Higher and higher we climbed. The scrub around us grew taller and eventually transformed into immense ponderosa pines, ranks upon ranks of them, their naked trunks like marching soldiers. It seemed familiar to me. This was the right way to go. Whenever there was a fork in the road, I took the less travelled route, feeling my way to some place I’d never been to before. I was past even worrying why I knew.
Eventually, I began to feel drained. Not surprising, after all we’d been through. It was amazing I’d lasted this long. The road narrowed down to two dirt tracks and then I saw a gated driveway. Over it arched a wooden signpost painted with the name Tranquility Base. That seemed hopeful at least. I got off, unlatched the gate, then drove down the long lane, framed on either side by the dense blackness of the forest. The road was mirrored above my head by a narrow ribbon of navy blue sky spiked with stars. The air felt as cold and rarefied as if I was on another planet. It was very quiet. The only sound was the bike’s rumble that vibrated throughout my body.
At the end of the lane, a large clearing opened up with a meadow of starry sky spread out above. Rising in the centre of the clearing was a rustic, two-story house built of wood with rows of windows. There were no lights and no cars parked outside. It seemed dead. I stopped the bike, put my foot down to steady it; Kithara slid off sideways and fell face forward in the dirt.
With a cry, I jumped down and rolled him over. His eyes were closed, his skin felt cold and clammy. I shook him, yelling, “Kithara, wake up!”
He moaned, which was a relief. Blood had worked its way through the towel I had taped around his back. Damn! What next? I’d better get him inside. “Stay here,” I ordered, as if he was going anywhere. I walked up to the door, knocked loudly. No answer. I got out the flashlight and walked around the back calling, “Anyone home?”
All appeared quiet. An owl hooted somewhere nearby. Of course the doors were locked. I found a rock, broke a pane out of a window off the back deck, and crawled in. Panning the flashlight around, I found a well-appointed living room with a lofty two story ceiling. There was a large fireplace in the centre and beyond that a hallway, presumably leading to other rooms. A kitchen area appeared to my right with huge windows all around. That was promising, although I felt too nauseated to eat. I found a wall switch. The lights worked. I went out the front door, hauled Kithara into a sitting position, and with hands under his armpits, dragged him into the living room and laid him out like a corpse on a rug in front of the fireplace.
What did they say about blood loss? Shock could set in? I wracked my memory to recall the symptoms and thought they included cold, clammy skin and loss of consciousness. Check, all of the above. I needed to keep him warm. A pile of wood and kindling was stacked near the fireplace. I remembered the lighter in the pocket on my jean’s leg and pulled it out. The pipe and the choi were still in there too. Thank god! Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming desire to smoke and make this unpleasant situation go away. I uncapped the tube and inhaled the familiar sweet, earthy fragrance, then firmly recapped it, and stuck it back in my pocket. I needed to keep a hold on myself because if I checked out now, Kithara would surely die.
After numerous tries, I managed to get a fire going. The warmth and bright flames were cheery and made me feel better. We might actually get through this. I removed the taped towels and examined his wound. The bleeding had stopped. Had Kithara’s weird glowing trick accomplished that? The area around the dark hole in his shoulder was bruised and had swollen tremendously. It didn’t look good. I worried about whether or not I should try to cut out the bullet. But what if that just made it worse? Leaning down, I kissed his cheek. Unaccountably, my lips seemed numb as if I’d been to the dentist. When I felt them with my fingers, they seemed swollen.
Feeling a burning need to relieve myself, I figured I should look for a bathroom. There might be bandages and antibiotic ointment for Kithara’s back and I could see what was happening to my mouth. I found a bathroom down the hall. Flipping on the light, I glanced at my reflection in the mirror, and reeled back, gasping in horror.
What the fuck had happened? My burned side was bloody and weeping as if freshly abraded and the good side had turned an ashy gray color with scaly ridges like a lizard. My eyes were bright red. Frantically, I ripped off my shirt and then my pants. Shit, it was all over my body! My stomach convulsed and I erupted like a volcano into the toilet. Oh god, oh god! This couldn’t be happening. I crawled around on the floor, mewling in terror. I couldn’t stand it. Had to check out of this nightmare right now. I picked up my jeans lying crumpled on the floor, fumbled in the pocket, pulled out the tube of choi, the pipe, and lighter. Hands shaking, I hit the pipe with flame and inhaled, then leaned back against the tub as the drug hit my system. Felt a little calmer now, although my stomach still clenched with nausea. I examined my hands which were covered in that same gray substance. It looked as if the top layer of skin had been burned into ashes. I rubbed at it and a sore opened up, weeping. It was like the plague or something! Could Kithara have caused this? If so, I was going to kill the bastard, that is, if he survived.
I sucked in more smoke, angrily musing that now my transformation to monster was complete. Maybe Sligo wouldn’t recognize me and I could go back to the circus to live out my life as a freak. I hadn’t realized how much I had needed my good side, the side that was still beautiful. Now, even that was lost to me. I couldn’t even cry.
The pressure on my bladder forced me to get up and shuffle over to the toilet. I closed my eyes until I’d finished, then realized my dick felt numb and sort of slimy in my hand. I looked down and nearly shit with fright. The skin had developed a pink, nacreous sheen, as if several layers had peeled away. A yellow discharge oozed from the end and there were growths along the side, like little fingers of fungus. At that moment, I lost it completely. Full blown hysteria. I flailed about, hitting things, hearing them fall. Dragged myself screaming along the floor. Oh fuck! I retched again, but nothing came up. Raw throat. Aching body. I banged my head against the tub, and it occurred to me that I could end this by bludgeoning myself to death. I banged it again.
A voice called to me. Cool and soothing. Kithara’s voice. The sound reverberated in blue waves like balm to my fevered brain. I couldn’t tell whether he was really calling or if it came from inside my head. Jareth, you idiot, calm down. The illness is temporary. It will pass. Trust me. Well, that sounded like him. No real answers, just more mysteries. Yet, it seemed to work. I leaned back, breathed deeply, and the pain retreated, like blowing out a match. The voice came again. Jareth, I need you.
He was sitting up, leaning against the couch and his eyes were open, regarding me hazily. Relief overwhelmed me, if from nothing more than having a friend to share my fears with. Cringing like a whipped dog, I knelt beside him and he stroked gentle fingers through my hair.
“What’s happening to me?” I whimpered.
“Althaia,” he said. “You’re becoming har.”
“It hurts.”
“I know.”
“You went through this? Why didn’t you warn me? How long?” I bit my lip to keep from crying.
“Hush,” he said. “It takes about three days. I won’t lie to you, it’ll be rough. But you’ll make it. You’re strong, Jareth. And when it’s all over, you’ll be like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, beautiful as you were meant to be. I promise.”
That calmed me down, some. Three days. It wasn’t permanent, then. I could endure for three days. But now, as the fear receded, a tide of anger washed over me.
“How did this happen? You didn’t cut me and force your blood into my veins. Isn’t that what they did to you?”
“You must have absorbed my blood through your burned face,” he said. “Apparently it didn’t take much to restart the process.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
He sighed. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be conscious. I’ve lost a lot of blood, Jareth, and I need to go back into a trance soon. Ca
n you get me some water?”
I pulled a bottle from the saddlebags and handed it to him. He drank greedily.
“What do you mean, restart the process?”
Kithara wiped the back of his mouth. “I believe that you went through a partial althaia when you were younger. That’s what caused your face to look burned.”
“What! I wasn’t really burned? What are you talking about?” I turned and flopped down in exhaustion next to him. There’s nothing like having a truth that has defined you; that you’ve lived with every day for much of your life, revealed as a lie. But I was too drained to feel as angry as I should. “Hold on. I need some medication before I listen to what you creeps did to me.” I got my pipe out again, sucked in a hit.
With a little smile, he reached out a hand. “I could use some of that. My back feels like someone smacked it with a sledgehammer.” I handed him the pipe. He took a hit and blue smoke issued from his lips. He closed his eyes. Long moments passed. “Much better,” he said dreamily.
“Don’t you go away, shithead. Not until you explain what happened to me.”
“Not now, Jareth. I can feel myself slipping away and I have something more important to tell you. I need you to remove the bullet because I can’t finish the healing process with the metal lodged in my flesh, disrupting the fields. You’ll need something to clamp off the arteries so I don’t bleed to death.”
“Oh god, Kithara, I can’t...”
“Yes,” he gripped my arm. “You can.” He shook me. “Stop freaking out and pay attention. If I don’t make it, you’ll have to go back to Carmine City on your own, seek out Thiede, and take aruna with one of our hara. If you don’t do it, the change won’t be fixed. You won’t be whole and your body will start to degenerate.”
“Oh crap. What’s aruna?”
“It’s harish sex.” He gave me a wan smile.
That didn’t sound so bad except that the transformation was kicking in again. My whole body began itching, as if insects were crawling under my skin. Frantically, I scratched at my bare legs.
He grabbed my hand, curled his fingers around it. “You mustn’t do that. It could leave permanent marks. Give me some more of your poppy. Let me sleep.”
I gave him the pipe again. “Kithara, I’m scared. I can’t do any of this. Not by myself.”
He didn’t respond, instead he took a hit, slumped back against the couch. His eyes closed. I watched him relax and the pipe dropped from his hand onto the rug, scattering chunky ashes. “No, you bastard, you can’t leave me again!” I yelled, shaking his arm.
I heard his voice in my head. Remove the bullet, Jareth. I’m counting on you. Then his consciousness winged away, like a sparrow. I was truly alone now.
Jesus. Okay, remove the bullet. What did I need? Boiling water? They always boiled water in the movies. I guess it was to disinfectant the instruments. I had a pocket knife to cut him with but I’d need to find something to clamp the artery so it didn’t bleed and I’d need bandages, lots of them, and a needle and thread. They must have those things around here somewhere.
I started to get up, but the pain hit me again, shrieking through my body like a whirlwind of locusts. I curled up into a ball, moaning, clutching my stomach, and then entered a realm of demons that seared my eyes with hot pokers, pulled out my intestines in long, snaky tubes, and gnawed off my testicles.
Awake, panting, drenched in sweat. The pale light of dawn vented in through the windows, giving the house a light, airy feeling as if we were outdoors. The fire had burned down to embers. I felt almost normal. Apparently, it was a respite in my transformation. With a start, I sat up, and looked over at Kithara. He lay at an angle, his face turned towards me, a braid of his bright hair escaping from the red bandana. Such an exquisite face. I stroked a finger down his long, narrow nose and across a high cheekbone. I wondered if he’d always been this beautiful or if becoming har had enhanced his natural appearance? His skin appeared waxen. Was he dead? I put my fingers to his neck, and after long agonizing minutes, felt a faint pulse. Hysterical laughter bubbled up from my gut. I didn’t know if I could bear another night like the last one, spent literally in hell. I only hoped I could get the bullet out of him before the pain hit me again.
Stiffly, I rose to my feet and tried to walk. Had to hobble Quasimodo-like, one leg dragging along. I found the saddle bags that I’d pulled off the bike the night before. Ravenous, I devoured one of the apples I’d packed while at the circus, which seemed like an eternity ago, and chugged down an entire bottle of water. Now it was time. I couldn’t put off the surgery anymore.
I went into the bathroom, studiously avoiding looking at myself in the mirror, and ripped the shower curtain off its rod. Searching through the drawers and medicine chest, I found some bandages, a bottle of alcohol, tweezers, and an eyelash curler, which I thought might work to clamp off the artery. I came back and dumped these things next to the sink. Rummaging around in the kitchen, I found a large pot into which I poured the alcohol, then added my pocket knife and the other instruments. They landed with loud metal clunks. A thorough search of drawers in a back bedroom finally yielded a packet of needles and a spool of white thread. They would have to do.
Spreading the shower curtain out on the floor by the fire, I rolled him onto it, threw some logs on the fire and poked it up ‘til it crackled, warming the air. I brought a lamp over so I could see, plugged it in, angled it so the light shone on his back, then went to the kitchen sink and thoroughly washed my hands. I carried the pot of implements over, setting it next to him, then used my lighter to sterilize the needle and the edge of the knife, which I set on a clean paper towel, along with the eyelash curler and the tweezers.
The area around the bullet wound was puffy and bruised; red streaks radiated from the blackened hole. This didn’t look good at all. I wondered how deep it went. Okay, Jareth, breathe, I told myself. I made an incision across the hole, extending the cut on either side. The skin was surprisingly tough and I had to lean on my hand to put enough pressure on the blade to cut through. Dark blood ran from the wound in small rivulets. I forced the incision open with my fingers and then had to stop and clench my stomach muscles to keep from puking.
More blood began to spurt from the incision. I found the little artery and clamped it with the eyelash curler, a feat that was not easy as the artery was like a piece of spaghetti. I pinched shut the other side of the artery, knotted the end of the thread around, and tied it off. It seemed to hold. Then, I sucked in a breath, stuck my finger in the hole, and probed about. Shit, I couldn’t find it. Needed to go deeper. The hole was filling with blood and I could hardly see. I ran to the kitchen and frantically dumped out drawers until I found a turkey baster. Ah, that might work. I sterilized it and used it to suck out the blood. Once that was done, I cut further down into the muscle.
A warning streak of pain shot through my abdomen. Praying to whoever would listen, I murmured, “Please, don’t let it start now. Just give me a little longer.” Probing further with my finger, I finally felt a small oblong object. At that moment, Kithara flinched and hissed through his teeth. “Hang in there buddy,” I said. At least he was alive.
Holding the wound apart with my fingers, I grabbed the bullet with the tweezers, wrenched it free, and held the bloody thing up to the light. It really didn’t seem big enough to have caused all this trouble, but it looked wicked, its nose flattened by the impact. Great gouts of blood were pumping out of the wound and I realized the knot on the artery must have come loose. Fighting both my nausea and more searing bursts of pain, I sucked the wound clear with the baster, found the artery again, and tied off both ends. Then, I pulled the lips of the wound together and sewed up the hole, even though every time I shoved the needle through the skin, it caused me to grind my teeth in disgust. I never imagined sewing living flesh like a pair of ripped jeans. Here I was, Dr. Frankenstein, patching together dead bodies. I taped bandages over the wound, then sat back, feeling dizzy. The shower curtain underneath u
s looked like I had slaughtered a pig on it. There was a bright, metallic smell. I ran to the front door, opened it to reveal the broadening light of a fair morning, and puked up apple slush on the doorstep.
Kithara lay on the couch under a blanket, his body haloed by golden light. That, at least, seemed a good sign to me. I didn’t think he could do that if he was dead. As for me, I was back in my own private hell, rolling about in pain on the bloody shower curtain, alternately boiling then freezing. My skin peeled off in great gray sheets stuck with bits of flesh. I thanked whatever deities might be in attendance that the owners of the house hadn’t returned because I could imagine their reaction to the horror being played out on their living room floor. Kithara had promised it would be over soon and I clung to that idea like a rat on a raft. I need only endure.
My memory fluttered off to an earlier time of pain when I had awakened in the hospital with my face and body burned. On the television screen in the room, I saw a time-lapse vid of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. Fascinated, I watched the creature twitch and writhe in a strange dance within its thin-skinned chrysalis. I had imagined that the caterpillar was dreaming of its rebirth as a beautiful creature, and thought how fantastic it would be if I could do that, climb into a shell of skin and emerge new and unburned, spreading my gorgeous wings in triumph. Now, wracked with pain, I wondered if the caterpillar had been writhing, not in joy, but in agony. What a cruel joke of nature if that miraculous transformation was actually a time of caterpillar hell. I cursed the Wraeththu for inflicting this horror on me, and vowed that if I survived, I’d make them pay for it.
Night came and another day after it. I clawed and bled and cursed and prayed, while my caterpillar parts rearranged themselves.
It was night again. The serene light of a waxing moon shone in the windows transforming the room to ghostly silver. I sat up, weak, shaking, as if I’d been through a long illness. Kithara’s face looked cold and pale in the moonlight, his hands folded like wings upon his chest, like one of those marble sculptures atop a tomb. I shivered. Was he dead? Rising, I stumbled over to where he lay, felt his neck, cold and dense under my fingers. No pulse.
Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn of Wraeththu Page 14
