“I … can’t … believe …” he sighs.
Before Eddie can finish, his frame stiffens and the supernatural animation melts away. For the first time since I picked him up and took a peek into his body bag, he actually looks like a corpse.
The room falls into silence.
“Yooooouuuu,” Eddie slowly calls out in a long, fully supported note. As the volume grows his body revives along with it, rolling back into an upright position and turning toward me with a massive, open-mouthed grin.
I stagger back, watching as Eddie slides the knife from his neck like it’s little more than taking off a hat. He twirls the blade between his fingers with shocking dexterity, slowly walking toward me above the horrible glow of the fallen lamp.
“Thought you could stab me!” he sings. “Youidiot, Poppy! I’m better than that, don’t you see?”
My feet catch on the rug, causing its thick fabric to bunch up as I topple backward. I hit the ground hard, my head slamming against the wall.
Eddie towers over me. He tosses me the knife and I catch it awkwardly.
“Wanna give it another shot, sport?” Eddie asks, lowering his voice to a terrifying rattle. “You almost got me, but the problem is … I’m tucked away down here.”
As Eddie says this, he rubs his chest.
“Or maybe here,” he continues.
Eddie lowers the gesture a bit more, pale fingers crawling across his body until they reach his side. Using both hands, he holds his gunshot wound open, giving me a clear view into the mangled hole.
The rupture of fabric and meat had once punctured straight through him, but it appears a dark, glistening filling has plugged the wound. It’s a strange addition to the carnage, a sight so odd that I can’t tear my eyes away from it. My brow furrows as I stare into the massive puncture, and Eddie is happy to hold his position for as long as I need. His face is plastered with a sickening toothy grin.
“Say hi,” Eddie suggests, a bizarre proposal I can’t yet make sense of.
I find myself leaning in closer, struggling to get a better look at the shiny blacksomething. From this seated position I have a perfect view, planted at eye level with the open wound.
A sudden movement within the narrow cavity causes my body to recoil, a gasp escaping my lips. The shiny black object moves ever so slightly, revealing itself as wholly unrelated to Eddie’s flesh. I can see straight through the hole again, whatever had once blocked my sight line now pushing itself deeper into Eddie’s abdomen.
“Oh, fuck me,” I exclaim, pressing myself even harder against the wall, instinctively yearning to escape but restricted by this boundary.
Laughter bubbles up within Eddie as he throws his head back and lets out a raggedy, gurgling chortle. When he finishes, he reaches one arm behind his head and fiddles around a bit.
I can’t tell what Eddie’s up to until, suddenly, he removes his sunglasses with the other hand and reveals that he’s shoved his fingers through the back of his skull—into the open head wound. He playfully wiggles them at me from deep within his own blown-out eye socket, sticking out his tongue to create the most horrific rendition of a “silly face” imaginable.
“Look out!” Eddie jokes. “I got worms!”
He extracts his hand from the back of his head, glancing at the gore that now soaks his fingers and awkwardly wiping it on his sequined suit. Eddie grimaces as he does this.
“Bodies, huh?” he quips. “Pretty fabulous, pretty gross.”
He stops abruptly, the smile slowly returning to his face. “You, however,” Eddie continues. “You’ve got a great body.”
I can feel every muscle clench as he says this, recoiling inward since I can no longer move back.
Eddie steps toward me, then leans down so that his mangled, decaying face is right in front of mine. “You sure you don’t wanna take another stab?” he asks.
I shake my head. I haven’t given up, not by a long shot, but I don’t need to keep wasting my energy on an approach that clearly isn’t working. Just as I suspected, there’s no way for me to physically compete with him.
In strength, speed, and bodily resilience, I’m vastly outmatched.Intelligenceis still up for debate, but I’ll admit that Eddie has shown an incredible strategic mind over the course of the evening.
“No,” I reply flatly.
Eddie slowly reaches out and grabs the knife in myhand, wrapping his fingers around the blade and pulling it from my grip without a shred of resistance. He tosses it onto the nearby couch, then reaches into his back pocket and extracts the handcuffs.
“What’d you do? Stuff some wet tissue paper up there? Lodge some wax in your sinuses?” he asks, snapping one of the cuffs around my wrist. A knowing smirk crosses his face as he registers one of my subconscious tells. “Wax, huh? That’s gonna be a bitch to get out, sport. You’re lucky, though—back in 1445 someone usedcow shitafter I lost them in a pasture.”
