The Sound of Broken Ribs(33)

She saw her enemy clearly: the blonde hair, the quarter-moon scar, the soulless gaze of her blank eyes.

Her devil spoke:

I wanted to know what it felt like to destroy something. What it felt like to ruin a life. You were… you were just in the right place at the right time.

In Lei’s mind, the woman with the scarred brow shifted. Her skin became mercurial, thin. The flesh rippled and boiled like the disturbed surface of a lake. And underneath, the skin was ebony. The woman blinked yellow eyes and exploded into shards of black ice. Lei could feel the cold coming off of those jagged pieces. Could feel the evil invading her.

“Lei?” Harry’s voice came from a hole in the ground. “Lei? Jesus Christ, Lei, are you okay? Fuck!”

Suddenly there were people. All kinds of people. People with glistening ebony skin all around her. And she was dropping. She was being lowered into the ground and the people with the black skin were singing. The Ebony Ones were singing a terribly joyous tune.

A song of release and imprisonment.

Of love and hate.

Gentility and violence.

Lei’s eyes popped wide, and she bucked. The bottom of her right foot slammed painfully into the plastic footboard and a lightning bolt of agony shot from her heel, up her thigh, across her pelvis, into her gut, and exploded in her ribs. She screeched. Again she was reminded of an old rusty hinge. Her ribs ground together.

Clickety, click, click… click click…

Harry loomed over her. His hands kept coming up as if he wanted to touch her but was afraid that, if he did, he’d only hurt her more. He was probably right. She met his terrified eyes and shook her head, slowly, oh so slowly, and he seemed to calm a bit.

He sighed in relief. She could smell fried chicken on his breath. “What the hell was that?”

She didn’t know, but she did know that she never wanted to experience it again.

Hilda came in, accompanied by three other medical staff and the tech with the golden braids—a rush of wind and scrubs. Harry had pulled the string on the wall labeled CODE. He explained what had happened, and Lei could only listen in stunned silence.

“She started convulsing, and I swear to god something came out of her.”

“Something came out of her?” Hilda asked, confused. “Like her IV? Did her central line come out?”

Hilda made her way around the bed even as Harry was explaining that, “No. That’s not what I mean. I… Jesus, I can’t even really describe it. She’s the writer,” he laughed—the sound of it was mirthless, empty. “I wish I could explain it. Goddamn, if I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought I was seeing her die. Watching… oh shit, this sounds nuts. Like… like I was watching her soul leaving her body.”

The group of nurse, tech, and other staff looked at each other in turn before turning their gaze on Lei.

They didn’t believe him—did they? The looks on their faces said they believed every word of what Harry had told them. The look on their faces said they were gazing upon a soulless thing laying in a hospital bed. But that was ridiculous.

People don’t really have souls. The afterlife is a myth. We die and that’s it. Poof. Gone.

But what rattled Lei to her core was the look in Harry’s eyes. There was no love in that face. Only fear.

Oh, God, what did he see?

Lei heard soft, hissing laughter.

In the space between Hilda’s curls and the side of her neck rested a black chin and grinning yellow teeth. The thing’s jaw sat there, like a dog will rest its chin on its master’s thigh, awaiting attention. Hilda’s ear and hair obscured what must be the top of the thing’s face. All Lei could see was the jutting chin, its sickly yellow teeth and drawn cheeks the color of lava rock.

The thing did not snatch itself away as it had on previous occasions. This time, it retreated slowly, inch by inch, until it disappeared into the shadows of Hilda’s hair.

Soon. The thing chuckled. Soon…

Lei’s eyes opened, and she found herself staring at a strange man in a lab coat. The man was in the middle of telling Harry how lucky his wife was.

A nightmare? The soul-thing was a nightmare?

If so, had all instances of The Ebony One’s appearance been only hallucinations? Perhaps a response to the extreme pain she’d been suffering?

Lei thought that this was very likely. What was certainly not very likely was that there was some kind of parasitic, black-skinned, yellow-toothed creature attached to everyone who spoke to her. A sentient, disembodied head (and hand—can’t forget that fucking hand) who fancied a macabre version of peek-a-boo.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Duncan. I’m Dr. Peas. Spelled the same way as snap peas.” The doctor had a green chart tucked under his arm and a pink stethoscope draped around his neck. His smile was catching, and she caught herself trying to return it. But mostly she was smiling because she was thrilled with the possibility that she might not be losing her mind; that the thing she had come to call The Ebony One wasn’t really real.

She nodded her own hello to the doctor.

“Your husband tells me you’ve been communicating with markers and a dry-erase board. Good. Very good. Communication is key. Are you up for finding out what happened to you and what to expect in the near future as well as long term goals for your recovery?”

Lei nodded.

“Very well. I was just telling Harry here that you were, of course, struck by a car doing a significant amount of speed, but that it could have been worse. I know, I know. It seems pretty bad, and it is, but at least you’ve lived to see another day.” Dr. Peas stopped to share a smile with Lei and Harry in turn. “My guess is that the vehicle hit you on the left flank and that you took the brunt of the trauma on that side. In fact, I assume that the only reason for your dislocated right shoulder and fractured right wrist, is that the arm on that side sacrificed itself to save the rest of you. Basically, you landed like this—” Peas stuck his right arm out behind him and pressed his palm against the cabinet by the television. “When you landed, you snapped the ulna near the wrist and popped your shoulder out of socket. All that has been corrected, but both sites will throb in bad weather, as will the rest of you. You’ll no doubt develop a long-term relationship with Mr. Arthur Itis.” Peas shared another grin with the couple.