A Perfect Machine(62)

Milo imagined Henry squeezing his frame through this opening. He must have been on his belly, crawling. No other way he’d’ve fit.

Milo heard the hiss of air again, looked up toward the sound. His eyes had adjusted to a certain extent, but they seemed unable to penetrate deeper than a few feet into the dark.

“Henry?”

The telltale eyes were no longer visible. Maybe his back is turned? Milo thought. Once beyond the bars, the station opened up much wider and could easily have accommodated Henry turning around, even standing up. Partially, anyway. Only inside the tunnel where the subways actually used to run would he be able to properly stand – if he were on the tracks themselves.

A choking sound came from the dark.

“Henry, it’s Milo, where are you? I can’t see you.”

Another choking sound, then something shuffled, scraped along the ground. Milo imagined Henry dragging his arm or leg into a different position along the concrete.

“I can’t see shit in here, Henry. We need light. Can you say anything at all? Are you stuck or something? I hear you moving, so I’m just going to walk in that direction, OK? Don’t make any sudden moves or you’ll flatten me.”

Milo checked on Faye again where she still lay in his arms, made sure she was OK. Her breathing was shallow, and she would need medical attention soon. Or at least some materials that she could work with herself, with Milo’s help. Her leg wound had stopped bleeding for the most part, but the bullet had lodged in her body and he had no way of knowing how much damage it had done.

Milo set Faye down, said, “I’ll be right back. We’ll get you help soon. I promise.”

He knew she couldn’t hear him, but he felt, perhaps absurdly, that his voice could help her in some way.

“Coming now, Henry. Stay still.”

Milo moved forward, past the bent-to-shit gate, into the darkness proper. It was instantly inky to the point of claustrophobia. This wasn’t just lights-out-in-the-bedroom kind of dark; this was black-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean dark. Abyss dark. What was that word he’d read in old Lovecraft stories?

Stygian. Or at least it seemed that way until his eyes began adjusting.

Now that he’d thought of Lovecraft, though, he had horrible tentacled things in his mind. Imagined their suckered awfulness groping blindly for him, wrapping around his body, squeezing the breath out of him. With these images in his head, when he bumped into Henry’s leg he nearly squealed. He felt along the metal, the alien landscape of his friend’s new body.

What would it feel like on the inside? Milo thought. To be encased in this body with the same mind you had when you were a regular person. Well, a regular person to a certain extent, anyway. As “regular” as any of the Inferne Cutis could be. And did Henry even have his regular mind anymore?

When he reached Henry’s midsection, his hands fell on something warm, slightly damp. He squeezed it gently, trying to figure out what it was.

“Leave her,” Henry said. His voice sounding hewn from stone. He coughed, made the same choking sounds Milo had heard earlier.

The woman groaned, squirmed where she lay cupped in Henry’s palm. The bottom part of her legs hung outside of his hand.

“Is she hurt?”

Henry just breathed.

“Henry?”

More breathing. A slight twitch of one of his legs.

Milo glanced back in the direction of the entrance, saw faint light there, knew he had to get back to Faye. Knew he had to help her. If she died down here it would be his fault; he’d brought her here, so what happened to her now was on him.

What he should have done, he knew, was taken her to the hospital. Even just dropping her off out front, yelling for help, and running away would have been better. But some instinct had taken over. He thought bringing her to Henry was better for her. In some way that would keep her safe. He also knew that gunshot wounds always needed to be reported, which would involve cops, and that road led nowhere good for any of them.

He wondered, then, where Adelina was, whether she would ever come back.

Henry’s breath seemed to quicken then. Milo heard it puffing out of his mouth farther away in the dark.

“You OK, Henry?”

Christ, it’s not going to happen again, is it? He’ll bust up through the fucking street if he doubles in size again. And I’ll be crushed to death.

And then there was the faintest light splitting the black. At first, Milo couldn’t sense where it was coming from; his eyes were unable to process its source. He could tell it was coming from close by, though – maybe underneath Henry? Maybe Henry himself? Some other insane transformation taking place?

He suddenly felt the need to back away, give Henry some space. In case shit gets expansive again, he thought, staggered back a few feet, feeling suddenly exposed, vulnerable.

The light got brighter, and Milo saw where it was shining from: it was the woman in Henry’s hand. The woman herself was glowing. Mostly just the exposed parts of her skin. She wore bikini-style underwear and a tank top, so the light came mostly from her legs, arms, and face.

Milo watched as the light grew in intensity. Henry’s breathing quickened even more, and now the light was sufficient for Milo to see the position in which Henry lay: he was flat out on his belly, nowhere near anything that could have gotten him stuck. Whatever reason he’d stopped – maybe to wait for Milo – he seemed to have done so, then simply found himself unable to move.