Apeshit (17 page)

touches it to make sure it is real. There is a trail of blood

leading away from this spot. It goes towards the river.

Jason takes a deep breath. He doesn’t know how, but

the thing must still be alive. That is, unless there is another

one of them out in these woods who dragged the gray man’s

body away. He decides to follow the blood.

One way or another
, he thinks,
I’m going to kill that

thing for good.

Desdemona is in midair, hanging from the balcony

of the cabin, holding on for her life. She didn’t fall all the

way to the ground with the others. As she fell, a strand of her

intestine hooked onto the wooden rail and saved her from the

drop. She is surprised that her intestine is able to hold her

weight. She is surprised that she is still alive at all.

Her hands slip down her intestine as she tries to

climb it, holding on with as tight of a grip as possible so

that she doesn’t slide so far that more of her innards will be

pulled out of her abdomen. She tries to focus on climbing.

She tries not to think about Rick. She watched in agony as

her boyfriend and the gray man slipped out of her grasp and

fell to their deaths. She heard Rick cry out to her as he fell,

but there was nothing she could do. She was lucky to have

survived herself.

She also tries to block Jason out of her mind. Every

time she thinks of Jason she gets so angry that it distracts her

from climbing. She wants to kill Jason for shooting Rick.

She doesn’t care if it was an accident. She also wants to

kill him for not seeing her dangling from the balcony. Des

watched as Jason stepped to the balcony’s edge and peered

down, looking straight at her, but for some reason didn’t

notice she was there. She tried to call to him for help, but

she wasn’t able to speak. It felt as if her throat had been

ripped out.

The balcony is only about nine feet above her, but it

is difficult for her to pull herself up such a slippery rope. She

climbs up a couple feet and then slides down three. Blood

flows out of her neck and mouth, wetting her chest. The

wind freezes her skin into gooseflesh. Her whines ooze out

of her mouth with the blood. As she cries, she can feel her

voice box vibrating on the outside of her neck.

With all her strength she forces herself to climb five

feet up the intestine, but then she slides down four feet be-

fore she can reach even the bottom of the balcony.

Crystal sits with Stephanie for nearly an hour by the

side of the van. The engine is still running and the lights

are still on. She doesn’t plan to try to turn it off. Stephanie

babbles in a drunken language that doesn’t sound remotely

English. The only thing Crystal understands is “I eat Pete”

which she believes is supposed to be “I need to sleep.”

“I eat Pete,” Stephanie says, rolling her eyes. “I jut

eat Pete. Sane all.”

“You can’t sleep,” Crystal says. “You’ve got to stay

awake. You could die if you fall asleep.”

“Jut Pete,” Stephanie says.

“Kevin will get you help soon,” Crystal says. “Just

hang on.”

Stephanie lays her head on Crystal’s shoulder, squish-

ing brain goop onto her neck. When Crystal realizes the

bloody mess is touching her she jumps away, shrieking like

a spider had just crawled down her shirt. Stephanie looks at

her drunkenly, confused about what is going on, as Crystal

tries to rub the blood off of her neck with the bottom of her

shirt.

Her whines go silent as she hears something in the

distance. At first she thinks it’s a rescue vehicle bouncing

against rocky terrain as it comes up the mountain towards

her. But as she listens carefully, she realizes it’s not that.

It is the sound of gun shots. She hears Jason’s voice in the

distance. She listens carefully. The sound isn’t coming from

the cabin. It is coming from below her, at the bottom of the

cliff. There are more gunshots. The voice becomes louder.

She can make out some of the words. Whoever it is, he is

swearing at the top of his lungs and shooting at something.

She’s not sure, but she thinks it sounds exactly like Jason.

“But it can’t be him,” she says.

Crystal goes to Stephanie and picks her up off of

the ground. She doesn’t like touching the girl with all of

the blood on her body but is willing to put up with it to

save her life.

“Come on,” Crystal says. “We’re going back to the

cabin.”

Jason is hunting something in the dark. It is moving

fast for something that has just been hit with so many bul-

lets. It is leaving a bloody trail for him to follow. He isn’t

sure if this creature is the same one that fell off the cliff or if

it is something new. He could be chasing after a deer for all

he knows.

The thing won’t die, whatever it is. Jason limps after

it as fast as he can, putting as many bullets into the creature

as possible, pretending that his ammunition is an unlimited

supply.

“I eat Pete!” Stephanie cries in her half-sleep.

Stephanie is able to walk on her own, but she stum-

bles and wavers a lot. Crystal has to help her balance as she

moves, as she has done with so many of her drunken friends

after parties before. But Stephanie is a little different from

the drunks she has walked home in the past. She doesn’t

only stumble and sway, she also occasionally spasms like

electricity is going down her spine and sometimes her eyes

quiver back and forth as if she is going through rapid eye

movement with her eyes open.

“Stop saying that,” Crystal says.

Crystal hurries them up the hill. She’s not sure if

Jason is drunk and messing around with the gun to kill time

or if there are other people out in the woods with them, but

she’ll feel a lot safer if she can get back to the cabin with the

others.

Above her, on top of the hillside to her right, Crystal

sees what looks to be somebody standing there, looking down

on her. She is sure that she is just imagining things, but the

closer she gets to it the more it resembles a human figure.

As they pass underneath the thing, Crystal picks up

the pace and pulls Stephanie with as much force as she can.

Stephanie doesn’t fight it. Once the figure is behind them,

Crystal looks back. It clearly looks like a person up there.

A naked person with very pale skin. Then she sees the thing

move. It brings its hand up to its face, then rubs its hand

across its bald head.

“Come on,” Crystal whispers to Stephanie as she

tries to get her to run.

Stephanie resists. She is completely unaware of the

figure. She whines loudly at her in an incomprehensible

babble, forcing Crystal to cover her mouth so that the thing

won’t hear them. Stephanie cries out and bites her friend’s

finger.

The naked person is attracted by Stephanie’s voice.

It climbs down the hill like a monkey and crabwalks into the

path behind them.

What the fuck
? Crystal says to herself.

She keeps moving, pushing Stephanie forward by the

back of her neck. Stephanie fights her the whole way.

Crystal wonders what that thing could be. An idea

comes into her head. She wonders if the thing isn’t alone.

She wonders if there are dozens of them in the woods, sur-

rounding them. She wonders if Jason was chased away from

the cabin into the woods by them. Perhaps what she heard

was her boyfriend running for his life out there in the woods,

trying to fight his way to the highway. She wonders if any-

one will be in the cabin at all when she gets there.

Once the lights of the cabin come into view in the dis-

tance, she looks back. There’s nothing there. She hopes that

the thing was just her imagination. She’s heard that this level

of stress is likely to cause the strangest of hallucinations.

The closer they get to the cabin, the slower Stephanie

becomes.

“Stay awake,” Crystal tells her as she attempts to

keep her friend upright.

“Jut go,” Stephanie says, her voice becoming faint.

Stephanie’s legs go limp and she drops to the ground.

She sighs all of her breath out of her lungs and curls up

around Crystal’s feet.

Crystal shakes her. “Come on.”

Stephanie closes her eyes and her consciousness

drifts away.

“Come on,” Crystal says, looking at the path behind

them to make sure nothing is coming. “You can’t go to sleep.

Come on, Steph. Get up.”

Stephanie doesn’t react to her. Her limbs are like

rubber.

Crystal can no longer hear her breathing. She puts

her hand over her chest but can’t feel a heartbeat. She’s

dead.