Victor Lavalle - The Devil in Silver

Now a pair of legs came into view. Draped in the hospital-issue blue pajama pants. The cotton billowed loose around the thin legs as the figure continued to descend.

Pepper heard this hoarse wheezing , a congested person’s breathing.

The upper body appeared next. An old man’s naked torso, the skin sallow and mottled, a little paunch that jiggled as it moved. The hands clung to the ceiling frame, a pull-up in reverse. This thing wasn’t falling. It was lowering itself.

Its wheezing continued, grew more forced, louder, with each move.

Its arms looked thinner than kindling, the shoulders soft. Pepper could even make out the fingers on its hands as it let go of the ceiling frame. Each finger was twiglike, gnarled at the knuckles and curled.

Then it landed.

And when its heels touched the tiles, they clopped like horseshoes on cobblestones. It huffed and tilted forward, stumbling, but righted itself.

An old man’s frail body, but its head was massive, covered in matted fur that hung down to those small shoulders. In the moonlight its fur looked as gray as shale. It had a bison’s head. Pepper saw this and couldn’t deny it. But its body, from the shoulders down, remained gangly and feeble. Hairless. Human.

Somebody else’s myth, somebody else’s nightmare, had plunged into Pepper’s room.

It watched Pepper. It huffed again and its wide, wet nose wriggled. Just below the nose, the fur parted and Pepper saw its mouth as a deep, wet pit. The hoarse wheeze sounded even louder now. It breathed and it watched Pepper. He couldn’t hold its gaze. He looked away, in a panic, to the door. He willed Coffee into the room. Or Dr. Anand. Even those three cops — Huey, Dewey, and Louie — would be welcome.

But the only one who’d come to see him was this monster.

Pepper only looked back at it when he heard that clopping sound again.

Its feet lifted and fell. It stalked toward him.

Pepper would’ve liked to struggle against his restraints, but his limbs had stopped listening. He felt trapped inside his own body, the numbed vessel holding a panicked mind.

As the thing moved toward him, its body slumped forward again, stumbling. That massive head seemed too heavy for its body. The shoulders shrank, the small paunch quivered, the head dipped down until the thing seemed to bow.

But then it huffed again and righted itself. And Pepper saw its face again: those dead white eyes, the nose sniffing the air like a predator tracking prey. The mouth opened again and from this close, Pepper could finally see its teeth. They looked like stone arrowheads.

It wheezed again but this time, when it exhaled, he thought he heard his name.

“Peter,” it whispered, or was that just its breath playing through those jagged teeth?

It shambled closer and again the clopping of its heels echoed.

At that moment Pepper’s body shivered. It mirrored the fear in his mind. Finally! It was such a strange relief to have his body and his mind coordinating again. His fingers dug into the sides of his mattress. His feet kicked at the bottom of his bed. They hit the metal frame so hard it sounded like a temple bell.

Gong .

Gong .

Gong .

Someone would hear that, right? Hear that and come to him.

Then it was there. Right by his bed. Over him.

Pepper looked out the window, at the moon. He would’ve prayed to it, if he thought that would help.

The thing grabbed the restraint on his right wrist and yanked at it. Pepper’s whole body shook. The bed creaked under him. Three tugs and the rubberized restraint snapped off the frame.

The thing moved down to his right ankle and did the same again. Grabbed on to the strap and pulled. This time, it took only one great effort and the restraint shredded, as simple as pulling apart a rubber band.

Now the thing stopped and heaved and wheezed there at the foot of the bed. Out of breath. Pepper’s right arm and right leg, finally free, just lay there limp. He tried to shake them, get the blood moving, but before he could, the attacker grabbed Pepper’s left ankle, lifted the leg, and brought its nose close, like a cook inspecting a cut of meat. It grabbed the restraint and with two pulls the leg was free.

It wheezed as it moved back around the bed, heels striking the floor in uneven tempo. It grabbed the top of Pepper’s head and yanked . Pepper’s left shoulder howled in the socket because his wrist was still in a restraint.

The thing pulled at his hair even harder. For a moment Pepper’s upper body actually rose off the mattress, the restraint and this monster battling for him.

Finally the restraint tore and Pepper’s body crashed to the floor. He couldn’t see for a moment. Everything went gray. A loud blast seemed to play in his ears. Cold rose up through the floor, into Pepper’s clothes. His skin puckered all over. His upper body shot up at the waist, like he was doing a sit-up. But he was pushed flat against the floor again. A foot on his chest.

Pepper looked up at his attacker, but from here he could only focus on its foot. The one pressing against his sternum. Its heel gray and hard as a hoof.

The thing’s thin leg trembled as it stomped down and Pepper swore he heard his sternum creak . In his ears it sounded like a Styrofoam cup being squeezed.

Pepper had a mouth, but he couldn’t scream. He had no air in his lungs. His lips parted and his tongue stuck straight out. His feet rose and slapped against the cold floor.

Pepper looked up and saw the beast’s great head pitch forward, the weak body out of balance again. Its white eyes seemed to be looking at him and through him, both at once. What could he call this creature? He wasn’t a religious man, but only one name came to him.

The Devil.

The Devil stomped down on his chest again and snorted.

You don’t want to be awake, aware, when your rib cage breaks. When your rib cage breaks you want to be passed out.

But somehow, Pepper hadn’t.

It didn’t hurt. He’d already gone into shock, which is the human body’s last line of defense. Your body loves you too much to let you really feel trauma like that. So it wasn’t pain that made the breaking rib cage such a terror for Pepper. It was a sound.

He’d heard the creaking of his sternum, so he almost felt prepared for the final crack, the tune of grinding bones, but he absolutely was not prepared to hear the ocean. That thing smashed his rib cage and suddenly Pepper heard the sea.

His gasping breaths, the snorts and wheezing of the Devil above him, even the thumps as the back of his head rose and fell, rose and fell while he thrashed on the floor. All of that was drowned out.

His ears filled with the splash of an ocean rolling toward the shore and breaking. If he shut his eyes, he would’ve sworn he was at Jones Beach. Or the dirty curl of Coney Island. Maybe it was just the sound of liquid filling his brain cavity, Pepper didn’t know and he didn’t care anymore.

Let the sea roll over me , he thought.

See the sea?

So when the room’s lights snapped on, Pepper wasn’t prepared.

Not just because of the brightness, or because the pressure on his chest suddenly stopped, but because he’d forgotten about psych units and shatterproof windows and meds three times a day; all the tortures of New Hyde. He’d inhabited a different world. He’d been on that shoreline.

So by the time he returned, drawn back into the hospital and his room and his own body on the floor, by then Pepper’s life had already been saved.

Not by a nurse or orderly.

Not by his roommate, Coffee.

It was Dorry.

Dorry!

She stood over Pepper’s body.