Superman's Cape

by Brian Spangler

  Pins and needles riddled his legs and feet. He wore an electric blanket that rode his skin. Kyle tried to lift and kick at the air. He tried shaking the rash of pins off of his skin. But his legs were almost dead. They hurt but they didn’t move. They just stayed there, yelling back in a tingling language he hoped would fade.

  It was the middle of the morning, or, he thought, maybe the beginning of the afternoon. Kyle didn’t remember falling asleep. He couldn’t remember falling asleep. He ignored the turning in his stomach. He had to. Sure, there was a need for food, but he also knew he was still lost and that he was hurting. He thought this must be what it is like to die. To concede to a death by starvation or an infection.

  I’m dying, he concluded and maybe understood why he was fading in and out. For a moment it all seemed so clear to him. Hunger or no hunger, weakness or no weakness, there must be something bruised or broken in his head. The type of broken you might see a little on the outside but the kind you need one of the big hospital machines to see on the inside. Kyle rubbed the side of his face. The mess of swollen skin wasn’t as warm and didn’t feel as big. But it still had the curvy bubbles that said it was bad.

  He wondered what part of his brain was leaking. Is it a slow leak, he thought as an image of Beasty’s leaky tire came to mind. A small, rusty nail spent weeks peeking in and out of the tire’s rubber. His momma spat resentful passages as she filled the tire to replace the air that escaped it. Kyle half smiled thinking of his momma showing him how to fill the tire. And on occasion he’d have her stand by for help while he tried the fix – “Relax mom, I got this,” he’d tell her, and with a grown-up pride he’d put the quarters in the air machine and then run the hose out to the soulless rubber growing dead as the air ran out of it.

  “How long is ny air gonna last?” he mumbled. He sounded exhausted.

  It wasn’t until he dropped his arm back to his side that he found a little stow-away. The long slender body of a slug cradled his naked skin and left a trail of moist ooze that glistened. He ran his finger down the back of the slug while it inched along. It stopped and retracted its tentacle things that popped up from its head. Do these things bite, he wondered cautiously.

  He needled the slug’s black skin and felt the weaved tattoos that made up brown lines dressing its back. A broken grin dressed his lips as he enjoyed the details. He was even more surprised when the slug perked up again, raising its antennas or tentacles or whatever they were called.

  “You got a dace,” Kyle said. His voice amused.

  “You really got a dace – dat zo cool,” he repeated and then pushed a finger just enough to brush a tentacle. The long fleshy stem retreated somewhere deep. A moment later it re-emerged. A little slower the second time, and with more reserve.

  Kyle’s stomach rumbled and turned. He rubbed his belly and felt his ribs.

  “I can deel ny rids,” he told the slug. Small alarm rose in him and he wondered just how hungry he really might be.

  A cold tickle on his arm distracted him. The slug was moving again. Kyle poked another one of the tentacles and saw it retreat and then emerge. Another rumble from his belly stirred. Regret fell from his lips in a sigh as he connected his thoughts. His new friend was to be his first meal in however many days since his last meal.

  “Dang – I’n dorry,” he said and smiled sadly. He picked up the slug between his fingers and brought it up to his face. A giggle slipped at the craziness of what he was about to do. Eating a slug. A slug.

  Chew or Swallow, he tried to guess, thinking both were bad. The slug waved its long tentacle things around, studying the empty space. Or, maybe it was studying Kyle. I can’t do this, he thought. His hand wavered then settled. And it wasn’t just the idea of killing something. He was afraid of how it was going to taste and feel and the idea of it all that turned his stomach more than the hunger did.

  “Eff It! I gotta eat,” Kyle proclaimed and then counted, “one … two … dree,” and on three, he shoved his new friend deep inside his mouth. He closed his teeth and lips around the slug and shook his head when he felt the cold skin on his tongue. Shock enveloped him when he realized the slug was too big to swallow whole. He started to choke and gag on his friend. The taste hastened his gagging and he had to grab at his mouth. He pressed his palms against his lips to try and keep them closed. His mind and jaws fought the need to spit the repulsiveness out. When his friend started moving and crawling towards the back of his throat, Kyle couldn’t hold it in and heaved. His eye went wide thinking, I’m gonna choke on this thing, I’m really gonna choke to death trying to eat.

  All remorse for his friend washed out of him as images of his blue face flashed across his mind. He saw his dead body. He saw it sprawled across the floor of the woods. A large slug sticking out his mouth. Kyle’s options were gone. His decision to swallow his friend whole was forfeited. He did the only thing he could think to do. Kyle slammed his teeth together, squashing the body of the slug. A volcano of vile juice erupted in his mouth and squirted through his pressed lips. He felt the cold path of the slug’s insides race down his chin. And immediately he retched – his stomach and chest contracted, trying to push out what he swallowed. He kept his lips tight and swallowed down what came up. He couldn’t waste it. Any of it. The back and forth lasted only a minute. But in his mind it lasted hours. When his friend was finally gone, some of the remains stayed behind. He hunted the leftovers with his tongue and worked the bits of slug flesh out from between his teeth.

  “Oh ny God,” he mumbled and gasped at the air. His face and hands went cold as a breeze caught his exposed skin. The deed was done. He was breathless. The exercise to eat something, anything, including friends, was over. Sweat lathered on his skin, agitating his temperature. “Dreathe,” he muttered and stabbed deep to inhale air before his lungs coughed it out.

  New movement from inside his arm pulled his attention. More movement made him forget about his slug friend and his first meal. His upper arm was swollen and encased in pink that grew to a deep red around the lightning-bolt cut. His arm was glowing while his forearm and hand were pale; almost gray. It was infected. And not just a little. He did have a fever and it was a bad one.

  Kyle felt the skin around his ribs. And then he ran his hand up and felt the skin under his arms. Dread rained on him as he closed his eye. He was hot. He was sick. Memories of something moving in his arm clutched his mind and squeezed until it hurt. He’d forgotten about the infected Boar cut. There something living in my arm, he conceded. A wave of hot and cold crashed through him and he shuddered. He hoped it might have been a dream or even a day dream. A terrible fantasy that started off as a joke. He shuddered again.

  He pressed his hand over the swollen skin. Heat radiated from it and when he closed his eye he felt movement. Bubbles of ooze leaked through the cracks in the scab and were a more putrid yellow that felt stickier than before. He could smell again. And without a second thought, he brought his fingers to his nose. The smell was full of foulness. The infection was rotting his arm from the inside out.

  Whether it was the fever or the fear or the anger, he couldn’t stand the thought of his arm and the moving inside it. He didn’t want his arm. He didn’t care to have it anymore. It disgusted him and he wanted it off of his body. He wanted to rip it from his shoulder and throw it as far from him as he could.

  In his muddled mind a single thought rang truest. It pushed his actions against any good that might have survived the previous days. Kyle clenched a fist and swung down hard. His closed hand landed square and solid on the Boar cut. The sound of skin on skin exploded in the woods which seemed eerily empty of activity until now. Pain rifled to his brain. Kyle screamed out in agony and tears sprung from his eyes. Against all consideration to stop, he swung his fist again. And this time he landed the punch even harder and pushed his fingernails into the crust before pulling his fist up like a hammer wavering in the air. More agony raged. His heartbeat drummed in his arm like an alarm warning of an intruder. He s
wung down again and again. Faster with each throw of his clenched hand. Hammering on the wound. Casting out the incessant itch that was becoming more the normal. Pain throttled a steady scream. It begged and pleaded with his brain to stop. The pain entered into his neck and head and eyes. Tears shot through the swelling in his face and raced against each other across a bruised landscape like the Lighting & Thunder roller coasters he enjoyed once with his father.

  When exhaustion caught up to him and stole his breath, he stopped and sobbed. He dropped his hand to look over the damage he had done. After all that work, his arm remained attached. A small wave of relief settled. He didn’t really want his arm gone from his body. But the bloody glove was back on. From his elbow to his thumb to his pinky finger, dark red blood covered all of his skin. More blood dressed the knuckles and fingers of his other hand and he could see splatters of crimson red on the ground and nearby trees. The smell of rotten meat crept past the Christmassy smell. And it wasn’t the rotten animal carcass of the bog mud, it was his arm. A slow regret edged in place of the fear and fatigue that drove his hand to rip apart the scabby crust. He washed the rest of the anger away as he cried.

  Kyle’s sobbing slowed when the first little head popped up from inside his cut. His crying stopped altogether as apprehension and revulsion took over when another little head emerged from his arm. His chewed and swallowed slug friend threatened to visit the back of his mouth when the third little head popped up.

  “How effen gross,” Kyle yelled as he watched a parade of little pustule bodies crawl around the broken crust on his arm. Maggots, he thought and clenched his throat to hold back what he put into his body earlier. Pain squashed the breath out of him as he heaved and retched. His face was sweaty. He shook against the chill as his stomach squeezed tight against his chest. Slug gut remains, along with stomach juices, filled his mouth. He needed all of it. There wasn’t a drop to spare and so he pushed down a swallow of what came up.

  Kyle had to stop and breathe. The nausea passed. He watched the machine of maggots take a stand on the crusty part of his arm. They seemed oblivious of his being there. They continued to do their busy work, eating and digesting the infected meat in his arm. Another wave of nausea rose then settled as he flicked one of the maggots from his arm. It flew end over end until it fell in a silent tumble a few yards from him.

  As he lined up his fingers to flick another maggot, the unthinkable occurred to him. This could be food. It was all food. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something. No matter how small, something was better than no food at all. Kyle opened his fingers and picked up a maggot from his arm. He brought it up to his face for a closer look.

  “Not nuch dere,” he mumbled as reservations faded and hunger masked his thinking. He eyeballed the little maggot body. Which end was its head or ass? He couldn’t tell. But it didn’t matter. Kyle flipped the maggot into his open mouth. He felt it wriggle on his tongue and he wondered if this was a good idea. He rolled his tongue and suddenly the pustule body burst. He flinched, but then comfort settled in place any nausea. The maggot didn’t taste bad. In fact the taste surprised him. He could do this. He could eat them. All of them. Better yet, it was warm – warm juice, not cold like the slug.

  One by one, Kyle picked off the maggots and put them on his tongue. Some he swallowed whole and some he tongue-squeezed until they burst and splashed like gum. Some he played around with, twirling them around his tongue and lips while others he ate with three or four of their cousins added for fun. It wasn’t a lot of food and he started to doubt the benefits of eating them at all. But they were a warm meal; warm and welcome.

  Before he knew it, only a few maggot bodies remained. They worked in and out of his arm, eating and crapping everything in their path. He had a thought that maybe he should leave them alone. Every fiber of his mind told him, screamed at him, to flush out the maggots. Kill them all. Every last one of them, until none of them are left. But instead, Kyle left the remaining survivors alone to do as they were meant to do, which was eat. Something told him they would help. Not hurt. Maybe they’ll eat the infection – maybe they’ll eat it all, he thought and turned his eyes away from his arm.

  Exhaustion snuck up on him again like a cat on a mouse. It stole the little energy he got from the maggots. Breakfast of champions, he thought and giggled. Fatigue was his enemy and it would end him. He was sure of it. The longer he sat on the ground, the more he realized how foreign walking was. The tickle in his chest bloomed when he coughed, and the pins and needles in his feet had become a dead numb.

  With his eyes closing, Kyle worked to keep down the maggots he hoped would keep him alive another night. He listened to the trees above him and the growing winds. He listened to the birds flying by and the sounds of an occasional pine cone falling. He listened to the woods speak a language he had begun to understand. And he thought, with most certainty, that a day or two more and these perhaps would be some of the last words ever spoken to him.

  29

  “In the fridge!” Captain Saunders complained. With a cup of coffee in one hand and the receiver end of a radio in the other, the Captain grumbled again. From Dale Richard’s view, he guessed his Captain’s remarks were about his coffee going cold. In the fridge was just one of a hundred colloquialisms Captain Saunders liked to use in place of everyday English.

  Dale pulled his shoulders up as the winds blew the roof of the tent up and down. The winds were strong and seemed to be getting stronger. Rushes of warm and cold blew into the tented area. He pulled his coat tightly around him and guessed this front was the beginning of the hurricane. Loose tent flaps punched the air as they snapped in the wind. He’d tied some of them down but knew he’d have to visit them two and maybe three more times.

  The Captain was tired. He may have even been approaching exhausted. Dale knew when he heard the colloquialisms his Captain was working on borrowed time. He considered telling his Captain to take a break. To sleep or eat or do anything, as long as it meant getting away from this business in the tent. I’ve got it covered, he’d tell him.

  “In the fridge,” the Captain sounded off. And as he did, Dale recalled some of the other phrases. Some he liked, some he didn’t. Some dated back years – long forgotten, yet still put a smile on his face. It didn’t matter what or when or why, if the Captain deemed it fitting, then you might hear shuffle that, drinking long or a favorite drop the pods.

  “In the fridge. Damn it!” the Captain spat again, slamming his thermos cup down on the map table. The hammer sound exploded like a thunder clap and pulled everyone’s attention. A dozen volunteers stopped their work and turned in the Captain’s direction. A red flush rose on his face while he waved a dismissive hand.

  “Peter …” Dale interrupted. “In the Fridge?”

  “Damn coffee is cold – can we get another pot going in here? We’ve got a lot more work to do. Especially in the next couple of hours,” he answered gruffly, and then said in a flat, but disappointed tone, “we’re bugging out of here.”

  Dale felt gray and stopped what he was doing. The news was a surprise to him. The minutes and hours had melted into days. He knew time was running short, but he knew they were close to finding Kyle. He stepped closer to the map table and looked over the markings he’d made. It showed Croatan Forest and an overlay of boxed areas that had already been searched. And it showed other boxed areas waiting to be searched. Kyle Connely is in one of those boxes, he thought. They were eighty percent complete.

  Dale tapped his knuckle a few times on the map then looked up at his Captain, “Bug Out! Why?”

  His Captain waved his hand holding the receiver end of the radio. He pushed it back into the base station with a disgruntled thump amidst mumbled words. Dale assumed he’d hung up on whoever might be giving the call to bug out.

  “Word is in. The Governor is pulling the plug on us … everything goes. Why? --,” he mimicked with his arms up and hands hinged, “-- on account of the Bitch’s wind that is coming. That’s why,” he gr
oaned and picked up the thermos cup to shoot back whatever coffee lay at the bottom of the tin.

  “Hurricane Dani?”

  Trying to shake out the cold coffee, the Captain looked back, “that’s right,” he answered.

  “I think it’ll be the Bitch’s wind that’ll kill the boy. That is, if the woods didn’t already,” he finished glumly.

  “Voluntary? Or is the Governor ordering a mandatory evacuation?” Dale asked, now looking past the busy work in the tent. He looked at all of the equipment that was stood up. A pool of generators hummed from behind them and emitted a constant sound beneath the wind. He looked at the lights blinking on and off and the radios and the volunteers moving from table to table with earpieces and microphones.

  “Dale, cool your jets,” the Captain answered with a sneer, “I know where you’re going with this,” he continued while thumping the bottom of his thermos cup on the map table. Dale knew his Captain could tell a plan was forming in his head. The Captain rapped his cup on the table a few more times as though standing there like a judge with a gavel and passing sentence. Whatever his Captain might be thinking, Dale wasn’t about to let any Bitch’s wind blow nonsense into their search efforts. Not at eighty percent searched and twenty percent remaining.

  “I ...” Dale started, and paused a moment to look again at everyone getting behind this search. When he settled his eyes back to his Captain he continued, “We have to finish this – we can find him. We’re close … really close.”