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Authors: Kathe Koja

Tags: #Fantasy, #Horror, #Fiction, #Urban Fantasy

The Cipher (7 page)

BOOK: The Cipher
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Finally, after I had read the paper, nervous twitch of newsprint every time I thought she moved, finally I went and shut off the tape, shut off the TV, helped her stand—she seemed to need it—and back to the couchbed. She sat down, docile enough, and I stood looking down at her, wondering what to do now. Suddenly she opened her eyes very wide, bugged them at me in a way that would have been comical any other time, and said through a big threatening grin, "That's right, pamper the madwoman, you fucking idiot."

"Yes, your craziness," and to my wary smile she laughed, a normal sound or as normal as she ever got, lit up a cigarette and asked me if there was any mineral water or anything to drink.

"I'm not going to work tonight," she said. "Tom asked me to but I told him no."

So the evening, bed, no sex, her skinny body cool to the touch and dropping into sleep like iron into sand. I sat up to read awhile but could not wholly concentrate, the words jumbling into other words, sentences into diatribes and paragraphs into convoluted polemics on the pressure of instinct, and then the words changed again into symbols I could not read and I knew I was asleep and dreaming, and I was not disturbed even though the words changed again to writhe on the page as if they were pinned there and me some spiteful collector who would have them no matter what. They spelled out challenges, feeble defiance, and I laughed and slammed the book shut, over and over, enjoying my rhythmic cruelty to such a monstrous degree that I finally woke, scared, sat up to wipe at my eyes. And saw Nakota was gone.

The door was open.

It took me two seconds to grab on jeans, catching my pubes in the zipper and it hurt and I barely felt it, galloping like the cavalry down the stairs saying "Shit, oh shit" like magic words and even from the landing I could see: she hadn't even bothered to -shut the storage-room door, hadn't bothered with the ten-watt light. I turned it on, I wanted to be able to see. Whatever it was.

And a sight, oh, was it.

On her knees, oblivious and naked, braced arms on either side and hair dangling straight, about to stick her head down the Funhole.

"God
damn,
" too horrified to think what else to do, to worry that I might hurt her, I slammed into her like a truck and knocked her sideways so she crashed like the tethered hand had done, smack into a pile of junk and shit flying everywhere and back she came, crawling like a crab, teeth bare, brows arched and tiny tits jiggling and her eyes absolutely blank and I grabbed her and she bit me, I mean bit me like a dog and blood and worrying at the skin of my hand so I had to jerk it away and in that second boom, back to the hole. I yanked at the back of her neck, panic strength and she made a little sound, I'd hurt her that time for sure and a little, a tiny bit of life came back to her face and I squeezed where I'd hurt her, use the pain, use it.

"Nakota," squeezing again, "stop it,
stop
it, you hear me?"

And everything came back, eyes and all but not* right, not quite, I saw it and my grip eased but just one wary notch. Blood on her teeth and almost crying, I had never in my life before seen tears in her eyes, "I have to, Nicholas, let me go."

Muscles, humming in my arms, vibration passed from her body to mine, God she was strong. "I can't."

Tears and blood. "I
have
to, Nicholas. My
head's
down there."

"Oh, Nakota," and I thought She's crazy, this has driven her crazy. What do I do now. "Let's go upstairs, okay? Let's go upstairs and I'll—"

"I need my head back!" and a lunge,
God
she was strong, fierce jerking elbows and kicking feet and snapping teeth as her mouth worked, long slippery thread of spit and trying to get at me and I held her, tight, tight, I wanted to drag her out and away but the way she fought, the force I had to use just to keep her from breaking loose, I was hurting her already even though she gave no sign she felt it. I would have to really hurt her, maybe even knock her out (though I had no confidence I could actually do it, I had never done anything like that before), and meanwhile she was wearing me out just fighting me, fighting me, fighting me, and finally I yelled, "Okay, okay! Just stop, okay? Just
stop,"
and I gave her an extra-hard shake, her head snapped like whiplash and she got quieter, still panting but quieter.

"I need my head back," she said.

Oh God. I tried to talk to her, talk her away from the craziness but she kept straining past me, little whine in her throat like a sick animal, mumbling about her head and pushing with all her strength against my body as if I was a wall or door she must surmount to be free. This would go on all night, forever, until she wore me down and I had no doubt she would. Eventually. She was the queen of eventually.

"Stop it/' was I going to have to really beat her up to stop her, oh God please don't make me do that.
"Stop
it, Nakota, just—" Whine and panting, like wrestling a dog, snapping at me, so this is what it's like when someone loses her mind, uh-huh, pushing and pushing against me and all her muscles alive and she kicked me, I should have expected it, the classic move, and as I jack-knifed, groping for my balls, she bounded past, a literal leap like ballet and the pain, yeah and the anger made me able to grab a part of her, some skinny part, and sling her with all my strength against the wall. She hit like a door slamming but the momentum was too much for me, balance gone and I was too close, too close to the Funhole, so black and calm below me as I pinwheeled in perfect silence, the moment as long and exquisite as a car wreck I'm going to fall right into it and nothing from Nakota, I had knocked her 'finally silent, no help there hold on I can't I'm losing it
God

and with a plunge like a scream I fell full

length, body wrenching like a twisting fish and my right arm, thrust out for desperate balance, at last gone deep inside. She got her head back, all right.

3

Nakota as nurse. We both needed nurses, she more than me, though my bitten hand was already outrageously swollen, "What kind of germs you got anyway?" weak joke that got less than a smile, lips twitched around her cigarette. Black smoke, stinging in my eyes. Her motions were slow, crippled grace, she moved about the flat like you drive a wrecked car, even her hair looked wounded, dirty looking and dragged back in a twist-tie bow. We had taken all the aspirin in the house and were starting in on the Nyquil.

It was almost morning, overcast dawn, sure to snow again today. Me in bed, Nyquil in one hand, beer in the other, Nakota bent shivering over the stereo. On her bare back, just above her ribs, was a disconcertingly heart-shaped bruise. You only kick the shit out of the one you love.

"Hurry up," I said, "you'll freeze." She found what she was looking for; it took some looking: loud kickthrash music, fitting obbligato for our little dance; ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Funhole Waltz. Back across the room and it hurt to watch, bruises like clouds, massed and banked all over her but especially on her arms, where I had gripped her hardest; the memory of my tyrannical panic made me wince, but I knew for once I had been purely and unarguably right. An odd feeling. Not pleasant. You can get used to being wrong all the time; it takes all the responsibility out of things.

Climbing into bed, into the warmth; we had piled on every blanket in the house, we needed that heat. I cuddled her with careful arms, gentle of her pain, offered her a sip of Nyquil. "Pleasant bouquet," she said. Her speech was slurred.

When she handed back the bottle I flinched in the taking, and she turned her head, slow. "I thought it was the other hand," she said.

I did too, but there on the right palm, a hole, a definite hole, and an ugly scared suspicion rose like dizziness: oh God please, not a souvenir. I did my duty. Please don't do this to me.

1 compared hands. The left one, the bitten one, was puffy, purpling, you could see it had been torn. The right one had a puncture in the palm, a round wound with round gray edges. As we looked at it a minute drop of clear fluid, thick as syrup, welled up but did not drip.

"Did," her voice sharpening now, sitting up straight oh you sick bitch, she was
excited
, "did something—hurt you?"

"Shut the fuck up."

My voice was shaking. I wanted to hit her again, turned away instead. Eyes closed, remembering only the fear, possessed by fear at the lip of the Funhole, so great and the feeling of
clenching
, then hearing her distant moan and pushing myself back and away, crawling to where she sat still against the door. Crying without tears. No new head to present to her, but her own seemed to be working okay at that point. Back upstairs to a burning shower, it seemed we couldn't get enough warmth, enough different kinds of medicating, Nurse Nakota pushing pills in my mouth. Now back to normal, cheering my contamination.

"Did something down there—"

"I said shut the fuck up!" and I slammed my hand down on the bed, quake of covers and the Nyquil splashing green as chartreuse and a pain that made my eyes spring to watering, oh
God
that hurts, Nakota subsiding but with shiny eyes, I closed mine so I wouldn't have to look at her.

"Leave me alone," I said. And she did. But I felt her thinking.

* * *

Old saw proved right: it
was
better in the morning, bruises, swellings, aches and all.

All but my right hand.

Alone in the bathroom, back against the un-lockable door, examining my hand in the weak fluttering light: like checking a bite from the devil, yeah, almost scared to touch it, and sore? Oh it was. I ran cool water on it, then warm; the skin there reddened a little under heat, but otherwise there was no change.

Nakota knocking, "I gotta get in there, Nicholas."

"Wait a minute," pressing a little harder against the door. I held my hand close, close to my eyes, small sloping grayish wound like a miniature, scale-model

don't say it

"I gotta
pee,
Nicholas!"

Stepping away from the door, letting her in, holding my hand close to my side. As she pissed I dressed, hurried in absurd uneasy fear to grab keys and get out, yelling "Bye," over my shoulder as I slammed the door too hard. In the hall, panting too hard. All my motions on cartoon speed, revved up, I forced myself to walk very slowly down the stairs and I did not want to stop at the Funhole door, of course I most certainly would not be stopping there because the handle felt so good, so good in my sore hand, and inside

it was warm, warmer than the hall, warmer than my flat even, the heat seeming to emanate, of course, from the Funhole itself and why wouldn't it, hmm? Why wouldn't it Murmuring to the darkness. "What did you do to me?"
Warm.
A tension I had not fully noticed seemed to drop from me all at once, my shoulders slumping in relief, so warm. My hand was wet, soft sweet dribble of fluid, it too was warm. "What's going to happen to me?" No answer, no oracle. Just the mouth of the Funhole, warm breath rising, I noticed in a dreamy kind of way that its smell was stronger today, a rich and complex odor, maybe it was a kind of incense, a spice smell, maybe it was

maybe it was happy with the taste of my
blood,
you fucking asshole get away from there, get away!

Out. Out and hurrying down the hall, no tension in me but the tension of fear, good clean healthy fear, all the way outside where I teetered and slipped on the snowy pavement, ice beneath and instinctive hands outstretched to save myself, slamming down hard enough to knock out my breath, both my hands hurting so that I felt instant tears dripping instantly cold. It took me fully half a minute to even sit up, and when I did I saw the crows, big black wings in thoughtful telephone-wire posture, apprentice urban vultures. It seemed just as my glance found them they flew, not toward me but up, mobile clouds before the weak and desultory sun.

I stopped at a drugstore, sat in my car applying careful Band-Aids to my lovely new hole, and was in fact only twenty minutes late to work, a circumstance pointed out to me with exquisite scorn by the manager and as gratefully received by me. Let the day begin, I thought, and my hand throbbed in damp cool agreement.

No more video, I told her.

Imagine the scene. But I did it anyway, threatening her with a calm authority I definitely did not feel, inside I was shivering but I told her no, no, you want it, you take it somewhere else. "I don't want what happened to happen again," I said.

"It won't." Sullen soft-voiced rage, eyeing my wounded hand—the right one, of course; she had no eyes for the one she'd bitten, no, that was too normal for her—her own hands shaking so from temper that she could barely light her cigarette. "I'm not scared."

"I am."

More sullen still, "You know I don't have a VCR."

"That's tough."

At a loss as to how to adequately punish me, cigarette clenched between her teeth and hands tightening, untightening, far more angry at my calm than she would ever have been at my anger: "You're absolutely spineless, you know that? Worthless spineless gutless"—extensive litany of my crop of failures, and as she tolled them all I thought of the deeper failures, things she did not and never could know, things she might—would —consider unworthy of memory, things that to me carried with them regrets with edges still so bitterly sharp that even the thought of them brought the same bright instant shame; watching-that mean little mouth moving, moving, cigarette burning unnoticed and silent splash of ash, knowing that oh, yes, I had done banal and infinite wrong, but this time, for once, I had not.

BOOK: The Cipher
2.13Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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