Chapter Text
"Here are the women with ancient
anger in their veins and the cruelty
of a goddess in their hearts.
You will beg before her, you
will scream; but Hera never flinched
from the words of a mortal,
so why should she?
Do not stand in her way.
She will burn down your kingdoms,
herself with it, if it meant
your ruin."
—Medea
She’s never seen as clearly as she does when the culebra walks into the bar.
The creatures exhumed themselves from their hidden temples and into the eyes of the public about two years ago. They’re basically Mexican Dracula according to her brother and Kate’s been waiting to see one up close since she heard the news. She knew it was a long shot one would show in Bible Belt Texas, she’s left room for hope when the news reports went out saying crosses and holy water were null. Still, most people around didn’t take too well to it when Culebra right’s associations publically stated that the species was created by ancient Mayan Gods . Even new-age Christians weren’t one for modernity, repeatedly taking the path towards conversion and condemnation instead of giving the creatures rights.
Kate’s still glad the culebra in her section came tonight despite it all.
Her life is quiet now and new things are a commodity. It wasn’t always like that, she used to be a regular southern bell, the perfect preacher’s daughter, but then the visions started. Whether it’s a gift from God or the Devil himself, a prophet in this time period does not stand as a credible witness. Half the town has been apt to assume she’s gone crazy along with her alcoholic father; it’s easier to believe because there are no Joan of Arc's when prozac and haldol are readily available.
It started the season the culebras unearthed themselves and famous politicians called for a wall, but with UV floodlights on top and her mama kept the t.v. on all day, all night, afraid of everything. At first it was just headaches, sensitivity to light. Then that following summer mama was dead, and Kate started to see, really see, secret things and shadows, monsters and people whose faces weren’t their own. Her nightmares used to be childish before all of it, boogeymen and darkness, trying to run with stuck feet. But now she knows monsters are real, and when she dreams, she still feels like a mouse being swallowed, but this time the monster has a face.
Or rather, eyes , blue, ‘ I promise it won’t hurt .’
When she wakes up she never remembers him in anything more than fragments, just knows that sometimes she can get a sense of the people around her, what they’re thinking, never whole words, just the whispers, the pains, the secrets, the awful wants. If their intentions are bad she can see it on ‘em like they’re wearing a mask, their face prying loose at the seams and ripping free. Under the bloody muscle, when they scratch, they look like demons.
She doesn’t tell most people, but just because Bethel’s full of rednecks doesn’t mean they’re all necessarily stupid. People notice. Either way, she doesn’t go out much. Little treats start to count a whole lot with her, even when they involve the undead.
When the culebra walks in, everyone at the bar goes silent. They stop chowing on grease, shooting pool, taking shots. Kate’s never seen the room so still, so gravely silent before. It’s kind of exciting.
She’d started off the shift as the only waitress on staff since the other closer, Libby, didn’t show; it’d been disgusting busy till the boss got Jessie to come cover Kate’s ass. Basically, the last place she wanted to be was this stupid bar before he walked into it.
The culebra’s tall and lithe, his skin more porcelain than corpse. Dishwater hair slicked back like Buddy Holly, blue eyes behind coke bottle glasses. Kate can’t help but think that his suit looks like something a door-to-door bible bumper would buy as he saunters effortlessly to her section and sits.
“ Caramba ,” comes a voice to her left. She glances over and sees Rafa, gawking over the culebra just like everyone else. “Bethel’s first, and he’s in your section, Katerina.”
Kate’s eyes are still on the culebra, sizing him up, mesmerized, but she makes herself look at her boss, pupils blown like she’s high. “Oh.”
“Don’t tell me you’re scared. I don’t think he’d have come in here if he was looking for something living to eat.”
She simply blinks.
When she woke up this morning she wasn’t thinking of her night turning out the way it has. She’d been focused on how late she was for her first job, lost in dreams and pressing for a near constant snooze on her alarm clock. Scott had interrupted in the middle of her rushed morning routine, a soft rasp of the knuckles against her bedroom door.
“Hey,” he said, voice sleep syrup thick. “I heard your alarm go off. I was too lazy to get up the first time and tell you.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” she answered, quietly, picked up a brush and started raking it through hair to look like she was doing something other than staring at her own reflection like a ghost. Ever since their mother died, she’s wanted more than anything to be brave for Scott; their father can’t be, so she has to.
He hesitated before stepping into her bedroom, shutting the door behind him. A hot summer breeze rushed through her window at the vacuum effect, drifted over him and to her. She could smell his aftershave, crisp like fruit and pine. He’s growing at an alarming rate, less of a boy every day and more of a man. It really doesn’t surprise her that Scott thinks it’s cool that culebras exist-- maybe he doesn’t feel like the only outsider anymore.
“What’s up?”
“Dad’s drunk.”
Her chest constricted, but she didn’t turn, just said: “It’s not even noon yet.”
“I know,” Scott mumbled, looking around the room, playing with her ceramic baptismal keepsakes on the bookshelf. “He knocked over the vase on the table and broke it. Got real mad, broke the other one on the counter, just because.”
Their father hasn’t taken their mother’s death well.
She’d found the accident reports in her dad’s study a few months after it happened, he’d been trying to save her mom. They’d been having so many problems, her mother couldn’t handle it, he’d told her and Scott.
She just took so many. I had to get her to the hospital.
He’d already been drinking, ‘a little’ tipsy.
I told you I could see just fine!
He’d kept insisting there was someone in the road; that he’d swerved to avoid them and flipped the car.
I didn’t know what else to do!
And then her mother was dead. The cops never found the person in the road, just the pills in her mother’s system, and the booze in her father’s.
Now Jacob Fuller is drunk at 11:43 on Friday afternoons and her mother is a memory.
She tries to distance herself from it sometimes, it feels wrong, like a sin. But it’s easier. Her brother has been devoid of any real emotion about the whole situation.
“Did he give you any trouble?” she asked.
“No. He’s watching old family movies in his study again.”
She turned from her mirror. “You gonna be home today?”
“No, I’m going over to Clarence’s to play video games.”
“Dad’ll be fine without us, then.”
Instead of replying, he picked up the old stuffed lamb she still keeps on her bed. When they were young he always wanted to play with it but she refused to share, would hide behind the couch with the toy where her brother wouldn’t think to look for her. “So Clarence wants to go to San Angelo next Saturday to pick up some stuff from Gamestop. Is it okay if I go with?”
Scott is four months away from turning eighteen and she doesn’t expect him to listen if she said no anyways. Since summer break started a month ago he and Clarence have been going non-stop now that the latter has his license and his own car. “Promise you’ll be careful?” is all she asked.
“Don’t worry, I won’t go looking for any culebras while I’m there, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about. Don’t go sniffin’ through any dark alleys hopin’ to get lucky.”
“Like you wouldn’t think it was cool if you saw one!”
Of course, when he said that Kate laughed at him because it’s been over two years and still neither of them had ever seen one. At least, until a culebra came and plopped himself down right in her section.
“I’m not scared,” she finally tells Rafa, puffs up her chest for false bravado.
“Then go on and play missionary.”
She makes a face. “I’m not about that.”
“I was giving you shit, Katie. Don’t be so nervous, I'm sure he can smell it on you.”
“Gee, you’re encouraging.” Bites her lip, blinks, tries to set her shoulders straight. “I should go take his order.” She feels queasy as she turns on her heel and begins walking to the culebra’s table. Her steps feel laboured, like she’s walking through fog, and the whole time he’s just looking at her .
So is everyone else. They’re all amazed to see an actual soucriant in their bible belt, the serpent in the pulpit. When Kate’s finally at the edge of his table she can feel her heart racing, sweat beading on her forehead. His stare is just so intense , like he’s looking right through her-- no, not through, but in , he’s looking inside of her and she just knows that he can see her bleeding. She doesn't know how she knows, just that she does like with the others. Yet, somehow, it's still different with a dead man.
“Hi,” she says, if only to break the silence ringing in her ears.
“You okay?” the culebra asks in response.
Kate tilts her head at him-- his eyes track the motion behind the thick rims of his glasses. She wonders why he's wearing them, suddenly. “I’m...fine,” she says, pauses awkwardly, kind of stunned. “...You’re our first,” she blurts before she can think better. “Culebra, I mean,” she tries to clarify when he raises a brow in confusion; she can feel heat rising up her neck and wonders vaguely if he can smell it. “Welcome to Bethel.”
He leans in conspiratorially close to her, makes her lungs tremble in their cage, her personal space crowded suddenly. “What makes you think I’m a culebra, or that I’m your first .” Lets his syllables drip, makes her knees wobbly as he leans away and smirks, the peak of sharp canines behind bow mouth.
“Your, uh, demeanor? I don’t know,” she says. “I can just tell.”
“It’s because you can identify your predators.”
Mouth scrunching up, she tries to see what he’s playing at. “You don’t look like that scary of a predator.”
“Thank you,” he replies. He leans back as if she’s passed some test, shown him the secret handshake.“You have nice hair.” He tells her.
Kate mumbles, shifts, gapes; she wonders if he actually thought they were trading compliments or if he’s just trying to screw with her.
He smirks again, the insides of her thighs tingle and she’s sure he’s mocking her, suddenly so embarrassed she knows she’s going red as a tomato.
“Um, I’m Kate,” she says because she has to say something . “I’ll be your waitress for tonight.”
“Nice to meet you, Kate ,” he says her name like a prayer. “I’m Richard.”
“Richard?” she scoffs before she can help herself.
He stays still.
She stiffens. “Sorry, sorry, I just thought that since you’re a culebra yer name would be somethin’ like Angel, or Valentino. Something more...”
“Shakira-Shakira sounding?” he supplies blankly.
She shakes her head, grimacing. “Not necessarily. I don’t know. Maybe I’ve read too much Anne Rice wiki.”
At that Richard laughs . Her veins hum. And even though she knows everyone’s attention is on them, she suddenly doesn’t care and laughs softly with him.
But when she looks him in the eye, it makes her dizzy.
“You can call me Richie, if it’s any better,” he says.
It forces a smile at the edge of her mouth. “Um, so, what can I get ya... Richie ?” she asks, acutely aware of how little her shorts and t-shirt cover, the way his gaze is all over the flush on her chest, the milk of her thighs and thin knees.
He tilts his head at her. “Do you have any Santa Sangre?”
Kate nods, remembers that the day Rafa went and bought a case of the synthetic blood. Gets a new one when the other expires, even if it's gone untouched. He finds it cool like Scott. “I grew up with legends of Culebras,” he’d said when Sergeant Frost asked him why he bought the case one night after duty. “Of course I’m wary, but where I come from they’re not so much monsters, as cursed men. I imagine they choose to be good or evil like the rest of us.”
“I think it’s just O-negative,” Kate says softly. “Is that okay?”
“I prefer AB-positive,” Richie answers.
That makes her take in a shallow breath- that’s her blood type, how did he know…? He didn’t, she shakes it off. Stop overthinking this, you’re retarded. Then she thinks she shouldn’t have thought ‘retarded’ because it isn’t a kind word and feels just plain bad.
“But O-negative is fine.”
“Coming right up,” she says, happy to be free of him, of the garble in her head he's bringing, radio static. When she steps back it’s like Atropos has cut an old thread.
She rushes to the walk-in freezer at the back of the kitchen, lets the cold air calm her down once inside. Scavenges for where Rafa shoved the latest Santa Sangre case behind a box of hamburger meat since it hasn’t been used yet. Uncaps a bottle of O-negative and stares at it for a moment-- it’s almost icy now that it’s been sitting for so long, and Kate wonders if that would taste like shit to a culebra, blood is supposed to be warm.
She sniffs, it's thick, cloying.
One look at the back of the bottle and, sure enough, it says to heat it up for a more ‘ fulfilling ’ taste. Kate throws it in the microwave for a minute, leans against the counter as she waits. When the timer beeps she pulls the bottle out and sniffs again. This time it smells more sweet. Morbid curiosity overcomes her and she takes the smallest nip. It isn't what she expected, like ensure almost, but rusty, fake nutrition, powdery and manmade. It reminds her of nursing homes, or maybe the children's wing of a hospital.
The kitchen door opens and the cook, Pete strides in wiping wet hands on a paper towel from the washroom, comes face-to-face with an impish Kate lowering the bottle from her lips.
She knows him from friends in high school, he used to work at the gas station downtown before a faulty propane tank blew it sky high. His beard’s always just a bit too scruffy and she’s pretty sure he sells drugs in his free time, but he’ll talk to you about almost anything and is there to help in a bind, so Kate doesn’t mind his conspiracy theory percona too bad.
“Caught with your hand in the coffin,” Pete says.
She likes him well enough, but sometimes his tone is too cryptic. She spins the bottle between baptized palms and says, “We got our first culebra,” for lack of any other words.
“No shit?” he muses, stepping out of the doorframe so she can get through. “Just be careful, preacher’s girl. Dead guys will put a hand up your shorts right quick, don’t walk through no cemeteries.”
Though she doesn’t understand what he’s saying, she agrees anyways. “Will do,” skirts around him back out onto the serving floor.
Only, when she gets there, the culebra isn’t sitting in the same spot anymore. Instead he’s moved to another table, across a booth seat from some guy Kate isn’t familiar with, but he doesn’t look like any better company than Richie. She squares her shoulders and makes herself walk over there anyways to give Richie his drink, takes in his companion and can tell right away the man’s human, non-descript appearance besides pasty skin, big mouthed with onetomany gigantic teeth, glasses, bright blond hair. He leers at her, and automatically she doesn’t like him.
“Here ya go,” she says to Richie, setting down his drink.
Their eyes meet and he smiles at her, and suddenly the world loses focus. She sees nothingness, the air crackles, like whiplash, she can hear static and bones breaking, then silence, the whole world focused away from her. The ground opens up and gods leak out, the days reverse and begin again, like a whirlwind, milleniums passing until she is only here, in this moment, as she sees .
Man, he’s a bigger motherfucker than I thought. A real jaguar. Bet his blood is cream-of-the-crop, runs out blue and everything. Wonder if he’s the sun or the moon, what kind of trip he’ll give you… I have to know. If only this little piece of ass would stop staring at him and give me some leg room to work with...
Kate looks at the man sitting across from Richie, the twitching in his steepled hands, his nervous smile. And though it seems crazy, impossible , she knows she just heard his thoughts, and that he’s going to hurt the culebra on the other side of the both.
“Oh my god,” she says then, and both Richie and the drainer’s eyes snap to her. “I-I,” she stutters, knowing she can’t say anything in front of everyone or it’ll cause a scene, and with a culebra here, who knows how bad that could go… “Um, you two stay right here !” she says, hasn’t even greeted the man Richie is sitting with before she’s starting to stumble away. “I’m gonna get you two some extra napkins, just stay right here!”
She dashes to the back, doesn’t know what to do exactly, but knows she has to do something or someone could get hurt. Richie could get hurt and for some reason that doesn’t settle well with her. She’s never seen him before in her life, he’s a culebra , already dead , and yet she doesn’t want any harm to come to him.
“Rafa!” she says as she storms into his office where he’s quietly filling out paperwork. “Rafa, the culebra-”
“What is it?” Rafa asks, hastily standing, on alert.
“I think he’s in trouble,” Kate says, watches as Rafa blinks, confused. “Don’t ask me how I know this,” she begs, “but he’s sitting with a man out there who’s not a good man.”
Rafa stares at her like she’s just grown a second head and announced she can speak to God. “I think the culebra can handle himself.”
“But Rafa--”
“We shouldn’t go getting into his business, Kate. I’m all for equality as long as they aren’t hurting anyone, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna get involved in their affairs. And neither should you.”
She huffs, stomps her foot childishly. “Whatever.”
“I mean it, Katerina!” Rafa calls as she leaves the office.
Naturally, she ignores him and heads straight towards the booth, only to see that now no one is there. For a moment she’s frozen, wondering if the whole thing was a dream...but no, there on the table is Richie’s full bottle of Santa Sangre and twenty dollars, more than enough for tab and tip.
Shit , she thinks, looks in through the kitchen window and finds Pete staring at her. “You still keep those two-by-fours in your truck?” she asks.
He nods-- Kate’s a big girl and he can only warn her, can’t actually stop her once her mind’s made up; they have an odd mutual respect about these things. “You need help?”
“I got this,” Kate says, doesn’t want anyone getting hurt because she really doesn’t know what could happen, how Richie will react. But somehow she knows he won’t hurt her.
“Yell out forty-six oh-two if you need me,” Pete says. “I’ll be listening.”
“Thank you,” she says, and rushes out into the parking lot in hopes of catching up to her culebra.
When she gets outside it’s pitch dark, the lot’s half-packed; Texan heat settles around her, writhing, sticky. There’s no noise besides the cicadas, the wind, the buzz of flies dying as they hit neon. She thinks she’s lost track of both drainer and culebra when she finally hears it-- hissing coming from the cluster of willows at the left side of the lot.
Pete’s truck is parked next to her car; she creeps quietly to the bed and reaches around for a sturdy sized plank that’s about half as long as her; it feels heavy as she lifts it but it’s the only weapon she’s got. She supposes he never thought it’d be used by a 5’3”, hundred and ten pound white girl defending a dead man when he bought it for odds and ends at work, and somehow the humor of it seems to stamp down her fear of what’s about to happen.
Creeping to the edge of the lot, she stays low as she peers around the side of one of the willows. Tries to keep herself from gasping as she sees the man from the booth standing over Richie-- only the latter doesn’t look like the Marlon Brando wannabe he did just a few minutes ago. Now he’s prone in the dirt, silver chainlink wrapped round his appendages and sizzling, she doesn’t know how it’s hurting him but he can’t seem to move; his porcelain skin has turned to scales, his eyes are yellow slits, he’s snapping fangs at the man as he drives a needle into Richie’s arm and purple-blue blood starts filling the bag attached.
“This is a lot easier than I thought it’d be,” the man laughs; he’s missing his glasses but still has his stupid, big teeth. “They made it sound like you were mightier than this.”
Richie hisses, the sound shrill enough to make her insides shrivel. But she can’t just stand back and watch as this happens-- she knows the man won’t quit until there’s no blood left in Richie’s body. Don’t ask her how she knows this, because she doesn’t want to think about it. Doesn’t want to think about any of this.
Yet there’s no choice at this point, so she takes a deep breath and steps forwards. The man is taller than her, bigger. She can’t attack from the back if she wants the advantage, knock him off his guard, has to go slow… SNAP!
She curses every Mary, bishop, priest and altar boy she can think of when she steps on the twig. The man turns almost instantly, sees the plank in her hand and launches for her. Panic, the sensation of pain when he strikes her; she stumbles back and her head hits a tree trunk, sees stars , and he goes for her again.
“What a wily one we have here,” he laughs, and god she hates his fucking teeth.
“Kate!” Richie screams, and he’s struggling but weak, chained down.
The man grabs her arm as she recovers from his last blow, tries to yank her towards him but she digs her heels into the ground. “Now come on, sis. Why you messing with big, bad men twice your size? It’d be such a shame to ruin that pretty face of yours anymore than I already have.” His breath smells like stale beer and cigarettes, it makes her insides twist; his dirty nails are digging into her flesh and she’s just about to call out 4602 because she can’t focus on any other thing than getting this creep off of her!
“Get off of her!” Richie snarls, a real gutted, hissing sound, and it’s enough to distract the man, just slightly.
The plank still halfway held in one hand, out of options, she swings as hard as she can, lands a blow to the drainer’s abdomen and he grunts, stumbling back. She takes the pause to raise the plank like a baseball bat, tries to strike his head but he turns and it catches him in the back, sends him sprawling onto his stomach in the dirt. She hits him again upside the head and he takes a nosedive, for a second she thinks he’s dead until he sputters and coughs bloody spit into the dirt.
“You bitch!” he croaks, trying to reach for her; she kicks his hands away. “Y-you don’t know w-who you’re dealing with!”
“Get outta here!” she shouts. “I’m calling the cops and they can tell me who I’m dealin’ with, asshole!”
The man curses at her, he tries to go again for her ankles but she takes the heel of the two-by-four and smashes it into the top of his hand, down into the dirt until she hears a sickening crunch and he wails, an animal with his tail between his legs as he shakily stands and stumbles into the lot, cradling his hand to his bruised chest. Kate thinks it’ll be the last she has to deal with him when she hears a car engine rev, sees lights headed right in her direction.
“Holy shit!” she says, drops the plank and ducks quick to scoop Richie’s shoulders up in her arms and pull .
She manages to move them to the other side of a thick rooted willow, making the man swerve in order to avoid hitting the trunk. “This isn’t over, Hanahpu!” he screams out the window as he speeds off into the night.
“Whoa,” Kate says, watching the taillights fade. Her body is still partially under Richie’s, both of their breathing laboured.
When she looks at him again, his eyes aren’t yellow anymore, he has no fangs or scales, only deep, steaming wounds where the chainlinks rests against his skin. The needle fell out of his arm in the move at least, and the blood bag lies rejected on the ground a few feet away.
“That doesn’t look comfortable,” she says.
“Then take it off of me.”
“How can I trust you? I thought culebras were supposed to be impenetrable to silver, what if it’s a trick?”
“It’s not.”
“Then how’s this thing holding you still?” she asks, plucking at the chain without any negative result.
He shifts, like he’s trying to shed his skin. “It’s laced with some kinda weird powder, Mayan hoodoo, it’s the only thing to keep a culebra down.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Eagle claws and jaguar teeth salve, it’s a long story.”
She shakes her head. “Whatever, just promise you ain’t gonna eat me, and I’ll take the chain off.”
“What if I can’t promise that?” he’s smirking at her.
Pressing the chain into his skin, she smiles when he shrinks in pain. “Don’t test me, and I promise it won’t hurt.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re trying to convert me.”
Ignoring him, she hesitantly removes the chain, one inch at a time. The wounds it’s caused heal instantly when they hit the air, like there was never any harm done to his flesh in the first place. “Didn’t your daddy ever tell you not to chase after dangerous men?” he asks when he’s clean of the burden.
She meets his eyes, crystal blue oceans that make her hide shyly behind her long, dark hair. “My daddy says a lot of things.”
He sighs, leans back against the tree now that he’s free of restraint and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his suit pocket; picks his poison and puts the filter between his lips, in no hurry to leave. “You’re bleeding,” he says as he lights up.
The words register and she’s suddenly aware of the pain in her cheek, her jaw, her lip. She touches it, it smarts, she licks away the red, thumbs in the direction of his fan-club, “Who was that guy?” she asks. “Why'd he call you...hanapu? or somethin’?”
Richie shrugs, takes a long drag from his cigarette. “Said his name was Sex Machine, offered me a free drink,” he snorts. “Probably just another V addict who was looking for a fix and casting off slurs. Let me take a look at that.”
He’s in her personal space again, quick as a snake and she shrinks back, holding the silver chain still in her hands up in front of her.
“Whoa,” Richie says. “Easy. I promise I won’t bite.”
She measures him another moment, unsure, but there’s something in his eyes that makes her want to trust him. “Let me have one of those, then you can look,” she says, nodding at his cigarette. He smirks and gives her a lucky, lights it; she lets him put his hand on her face only softly-- it’s tender, cold. He brushes his thumb against her lower lip after she takes a drag and pulls the filter from her mouth; when he takes his hand away there’s a tiny bead of blood smudged into his fingerprints. He brings his thumb to his mouth and sucks , and her ankles tremble, she feels hot inside.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s the truth. When I saw you in there, you looked like you were bleeding-- inside, I mean. Like the pain’s leaking out.”
I knew he saw it ; she swallows dryly, overcome. How does he know that? The way he says pain doesn’t sound like he even means pain at all.
And, suddenly, for no good reason, her eyes well with traitorous tears, and she feels compelled to tell him the truth. "Do you ever feel like your life, and- and ev’rything in it is just...slowly turnin' upside down like a ship flippin' over in the ocean?" she asks him, doesn't meet his gaze after the words are out.
"You have no idea," he answers her, blowing smoke through his nostrils; he must be looking at her and the way she just keeps breathing out puffs of stale air because then he says, "You're not inhaling."
"I'm not a smoker.”
"You seem like a nice girl.” And when she meets his eye the sincerity she finds there is almost appalling.
"How would you know?" Kate asks. "I could be a terrible person."
"I pick up on things.”
She thinks about what happened inside, about how she just knew what that drainer was thinking, and she accepts what he says. Maybe she’s crazy, but, whatever.
“Yeah?” she asks. “What other kinds of things do you pick up on? Vulnerable waitresses dumb enough to follow a culebra into the dark?”
“That would be despicable,” he smirks.
She smiles back at him.
They’re quiet as they finish their cigarettes; it feels weird to share silence with a dead man. She knows his heart doesn’t beat, wonders how blood can still move through his system, how he works . How many people has he bitten to sustain his way of living, how many has he killed ? He felt so cold, like a corpse, or a snake who hasn’t sat in the sun for awhile. Does he always feel that way? She knows he can’t walk in the sunlight, none of them can as far as anyone’s been told. Crucifixes are a myth, but sunlight and stakes, beheading, that’s legit. What else is Richie afraid of? Or is he afraid of anything at all?
Eventually he finishes his cigarette and tosses it in the dirt, stands, nods to the bag of his blood Sex Machine or whoever the fuck that guy was managed to drain before Kate came to the rescue. “You can take that if you want, sell it. It’s the least I can repay you with for saving me.”
“I don’t get involved with that stuff,” she says, letting out one last breath of smoke before smashing her filter into the dirt.
He smiles at her. “You are a good girl, aren’t you Kate Fuller?”
“I guess so,” she answers.
He laughs, dusts off his bible salesman suit. “Well, until we meet again, then,” he says, and walks past her.
She waits for just a moment before turning to stare after him. “Are you staying in Bethel?” she calls as he walks steadily into the darkness.
“You’ll see me soon enough,” he says without turning back, and then he disappears into the shadows of the road.
Blinking, Kate touches her lip where it was bleeding-- there isn’t even a scratch, and somehow her face no longer hurts. When she licks the corners of her mouth she tastes ashes, cordit, cinnamon, venom, she’s barely mad about his little tricks, that he tasted her blood and knew her full name even though she never gave it to him.
Focus, Kate. Shakes it off and goes back inside to finish out her shift, realizing she hasn't been able to see this clearly in a long time.
She waits for him to come in the next night, but he doesn’t. Not the night after that, or the one after it either. After a while she gives up, goes back to her normal routine of sleep, work, more work, a nightly crossword puzzle, back to sleep, lather, rinse, repeat.
Rafa calls her on her first day off in a month to ask if she can cover a night shift that Friday, says Libby didn’t show again. Kate agrees to come in, of course, she needs the money. When her momma died and her dad started drinking again he lost all semblance of faith. He hasn’t preached in months, hasn’t found a new job either. Now there’s too many bills to pay, not enough food most nights. She wonders how long it’ll be until they lose the house. And what will they do then? Scott isn’t even done with high school yet, and there’s no way the system will let him stay if they’re homeless. Kate could lose him, too. She’s taken on two jobs, one in a grocery store during the day, and the other at Callahan’s during the night; works at least sixty hours a week and she still can’t seem to fix things after her parents managed to shred their life so thoroughly.
How long exactly has her momma been dead anyways, she wonders. Months, a whole year now? Is Jennifer Fuller good and rotten in the ground yet, bird bones whittled at by magots? Does she have hair anymore, are her fingernails still growing? Did her abdomen split back open and leak out all the embalming fluid when they lowered the casket, did her lips curl back from her teeth? They take the eyeballs out right away, put fake ones in the socket so the lids don’t droop. Could Kate have asked them to put her mother’s eyes in a jar so she could keep them on her bookshelf next to her children’s bible, maybe then she’d really see ?
Some worried that culebraism was a new disease you could catch through the air when it first surfaced, her momma had worn a mask outside and everything; there had been a tiny part of Kate that wished it to be true, that wondered if her mother would wake up again, hug her, say she was sorry for killing herself and leaving her family alone. Or maybe she would say nothing and just open a bottle of Santa Sangre for dinner…
But culebraism isn’t airborne, and her mom is still dead while other ‘dead’ people aren’t. How sick is that? she thinks. Late at night she’s starting to question her faith, God forgive her. But the world is full of terrible things, and she wakes in the morning a mess of limbs, tangled hair, sweat, throat raw from screaming with her mouth sewn shut like a scarecrow. Once, her mother would’ve been there to turn on the light and hold her. Now there’s only the cold side of the pillow for comfort.
Every day has been the same since the funeral. Her life feels like the equivalent of watching paint dry, only there’s this big spot of blood on the wall no one bothered to wash off before painting over so it keeps showing through the paint and she has to add a new layer and watch it dry all over again. Most of the time while she’s doin’ her makeup in the morning, she wants to smash her reflection. Sometimes she wonders if it would actually make her feel better, if maybe she can surpass her grief with violence. But she was raised on hymns, and is more prone to her nurture when it comes down to it.
Sighing, she finishes getting ready for work. Scott is away at Clarence’s and her father is passed out in his study. The house is quiet, she misses the sound of her mother humming while cooking dinner. She ties her hair up with a ribbon and adds some lip gloss before slipping out the door.
The bar is packed when she gets there. She’s been working here since the end of high school so she’s used to that by now, but still, she isn’t particularly happy to talk to the same hundred hicks she does every other day.
“There she is!” Rafa yells from behind the bar when he sees her come in. “My miracle worker!”
Kate flinches when everyone looks at her out of instinct, some with judging eyes because they saw the way she was looking at Richie and Richie was looking at her last night. You’d think she’s Judas giving Christ up to the Romans by the way old lady Rey glares.
“How’s it going, Katerina?” Rafa asks, warm to her as ever.
“Livin’ the dream,” she calls out, headed to the back with her head down; they’ve been quiet towards each other since he chewed her out for helping Richie the other night, saw the blood on her shirt and flipped. She told him to go fuck himself at the end of his yelling spree and he didn’t stop her from leaving before the end of her shift.
Scurrying away won’t work this time though, he catches her at the edge of the bar, kind smile as he holds out his palm, tucked inside is a little note. She opens it and finds a doodle of flowers and chocolates, his scratchy handwriting saying I’m sorry, can I make it up to you? “I shouldn’ta yelled the other night, I was a real culo ,” he says. “I was just worried.”
“It’s okay, Rafa,” she says-- she isn’t mad anymore-- and when he smiles and touches her elbow it spreads heat up her arm.
“You’re too kind to me.”
“How are you going to make it up to me?”
“I was thinking I'd buy you dinner sometime.”
Kate isn't stupid, she knows Rafa likes her. She can't say she doesn't like him either. He’s twenty-five, kind, owns his own business, and isn’t bad on the eyes either. She knows his family moved to Texas from Mexico when he was fifteen, his parents died years ago before he opened the bar. She likes the softness in his smile, and the smell of the cologne he wears. Sometimes when he smirks at her and his incisors show, she can’t help but flush. So why does it suddenly make her so very nervous now that he's finally asking her out?
“If I ever actually get a day off, maybe,” she answers, can't give him anything more than that because he's her boss and is she even ready for intimacy yet anyways?
His face falls just slightly. “So, rain check?”
“Yeah.”
Looking only at her feet, Kate goes to the back room and clocks in for the night. Monotony begins as she takes orders and carries trays, sees all the usual faces. It’s busy because it’s Friday and typically that would leave her with no room to think, yet she can’t help but lose track of what she’s doing, which table she’s going to. She keeps thinking about Richie. There’s just something about him she can’t shake from her mind…
At the end of the night she helps Jessie mop up while Rafa puts the money away in the safe, wipes sticky dried beer and crumbs from the pinball machines and tables. “I’m really starting to worry about Libby,” Jessie says as she’s cleaning off the bar. “She hasn’t shown for a week.”
“She’s done it before,” Kate shrugs.
Twice a year Libby takes off for no reason, calls it a personal vacation, skips work and mutes all the calls from concerned friends. Most have come to accept it as normal.
Jessie grimaces, pulling at her knee socks nervously. “Usually it’s only for three or four days. Now it’s been eight. I’ve gone to her house to check on her but there’s nothing there to say she ever even left. The fridge was fully stocked and ev’rything. And every time I call her phone it goes straight to voicemail.”
Pausing with the mop, Kate looks up at the other waitress and the real fear in her eyes. “I can go check again. See if there’s something you missed? New set of eyes always helps.”
“I can come with. I just have to pick Wray up from her babysitter, first.”
“No, no, just go on home. I’ll call you if I figure anythin’ out.”
“Thanks, Kate.”
She nods, finishes cleaning and waits for Rafa to lockup before they can all leave for the night.
“You sure you’re good to go alone?” Jessie confirms, handing Kate the spare set of house keys Libby gave to her in case of an emergency.
“I’ll be okay.”
It’s only about a ten minute drive to Libby’s, a little one bedroom at the edge of town. All the lights are off as Kate unlocks the door and makes her way inside. She’s been here a few times before, knows the basic layout of the home. Feels around the wall for the light switch and flips it on. The living room illuminates and nothing looks out of place, all neat and organized like a home living advertisement. She frowns, usually Libby is more of a slob than this.
Shaking her head, she makes her way into the kitchen and finds it just as perfect; opens the fridge and sees it’s fully stocked like Jessie said; there’s several items starting to rot and they make the room smell like a mix of antiseptic and compost. She thinks that’s kind of off putting, more and more creeped out as she makes her way down the hall to Libby’s bedroom, setting her hand on the doorknob and twisting it slowly-- it sticks, but with a shove of her shoulder she gets it to budge open.
Tumbling into the room afterwards, she is immediately assaulted by the smell. It’s way worse than what was in the kitchen, less like compost and more like death . It’s so cloying she gags instantly, can feel bile rising into the back of her throat and swallows hard to keep it down. Her heart begins to hammer in her chest as she searches for the lightswitch, afraid to be in the dark a moment longer yet too petrified to run from the room. Her feet shuffle as she searches and they step in something with a wet plop , it’s sticky against the soles of her Nikes. She tells herself if she doesn’t find the lightswitch within the next second she’s making a run for it, only then she feels it under her fingers and shakily flips it.
The light kicks on as well as the ceiling fan, which begins spinning in violent circles immediately. Kate looks up as her eyes adjust to the brightness, only to close them when something comes flying at her. It feels wet as it splatters onto her face and she whimpers, reaching up with frantic fingers to get it off of her. When she pulls away she realizes it’s a chunk of bloody skin and shrieks as she tosses it; finally lets herself look around the room, at the blood ev’rywhere in sight.
It covers the walls, the dresser and nightstands, the bed. There’s bits of gristle mixed in like the stuff that just landed on her, chunks of visceral and flesh; Kate thinks she sees a vertebra from a human spine lying at the foot-end of the bed, someone’s spleen peaking out from under a decorative pillow that got knocked onto the floor.
Run, run, run, a voice in the back of her head shouts at her, but she’s rooted still, blood all over her face and the smell of death clouding her senses. It feels like another one of her nightmares, hazy and terrifying and her feet are moving forwards without her permission, towards the bathroom door on the other side of the room. It’s cracked just slightly, with bloody handprints all over its white surface.
“Just leave, Kate,” she whispers to herself, but she knows she can’t, she has to see what’s behind this door, she has to.
Taking a deep breath, she turns the handle and pulls it back; it’s dark except for bits of moonlight coming through the frosted window. She can make out the silhouette of something human slumped in the bathtub, her fingers tremble as she turns on the light.
It’s a mangled corpse sitting upright in the basin, a woman, small and full with bright blonde hair; there’s feathers all matted in it with blood. Besides that, there’s nothing left to identify the corpse with just by looking at it. It’s sitting limp, head slumped against a shoulder that’s missing half its skin, looks like it was pulled right off the muscle. Its face has been scratched away by claws, bloody chunks of shredded flesh with one eyeball hanging from a busted socket. The throat has been violently ripped out, she can see the larynx and vocal chords, little slivers of muscle all tacked with bits of skin and blood.
“Oh, god,” she whispers, moving further into the room, wading through the blood all over the tile floor. She crouches on her tiptoes, looking closer with a sudden calm, trying to assess the damage, she has to see what happened.
All the skin left on the corpse that isn’t covered in blood looks blue, and with closer inspection she realizes it’s paint, can tell by the way it flakes off when she rubs gingerly at the corpse’s still in-tact right thigh (the other has been skinned like most of the body). Its ribcage has also been split open, its spine collapsed on itself. One of the breasts has been torn off, and she can see the lungs. Other organs are missing though, the spleen which she found in the bedroom, the visceral sacs around the diaphragm. She can’t find the heart either, the aorta and pulmonary artery have been severed right in the middle, a clean cut.
Breathing shallowly, she remembers learning about ancient sacrifice in history class, how the mayans would cut out the hearts of their victims and give them as offerings to their gods. Which is the chicken and which is the egg? she wonders; was this woman alive when they skinned her, or did they cut out her heart first the way they were supposed to? She reaches her hand into the open chest without thinking, feels around at where the heart used to be. Whispers trickle in like ghosts, voices that tell her tales she does not want to hear.
It’s Libby’s corpse, the wind says, exactly what Kate didn’t want to hear, but she can’t hide from the truth. Can’t drown out the screams-- she hears every, single one before the silence when Libby takes her last breath.
The air crackles and she can hear as the electricity humming through the house stops, lights dulling out until everything is darkness, just the light of the moon shining softly onto the corpse as it begins to twitch, fingers grasping at empty hair, toes wiggling. The head snaps up violently-- Kate can hear the bones popping, the spinal column no longer put together right-- she shouts and tries to move backwards, away , as the corpse’s chest heaves towards the air with a wet, sickly breath, but she slips and lands on her ass against the bloody ground. The corpse looks at Kate with what’s left of Libby’s mangled face, one pretty, pretty blue eye still in the socket but its pupil is blown so wide the whole iris looks black.
Kate trembles as the mouth opens and closes, little moans and hisses escaping as the body continues to move, tries to sit all the way up in the tub. It’s too broken though, left laying there lamely, dead legs and arms flailing as it finally lets out an uninterrupted sob, unskinned and blue right hand flopping over the side of the tub and flicking more blood onto the porcelain.
Despite the terror in the pit of her stomach, her instincts telling her to run, Kate reaches up slowly as the corpse continues to sob-- she knows Libby means her no harm as their hands meet and Kate wraps her fingers around the dead woman’s cold ones. The head turns again to look at her with its black eye-- Kate can see that she’s crying.
“I’m so sorry,” Kate whispers.
Libby continues to stare at her, mouth moving like she’s trying to say a million things at once. Finally, with a groggy hiss she says, “ They’re coming for you, Katherine. ”
The hand in Kate’s constricts, pulling her closer; she tries not scream as the bloody mouth opens wide and something begins moving up the back of its missing throat. Jaundice eyes gleam and Kate feels all her hairs stand up on end as a snake slowly begins to slither out of the mouth, large and black with a flicking tongue. It looks at Kate with an intelligent gaze while Libby’s corpse chokes and spits around it.
Everything is still as Kate waits for the viper to strike, but it never does. Simply looks at her before, finally, it slithers down the length of the corpse, slinks into the tub’s drain and disappears.
Libby goes limp when the serpent is gone, lifeless once more, and the only thing Kate can hear is sobbing as she pries her fingers from Libby’s rigor-mortis stuck hand.
They’re coming for you, Katherine.
She’s heard those words again and again in her nightmares, when he’s there. He tells her that if she keeps her eyes shut, they won’t see her. She never believes him. He always smells like smoke, he slithers, strokes virgin skin and she burns. Follows him through stone halls with serpents at her feet, a maiden swallowed whole by their slimy, hissing masses. Kate is always next, after the maiden. She can feel the snakes wriggling round her ankles, pulling her into nothingness, the underworld. She begs him to drag her out and he reaches for her, but their fingers always miss. He laughs as she sinks…
She feels the ground shake under her feet and wonders if it’s going to split open again, if the world will tell her another of its secrets; why it’s chosen her in the first place, she doesn’t understand.
But after a moment the rumbling stops and the room is silent again, he isn’t there, the corpse does not move, the viper does not reappear and her feet are still on the ground; she’s covered in a dead girl’s blood that reminds her of funeral hymns, finally coming back to her senses. And she just can’t take it anymore. She has to get out of here, has to call for help, something, anything besides be in this room a moment longer with this dead, dead girl who never stood a chance like all the others she has dreamed of.
It’s only when Kate stands and turns to leave does she notice the dark figure blocking the doorway, and she begins to scream.