Page 6 of You Weren't Meant to Be Human
Jess stumbles out to the concrete steps. She’s a ghost backlit by the grainy porch light smothered with moths and skeeter-eaters, leaning against the chest freezer to keep her balance. It makes Crane feel like a horror movie monster: carrying a bag of murder equipment, tightening heavy-duty gloves, walking up to a girl in a cabin where neighbors would maybe only hear if she screamed.
He tries not to think about that last part too hard. Her hands have only just started to heal.
“I thought—” Jess tries. She’s swaying nervously, keeps staring at the bugs swarming the porch light. She’s following their panicked buzzing against the glass with her too-familiar eyes. “They said I should do it. I thought I—”
Crane catches her by the upper arms, squeezes, breathes in slowly to get her to do the same. She gets the hint, scrambles to follow his cue. He breathes out. So does she.
Easy, it says. Slow the heartbeat, get the lungs under control. It’s what Levi told him when he was eighteen, covered in the shit-smelling pulp that spills out of a cut intestine. You can’t lose your cool. You panic and you get stupid, and when you get stupid you get hurt.
She says, “I thought I hit him hard enough.”
Good thing there’s a fix for that.
Inside, the house is all wood paneling, crusty beige carpet, absolutely trashed. FOX News mutters on the TV, a corner of the screen exploded into a rainbow mess of pixels. A bowl of Cheerios sitsuneaten on the coffee table. Crane casts around for an idea of what they’re dealing with and finds it in a hunting photo on the wall: four guys in blaze orange with guns and bucks.
If Levi was here, he would’ve clocked the photo in an instant and put a finger against Jess’s temple like a cold metal muzzle. “You find that gun cabinet and you keep an eye on it, girlie. If that poor fucker gets to it before you do:pshew.” Gunshot noise from the corner of the mouth. “You’re out.”
Crane is studying it too closely. Jess clears her throat. “You, uh. Won’t have to worry about that.”
Fine. Time to show her the ropes.
This son of a bitch, as it turns out, is currently on the bedroom floor trying to get on his feet; key word beingtrybecause it’s not going well. Crane wouldn’t be surprised if he’s being puppeteered by adrenaline alone. There can’tbemuch else. His skull is dented, and the swelling is trying to squeeze his pale little eyes out of his face.
The latest attempt to stand fails. Gross, Crane thinks.
Jess wraps her arms around her ribs. She won’t come into the room. She stands in the hall, toes barely crossing where the vinyl floor cuts to cheap carpet, studying the torn-up doorframe and old plywood nailed over the windows. There are too many locks on the door. Some of them are broken.
“Yeah,” Jess says when Crane gives her a quizzical frown, making sure that this is: one, her boyfriend; and two, the state she left him in, not a total surprise. “Bad, right.”
Those words—or maybe Jess’s voice itself—sets him off. As much as someone can beset offwith most of their brain destroyed. He swings his head around, tries to get an arm under him, can’t manage it. Saliva drips from his cockeyed mouth.
“Jess,” he slurs in the way half-dead people have a tendency to. “Jess.”
If they wanted to, they could wait this out. That head trauma, that’s something else. Seriously, what did she use? Crane sidesteps to check the room and finds a dumbbell halfway under the bed. It’d be funny if it wasn’t such a bad decision. This is why she was supposed to wait for Levi—he’d have talked her through it. He’d have handled it like a soldier. He’s not here, though, so the two of them could honestly shut the door, head to the living room, flip through the TV channels, and check back in half an hour.
But any risk is too much, and Jess has to learn.
Crane sets the bag down on the bed, digs out a hammer, and flips it into his hand.
This guy must have some sense left in that brain, must be able to see something, even with all his gray matter scrambled up, because he starts moving again. Trying to get away. Prone on his belly, he grabs the foot of the bed, hauls himself forward an inch, leaving a slick wet trail where he can’t pick his head up properly.
Crane plants a booted foot on the lower back—no, none of that, thank you—and nods Jess in. Let’s make it quick.
Levi would be explaining the situation right now. Every detail, starting with whatever weapon was in hand that day. It has to be a weapon with plausible deniability, he’d say, in case you bump into the law. Mike used to keep a nail gun in his truck at all times; Harry carried a knife in the same bag as a pair of antlers and a hunting permit; Levi’s Mossberg shotgun is a self-defense model perfect for a rural county where 911 doesn’t pick up half the time. A hammer’s an easy sell to a cop, so it’s perfect for a mute.
Jess steps cautiously into the bedroom like it has teeth—to her, it might—and tries to breathe through the mouth instead of her nose. There we go. The man squirms and Crane puts more weight on him, clicking his tongue to keep Jess’s attention. Don’t look at the windows,don’t think too much about what’s happening. It’s already halfway done, and once you do it the first time, it’s easier all the others, promise.
Hammer in hand, pinkie outstretched, and crouched a bit over the struggling mess, Crane traces the path for her. Sketches where the damage has already been done, where she won’t have to hit as many times. Right here.
“I don’t know,” Jess whispers.
Crane gives her a stern look—or something to that effect, expressions are tough for him. Yes, it’s difficult. She has to do it anyway. The hammer goes into her hand, fingers pressed around the handle and rotated so she’s holding it the correct way, clawed end down. Think of the guy on the floor as a stubborn nail she has to pull out and discard. That’s all.
The man, his swollen eyes drying out and pink foam bubbling out of his mouth, manages another word, or a vague approximation of English: “No,” it sounds like, “no.” Or maybe “oh,” over and over.
Whatever it is, it makes Jess stumble. It makes her push the hammer away, her eyes panicked-horse whirling.
“I can’t,” she says.
