T. Wright - The Devouring

Lilian let her hands drop slowly. She blubbered, "Whether I ca-can hear out of it doesn't make any di-difference, Frank. It looks ugly!"

"So you cover it with your hair. You've got nice hair, Lily." He let his towel drop.

Her mouth fell open. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

He shrugged. "Hell, I thought we could make love. It is Thursday, you know."

"No, it isn't. It's Friday."

Again he shrugged. "So? Who says that just because it's Friday we can't make love? You want to know the truth, Lily?"

"The truth?" She put her hand to her stomach.

He nodded vigorously. "The truth. And the truth is, I like you … uh, like that."

"Like what?"

"Like that. In bandages."

"You like me …" She winced against the sudden pain in her belly.

"In bandages," Frank repeated. "I like you in bandages."

"I don't understand," Lily said. "I don't think I want to understand." She glanced at his penis. "Please, Frank, cover that up, would you?"

"You never asked me to cover it up before."

"Well, it was never so . . . so obvious before."

"That's because you were never so appealing before, Lily."

With her left hand she again covered her stomach, where the pain had redoubled. And with her right hand she reached out and slammed the bathroom door shut. She did it so quickly, and took Frank soby surprise, in fact, that the door slammed hard into his erection and he screamed in pain.

Seconds later, his voice trembling with anger, and with pain, he pounded on the door. "Open up now, Lily! You open up now, or this door's coming down. And that's not a threat! That's a promise!"

"Frank, please, she pleaded. "I don't feel well. Please go away. I'm sorry I hurt you." And even as she said the words, she realized that she'd been right all along, that what she'd suspected these past twelve years of her marriage to Frank Janus had been true. He was a lecherous, unseemly, brutish dolt, and she deserved far, far better.

~ * ~

For Ryerson Biergarten, the act of making love was an unpredictable experience, as it is for everyone. There were good times and bad times, and the bad times were always better than no lovemaking at all. And there were times when it looked like bad or just so-so lovemaking was going to happen and it turned out to be great, and there were times when what looked like great turned out just so-so. Such things could never be counted on.

What made the experience great for Ryerson was how much intermingling there was-not just the intermingling of bodies, pleasant as that could be, but the intermingling of souls and psyches, too. When for a precious few seconds, the lovers intermingled them selves , their lives, and sum totals. When they opened themselves up and swallowed each other.

He thought that that was what had happened with Joan Mott Evans, who lay beside him on her bed. She had been lying quietly beside him for a good ten minutes, while her breathing slowed and softened. They were naked on top of a blue quilt; a night-light burned at the other side of the room.

Ryerson, the first to speak, said, "That was beautiful, Joan."

She said nothing. He could sense a feeling of comfort and contentment from her. For another minute or so he stayed quiet, then he added, "You're beautiful."

She covered her hand with his. She whispered, "I think this is the start of something, Rye."

In the semi-darkness, he said, "I'm smiling."

"And?" she said.

"And what?"

"And anything else, Rye?"

He nodded. "Oh. Yes." He turned over on his side. She turned, faced him. He lovingly stroked her cheek, her neck, the slope of her breast.

At the other side of the closed bedroom door, Creosote began to whimper. Ryerson said to Joan, "He and I have grown very attached."

"Uh-huh," she said. "Well, let's you and me grow attached, okay."

"I'd like that very much," he whispered.

~ * ~

In Room 1512 of the Buffalo Memorial Hospital, Laurie Drake was still in the fetal position, still had her thumb in her mouthand her eyes open; nearby, a device had been set up to drip a mild salt solution into her eyes every few seconds, so they wouldn't dry out.

"We're getting some response," said Dr. Wayne Chandler to Guy Mallory.

"Oh?" Guy said, uncertain what the doctor was referring to and unwilling to let him know it.

Chandler nodded. "Her EKGs have altered since she was brought in, and now and then she appears to look around the room-moving her eyes only, of course."

"Of course," Mallory said.

"Her coma is deep," Chandler went on, "though not so deep that we see no hope for recovery. I do think she'll be with us a good long time. A month, perhaps. Maybe longer."

Mallory sighed. "Jesus, Doc-"

"Doctor," Chandler corrected him, then smiled an apology. "I'm sorry-I just have this aversion to 'Doc.' You understand, I'm sure."

Mallory said, "Yeah, I understand. I was going to say that I've seen a few like her. You know-people in comas, and I have to ask myself what the hell is going on in their heads. Where they are, you know. Because if they're not here, with us, where are they?"

Chandler nodded. "It's a question all of us ask, Detective. And I wish I could answer it."

But even Laurie Drake could not have answered that question, because language was beyond her, just as language is beyond any fetus. Which is what she was, essentially. A developing organism, something newly created, not yet whole-regardless of the physical evidence to the contrary. Inside her skull, her brain was struggling to renew itself, but in the process of conception, all that was Laurie Drake had been swept away, and a new Laurie Drake was emerging. Whether she would be as precocious as the old Laurie Drake, whether she would have a predilection for hot fudge sundaes, or would develop an early interest in the opposite sex, or be drawn to horror movies, all as the old Laurie Drake had been, was yet to be seen.

But that evening, while Ryerson Biergarten again made sweet and soul-consuming love to Joan Mott Evans, and Captain Jack Lucas lovingly cleaned his Colt .45, and Gail Newman slept a fitful sleep, and Detective Andy Spurling went on his shift-despite the awful pains in his stomach-and Lilian Janus kept herself locked in her bathroom, and Benny Bloom dreamed of Nurse Scotti, she-the new Laurie Drake-was destined to be one of the lucky ones.

The Following Morning

Irene Sabitch, in the Records Division of the Buffalo Police Department, asked her coworker Glenn Coffman, "What do you know about Jack Lucas? He's the captain over at the Tenth Precinct."

Coffman glanced briefly at her from his own monitor. "Not a whole lot. I hear he's an asshole, that's about it." He looked at his monitor again.

"Well, if he is, he's got good reason for it." Coffman glanced at her again. "Oh? Why's that?"

She answered simply, "He's dying."

Coffman shrugged. "That's tough. What of?"

"Cancer."

"How do you know?"

She nodded at her monitor. "It's part of the employee records, so I have access to it."

"Limited access, Irene. Those records are confidential-"

"I know that. I wasn't snooping. Too much, anyway. I was only trying to open that damned set of files, and his name came up, so-"

"How'd his name come up?"

"It was in the news articles about that murder/suicide in Erie. You remember, Lila Curtis-"

"So that's her name. Lila." He grinned. "I was pretty close. I said Lily, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did, congratulations. Anyway, Lucas was down there, in Erie, at the time. Apparently the Erie police chief is a close friend of his and since he was there, anyway, he asked him to help."