Page 8 of You Weren't Meant to Be Human
Oh child, your hands—your bruises—oh child, what has he done to you? When is the last time you saw the sun?
Think about what must have been done to her, to make her look atthatand sayyes.
In the face of that, what gives Crane the right?
Because nobody even did anything to him. He had never been hurt, never abused, never molested, never beat. He’d been pretty, and smart, and so very good at smiling through the urge to self-immolate. Hell, his parents had even loved him.
It’s just that, at some point in his mother’s womb, through no fault of hers or his father’s or his own, he’d been put together incorrectly.
Oh child, this world was not made for ones like you. Come with us, come with us, come with us.
He shouldn’t be such a bitch, but he looks over at the girl in the shotgun seat with her dark hair and skinny lips and bags under her eyes all just like his own, and no, can’t manage it. Sorry.
If that’s all he can do, Aspen and Birdie would say, that’s alright for now. Just try to be a better person tomorrow.
Crane kills the car’s engine by the delivery entrance at the back of the gas station, pops the trunk, and storms over to Jess’s side of the car to bang his hand against her window.Get out.She flinches but does as she’s told, standing away from him in the gravel lot the way she would if a wild animal wandered too close.
She can dislike him all she wants. He’s doing her a favor.
In the trunk, the body bag has curled up on itself where it’s been disrespectfully jammed between jugs of motor oil and antifreeze. The head was a bit of a mess, but the guy is still in one piece, so Crane counts this as an easy hunt. Still, the sick bolus in his throat won’t dislodge. Nausea’s been chasing him for days now. Weeks, actually. It’s just that he’s been bullying through it like he’s done all his life.
Be a big boy and get over it. He nods Jess to him, has her grab the handles by the feet.Let’s get this son of a bitch up.
Inside, Tammy is waiting for them, attempting to appear frustrated and not doing a very good job. As soon as the door closes and the two of them drop the body onto the floor beside the crates of beer waiting to go into the drink cooler, she’s rushing over. Or the closest she can get to rushing with her knees so bad. She grabs Jess by the cheeks—Jess is taller than her by a good half foot, though that’s not difficult—and checks her over. Her jaw, her mouth, her temple.
“You got all your pieces?” Tammy demands. “Not hurt nowhere, are you? Look at me, let me check your eyes.”
“I’m okay,” Jess says as her eyelids are unceremoniously pulled apart.
“Uh-huh.” Next, Tammy takes Jess’s wrists, turns them to inspect the bruises and scabs. “The bastard didn’t put a hand on you?”
“I’m okay, I promise.”
Tammy needs a few more seconds to believe her, but as soon as she’s assured that the poor girl is all together and okay, she gives Jess a sharp granny-tug on the ear.
Jess yelps. “Ow!”
“What’d you go and do something like that for?” Tammy demands, gesturing at the door. Jess visibly scrambles to keep up with the one-eighty. “Did youwalkto his house? All the way across the county? You’re going to give an old woman a heart attack, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jess whispers. “I just—I thought—they said I could.”
Tammy’s face softens for half a second. “I know, sweetheart. You’ve had a rough week. We’ll get this done and we can go home.” Then she turns on Crane. “Andyou.”
For his trouble, he receives a pinch straight on the nose and a shake of his entire head. Crane gives an undignified squawk.
“At least the boys gave you a month to settle in!” she snaps. “Trying to get her to do it herself already, I cannotbelieveyou.”
Crane rubs his nose. Did Jess text Tammy to tattle on the drive back? Holy shit, what is she, five?
“Anyway.” Tammy jingles the key. “Grab that body, let’s get the worms fed.”
The first time Crane saw his hive, it was an incomprehensible horror. The sight was so alien, he couldn’t put the pieces together: scraps of clothing and chunks of hair, bones gnawed apart to scrape nutrients from the marrow, ossified calcium vomited into a wasp’s nest taking up the entire storage closet. The flies slept in clumps and the worms pulsed like neurons under a microscope, or what Crane imagined that might look like.
These days, when he sees his hive, it’s a moment of peace. He doesn’t understand much, but he does understand this.
Children,the hive croons.Hello, hello, hello.
Today is different.
