Chapter Text
I was elbows deep in gore. Biscuit died hours ago, and botflies buzzed around him. Hopefully they didn’t have a way of weaponizing the insects. It wasn’t clear what sort of technology they had at their disposal. If they went so far as to kill Biscuit, they were clearly willing to go further. My phone lay on the garage floor, a diagram of a dog’s anatomy open on it. There were red smears across its screen, from when the phone went to sleep and I had to go into the settings, disable the automatic sleeping.
Biscuit lay partially disassembled on the floor. The flesh of his stomach—where it hadn’t been peeled back with my multitool—shone a pinkish-purple color through the short white hair of the labrador. The large intestine had been slashed, pulled out of the way, and touched the knee of my jeans. The liver lay to my side, torn apart by the blade when I had misidentified it as the stomach. Nobody talks about what a messy thing the inside of a body is. This time it was a sure thing, though. I had followed the small intestine up into the sac it was connected to. Ready for this grim task to be over, I cut the small intestine.
Fuck.
The multitool, slick with blood, slipped down my hand, and the blade cut a gash into my palm. It looked like it was bleeding, but it was hard to tell when my hands were so soaked.
The flies buzzed like static in my head. I didn’t know if I could finish this if I stood up, washed the blood off, bandaged my hand. I wiped my hand and the multitool both off on my pants, then went back in, pulling the stomach out as far as it’d go to identify the esophagus. Then that was cut, too, and the stomach pulled out in front of me. It was a dark red sac, covered in liquids.
Is it safe to touch stomach acid? If it’s powerful enough to eat through food, wouldn’t it be powerful enough to eat through my jeans and skin?
There wasn’t time for that. Momentum was precious. Losing it was one of the best ways to end your day sobbing in your bed, or hurting yourself.
The multitool tore through the stomach lining, letting loose a rank, pungent scent. Green and brown liquid oozed out, so I poked it, gingerly, but it didn’t hurt or anything. Maybe if it stayed on my skin for minutes or hours it would start eating through it. Regardless, I pulled the stomach apart, dumping its contents onto the concrete. For the most part, it was a brown mush. Next, I began sorting the contents into visually similar piles. The kibble was easy to identify—the brown ovals might have softened a little, but they were still easy to identify from the texture.
It took minutes for me to find it. Small, pink-red strands of meat, sometimes lumped together. It was ground beef. We didn’t feed Biscuit ground beef, only kibble.
Part of me didn’t expect to find evidence. I feverishly leapt for my phone, started taking pictures, as many as I could. It was documentation, proof I wasn’t crazy. They finally had left evidence. Something deep down in me didn’t think it was possible, thought they were too powerful, too careful, an unstoppable force. The buzzing was dizzying, like there were hundreds of them. One landed on my hand and it almost felt like it was looking at me with its compound eyes.
I heard a car pull up into the driveway. Fuck. I leapt up and ran inside, into the bathroom, tried to wash my hands off as much as I was able but it just led to the bathroom sink looking like a murder scene. The gash in my palm oozed blood. The front door opened as I was splashing water onto my legs, trying to disguise the bloodstains.
“Violet?” he called.
“I’m in the bathroom!” Hopefully that would buy me enough time.
The blood on my skin was gone (except for the blood that actively oozed out onto my palm), but my clothes were a mess. I yanked the hoodie I was wearing off, revealing the Tune-Yards tee below it, but my pants were still a mess, and there wasn’t another option there. Just splashing water from the sink to try and disguise the worst of it. There was water on the floor.
“Are you okay in there?” he asked. “It’s noisy.”
Fuck. I gave it one last splash and stepped out of the bathroom. Dad was there waiting for me. He looked worried.
“How was your day?” I gave him the best smile I could.
“Work was fine. Did something happen?”
“Biscuit died.” Trying to hide it would be worse in the long run.
“What?”
“I went out into the backyard and he was just lying there. I tried to wake him up, but no matter what I did he, he uh, he didn’t wake up and he was cold.”
“Did you call the animal hospital?” He wasn’t yelling at me, but his voice had raised. “The number’s right on the fridge.”
“He was cold, Dad. I didn’t want to cost us the money.”
“It’s fine, money is fine, you can always call them. Call anyone, for any kind of emergency. Where is he now?”
Fuck.
“I took him into the garage,” I said, “but I need to clean it up. Give me a minute, then you can come in.”
“Why is there a mess, Violet?”
“B-because he sh—pooped himself. Like things do when they die. I haven’t finished cleaning it up.”
“Violet…” His voice was pleading.
He looked down, towards my hand and the carpet. Following his gaze showed a drop of blood on the twist carpet. Right below my hand. I clenched my fist closed, trying to avoid another drop.
“What’s on your hand?” he asked.
When I tried to hide it behind my back, Dad stepped forward and grabbed my arm. His grip was tight, and it hurt as he pulled my arm towards him. My hand was in front of him, and I could feel the wetness of the blood on my fingertips.
“Open your fist, please.”
It trembled as it opened. Blood oozed from the wound. It was longer and deeper than I remembered—it didn’t look as bad when I could rationalize the blood as Biscuit’s.
“Violet…”
“I’m fine. I was messing with a multitool and accidentally slipped.”
Dad walked away, digging into the medicine cabinet for a bandage. He told me to go sit down on the dining room table and I did. The open floor plan had high windows, but the rainclouds left the room gray. It was a nice house. Dad was proud of the price he haggled them down to.
The first step was him dabbing the blood away. Then a few drops of isopropyl alcohol that stung and burned, but I didn’t feel all of the way there, so it was fine. Then the bandage was wrapped around my hand. It made it hard to move my thumb. Hopefully typing wouldn’t be too difficult.
“Violet, where’s Biscuit?”
There was fear in his voice. I didn’t answer.
“Please,” his voice was pleading.
“I want to bury him. I don’t want you to have to see him. Just give me a couple hours and I’ll make the grave."
They would probably desecrate the grave. It was the sort of thing they did. Ruin anything of value and joy.
He stepped past, walked over to the screendoor that abutted our backyard. It was perimetered with a pale brown picket fence and had a singular oak tree, still young. Our neighborhood, Pleasant Hills, hadn’t been constructed so long ago. He slid the door open—it moved jerkily in the rail—and then stepped outside, glancing around. Not finding Biscuit, he stepped back in, made his way straight for the garage. Fuck. I try to grab his hand as he steps past, but he’s always been a lot stronger than me and shakes me off in a moment. I took after my mom, slight and short where he was tall and broad.
I couldn’t help but follow him, even if it was obvious where this would end. He passed the laundry room, shoes clacking against the tiles, then pulled the door open and saw it.
It looked worse than before. There were so many flies, it had to be something they were doing, and the buzzing was a renewal of the static in my brain. Dad hissed in a breath, stood very rigid.
“Violet, I need you to go to your room.”
“I’ll clean it up, first, just give me a minute.”
“No. Just go to your room. Please.”
I stood there uncertain for a few moments. His body vibrated with some emotion.
What do I do?
“I—I need to clean it up. I only did it because I knew they poisoned him, because he was healthy before today. You didn’t think it could be true either, but I found him and I needed to know, so I took him in and checked and I took photos and the photos showed that he ate ground beef, and we never feed him ground beef so that’s how I know for a fact and have evidence this time and—”
“Vi,” his voice was strained, “you’ve had evidence other times too.”
“No, no no no,” I fumbled with my phone, “not like this. Here, here, look, let me show you. Do you see the ground beef? It’s not like the dog food, the dog food is over there because I sorted it all out but you can see the ground beef over here.”
This was the moment. The proof that would make him believe me, that would allow me to have an ally that wasn’t on the internet. That would allow him to stay safe when they tried to hurt him, because if they targeted Biscuit they’d certainly target him too.
“Everything in that photo looks the same,” he sounds so, so sad.
“No, no no no,” I try to point it out, “right there. You see? The texture—”
“Violet. Was he just sick?”
“No! No, of course not. Of course not.”
He stared at me, long and pale.
“No,” I repeated.
He sighed. “Just go to your room. Please. I’ll come talk with you after.”
Was this their plan? Had they psychoanalyzed me to the extent where they could predict that I would seek evidence after they poisoned my dog, all in order to drive a wedge between me and Dad?
“Please, ” he said.
I stammered something out, not even knowing what I meant to say, then walked back up the steps. When I paused at the garage and turned around, my Dad was looking at me. He looked like he was struggling to say something, but when our eyes met he looked away.
I didn’t go upstairs to my bedroom. My fingers trembled as they knotted the laces of my sneakers. Over and over I would need to blink. The house felt so small, like it was bearing down on me, and my stomach kept twisting and turning. I ran out into the front yard.
Fat raindrops slammed down on me, splashing against my hair and clothes. I didn’t lock the door, but I didn’t have the keys and I didn’t know where they were and I couldn’t bear going back inside but if I didn’t then I basically would be saying “come here, hurt me, hurt my Dad,” but that didn’t even really matter because I knew for a fact they had already snuck into my house when all of the doors and windows were locked when they left the note and if they could do it once they could do it again and—
I kept running, keeping my head low. The rain rolled off my face, down my eyes and nose, and dripped onto the water-logged sidewalk. My sneakers were already soaked through. The sidewalk kept going. Every house was identical. Not exactly—there were always surface differences in the facades—but every one had the front door, seven visible windows, and garage door in the same exact locations. They all had a young tree in the grass median alongside the sidewalk, bound to metal poles with cables. Each had a lawn of lime green grass. The recursive pattern went on for spiraling minutes as the roads looped around one another. The rain sounded like oil frying in a pan.
“Why are you out in the rain?” someone asked.
I turned to see a woman maybe a year or two older than me across the road, leaning in the eave of a house, smoking. She had her phone in her lowered hand, and wore black jeans with a red sweater along with ankle boots. She was much drier than me.
I turned back and kept walking. Not running, I hadn’t been running, just speed walking.
“Wait! Do you want to stand where it’s dry? You look so wet.”
It didn’t matter that it was a late autumn rain, or that I couldn’t stop my hands trembling, or that my sneakers bubbled out a squelch of water with every step. I ignored her.
“I won’t talk to you!” she yelled out. “You can just stand here instead of wandering around like a crazy person!”
Fuck, she was right. I did look like a crazy person. It wasn’t the cold or the rain that made me accept the offer, but being willing to risk her being in on it to avoid everyone pointing, laughing, taking videos of me from inside their warm houses. My eyes didn’t meet hers as I approached the eave of the cloned house.
It was warmer here. My arms were wrapped around my torso but they still shook. I kept my eyes mostly trained on the asphalt driveway, but whenever I glanced up at her I could see she was looking at me, curious.
“I got caught in the rain,” I lied.
“Hmm… Okay.”
When I was really little, back when Mom was alive, they bought Biscuit. My parents said that even just a week after having him he would jump up onto the bed while I napped. Either to protect me, or just to keep me comfy. The rain crackled on the road.
“Do you want some tea? You look really cold.”
She could easily be dangerous. She easily could be someone who was willing to poison me, to hurt me, humiliate me. But could things really get worse?
“Yeah,” I said.
“Okay. Come inside.”
I followed her into the house, with an identical entrance hallway, identical stairway on the right side. Different colors of paint.
“Stay here,” she said, “let me grab you a towel so you don’t get the couch wet.”
I waited by the door while she fetched a towel from somewhere. The furniture looked old and expensive. Solid pieces of wood with dark metal knobs and hinges that looked nothing like the IKEA plywood that filled our home. It was only a few seconds before she came back and led me to a leather couch. She laid the towel out and I sat down on it.
“Let me go make the tea. Is oolong fine?”
I nodded.
In front of the leather couch were two matching armchairs, all forming a half circle around a glass coffee table. It held an expensive looking bottle of whiskey, a small tin container, a bong, and a set of glasses. Beneath all of that were brown rings from no coaster use. They took worse care of their stuff than me and Dad. My stomach rolled with guilt over the judgment. It wasn’t long before she came back carrying two mugs of steaming liquid.
“Thank you,” I said.
She smiled. It made her brown eyes crinkle nearly all the way shut. “No problem, I’m just happy to help. What’s your name?”
“Violet.” I should’ve lied, but didn’t think to until my name was halfway out my mouth.
“I’m Rachel.”
I took a sip of the tea. The warmth trickled down from my mouth, filling my torso.
“Do you live in this area?” she asked.
“Yeah. On Springwater.”
“That’s nice. Are you from that family that moved in recently?”
I nodded.
“Me and my roommates moved in a few years ago.”
Even if she wasn’t as close to my age as I had thought, that would still make her around college-aged.
“Are you renting?” I asked, wondering how they could afford it.”
“Nah, we own it.”
“You don’t look much older than me, I’m impressed.”
She laughed, embarrassed. “We all just got lucky for our careers, and knew each other from highschool, so we could pool our money together.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a painter.”
“Oh, wow. You must be really, really good then if you can afford a house.”
“Well, we got lucky with the recession.”
“My dad did too. He’s super proud about the deal he got on the house.”
“Aww, that’s cute.”
“It really is, I love him so much.”
My hands started trembling, and Rachel had to reach across the couch to steady the mug in them.
“Hard day?”
I nodded.
“Yeah, I feel you. Life’s shit and all that.”
“It really, really is.”
“Do you wanna watch a nature documentary?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She put on a documentary. It seemed to center around animal night activity, using advances in camera technology to capture footage that they couldn’t before. Conversation was sparing. She was disappointed when a young hyena failed to take down her prey. I was surprised they were active that late, and grateful that the zebra had escaped. She called me a bad sport, but she was smiling as she said it. When my mug of tea was empty, she immediately refilled it for me.
When we were halfway done with the movie, I excused myself to the bathroom. She told me to go to the one upstairs. The stairs and walls were lined with paintings, almost all of them portraits of people. Most were normal, but a couple made me feel ill at ease. Necrotic limbs, maggots writhing, empty eye sockets, and other horrors were sprinkled in. A woman wearing a hospital gown and lying in bed, flipped onto her stomach to reveal open, weeping bedsores. A child with shattered knuckles, splinters of bones poking out in a hundred compound fractures. I tried to shove all of it out of my brain while I peed. They had a fancy toilet with a bidet and an electronic control panel. In the bright white light of the LED, the bloodstains on my jeans shone out. At least they had oxidized brown by now. Rachel probably assumed it was just mud.
The bathroom’s door let out onto an L-shaped landing, and opposite it a door was just barely ajar. When I walked along the landing, to the stairs, the angle of the ajar door changed, and something red flashed past it. It was the same color as the bedsores on the paintings. Every instinct in me told me to just run away, leave immediately, but I didn’t want to look crazy.
But I couldn’t just ignore it. My feet drew me towards it. There was a faint, rustling noise past the door. The scent of blood was on me, on my clothes.
I saw it when I was nearly at the door. The angle changed to show a bed laying against the wall. A man sat on it, faced away from me. The back of his head was wire and blood and a tick the size of a basketball, fat and bloated. Its legs pressed against a wire-mesh-punctured brain that looked like shredded jello. No, not jello—a bit was dripping—but more like pudding. Watery pudding. But even though the back of his head was shredded and useless, the body rocked back and forth on the mattress. It moaned softly, the noise of struggling lungs, agonal.
When the sitting body tipped towards the floor, I ran without pausing to see it fall. Rachel called my name when she heard me sprinting down the stairs, but I ignored her, slammed the door open, and sprinted out into the crush of rain.