Flytrap

by Stephanie Ahn

As I teeter on top of that chain-link fence, Lilith pushes up off the counter, adjusting a strap of her dress that’s been slowly slipping down her shoulder. “Well, it was… good to see you. I’m glad you’re doing well.”

  I’m not.

  “Wait, Lilith, one last thing—just one last thing. Do you think you could tell me about a demon?”

  She stops, considering. “A demon? Sure, if I know them.”

  “Beelzebub. Is he still dead?”

  Her nose wrinkles, and it’s adorable, but I don’t think this is the right time to tell her that. “That guy? Why would you ask about him?”

  “Just, well—it’s a personal interest.”

  She shrugs. I hang onto the gesture, the casualness of it, trying to recapture the ease with which we’ve interacted before. “Alright. As far as I know, he’s still dead. I never really heard the full story, but I heard whispers here and there. From what I’ve pieced together, he got taken down by an alliance of demons. Big names, ones that have been feuding since Biblical times. But ultimately, the war was over because his own turned on him.”

  “That’s not unusual, is it? In Hell?”

  “You would think so, but something was different this time. Beelzebub isn’t called a Lord for nothing; his name has staying power. Something decimated his reputation. Reputation is power in Hell. You don’t get taken down by a coup unless everyone involved believes you can be taken down.”

  I think about it. The rage in his voice the first time I heard it, the way he kept screaming at me, pummeling my eardrums—

  DIE. DIE. WHY WON’T YOU DIE?

  My thoughts are interrupted by the small noise of Lilith placing her empty cup in the sink. “What’s your stake in it?”

  “Um… remember the demon blood I used, back when I was trying necromancy? Well, uh, that blood was his. Beelzebub’s. And he and I are kind of… connected, now.”

  Lilith goes still. Like she’s trying to blend into the cabinets behind her. “Connected… how?”

  “…Lilith, he’s in my head. It’s… it’s not pretty. And I’m not alright.”

  She covers her eyes with one hand. “Please, Harry. Please, for the love of all that grows from the earth, tell me he cannot see through your eyes right now.”

  My head reels. “What? No, no, nothing like that. I’m pretty sure he can’t do that. I—I mean—” Oh. Oh no. “—I mean, it’s not like I’m possessed or anything, just—just—” No no no no no. I hadn’t even thought of that. I find myself pushing the heel of my hand into my jaw, pulling my own skin back, like feeling that distortion would comfort me. “I—I don’t know—”

  Lilith braces herself against the counter with her free hand, her arm trembling, just barely. “Harry, you can’t—no. No. This is why I left! Damn it, Harry, this is why I left!” She uncovers her eyes, and I catch a glistening of water; she swipes her hand across it, quickly, like she doesn’t want me to notice. “I’m not just the ace in your deck of cards that you throw at people who want you dead!”

  “No, that’s not what I—”

  She storms out of the kitchenette. “Forget it, it was stupid of me to come back here. Fuck you, Harry.” She snatches up a puffy white parka draped over my living room armchair.

  “Wai—Lilith! Lilith, I’m so—”

  She slams the door on her way out. It’s suddenly so quiet in the apartment, it’s like I can actually hear the voice in my head say, Well, at least she took the door this time.

  I could kick myself for how that went. I shouldn’t have brought up Beelzebub to her. Or maybe I should’ve done so earlier, to give her a chance to get away. Or maybe I shouldn’t have told her about Kate, and I should’ve just fucked the night away. Frustrated, guilty, confused, I slam my own coat over my desk and rifle through the pockets until I get to my pill bottle.

  I stop. Lilith asked me if Beelzebub can see through my eyes. Can he? The thought presses on me like a headache. How much reach does he really have in my head? How much does he know from my dreams, and how much does he know otherwise? I thought I saw Dolly following me in the library. Is she following me? Does that mean Beelzebub can’t see what I’m doing when I’m awake, but keeps tabs on me through proxies?

  I look at the green pill in my hand, rolled into the crease of my heartline. I have a hypothesis to test, and a tentative way to test it. It might not be pretty, but…

  I get into sweats and a tank top and crawl into bed. I’m completely sober now, which doesn’t help my heart rate. I curl up on my side, clutching my blanket to my chest. I’m scared. My leg hurts for no good reason, so I stick a pillow between my calves. And then I have to pee, so I’m up again, the cold porcelain toilet bowl freezing my ass cheeks.

  I give up trying to fall asleep. I drag my laptop into bed with me and sit up against the headboard, mindlessly tracing circles onto the trackpad. I don’t know what I could watch to pass a whole night. Pro women’s wrestling, hey, that always cheers me up—ah, shit, my subscription to EVE On Demand ran out. Okay then, Netflix. Maybe a kung fu movie. Or one of those… animated superhero titles. Or the one where… Keanu Reeves… goes to…

  Hell.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Insides Out

  The hospital gurney squeaks as I’m wheeled through the hallway. The lights are cold and bright and I don’t like them. The nurse’s uniform is too tight and short to be realistic, made of shiny white latex with a red cross over one tit. Her mouth and nose are hidden behind a surgical mask, and she has a big white cap over her blond hair. I’m not strapped down, but I can’t move. The papery fabric of a hospital gown chafes my skin. I look down at my chest—

  My stomach is protruding like a fucking basketball. My eyes widen when I see it, but it’s like my tongue is swollen in my throat. I can’t speak. A second nurse walks out of the shadows, holding the side of the gurney and helping to direct it down the hallway.

  I squint at the new nurse. She has a silver eyebrow piercing, black hair, and smokey eyeshadow to make her blue eyes pop.

  “Adrienne?” I croak.

  She doesn’t recognize me.

  The first nurse unhooks her mask from one ear. Butterfly earrings. She has a celebrity grin and snowy white eyelashes, like sugar powder.

  “Yes, it’s her. A cheap copy of her, at least. She was supposed to be mine, but you stole her away. Remember, darling?”

  I scowl. “That was six years ago. I won, you lost, get over it.”

  The grin turns icy, and her eyes narrow. “Her soul was mine, witch.”

  “Yeah, well, she never got to sign off on that particular deal, did she? So, no, not yours.”

  “She promised it to me. The only reason she couldn’t finish the deal was because you interfered.”

  “So? I cut ties with her, she doesn’t even remember either of us anymore. Addy is out of the picture. Any beef you have now is between you and me.”

  She leans over, and I see the shadows darken in her volleyball-firm cleavage. “Why do you think I’m here?”

  I get a better look at her. Last time I saw her, she had sharp cheekbones and brows, harsh bone structure, like she was made to cut you open with her face. Now, her cheeks are fuller with baby fat, and her shimmery silver lips are set in a girlish pout.

  “Hey, is it just me, or do you look younger?”

  She bats her eyelashes. “Oh, flatterer.”

  “No, like, you actually look like a teena—” My whole body bounces as the gurney rolls over something on the floor, and I bite my tongue.

  We pass through a doorway, into a dim room lit only by a single naked bulb, with a leathery examination table tilted at an angle. Dolly and “Adrienne” transfer me from the gurney to the table, efficiently, Dolly’s hand straying once to pinch me painfully on the arm. I shiver from the cold as they place my wrists on the armrests, my legs dangling off the edge.

  “You’re the one fucking with my head?”
I ask Dolly, unable to move my head to face her, only my eyes. Adrienne disappears into the corner, where I hear her moving metal equipment.

  “Oh no, not me. I’m only tagging along for the ride.”

  “I figured. So, what, you’re his errand girl?”

  “I prefer the term ‘concubine.’ ”

  “Ugh, fine. So where’s your king?”

  She smiles, leaning to place her hand on my stomach. Something flutters under the skin, as if to touch her back—I stare. That was in no way baby-shaped.

  She extends the stirrups at the end of the table, lifts my feet onto them one by one, like in a gynecologist’s office. She stands between my open legs, caressing my bare ankles with long, lotioned fingers. The thing kicks again, and I see the protrusion through the thin surface of my hospital gown, the nausea of it crowding my innards.

  “Who’s a good wikkle Prince of Hell?” Dolly coos, tickling my stomach with a long fingernail.

  Thump.

  It knocks the wind out of me. I fight to breathe, clawing at the examination table.

  THUMP.

  Something—jarred loose, in the cavity of my ribs, in my stomach, some organ or something. It hurts so much but I can’t even focus on it. My whole frame jerks off the table, something is happening, it’s happening—

  THUMP.

  ***

  I wake up convulsing, gasping like I’ve run a mile. The muscles in my stomach ache as I scramble out of bed for my bottle of Vigil, struggling with the childproof cap and shaking four pills into my hand. I take them all at once—when they hit me, the world opens up like curtains pulling back in a widescreen movie theater.

  I miss a beat to sheer, frozen terror, my shirt sticking to my back, my hand to my stomach—it’s still mostly flat, with some comfortable pancake pudge. But—what if—he never, that wasn’t one of the things he did to me—but nine months, he’s been gone for nine months—

  I throw on flip-flops and my coat and race down the street to the convenience store. Someone yells at someone else in the aisles as I fumble with the different brands of pregnancy tests—I’ve heard somewhere that there’s no reason to get them name brand, but I get three different ones anyway—and when I race up to the counter, my hands shake as I count out the coins in my wallet, and I end up pushing them all toward the cashier and running off without a bag.

  I’m so dehydrated I’m dizzy, my throat is sticky and I can’t imagine my urethra’s doing any better. I drink from the tap in my kitchen for what feels like forever. Then I take the pregnancy tests to the bathroom—come on, come on but it’s not happening—I pace in the living room still without pants or underwear on, fisting my hair against my skull—drink some more water—come on come on come on, it can’t be so fucking hard to take a fucking piss—when I finally manage it, it’s way messier than I intended, and I spend the minutes that the test needs to clear wiping the toilet seat.

  I peer closely at the little white strip—one pink bar. My heart seems to mute. I check the box—one bar means no baby. No baby. Still, I look at the thing in every angle of the light and repeat the whole process over again with the other two tests.

  No baby.

  No baby.

  I lay my forehead on my arms on the cold marble of the kitchen counter, exhausted.

  Something moves near the lights. A fluttering, tiny thing. At first it sounds like a moth, but I’ve never seen a crystalline blue moth.

  It’s a butterfly. A real, actual butterfly in my apartment.

  It lands on one of the pregnancy tests, and its wings open like a striptease, revealing symmetrical black circles, eyes within eyes. We see you, it seems to laugh. He sees you.

  The butterfly’s wings wink closed. I breathe out. And I shoot my hand out—snap my index and middle finger shut over the wings like closing scissors. The wings feel light as nothing, not even like paper, like clotted air.

  They tear a little as the butterfly struggles, black legs and antennae wriggling, as I march over to the microwave. I toss the butterfly in, then slam the door so hard it tries to bounce back and only latches halfway. I hit it again to shut it. The butterfly flutters into the ceiling of the dark chamber, then falls, rises, falls again, weakly.

  I hit Start, Add 30, Add 30, Add 30, until the little screen reads 1:27.

  I bend to watch the illuminated chamber. The blue wings start to smoke, then cook, the blue charring into brown and black in grotesque, hole-ridden patterns. Parts of it just crumble into ash. It becomes a heap of twitching, shriveling, writhing, melting flesh. And then the timer ends, and the lights shut off, like the end of a stage play.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Psych

  Bautista meets me in front of St. Julian’s Hospital. She’s in black slacks, white faux alligator shoes, and a sensible, blue-gray double-breasted jacket with silver buttons and lining. No fedora this time. Pity, I really liked it. I’ve swapped my red tie out for an adjacently colored turtleneck sweater, both because it’s cold and because it might help me blend in. The hospital looms over the both of us, a dirty gray against the pure white sky.

  “What’s the plan?” I ask, nervously tugging on my collar.

  “We walk in,” Bautista tells me.

  “What?”

  She grabs my upper arm as though for support, then starts dragging me.

  “Woah woah woah, hang on, aren’t we going to get thrown out for—”

  “Only if you act like someone who should be thrown out. Come on.”

  We enter and face the main desk. People are bustling in ordered chaos, swerving around me like a line of ants around a leaf. Bautista smiles kindly at the receptionist and their dark under-eye bags.

  “Can we have two visitor tags?”

  The receptionist looks up, haggard. “What? Oh, right, yeah—here.” And they just hand two sticker tags to Bautista. Bautista hands one to me, and we take two steps away from the desk.

  “Wait!”

  We turn, and the receptionist is holding out a fat blue Sharpie.

  “Sorry, forgot to give you this.”

  I thank them, trying to sound as genuine as I can, grabbing the pen a split second before Bautista drags me away.

  I briefly think I should put a fake name on my tag, but I think I would forget to keep up the lie. Beside, Bautista just writes “BAUTISTA” on hers. “BAUTISTA visiting ROOM: 1234.” I write, “HARRY LEE visiting ROOM: 6969.”

  “Which way is your old room?”

  “Here, the elevators.”

  As we wait for the elevator, I ask, “How are you doing this? How are we here and no one is asking questions?”

  “People call me a telepath. It’s a… limited description of what I am and what I do. I absorb passively, for the most part. Like I said, radio frequencies. And occasionally, I give myself and others the ability to radiate white noise, so all-encompassing as to be unremarkable.”

  “You’d make a great grifter.”

  “What makes you think I haven’t been one?”

  People start milling around us, rubbing their hands and noses red from the cold. “Are you also the one who designed the Enforcers’ uniforms? You know, the ones where you can’t see their eyes, ever, and you can never remember their faces?”

  “That was a group project. But yes, I had a hand in that.”

  The elevator doors open and everyone bustles in. I crane my neck over the crowd—someone else presses the fifth floor button so that I don’t have to. After a sweaty eternity, Bautista and I shuffle out, and I look this way and that like a pigeon about to cross the street.

  “I was in a private room at the end of the hall. There.” We make our way down. Nurses pass us with barely a glance.

  I stop in front of the sandy wooden door with a plaque reading “505.” I press my ear to it; I don’t think it’s occupied. I take a quick peek around, then take out my lockpicks.

  Bautista turns
the doorknob. The door opens.

  “…Oh.”

  I’m embarrassed—but Bautista is preoccupied by something else. “I can hear things,” she says.

  “What things?”

  I look into the room. I can’t stop looking. And I step inside.

  My shoes stick to the floor. The air is stagnant and hot, like the breath of a devouring beast, and it welcomes me back in a smothering embrace.

  “Dios mío.”

  The walls are scrawled with sigils. Demonic ones, and then ones that swim the longer I look at them. Something ancient. Evil. Pulsing in my skull like a slow, malicious strobe light when I close my eyes. There’s sweet, rotting fruit piled up in the corners. Flies buzz. One of them gets too close to me—I spasm away, but Bautista catches me by the shoulder. I tremble, but stay standing.

  I look up at the ceiling. The light is dimmed by a crawling, licorice-like root stretching across the light fixtures. It creeps down the wall like ivy and fans the adjustable bed, crowning it, displaying it like a throne. The walls, they’re the same walls where I saw lines of marching ants—but the ants are really there now. I crush one against the wall with the pad of my thumb.

  “Bautista… please tell me you see this too.”

  She squishes an ant.

  “I see it, mi hija.”

  I’m not imagining it. I already knew I wasn’t, mostly, but—I want to vomit. There’s so much.

  I touch the mattress. The smell of clammy sweat fills my nostrils. My muscles twitch. Memories of thrashing, kicking, and eating… the root from the ceiling. Bitter and gummy. Licking it off my fingers because they told me I had to finish it.

  Wait.

  “I’m having… memories… of things that didn’t happen. Or—maybe they did happen? I don’t know, I don’t—they don’t feel the same as the dreams or hallucinations.”

  Reaching for a glass of water. Not being able to, and calling a nurse. Not being able to, because… because there’s a tube stuck into my stomach—a bulge, in my stomach—

  I back away. “No. No. These aren’t my memories.”