Page 4 of You Weren't Meant to Be Human
Of course, Crane thinks. He’d wanted to see them too; an animal desperation to meet the first things to understand him, no matter how horrific they were. So he helps her to her feet, steadying her when she hisses in pain, and Levi takes the key from under the register, and together they walk her across the sales floor through the manager’s office, to the heavy iron door set into the dark back wall.
Jess holds tight to Crane’s arm.
Levi fights with the lock for a moment, muttering under his breath before it gives way, and…
Oh child,the hive says with its thousand chattering jaws and the buzzing of a thousand wings; the flesh flies swarming in thick mats, the wet bodies of soft worms hiding in piles of regurgitated bone-pulp. The smell is revolting.Our cherished one, hello, hello, hello.
As if only half-aware of what she’s doing, Jess takes one step forward, then another. Crane, out of instinct, or maybe like a child, covers the scar on his wrist. He still remembers the sting, how for a moment he thought the worm would dig itself into his arm and never come out.
You’ve made it. You are safe. You are home.
Levi takes Jess by the arm and turns his own hand to show the ugly mark bitten into his skin. “Look at that,” he says. “You’re gonna get your own. Hold out your— There we go. Don’t flinch. You can take it.”
A singular, dripping worm extricates itself from the mass. Jess breathes in and nearly chokes on the rotting stink.
When it bites down, she screams only a little.
You will feel the sun on your face when we cannot.
Three
It’s been a week, and according to Tammy, Jess hasn’t tried to run away or kill herself yet—mainly just slept in the spare bed and crammed down every ounce of food she could find in Tammy’s cabinets—so looks like the girl is here to stay.
Levi’s gone on a work trip, headed to a hive that’s rooted itself in an impound yard just outside McDowell County. Crane couldn’t get the details before he left, but Tammy says a girl from down there asked after him. That hive is about to have a shit time, then. His F-150 in a parking lot is the equivalent of a pirate’s black spot.
“He bought bullets, didn’t he?” Tammy says as she gathers up theaccounting books. Half her fingers are arthritic and permanently straightened into sticks. Crane, chewing on a toothpick behind the register, wonders if she got to choose which position her hands would stay in for the rest of her life, or if her joints decided for her. His stomach’s been turning all day and the toothpick kind of helps. “Thought I saw him at Walmart with a box of slugs. The price on them is getting real bad, ain’t it?”
Crane makes a little noise:I’m not interested in how inflation is affecting the price of ammunition, Ma.
“Last I heard from down there,” Tammy continues, “the old bitch that runs the impound lot—Beth, you remember her? She came up last year. She was getting into it with Billy. Now, I don’t agree with the way she does things, but the way Billy reacted, that was just uncalled for.” She bats away Crane’s arm to pluck the large-print calculator from behind him. “And if word gets out and cops start sniffing around, that’s no good.”
Crane makes another noise, this one derisive. If a cop gets too close to this hive, he’ll handle it. He’s done it before.
“Exactly. So I think your man’s just headed down to knock some sense back into him.” She falls silent for a moment, propping her hands on her hips. “You doing good without him? You look a bit—hmm. You feeling alright, sweetheart?”
He feels no worse than usual, which is always a little bad. He gestures her away from the register. She has more important things to do than nag at him, like cook the books so the franchise owner down in Florida continues to ignore them.
“Fine,” Tammy says. “I’ll leave you be. I know how you kids are.”
As soon as she’s shuffled off and closed the door to the manager’s office, Crane grabs his phone to open the encrypted messaging app.
In the group chat, Aspen and Birdie are talking about the latestrash of Supreme Court rulings. Their tendency to natter back and forth via text used to confuse him; they’re married, live in the same DC-suburb townhouse, and have no problem with mouth-speech, so it seemed like an odd choice. But Aspen said they want Crane to feel included, so the group chat it is.
Talking to people outside the hive is the sort of thing defectors do. But it’s not like that. He swears. He’s not going to leave—seriously, why the fuck would he, he’s not leaving the hive, even if it kills him.
Aspen and Birdie are worried about him. That’s all.
Crane:It’s fucking LATE. Dont yall have real jobs
Birdie:real jobs don’t schedule people on holidays, it’s the fourth???
He checks the calendar. Shit, it rolled over to the Fourth of July a few minutes ago. Washville really must be dying if nobody started cracking off fireworks at midnight sharp.
Birdie:but yes this country continues to be a nightmare
Aspen:I’m still reading, gimme a second. Some coworkers think it’s not as bad as it sounds but we’ll see. While I do that, how are you holding up? We still good for this weekend?
Ohshit, he’d completely forgotten he’d agreed to a—what did Aspen call it, a “proof of life” this week. But three hours down the mountain, three back up, this stomachache, Tammy’s joints flaring up, and Jess to keep an eye on? Even with Levi across the state, it’s not going to work.
