by Rio Youers
I want to be hungry, I want to pull over and order a cheeseburger and fries, a large coke, a diner filled with shiny, happy people. I want to say hello to Mabel or Alice and have her smile and put her hand on a cocked hip, call me Hon or Shug, a bell dinging in the window, the counter filled with cowboys, and truck drivers, and that one haggard salesman with his tie loosened, dingy white shirt unbuttoned.
I want it so bad that it aches.
Instead, I get one more photo—and it’s Jim from accounting, and his wife. Jennifer? Julie? There are doctors and beeping lights, the cold tile holding wheels that squeak, as machines are pushed around, a flurry of footsteps filling the cold, sterile air. There was a child, I was told, but whether it was a boy or a girl, I can’t tell you. I should know those details. If I was anything resembling a human being.
I take a breath, the road unfurling, and yet, the desert stays on my right, the horizon forever looming, the mountains to the left quiet in their dismissal.
On that particular day, something was due. It’s not important what it was—report, numbers, article, paper, results, opinion, facts. I grip the steering wheel harder, knuckles white, pushing the car down the never-ending highway, that diner always just out of reach.
A sharp pain in my ribs causes me to let go of the wheel, gently massaging the spot, knowing it won’t do me any good. A cough rattles into my fist, and I rub the red on my shirt.
Here we go.
What did I say? I can’t remember.
I yelled at my secretary, it’s coming back now, the desk, the glass windows in the office spilling the city for miles in every direction. My back was to her, as I screamed, face red with rage, fists clenched at my sides. Tan, standing tall, the suit custom-made, the tie special-order, the ring on my left finger platinum, the watch shimmering gold.
Never sick a day in my life.
She pleaded with me.
Stockholders, I said. I can’t count on him.
Her lips pursed.
You don’t understand, I argued.
Rubbing my temples, I never looked at her once.
Make it happen.
Not long after that, she was a ghost too. Marlie. Or Mary. Dammit. What was her name?
The road turns to the right, as the Chevy hugs the dotted yellow line, and I cough again, slow with my hand, spattering the dashboard, and it’s the mirrors again, the road behind me empty, the back seat slowly filling with shadows.
No, not yet.
This one, it hurts less, it’s almost bearable.
And then it shifts, the pain, my hands curling into claws, as my mouth opens in a silent gasp.
This is how it goes, I know.
I can’t hold the wheel, so I ease off the gas, the car drifting to the right, trying to bat at the controls, to keep this ton of steel from veering off the shoulder and into the desert, but this will fail too, I know, and then we hit something.
Rock, hole, curb, turtle—who the fuck knows.
Doesn’t matter.
I’d like to say there was disorientation and then darkness, but not here, not now. That would be a gift.
Out of reflex I stamp my right foot toward the brake, but it’s too late. And then we roll. I push my foot against the floor to try and brace myself as glass shatters, shards imbedded in my face and neck, my eyes closed tight. The car dents and shudders, my right leg snapping at the ankle, something pushing into my chest, the steering wheel fracturing my ribs, and then it stops.
I’m briefly granted a respite, the darkness finally slipping in, and for a moment, I forget it all. But not for long. It’s the pain that brings me back.
The sun fades while I bleed, as I labor for breath, in and out, a stabbing pain when I try to inhale, my hands throbbing, a dull panic all the way to the bone, a whimper escaping my split lips.
When I open my eyes, in the last remnants of daylight, as I count the pulsing horrors that riddle my body, and a dozen voices scream out in suffering.
I hear footsteps in the dirt, and gravel, and glance to the open window.
It won’t be the cancer that gets me. Maybe not even the accident. And certainly not old age. I see four legs saunter up to the car—gray fur, and paws with sharp black nails. I hear a panting that I had thought was in my head, my own struggling for breath, but no, it’s something else. The heavy breathing turns to a low growl, and then the four legs turn to eight and then sixteen.
So, this is how it happens, I laugh.
Points for originality.
And amidst the musky smell of mangy fur and sour urine, I see her black patent leather shoes. The shiny buckle. And the dainty white socks.
And then I smell the gasoline.
When I turn to the window they’re gone.
Out of the frying pan, and into the fire.
There is a spark, and I start screaming.
***
Open your eyes, Graysen.
The shack is filling with a heat that rises up from the desert, and I run my fingers over my body searching for the new marks—gently touching my ribs, covering my eyes and feeling my face for cuts, mottled flesh, rotating my ankle in slow, little circles.
There is the cot upon which I lie, the same itchy, green blankets and the door frame open to the elements, sand slipping in, a single red scorpion ambling over the threshold. As always, I am naked, and alone. My lips are cracked, mouth dry, so I sit up and contemplate water. There is a well outside, I think. There used to be, anyway.
I know, I say to the critter as it skitters toward me. It’s not your fault, it’s merely in your nature. It heads between my bare feet and under the cot, to a tiny hole in the back of the room, where it disappears.
Water.
I turn to the corner first, take a deep breath, and nod at the girl.
Today she is in a pair of denim overalls, her feet bare, with a pink t-shirt under the straps, ruffles at the edge of the sleeves, and a silver necklace that looks like a daisy.
Always the daisies.
Her hair is loose today, down past her shoulders, and she smiles a little, eyes on me the entire time, taking a single step toward me. Her hands are still behind her back, but I don’t need to see. I’ve been shown already, so many times.
But I’d like to mark our progress.
She’d like to see me suffer.
Before I can find my way to the well outside, my throat clutching, forcing down a swallow, a tarantula the size of my fist meanders through the door, and I back up a bit, uneasy with the way its legs move, undulating over the faded wood floor, skimming the dust, the hair on its legs making my skin crawl. It looks so meaty—the idea of my bare foot squashing it sends a shimmer across my flesh, as my stomach rolls, my top lip pulled back in a snarl.
It follows the path of the scorpion, but this time I pull my feet up, letting it move past me, under the cot, and into the hole in the wall, which seems to have expanded.
Eyes to the girl, but she’s gone now.
I’m not surprised. So much work to do.
I stand up, licking my lips again, my swollen tongue gently prodding the cuts and sores that line my mouth, trying to find any moisture at all. The photos spiral into the air, one after another, back to my childhood, fanned out like a hand of cards, as the memories come rushing back. I want to open my eyes, to push the images away, but open or closed, it doesn’t matter, as these visions force their way into my mind. The magnifying glass and the ants; the pet hamster set on a record player as it spins around and around; the egg found in a henhouse and squashed, it’s pale flesh wrapped around that singular bulbous blue eye; the cat buried up to its neck, so trusting in its innocence as the riding mower started up; the family dog wolfing down the steak while I waited for the poison to take effect.
And then I hear a woman scream.
The flash of red stands in the doorway—the desert fox still, as if stuffed—black beady eyes on me, ears turning this way and that. It barks once, and looks around, as if wondering where it is. It opens its jaws wide
again, and then screams into the room.
It is unholy.
And then it’s gone.
When the rattlesnake slithers into the room I know there won’t be any water for me today, and I can hardly swallow. It’s getting difficult to breathe, the snake’s tail shaking like a baby’s rattle, winding its way across the sandy floor, and then darting under the cot and through the hole.
Too easy, I know.
I close my eyes for a second, and when I do there is a cavalcade of clicking insects, scurrying through the door in a wave of tiny bodies. Centipedes in red and brown, beetles with their iridescent shells, a flurry of wasps and bees filling the air with a dull buzz. I cover my eyes and cower in the corner, but they only dance about the room and then disappear.
And then they get larger, the creatures of the desert, progressing up the food chain. A pack of dogs, sniffing and yipping, fill the room in a clutch of mania—coyotes and jackals and wolves circling each other, snapping and tearing out mouthfuls of fur, their eyes wide in a seething mass of hunger and anxiety, as I push back against the wall. They weave in and out, like some biting, dying ocean of gnashing teeth, and yet they hardly seem to notice me at all.
What I’d give for a single glass of water.
What I’d give to not be torn limb from limb.
In their sudden absence the soft, red glow of the sun descending fills the empty door frame, and a shadow lurches past, a head of horns leaping, and landing, and then leaping again. It passes by, never entering. As I hear the dull thud of its movement push on down the road, it screeches as if caught in a trap, and then suddenly it goes quiet.
When the darkness fills the opening again, it is much larger, blocking out the light bit by bit until there is no sunlight left to give. And yet, it still is not in sight. A smell wafts into the room, something thick and meaty, and I gag in the growing night. Whether on two legs or four, hooved or clawed, the thick odor of rotting flesh and fetid liquid spills across the room, filling my mouth with a bitter, itching sensation. It is the smell of burning carapace, the sickly-sweet copper of blood crescendoing across a flat surface, the foul rot of diseased flesh slipping from the bone.
I hold my hand to my mouth and close my eyes, trying to remember the shine of her buckle, the gentle fabric of the pristine sock, as my flesh is painted crimson, skinned alive—flayed for the desert to feed on in primal hunger.
***
Open your eyes, Graysen.
The shack is filling with a heat that rises up from the desert, and I do not open my eyes this time. I sob in my solitude, understanding so many things now.
And yet, there is more.
I have not been enlightened just yet.
There are depths to be plumbed, dark sparks that were pushed so far down that I thought they’d never see the light of day again.
The girl is here, but I refuse to look at her, whatever romper or summer dress she might be wearing today. Her innocence is a skin she wraps around her like a snake, ready to shift and molt at a moment’s notice.
I can see her anyway, and this time she holds her hands out, something in them, reminding me why we’re here.
I don’t want to see it.
I won’t open my eyes.
You will, she says.
When the perfume drifts to me, it is as if I have awoken in a field of flowers—a basic pleasure that was taken from me such a long time ago.
It takes me back to my youth.
The citrus is a sharp note in the dry, acrid desert—the orange and plum making my mouth water. The jasmine and rose are a lightness that washes over me, so I inhale deeply, the tension finally unclenching. The patchouli and sandalwood conjure up slick flesh and burning incense, the images spiraling back.
No, please.
My first love.
I try to sit up, to open my eyes, and yet, there is only the darkness. And then I feel her touch.
It is such a simple mercy.
Her hands run over my scarred, withering flesh and she whispers in my ear, unintelligible words, a cacophony of gentle incoherence. Her eager mouth and gentle tongue press up against my neck, and my heart beats a rabbit-kick in a ribcage crisscrossed with scars.
What, speak up, say it again?
She pushes me back down, her lips brushing my mouth, my eyelids, my cheeks, and then she bites, drawing blood. Pushing me down harder, my head strikes the wood of the cot frame, her mouth at my neck where the whispers turn to threats.
My eyes are open now, and yet, I cannot see.
Her fingernails run down my arms, beads of crimson rising to the top of my leathery flesh, and I am so weak now, so vulnerable.
No, I say.
If only it was that simple, she replies.
The photos appear now, in black and white—flashes of skin across so many years, in the back seats of cars, in dingy apartments where beer cans litter the floor, and then later, on glorious sheets made of Egyptian cotton, the thread count in the thousands, instrumental music in the background, candles burning in the muted darkness.
Not yet, she said.
The others, the same. An echo into the void.
Not tonight
Wait.
Please.
And the notes change now, to something musky, my stench rising to the surface—the salty tang of panic, my sour mouth gasping fear and confusion layered over shock.
Her hands are so strong, in the dark, and I am vulnerable to her base defilement, flipping me over, her strength growing, as the air grows foul. There is something else with us now, whatever love becomes when it is betrayed, the jasmine wilting, the fruit decaying in a liquid covered by buzzing flies, and she takes from me now, what I took from her then.
I plead for her to stop, asking for forgiveness.
But it does me no good.
***
Open your eyes, Graysen.
The shack is filling with a heat that rises up from the desert and the girl holds out her hands, the scroll unfurling, to the floor and out across the empty room, the scripture filled with so very many transgressions.
THAT PILGRIMS’ HANDS DO TOUCH
DAMIEN ANGELICA WALTERS
I was nine when the first god took residence in the roadside shrine. There were no pronouncements, no fanfare, no displays of divine power. She was just there, sitting cross-legged in the shrine as though she’d always existed in that space.
Impossible, of course. The shrines themselves were an art installation constructed of scrap metal and cheap wood and put in place the summer before. Twelve of them, spanning a ten-mile stretch of highway in Maryland. Emulating the Shinto shrines found in Japan, they were empty on purpose. No figurines of Jizo, the protector of travelers. No stones, no empty sake barrels, no paper streamers.
The artist was as surprised as anyone that a deity had shown up. She said, “I didn’t know anyone was listening. I didn’t know anyone was paying attention.”
A few weeks after the first god’s arrival, eleven more followed suit. By that time, the artist was forgotten.
That was nine years ago, but it felt like decades. Sometimes it also felt like yesterday. On the morning of my eighteenth birthday, it felt a little of both.
My father was slouched on the sofa in the living room watching a movie filled with villains and explosions, never mind the early hour. A mug, contents curling steam into the air, sat on the coffee table next to a plate with a half-eaten bagel smothered in cream cheese. I lingered in the doorway, shifting the weight of the backpack slung over my shoulder, holding an old photograph of Mom and me, both of us wearing wide, nearly identical smiles, in my hand, waiting to see if he’d say something or maybe waiting to see if I would, but he didn’t and neither did I. It didn’t surprise me; over the last eight years we’d done our loudest speaking in silence.
He knew where I was going, even though I hadn’t mentioned the pilgrimage in years. Not that I thought he would be, but he wasn’t happy about it either. Unlike me, masking emotions wasn’t a ski
ll he possessed. “Good luck, Cate. Be careful,” I imagined him saying, but those words belonged to a different Dad, one whose wife was still by his side.
As I tucked the photo in my pocket, my fingertips brushed the edge of the Zippo lighter I carried. It had belonged to Mom, yet another thing she’d left behind. I’d filled the reservoir before I packed my bag. She’d had one cigarette a day, going out onto the back porch after dinner, turning the Zippo over and over in her hand as she exhaled long plumes of smoke. I’d always wondered what she thought of while she stood there, if the Zippo held a story she’d share with me one day. Not that I gave a shit about it now, but maybe she’d share it when I found her. If I found her.
As I drove away from the suburban chaos, heading toward the interstate, I didn’t look back. What was the point? I probably wouldn’t ever return. I clenched and unclenched my fingers on the steering wheel, the traffic around me there but not at the same time. Part of me didn’t believe I was actually making this trip. I’d planned it a long time ago, before I was old enough to drive. I’d sit with a map, nose nearly touching the surface, finger tracing the highway lines. I chose routes, discarded them for others, tossing it all away and starting from scratch after the ten-mile stretch of highway was closed off and traffic rerouted, once it became clear the gods were here to stay and the pilgrimage wasn’t going to cease. Early on, Dad told me to knock it off, to let it—her—go. Later, he didn’t even bother.
Seven hours and three states, the words a litany in my head. But even if I needed to go to the other side of the country, I would’ve made the trip. When I pulled into the parking lot of an old rest stop, I smiled. All around me, lines of pilgrims’ cars coated in grime, time, and abandonment, some with flat tires, others with keys in the ignitions. My used Camry had seen better days, but even so, it looked out of place, the windows too clear, the paint too bright. I didn’t need to lock it—no one would bother it here—but old habits. The sharp chirp from the key fob echoed into the trees surrounding the lot, and I darted nervous glances in every direction, dreading a shout that didn’t come.
