Page 9 of Flesh and Bone

Everett twisted onto his knees, hunched forward for balance. Tears tracked salty trails through the blood and dirt on his face; Marshall couldn’t recall ever seeing him cry before. The tears were bad enough, but his eyes — his eyes were looking strange in the lamplight. When he turned so the light hit them at just the right angle, they looked flatly reflective, like a wild animal’s in the dark.

Marshall had to shoot him. No way around it. And he had to do it now, before Everett’s body twisted itself into that monstrous inhuman thing Marshall had killed outside. He pulled in a shaky breath, flexing his hand before pressing it flat against his thigh to steady it. He swung both legs over the edge of the bed, boots planted flat on the floor.

Everett keened, swaying, eyes shut under his sweaty hair, face turned to Marshall’s knees with his bloody teeth bared, nose wrinkled like a predator’s snarl. In his mind, Marshall held onto the image of Everett as he’d been the day before: still whole, still human, with his soft brown eyes and an easy smile. Everett’s sweat had turned from the sickly scent of terror to wild animal musk, pungent and ripe.

He’d been on his knees under that full moon, too. Maybe Everett was right, and that night had set some kind of devil onthem. Not in retaliation for the act itself — Marshall had fucked around with his share of men, and nothing and nobody had ever struck him down for it — but in punishment for being careless with his best friend. For taking him up on his offer even though Everett couldn’t meet his eyes or articulate what it was he was asking for. Marshall knew better than to get involved with a man like that, but he’d gone and done it anyway, and now Everett was the one getting ripped apart for it.

Maybe that fever was spreading. Those weren’t any kind of rational thoughts. Then again, that beast lying dead outside with a man in its belly wasn’t rational, either.

Marshall reached for his revolver on the dresser. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. His voice cracked.

Everett’s eyes snapped open, meeting his, and for an instant, he was himself again. Scared and bleeding out, hurt bad enough to die from it, kneeling bound on the floor at Marshall’s feet.

“You’re all right,” Marshall said hoarsely.

He tested his grip on the Colt, the familiar weight of it uncomfortable now, enamel grip worn smooth, silver barrel licked red by the firelight. The 1840 Colt Paterson was Marshall’s prized possession, passed down to him from his daddy. Not as powerful as his double-barrel shotgun, but that thing would take Everett’s head clean off. The revolver would kill him just as dead, but he’d still have a face when it was done.

Marshall hesitated. He wasn’t sure which option was worse. To have his friend looking up at him from the corpse, or to obliterate him so totally, he could pretend it wasn’t Everett he’d killed at all.

He’d never killed anyone before and never imagined he might.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Everett said helplessly. The lamplight glowed against his brown eyes.

“It’s okay,” Marshall lied. More honestly, “It’s not your fault.”

Everett managed some semblance of a smile that hurt to see.

Then, he screamed.

His back bowed forward until his forehead hit the floor hard enough to rattle his skull. Marshall scrambled back onto the bed, pressing himself against the far wall, body reacting in an instinctive panic before his brain caught on. The Colt was clumsy in his hand; he couldn’t aim it at Everett the way he needed to.

On the floor, Everett reached for him, his arms still bound tight to his body, leaving him struggling to push himself towards the bed on his knees and chest, twisting from one shoulder to the other, craning his neck trying to catch Marshall in his sights. His body broke, wrenching itself apart. Marshall could hear the crack of bones and crunch of vertebrae under the scream that ripped from Everett’s throat like a howl. His blood-soaked shirt tore at the seams as the devil in Everett’s body fought its way out.

???

Blinding agony.

There was hardly an atom of Everett’s body still in his control. One arm useless, both of them tied, and his legs too weak to stand on. Belly starving for awful things and an infected brain spinning his thoughts in feverish circles, fixating on everything he shouldn’t want. The only thing he could do was scream.

Under his shirt, around his spine, the wicked hungry thing that had got its teeth in him to devour him from the inside out cracked apart the two flanks of his back ribs to arch out from its cage of flesh and bone, a gristly, blood-matted thing. Throat shredded, vocal cords torn, Everett’s screams turned wet and hoarse. Through the throbbing red of his vision, he saw Marshall, crouching frozen by the headboard, his expression a mask of perfect horror that made Everett’s stomach flip in one last push of panic.

The devil in him clawed its way out, pulling free its ugly, toothy snout, then its legs, two at a time. Its breath was damp and rancid against the back of his neck as it hunched over him like a shell. It was bigger than he was, a heavy weight pressing him down. He stared up at Marshall from between its forelegs as it shook its head, its ruff falling into place as the fur settled. Blood sprayed the floor and flecked the bedcovers. He knelt as the beast surrounded him like a pelt, its ribs enclosing him in a dread embrace, drawing him up into its belly, towards its spine.

His shirt hung in tatters off his shoulders, his good arm free, the harness pulled apart. He reached desperately for Marshall, like the man could take his hand and pull him out of the creature that had claimed him.

“Help me,” he croaked, straining forward.

With the beast torn out of him, it was like it had taken with it every awful thought and violent urge. He felt empty, like a sawdust doll: no blood, no bones, no hope, just thin skin in the rough shape of a person. He couldn’t blame Marshall for not taking his hand. Everything Everett had said and done, everything he hadn’t said and failed to do, every avoided wordand glance and touch; in Marshall’s place, he might not have wanted to save himself, either. He wasn’t even sure there was enough of him left to be worth saving.

But the animal instinct for life, that bone-deep terror of dying, and dying messy at the teeth of a predator, kept driving him forward. It wouldn’t let him give up. Even though the easiest thing for him and Marshall both would be for him to go quiet and limp and let the beast finish him off without any more fight. But he clawed against the floor, digging broken fingernails into the seams between the boards, trying to keep himself from being consumed completely.

Marshall grasped his hand and the touch shocked a current through Everett. His palm was slick with sweat, Everett’s sticky with blood, but his grip was like a vice.

It wasn’t enough to drag him out. The beast’s grip on Everett was stronger. Through the beast’s filthy fur, Marshall’s gaze met Everett’s, terrified but determined. They both understood that Everett wasn’t going anywhere.

“Finish it,” Everett begged.

The beast’s ribs encircled him, holding him tight as the thing’s meat and muscle knit itself around him like he was an exposed bone that needed to be brought back inside.

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