Eli's Town

by Amy Cross

  “Eighty-five?” I reply, turning to him. “You said there were eighty-five pairs of eyes in Tulepa.”

  “That's right. It's a little down from the two hundred or so when I started.”

  “You...” For a moment, all I can think about is the pile of bodies I saw earlier. “Eli,” I continue cautiously, with a slowly mounting sense of horror, “did you... I mean, have you been...”

  “Did I kill those people?” He pauses again. “Yes, Holly. I suppose you could say I did.”

  Shaking my head, I try to hold back tears. There's no way my kind, quiet uncle Eli could have become this monster, but at the same time I can't deny what's right in front of my eyes.

  “I've had to slow down lately, of course,” he continues, with a faint smile. “I'd have run out by now if I'd kept up my earlier pace. My God, though, when I could kill one each day at noon... That was wonderful, really just the sweetest spot.” As those words leave his lips, the door in the corner opens and Captain Lucas walks in carrying a tray of food. “For you,” Eli adds, as Lucas sets the tray in front of me. “I thought you might be hungry. It's good food, the best I have to offer.”

  “Don't be afraid,” Lucas says, sharing Eli's smile. He slides the tray toward me and then kneels, as if to watch me eat. “You're family, Holly. You're flesh and blood. I want to treat you well.”

  I stare at him for a moment, before turning to Eli.

  “Talk to either face,” he says after a moment. “It's me staring out from both.”

  Turning back to Lucas, I watch his eyes for a moment, horrified by the realization that in some way I can see Eli's mind staring back at me.

  “Eat,” Lucas continues. “Please, Holly.” He reaches down and swats some flies away from the plate of beans. “Sorry,” he adds, “but my taste isn't very sophisticated and I've been relying on canned goods that were left behind. Don't worry, though, I'm not likely to run out any time soon. I've been rationing. Feeding people has been difficult, and basic healthcare has been a nightmare. I'm sure you noticed some of my bodies were starting to fall apart.”

  “You killed people?” I whisper, turning to Eli as a sense of disbelief grows in my chest. “You really killed those people I found?”

  “At first,” he replies, “I had so much fun making my puppets play with each other. They had sex, they fought, they explored the world. I thought I'd reached the peak of my senses' potential, but then...” He pauses. “Then one day, quite by accident, one of them died and I was able to experience death via his body.” Closing his eyes, he seems lost in thought for a moment. “You have no idea, Holly, how that felt. To feel the pain of his final moments, and then to feel that pain bursting and giving way, replaced by something beautiful, something more pleasurable than sex or love.” He tilts his head back, as if he's reliving every moment. “I became addicted immediately to the experience of death, and I knew I had to feel it again and again, like an addict who was suddenly hooked on some intoxicating new drug.”

  I stare at him, waiting for him to continue. “Death?” I whisper finally. “You enjoyed it when they died?”

  “So you believe me now?” he asks with a smile.

  “I -” Pausing, I realize I'm not quite ready to accept that he's telling the truth, not yet.

  He opens his eyes and turns to me. “I enjoyed it more than you could possibly believe,” he replies. “That very day, I killed two more of them, but then I realized I was in danger of going too far. You're a doctor, Holly, so I'm sure you've witnessed your fair share of addiction among your patients. I could easily have killed everyone in town just on that first day, just to experience their deaths one by one, but I realized I had to control myself, I had to ration it out.”

  “Eli...”

  “So I made a rule for myself,” he continues. “I decided that I could kill one of them each day, just one, and only at midday, right at the stroke of noon. And I quickly found that the best way to kill them, the method that delivered the greatest pleasure to me as I experienced it through their bodies, was suffocation.”

  Shaking my head, I feel as if I'm about to scream. None of this can really be happening, but somehow... It is.

  “So I just...” He pauses again. “Each day, I picked one of them more or less at random and at noon exactly, I focused on that body and I held its breath.” He shivers, as if a sensation of pure, almost orgasmic ecstasy has filled his body. “Oh God, Holly, you have no idea how good it felt each time. Like an addict, I craved more and more, but fortunately I have self-control so I forced myself to stick to the one-a-day rule. Later, when I realized I was running out of people, I changed to one a week. That was hard, and then later I switched to one a month, but that's just temporary, just while I restock and get some more people. That's what your boyfriend is helping with right now. It's a long-term project, but it'll be worth it eventually.”

  “Long-term?” I ask, feeling a shiver in my chest. “Eli, what are you talking about?”

  “If I can get the females pregnant,” he continues, “then there'll be babies. Lots and lots of babies, and I can get into their heads immediately after they've been born and... Once they've grown, I'll be able to get my fix more regularly. I considered letting outsiders come to Tulepa and taking their bodies, but then there'd be awkward questions so I've been keeping people away instead. My God, though, I need more bodies, I need to feel more deaths.”

  “Eli -”

  “Like this poor soul who brought your meal,” he adds, leaning back and closing his eyes again. “I think, after all my hard work, that I deserve an extra death this month.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, pulling once again on the rope around my waist. I glance at Lucas, but he's just sitting calmly, as if he's waiting for something. Turning back to Eli, I realize that he almost looks as if he's meditating. “Eli, you've lost your mind!”

  “No,” he replies calmly, “I haven't lost anything. I've gained...” He gasps. “I've gained hundreds of minds. Wait... It has already started.”

  “What has?” I ask.

  I wait for a reply, but he's just sitting completely still now.

  “Eli, what are you doing?” I continue. “Why are you -”

  Suddenly I hear a gasp nearby. Turning to Captain Lucas, I realize that something seems different about his face, and after a moment I reach out and hold a finger under his nose.

  “He's not breathing,” I whisper, suddenly realizing what Eli is doing. “Eli, are you making him hold his breath? Eli, you'll kill him!”

  I stare in horror as Lucas's pupils start to enlarge, and a moment later I realize that his face is turning a little more red.

  “Eli, let him breathe!” I shout, trying not to panic. Reaching out to Lucas, I try to force his mouth open, but he pulls back, fixing me with a calm, glassy stare. “Eli, why are you doing this? I believe you! You don't have to prove anything to me!” Turning to Eli, I see that his head is tilted back again and his whole body is trembling, as if he's enjoying his victim's slow suffocation.

  A moment later, Eli lets out a gasp and grips the sides of his chair.

  Turning back to Lucas, I watch as his face becomes redder and redder, and as his eyes open wider than ever. I've seen a man suffocate before; I once saved someone who was choking in a restaurant, and I remember the way he struggled violently as I gave him the Heimlich maneuver and finally forced the obstruction from his throat. Lucas has the same reddening face right now, but he's not struggling at all; in fact, there's even a faint smile on his face as the blood vessels start bursting in his eyes, filling the whites with ever thicker patches of red.

  “Eli, please,” I whisper. “Don't do this...”

  Hearing another gasp from Eli, I turn to him and see that he's clearly struggling to keep his trembling body under control.

  “Eli!” I shout. “Stop! Eli!”

  Suddenly I feel a bump against my arm, and I pull back as Lucas slumps down. I grab his jaw and force it open, and then I lean down and try giv
ing him the kiss of life. I can hear Eli gasping nearby, in the throes of pleasure, but no matter how hard I try to force air into Lucas's lungs, something seems to be blocking me. I try for several minutes, lost in panic, until finally I realize that it has already been too long. Sitting back, I stare at Lucas's dead body with its glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling, and then I turn to see that Eli is letting out long, slow breaths, as if the ecstasy is passing.

  “That was good,” he whispers finally, with his head still tilted back. “The way you tried to give him your breath, that made it even more enjoyable. I never thought to try that before.”

  “What the hell happened to you?” I ask, my voice trembling with shock. “You're not my uncle! You can't be!”

  “Oh, I am,” he replies, turning to me and opening his eyes. “I'm just freed finally from the restraints of being the town freak.” He looks down at the corpse on the floor. “Don't feel too sorry for Captain Lucas, he wasn't exactly the finest specimen of humanity. He and his friends used to laugh at me years ago. Imagine that, huh? He was supposed to uphold law and order in this town, but instead he sat around joining in with the bullies. I was saving him for a special death, but I think I got everything I wanted.” He pauses, still a little breathless. “Sometimes, not all the time but sometimes, just as they die, their original mind tries to fight back. Lucas's mind tried. In the last couple of seconds as he suffocated, I heard him screaming, but there was nothing he could do, I'm too strong for any of them. Still, it's nice to know that he was aware of what was happening to his body, at least on some level. He deserved no better.” He lets out another sigh. “Holly, I have to teach you how to do this. Trust me, try it once and you'll never look back. Death is better than sex, at least when it's experienced through someone else's body.”

  Shaking my head, I stare at him, unable to believe that my quiet, kind uncle could have become such a monster.

  “You will understand,” he continues. “Eventually, I mean. You'll have to.”

  “And be like you?” I ask, as tears roll down my face.

  “Don't act like it's a bad thing. It's beautiful.”

  “You're a murderer!”

  He laughs. “Oh Holly, I think I moved beyond such simple terms long ago. Aren't you impressed? Don't you think it's quite an achievement that your old uncle Eli lay in bed and found a way to travel through the minds of all the idiots in this town? Come on, I remember when you were a little girl, you were always my favorite. You weren't mean like your sister Karen, you were kind and caring. I always knew that you cared.”

  “I think you need serious help...”

  “Do you still not believe all of this is true?”

  Staring at him, I realize that although I want to deny everything he's told me, I've seen enough evidence with my own eyes to realize that at least part of it has to be real. There's no way he could fake all of this, not unless I happen to have lost my mind at the same time. Still, I have to get out of here so I can get help.

  “You do believe me,” he adds, with a hint of satisfaction, “or at least you're starting to, I can see it in your eyes. That's the first step. Acceptance, followed by understanding -”

  I shake my head.

  “And finally enjoyment,” he continues. “I'm an old man, Holly, and I have no children. I'd like to pass my gift on to someone in the family, and since you're my niece... I'll teach you how to do what I do. You're young, you're smarter than me, I'm sure you'll pick it up in no time. Maybe you'll even find some better use for it. Hell, you might even use your new powers for good.” He chuckles, as if he finds the idea amusing. “None of that really matters to me. Like I said, I'm old, and no matter how much fun I'm having, I know it can't last forever. This body is already breaking down, and I've wondered whether I could make a permanent move to another but... I'm not sure that would really work.”

  He pauses, watching me with an amused frown.

  “Nothing to say?” he asks finally.

  Reaching down, I try once again to loosen the rope around my waist, even though my hands are trembling.

  “It'll take time for you to come around,” Eli continues, getting to his feet and stepping over Lucas's body as he heads to the door. “I realize this has been a terrible shock for you, and that you've had to take in a huge amount of information all at once. You'll need to get used to it slowly, but that's where I can really help. I'll be your tutor, I'll guide you, you'll be like the -” He pauses, as if he was about to say something that he now thinks wouldn't be appropriate. “Well,” he continues, opening the door, “I'll let you rest for a while. Even with all these bodies at my disposal, I'm somewhat busy. It can be very tiring living eighty-five lives at once.”

  “You're not Eli,” I whisper.

  He frowns. “What do you mean by that?”

  “My uncle would never do these things.”

  He stares at me. “I am Eli,” he replies after a moment. “Every person on this planet, Holly, holds within their soul the capacity to seem like at least two completely different people. Probably a lot more. I just happen to have realized my hidden potential and found a way to make it burst free. Circumstances dictate which version of ourselves we present to the world, but I have stumbled upon a way to free myself from such constraints. Perhaps this sounds like madness to you right now. That's fine, but eventually you'll see things my way and you'll understand that this is a good thing. Trust me, you'll see once you get started. Out of respect for you, I've mostly kept out of your head so far, but you'll lean soon enough.”

  “You need help,” I tell him. “Eli, let me find someone who can talk you out of all this.”

  “You're too late,” he replies. “When a man realizes that he has this kind of power, how can he possibly not use it? What I'm doing is only natural, Holly. No creature in history has ever ignored its potential for moral reasons. You'll understand soon.”

  “I'll never let you into my head!” I shout, pulling on the restraints.

  “No?” He smiles. “That dream you had just before you woke up. The one with you and me, back in the old days, when I gave you candy and suddenly it began to move? That wasn't a dream, Holly. I was in your head and I created that moment as a little reminder, as a taster of what I can do. We'll be close again. We'll work together.”

  With that, he steps out into the corridor and pulls the door shut, and a moment later I hear the lock being turned.

  “I'll be back soon,” I whisper, before realizing that Eli momentarily got into my head and forced me to say those words. Pulling back into the corner, I draw my knees up, trying to make myself as small as possible. On the other side of the room, flies are already crawling all over the dead man Eli left behind. I stare at the corpse for a moment, before realizing that I have to get out of here.

  Struggling with the rope, I pull desperately to get the knot free. When another fingernail breaks free, I ignore the blood and pain, and I keep working as fast as I can.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Dean

  “Hey,” a voice whispers, gently tapping the side of my face, “you're not done yet, buddy. You're not even close to being done yet.”

  With my eyes closed, I wait for the voice to go away. I'm so tired, so completely exhausted, I don't think I could reply even if I had something to say. I feel as if all the energy has been ripped from my body, leaving just a pile of meat and bones. I can barely even breathe.

  “Hey.”

  Silence.

  “Wake up!” another voice shouts in my thoughts, and suddenly I'm slapped hard on the cheek.

  Gasping, I open my eyes and look up, only to find several people standing over me.

  “I let you rest for a half hour because I thought you were in danger of falling apart,” a voice says. I try to work out which of them is speaking, but finally I realize the horrifying truth: it's my voice I'm hearing, as if someone's in my head, speaking to me using my own mouth. “I figure you should be okay to continue now. What's up? Got too much of what you wa
nted? You were so cocky when you arrived in Tulepa. I was already in your mind before you'd stepped out of the car. I can't even begin to imagine what my niece was doing with such an arrogant asshole.”

  Reaching down, several of them grab me by the shoulders and haul me up. I try to pull away, but my body is so weak, I can barely even let out a pained gasp as they start dragging me across the town square. The sun is starting to set already, and the air all around is getting cooler.

  “I've just been speaking to Holly,” my voice continues after a moment. “I doubt very much that you give a damn about my niece, not unless you need her to pay for things, but I thought you'd like to know that she's receiving much better treatment now. You're just a lump of flesh I need to use for certain purposes, but Holly is family and I intend to open her eyes and ensure that she joins me in exploring the world. Perhaps it'll take time, but I'm certain she'll come around to my way of seeing things eventually. She's a good girl.”

  I try to cry out, to reclaim my mouth, but all the emerges from my lips is a faint gurgling sound.

  “As for you,” my mouth continues, “I intend merely to use you for as long as possible, and then to dispose of you. You're nothing, you're not family, you're just a lying, cheating asshole who latched onto my niece and made her life hell. Fortunately, while your mind might be a cesspit, your body has certain functions that make you valuable to me for now. I can understand, however, why you might not be enjoying yourself so much.”

  “I can help you,” I stammer, finally managing to take control of my own mouth for a moment.

  “You?” One of the men laughs, as he and the others drag me toward a nearby building. “How the hell could a wretch like you help a man like me?”

  “I know Holly,” I continue, desperately trying to think of something I can offer him. “If you need her talked around, I can do it. I know how to get her to change her mind about things.”