A Perfect Machine(30)

That fucking young guy and his dog. Shit! Faye thought.

The dog barked once, twice, then they heard it and its owner climbing the stairs. They reached the first floor, were heading for the second… which is when the second-floor stairwell door crashed open with a loud bang, and a woman and her dog burst out onto the landing.

“Hey, Marcy, just came back from our late-nighter,” the young guy said. “Weather’s a bit shit, but not too horrific. Shouldn’t be that sludgy.”

“Sweet,” the woman said, one of those annoying every-word-is-a-question lilts to her nasally voice. “Don’t wanna make it a long one, anyway. Just ’round the block.” She bent toward her yippy little dog, said, “Isn’t that right, my little boo-boo? Yes, it is!”

And she was off, tromping down the stairs in what sounded like heels.

“’Night, Marcy,” the guy called after her, but she didn’t reply. “Stupid bitch,” Faye heard him mutter as he entered the second-floor door. It slammed shut behind him.

The ground-floor door slammed seconds afterward.

Silence. Hearts beating hard, fast. Nearly leaping out of chests.

“Go,” Faye said, motioning Steve ahead of her impatiently. “Go, go, go.”

Steve bounded up the last flight of stairs, opened the door to the fourth floor, poked his head out, saw no one, held it for Faye and Henry. “Clear,” he said.

Less than twenty feet to her apartment now. The hallway stretched ahead of them like in a nightmare. Fifteen, ten, five –

– key frantically in lock, twisting, turning, head on a swivel, scanning the hallway –

– then… inside.

Faye closed the door as quietly as she could behind her. She lifted the blanket off Henry. He blinked against the sudden light, glanced around the apartment. Stretched himself as tall as he could under the eight-foot-ceiling, which still left him hunched, but it was better than being crouched and shuffling blindly under a blanket. He smiled a little, looked at Steve, nodded, said, “Thanks” in his hewn-from-rock voice.

Steve just looked away, then looked back, tried to hold Henry’s gaze, found he couldn’t. He managed a general nod, which was good enough for Henry.

Once they’d had a chance to catch their breath, Faye said, “I’m gonna go make us some coffee, settle our nerves. Henry, don’t sit on any of my furniture. I don’t need any kindling right now, OK?”

For a moment, Henry didn’t understand, but then he got it, nodded.

“Go sit on the floor for now, till I can figure out something more comfortable for you.”

Faye walked to the kitchen. Steve stood just inside the front door, staring at Henry. They locked eyes for a little too long just then, and Henry saw something in Steve’s eyes he recognized very well: fear. But not just fear. Fear coupled with stupidity.

Milo hovered beside Henry, feeling the situation coming slowly to a head. That feeling of wrongness becoming nearly palpable, filling the air between them.

Steve glanced down the hallway, back to Henry, pulled out a cell phone, flicked on the camera app. “I won’t show anyone, Henry,” he said. “I just want this so I can convince myself later that it really happened. Even though you’d think this would stick hardcore, after I left, I had trouble holding on to your image in my mind. It kept slipping away.” He lifted the phone and aimed it in Henry’s direction. “I knew I needed to come back, to prove to myself–”

And then one of Henry’s massive hands flicked up quickly from his side, shot forward, and popped Steve’s head like a grape.

Blood, bone, and gristle sprayed out from between Henry’s fingers, splattered the wall behind Steve. He crumpled to the ground. Bled onto the carpet and hardwood floor. Henry took three steps backward, just staring at what he’d done. A few minutes later, Faye returned from the kitchen with the coffee.

When she saw Steve’s body, she stopped dead, her mouth fell open just a little, then she very deliberately moved over to the nearest flat surface, placed the coffee cups on it, and said almost too quietly for Henry to hear: “What have you done?”





T E N





Small, one-bedroom apartment. Spiral-bound notepad. The top of the first page reads: Inferne Cutis: Latin for “below the skin.”

That’s what they call themselves. Pretentious motherfuckers.

William Krebosche looked up from his notes, read the clock on his bedside table: 2:47 a.m. He’d been listening to his digital voice recorder and transcribing every word for the past three hours. Even though it was very clear, he wasn’t able to salvage all of it. Some words when they entered his brain just became unintelligible, garbled by some external filter he didn’t understand. Something unknown that, for whatever reason, protected the Inferne Cutis from scrutiny. Soon enough, the very notion of this filter would fade, just like the other memories.

As it turned three o’clock, and the recording finally ended, Krebosche leaned back in his chair, rubbed his eyes, and steeled himself for the fact that he would now have to write the entire article in one sitting, as quickly as he could, so that it made some kind of sense by the time it was finished. He planned to have the piece published in the local newspaper through an editor acquaintance, Paul Darby, who worked there. He hoped it would then be picked up by larger outlets, and the domino effect would take over.