by Neil Gaiman
He knew what he was up to. He was hoping a light would go on, upstairs—or better, downstairs—or next door, in his own house. Frighten the shite out of him, send him scrambling back over the wall. I was just looking to see if I could see the space shuttle. It’s supposed to be coming over Ireland tonight. He’d bluff his way out of it—Although it won’t be stopping—while his heart thumped away at his ribs. It would sort him out for another few days, a week; it would get him over the weekend.
But no light went on.
And the chickens cluck-clucked: We’re over here.
He grabbed one. It was easy, too easy. It was a lovely night; they were as clear there as they could have been, standing in a row, like a girl band, the Supremes. Shouldn’t they have been cooped up—was that the phrase?—and let out again in the morning? The city’s foxes were famous; everyone had seen one. He’d seen one himself, strolling down the street when he was walking home from the station a few months before.
He grabbed his hen, expected the protest, the pecks. But no, the hen settled into his arms like a fuckin’ kitten. The little head in one hand, the hard, scrawny legs in the other, he stretched it out like a rubber band and brought it up to his mouth. And he bit—kind of. There was no burst of blood or even a clean snap. The neck was still in his mouth. He could feel a pulse on his tongue. The hen was terrified; he could feel that in the legs. But he didn’t want to terrify the bird—he wasn’t a cruel man. He just wanted to bite its head off and hold his mouth under its headless neck. But he knew: he didn’t have it in him. He wasn’t a vampire or a werewolf. And he needed a filling—he could feel that. I was biting the head o£ a chicken, Doctor. He’d put the hen down now and get back over the wall.
But a light went on—and he bit. Downstairs, right in front of him—and the head came clean off. There was no blood, not really, just—well—bone, gristle, something wet. He wouldn’t vomit. They’d be staring out at him, the neighbours, him or her or him and her—Jim and Barbara. But he was quick, he was calm. He knew they couldn’t see him because the light was on in the kitchen and it was dark out here. Although, now that he thought of it—and he was thinking—they might have seen him before they turned on the light.
And now the chicken, the headless, dead chicken, decided to protest. A squawk came out of something that couldn’t have been its beak, because the head, detached or at least semidetached, was in one of his hands. He was holding the body by the neck and it was wriggling. Let me down, let me down.
He dropped the hen, heard it running away, and he charged. He ran at the wall. Not his own wall—he was thinking. The wall on the other side, two houses down from his own. He was up, no sweat, and he was over. He sat down for a while, to get his breath back, to work out his route home. He listened. He hadn’t heard the kitchen door being opened and the hen seemed to have accepted that it was dead. The other two hadn’t noticed, or they were in mourning. It was very quiet.
He was safe—he thought he was safe. He was stupid, exhilarated, appalled, ashamed, fuckin’ delighted, and safe. He looked up at the sky. And he saw it, the shuttle. The brightest star, moving steadily across the night. The Endeavour—he remembered the name.
He was back in the bed.
She woke—half woke. His cold feet, his weight on the mattress.
-What’s wrong?
-Nothing, he said.–I got up to see the shuttle.
-Great.
She was asleep already.
-It was amazing, he said, addressing her back.–Amazing.
He kissed her neck.
He actually slept. It was Friday night, Saturday morning.
The bed was empty when he woke. It was a long time since that had happened, since she’d been awake before him. He felt good—he felt great. He’d flossed and brushed before he’d got back into bed, no trace of the hen between his teeth. He’d gargled quietly till his eyes watered. No bad taste, and no guilt. He shouldn’t have done what he’d done, but a more important consideration quickly smothered any guilt. It was the thought he’d fallen asleep with, clutching it like a teddy bear, just after he’d kissed his wife’s neck.
Necks.
It was as simple as that.
The blood was a red herring, so to speak, sent to distract him—by his psyche or whatever, his conscience—to stop him from seeing the much healthier obvious. It was necks he’d been craving, not blood. He didn’t want to drink blood and he was no more anaemic than a cow’s leg. The simple, dirty truth was, he wanted to bite necks. It was one of those midlife things. And that was grand, it was fine, because he was in the middle of his life, give or take a few years.
Sex.
Simple.
He wanted to have sex with everything living. Not literally. He wanted to have sex with most things. Some things—most women. He was a normal man, slipping into middle age. His days were numbered. He knew this, but he didn’t think it. A year was 365 days. Ten years was 3,650. Thirty years gave him 14,600. You have 14,600 days to live. That’s fine, thanks. As he lay on the bed, he felt happy. The urge was gone, because he understood. His mind was fine, but something in him had been running amok. His biology, or something like that. Not long ago, only a few generations back, he’d have been dead already or at least drooling and toothless. Middle age and the autumn years were modern concepts. His brain understood them, but his biology—his manhood—didn’t. He only had a few years of riding left—that was what biology thought. More to the point, a few years of reproducing. And maybe the vasectomy had made things worse, or more drastic, sent messages haywire—he didn’t know.
The human mind was a funny thing. He’d been dying for a ride, so he bit the head off a neighbour’s chicken.
He went downstairs.
-A fox got one of Barbara’s hens last night, said Vera.
-Well, that was kind of inevitable, wasn’t it?
-That’s a bit heartless.
-It’s what foxes do, he said.–When?
-What?
-Did the fox strike?
-Last night, she said. —Did you hear anything when you were looking at the shuttle?
-Not a thing, he said. —Just the astronauts chatting.
She smiled. You’re such a messer.
-About what?
-Oh, just about how much they love Ireland. How’s Barbara?
-In bits.
-Did she say she felt violated?
-She did, actually, but you’re such a cynical bastard.
She was laughing. And he knew: he was home and dry.
It was later now, night again, and he kissed her neck. He bit her neck. They were a pair of kids for half an hour, and still giddy half an hour after that.
-Well, she said. —I’m ready for afters.
Her hand went exploring.
-Back in a minute, he said.
He went downstairs, went to the fridge—two mackerel on a plate. He looked in the freezer, pulled out a likely bag. A couple of pork chops. He put the bag under the hot tap, till the plastic loosened. Then he tore away the plastic and went at one of the chops. But it was too hard, too cold. He gave it thirty seconds in the microwave and hoped—and dreaded—that the ding would bring her downstairs. He stood at the kitchen window and nibbled at the edges of the chop and hoped—and dreaded—that she’d come in and see his reflection—the blind was up—before she saw him, that he’d turn and reveal himself, some kind of vampire having a snack, and she’d somehow find it sexy or at least reasonable, and forgive him, and put her hands through his hair, like she did, and maybe even join him in the chop, and he’d bring her over the wall so they could get Barbara’s last two hens, one each.
He binned the rest of the chop, shook the bin so it would disappear under the other rubbish.
He’d wait for the right moment. The visuals were important; there was a huge difference between being caught devouring raw steak and licking a frozen pork chop, or inviting your life partner to do the same. There was no hurry, no mad rush. No madness at all; he was normal.
/>
He went back upstairs.
She was waiting for him. But not in the bed, or on the bed. She was standing far away from the bed.
-What’s this? she asked.
She turned on the light.
She was holding a head on the palm of her open hand. A small head.
-A chicken’s head, he said.
-Where did you get it?
-I found it.
He was a clown, an eejit; he’d hidden it under his socks.
-It’s Barbara’s, she said.–Isn’t it?
-Barbara’s head would be a bit bigger, he said.
It didn’t work; she didn’t smile.
-Did the fox drop it in the garden? she asked.
She was giving him an escape route, offering him a reasonable story. But it was the wrong one. He’d found a chicken’s head and hidden it? He wasn’t going to admit to the lie. It was sad, perverse.
-No, he said.
-Well, she said, and looked away.–What happened?
-I bit it off, he said.
She looked at him again. For quite a while.
-What was that like?
-Great, he said.–Great.
FOSSIL-FIGURES
Joyce Carol Oates
1.
INSIDE THE GREAT BELLY where the beat beat beat of the great heart pumped life blindly. Where there should have been one, there were two: the demon brother, the larger, ravenous with hunger, and the other, the smaller brother, and in the liquidy darkness a pulse between them, a beat that quivered and shuddered, now strong, now lapsing, now strong again, as the demon brother grew even larger, took the nourishment as it pulsed into the womb, the heat, the blood, the mineral strength, kicked and shuddered with life so the mother, whose face was not known, whose existence could only be surmised, winced in pain, tried to laugh but went deathly pale, trying to smile gripping a railing Ah! My baby. Must be a boy. For in her ignorance the mother did not yet know that inside her belly there was not one but two. Flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood and yet not one but two. And yet not two equally, for the demon brother was the larger of the two, with but a single wish to suck suck suck into his being the life of the other, the smaller brother, all of the nourishment of the liquidy-dark womb, to suck into himself the smaller brother about whom he was hunched as if embracing him, belly to curving spine and the forehead of the demon brother pressed against the soft bone of the back of the head of the smaller brother. The demon brother had no speech but was purely appetite Why there be this other here—this thing! Why this, when there is me! There is me, me, me, there is only me. The demon brother did not yet feed by mouth, had not yet sharp teeth to tear, chew, devour and so could not swallow up the smaller brother into his gut, and so the smaller brother survived inside the swollen belly where the beat beat beat of the great heart pumped life blindly and in ignorance until the very hour of the birth, when the demon brother forced his way out of the womb headfirst, a diver, a plunger, eager for oxygen, thrusting, squawling, struggling to declare himself, drew his first breath in a shudder of astonishment and began to bawl loudly, hungrily, kicking his small legs, flailing his small arms, a furious purple-flushed face, half-shut glaring eyes, strands of startlingly dark and coarse hair on the flushed infant scalp A boy! Nine-pound boy! A beautiful—perfect—boy! Swathed in mother’s oily blood, glistening like pent-up fire, a sharp scream and frenzied kicking as the umbilical cord attached to his navel was deftly severed. And what shock then—was it possible?—there was yet another baby inside the mother, but this was not a perfect baby, a runt, cloaked in oily blood, a tiny aged man with a wizened face expelled from the mother after fourteen grunting minutes in a final spasm of waning contractions Another! There is another boy yet so tiny, malnourished, five pounds nine ounces, most of this weight in the head, bulbous blue-veined head, purple-flushed skin, the skull forceps dented at the left temple, eyelids stuck together with bloody pus, tiny fists weakly flailing, tiny legs weakly kicking, tiny lungs weakly drawing breath inside the tiny rib cage Oh but the poor thing won’t live—will he? Tiny caved-in chest, something twisted about the tiny spine, and only faintly, as if at a distance, came the choked bleating cries. In contempt the demon brother laughed. From his place at the mother’s breast suck suck sucking the mother’s rich milk yet the demon brother laughed in contempt and anger for Why there be this other here, why this, why “brother,” why “twin,” when there is me. Only be one of me.
Yet not one: two.
AT A FEVER PITCH childhood passed for the demon brother who was first in all things. At a glacial pace childhood passed for the smaller brother who trailed behind his twin in all things. The demon brother was joyous to behold, pure infant fire, radiant thrumming energy, every molecule of his being quivering with life, appetite, me me me. The smaller brother was often sick, lungs filled with fluids, a tiny valve in his heart fluttered, soft bones of his curving spine, soft bones of his bowed legs, anemia, weak appetite, and the skull subtly misshapen from the forceps delivery, his cries were breathy, bleating, nearly inaudible me? me? For the demon brother was first in all things. In the twins’ crib the first to roll onto his stomach, and the first to roll onto his back. The first to crawl. The first to rise on shaky baby legs. The first to toddle about wide eyed in triumph at being vertical. The first to speak: Mama. The first to drink in, to swallow up, to suck nourishment from all that he encountered, eyes widened in wonder, in greed, his first word Mama not an appeal or a plea but a command: Mama! Belatedly the smaller brother followed the demon brother, uncertain in his movements, poorly coordinated in his legs, his arms, the very tilt of his head questionable, and his head quivering on frail shoulders, the eyes rapidly blinking, watery, seemingly weak as the facial features were less defined than those of the demon brother of whom it was claimed proudly He’s all boy! while of the smaller brother it was murmured Poor thing! But he is growing. Or it was murmured Poor thing! But what a sweet sad smile. In these early years the smaller brother was often sickly and several times had to be hospitalized (anemia, asthma, lung congestion, heart-valve flutter, sprained bones) and in these interims the demon brother did not seem to miss the smaller brother but basked in the full attention of their parents and grew yet taller and stronger and soon it could scarcely be claimed that the brothers were twins—even “fraternal” twins—for observers would react with baffled smiles Twins? How can that be possible? For by the age of four, the demon brother was several inches taller than the smaller brother whose spine curved, and whose chest caved in upon itself, and whose eyes blinked, teary and vaguely focused, and it came to seem that the brothers were not twins but, simply, brothers: the one older than the other by two or three years, and much healthier. We love the boys equally. Of course. At bedtime the demon brother sank into sleep with the abruptness of a rock sinking into dark water, come to rest in the soft dark mud below. At bedtime the smaller brother lay with opened eyes and stem-thin limbs twitching, for he feared sleep as one might fear sinking into infinity Even as a young child I understood that infinity is a vast fathomless chasm inside the brain into which we fall and fall through out lives, fall and fall unnamed, faceless and unknown where even, in time, the love of our parents is lost. Even the love of our mothers is lost. And all memory waking from a thin tormented sleep like frothy water spilled across his face and he’s struggling to breathe, choking and coughing, for the demon brother has sucked up most of the oxygen in the room, how can the demon brother help it, his lungs are so strong, his breath so deep and his metabolism so heated, naturally the demon brother will suck up the oxygen in the brothers’ room where each night at bedtime their parents tuck the boys in, in twin beds, kissing each, declaring their love for each, and in the night the smaller brother is wakened from a nightmare of suffocation, his weak lungs unable to breathe, panicked and whimpering, in a plea for help managing to crawl from his bed and out of the room and into the hall, collapsed partway between the brothers’ room and their parents’ room where in the early morning the parents
will discover him.
Such meager life, yet such life struggles to save itself!—so the demon brother would recall, in contempt.
OF COURSE WE LOVE Edgar and Edward equally. They are both our sons.
This declaration the demon brother knew to be a lie. Yet was angered by the thought that, when the parents uttered the lie, as they did frequently, those who heard it might believe. And the smaller brother, the sickly brother, with his caved-in chest, crooked spine, wheezy asthmatic breath, yearning teary eyes and sweet smile wished to believe. To rebuke him, the demon brother had a way of turning on him when they were alone, for no (evident) reason pushing him, shoving him, wrestling him to the floor, as the smaller brother drew breath to protest straddling him with his knees, gripping the breakable rib cage like a vise, thump-thump-thumping the little freak’s head against the floor, the moist hard palm of a hand clamped over the little freak’s mouth to prevent him from crying for help Mama mama mama faint as a dying lamb’s bleating and so unheard by the mother in another part of the house downstairs in her bliss of ignorance not hearing the thump-thump-thump of the smaller brother’s head against the carpeted floor of the boys’ room until at last the smaller brother goes limp, ceases to struggle, ceases to struggle for breath, his pinched little face has turned blue, and the demon brother relents, releases him panting and triumphant.
