Dead and Alive

CHAPTER 66

The bug didn’t want to die.

Neither did Jocko. Everything going so well. Soap. His first ride in a car. Someone to talk to. His first pants. Nobody hit him for hours. Soon a funny hat. So of course a giant killer bug shows up. Jocko luck.

Two ripping claws. One crushing claw. Six pincers. Stinger. Reciprocating saw for a tongue. Teeth. Teeth behind the first teeth. Everything but a flame-spitting hole. Oh, there it was. A bug born to be bad.

Jocko dropped on it with both knees. Stabbed, slashed, ripped, tore. Picked the bug up, slammed it down. Slammed it again. Slammed it. More stabbing. Fierce. Unrelenting. Jocko scared himself.

The bug squirmed. Tried to wriggle away. But it didn’t fight back, and it died.

Puzzled by the bug’s pacifism, Jocko got to his feet. Maybe the sight of Jocko paralyzed it with terror. Jocko stood in the driving rain. Breathless. Dizzy.

Rain snapping on his bald head.

Lost the baseball cap. Ah. Standing on it.

Erika and Victor seemed speechless.

Gasping, Jocko said, “Bug.”

Erika said, “I couldn’t see it. Until it was dead.”

Jocko triumphant. Heroic. His time had come. His time at last. To shine.

Victor skewered Jocko with his stare. “You could see it?”

The cap’s expansion strap was hooked around Jocko’s toes.

Wheezing, Jocko said to Erika, “It was … gonna … kill you.”

Victor disagreed: “It’s programmed to spare anyone with the scent of New Race flesh. Of we three, it would have killed only me.”

Jocko had saved Victor from certain death.

Victor said, “You’re of my flesh, but I don’t know you.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Jocko wanted to lie down in front of one of the cars and drive over himself.

“What are you?” Victor demanded.

Jocko wanted to beat himself with a bucket.

“Who are you?” Victor pressed.

Trying to shake the cap off his foot, panting, Jocko said without the desired force: “I am … the child of … Jonathan Harker.”

He raised the knife. The blade had broken off in the bug.

“He died … to birth me….”

“You’re the parasitical second self that developed spontaneously from Harker’s flesh.”

“I am … a juggler….”

“Juggler?”

“Never mind,” said Jocko. He dropped the handle of the knife. Furiously kicked his foot. Cast off the cap.

“I will need to study your eyes,” said Victor.

“Sure. Why not.”

Jocko turned away. Skip, skip, skip forward, hop backward. Skip, skip, skip forward, hop backward. Twirl.

As she watched the troll pirouetting across the blacktop, Erika wanted to hurry to him, halt him, give him a hug, and tell him that he was very brave.

Victor said, “Where did he come from?”

“He showed up at the house a little while ago. I knew you’d want to examine him.”

“What is he doing?”

“It’s just a thing he does.”

“I’ll find answers in him,” Victor said. “Why they’re changing form. Why the flesh has gone wrong. There’s much to learn from him.”

“I’ll bring him to the farm.”

“The eyes are a bonus,” Victor said. “If he’s awake when I dissect the eyes, I’ll have the best chance of understanding how they function.”

She watched Victor walk to the open door of the S600.

Before getting into the car, he looked again at the skipping, hopping, twirling troll, and then at Erika. “Don’t let him dance away into the night.”

“I won’t. I’ll bring him to the farm.”

As Victor got into the sedan and drove out of the rest area, Erika walked into the middle of the roadway.

Wind tore the night, ripped rain from the black sky, shook the trees as if to throttle the life from them. The world was wild and violent and strange.

The troll walked on his hands, down the center line of the highway.

When she could no longer hear the S600 above the wind roar, Erika glanced back, watching the distant taillights until they were out of sight.

The troll capered in a serpentine pattern, lane to lane, pausing now and then to spring off the pavement and kick his heels together.

Wind danced with the night, anointed the earth with rain, inspired the trees to celebrate. The world was free and exuberant and wondrous.

Erika rose onto the points of her toes, spread her arms wide, took a deep breath of the wind, and stood for a moment in expectation of the twirl.