbed one of the goats by its horns and pulled the frightened animal away from the scampering pack. He dragged it, kicking and screeching, to me. I felt as if I could comprehend the sheer terror in the animal’s eyes, wanting, for just a sliver of a second, to scream, to help the poor thing from a fate that was becoming all too clear.

  Salpsan grunted as he maneuvered the goat, slammed it on its side, then placed his foot into the soft flesh hard enough to crack ribs. Handling the head by its horns, he twisted. The goat’s death squeal pierced the night, driving the rest of the sheep to the opposite side of the pen where they climbed atop one another, some of them breaching the wooden fence and running into the field. Salpsan’s girth and strength were awe-inspiring as he twisted the animal’s head in a complete circle twice over before the flesh and muscles ripped apart and the head was freed from the body, steaming as the goat’s life drained into the cold night.

  Salpsan looked at me with those burning yellow eyes and said, “Drink!”

  I could not remember positioning myself that way, but I was on my hands and knees, breathing heavily like an animal. The blood scent drifted into my flared nostrils. My stomach rumbled, hunger washed over me, and I had to have the poor goat’s blood. I swear there was a part of my mind that wanted to flee, to leave, to find Adler’s house and wake him in hope that he had a gun so we could kill the monster he’d so foolishly hired me to care back to health, but I couldn’t. Just as soon as that thought came to me, it vanished, superseded by the insatiable appetite for blood I had spontaneously developed.

  It wouldn’t be flowing from the animal’s torn neck for too much longer.

  Everything became foggy at this point. On my hands and feet I crossed the small distance to the dead animal. Without a second thought I placed my mouth to the gushing neck, slathering my face in warm blood. It tasted strong of copper and minerals and felt so good sliding down my throat. Slurping and lapping it up, I laughed, half-mad. I grabbed the animal and I swear it was moving. Its life was being projected into my body. I pressed my fingers into its side so deep I nearly penetrated the flesh, my face buried in its neck, tongue probing the wound, teeth nibbling the severed spine.

  I looked up. Salpsan stood there, tall and domineering, blood trickl
ing down his chest from the neck of the goat head that now covered the monstrous face I’d become used to seeing. I couldn’t help but wonder how it was he could have placed the goat’s head over his own like a Halloween mask.

  At that point, everything went black.

  I came to in my room, waking with a start. Somehow I had managed to put myself to bed. The last thing I remembered was sitting in Salpsan’s room while he drifted off to sleep. It had been so warm, comforting.

  My bones ached terribly. The stiff sheets and thin comforter on my bed did little to combat the chilling twilight cold. The thought to go into Salpsan’s room for a moment, just long enough to warm up, teased my mind; however, there was a feeling of dread that kept me freezing and aching in my bed. I couldn’t place why I felt that way for I couldn’t immediately remember what had happened.

  Trying to fall back into sleep, I couldn’t help but notice a strange odor in the room, a smell so bothersome that I risked the cold and got out of bed. After lighting a candle in a brass candelabra, I looked for the culprit. I was pleased to find that Blake hadn’t snuck in. For a moment there I feared that the strange smell was him, crouched in a dark corner watching me sleep. I wouldn’t put something like that past him.

  I did, however, notice that the floor was unusually filthy. There was a trail of dirt that I couldn’t remember being there earlier in the day. Again, I feared that Blake had entered my room while I slept, too foolish and careless to clean his feet as not to be suspected for the peeping pervert he was.

  Then, after further inspection, I saw that there were remnants of dirt at the foot of my bed. That’s when I looked at me feet and realized that it was not Blake, but I who had tracked so much dirt into the room, only I couldn’t understand nor remember how I had done it.