Wolves and Apostles

It’s not something you want to do.

I remember at the camp, sitting alone for the first time in maybe a few days, and getting the Feeling, the one you get deep inside of your bones a few hours before the vertigo hits you, and knowing that It was coming. Knowing I lost track of the date. And knowing I had to get out before instinct took over. I remember running.

Can you imagine? Can you, as a regular person, physically imagine? The fear. The disgust and the terror. The excitement and its guilt. Leaving a note on the desk and leaving quietly and hiking up that hill.

I’ve never been one of the people who gets especially ill— sometimes I get stronger, even, which is unbelievably terrifying— but I remember thinking. About the kids, you know? God. The cutest little kids at the camp, playing card games, or hand games, or napping in sunbeams like cats. God. Hiking up that hill. I had to get away from them. The idea of one trekking through a puddle of spinal fluid made me sick, sick to my stomach, sicker than I already was. The vertigo running all the way through me mixed with nausea, and I paused to puke. Hiking up that hill. God.

Before I left, I gave the girl with the pigtails a big hug, and I nearly cried. God. I’d have cried if I wasn’t fighting off something dangerously close to hunger. If tears didn’t make me want to vomit all over the little pink t-shirt. If there was anything left in me. I fought off instinct because I wanted to be more than the worst of my breed, but I could smell her blood, red and hot and so deliciously human, through that soft pink cotton. I didn’t want to go, but I had to. God. I had to for them. I had to for her. I had to for that pink cotton shirt in a size XS. God. Hiking up that damned hill.

I wouldn’t let my knees buckle. They wanted to but I wasn’t far enough and even though I was so good about it, even though I was so quiet and I went so easy and never put up a fuss, I was still messier than average, and— God— the idea of the little plastic boots wading through the inner workings of my meat suit— God. I wouldn’t let my knees buckle. They wanted to, my body was shaking and I'd sweat all the way through my shirt, but I wasn’t nearly far enough to kneel or to take anything off. I remember the boy in my bunk who’d stared hard at the knots of scars on my chest when I forgot a shirt, and said they were cool. Then, there was still my own meat stuck under my nails from the night before, the night spent gagged and bound in the shed barely off campus, far enough to wander to before breakfast. I was too close that night. God. I woke up to giggling, remembered my sin, and, silently, puked hot blood into the gag. God.

Hiking up that hill. Vomiting a puddle of red down myself and vibrating like a shock collar, buzz, buzz, buzz.

I didn’t want to, but I shook so hard I couldn’t move, so hard my knees got their right of way and I tumbled over and onto my chest and its knots, but I wasn’t far enough. I crawled, belly-crawled. My stomach cramped and contracted in ways it wasn’t supposed to, and I still pushed myself along because I wasn’t far enough.

God! We aren’t supposed to have favorites. The older girl with the braid and pointy face who takes too much syrup from the breakfast bar, playing Egyptian Rat Screw with the older boy, the one with the necklace and brown eyes who does weird things with his fingers for the younger kids. Playing Spit with the girl with the braid and the girl with the pigtails and a chubby body inside of a pink shirt who goes mucking for snails and writes home twice a week. She played Spit with me and one of my kids when he was homesick. We aren’t supposed to have favorites, but she made me a necklace with a snail shell on it, and I cried real tears. And the round of BS with two whole bunks, twenty people casting the same happy shadows onto the back wall while it poured buckets onto the roof. The sliver of a new moon was like a smile. But the moon lied. God.

I couldn’t move my arms. I wanted to, because I wasn’t far enough. I would never be far enough. I should have gotten back into the shed, and let the pretty nurse tie me to the wall with those silver restraints that had gotten enough use that a real wolf could make do with them. But I've been 6’4” since tenth grade, and Jesus save me, when It happens I get bigger, and I could have kicked through the wall like a hot knife through warm butter, even if I couldn’t leave through the hole I made. God and Jesus. I kept imagining the girl with the pigtails seeing me covered in my own piss and blood, naked as I came, curled and bound and whimpering in pain. She was in the youngest bunk. She was the one who wouldn’t let me win in Spit. She made earrings out of snail shells and sang a Girl Scout song at the talent show. I could see her little blue eyes staring at me as I bent awkwardly, dirty and shameful. Let alone if I’d gotten out. God. God. God. God. God and His Son. God and His only perfect Son. Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Jesus forgive me.

I couldn’t move my arms. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. It was the same cramping, the same awful feeling, like I was screwed too tight into my own body and my body was throbbing in dismay. If I screamed, Jesus and His Father, I'd be heard, and what if someone tried to help? What if the girl with the pigtails trotted through the woods in the pink shirt and her plastic boots and tried to pull me upright? What if she came too late and I was nothing but a mass of fur and I— God and Jesus. God and Jesus. God and Jesus.

The cramping was in my head. Lights danced in front of my eyes. I was alone. I knew I wasn’t far enough, but hot red blood dripped out of my nose and then my mouth as I lay with my chest to the earth, the sun setting like a broken promise and the moon rising like a lie, and I couldn’t move.

It stirs. It isn’t a wolf, or if It is, It’s a bad one. Wolves are elegant. Wolves are gentle. Wolves care for their packs, feast on animals, and back away when you make yourself big. It isn’t a wolf. It likes the taste of my limbic system and everything inside of it and nothing else.

Last time, the pretty nurse had held me, wolf or not, like I was something that merited tenderness. She let me bleed into her hair when the veins in my nose broke under the stress, let me puke down her pretty nightgown when my organs changed their mind on species and moved all the way around my clenching and unclenching abdominal cavity. She let me cry onto her. She held me, and she let me be held. Jesus save me, I'd let her hold me for a million years. Her hands had ran down the sides of my back even when I was begging to be shot, and she shushed me and told me it’d be okay; what the hell did she know?

The rubber bands around my guts tightened, and sharpening teeth split through my gums, making blood course down my chin; that’s the sign, that’s when they can’t see the human anymore because there’s none left to see. That’s when she told me again it’d be okay, kissed my forehead, straightened the reddened gag, and locked the shed. God and Jesus. She watched my bunk for me while It scratched what It could reach from Its awkward, twisted position, and It howled. What could I have done? God and Jesus. God and Jesus.

My vision started to dance just as the final strokes of crimson set on the horizon. I closed my eyes and shivered from the paresthesia and let reality fade into pain.

God and Mary and Joseph and their one perfect Son. Lying there in the morning, bound and gagged, soaked in blood and piss and shit and puke. Lying there, crying in silence, as the girl with the pigtails and a boy from a younger bunk than mine leaned against the wall of the shed and played Spit and giggled. Naked as I came, lying there with my wrists bound and making the saddest damn noises, even though I didn’t want to. Whimpering like a kicked dog as they talked about their dreams and their plans for breakfast. The Father and the Mother. Jesus and Joseph. I’m sorry.

My spine was moving in my back and I felt It wake up.

God. The girl with the pigtails in my arms. She was so soft. And It smelled meat, tender and new. I should have let the pretty nurse kill me. God.

My spine was moving in my back and I felt It sniffing for air.

Jesus. The girl with the braid walking through a puddle of me by accident. Jesus.

My spine was moving in my back and my clavicles shattered and I felt It nudging its way out. I let It. I wanted It to. I wanted It to come and do anything to me, kill me, maim me, eat me whole, as long as it wasn’t near them.

Joseph and Mary, boys in my bunk playing Egyptian Rat Screw at 2 am and me waking up and not even bothering to tell them off before I fell back asleep. Joseph and Mary. I could have done unspeakable things to them. I should have let the pretty nurse kill me. Mary and Joseph and Joseph and Mary. I’m sorry. Mary and Joseph. Mary and Joseph.

My spine broke through my skin and I screamed even though I didn’t want to. It was here. I growled even though I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

My eyes shot open and for two seconds my vision stayed still, and I could see everything, hear everything. I was a mile away, easily, maybe two, but through the thick of trees I could see a bonfire on the beach. I could hear the girl with the pigtails trying to play guitar and the girl with the braid teaching her. I could hear cards slapping down. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I could kill each and every one of them. I should have had the pretty nurse kill me. I should have made her kill me. I should have swatted off her hands when she touched my back and told me it’d be okay. I should have said that if she didn’t shoot me I’d— Jesus. Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

The girl with the pigtails plays a perfect A minor and the girl with the braid claps for her and someone loses a round of Spit and swears and gets scolded by a nearby counselor. Two seconds of perfect clarity stretch into infinity down the entire dark horizon and all I know is that I’m sorry.

Jesus and all the Apostles, Jesus and Mary and Joseph and all the Apostles, I am unbelievably, unspeakably sorry.

I could have made the nurse kill me.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

My vision pooled with red—

Submitted March 22, 2019 at 10:46PM by gelgem https://ift.tt/2TmynAZ