JAMES HOGGARD
231
ejaculate.
If
he doesn't, the murder will be in vain, will prove
he's not mortal, because mortals leave wet stains, they
are
wet
stains, and if he's not mortal, he'll get revenge on me. He won't
kill me. He'll harass me. But not bloodily. He'll harass me by
doing nothing. Anticipation of the chaotic release of power
that's sure to come will torture me mercilessly, so much that I
won't be able to stand his acts of kindness-the lovely way he
feels my hair, the vigorous way he slaps my butt, the full
smoothness of his lips everywhere; and if I tell him to leave me
alone, he won't answer, he rarely does anyway. The torture's
already begun, and I haven't even attempted to smash him.
Vaguely I remember telling him I love him. I shiver
queasily. I'm not sure if I love him or not.
If
I don't crush him, I
may never know.
We're both on our stomachs and naked as infants, which in
terms of moon time we are. We've been stillborn.
She no longer hangs on the ceiling. She whimpers a lot. I
thought at first her sinuses were infected or that pneumonia was
swilling her lungs or locking her joints. I know now I was
wrong. She's afraid there's no source we're heading for. She's
mistaken. There is.
Her life is in bed, but she still needs rest. She's not as
courageous as I thought she was. The spiders are in her too, and
I understand now how she hung'on the ceiling. She wasn't a bat,
she was a spider. Her size confused me. She can't hang up there
any more. The spiders are inside her. She's controlling them. In
the past they controlled her. They were what was making her
hang, but now that they're inside her they can force her to do
little. Nevertheless, she seems frailer.
Her look is unsettling! She stares at me, but I don't think I
register. The brown in her eyes is washing out, and sometimes
they appear to be holes through which I can see, however hazily,
the pillow behind them. Perhaps it's something else. Perhaps
I'm glimpsing a part of her brain. Whatever it is, it's wet.
Something, I think, is going to happen. I have no idea
what. I do know, though, that I can't crawl the walls as well as I
used to. A lot of times I slide. My hands have become extremely
