by John Everson
“There’s no place for you to go,” her mother said.
“You always had to make things difficult,” her father added. All at once they both came at her and Alex ran from the back of the couch to the door. But the burly men there wouldn’t budge. She slammed against their silky, dead skin and met a solid wall. Her father’s hand closed around her arm, and Alex lashed out, punching him hard in the face. She yanked herself free and darted past her mother to the other side of the room again.
“We can do this all night,” her father warned. “We are eternal, and sooner or later, you will join us.”
Alex edged closer to the fireplace and shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Her parents came at her from both sides of the room, but this time, she was ready. Alex grabbed the wrought iron poker for the coals of the fireplace, and stabbed at the chest of her father as he reached for her.
The skin ripped easily, but no blood came. There was none to spill. Her mother’s eyes flashed angrily and she leapt forward, trying to take advantage of the moment while Alex was stabbing the tool into the skin worn by her husband. But Alex yanked the poker back and swung it like a bat to connect with her mother’s head.
It snapped to the side, but instead of cracking, the skin actually molded itself around the poker, giving way to its mass for a second.
Balloons, Alex thought. They’re just like balloons. There’s no blood or real body there. There’s nothing really to hurt, just to deflate!
She grinned, and held the poker in front of her like a spear. “For the last time,” she screamed, “Leave. Me. Alone!” And then she lunged, stabbing the spear in and out of her father’s chest and belly and groin in rapid succession. He backed off, whether in pain or surprise or just instinct, she couldn’t tell, but Alex didn’t slow. When he staggered off-guard, she turned the attack on her mother.
“No, pookie, please,” the spirit begged, using the nickname she once had called Alex as a child. The word was like a counter stab right back at her heart. Alex cried. The tears almost blinded her. But she didn’t stop. She pulled the poker back and then stabbed again, catching her mother in the right breast. The dead skin tore and hung like tissue paper across her mother’s wrinkled belly. And that was right where Alex stabbed next.
“Haven’t you hurt us enough?” her mother’s deceivingly gentle voice asked. The words this time made her slow her attack, but by then, her father had recovered. He leapt back at her, his fingers scrabbling for her elbow even though his chest hung in ribbons. She could clearly see the wall through his middle.
She swung the poker again and caught him in the side of the head. This time though, she didn’t simply use it as a bat. As soon as it connected, she yanked it backwards fast, and the hooked arm at the end of the poker dug a trench across his cheek. It tore open the skin from his ear to the side of his mouth. The result was a lopsided, strange visual when his lips tried to move as he yelled, “You’ve already killed us, what more can you possibly do, you wicked child? I am so ashamed that you are my daughter.”
“Murderer,” her mother cried, holding her hands across the holes in her chest. She hung her head in shame as her voice wailed, “I raised a murderer.”
“Parent killer,” her father corrected. “Murderer is too good a name for her. The only thing that could be worse than her crime would be…”
“Stop!” Alex screamed.
“I won’t,” he continued. “It’s time you face the evil of your heart. Have you had abortions too? Are you a parent killer and a baby killer?” he asked, holding the skin of his cheek together with one hand so his lips could speak. “How many boys have you prostituted for?”
“Go… back… to hell!” Alex screamed. For a second, she felt a surge of power inside her, the same red flash of rage that had fed her on the day she had taken an axe to her parents in the backyard of their Nebraska home in order to save her own life and escape. That strength fed her again and she lashed out in a sudden fury, slashing the poker back and forth, carving her parents’ stolen skins into ragged pale ribbons that finally gave up their false, borrowed forms and collapsed to the ground, empty of animation.
And just like that, her parents were gone again. She had never felt more grateful.
Alex sank to the ground. The shredded skins lay just a couple feet away. They didn’t move. She wished with the deepest wish of her heart that they would remain that way. Tears coursed down her cheeks and her chest heaved in deep, out-of-control sobs. The last thing she had ever wanted to relive was the day she had killed her parents. For the past few weeks she had told herself over and over, almost every morning when she woke, that it had been necessary, that it had been the only way. But part of her never fully believed that.
And now she had been forced to do it all over again. Was she really as evil as the Curburide themselves? The tears came so hard she choked.
From behind her, she heard the soft sound of hands clapping.
Alex turned.
The guards had disappeared from the doorway.
Helone stood in their place.
Her skin no longer looked old and parchment thin. She looked younger. Radiant.
She was smiling.
“That was amazing,” she said.
The demon traced her black lips with the tip of her tongue, and then laughed.
CHAPTER 30
ARIANA WOKE in the dark, the sheets soft and warm around her shoulders. Elotan’s bed felt different than her own – the coverings lay thicker, heavier; almost like velvet. Her skin felt caressed by every movement. This part of the Curburide’s world felt much more like heaven than hell at least. She shifted to roll on her side. As she did, she felt a twinge of pain from her mouth, and also from between her legs. The violation of the night before replayed itself full force in her head, and she moaned in disbelief as she remembered Elotan raking her insides with his demon prick.
What kind of sadistic, misogynistic joke of nature grew barbs on its fucking cock?
Ariana stretched out flat again; it hadn’t hurt as much that way. She reached a hand down between her legs to see how seriously she was injured.
As the memories returned, she realized how badly she must have been hurt. She shouldn’t even be alive right now. That thing, unfurled inside her, gouging back and forth? It occurred to her that this wakefulness could be a last gasp; maybe these were the last thoughts that she would be having. After what he’d done to her, she might have been bleeding to death here in his bed all night.
But as she slipped her hand down the skin of her belly and then across the rough stubble of hair below, she quickly realized that things had changed since the demon had left her.
She was tentative at first, but then her fingers slipped across the lips of her labia and even pried and tested within.
Nothing was wrong. She felt the same as she always did when she slipped two fingers in to masturbate. Slippery and swollen, but whole.
She remembered being split apart by the penis of the demon, and had seen the blood. But now... No scabs, no wounds. Her skin was soft and her sex unbleeding. She knew that Elotan had been here. Had bedded and shredded her. Had left her sobbing and bleeding in his bed.
All evidence gone.
Her skin was soft and unblemished. And while she’d felt a remnant of pain when she had shifted position on the bed, she realized that after stretching, even that was gone. She felt as if she’d awoken at home after a good night’s sleep. She slipped her fingers all the way from her pelvis to her ass and all felt normal. She could feel some of the thick hairs that lay where she never got the razor, and traced them forward until her fingers were suddenly warmly sticky. She pulled them back. She was not ready to lose herself in that just yet. She needed to understand where she was.
And how it was that she was not dead.
“Nobody dies here,” Elotan said from the doorway, answ
ering her unspoken thought. She felt a chill as she realized he had just listened to her thoughts. So he knew what she’d been thinking as he’d ripped her insides out last night.
The demon grinned. “Yes,” he said. “You have a deliciously graphic mind.”
“What do you mean, nobody dies?” she asked.
“Nobody dies on earth, either,” he said. “But you can’t see and can’t understand the transition. Here, we are reborn every night. If we are hurt during the day, the next day we wake healed.”
“How unfortunate for the people you’re torturing,” she said in a low voice.
Elotan grinned. “Perhaps. But you must admit, how very fortunate for us!”
He walked towards the bed and yanked her upright to a sitting position by her hair. “I can do whatever I like to you,” he said. Then he released her and she fell back to the pillow.
“And then I can do it all over again tomorrow. It makes life worth living.”
“So if I stab you with a knife a hundred times?” Ariana asked.
“I will wake up tomorrow and use the same knife on you one thousand times,” Elotan promised. “And I’ll enjoy it greatly.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ariana said.
Elotan pulled the sheets back from her chest, and traced the circle of an areola with one dark fingernail. “Do,” he said. “I’d hate to have to ruin this.”
“I thought you said it would heal.”
“I said you wouldn’t die,” Elotan said. “That doesn’t mean you’ll always enjoy living with what’s left.”
Ariana considered that. “How much can I come back from? If you cut off my arm, will it grow back?”
“Perhaps,” Elotan said. “Get up.”
Ariana complied. She swung her legs over the bed and was still surprised when she felt no pain at the action.
“What are we going to do today?”
Elotan laughed. “You are going to enjoy your time in a dark hole, while I go look for your friend.”
“She’s not a friend.”
The demon looked at her and made a face. “You were ready to sacrifice her pretty easily,” he said.
“Take me with you to look for her,” Ariana asked. “Let me see your city.”
Elotan shook his head. “And have you try to escape like she did? Do you think I’m a fool?”
Ariana held out her wrist. “Put a chain on my wrist. I will walk as your slave. Whatever you want. But I have spent the last few years of my life trying to let your kind into my world. I never guessed that I would end up coming to yours. Please let me see it.”
“You want to see how we live, eh?”
Ariana nodded.
“I don’t know if you will like what you see,” Elotan said. But at the same time, he scratched a fingernail across his chin. Thinking.
“The doors to your world will be closing again soon. After that, I will show you some of ours. You will need to be tied to me, and not just to stop you from running off. There will be Curburide who will be insanely jealous to see me parading you around. We will need to stay out of sight as much as possible.”
“If they see me with you, will that help to improve your status?”
Elotan looked at her with a narrowed eye. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I know that having a human on a chain here has to be worth something,” Ariana said. “I’m not an idiot.”
He looked ready to slap her, but then, after a second, he nodded. “There will be some who are impressed.”
The demon suddenly turned and walked out of the bedroom, and Ariana sat on the edge of the bed, wondering what she should do. Follow him? Wait?
She hadn’t decided before he came back. He held a yellow veil in his hand. It was jumbled up in a ball and still the ends cascaded nearly to his ankles.
“Put this on,” he said. “I can’t parade a naked woman through the streets here, or there won’t be enough left of you to regenerate in the morning.”
Ariana smiled and wrapped the translucent silk around her shoulders, draping it across her chest and then belly. She knew that her body was still visible. Maybe even more visible; the haze of the silk only made the outlines of her nipples and bellybutton more tantalizing to the gawker.
“So what are we going to see?”
“I think I will show you what happens to humans who somehow end up here. Some of them ask for it. Some are taken. None are happy.”
“Sounds like the Curburide need to take a course in hospitality,” Ariana said.
Elotan slapped her across the face.
“How’s that?” he asked.
Ariana felt the heat spread across her cheek.
“You get an A,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 31
“THAT IS AMAZING,” Cheyenne said. They stood barefoot on the cold earth along the side of the road, staring at the moon hanging in the sky to the west. It looked as if it had been dipped in Kool-Aid. The craters and plains were all dusky red as it floated just above the edge of the horizon. Overhead, the sky was still the deep blue of night, but to the east, the sun was rising, a low blazing orb that hung in counterpoint to the bloody moon setting on the other side of the world.
“Yeah,” Joe said. “So, I guess that’s a selenelion.”
“The moon looks spooky,” Cheyenne whispered. “Like a horror movie.”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “Only, if this was a horror movie, one of us would probably have more clothes on. Namely me.”
She poked a finger at his bellybutton, and he jumped back. “I kind of like it better this way,” she said. “Why should the girl always be the one to have hard nipples and goosebumps? Why shouldn’t the guy be the one to lose his clothes and show everyone his hard…”
“Okay, you can stop right there,” Joe laughed. Without thinking, he slipped a protective arm around her bare shoulders, and she pressed herself tighter to him. Her whole body suddenly released a “shiver bomb.” Cheyenne trembled from head to toe and he squeezed her close to still her. “At least it’s not winter,” he said.
“True,” she agreed. He’d been worried when he first touched her shoulder that it was too much, too familiar. But she wrapped an arm around his back as well, cupping her hand on his hip. “But neither one of us are dressed for a desert dawn.”
“How about a selenelion?” he said.
She snorted. “I guess. But it’s almost over.”
Joe looked and saw she was right. The dusky red was faded slightly, and now the edge of the giant orb was settling below the horizon. He knew that the moon was really below the horizon already; only the refraction of the earth’s atmosphere allowed them to see both the moon setting and the sun rising at the same moment. He’d learned that much researching what this cosmic event was supposed to mean. At the moment of eclipse, the earth was actually perfectly aligned between the Sun and the Moon, the three celestial bodies in a 180-degree line. But for a few minutes both appeared visible, one rising, one setting, thanks to the refractive “lens” of earth’s atmosphere.
The breeze tickled the hair between his legs and Joe was suddenly acutely aware of their lack of clothes. It was more than a little surreal to be standing casually naked and holding each other at the edge of the desert at the edge of dawn. Watching an eclipse together. Meanwhile, demon worshippers were sacrificing people just down the road.
“This night has not gone exactly the way I had hoped,” Joe said.
“I know,” Cheyenne said. “You were hoping to connect with your girlfriend, and instead you ended up with me. Sorry I messed up your plans.”
Joe shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not. But, I really didn’t think I’d end up walking barefoot for miles on an empty road.”
“I don’t think we’ve even walked a mile yet,” she said.
“Good point. My feet already hur
t, though.”
Cheyenne nodded. Joe couldn’t help but see her breasts bob as she did. He was arm-in-arm and nude with a woman watching the dawn, and they hadn’t had sex. Well… that’s a first, he thought, just before mentally slapping himself and forcing his eyes away from her undeniably desirable body. Part of him wanted to hit on her; how often did you end up in situations like this? But part of him was also thinking of Cindy, from the Cowgirl. They weren’t committed, but he had just started something with her. And then there was Alex. He didn’t plan to start anything with her, if he found a way to bring her back from the Curburide. And yet, somehow, being with Cindy and now thinking of being with the beautiful woman next to him made him feel in a weird way like a total cheat.
“One pair of legs at a time, stud,” he said to himself. But that only made him look at the smooth skin of Cheyenne’s calves and thighs. And the thin line of dark hair at the delta of those thighs that pointed the way towards. They had escaped, and now they were alone…
Blood was now surging towards his groin and he felt a stirring that could only lead to a very visible, very embarrassing moment of truth if he allowed it to continue.
“We should probably start walking again,” he said, removing his arm from her shoulders. He instantly missed touching her though; her skin was so soft…
“Yeah,” Cheyenne said. “I don’t really want to walk into town starkers. But I definitely don’t want to be doing it at noon.”
“Hopefully someone will come along the road and give us a lift,” he said.
“Would you stop to pick up two naked hitchhikers?” she asked.
“I’d slow down at least!”
“Pig.”
Joe shrugged. “God created men, not me.”
They started walking down the road as the light of the moon finally disappeared on the horizon. But the sky was quickly growing brighter in the east. They walked on the pavement, a few feet from the edge, trying to avoid stepping on glass or rock debris that hugged the edge of the road. Or the arms of a cactus. But it was still tough on the soles of their feet.