by J L Aarne
Because he liked to think he was a nice guy, Wyatt got as far away from Silas as he could as fast as he could before he doubled over and vomited. He immediately felt better—until he remembered the fishy white and yellow gleam of Not Ned’s eyes in the moonlight. He didn’t vomit again, but it was a near thing and he returned to where Silas still crouched beside the body a little ashamed of himself.
“See the way this just comes right up when I pull on it?” Silas asked him like he hadn’t even noticed Wyatt leaving to throw up in the bushes. He pulled at more of Not Ned’s skin and it did lift right up—a lot more easily than it seemed like it should. “Like old carpet or some kind of—”
“Costume,” Wyatt said. His stomach gave another alarming lurch before it settled again and all he could think was that he desperately wanted their little walk to be over.
“Exactly,” Silas said. “That’s exactly what it is.”
He tore the long piece of skin he had been ripping completely off, revealing a slimy, greyish creature’s arm hidden inside. Once Wyatt saw it, he realized what Louie had seen right away; the hole where Herschel had gored Not Ned looked wrong. The flesh around it had two layers, one of pink human tissue and subcutaneous fat, and another layer beneath it that same grey color which Wyatt had first mistaken for pieces of organs. The ribs protruded from that part of it and the more he looked the more the whole thing did look like a thin greyish creature had slipped into Ned’s skin and walked around in it like it was some sort of housecoat. A housecoat that didn’t fit very well.
“It’s loose,” Wyatt said. His nausea had passed as his interest sharpened on the body and he forgot to be disgusted. “Why is it like that?”
He knelt beside Silas to get a closer look. The smell of it, like rotten fish, hit him in the face and made him gag, but he still leaned down to see better.
“It hasn’t had time to bond with the foreign body yet,” Silas said. “The body tricks it into thinking it is the body the skin belongs to and eventually it will bond seamlessly. You couldn’t tell unless you dissected it and even then, you might not see it unless you were looking. This one must have harvested the skin about a day ago. Two at the most.”
“Harvested the skin?” Wyatt repeated. “What does that mean? What is this thing?”
“Fleshgait,” Silas said.
“I have no idea what that is,” Wyatt said. He grimaced and stood back up. “I think I got its slime on my shoes though.”
“Fleshgait,” Silas said again. “It’s like… flesh-walker. A body-snatcher. They take their victims’ skin—their body—and wear it. They become them.”
“So, Ned is dead,” Wyatt said.
“Unless he can survive without his skin,” Silas said. He looked thoughtful and added, “Some things can. Ned wasn’t one of those things.”
“Well, that’s great. You get to break the news to Herschel,” Wyatt said.
“Poor Herschel,” Louie said sadly. He sat down on Silas’s shoulder with a sigh and shook his head. “They were in love.”
“I haven’t seen a fleshgait in… a really long time,” Silas said. He stood and wiped his hands on the thighs of his jeans.
“So?” Wyatt said. He didn’t like the way Silas sounded when he said that or the faraway look he had on his face. “What does that mean?”
“Probably nothing,” Silas said. “Just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. That’s how they survive. Anyone can be one. You could be one.”
“I am not one,” Wyatt said, offended.
“I couldn’t be one,” Louie said.
Silas smiled. “No, I guess not.”
Wyatt frowned down at the remains of the thing that had been briefly masquerading as Ned and a real moment of surrealism washed over him. Suddenly all he could think was, This is not actually happening. How could it be? He was crazy, wasn’t he? And wasn’t this entire scenario exactly the type of thing a delusional crazy person would invent to support their delusions and convince themselves that they were sane? That he was sane, and it was really the rest of the world that was mad? Here was Silas, the gatekeeper of his break with reality, and he was perfect in that regard. Wyatt couldn’t have made up a better catalyst-slash-companion for this loony adventure if he had set out intentionally to do it. He was sexy and tough, capable and smart, he was fearless in the face of everything that gave Wyatt nightmares, and the part that Wyatt kept coming back to was that he cared about Wyatt and wanted to help him. He didn’t even know him. Unless he wasn’t real at all. Unless Wyatt had created him.
Which story was more logical? he asked himself. He had to ask himself because Dr. Graham wasn’t there to do it for him. He knew what she would ask if he ever told her the whole story though; if he included the body in the park, the gnomes and the minotaur. She would ask him which made more sense: That some strange warrior of a man had appeared out of nowhere into his life during a moment of deep panic, taken care of him, protected him and told him that everything everyone had always told him was his mind playing tricks on him was in actuality real, then proceeded to prove it? Or that Wyatt had created this warrior of a man during his time of crisis as a way to cope when his fear had reached critical mass and overwhelmed him? Wyatt would have no choice but to say that the latter made more sense. It was the correct answer, after all.
Just to see what would happen, he turned the beam of the small flashlight he still carried onto the ravaged body of the thing wearing Ned’s skin. He didn’t know what he expected, maybe for it to disappear in the light or float away like smoke, the light revealing it to be nothing more than his imagination playing more horrible tricks on him. Just like Herschel. Just like Louie. Just like Silas.
The body didn’t disappear. When the light touched it, the skin began to sizzle. The putrefying flesh reeked already, but when it began to cook, the stench was unbelievably vile.
Silas took the flashlight out of Wyatt’s hand and turned it off. “Don’t do that.”
“Why did it do that?” Wyatt asked. “Do they all do that? Would… would Louie do that?”
“Hey!” Louie squeaked in alarm.
“I don’t think I’m giving this back to you,” Silas said, slipping the flashlight into the pocket of his coat.
“It’s not like I was hurting anything,” Wyatt grumbled. “I mean, it’s already dead.”
“You’re destroying evidence,” Silas said.
“So?”
“So, I think it’s time I took you home.”
A few minutes before, Wyatt would have thought that was a fantastic idea, but when Silas mentioned it he felt oddly disappointed and a little bit rejected.
“Okay,” he said.
Silas charged Louie and the other gnomes with guarding the body and they went back into the park to find Herschel.
The minotaur was sitting by a small fountain, looking forlorn and abandoned and Wyatt experienced a moment of genuine sympathy for the monster. Until that moment, he hadn’t actually thought about Herschel as a sentient being. He hadn’t been able to empathize with him, not even in the midst of his obvious distress, because he was so completely inhuman that it was nearly impossible to believe he had that depth of emotion. His loss was not the horrible death of a lover, it was an inconvenient problem that meant Wyatt was going to be dragged into the thick of his nightmares yet again. As they came upon him by the fountain, Wyatt couldn’t avoid it because Herschel was grieving, and they had just been standing over the body of the thing that had murdered Ned. Not only murdered him; murdered him, stripped his skin off, put it on like a suit and gone out to pretend to be Ned.
If Herschel hadn’t bitten the thing masquerading as Ned, would he have ever even known that it wasn’t?
Silas went over to where Herschel sat by the water and rested a hand on his shoulder. “You should go home,” he said.
“Where is home, Silas?” Herschel asked. “It doesn’t matter where I go anymore, don’t you see? He’s gone.”
“He is,”
Silas said.
Herschel wiped at his leaking eyes with his hairy arms and looked up at Silas with big, sad cow eyes. “Just tell me the truth. Did I kill him?”
“No. God, no, Herschel, you didn’t,” Silas said. “That thing wasn’t Ned. It was…”
Herschel nodded, understanding. “It was wearing Ned. For how long?”
“Not that long,” Silas said. “A day is probably all.”
Herschel let out a long breath. “A whole day,” he said. “I didn’t know. How could I not know?”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Silas said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “They evolved to hide that way thousands of years ago. They’re very good at it. Most people don’t know when it happens. Most people never know.”
Herschel shook his head sadly and stared down into the pool of the fountain. “I don’t know what to do,” he said.
“I know,” Silas said. “Listen, Herschel, I’m going to take Wyatt here back to his place. I think he’s had enough for one night. I’ll be back, but while I’m gone, keep an eye out?”
“Sure, Silas,” Herschel said.
He didn’t look like he was listening, but Silas gave him one last pat on the shoulder and walked back to Wyatt. “He’ll be all right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The short journey back to Wyatt’s apartment seemed to take much less time than the trip out had, but he wasn’t as afraid as they walked back as he had been to leave the safety of his well-lit abode. Instead of staring into the shadows and looking out for things hiding in the darkness, his mind was on Herschel and the thing that had not been Ned. What had Silas called the slimy, skinny grey thing inside?
Fleshgait.
Just the word made Wyatt’s skin crawl.
“Silas, what’s a fleshgait?” he asked.
“Skin-walker. Of a sort. I thought we’d been over this,” Silas said.
“Yeah, but what does that mean?” Wyatt insisted.
“It means what you just saw,” Silas said.
“But you said you hadn’t seen one in a long time,” Wyatt said. “So, why now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would you usually see them?”
“Usually you wouldn’t. That’s the point. But if you did… they’re drawn by power. The greater, the darker, the more seductive. If there’s more than one around, or a lot of them, I think… Well, I think we might have a bigger problem.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
“I wish you would stop saying that.”
Silas shrugged.
Chapter 7
Dr. Graham’s full given name was Gabrielle Florence Graham, it was right there on her business card, but Wyatt had always thought she bore an uncanny resemblance to Helen Mirren. She was from Marysville though, so she didn’t have the British accent, which was good. Wyatt had always felt sure that would have been awfully distracting.
“It doesn’t seem so bad to me, Wyatt. I know it can be uncomfortable, letting new people into your life, but friends are good for you,” Dr. Graham said.
Sometimes Wyatt felt like she intentionally misunderstood him, and it was beginning to feel like one of those times.
“But I don’t—He doesn’t know me. Why is he always around? Doesn’t he have other things to do? You know… other people?” Wyatt asked. “Then, well then, I wondered—I still wonder every once in a while, actually—if he’s even really there. Maybe I made him up.”
Dr. Graham raised her eyebrows, an expression Wyatt was familiar with; it translated roughly to, Oh, really? Tell me more.
“Except I know I didn’t make him up. Other people see him,” Wyatt said. “Like when he bailed me out of jail. Imaginary people can’t bail you out of jail.”
“Knowing this, do you still feel like he isn’t real sometimes?” Dr. Graham asked.
“Yes,” Wyatt said.
“Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know.”
Dr. Graham didn’t say anything and waited.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Wyatt said.
“All right. What would you like to talk about instead?” Dr. Graham asked.
Wyatt clasped and unclasped his hands in his lap. “It’s just that… he says things. He tells me I’m not crazy and then he… almost makes me believe it.”
“You’re not crazy, Wyatt,” Dr. Graham said, a tone of disapproval in her voice for his use of that frowned upon C word.
“See, but you say that all the time and I think you’re supposed to say that,” Wyatt said. “I’m sorry, Dr. Graham, but it doesn’t really mean anything, you know, coming from you. But then Silas is like me. He sees things. No one else ever has.”
“Do you actually believe he sees the things that you see, Wyatt?” Dr. Graham asked.
“I don’t know,” Wyatt said. “Yes.”
“I see,” Dr. Graham said. She turned her left wrist to glance at the face of her little gold watch. “How did you meet your new friend, Wyatt?”
“My car broke down and he saved me from being eaten by a harpy,” Wyatt said without giving it much thought. He was tired and he wanted to go home.
He was also a little irritated that Dr. Graham kept saying his name every time she spoke to him. There was some psychological reason why people did that, he knew, he just couldn’t remember what it was.
“When was this?” Dr. Graham asked.
“I guess about five days ago,” Wyatt said. “I still need to get my car back.”
“Your car?”
“They took it. I’ll probably have to get the money from Kat though, and I hate doing that.”
“If you don’t have your car, how have you been getting to work?”
“I took the bus a couple times, but that was weird. I called a taxi one time but that was expensive. Yesterday, Silas drove me. That wasn’t so bad.”
“Wyatt, do you wonder if perhaps your friendship with Silas is moving a bit fast?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I don’t get it.”
Dr. Graham reached over on her desk for a small tablet computer, made a few notes and set it down in her lap to regard Wyatt seriously. “What worries me about this isn’t that you’ve made friends with someone. Please don’t misunderstand me. What I’m worried about is that he isn’t helping you. It worries me that he seems to be encouraging your delusions.”
Wyatt sighed. “I knew you were going to say that.”
“Because on some level you are aware of it, and you know that it isn’t good for you,” Dr. Graham said. “You have been making excellent progress and this does worry me. I’m glad that you’re making friends, it isn’t healthy to be too isolated from people, but…”
“But not friends like Silas,” Wyatt guessed.
“I didn’t say that,” Dr. Graham said. “I’m sure he’s a very nice person.”
“Sometimes,” Wyatt said. “Not really.”
He glanced up at the clock on the wall behind her and stood. It was five minutes to four and he didn’t want to talk to her for another five minutes, he wanted to go home.
Dr. Graham turned her wrist over again, saw the time and nodded. She stood as well and walked with him to the door. “Just think about it, Wyatt. That’s all. Do you really want people in your life who are going to make it harder for you instead of easier?”
Wyatt shrugged and walked through the door after she opened it for him. He was glad he hadn’t mentioned the gnomes, the dead thing in the park or Herschel. If he had brought up fleshgaits, Dr. Graham might have upped his meds again and he was already taking so much stuff that it sometimes felt like he was moving through a world made of Teddy bear stuffing. He also knew better than to tell her that sometimes lately he thought about not taking them. He thought about it a lot.
He liked Dr. Graham. He sometimes thought he might love her a little bit. She had been kind to him over the years and she had tried everything in her power to help him. She genuinely wan
ted to help him because she cared. The problem was that now Wyatt had started not only second-guessing himself, but really doubting for the first time in as long as he could remember that he was crazy at all. If he wasn’t then she couldn’t help him no matter how good her intentions. If he wasn’t, his problems were far beyond her expertise.
He said goodbye to Dr. Graham and walked by the little reception desk in the outer office where Clarice, the doctor’s assistant and receptionist, was filing her nails with an emery board. “Goodbye, Clarice,” Wyatt said.
She nodded. “See you next week, Mr. Sinclair.”
Silas was waiting for Wyatt out in the parking lot in his truck. He smoked a cigarette and watched the people beyond the windshield through sleepy, half open eyes. “How was your visit?” he asked when Wyatt got in beside him.
“Dr. Graham says she’s worried about me,” Wyatt said as he put his seatbelt on. “Which is nice of her, but she really doesn’t need to worry. No more than usual.”
Silas finished his cigarette and flicked the butt outside. “Why is she worried?” he asked as he started the truck.
“Dr. Graham says that you encourage my delusions, which makes you bad for me,” Wyatt informed him.
Silas’s brow furrowed, and he backed them out of the parking lot. For a minute, Wyatt waited for him to snap at him or say something nasty about Dr. Graham, but when Silas spoke again they were sitting at a stoplight and all he said was, “I’m hungry. I think I want pizza.”
“Okay, I’m kinda hungry, too. I want bacon and pineapple,” Wyatt said. He ignored Silas’s expression of disgust at this announcement; he was used to it. Most people didn’t like the pizza Wyatt liked. “Dr. Graham says she thinks our friendship happened too fast. I thought she was going to say that.”
Silas kept his eyes on the traffic as he drove, but he silently mouthed, “Dr. Graham says. Dr. Graham says…” to himself.
“Sorry,” Wyatt said.
“It’s fine,” Silas said. “Now that I know what Dr. Graham thinks though, what does Wyatt think? Because I’m a lot more interested in that.”
“I don’t really know what Wyatt thinks,” Wyatt said.
