“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.
The light from the woman’s skin flickered, her eyelids opened slowly; her mouth, too, opened, and she seemed to want to speak.
“Faye,” Henry said, his voice a little clearer than before. Smoother. The battle in his head to keep the new darkness in his mind at bay was taking up nearly all his strength. He knew he was losing, but he also knew that once he gave up he would probably never be able to get himself back. Confusion regarding Faye still distracted him, and it was all he could do to try to maintain a grip on the true situation – or what he felt was the true situation. And even that seemed to be slipping through his fingers now. Everywhere in his mind was uncertainty, an ever-growing alien darkness, and a blinding, oversimplistic need to just try to understand.
“She’s here, Henry,” Milo said. “She’s safe. But I don’t understand what’s happening with–”
The woman’s skin lost some of its glow, then. Whatever internal source had been powering it was fading. Pulling back.
Then the woman slid from Henry’s hand, used her arms to steady herself. Stood up, moved away from Henry several feet.
Then she spoke.
In Adelina’s voice.
* * *