Get Ready with Me #2
I immediately push the thought to the side, though what I’m left with is no less terrible.
I’m witnessing something else, a need well beyond the limits of my understanding.
Eddie may have been lying about his quest for some devilish supernatural ritual when we first met, but he wasn’t stretching the truth that far.
These acts are ritualistic, but the motivation seems far more primal—biological even.
A realization manifests from the broken conversation fragments that span our evening.
Eddie is gaining strength for something, like a caterpillar preparing for its chrysalis, and he all but revealed what that something is.
I don’t have a lock on the details just yet, but for now the details don’t quite matter.
What matters is this: I’m about to be Eddie’s next host.
I glance back into the bedroom to find that Mary has carved off another band of skin, methodically slicing her way around her arm as pumps of fresh blood spill onto the floor.
She hands the band to Eddie, who’s now perched on the edge of the bed, and he immediately gets to work cramming the fleshy roll into his mouth.
Eddie eats with ravenous enthusiasm, tearing his way through it with grinding, red-stained teeth.
Don’t focus on what’s happening now, focus on the next step.
I create a mental space and lay out my shreds of information, desperately hunting for understanding.
Eddie is gearing up to transform. I’m not sure how this movement from one body to the next will occur, but I’ve finally figured out why.
He’s been around for hundreds of years, and every time a host body dies, he needs to find a new one for survival.
No, that’s not it.
That’s not the whole picture.
I recall my numerous conversations with Eddie over the course of the evening, imagining what he’d say in response to each of my desperate theories. According to Eddie, there’s something even more important than survival, or at least, equal to it in the broad cosmic scheme of things.
Eddie didn’t pick me from his basket of genetically valid host children because I’ve got a stronger heart or fuller lungs. He picked me because I’ve got the best odds of carrying on a much more important tradition. If given the chance to shine, I can sing, dance, model, and act with ease.
I have the body of an entertainer.
My eyes flick over to my knife, which Eddie tossed haphazardly onto the couch. He was so frivolous with it, knowing I couldn’t do any real harm to his decaying suit of flesh with this silly little blade, but he forgot one very important thing. It’s not his flesh that matters right now, it’s mine.
I try scampering toward the blade, but quickly hit the limits of my cuffs as my wrist yanks backward.
I don’t relent, though, pulling hard against the metal and stretching out with my free arm.
The knife is too far away, but if I tug hard enough, maybe I can drag the coffee table ever so slightly across the rug.
My wrist burns as I heave all my weight against the tiny metal ring.
Mary’s voice drifts softly from the other room. “I don’t feel so good,” she admits. “I think I’m gonna faint.”
“That’s alright,” Eddie replies. “I’ll just take over when you do. Let’s get a piece from your stomach now, huh?”
I tug again, and again, and again. I’m mostly just bunching up the rug, but every lurch brings me the slightest bit closer to the finish line.
With one final scoot, I reach out and grab the steak knife. A sense of relief immediately washes over me—job well done—but this feeling quickly dissolves as I gaze down at the blade and realize what I need to do with it.
“Aw, fuck,” I groan, noticing now that my hand is trembling. “I can’t … I can’t.”
My head involuntarily begins to move from side to side, body protesting against brain, and in this moment I catch sight of myself in the standing mirror across the room.
I freeze. Between thousands of video uploads and seemingly endless time in front of the mirror, I know every inch of my face.
I know the gentle slope of my nose and the spacing of my cheekbones.
I know the exact shade of red that runs through my hair, and the way it changes when I’ve gotten a lot of sun. I know the placement of every freckle.
This face has cultivated both opportunity and allconsuming narcissism, a double-edged sword that I’ve wielded my whole life. Still, looking at myself in the mirror this one last time, it feels like I’m saying goodbye to a friend.
Objectively speaking, I understand this particular arrangement of flesh and bone is attractive, that the placement of my eyes and nose and mouth is both aesthetically pleasing and astronomically rare, but these truths are not what I’m mourning.
I’m saying goodbye to myself, but I’m also saying goodbye to Marlo, in a way. I can see her face in mine, note all the little things she inherited from me.
I’ve thought about her a lot tonight, a North Star I keep returning to as things grow more and more dire, but now something has changed.
While Eddie goes through his transformation, I’m going through my own, circumstances forcing me into a state of emotional mutation.
Before, I feared the thought of Marlo growing up how I did, a childhood of constant strife and survival.
This was my worst nightmare, but it appears I wasn’t quite imaginative enough. There’s something much, much worse.
When Eddie takes over my body, I have no idea what’ll happen to Marlo—how he’ll treat her, what he’ll do to her. He already said that he doesn’t like kids around, so death is certainly on the table, but in all likelihood she’s probably in for something much more sinister.
Eventually, many years from now, she’ll end up in the exact same situation as mine, the vicious cycle of our rotten family tree repeating over and over again.
I will never let that happen.
It stops tonight, but not because I’ve somehow managed to overpower Eddie and prune his branch.
It stops because I’ll prune my own. Despite his planning for this evening, there’s one very important thing Eddie didn’t count on.
As self-obsessed as I am—and I’ll admit, I’m pretty fucking self-obsessed—there’s a little girl I care about even more.
I take the knife and bring it up to my cheek, resting the cold, jagged blade against my skin. My hand instinctively holds back, rebelling against this primally unnatural request, but with all the will I can muster I force the blade onward.
Sharp, stinging pain erupts through my nervous system as a sticky gush of liquid pours down my cheek. It hurts like hell, but I know this is only the beginning.
Eddie is ready for his fresh canvas, a perfect object of “traditional beauty,” and it won’t be enough to give his canvas a few shallow scratches. I need to destroy the whole thing.
I watch as the blood pours down my face, all those pricey exfoliating treatments gone straight to hell.
I push even deeper, feeling the knife pull taut against the elastic flesh of my cheek as it threatens to poke through to the other side.
Nausea bubbles up within me, but I somehow wrestle it down, soothing my mind with thoughts of Marlo.
There’s a strange, sickening pop as the blade juts through, glancing off my teeth on the other side of my mouth.
The pain is so overwhelming that it loses any sense of locality, now just radiating through me like a strange, overwhelming hum.
A sudden heaviness overtakes my body, eyelids flickering closed as I lean against the coffee table.
I’ve never fainted before, but I imagine this is what it feels like.
“Fuck you,” I mumble, my molars clattering against the knife as I make this quiet proclamation. Half my ire is directed toward Eddie, but the other half is focused right back at myself.
In an effort to wake up I tug the knife toward me, slicing an even larger hole and sending yet another furious jolt of pain through my body. Fortunately, this seems to do the trick.
There’s a delicate balance here. I can’t let myself pass out or die before I finish the job. Eddie clearly has no problem inhabiting dead bodies, at least for a little while, but he would be absolutely mortified to exist in an “ugly” frame.
Of course, I’m versed enough in the social media landscape to know there are all kinds of influencers, people with massive scars who make incredible, beautiful—and most importantly, popular—content.
Eddie, however, is not that kind of guy.
He hasn’t progressed much in the last few decades, let alone centuries, and his definition of beauty speaks for itself.
More important than any fuck you to my new corpse dad, however, is the practical warning I’m leaving behind. If Marlo ever sees my mangled face, regardless of who’s piloting it, she’ll be terrified.
She’ll know something’s wrong.
From the other room I hear a loud thump, Mary’s body finally giving out and crashing to the floor.
I lean over just enough to peer through the doorframe, catching a glimpse of Eddie as he crouches over the crimson-soaked woman with his pruning knife.
He greedily peels off as much skin as he can, stuffing it down his gullet.
While Eddie might’ve been careful with his meals before, all bets are off now. He’s ravenous, tearing through the ragged flaps as blood and carnage drench the front of his sparkling suit.
A flamboyantly gay Saturn Devouring His Son by Francisco Goya.
Influencers can’t know fine art? Fuck off, I think to myself, somehow chuckling through the blinding pain.
Once finished with my cheek, I yank my knife back and get to work on my forehead. My blade slices across the top in one deep, ragged cut, not quite sharp enough to make a clean incision. This is a recipe for scarring, which is a good thing.