Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast

by Winn, Jonathan

  Fuck! He needed tp. Fuckin’ toilet paper was under the sink. In the kitchen. Too wet in here. It’d get soaked. Get ruined. Everything got fuckin’ ruined in here.

  He made it the few steps down the hall into the kitchen before stopping. His legs felt raw and red. The bleeding heat of hundreds of tiny needles pricking him. Tunneling into his tendons. Probing the muscle and gouging into the bone. His guts felt sloppy and loose. His knees like they were gonna fuckin’ pop outta the joints.

  He glanced down.

  What the FUCK?

  The snakes looked back at him from his waist. Tail to tongue, the three of them stretched from his ankle, up his leg, darted under his boxers, and ran all the way past his hip almost to his rib cage. Their mouths were open and they had sharp fangs. Their eyes were blood, their bodies large and wide and shiny. They even cleaved through the tats covering his legs, the Chinese characters—fuck if he knew what they meant anymore—moving to the side. Like, the snakes were pushing them out of the way. Slicing right through them and moving them to the side.

  But no fucking way. That was impossible.

  The skin was raised and sorta red. But there were big spots of white with, what the hell, dark underneath? Like, strips of black or something? He pressed his hand against his thigh, his hip, his stomach.

  Shit, that hurt. Like fire. Way too hot. And it still buzzed. Still vibrated. He could feel it. Something living in his guts. He wanted to push on his skin again. See if it deflated. Made it feel any better. Cool it down with his hand. Thought he needed ice. But there was none. The freezer on the fuckin’ fritz. And he didn’t want to touch his skin again. Holy shit, he’d never had a trip this bad. Never crashed this hard or flown this high. Fuckin’ hell. What if his skin broke and split open and puss or white ooze or who the hell knew what leaked out?

  I’m sorry, his mom had said.

  He could see her then. The forest around them, the sun not even up. She, face down, her tube top ripped and shredding. Her skinny legs spread and her ass falling outta her shorts. The vines around her ankles, her fingers in the dirt, reaching for the porch that was too far away.

  Fuck no, he thought. Go away.

  He grabbed the tp from under the sink and turned back to the toilet.

  Let me brush my teeth first, his mom said. She cut in front of him to walk down the hall to his bathroom.

  The fuck? He stopped as she walked away. His heart pounded. His head felt light. And his skin, on his legs, his feet, his stomach, the small of his back, fuck me, it felt like it was going to tear apart. Come off in huge sheets of raw flesh. He could almost feel it stretching and pulling and ripping. Getting ready to split and slide away.

  Fuckin’ hell, he’d rather be scratching himself to shreds in hobo rehab under a fuckin’ bridge than do this. Knockin’ his head against concrete as his body freaked the fuck out. Crappin’ his pants and shooting puke out his nose. Anything but this fuckin’ Eidolon trip.

  “Mom.”

  She wasn’t yet bone. She could still keep dinner down. Still had teeth. Her arms had track marks, but no red scabs. Nothing was cracking or falling apart or leaking out like a fuckin’ creek or something. All white and yellow and green and gross.

  “Mom?”

  She stood at his sink. Flies buzzed around her as she dragged a dirty toothbrush across her teeth. Leaning forward, she spit frothy blue into the sink.

  “You can’t be here, Mom.” He couldn’t breathe. His chest squeezed tight. His face grew hot. His eyes filled with tears. He blinked and closed them. Squeezed them shut, real tight. Breathed deep. Count back from ten, bro. Count back from ten. Opened them again.

  She still ignored him. Acted like she couldn’t see him. She spit again. It was kinda red as it slid into the sink.

  She stopped, her head down, chin tucked against her chest. She held the toothbrush in her fist. Balanced herself against the sink, her hands gripping the porcelain. Her knuckles looked swollen. Like they hurt. Her tits looked flat in her tube top. The skin was kinda blue and pale . . . or something. Her wrist looked too thin. And her legs looked wrong in her shorts. Like those fuckin’ Holocaust pictures Mizz Martin showed in class once. Back in, what, 7th or 8th grade? Something like that.

  “Mom?” Shit. He sounded like some fuckin’ weak punk ass poser or something.

  She belched. A deep sound. The sound of something wet in her throat. With bubbles and spit and the threat of rancid puke. She gulped and then sighed, her head down, her eyes fixed on the sink. Was she crying again? Fuck. Her face was in shadow. A blob of spit slipped from her mouth and hung off her bottom lip. And it just fuckin’ hung there taking forever to hit the sink.

  “You’re dead, Mom.” His knees were being sliced open from the inside. The tips of countless razors carving slow, small strokes underneath his skin. Scalpels jamming between the joints and digging between the bones and scooping out the marrow. Slices of muscle being peeled from the inside. Everything just fuckin’ hurt EVERYWHERE.

  She spit into the sink again, her slobber hanging sorta red and yellow and green. No blue. And it was thick and wide, refusing to budge or fall or move.

  His head was going to explode. His eyes stung with tears. Fuck. Count back from ten, motherfucker. Count back from ten, count back from ten. Everything was fuckin’ a-okay if you fuckin’ count back from ten.

  This wasn’t real. She wasn’t there and his skin wasn’t tearing open and there were no fucking snakes. It wasn’t real. He wasn’t flyin’. His friends—the blue red yellow—they were still waiting. For later. On the coffee table. It wasn’t time. Not yet. All of this shit, it was some kinda fuckin’ lie or nightmare or hallucination or something.

  And that calmed him down for a moment. Until the drool hanging from her mouth lifted, arched its back, whipped around her neck, opened its eyes and hissed.

  “HOLY FUCK!” He hit the wall as he stumbled back and turned.

  “SON OF A BITCH!” He stopped, his body screaming. Every bit of skin feeling like it was being peeled away, inch by fuckin’ inch. Everything raw and red and on fire. The bones grinding and popping and cold as ice.

  Blinded by pain, he tripped into the living room and fell on the floor. “SHIT!”

  He was sobbing now. The searing heat wrapping him in a skin-tight blanket of red hot lava. He could barely breathe. He could barely think. There was just pain. An agony like he’d never felt before. And he wanted it to be over.

  Now.

  Crawling on hands and swollen knees to the coffee table, he grabbed a mug, praying there was a swallow of something at the bottom.

  There was.

  It was time, he thought, as he shoved

  five blue, seven red, four yellow

  into his mouth.

  ***

  “Why ‘Bullet?’” Eve had said. It was dark. Too dark. Like, a weird kinda dark that felt thick and somehow wrong. He could hear her and smell her, feel her in his arms, but he couldn’t see her as they stretched out on the mattress.

  “Pop always said I was dumber than shit,” he’d said. “That I musta been born with a bullet to the brains or something. And it just stuck.”

  She pulled away.

  “He was an asshole, but it’s cool.” He felt her scootch across the mattress.

  She’d stood to go.

  “Gonna jet?” he said.

  She didn’t say a fuckin’ word as she dressed.

  “Maybe we could, I don’t know, hang again, or something.” Well, shit, didn’t that just sound fuckin’ pathetic.

  Chill, man, Skippy once said. This was before smart dude had choked on a Glock and taken a bullet down the throat. Bitches don’t dig desperate dudes.

  Whatever.

  “Where can I find you?” He stood and stretched. Tried to see her in the dark before she left. Saw nothing.

  “Yo, Eve, where you at?”

  Still nothing.

  “You wanna hit me up? Let me give you my cell, yeah?”

  Silence.
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  What the fuck?

  He didn’t hear her walk across the apartment. Or open the door to leave. Didn’t hear her go into the bathroom or anything. But she wouldn’t answer and he couldn’t even fuckin’ feel her in the room.

  The fuck?

  “Eve?”

  He looked for a light. Was careful to step around the broken coffee table. Hated the thought of anything stabbing into him, even if it was some small ass splinter or something. His foot touched his boxers. Bent over to pull ‘em up. Felt the muscles in his back and hips scream.

  Fuck! How hard had he drilled the bitch? Damn. He was too fuckin’ young to feel this fuckin’ old.

  “Yo, Eve, where you at?” Hands out, like he was blindfolded it was that fuckin’ dark, he found the wall. Inched his way across it to where the light switch should be. Couldn’t find it. “Talk to me.”

  “What about your mom?” she said. Out of fuckin’ nowhere, her voice had just been there. Like, right against his skin, his face, his lips.

  “FUCK!” He jumped back. “Fuck, man. SHIT. Son of a fuckin’ bitch. Shit. Scared the fuck outta me.” He laughed. “Holy christ, Eve. Why didn’t you answer, babe?” He reached out and found her standing against the wall.

  “Tell me about your mom,” she said.

  “Nah, man. Another time.” His hands found her shoulders, her neck, the curving slope of her small breasts. She was naked. And cold. Too cold. “Here.” He moved to bring her into his arms. Hug her tight. Warm her up.

  She backed off.

  “You left her,” she said. Her voice sounded strange. Hollow. Like, not coming from her or something. Sorta like when someone talks from the other end of a door or whispers at the end of a very long hall. That kind of hollow. “On the ground. In the woods. You left her.”

  He stopped, not sure what to say. “What?”

  “Minutes after you left, they found her.”

  “Who? What? Wait, wait, wait, hold on a minute, here. What are you talking about? Who found—”

  “Was she dead?”

  “Huh?” His throat hurt. Had burned hot with each swallow. And his nose and the space between his eyes thumped. He felt sick, his skin feverish and aching. “Fuck, babe. Yeah, I think so.”

  “And if she wasn’t?”

  “The fuck? I don’t know. She was sick, you know? I was, shit, what, seventeen or something? Fuck!” He reached for her and found the wall. She moved. Reached wider and had found her face, her shoulders. “What was I supposed to do? Huh? You tell me. What the fuck was I supposed to do?”

  “She saw herself fall.” Her voice sounded weak and far away. “Saw herself leave the porch and trip over the broken branches and fall. Saw you find her and saw you leave. Saw you run. Didn’t see your tears—”

  He strained to hear her, almost pressing his face against the wall. But that hadn’t made sense. “Babe, please—”

  “Because you didn’t cry.”

  “Don’t do this-”

  “She saw them come.”

  “Stop.” He moved to her again. Found her, her face cupped in his hands. “Why you doin’ this, huh? How do you know this? The fuck, Eve? What is this? Why?”

  His lips had found her. He pressed his mouth to hers, hard. Kissed her quiet, her forked tongue sliding along his teeth and slipping

  five blue, seven red, four yellow

  onto his tongue.

  He stopped as she’d pulled back. Held her face in his hands as she’d gone into the wall. Like, as flat as the wall itself. Became the fuckin’ wall. Disappeared into the goddamn fuckin’ wall.

  What the—?

  “Eve?” He felt the wall. Had reached wide. Found only more wall. Reached low, high. Found nothing. Groped like some broke-ass blind man in the dark only to feel the smooth cold of flat fuckin’ wall. “Babe?”

  He found the light switch. The lights had flickered on.

  Nothing. She wasn’t there. He looked around. The coffee table wasn’t broken. He could taste the pills in his throat. Had felt his nose where her head had butted him. Nothing. No blood. Looked at his fingers. No red. Nothing.

  The fuck?

  He looked at the mattress. Covers as tangled as ever, but no sign of her. No sign of them screwing. Nothing. No needle. No ink. Nothing, man. Like she’d never even been there. His head felt fucked up. Cloudy. Woozy. His skin had kinda itched or something. Felt cold on the inside. Every breath had hurt. His guts had turned. His head pounded. He could feel his intestines shifting and moving. Could feel them dropping. Like he’d be squirting shit any second. And the inside of his ears itched and his eyes burned. He closed them. Squeezed them tight.

  At some point, he sat down. And then laid down. At some point, his eyes closed, the taste of five blue, seven red, four yellow on his tongue, his mind struggling with Eve just becoming the wall.

  The fuck?

  ***

  He smelled rotten wood first. Wet, rotten wood. Damp dirt. Dust and grime. The feeling of something crawling underneath his head. Beneath the floor boards and through the dirt, a hidden something just inches away.

  This was the old house. The last house. The abandoned one in the woods. After Pop skipped town, the fucker, and Mom got too sick to work.

  “Five bucks for a hand job?” she said. “Too fuckin’ old and sick and tired for that kind of shit. Won’t even get us McDonald’s.”

  So, flat ass broke and hungry as fuck, they fled. Headed out of town and found a shack. “It’ll do,” she said as they broke down the door and stood in the one room hut. “Get wood for the fire.” She looked at him as she’d opened the rusted, metal door of the wood burning stove. “Go!” And knowing she was sick and dying, he left to gather wood, whatever the hell that meant.

  He screwed his eyes shut. Held his breath. It’s a dream, he said to himself. I’m on Eidolon. She’s dead. The shack is gone. That happened and it’s in the past, you know?

  Chill, man, Skippy with the fucked up blond hair said. Cool dude. Gayer than Christmas, but cool. Always fuckin’ with his hair and shit. Whatever. Just chill.

  Fuckin’ shit was fucked up. He brought his knees to his chest. His guts were moving. Jumping and turning. Reaching and wiggling. Bumping into each other and getting all tangled up in knots. Even pushing against his skin. Like he could put his hand on his stomach and feel ‘em slithering. But there was no fucking way he was going to push on his skin. Fucker could break and split open and, oh hell no, no way.

  He opened his eyes.

  Instead of the shit hole on Eidolon, he saw the shack. Windows covered with heavy plastic. Rotting wood. His mother sitting on the floor, her back against the wall. It was early morning. Still dark. She wore a stained, ripped tube top and shorts that were too short. Her lips and the flesh around her eyes were yellow. Her arms were pale and thin and scarred with weeping scabs, two on each forearm, three more on her chest. Patches of flaking white and seeping red that puckered and cracked and split when she moved. And the nails on her hands had turned blue. Five spots of blue at the tips of her long fingers.

  He caught her scent. The smell of curdled blood and sick flesh. The stench of crumbling teeth and a bladder that leaked sour piss. The skin on her fingers had shrunk to the bone, the knuckles round and swollen. And her body was turning white, too white, and looked cold. Every breath from her made his eyes water and his stomach jump.

  He blinked. The shack shimmered and bent, Eidolon peeking through for a moment. The TV, the coffee table. The stained walls and his five blue, seven red, four yellow. But I’ve taken the five blue, seven red, four yellow, he thought. How many times? How many have I taken? How many were there?

  Shit. No fuckin’ clue, man.

  He watched as the shack tried to return. He blinked. Pushed away the past. “Fuck no, man.” He closed his eyes. “Go away.” Took a breath. Opened his eyes again.

  The shack. Still early morning. Moonlight shining through the broken windows. She laid on the floor. Pressed her face to the rotten wood as sh
e sobbed. Her thin shoulders rising. Her body freakin’ out. Head knocking against the floor. Fists clenching. Hips rising and falling. Bloody brown smeared on the back of her thighs. Laying in her own piss. Drawing her knees to her chest and then straightening her legs. Over and over. Knees to chest and then straight, her toes flexing as she groaned and sobbed and puked and shit.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. The words were spoken into the wood. “Shitty stomach can’t keep anything down.”

  Get up. Get up and go away. Just leave. You smell. You’re sick. Too fuckin’ sick. And I don’t know what the fuck to do with you. So, just get up. Get the fuckin’ hell up and go away and die.

  She rose to her knees. Eidolon came back for a moment. She kneeled on his carpet. Her hand lunged for the plastic crate, the TV as she struggled to stand. She stood and doubled over, thick orange piss sliding down her leg to spread in a puddle at her feet. The yellow of the walls matched the yellow of her lips. “I’m sorry,” she said again. She sounded weak. Tired.

  “Go,” he said, his teeth clenched. He closed his eyes. Pushed his face into the mattress. Wished away the pain in his hands, his guts, his legs, his skin. Wished away the nightmare of his whore of a mother taking too long to die. Counted back ten, nine, eight, seven, six—

  “I’m dying,” she said.

  “I know,” he said into the mattress.

  She breathed, the sound rattling in her lungs and wheezing from her throat.

  Five, four, three, two—

  “It’s cold.” She was crying. He could hear the snot in her nose. Could imagine it running onto her top lip. He squeezed his eyes closed. Could still see her in his mind. Her hand to her stomach, standing in an orange puddle, hunched over as if in pain. Her hair thin and greasy. The sores around her mouth leaking down her chin as she grimaced and sobbed. Her eyes sunken and sad. “I need air.”

  “Then go,” he said, his face still in the mattress. Fuck, there was no way he was gonna look at her.

  “It might rain.” Her voice came from the dark. Outside. On the porch. “Don’t get sick.”

  He counted back from ten again. Smelled dirt and wet wood again. Felt the trees and the hills and the leaves waiting outside. Fuckin’ surrounded by trees and hills and leaves. “The sun’s not even up yet,” he heard her say. He heard her stumble. Heard the boards creak and the breeze rustle the plastic nailed over the windows. Felt the chill in the air. Knew strange things, things with teeth and claws and appetites, waited in the dark behind the trees, around the trees, up in the branches of the trees.