A Perfect Machine(13)

“That old man is one dirty motherfucker,” Marjorie said, snapped another sheet briskly.

“I know,” said Faye. “The other day he tried to kiss me. Full on the lips. I couldn’t believe it.”

“I can believe it. Old bastard grabbed one of my tits when I leaned over to change his pillow. Little shit. Tries it again, I’m gonna sock him one.”

Faye smiled, came back into the room with a clean bedpan. Marjorie folded, continued detailing ways in which she would beat the crap out of the old man if he so much as looked at her for too long. She soon got bored of this topic, though, and switched to bitching about one of the other nurses.

A shadow crossed the window. Marjorie kept talking.

Faye didn’t notice the brief darkness. She continued listening.

“… so then she asks me to take her shift! I ain’t taking that bitch’s shift, not after what she said about Herman. Herman wouldn’t do nothin’ to nobody and there she is badmouthing him right in front of me! ’Course she didn’t know I was listening, but that sure as shit…”

Marjorie blathered on and on. But her lisp soothed Faye and she found herself drifting off. She helped Marjorie put new sheets on the old man’s bed. Tucked in the corners good and tight, smoothed it out flat. Not a wrinkle in sight.

She drifted further into her own thoughts, Marjorie’s voice becoming a dull brown tone at the base of her neck, its pitch wavering ever so slightly, creeping up into her brain, massaging her consciousness.

Snap. Fold. Tuck. The soft murmur of linen hugging bed corners.

On to the pillows.

Suddenly, Palermo popped into Faye’s head. Henry, she thought. He seemed to float in and out of her thoughts – sometimes right at the forefront, other times just the flicker of a memory that she had to concentrate on very hard to pull near the surface.

If he is dead, it’ll get harder and harder for me to remember him, until he’s completely gone from my memory. How long will it take? A week, a month, a year? The thought caused a lump to form in her throat – the closest thing she’d had to tears since leaving Henry’s apartment last night.

Another shadow whipped by outside the window. Again, Faye did not see it.

Marjorie prattled. Pillows swished into pillowcases.

More darkness. Only this time, it lingered at the window, a hazy figure, unclear had anyone been looking from the inside. But no one was.

Breath fogged up the window. Close now. Closer still. Almost a discernible shape.

Then it backed off, moved away. This time the movement did catch Faye’s attention. The condensation from the breath dissipated slowly. Nearly gone. Faye caught sight of a tiny wet circle on the window just before it disappeared.

The nurse who’d been washing the old man returned with him in tow. He leered at Marjorie’s breasts as he passed. Marjorie warned him to watch his step. Then Faye and Marjorie changed sheets on the next patient’s bed.

A whisper of dread threaded through Faye’s body as she stepped near the window.

Snap. Fold. Tuck.



* * *



Outside the window, Milo hovered near Henry’s back, trying to make his voice heard. I’m here, I’m here were the only words that made any sense to say, stuck in his head like sticks in mud.

When Faye turned her attention to the window, Henry ducked back out of sight, leaving a small circle of breath dissipating in the cold. He whipped around, his back to the concrete wall beside the window. His face creased up. Etched pain. He slumped down against the wall, folded his legs under him as best he could, panted quick breaths into the night.

Finally, the logjam in Milo’s head cleared enough to let in another thought. All night? You’re just going to sit out here all night and wait for her? For what, Henry? If anything, you’re just gonna terrify her, and she’ll run screaming into the night.

Milo sighed. Drifted over to his friend, sat cross-legged, floating several inches off the ground, like a genie out of his bottle. But he had no magic carpet. And no matter how much he wanted to, he could not grant Henry three wishes. Could not even grant him one.

Concentrating as hard as he could – as he’d done back in Henry’s room when he’d tried to close the curtains for his friend – he reached his hand up to a part of Henry’s head that was more or less completely turned to metal. His fingers brushed through the solid steel there, no friction whatsoever. He tried again, this time slower, eyes closed, visualizing his fingers gaining purchase on the smooth, blackened metal of Henry’s skull – this close to it, it looked scorched, as if burned by fire. But again, it just passed right through.

Around them, the snow piled up thicker, blown into drifts by the wind. Above the nearby street, a gas lamp flickered, blew out, deepening the shadows cast by the other lamps around it.

One more try.

His eyes as tight as they’d go, Milo imagined harm coming to his friend, imagined this transformation leading to nothing of any worth, of Faye running screaming from Henry, of Hunters killing him out of fear, or simply reprisal for what he’d done to one of their number. Milo imagined these things and felt the near-tangible dread of being left alone in this new world – this world that, to him, was a world in which only he existed, in which he could communicate with no one else.

His fingertips touched Henry’s head, then, just the tiniest bit. An emotional and physical connection formed, however briefly. Milo brushed his fingers near Henry’s left ear, which now looked more like a blistered spike jutting from his skull, and Henry turned his face slowly in Milo’s direction, squinted hard gray eyes against the wind and snow, as if someone had called his name.