Page 5 of Flesh and Bone

But he couldn’t say that to Everett. Couldn’t tell the man the thing had good as killed him. He didn’t have the words for it. Didn’t want to believe it himself.

“It’s dead,” Everett moaned through gritted teeth as Marshall pulled the rough wool blankets over his legs.

“Yeah, it’s dead,” Marshall promised, hoping it was true.

“But it’s still here. Got its teeth in me. Feels like a hole inside, like that thing was living in behind my ribs ever since—” Everett swallowed. It sounded painful. “You killed it and pulled it out but now there’s nothing left ’cept this hunger. Am I dead?”

He was raving. When Marshall put one hand to his forehead to push him down against the pillow, Everett turned into the touch, open mouth panting against Marshall’s wrist.

Marshall flinched back. “You’re running a fever, that’s all. Sleep it off and I’ll take care of you.”

“I’m starving, Marshall. This awful hunger—”

“Water’s the best thing for you, now. Especially after all that drink.”

“I need meat. Something fresh, something raw. Please…”

If he had it, Marshall would give it to him. Who the hell was he to deny a dying man his last meal? Hell, if they’d stayed out on the range, he’d have carved a steak from that steer and put the poor fucker’s death to use.

But Everett had eaten supper the same time Marshall had. Maybe it was the blood loss making him so hungry, his body trying to repair itself with red meat, but something about it unsettled Marshall.

Finally, Everett fell back, his eyes drifting restlessly behind half-closed lids, jaw working as the fingers of his good hand clenched spasmodically in the sheets. He drank the water Marshall offered but couldn’t relax, shaking and shivering as the sweat got heavier, running in rivers down his face.

Marshall couldn’t watch.

“Rest up,” he said, patting Everett’s knee through the blankets. “I’ll be back in just a minute, okay?”

Everett managed a short nod, not opening his eyes.

Reloading his shotgun and his revolver, Marshall confirmed that he had his knife on him, then took up the lamp and left to find where he’d shot the creature.

???

Everett’s skin itched.

It was the itch of an ingrown hair, something burrowed under the surface that needed a layer scratched off to let it out. Like something stuck between his molars. The itch got stronger until he could feel it in the pit of his stomach, the urge to scratch like a craving, a hunger. Like the mindless, half-asleep need to get off while still wrapped in some sticky dream. Under the bandage, he could scratch all the way down to the bone. It would feel good. Satisfying.

Slowly, Everett sat up and peeled back the sodden cloth. He didn’t want to look, but he had to know. He had to see for himself his chance of recovery, whether he’d ever be able to use his hand again or move his fingers.

The last layer fell limp across his lap.

He stared.

That wasn’t his arm.

That wasn’t anything belonging to a living body.

Flesh and bone. He’d unwrapped the bandages and they’d unwrapped his arm with them, meat coming away in slabs, shining with blood, exposed tendons, ribbons of raw nerves. He tried to move his fingers and something in the meat twitched weakly, some muscle that wasn’t connected to anything anymore, still trying to follow orders.

From in between the strings of muscle, a coarse black hair sprang out. He stared at it, repulsed, before catching it between his thumb and forefinger. It was thick and wiry, and it didn’t lift away when he pulled. Instead, it stretched taut like a guitar string, and something tugged from deep inside. He felt the tension in his guts, but like a compulsion, he pulled harder.

It came away by the root. He held it up to the firelight. An oily glob of fat, waxy and thick, clung to the follicle. Disgusted, he flicked the hair onto the floor, but he couldn’t ignore it. There must be more of them. Those hairs were probably causing the itching. Hesitantly at first, he pushed his fingertips into the open wound that ran from his elbow to the heel of his hand. His forearm was flayed open, the thumb hanging off at a wrong angle, the pink gleam of bone exposed.

The firelight turned the room ghastly and unreal, flickering in time with the scattered, uneven pulse of his fever. Trapped in a nightmare, hellfire licked at him from a few short feet away. Moonlight poured in through the window, but instead of offering soothing relief, it only made the lighting weirder, silver-blue clashing with orange-red until Everett didn’t know which shadows were real and which were conjured. His body was unrecognizable to him.

He pushed his fingers in until he touched the bones, sliding in between them like he was trying to push the meat out from a chicken wing, hands shiny with grease and gristle as he ate.

It wasn’t the same thing.

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