Chapter Thirteen

Pam was startled by the deformed looking man in the motorized wheelchair. Sure, he looked like a crumpled pile of burnt shit, dressed in dirty rags and twisted in the most uncomfortable position, but it wasn’t his appearance that made her shiver. He called her name as she passed by, and he was nearly invisible until he spoke. But when he did, it made her skin crawl. It was almost vulgar, like a curse, the way he said her name.

Columbia Street was not terribly busy on a Monday afternoon, and after spending a whole day locked in her apartment expecting somebody to burst through the front door, Pam went outside with a determination to not hide from the trouble that seemed to be crossing her path. The iced coffee and scone she was holding nearly dropped when she heard her name called. The way that he forced “Pamela Brody” out sounded like his tongue was fighting with his breath, and saying the words seemed to be only slightly easier exhaling.

“Jesus Christ,” Pam exclaimed. “The fuck happened to you?”

Hrel quivered, which would have likely passed for a laugh, but it just made his warped frame wiggle in the wheelchair.

“Accident,” he said, the c’s sounding like s’s whistling through the toothless gap in his mouth hole, which is what is mostly resembled.

The nicks and cuts on her knuckles had faded, but there was no way that Pam had done all that when she beat him. She started to back away from him, and his wheelchair lurched forward after her. Hrel’s wheelchair jerked backwards and he rolled about three feet before coasting into the wall behind him, which made him pop up and then slump forward. He lifted his head slightly, enough for Pam to see his yellow eyes, which slowly closed like a curtain falling, and then his neck seemed to give out, dropping his head down onto his chest. Pam stood there for a moment, waiting to see if Hrel would stir.

Suddenly, a bolt of pain flashed through Pam’s head, and she cringed in anguish as her brain felt like it was soaked in gasoline and thrown into an open fire. She crumpled to her knees and clutched at her head, squeezing it so hard that it might possibly stay intact against what felt like an explosion in her skull that was trying to blow it apart. She pitched forward and saw the street and buildings from a completely tilted angle. A thin ribbon of blood came from her nostril and slid down the side of her face, where it was usurped by the spilt coffee spreading on the sideway. Everything went black.

---

By twilight, Pam stirred. She was laying on her bed, and the smell of curry from the Indian restaurant across the street was blasting through her open window, stinging her sinuses. She rolled over onto her back, aware she was awake, and then became aware of her throbbing head. It was like a hangover times a thousand, far worse than the following day of any drug bender she’d been on. At least there’d be some naked body rolled up next to her or a pile of evidence on the table pointing to the good times that had been, but this was just all misery. Every muscle in her body ached as she got up and staggered into the bathroom. Each step she took was like walking up a sandy incline carrying a car on her back. In her medicine cabinet was an unmarked prescription bottle, which she grabbed and took a handful of pills from. She dropped them in her mouth and swallowed dryly. Cupping her hand, she caught some water from the faucet and washed the Vicotin down. It wasn’t coming out any different, but the water was like ice sliding down her throat.

Pam pulled her tee shirt over her head and undid the fly of her Dickies, stepping out of the pants until she was in her underwear. She turned on the bath, and clutched her panties like a frat boy, clumsily pulling them off. The water in the tub filled up around her, making a reservoir in-between her legs until spilling over and rising along her thighs. Soon, the levels met and covered her legs, waist and then up to her ribcage. She was exhausted and had to turn the water off with her foot, which pushed the spigot around until it was off. Resting her foot on the lip of the pedestal tub, her arms draped over the side until it felt like too much effort and she reeled them in to soak in the hot water.

The pain will go away she thought like a mantra. The pain will go away. Maybe the sixth or seventh time she said it, it didn’t sound right in her head. It had…echo? No, that wasn’t right. But it wasn’t just her in her head. Pam was silent for a moment. The pain will go away. That sounded normal. But when she heard it again, it didn’t at all. Because she hadn’t said it.

Hrel did.

---

”What in the fuck!”

Pam’s shock was understandable, even to Hrel. She clutched a towel to cover herself, and had a knife out defensively as she cowered in the corner of the kitchen.

“I said you have nothing to fear because I can’t hurt you.”

Pam looked around wildly. Where was he? How did he get in? And why couldn’t she see him?

“Because I’m in you mind,” Hrel said. “Because the only way I can be here is to exist through you.”

“Get out of my fucking head,” she screamed.

“There is no me, there is only us.”

“GET OUT!”

Hrel was silent, and hoped by not speaking Pam would calm down. There was a minute of silence, and Pam started to lower the knife.

She asked, “Are you gone?”

There was a brief pause, but Hrel replied, “No.”

Exasperated, Pam slumped to the floor. The knife slid out of her hand and she started sobbing. “Why,” she questioned. “Why is this happening?”

Hrel, lacking concern for expressions of compassion just addressed Pam’s question bluntly.

“I could no longer control Walter’s body…it was too far gone, and you were then only possible candidate to host. If I didn’t make the jump, there’s no telling how long it would be until I could come back, let alone find a host.”

“Who’s Walter,” asked Pam as she brushed tears away.

“You don’t have to say it. If you think it, I’ll hear it, just like how you’re hearing me. Real as you think it is, this is only in your head. And Walter was a good friend. Sadly, he died about nine years ago, but he was such a valuable asset, to let our work together be finished so suddenly was something I couldn’t allow.”

“In the wheelchair…that was…Walter?”

“Yes. He had a massive heart attack, but I couldn’t let him go. It’s not normal, but we had been bonded together for so long, I was able to actively control him physically. When his essence departed his body, I was left with it. Held up pretty well until you busted up his face. And then there was that car…”

Pam had stopped crying and was calmer, well, considering she was having a conversation with a voice in her head. “What car?”

“I got clipped pretty hard by a car yesterday. Shattered Walter’s pelvis and both legs. I was lucky that somebody saw and called the paramedics. Got that wheelchair at the hospital when they left me in the morgue.”

“How?”

“Same way I was able to animate him since he died. But the damage to his body was too massive to continue using it. He held up pretty well over the years, but just couldn’t take any more punishment. I was losing control and had to make a choice. Normally, a hosting is not so…forced. You’re also a hard mind to penetrate. I can’t control you and I can’t hurt you, but I can stay as long as I need to and you can’t force me out. It was not my plan, but I think we need to make it work until I can find Ru. Then, I will leave you be.”

Pam grunted and strained her muscles, from her pubococcygeus and anus, to her abdomen, up to her sinuses. Any physio-muscular contraction she could make she tried in a futile attempt to eject the angelic spirit from within.

“Satisfied,” he asked her.

“No,” she grumbled, lifting herself up and heading back into the bathroom. She hung up the towel and thought for a second about getting back in the bathtub. Adrenaline had taken care of the aching but soon the pills would have to pick up the slack. Pam popped the drain and headed out, briefly stopping in front of the mirror. She scowled at her reflection, and gave herself the finger. Take that, you angelic prick, she thought. On her bed, she rubbed at her temples, waiting for some relief.

“Rest until you feel good enough to eat something,” Hrel suggested.

“I was getting something earlier until you fried my synapses, asshole.”

“You’re just feeling the residual trauma from Walter’s body. Your nervous system thinks it has 23 broken bones, a lacerated spleen, one collapsed lung, and severe facial contusions. That’s not usually how it works moving from host to host, but again, it was jump or disappear from this plane.”

“I wish you did.”

---

The following morning, Pam did feel better, but didn’t like the feeling that even when she was by herself she wasn’t alone. She did her regular morning routine without interruption, and headed out around 10am for coffee and something to eat. Making her way back from Cherry Street, Pam retraced her route from the day before, and came across the spot she’d seen Hrel. Walter’s corpse was gone, as was the wheelchair, but some of the tattered rags were in the gutter, where Pam spit upon them.

She smiled and asked, “What, you’re not an early riser? I’m paying respect to your buddy.”

Hrel didn’t answer, but Pam left it at that. Wherever parasitic spirits go when they’re not trying to move into your head and turn you into their own personal transport, she didn’t bother to find out. The place was a limbo of sorts, between their dimension and Earth, and splitting their consciousness between the dimensions was not something that was shifted between quickly. It was much like standing on a ladder, feet on one rung and hands stretched to another, but instead of being wholly connected and simultaneously touching both, it was more like a circuit being completed. She had not been addressed by Hrel nor had he responded for quite some time and Pam was wondering if he was just going to swoop in from the ether and start talking at random. And no sooner than she wondered, he spoke.

“We need to find Ru.”

“Okay, she said, “so where is he?”

“It is possible that the Grufties know…”

Pam had no idea what Hrel was talking about. “The who?”

“You have seen them once before. Those vault creatures who showed up before I did that night before...”

“Before I stopped that big mouth of yours from flapping. And I’ve seen them twice.” Pam went to freeezer and opened the door to look at the bag she’d saved the severed fingertips in. “I don’t think they want to see me again.”

“Nonetheless, we should start with them before we start looking aimlessly.”

“Or…we can go to Somerset and find David. Maybe he knows how to get in touch with Ru.”

“If things are as bad as I think they are, we’re going to want to stay from there.”

“Is something bad going to happen to him,” Pam asked. She didn’t let on that she was hoping it would.

“Very possibly. Only Ru knows for sure. Call this number and tell Anton you are Walter’s niece. He’ll come pick us up and do whatever you ask him to. And he’ll be persuasive if they don’t feel like talking.”

“I’m not worried…I can be persuasive.”