by Z. Rider
Shit.
Not that getting home was going to solve anything, but the last thing he needed was to attack his own mother.
He wasn’t stalking her yet—and he needed to get it the fuck under control before he started.
He pushed away from the door and looked in the mirror, leaning against the counter, pulling his eyelids down with his fingers.
He didn’t see anything in there.
But how long?
He slid open one of the vanity drawers, pushed through its contents, opened another. Bingo. He withdrew a small box, half full of razor blades, cardboard slips covering the sharp edges. He pulled the paper free of one, laid the razor on the counter, and put the box back in the drawer. A box of Band-Aids sat in the medicine chest. He slipped one out, tore it open, and laid it on the counter, ready to go. He turned his arm palm up and hiked his sleeve up.
He pressed the blade against his arm, squinting so he’d only have to half watch what he was doing. With a wince, he drew it across his skin. A line of red chased the blade.
He set it down and pinched the cut, bringing more bright blood to the surface.
The sight flooded his mouth with saliva. He swallowed and pinched again.
When a fat drop started to roll down the curve of his arm, he bent his head and closed his eyes. His tongue flicked, his teeth scraped, his mouth sucked. It was—
It was hardly anything. Not even a teaspoon, just enough to take the edge off, maybe enough to get all the way the fuck home without his vision going out.
He washed up, applied the Band-Aid, slipped the blade back into its cardboard sleeve, and pocketed both it and the trash from the bandage. Mom wasn’t going to find anything incriminating in her bathroom.
“Dinner’s served.” She set a steaming casserole dish on the table as he walked in. A towel-covered basket gave off the smell of garlic. He went up to her as she cut through the lasagna and gave her a light kiss on her hair.
The bees were reasonably quiet.
She smiled, and he sat down at his plate.
As she cleared the table after dinner, she said, “Want some ice cream?”
“No, thanks. I actually—I think I’m gonna head out. Get some sleep.”
“That sounds like a good idea. You don’t want to be getting sick.”
“Nope.” He pulled his jacket off the chair and shrugged into it as she dished lasagna onto a plate and wrapped it with foil.
“Here you go.” She smiled. A foil of garlic bread sat on top of the lasagna mound.
“Thanks.” He put an arm around her as he took the plate, the bees buzzing lightly.
“Thank you for going to see Cathy,” she said.
“Yep. Take care of yourself.”
“You too. I mean it, Dan.”
He tromped down the steps and out the front door, into air that had turned crisp with fall. His shoulders relaxed. He could get through this, if he could get away from people. He climbed in and pulled onto the dark road, hunching over the steering wheel, as if he could outdrive it.
101 was deserted, I-93 only marginally busier. His neck buzzed. A rush of air cut through the window he’d cracked open. He chewed his lip till he merged onto 293. In another few miles, he hit his turn signal and coasted to the end of the off-ramp. Another few hundred feet, and he was pulling into his parking space behind the apartment building.
He opened the door, climbed out, then stood, holding on to the doorframe. He put his forehead against the backs of his hands. The cool air felt good. Maybe he was feverish. It just felt good, fresh. It didn’t stop the buzz or ease the headache clamped around his skull, but it felt good. He reached in for the plate of leftovers, then pushed the lock down and closed the door.
When he did, something scampered over the garbage cans at the back of the lot.
He looked in the direction of the noise, trying to pick it out in the dark. He took a step forward, then another.
A trashcan lid clattered to the ground as a cat jumped off and sped, stiff-legged, past the front of Dan’s car.
“Hey kitty.”
He wasn’t thinking it. Absolutely not.
“Here kitty, kitty.”
The cat watched him, its body low and stiff, one front paw forward like it was ready to dart at the first too-quick movement. Dan set the plate on the roof of the car. Taking the garlic bread off the top, he sank to a crouch. The foil rustled as he eased an edge open. The cat’s ears twitched. He pinched a corner of bread off and held it out. “Here kitty, kitty.”
What other options were there? Roll a bum in an alleyway? Trawl for hookers? The buzzing was edging toward irrational already. Could he get through the matter-of-fact hooker negotiation he’d imagined? How many no’s would he have to get before he just wrote his own yes and wound up in jail?
The bees buzzed like mad. He’d gotten out of his mom’s in the nick of time.
“Here kitty, kitty.” He pursed his lips and made soft noises. “Come on, kitty.” He took a slow duck-step forward. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty. I have milk in the house. And tuna. Maybe. I think. Here kitty.” He duck-walked another two steps. “I definitely have chicken in the house, and yummy raw pork.” Neither of which he wanted to look at again, ever. “Here kitty.”
The cat, a thin, lanky thing, flicked the end of its tail.
“Nice kitty,” Dan said, another duck-step closer. He lifted his other hand in front of him.
The cat stretched its neck, its tail flicking.
Dan waited, and the cat took a step, leading with its nose, whiskers twitching.
Another step. The muscles in Dan’s thighs started to tire, but he didn’t move.
“Good kitty,” he whispered as its thin tongue tasted the morsel between his fingers. It tried to ease it from his grasp, delicately, but he drew it back slowly. “Come on, kitty. There’s more where this came from.” The cat licked it again, then lapped in earnest, stopping every few licks to try to take it from his fingers.
He stroked slowly down on the cat’s rear haunches. When it didn’t bolt, he nudged it toward him, then closer yet—close enough to scoop it into his arms and trap it against his stomach.
It wriggled, letting out a cranky meorrw.
He rose, jogging toward the stairs, the cat fighting in his grip. Its low complaining trailed them as up the stairs, the cat twisting like a fish, trying to lunge free. He caught it, whispering, “Fuck!” Wrestled it back down against his jacket.
Getting his house keys out was a trick. He used the wall of the building to hold the cat against him, tipping his chin out of the way of its claws. He got the door open, got them both inside, shoved the door shut with his hip, and let the cat drop.
“Goddamnit,” he said as the cat shot through his bedroom doorway.
He followed, sweating, his hands shaky.
It wasn’t under the bed or backed into any corner. He’d left his closet door ajar, and he pulled it wider now, looking into the shadows. These old buildings didn’t have lights in the closet. He’d thought, a time or two, about getting one of those stick-on lights, but he hadn’t, so he got on his hands and knees and tried to stay out of the way of the light coming from the bedroom’s ceiling fixture. “Here kitty.” He’d left the lasagna on his car, the foil of bread in the parking lot. He probably had something in the fridge, though. He got up to check.
Half a minute later, he came back with a splash of milk in a cereal bowl. He crouched by the closet again, setting the bowl just inside, next to a scuffed Converse. “Here kitty. Look what I brought you.”
A tickle at the back of his brain, his mother’s voice, told him not to feed cats milk. It gave them the runs.
Not that it mattered now.
The bees buzzed.
“Come on, cat.” He dropped his butt on the floor and sat back.
After another minute, a glistening eye appeared from the shadows. The cat sniffed toward the milk, its striped tail swishing against a box in his closet.
He chewed his chee
k and waited. The cat tiptoed another step forward. It gave him one last considering look before dipping its pink tongue into the bowl.
As it drank, it purred like a small motor.
He let it get nearly to the bottom before he shifted closer. “Want more?” He reached for the bowl.
The cat backed away.
Fine. He took it—the cat flinched at his movement but didn’t run off—and got more milk from the fridge.
It waited for him in the shadows of the closet.
“Here you go.” He put the bowl down and sat, a little closer this time, his chin on one knee.
The cat seemed to relax halfway through the second bowl.
Dan tried to turn off his brain, just not think about what he was doing as he scooped the cat up. It was a little less irritable this time, and a small piece of his heart broke at that. He turned to the bed, shoved the animal under a pillow, and held it there, one hand gripping its body, the other clamping the pillow hard over its head.
The cat struggled and mrowwwed, slicing into his arm with its pinprick claws. It squirmed from his grip. He leaned his body against the pillow. A hot tear pushed its way free, sliding down his cheek. A low noise climbed his throat, pain pushing up from the heat and tightness of his chest. He leaned his body against the pillow.
By the time the cat was quiet, he was huffing into the blankets, his face wet. He felt like the world’s biggest asshole. But the bees were buzzing, and the worms were going to crawl across his vision. It was him or the cat.
Its soft, hot sides no longer heaved.
He didn’t want to look at it.
With a last breathy curse of frustration, of pain, he pushed the pillow away and grabbed the cat up—limp and heavy—without looking at it.
He laid it on the kitchen counter, its head lolling over the edge of the sink. He closed his eyes, and the sight didn’t go away. He grasped the counter. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
He straightened. A hot tear dripped off his jaw.
Swiping his cat-scratched hand across his face, he wandered the kitchen looking for things—a bowl or a wide-mouthed jar. He found a Tupperware container his mother had sent food over in. He dropped it in the sink, below the cat’s head. Stopped to lick the pinpricks of blood welling from the scratches in the back of his hand. Did the bees care? Not fucking much. His own blood wasn’t cutting it anymore—already. He opened a drawer, felt around for something sharp, and came up with a paring knife. No memory of why he had one, but he wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. He pulled off his jacket and pushed up his sleeves.
Wiped his face again with the side of his arm.
Sniffed snot up the back of his nose.
He looked at what he had before him: one cat, dead. One paring knife. He put a hand on the cat’s head and turned it so its neck faced him. He pressed the edge of the knife against the gray fur. Already it felt like roadkill, like something that had always existed in a dead state. He gritted his teeth and dragged the small knife across its throat. It slid smoothly over the fur. He dug in harder. A thin cut split the cat’s skin. Blood welled, slowly. He sawed harder, cutting into muscle, into veins. Blood trickled out, running along the knife, smearing his fingers. Then more. He turned the cut into a gash, opening the cat’s throat. Choking back a gag. Trying not to look. He wiped his face against his sleeve as thick blood trudged between his thumb and finger. He lifted the back of the cat, turning it so its throat hung over the bowl, letting gravity do its thing.
Blood chugged slowly, nothing as spectacular as if he’d done it while the cat’s heart still pumped, but no way could he have done that.
No fucking way.
The bees buzzed and hummed, and the vise tightened against his head.
He dropped the knife and lifted the Tupperware container—“Here’s to nothing.” He brought it to his lips, the tang more foul than inviting. He sniffed it, his lip curling back, his head turning away. He closed his eyes. The bees did not dance and writhe at this smell.
If it bought him till morning, though, it would be worth something. A way to push the edge back so he could make other arrangements. Somehow.
Still, his stomach revolted at the idea of drinking it down. He balanced the bowl on a hand and dragged a finger through it, drawing his lip back again, wrinkling his nose. The blood, still warm, congealed around his finger.
He made a face, then closed his eyes and put it in his mouth.
His face crumpled. His lip drew back. He wiped saliva and blood on his jeans, fast little strokes.
Did the bees go a little quieter? Did the headache let up, just a little?
He wasn’t sure. It—maybe? Maybe not? But…maybe?
Fuck.
He had to go through with it to be sure.
He touched the container to his lips, his nostrils flaring at the smell, his stomach twisting sickly. He sipped through gritted teeth. Clamped his eyes tighter shut as his throat clenched. He had to fight his urge to retch in order to swallow down the—what, teaspoon’s worth, if that?—he’d gotten in his mouth.
With shaking hands, he set the bowl on the counter, nearly dumping it over, somehow managing to steady it.
He put his elbows beside it and buried his face in his hands, swallowing and swallowing, trying to flood the taste away with his own spit.
The bees, they did not give a shit.
They were not into this blood.
“Fuck,” he said, straightening. “Fuck!” His eyes closed against hot tears again, his fists tight balls at his sides. He was hopeless. The situation was hopeless.
A sob broke in his chest.
He sank to the floor, pressing his forehead against the cupboard. Big, jerking sobs without much noise hitched his shoulders. The fucking bees milled at the nape of his neck, wondering what the fuck he was going to do for them.
He thought he could smell the cat rotting already, and that broke another sob from him. He hit the cupboard with the flat of his hand.
He was so fucking fucked. And what he’d just done—a fucking waste. His soul felt ripped through at the utter pointlessness of it.
He crawled across the linoleum to his jacket, where he dug his phone out of his pocket. He wiped his arm under his nose, sniffed, sniffed again, then called Ray’s number.
Pushing his back against the wall, he listened to it ring: three, four…
“Hey,” Ray said.
Dan squeezed his eyes shut, hard.
“Danny? Are you there?”
It came out a whisper: “Yeah.”
“Are you okay?”
Fuck.
“Dan?”
He slid down the wall, curling up against it. “No.”
“Shit. I’ll be right there. Are you home?”
He was on the brink of saying yeah when a sob caught him, coming sharp and sideways. He clamped his hand over his mouth.
“Dan…I’m pulling my boots on… I’m getting my jacket. I’m gonna be right there. Dan?”
Another sob hiccoughed out. Dan turned the phone away from his mouth.
“I’m going to the door right now. Hang on. I’ll be there before you know it.”
“I can’t do it,” Dan whispered, not sure he was going to get any of it out, but once he started, it all came up: “I can’t… This isn’t… I’m gonna die…”
“No, you’re not. I’m opening the car door right now.”
“There’s nothing… It’s too late…”
“Don’t fucking talk like that. You’re scaring the shit out of me.” The door thudded shut. “How bad is it?”
“Bad.”
“Can you still see?”
He blinked at the kitchen—the bottoms of chairs, bases of cabinets, the dust under the fridge. “Yeah.” He hocked back more snot. “I can see for now.” He watched the legs of the chair closest to him, ready to let Ray know if spots started crawling over it. He closed his eyes for a second, then stared at the chair legs again.
“Did it get bad all
of a sudden?”
“Kind of. No. I don’t know. It’s just…bad.”
“How long has it been getting bad?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Since this afternoon.”
“And before that?”
“Fine. Everything was fine.”
“Jesus, Dan. It’s only been two days.”
He pressed his forehead against the wall. “I’ve been using my own blood too. It doesn’t work.”
“Shit.”
When he opened his eyes, dark spots floated in front of the white wall. “Fuck,” he whispered.
“What?”
He blinked a few times, quickly. The spots careened across his vision. “It’s the eye thing,” he said quietly.
“Shit. Not you—the light turned red.” A second or two of silence, then the gunning of an engine. “No cops in sight. I think we’re good. I’m coming over the bridge.”
Dan had his eyes shut and wasn’t opening them for anything. He couldn’t see floating dots if everything was black. He thought he could feel them, though, and he clutched the phone harder—for its glass and plastic and solidity. The bees swarmed. They could smell Janice, downstairs, walking around her kitchen. Janice, Janice, Janice.
“Door’s unlocked,” he whispered, grinding his forehead against his knee. Get here soon. Janice had stopped at the fridge. His free hand felt for the floor, right above her head.
“Coming off the bridge right now. Running a yellow light. Try not to fucking jump me when I get there.”
“Yeah.” Lily ran into the room below him, her voice excited as she babbled something to her mom.
“Hear me pulling up?” Ray said.
“I’m in the kitchen.”
“Be there before you know it.”
It seemed an endless stretch of seconds before boots pounded up the back stairs. The storm door banged open, the kitchen door. Dan tried to pull into himself, shoving his hands into his armpits. Trying to keep from lunging at Ray as boots clomped across the floor to him.
“All right, can you ride to the hospital?” Ray dropped to a crouch.
The bees swarmed. Ray put a hand on his shoulder, and the headache sharpened like a cleaver. Dan grabbed him, out of his mind with the need and the bees and the pain in his head. He held on with everything he had, resisting the impulse shooting through his muscles. Shaking with the effort. He clamped his mouth on his own arm, biting, making the pain break through the ruckus in his head.
