Skin Like Silk

Frustrated and depressed, she ate the remaining scraps of meat ringing the coals by her cave, partly out of hunger and partly out of some fruitless gesture of rudeness. It made her just a little bit better. She sat by the fire a little longer, but the feeling of being watched was unnerving and she went back into the cave and settled in her bed of leaves again. The cold was lessening slightly, but she still shivered from time to time.

The day passed in a haze. The air warmed enough that she no longer shivered by late morning, but it never grew warm enough to chase the last bit of chill from her bones, and she wished fervently that she had thought to grab a blanket from her bed before scrambling out of her window. She wrapped her tattered and dirty robe around herself as best she could, though it didn't help much, and she dozed sporadically, when sleep would come. Twice during the day she woke with a start with a memory of a distant scream ringing in her ears. Eventually she settled again. Screech owls weren't unknown in this area, and besides she was frightened and paranoid.

She woke in the evening after an extended nap to the now-familiar smell of heady smoke and cooking meat. This time she found a thick slab that was probably thigh muscle cooking on a primitive spit, just a thin branch ripped green from a tree and leaned diagonally against a forked stick stuck in the soft earth. She sat by the fire and decided this time to try to cook the meat a little better. She turned the spit with clumsy, numb fingers, and tried to wave away some of the smoke. The smell of the herbs smoldering in the coals made her head cloudy, made it hard to think, but she wasn't going to try to pick them out with her fingers, and she certainly wasn't going to attempt to dampen the fire, so they stayed and smoked.

She ate the half-cooked dinner slowly, her appetite fading before long. Finally she put the stake back in the ground beside the fire, leaving the meat to cook further, and sat watching the woods impassively. What was she going to do? The thought occurred to her that the ring of bones around her cave might somehow be keeping her tormentor at bay, but the idea seemed rather optimistic. Why would it warn her off just as she was about to leave safety? Furthermore, she still hadn't seen anything to suggest there was anything else living in this forest except squirrels and birds. Besides, it would explain how she had made it so far without being caught during her flight into the woods. The dark hunter was tall, and very strong, certainly it must run faster than her. What did it want with her? Why was it feeding her?

She turned and crawled into the cave, curled up in her nest of dry leaves and finally, out of nowhere, tears came. Silent whimpering slowly gave way to great racking sobs as the stress and the fear and the despair all came up from dark corners of her heart and filled her head with images of tragedy and torment. She cried herself to sleep, seriously considering for the first time that she might not leave this forest alive. In the distance, the chilling cry of a screech owl echoed through the woods, sounding for all the world like a distant scream.

***

So hungry, like she will never be full. Woodsmoke and the smell of burning herbs fills her nose and stings her eyes, and she clutches the morsel of food greedily. Lifting it to her mouth again she sinks her teeth into the juicy flesh and pulls, tearing muscle and skin from bone and bolting it down. The hunger has her still, but the meat tastes so good, she thinks she could eat forever. She picks the bone clean and gnaws at the scraps, still unsatisfied. She snorts and tosses the remnants into the smoking fire and reaches for more, pulling a juicy-looking foot off a long black curved stake and tears into it with unflagging fervor. She sees something watching her as she eats, and she glances up. Behind a plump thigh is a face. Clear brown eyes watch her, expression sad, accusing. She hisses and turns away, tearing off another delicious mouthful. To soon this one too is done, and she reaches for a plump, perfectly-cooked hand. Disgusted, she wrestles a ring off one finger and throws it away. The face watches her still, and when she looks up its lips are moving, speaking a silent plea, and she can see the smooth black shape of the strange stake impaling the mouth cavity and penetrating into the brain. She grimaces at it. "Don't look at me like that, Carrie. I'm just hungry, that's all. No one else would come all the way out here."

***

She woke with a start, covered in cold sweat, and moaned at the horror of the dream. "Oh, god..." she murmured, and stared at the lichen-splattered stone wall of the cave for a time. Eventually she looked out, and saw the small fire she had come to expect, but no meat staked out to cook. She didn't think she could bear to eat right now anyways. She struggled to a standing crouch and stumbled her way out of the cave, then made her way down to the stream and splashed cold water on her face, trying to banish the lingering images of her dream. Her stomach gurgled quietly, and she closed her eyes and silently told it to shut up. Realizing she was thirsty she knelt and drank, then hurried shivering back to the fire. The sky was overcast today, and she hoped with more conviction than she had ever felt in church that it was not going to rain. Just in case it was, she put her back to the cave so she could quickly dive for shelter if the clouds burst. She sat and stared blankly, going over in her head the list of all the things she was going to do if she got back to civilization. Take a shower. Get a boyfriend. Go bowling. Ask for a raise... The list was silly, she knew. It was just something to think about, but she wasn't sure she really believed she'd ever get a chance to do any of those things. Besides, it was all stupid anyways. Bowling would be as boring as it always was, life-threatening ordeal or no.

Eventually she became aware of a presence. She looked up, and there it was. The dark hunter. It seemed a fitting name, and that's what she called it now. It sat on its heels between two small birches, fingers buried in the leaves, maybe fifty yards away in the forest. Her pulse fluttered and raced, but the fear didn't master her now as it had before. She stared back in silence, and seconds ticked off uncounted. Eventually, her frustration outweighed the fear and she screamed. "What do you want from me!?"

The creature neither moved nor made a sound. "What are you?" she cried, hating how desperate and strained her voice sounded. Still, no response. Silence fell again. She stifled a sudden sob of frustration, and her anger evaporated, leaving her with only despair.

She couldn't stand the creature's gaze any longer, so she retreated into the darkness of the cave and curled up again, turning her back to the fire and the monster beyond it.

She covered her ears with her hands and shut her eyes, and eventually her mind slipped into the uncharted space between sleeping and waking. Time passed, broken only by the occasional rumble of her stomach as her hunger slowly grew, and once the distant owl's cry.

Morning slipped away, and some time in midday the smell of burning herbs again filled the cave. Consciousness resurfacing, and stirred and observed that the fire had once again been rekindled and something was roasting over it. She sniffed disdainfully, prepared to refuse the food on principle. After a moment she considered the smell of the herbs, how they accompanied the fire, but not always the food. Suspicious, she decided to escape the cloying smell, it fogged her mind and made it hard to focus, hard to recall anything except her immediate reality. She clambered out of the cave and went to sit by the stream, back still turned to the woods, not wishing to spot the creature watching her again.

The soil by the stream was damp, and cold. It didn't seem to have rained, but the cloud cover kept the sun from warming the open ground. Her hunger was growing powerful, and the meat slowly cooking over the fire was starting to look very tempting. Eventually she relented, and moved closer to the fire. Her meal today was a large rack of ribs, cracked and torn raggedly off whatever poor beast had provided it. Apparently the dark hunter didn't have a bone saw. Alicia giggled halfheartedly at the thought, and poked at the meat. It was looking almost fully cooked, and smelled good. Her hunger got the best of her and she plucked the skewer from its crooked rest against the notched branch, and waited for the meat to cool before sinking her teeth in with enthusiasm. She bit here and there, choosing the tenderest and juiciest-looking morsels.

Her persistent melancholy gave way to a simple and powerful satisfaction that tonight at least she would not go to sleep hungry. This simple pleasure seemed of fundamental worth and filled her with an unjustifiable contentment, but she didn't argue the reason of it. She ate leisurely, hardly even bothered when she bit down on a chunk of rib that came away in her teeth, until she pulled the meat off it with her teeth and looked down to find something not at all bone-like. It was metallic, round and flat with smooth edges, about the size of a silver dollar. One edge featured a segment of clear molded plastic, and as she looked closer, she realized with growing apprehension that the metallic casing bore blue printed lettering.

"Medtronic"

"Revo MRI(tm) Pacing System"

"Engineered with SureScan technology"

Her good mood collapsed, as it had seemed to without fail this past week, under a growing sense of horror. It was medical equipment. She tried to think of something else, put the thought out of her mind, but it came unbidden. The device was a pacemaker. She had seen the one they'd put in her uncle during the presurgery consultation. Her blood ran cold, and the juicy ribs slipped from numb fingers. Her lips peeled back in an ugly grimace as she stumbled back, eyes fixed on the meat, face a mask of revulsion. A high keening cry spilled forth from her, then broke into a sobbing howl of torment and denial as her mind went racing through the implications. Dogs were given pacemakers, too. But it would be an enormous dog to have ribs like that. And it was too tender for dog meat. She'd eaten dog, visiting relatives in Oaxaca, it was tough and oily. And that screech owl she kept hearing...

Scenes from last night's dream flooded into her mind unbidden, and she turned away and collapsed to the ground, retching uncontrollably, tears streaming from her eyes. She purged until she felt hollow and wrung out, then finally lay down in the leaves and sobbed softly. At length she gathered her wits and slowly sat up, crossed herself, and began to stumble her way through a prayer she remembered from childhood, hoping the gesture would provide her with a measure of comfort. Behind her she heard a raspy, grating chuckle, close enough that it made the back of her neck itch with the feeling of immediate danger, but weary indifference kept her from panicking this time. If the dark hunter wanted to hurt her, there was little she could do to stop it. So she continued with her prayer, struggling to remember words, filling in where she had to with what seemed most appropriate.

Behind her, she heard a heavy thud like a shovel in wet sand. Momentarily distracted she turned to see a stick topped with a freshly-denuded skull that grinned cruelly at her. She turned away again. It was only another burden, it seemed insignificant now before the weight of this damnation she felt.

After that afternoon it was as if something had slipped loose in her head. Hours oozed by in a sluggish smear. She felt as if her ideas of the way the world was were melting and being washed away in the stream, leaving behind a place where life and death each implied the other, and pain was the only language that could be shared. Daylight came and went but the cold was constant, as was the cloying smell of her keeper's herbs. Hunger slowly grew in her but she could not bear the thought of food, not after what she had done. She would starve now, in this cold cave, and in so doing she would do penance for her sin. It was the only thing left that made sense.

She existed now in a self-imposed exile in the darkness of the cave, feeling indecent even to feel the warmth of the sun. As the hours stretched into days, the horror she felt slowly devoured her thoughts, and eventually silence reigned inside her mind. She became subliminally aware of the rhythms of the forest. She felt, more than saw, a dark shadow come to the mouth of her cave and leave a leather-lined hollow of bark filled to the brim with water. She railed against her thirst, but thirst won. The water was dirty, and smelled faintly of animal, but she drank. More days passed and more water came, but the hunger only grew.

She slept only after days awake, knowing the burning herbs would bring her nightmares, but what she saw when she finally succumbed was beyond her mind's ability to comprehend, a message spoken in the language of sightless things that crawl under the earth.

She awoke with a terrible foreboding, certain she had been shown an apocalyptic truth that she could not remember. Feeling a presence she rolled over and saw the monstrous and emaciated form of her keeper crouched in the doorway, silhouetted against the dying light of the last fragments of sundown. Fear registered to her mind but rolled off her, her being already saturated with despair and final certainty. The monster's presence seemed proper, and she thought maybe her dream had told of this.

It took a long breath, and moved towards her. Her half-drowned instincts gave a feeble kick and she sat up slowly and scooted away from the creature, but there was nowhere to go.

It closed on her, sniffing the air. Now within reach of its long arms, it reached out and pulled away the filthy and tattered remnants of her gown, baring her now-gaunt frame. She stayed frozen, quiet, as the murky pits of its eyes beheld her bare and beleaguered form. It lifted her thigh and exposed the soft, curly hair at her center, black like the beast's short fur. Its fingers caressed her firm breast, gentleness belied by the scrape of thick claws. Her captor leaned close and sniffed her lips, her ear, her tender neck where her pulse fluttered like a bird in a trap, then it ran its tongue across her throat and slowly up her cheek. Its breath smelled like blood and rotten wood.

Alicia squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and swallowed. Silence for a moment, then she felt hot breath on her ear, and heard a slow breath being drawn. "I can feel you stirring inside. I've searched so long, but it was worth every day and every mistake. Now is the time."

The creature laid a hand on her cheek, and after a moment she realized it was waiting for something. She opened her eyes, and found herself staring into the face of the beast. Even from inches away, she couldn't make out a hint of eyes in its face, only two inky black pits that emitted no light. Its other hand was raised, and she watched with helpless apprehension as it lowered those claws, down, to her bare belly. She felt them come to rest across her navel. Her breath caught in her throat as they slowly pushed deeper. Pain blossomed in her stomach as they pierced her skin and dug in. With a deliberate twitch the beast split a twelve inch tear in her gut, deep enough to expose her entrails. She watched in a distant and dreamlike panic, and absurdly the single thought she was able to form was that she thought her guts would be red and shiny, not black and matted.

Instinctively she clasped her hands over her abdomen, but everything seemed far away now, as if she were watching a grainy movie of reality. She sat in shock listening to the blood rush in her ears and seeing that momentary glimpse of her own insides. Something about it seemed strange. Wrong. At length she marshaled the will to look down again. There was blood on her hands, but none trickled from the wound. A realization dawned slowly, like a bubble of air rising through honey, that there was no pain.

With a mixture of caution and curiosity she relaxed one finger at a time. No pain came. No blood. Finally she could see. It wasn't enough, she didn't understand, so she spread the rent in her flesh wider. She took a deep breath, and it felt good. Carefully she touched the glistening black mess, then slid her finger lower, under soft flesh. It felt like she could breathe for the first time in her life. The edges of the wound itched, and she prodded at them, then slid her fingers into the bloody flesh and gave an experimental tug. Suddenly she felt cramped, constricted, and she pulled at the slippery flesh again. It wouldn't give under her merely human strength, her fingers kept slipping. With a frustrated grunt she clawed at her stomach, but to no avail. Lifting her hand to her mouth she bit down between thumb and forefinger and pulled until the skin came loose. She bit again, and again, and soon she had peeled the flesh away from her first two fingers. She flexed her spidery digits and marveled at the sharpness of her claws. She could hardly breathe now, and her movements became frantic as she dug her bared thumb into the tender undersides of her other arm, parting too-tight flesh to reveal blood-matted black fur beneath. She freed her arms first, then peeled away the constricting chest, pulled the legs off one by one like thick, rubbery stockings, then finally slid her claws under her chin and tore the bare skin away from her face.

She knelt, panting and gasping for air, crouched in the tiny cave. All around her lay discarded shreds of husking, fragments of her delicate shell. She looked out into the gathering night with longing, but instinct told her she was not finished. She had to show that she was fully born, that there was nothing left of the myopic whelp she had emerged from, if she were to be worthy of what she most desired. With a sigh she looked down again, and wondered how she had ever fit inside that tiny skin. It was sweet, soft, and foul in her mouth like a French pate made with spoiled fruit, but she ate every scrap she could find, until nothing but blood and dirt remained.

Soon, it was done, and she emerged at last from the site of her trial. Her senses were finally clear, clearer than they had ever been, as if she had pulled a cowl off of her mind as well as her body. All around, the night whispered secrets to her, and she could smell the giddy anticipation of the one who had found her and cared for her and wiped her mind clean of thought just so she could witness the cool simplicity of the world. He had been waiting for her for a long time, but he would not have to wait any longer. She was born. She drew a deep breath, and howled for her mate.