by Ezra Blake
It’s late. The sky is black and the lights are off, save the soft, purple glow of the bug zapper on the back deck. It gives edges to everything and leaves the forms flat. He shifts Ash’s head onto the armrest, fumbles for the light switch—
—And it’s here.
Its long, hooked nose peeks around the kitchen doorframe. It thrusts its square jaw forward in a twisted grin. In an instant, it smears across space and it’s looking right at him with cigarette-cherry eyes, one spindly leg arcing toward him in slow motion, its head brushing the ceiling. A flash of movement. No human can move like that without shattering every bone in their body. Jake can’t scream; it crumples tight in his chest. He smacks the wall until his hand hits the switch.
It’s gone.
The living room looks the same as always. The light on the deck is off. Jake stands frozen for a good ten seconds, staring at the place where it stood and asking, inside, what the fuck was that?
Nobody answers.
He sits on the couch and tugs Ash back into his lap. He was going to take a piss, but he’d sooner wet his pants than go upstairs alone, and besides, the stairs are all…
…intact, same as they’ve always been. No broken glass, no black arrow singed into his wall.
“What the fuck,” he whispers.
“Mm?” Ash presses his nose into Jake’s belly.
“Nothing, just relax. I’m gonna shoot a little more.”
He’s watched enough junkie films to know how to do this right, but he still hesitates. Is it really a good idea? He repeats the question in his head a few times. Nobody answers. He’s sitting there with his face scrunched up, trembling needle searching out a vein, when someone knocks.
It’s standing on his door step: seven feet tall with arms dangling to its shins, moving with the ungodly precision of a mechanical spider. He squeezes his eyes shut and begs for instruction, reassurance, please tell me what to do!
“Open up! It’s Elliot!”
His padlocked joints unhinge. He peers through the peephole, unsure of how he got there.
“Shit,” he says.
Elliot shoulders his way inside and dumps his wet bag in the entryway. “Something bad is happening,” he says. “I need Ash.”
“Like hell you need Ash.”
“Is he awake? Can he move? I have a guy coming at midnight to drive us to the airport, my boss booked a flight to Europe somewhere—”
“Are you fucking kidding?” A mirthless laugh. “You show up here, and an hour later he’s split open like a goddamn watermelon on the 4th of July.”
“You don’t understand, Jake, I got this phone call and—”
“Fuck you.” Jake snatches the backpack and stuffs it back into Elliot’s arms. “Get out.”
“Just listen! Five minutes. Five minutes. Listen.” His pupils are blown wide. He’s drenched in sweat. It’s about 65 degrees tonight. “Everything’s fucked and we have to leave now. They’re coming. They’ll be here any minute.”
“Who’s they?”
“Does it matter? FBI, CIA, whatever.”
Jake crosses his arms over his stomach. “I thought that when I was whacked out on speed, too. Check yourself into rehab while you’re at it.”
“No, I’m—” his little weasel hand locks on Jake’s wrist, and Jake wrenches it away. “Please. I’m serious. I have evidence, okay? I found a keylogger on my computer and my webcam light is always on, and I thought it was just broken but then this white van started following me and I started getting all these weird calls from unknown numbers asking about Ash—”
“About Ash. As in, they said his name?”
“Somebody knows.” Elliot scrambles to open his call log. “Something fucked up is going on, I mean, the fact that he’s alive should be proof enough, but if you—” he grinds his teeth, brow furrowed like he’s trying to solve an impossible math equation “—if you told anyone, or posted online, or googled anything weird—I don’t know how they found out but they did and they’re closing in on us.” He shoves his phone in Jake’s face and scrolls through half a dozen entries: unknown number.
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t have time to argue. They’re coming for him and I’m gonna be gone before they get here.”
“Nobody’s coming for us. I thought the same thing when I—”
“And what if you were right?”
Jake doesn’t realize he’s pacing until his knees stop working.
“This is a wild guess,” Elliot says, “but haven’t you ever noticed something too convenient to be a coincidence? Hasn’t a cop ever watched you like he knew you?”
Jake bites his lip. It’s true. He was born with eyes on the back of his neck.
“Look, you don’t have to believe me. I’m here as a courtesy. But if you stay, they will find you.” He steps into the kitchen, stops in the door, and looks Jake straight in the eyes. “Are you in?”
“…What’d they say? On the phone?”
“They wanted your address.”
“But you didn’t give it to them.” A thin chuckle. “Right?”
Elliot presses his lips together.
“Right?”
He tucks his chin to his chest and stares at the floor.
“I’m sorry, Jake. You said he was dead.”
Jake slides to the couch on socked feet, but Ash is gone. He twists around—not here—and bolts up the stairs. The door to the master bedroom is open. It wasn’t open before. Inside is a creaking shadow unhinging its jaw and—
“Jake,” Ash says. His voice is level.
“Jesus, how’d you get up here so fast?” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s all true. Everything I told you about the FBI. Elliot’s here and…”
Ash turns away from the mirror. The towels and cling film lie in a bloody heap on the bed. His abdomen is marred by a white, twisted scar. A few hours ago, his intestines were in Jake’s hands, and now they’re back inside him. Jake’s eyes trace the faded incision.
“We have to go,” he says faintly.
“Go where?”
“I don’t…somewhere in Europe. They’ve been following him and they have our address. They’re asking for you by name. Somebody knows.” He gestures to the scar.
“About this?”
“I don’t know. I dunno, but if he’s right, they’re probably gonna chop you up and make super soldiers, and we can’t—I won’t let that happen.”
Ash spares one more glance in the mirror before tugging on his shirt. “He’s lying.”
“He showed me the call logs,” Jake insists. “This isn’t the first time they’ve tried to contact us.”
“You don’t mean the thing about fake credit card offers, right? Because you were on speed.”
“I’m not on speed now. And it’s not just that. People have followed me on the street, and when I’m driving, and I just—we can’t risk it, Ash. We need to leave anyway. We fucked things up too bad.”
Ash furrows his brow and opens his mouth like he’s about to argue. Then Jake blinks, pins and needles ripple through his digestive tract, and Ash is halfway across the room, shoving clothes into a duffel bag. His next words collapse in his chest. He stumbles to the bed and flops down on his face.
He pushed you from the Path, little messiah.
“No,” Jake breathes, curling into a ball on his side.
Don’t worry. We’ll fix things.
His skin grows less substantial by the second. The chains anchoring him to his own body detach and release him, up, up, out. He’s tripping again, but that can’t be true. He must have a brain tumor; he’s having seizures, or—
He’s holding the gun in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other, and Ash is pinned to the bed beneath him, crying, “Please stop, please, if God wanted us to bring it he woulda done something—”
He plunges the knife into Ash’s stomach. Ash spews blood.
“I can’t,” Jake says. He’s still curled up on the bed, alone. “Please. Please don’t make
me do that.”
They whisper among themselves and wrench him once more into the ether. He’s Ash. He is Ash, feeling his feelings and knowing his knowledge. He’s pulsing with terror and compulsion, holding the knife in one hand and the gun in the other. He gathers every ounce of strength; he bites back every animal instinct and drives the blade into his own guts—but he stops. The pain is blinding, black. He can’t cut further. He presses the barrel into the open wound but it doesn’t fit.
Won’t work, they say. Too bad. Too bad. Let’s try something else.
Jake is curled into a ball of nothing on the quilt, ripping hair from his scalp. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” He shouts. “STOP. STOP IT.”
Up. Out. He’s Elliot. It’s a relief.
Elliot is quiet inside, steady and certain. He opens his mouth and words come out: “It’s a good idea, Jake. We need the gun.” Then Ash is gasping and spraying blood beneath him, but Elliot isn’t afraid. He’ll survive. He’s certain about that.
Perfect, they say.
Elliot is alone on the sofa, tapping his foot so rapidly that it’s wearing a hole in his ancient sneaker. He sent the text. He hasn’t spoken to Ash or confirmed anything, but even if the report is all wrong, he’ll say whatever gets him on that plane, and nobody can blame him for that. He says: Vic’s report is accurate. He’s agreed to come with me.
And Latzke says: 15 minutes. Black sedan.
Elliot takes a full breath for the first time since he left home. Fifteen minutes until the car shows up. Fifteen minutes, and all this will disappear.
Then Jake lurches down the stairs, a placid smile on his face, moving like a corpse hooked up to electrical current, and Elliot’s tapping stills. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” He asks.
“I have an idea.” Jake grins like a textbook explanation of the mouth and jaw. “C’mere. I need your help with something.”
The strings make things simple: the shoelace tied around his bicep, the mucous drawn thin between his mouth and the toilet. Ash doesn’t care if he vomits everything and never eats again. Who is he to question God’s will?
When he’s empty and ecstatic, he strips nude and lies on the bed. “Just forget it. Forget it,” Jake is repeating. He hovers like a fly over rotting meat. “I didn’t mean to ask.”
“It’s a good idea, Jake. We need the gun.”
“I dunno what I was thinking, c’mon, don’t—”
They continue their call-and-response chorus even as Elliot splits yesterday’s scar. It’s dull and deep; his belly opens. The holy overhead bathes his organs in white light.
Jake’s warm mouth touches his. He forces air into Ash’s body, and if they’re still here—if this is happening—it can only be divine intent. A cold weight nestles into his intestines. Jake pulls away, and without him, Ash embraces his lungs’ every hellish spasm. The pain coalesces into the notes of an atonal, cleansing hymn, and as his charcoal vision fades, the angels dance and sing:
Little messiah is saving the Earth! Deliver the package, begin the rebirth!
Chapter 26
Ash surfaces in the back seat of a car. Jake’s hand is on his thigh. He leans forward, dribbles vomit, and disappears.
They’re helping him stand. His stomach aches like the aftermath of a Thanksgiving buffet stuffed with metal shavings. He balls his fists in the pockets of someone else’s coat and scrabbles through the fabric toward the terrible, constant itch. Every step is a misstep. A drop of sweat rolls from his armpit to his hip.
“Alvarez and Webster,” a female voice says. “Does your guest need any mobility accommodations?”
“No thank you,” Elliot says.
Before they reach the gate, he pulls Ash aside and presses him against one of the white columns holding up a sleek but functionless awning. “If anyone asks, you have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Repeat that back to me.”
“Ehlers…Ehlers-Danlos,” he mumbles.
“You have metal implants in your spine and a pacemaker in your chest.”
“Spine implants…uh.”
“Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Spine implants. Pacemaker,” Elliot says.
“Jesus, let him sit down. We still have twenty minutes. I’ll get him a coffee.”
“He can’t drink coffee.”
“He can’t board like this. It’s not full security, look, it’s one lady with a wand. I can cover for him.”
“Coffee?” Ash slurs.
“No.” Elliot hooks an arm around his shoulders and guides him to a chair. “Sit.”
Ash slips through time, nodding and shifting. Someone presses a warm cup into his hand; someone else snatches it away. “Coffee,” he says.
“No. You’ll vomit.”
He worries his lip for a moment. It feels like nothing.
“Just give him the goddamn coffee.”
Elliot sighs. “If you vomit, I’ll kill you.”
“Okay.” Ash drinks coffee.
They move forward. Jake is touching him and then he isn’t, and the woman with the metal detector wand is waving it in his face and saying, “Sir, are you alright? Sir?”
“He has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome,” Elliot says, gripping Ash’s pinky finger between his palms. “It’s a connective tissue disorder. Overly flexible joints, vascular problems, sometimes fatal. Look.” He bends Ash’s pinky all the way back until his fingernail touches his wrist. Bones crackle. Dull pain radiates up his shoulder. “See? Overly flexible.”
The woman squints at them for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“He has a pacemaker, too.”
“It won’t interfere with your pacemaker. Please step forward, sir.”
Ash can only wish he had a pacemaker to keep his heart steady. He plants his feet on the rubber mat, holds his arms out to his sides, and waits. The metal detector emits a low whine as she scans his arms and legs. It squeals at his abdomen. She pats down his belly with the back of her gloved hand. Ash bites his tongue until it bleeds and doesn’t move.
“He’s getting surgery in—” Elliot glances at his ticket “—Germany. From one of the best specialists in the world. People with EDS get chronic anal prolapses, which is when your colon falls out of your rectum, so this guy is supposed to tighten his sphincter. It’s a very painful operation.”
“Mmhm.”
“I guess that’s a weird thing to get excited about, but I’ve been his caretaker for a few years and it’s a huge inconvenience for everyone. He has to wear diapers when we—”
“Thank you,” the agent says. “Please step forward, sir.”
Elliot takes his place on the mat. He prattles on while Ash swallows blood and ambles in no particular direction, wondering what it would feel like if his colon fell out his rectum. Probably a lot like this.
One gate, three passengers, no staff. The pilot is a broad man who shakes their hands as they board, saying, “Guten Tag! Guten Tag!” Then they’re alone in an airplane cabin that looks like a penthouse suite, all white leather and bead curtains. Jake’s father booked a penthouse suite for his eighteenth birthday, but he was too depressed to leave the room, so his family visited the Statue of Liberty without him. No big deal. He’s heard it isn’t great.
They’re launched into the sky without fanfare. Ash reclines flat in his seat and nods off, occasionally whining and curling his toes. His battered sneakers sit abandoned on the footrest. Elliot chews his cuticles and plucks hair from his scalp as Philadelphia’s twinkling lights shrink into darkness.
“Where’s the crew?” Jake asks. “They didn’t do a safety demo.”
Elliot shrugs and winds his bag’s pleather strap around his palm, rolls it up, lets it unfurl.
“I’ve flown like a million times and there’s always a demo.” He smacks his dry lips. His gums feel sticky and his stomach is quivering like jello, which would taste pretty good right about now. “They’d better have food,” he says. “I’m starving.”
Elliot slips his nail under the thin film of faux-leather and peels it off the
strap.
The dark windowpane holds Jake’s reflection. He’s so edgy that he nearly jumps when he catches sight of himself, the faint outline of his wild hair, the hollows of black sky where his eyes should be. He smooths down his hair, turns his hood right side out. “This whole thing is fucking crazy,” he mutters. Then he turns to Elliot, sweeps his arm across the cabin. “What’s this about, anyway? Who the hell has a private jet?”
“I told you everything I know.” Elliot speaks with his thumb in his mouth. Gnawing, peeling.
“He’s your boss, though. Why’s he bailing us out?”
Elliot shrugs.
“Where are we going, exactly? And what’s gonna happen to—”
“I don’t know, Jake.” He scrabbles at his scalp until his nails hook under an old scab. He peels it off and picks the dried blood out from under his nails.
Jake groans, stands up, and stalks to the bar on the far wall. It’s empty. Apparently, three broke fugitives don’t warrant the full party package. “How’d you convince him about the FBI?” He asks, spinning around. “Your boss, I mean. Did it sound like he believed that, or like, maybe they’re after him already?”
Elliot bites the corner of his thumbnail.
“Are you listening to me?”
His teeth catch a flap of skin.
“Elliot.”
He rips a bloody wound down to his knuckle.
“Dude—”
He leaps to his feet and slams into Jake’s chest. “You think I don’t have questions? What happened to Ash, huh? He was dead and you’re acting like that’s not even—”
“I’m looking for answers too, dude! We’re on the same page there. We just need a plan in case—”
“What do you think I’m trying to do, Jake? Wouldn’t I tell you if I knew something?”
“Chill out, I just—”
“DON’T TELL ME TO CHILL OUT.” His palms thump into Jake’s shoulders. Then Jake has him in a bear hug and Elliot’s flailing, shrieking, leaving dirty footprints on the white leather seat.