by Amy Cross
"You love me?" I say, finding it kind of weird that a guy I barely know could say he loves me. Still, it's nice to hear the words. No-one's ever told me they love me before.
"You have no idea," he says, smiling. "I've been watching you for months. Following you. I know it sounds crazy, but I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. I know you don't love me back. You don't even know me. But that's my fault. I'm a monster."
"You're not," I say.
He puts his hands together and pulls, and one of his arms comes off as the stitches break. He throws it onto the floor. "I'm a monster," he says quietly. "I was created to be one type of monster, and I rebelled and became another. I can't keep trying desperately to live. I have to accept that I was a failed experiment." He takes a deep breath. "I was born to kill, but after a while I found I wanted to be something else. I wanted to be human. I'm so sorry I almost killed you."
I feel tears coming to my eyes again. "Why didn't you?" I ask.
"I didn't..." He suddenly starts coughing, and blood sprays from his mouth. It takes him a moment to recover his composure. "I didn't want to deprive the world of such a beautiful person," he says.
"I'm not beautiful," I say. "At best I'm alright, but I'm far from beautiful."
"That's what you think," he says, his voice getting weaker.
"You can't die," I continue. "We'll find a way to keep you alive. We'll find somewhere to get new body parts, and we'll find some blood from somewhere. We can do it!" I suddenly feel as if keeping Comfortable alive is the most important thing in the world. He loves me, and nobody else does. Maybe I can love him too? "We can find a way," I insist, "as long as you keep fighting."
"The only way to stay alive is to be a monster," he says, "and you can't love a monster. So..." His voice starts to trail off, as if he's losing consciousness. "I'd kill you," he says quietly. "It's better this way."
"Stay alive!" I urge him. "We'll find a way to make it work! You just have to stay with me! I'll go back to the funeral home and find more body parts. We can go to the cemetery and get loads of body parts. We can..." I stop speaking as I realize there's no point any more. "We can..."
He's dead.
I start crying. I don't know why. I didn't really know him, and he came close to killing me, but I've got this strange feeling that if we'd met in different circumstances, we could have been good together. If only he'd given me a chance to help him find a way to overcome his problems. He wasn't a monster. He was just a guy who, for whatever reason, was created differently to everyone else. Damn it, why does Sophie get a hot, healthy vampire and I get a dying monster who has no idea how to stay alive?
I sit with him for a while. As the sun slowly dips in the sky, I feel as if it'd be wrong to leave. Part of me hopes that he suddenly wakes up, but eventually I accept that there's no chance of that. Finally, I lean close to him and kiss the side of his face, and then I get to my feet and walk slowly toward the stairs. Noticing some books piled on a desk, I wander over and find piles and piles of faded old notebooks. I look through some of them and find that they seem to be part of some kind of experiment. They look old, as if they've been gathering dust for decades. Finally, glancing toward the window, I see a series of jars, each containing what looks like a tiny fetus.
I look back over at Comfortable. What kind of experiments created him?
Leaving the building, I'm shocked to see a figure walking towards me. It's Patrick. He stops as he reaches me, and I look down to see that he's carrying a can of gasoline.
"How long have you been here?" I ask, tears still in my eyes.
He stares at me. He has a different look on his face, though, as if he's almost sorry for what's happened. Has he started to show more emotion, or have I just got better at seeing what was already there?
"Do you know who created him?" I ask. "Who made Comfortable?"
He pauses for a moment, and then he nods.
"You should talk more," I say. "It'd be really fucking helpful sometimes." I pause. "So you're gonna burn the place down, huh?" I stare at the gasoline can. "I guess that's the only way to cover up a mistake."
Without responding, he steps past me and heads toward the building.
"Is Sophie dead?" I call after him.
He stops and turns to me. There's a new look in his eyes, a kind of pain mixed with sadness. It's almost as if he's answering me.
"Is she dead?" I ask. "I can't get hold of her, and I'm scared she..." I pause, fighting back the tears. "Just tell me if she's dead. At least tell me that. You spoke to me once before, and you told me two things... The first was that Sophie would die soon, and the second was that one day I'd have to give my life to save her daughter." I take a deep breath. "Has it happened? Is she dead? I thought I'd be there when it happened, but has it happened already?"
He doesn't move. He just stares at me, and I get this sensation of overwhelming sorrow. Surely if Sophie was still alive, he'd let me know, right? He'd give me some kind of sign? But no. He just stands there for a moment, and then he turns and walks toward the building. I stay where I am, rooted to the spot, tears running down my face as I face the fact that my best friend is almost certainly dead. After a few minutes, with the sun really low in the sky and the park getting dark, I see the flickering orange light of a fire starting to develop in the building. I guess Comfortable's body is going up with the rest of the place.
I turn and walk away. I don't need to see this. I know it's gonna burn long and hard. I don't need to see the whole fire; just the first flicker of a flame is enough.
Epilogue
Two months later.
"Hey," I say, my voice trembling. "I need..."
I pause.
What do I say?
I take a deep breath. "It's me," I say, speaking into my phone. "I've tried calling and calling and calling, and I still can't get in touch with you, so I can only assume that you're..." I take another deep breath. If I'm ever going to move on, I have to say the word. "You're dead," I say finally. There. I said it. Sophie's dead.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save you," I say, trying to keep it together. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there. I'm sorry..." I pause, trying to find the right words. Damn it, why can I never be eloquent? "I'm just sorry," I say finally.
I lean against the wall and put my hands over my ears, trying to block out the noise of the bus station. "I don't know if ghosts can pick up their voice mail. Maybe not. But I just wanted to say that I'll miss you. More than anything. I know stuff was crazy after you met Patrick, but I really thought..."
I sniff back more tears.
"I really thought we'd find a way, you know? I really thought we'd somehow stop him, and stop everything. But now I... I don't know if... I hope Abigail's okay. I hope somehow you managed to save her before... I guess there was some final showdown with Patrick. It's weird, I always knew that'd happen but I always thought I'd be there with you. I guess it happened somewhere else. I hope you weren't alone, but I suppose you were, and -"
I pause as there's an announcement over the tannoy.
"I have to go," I say. "I won't call again. That'd be weird and maudlin. But I'll always remember you, Sophie. I'll always remember the good times, and I'll try to make you proud of me." I pause. This is it. Time to say goodbye. "Seeya later," I say finally, disconnecting the call.
I turn and walk toward the bus. Double-checking that the money's still in my pocket, I climb onboard. I've spent fifty dollars on a one-way ticket to New York. I don't have a place to stay there, I don't know anyone there, and I don't have a job. Hell, I don't even know what I want to do.
All I know is that I have to get out of this place. There are too many ghosts here.
The bus pulls away and drives through early morning Dedston. It's getting light. People are going to work, shops are opening up. The town's coming to life. I guess every place has its own rhythm, its own way of moving. New York's gonna be a bit different to Dedston.
I take a deep breath.
Many,
many, many hours later, the bus pulls into the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York. As I step out, I'm kind of dazed by the thought that I'm really, actually in New York. I've seen it in so many movies and TV shows and photos, but I was starting to think maybe it wasn't a real place. But it's real. It's very, very real, and it smells rough and dirty. That's something you never get from pictures of a place. You never get the smell.
Reaching up to my neck, I feel the crescent moon necklace. It was Sophie's once, and it's all I have left from our friendship. Maybe I'll give it to her daughter one day. After all, Patrick told me that one day I'll meet Abigail, and I'll save her life. We'll see. For now, I want to forget about everything that happened in Dedston.
I walk the streets. I've heard there are cheap places where you can rent a room for a few dollars a night. Then I'll have to start looking for a job. Any job. It's exciting and scary at the same time. I cross the street in the middle of a huge crowd of people, and then I just keep walking and walking. As I go on, it feels as if all the buildings are closing around me, leaving Dedston far behind, and I'm soon lost in the darkness and distance of the city.
Book Six
Spider, Spider
Prologue
"We give it five minutes," David says as we pull up at the parking lot, "and then we give up and get out of here." He reaches up and switches off the siren. "I'm not risking my shit just to look for some space-case who took too many pills."
"Deal," I say as we both get out of the ambulance. It's late on a Saturday night in downtown Dedston, aka the last place on Earth anyone would want to be. It's like a wasteland out here. All the good, God-fearing citizens of this town are locked in their homes. The only people out and about this late are the crack addicts and their dealers, and a few drunks who've got nowhere to go. There are police sirens in the distance. Sometimes it feels like the whole town is just falling apart.
Fishing a torch from my pocket, I turn it on and shine it across the parking lot. About ten minutes ago, we got a call saying that a middle-aged male had been spotted around here. The caller said the guy was acting strangely, like he was completely out of his mind. Apparently he was just wandering slowly along, ignoring everything and everyone around him. Normally we'd not bother with calls like that, not around here, but this guy was apparently in a business suit and looked pretty well-off. Then again, you can never judge a book by its cover. Some of the richest, most successful people get an urge to stick a needle in their arm, and then there's no looking back.
"There's no-one here," I say, finishing a cursory glance around the lot. "Come on."
I turn back to the ambulance.
"Wait," says David, pointing toward the trash cans. "Over there."
I look over and see that there's someone standing in the shadows. What's really creepy is that he seems to be just loitering, staring at us. It's too dark to see what he looks like, but there's a chance this is the guy we're looking for.
"It's times like this," I say wryly, "that I wish we carried guns."
"Come on," David says, stepping toward the trash cans.
"Woah!" I say, grabbing his arm. "Are you serious? In this neighborhood? The odds are, that guy's just gonna shoot us dead and steal the ambulance. We've got all sorts of drugs in there; it's like a candy shop for the guys around here."
"We can't just ignore the call," David says. "There's two of us. We can handle him."
"Not if he's got a fucking handgun," I say. There's a pause. "I'm serious," I add, glancing over toward the shadows, and seeing the guy staggering a couple of steps closer. "This is too risky."
"We have a duty to see if this guy needs our help," David insists. "We can't just turn around and leave."
"He's a fucking crack-head," I hiss back. "There's a difference between doing our duty and throwing our fucking lives away by waltzing over to some fuckwit in a dark parking lot."
"That's why I've got this," David says, unzipping one of his side pockets and pulling out a small gun.
"Holy shit," I say, stepping back. I'm not a big fan of guns, having seen first-hand the mess they can make of a person's body.
"Don't give me that 'Holy shit' crap," David continues, smiling. "It's not exactly standard issue, but there's no fucking way I go out to the dead spots of town without some fucking protection." He pauses. "I've got us covered, okay?" He takes a few steps toward the trash cans and then holds the gun up. "Dude!" he shouts. "Come closer and keep your hands where I can see them."
This is fucking ridiculous. We're paramedics, trained to come out and help people, yet here we are pointing a gun at some guy. It's like we're play-acting at being cops, threatening a guy who might well be sick. Then again, we're only reacting to circumstances. Dedston's a rough town. A guy's gotta protect himself and if that means carrying a gun, then so be it. Besides, David's not hot-headed. He'll only use the gun as a last resort. I trust him completely.
"Come closer!" David shouts again. "If you don't come out of the shadows, we're not going to come in and get you. You've gotta meet us halfway, buddy." He pauses, watching as the guy staggers slowly toward us. "Can you walk properly?"
The dark figure takes a couple more tottering steps in our direction. It's clear he can't really walk very well, but he's doing his best. He certainly doesn't seem to be very threatening, and my initial guess is that for some reason he's totally spaced out. My fear starts to subside. This guy's not dangerous, and I don't think he's on drugs. It looks like he's genuinely got a problem of some sort.
"David," I say, "I think it's okay. Put the gun down."
"No fucking way," he replies.
"Put the gun down," I say again, more firmly this time.
We watch as the guy steps out of the shadows and into the harsh electric glare cast by a nearby streetlight. He's a middle-aged guy in a well-fitted suit. He looks pretty good, like the kind of guy who's got a good job, maybe a decent family life. Certainly not the kind of bum you see around these parts. Sometimes you meet a rich guy who's fallen on hard times, but this doesn't seem like that kind of case. There's something else wrong with this guy. My immediate thought is that he's suffering from Cysticercosis, a condition where brain function deteriorates due to the presence of pork tapeworms in the cerebral cortex. It's fatal, and it's not a nice way to die.
David and I step closer to the guy. As David puts his gun away, I peer into the guy's eyes and see that his pupils are extremely dilated. Something's definitely wrong with his brain. This is some kind of neurological issue, which means it's serious. We need to get him to the hospital so a specialist can take a look at him. I've seen guys with similar issues before, and they don't usually make it. Damage like this isn't reversible. Once you lose part of your brain, it's gone forever.
"Can you hear me?" I ask, briefly glancing at David and seeing the look of concern on his face. "Can you tell us your name?"
The guy slowly turns and looks at me. He seems to be able to follow basic commands, or at least to recognize when people are addressing him. It's like the lights are on, but nobody's home. He's little more than a walking vegetable.
"I'm going to check for a wallet," David says, speaking very clearly and slowly so that the guy will hopefully understand. People with severe neurological issues can still become violent with very little provocation. David reaches down and puts his hand in the guy's pocket, and pulls out a wallet. Taking a look inside, he finds a bank card. "Aaron Miller," he says, showing me the card. "So Aaron, how'd you end up in this state, huh?"
I take the wallet from David and do a quick search for anything that might have an address, but there's nothing. All I find are some random business cards with other names on that, a couple of condoms, and some blank checks.
"Aaron, we're going to get you some help, okay?" David says, speaking to Aaron as if he's a child. "If you can hear me in there, please don't worry. We're going to make sure everything's okay."
I suddenly notice something dark on Aaron's face, just beneath his left eye. It lo
oks like a small black spot at first, perhaps a mole but then I realize it's moving. I look closer and see what appears to be a small black stalk coming out from the center of the black spot. It's as if something's wriggling beneath the skin. "What the hell's that?" I ask, peering closer.
"Some kind of infestation," David says. He puts the wallet in his pocket. "Aaron, we're going to take you to hospital, do you understand? There's something wrong with -" He pauses as the black object gets bigger; a moment later, it becomes apparent that a small spider is breaking its way out through the guy's skin. As soon as it's free, it starts crawling down his face and another spider starts climbing out through the same hole.
"What the fuck?" David says, stepping back.
Aaron stumbles forward, and I try to support him as he reaches out at something. It's like he's trying to grasp at something that only he can see. He's close to death, and he wants help. God knows whether he's aware of the spiders that are coming out of his face.
"Let go of him," David warns me. "We don't know if they're poisonous."
I step away from Aaron, and he stumbles forward. David and I watch him for a moment.
"Aaron!" David calls out.
He stops, and then he turns to us. There are three spiders on his face now, and more spots appearing all over his skin where other spiders are pushing their way out.
"Have you ever seen anything like this?" I ask David.
He shakes his head.
Aaron stumbles toward us, but we move out of the way. He turns to me and reaches out, trying to grab me.
"Keep back," I say. "We'll help you, but you have to keep back, okay?" I turn to David, and it's clear that he's as worried as I am. We've been through a lot of training, and we've never encountered anything like this. The occasional spider infestation of the ear is certainly possible, perhaps even the sinus cavities. But now there are half a dozen small spiders on the guy's face, with more bursting out from various holes all across his face.
