Feeder

by Patrick Weekes

  Iara was lying on the floor, cradling the miracoral in her arms. “I thought it would work.”

  “What happened?” Hawk asked, coming over to kneel down beside her. “Did the coral do anything to the darkness?”

  “No. It was brighter, but when I tried to reach the surface . . .” She shook her head.

  They had been trying since yesterday, always with the same results. They would leave one of the underwater buildings and try for the surface, and each time, as the cold crept into their bodies, clammy and slick around them, they would stop. Hawk could want his arms to move, but at a certain point, his body just ignored him. None of the others could get past it either.

  “I told you,” Tapper muttered. “It’s not just dark. It’s a hole. Like the world is flat ground, and you’re trying to walk from point A to point B, only someone carved out a big ugly chasm in your way.”

  “But we’re already in the chasm,” Maya said, for probably the fifth or sixth time since yesterday, “aren’t we?”

  “No, Blondie, this is all real.” Tapper rapped the wall, his hand a blur. “This is point A. Point B is the surface. The chasm is wherever Tiamat comes from. Someplace where this world’s rules don’t apply.”

  “Like space,” Hawk added helpfully.

  “It’s not space!” Tapper yelled. “It’s another dimension or . . . I don’t know. Wherever Lori ended up.”

  Maya turned to him sharply. “She’s coming back!”

  Tapper made a little grimace and said to Iara, “Come on, let’s see what this one is.”

  Maya held out Iara’s crutches, and Iara took them gratefully, passing the miracoral over to Maya in return. The coral still glowed with its warm and friendly light, the only warmth they had been able to find down here. After a night in what would otherwise have been darkness, that was saying a lot.

  Hawk wasn’t hungry, either, and he hadn’t skipped dinner, bedtime snack, breakfast, and brunch in years. That had to be the miracoral too. Feeding them, helping them, something.

  But it couldn’t get them out.

  Hawk followed the others out of the air lock and into the building proper. They’d tried other buildings through the night, hoping to find something useful. Most of the buildings were flooded—which didn’t mean that they were empty. There were things in them, more of the eels glowing sickly yellow-green in the darkness, coiled around old rotted furniture and support beams, waiting for someone to wake them up. The buildings that had been fitted with air locks had been abandoned, with old dead computers lying scattered on the floor next to bloodstained mattresses and surgical equipment.

  This one looked like it had been a shopping mall before the water rose, and on the tiled floors amid old sales counters that had once held perfume or watches, they found more of the same. This time, the mattresses had straps on the sides, and there was clothing next to them, folded neatly. On the nearest pile, Hawk saw that the socks had the edges rolled down over the tops, like his mom always did to keep them together. He swallowed and looked away. Tiamat had experimented on people here—trying to pull herself from their minds or something.

  On one of the mattresses lay what was left of Shawn.

  He wore the pants he’d been wearing when he died, but they’d taken his shirt off. His body was pale and purple-blue, his skin waxy. His shoulder and arm didn’t fit on right anymore—Hawk could see ugly messy stitches where they’d reattached it. Had it been torn off when Tiamat had killed him, or after, when the scientists had experimented on the body?

  Iara had turned away and was sobbing, shaking on her crutches. Tapper zipped forward, then back, then over to a wall that suddenly had a spiderweb crack in it radiating out from Tapper’s fist.

  Maya put down the miracoral and walked forward slowly. Tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t look away. “I’m so sorry, Shawn,” she said to the body. “We’ll never forget you.”

  She reached out slowly and laid a hand on Shawn’s cheek.

  An eel slid out of his mouth and coiled around Maya’s hand.

  Maya screamed, and as she stumbled back, flailing wildly, more eels poured out of Shawn’s mouth, dozens of them, tiny little wormlike versions, and more were wriggling through the stitches on his shoulder as well.

  Hawk ran forward and smashed the eels in his hands. Tapper was there too, crushing them in a blur of speed, but more eels were coming, and Shawn’s body was starting to deflate as they poured from his mouth.

  Hawk shrugged, looked at Tapper, and then slammed a fist down on Shawn’s face. As eels and dead bone smashed beneath his hand, he drove his other hand into Shawn’s torso, where more of them would be hiding.

  It took several blows to be sure, and Hawk hammered his fists onto the corpse over and over again, until finally he stepped back and looked, and the body was still.

  The others were still, too, looking at him with eyes wide with shock and disgust.

  “What?” Hawk asked, looking at them in confusion. “You guys see a better way to stop them?”

  “He was our friend,” Maya said softly.

  “Then I’m sure he’d be pretty chill with us mashing up his corpse to stop the eels from getting out,” Hawk said, and grinned. She didn’t smile back. “Look, I end up with eels inside me, you’re all free to do the same, all right?”

  “Why would anyone do this?” Maya asked in a sick little voice, clutching the miracoral to her tightly.

  “She hates being stuck in this world,” Tapper muttered, “and she’s trying to use us to summon the Leviathan to escape. She was experimenting. The document said that putting eels into a Nix killed them, so it’s useless for her. Maybe she wanted to see what would happen if she put an eel into one of us that was already dead.”

  “I don’t get it,” Hawk said.

  “No kidding.” Tapper shook his head.

  “Fine, whatever.” Hawk shrugged. “Sorry if I don’t have your crazy eyes or whatever messed-up brain lets you think just like the evil naga lady. Maybe if you tell me—”

  “Tell you what?” Iara cut in, stopping to lean on her crutches. She shook her wet hair out of her face. “That destroying a friend’s body, while tactically sound, is not something a hero does? You do not understand.”

  He glared at her now. “This isn’t a comic book, Iara. You can’t blame me for doing the smart thing. Tiamat is a monster. You do whatever you have to to stop monsters.”

  “It is not blame,” Iara said, sounding tired, “and no, she is not. Tiamat is . . . she is evil, yes, but I know how she feels.”

  Hawk stared at her, shocked. “How?” Tapper was nodding, and Hawk shot him a look. “She’s a naga lady, dude!”

  “She wants to leave, but she can’t,” Tapper said, “because no matter how she tries to pull away, there’s always someone there to remind her what she is.” He smiled at Hawk, his eyes glittering in the dim light. “A freak with a messed-up brain.”

  “Or a girl who needs crutches and help,” Iara added, glaring at Hawk.

  “It doesn’t make her right,” Maya said softly, “but she’s hurting. I can feel her pain.”

  “That’s her problem,” Hawk said, and shrugged. “And yours, I guess. Holding on to all of that, keeping it in where it hurts you. Pain is a choice. You guys wanna be sad about Shawn, cool, you go, but I only knew him for like an hour or two. I’m not happy he’s dead. I’m not any more angry than I was about Tia Lake kidnapping me and putting those eel things in my parents to mess with their minds.” Actually, now that he thought about it, at least Lake hadn’t killed them. His mom had sounded happy, even. “I’m not anything about Shawn. I’m fine. And feeling nothing is better than feeling pain.” They all looked at him, shocked, and he gestured at Tapper and Iara in irritation. “Like you’re just mad all the time, and Iara, every time I try to help—”

  “I need help sometimes!” she shouted. “But now that is all you can see when you look at me! You do not see me anymore, just a chance to look strong!”

  Fo
r a moment Hawk was angry and guilty and ashamed, and then the feeling whisked away, and he shrugged again. “Well, then, maybe you should—” he began.

  That was when the horribly messed-up eel-people staggered through the doorway and attacked.

  LORI

  Lori had worked with Handler long enough to have picked up a few tricks for remaining undetected. Santa Dymphna’s city center provided easy access to anywhere, which meant that someone who was tracked there could be coming from anywhere in the city. If anyone was watching her bank activity, this was the one place she could risk using her cards.

  She maxed out her daily withdrawal limit at an ATM in the city center and used her credit card to buy everything she thought she might need for an evening in hiding: new clothes, a bunch of chocolate-chip granola bars and chocolate milk for Ben, toothbrushes and toothpaste, a charger for her phone, and a prepaid anonymous ferry pass, in case her old one was being tracked.

  Then she got Ben onto a ferry that took them to the edge of the city, a suburban area with a few small shopping plazas and one old hotel, and booked them a room for the night, paid in cash.

  She talked Ben into this being a night of adventure, got dinner at a nearby McDonald’s, and charged her phone while Ben watched Pokémon on the hotel television.

  Lori: Handler.

 

  Lori: Come on, please.

 

  She woke up the next morning groggy and slow. Every movement hurt her head, causing sharp little pinpricks of brightness at the edges of her vision. She had to ask Ben to slow down, because she couldn’t understand what he was saying at first.

  It was Thursday morning. This was the earliest date by which Tia Lake might have traced Lori’s financial records. Of course, with Mister Barkin under the sway of the eels—of Tiamat—that probably no longer mattered.

  She had no idea what she was going to do next.

  Were Maya and the others okay? What was Tiamat doing to them even now? She had to believe they were all right, but none of her messages to them had gone through either, and with no way to get back down to them . . .

  Lori: Handler, I need you.

 

  All right, she thought. She had to assume Tiamat knew her identity. That meant that she and Ben were in danger. She had to assume Tiamat and her minions were after her. She had to assume that her credit card was being tracked, and anything she did could put her and Ben in danger. She had to assume . . .

  “Lori, what’s wrong?” Ben asked, looking over at her from the bed he’d slept in.

  Lori started and realized that her face was hot. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and the words caught on something in her throat and came out hoarse, and more tears came with them. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I’m having a hard time, and I’m not feeling so good. I . . . I think we might go on a little vacation, okay? We could make this trip a little longer.”

  Ben considered this. “Can we go home and get the iPad, then? All of my games are on the iPad.”

  Lori squeezed her eyes shut. Her head was throbbing. “Yeah, I think we can do that.”

  She couldn’t do this.

  It was too big, all of it. She was sixteen and trying to care for a seven-year-old, and he was good—he deserved better than her. She wasn’t even real; she was just some monster made by some other monster as a lure, and now the other monster was dead, and what was she even supposed to do? She could barely get him to day care on time, and now she had to take him and run away and never come back.

  Because that was the only real solution. Tiamat wouldn’t give up if she stayed in Santa Dymphna. If she took Ben to the mainland, she could . . . what, start over? How did you get new identities? Handler had always just made things happen for her. No, no, she could figure that out. She could live off the grid. She could pick up a job waitressing, maybe, just live a quiet life somewhere and, and, and . . .

  “Ben, I’m sorry,” she whispered, and he looked over at her, and then got up off the bed and came over to her.

  “It’s okay,” he said, and took her hand in his tiny fingers.

  “No, it’s not.” What if she went to the police somewhere? Would they help? Would they think she was crazy? Would they take Ben away? “It’s not okay. I don’t know what to do. I can’t . . .” She let out a shaky breath. “I don’t think I’m doing a good job of taking care of you.”

  “No, that’s not true,” Ben said indignantly. “You do a good job! You get me Pokémon, and you help me go to sleep, and you even make crackers and cheese special like Mom did.”

  “I know, but . . .” Guess it was just one of those things.

  Lori stopped, wiped her eyes, and looked at Ben.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  Ben looked down. “Sorry.”

  “No, no.” Lori took his hand now. “You talked about . . . Mom.”

  “I know it makes you grumpy,” Ben said, still looking down. “You’re already sad.”

  “I get grumpy?” Lori asked. “I don’t . . . I don’t remember getting grumpy when you talk about M-Mom and Dad.” She had to force the words out. Part of her mind still wanted to slide away from them.

  “You always say, guess it was just one of those things,” Ben said quietly, “and then you don’t want to talk to me.”

  Lori felt the whole world contract around her, and she could feel her heartbeat in her temples. “I’m so sorry, kiddo,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It . . . just always made me sad to think of them, but I shouldn’t try to stop you.”

  “That’s okay,” Ben said, and the simple forgiveness in his little voice broke something inside her, and she pulled him into a hug.

  “Thanks, kiddo. Thank you.” She held him close, and he hugged her back. “Do you remember how they . . . went away?”

  “You never said.” Ben was sniffling a little bit now as well. “But it was when the water came up and all the roads turned into canals.”

  Still holding him, Lori blinked back more tears. Her parents were still blank spots in her mind, little holes her consciousness shied away from. But they were real.

  She was real.

  Something had taken them away from her.

  “I have a hard time seeing their faces,” she said.

  “Me too,” Ben said. “Sometimes I sneak into their bedroom and look at the pictures.”

  They didn’t have a bedroom, Lori thought. She’d been raising Ben alone for two years, ever since the water rose, and she had cleaned every inch of the condo. If there was a room, she’d have stumbled across it.

  Unless the bedroom has the same little block on your mind, a part of her suggested.

  Kitchen, she thought, and pulled an image of the cramped cooking area, the little tiled floor. Living room, and there it was, lower than the kitchen by half a foot for some reason, carpeted, with the old couches and the little coffee tables pushed aside so that Ben had room to play with Legos. Office, there off the kitchen, with the desktop computer and the filing cabinet where she kept all the important documents. Hallway, same ugly old carpet as the living room, and on the left was Ben’s room, and on the right was the bathroom, and then down at the end was the door she didn’t open and then there was her room, and that was it, that was all of it—

  There was a door she never opened.

  It was a terrible idea. They could be watching even now.

  She didn’t care.

  Lori was going home.

  HAWK

  If the line between shells and puppets (which were definitely totally different from Muppets, because Kermit had never had eels eating him up from the inside) was that puppets were controlling a living person, and shells were just driving a dead body, then these things were probably closer to shells. Their skin was waxen, and their eyes were vacant, and they shambled more than walked, lank hair in their faces and clothes hangi
ng from bodies that were skinny except for grossly bloated torsos. They might not die if the eels inside them came out, but Hawk didn’t think they’d do much beyond sit and stare at the wall.

  He lunged at the first shell as it lurched through the doorway, slamming into it with a punch that knocked its head clean off. An eel slithered out of the body cavity as the body hit the floor, its slick yellow-green skin shimmering as it uncoiled. Before it could go far, Tapper blurred in and squashed it.

  “We must run!” Iara yelled.

  Through the doorway, Hawk saw more of them. Whoever they had once been, they were just shells for the eels now, their bodies shriveled and covered in an oily sheen. He thought about when the eel had tried to force its way down his throat at the Lake Foundation and clenched his teeth. “No way!” he yelled back. “We can’t take Tiamat, but we can take these things!”

  “No, you idiot!” Tapper blurred in front of Hawk, but Hawk shoved him aside and plowed into the room. This had been a clothing area—free-standing wheels with clothes on hangers filled the room, some of them tipped over, and the walls were lined with jeans and slacks on shelves and pictures of muscular guys posing with one leg up on something. The shells lay on the ground. As they saw him, they stood and came forward, arms extended. In a zombie movie, they would have moaned, but they just made wet noises as they breathed, like their throats wouldn’t open all the way anymore.

  They tried to grab him, but he was too strong. He ripped an arm out of its socket, turned, and backhanded another into the wall so hard that it splatted. It felt simple, pure, the impact of him on them. He swatted another, smashed it into the wall, and then crushed the eel that slithered out of the body. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

  They shuffled toward him, knocking aside the hanger displays and tripping on piles of old dress shirts. Behind him, Maya and Iara were yelling.

  “She can feel them!” Tapper snapped, stopping in front of Hawk again with an impact that shattered one of the shells. “Remember? If we kill too many, she’ll notice! She’ll know where we are!”