Kissing Carrion

Sherri shrieks. Adage matches her, high and harsh, like a carrion bird sighting a hearse.

She lunges.

“Adage—no!”

And as she turns again, Sherri slips under her arms, disappearing around the corner.

Mike and Adage are left, face to face, with only a gun and ten feet left between them.

Hesitant: “Adage?”

Slouched like a praying mantis, the thing wearing Susan’s skin gives a dust-dry laugh.

“See—for—your—self,” she says.

And steps into the light.

Mike’s hand—wavers.

Partially stripped, her bloodied skull nods moronically, face a crossfire of nerves. Her nose hangs flat, the torn half-mouth slack. She jerks her head aside, and both flap open, revealing the craters at their roots. A lipless grin chatters from chin to ear.

The nude moon of her left eye bulges and slits, blankly, as its lid smears itself shut.

“I—guess—this—means—you—heard—the—tape.”

Mike gulps.

Adage seems to smile. Then the change grips again.

Mike staggers back, gun at knee-level, as blood sprays.

Adage’s borrowed skin snaps at its seams, rucking up like a pair of old tights. She peels herself free. Beneath, the bulge of raw, red flesh. Muscles and mucous, thrust center-stage, spurt and writhe and glisten. Gristle follows, flashing taunting little hints of bone. A spine, vertebrae cracking like a whip as she moves closer. Hands, busy with tendons. Nails, still growing.

Slick, and pale, and sharp.

“Oh, Adage,” Mike whispers.

“What’s the matter, baby?”

Almost hear enough to touch, now.

“You’re like this too, underneath,” she says. “Know that? You all are.”

Half-blind with tears, Mike brings the gun up.

“Stay away, Adage.”

“Oh, but I can’t. Don’t you see I’m naked?”

Her hand, reaching. Claws ruffle his hair.

“Adage, please.”

“You who have so much,” says Adage Beck, no longer even faintly human. “Old pal, old buddy, old friend of mine. You who have so much, I pray—lend me a yard or two of hide to clothe my awful shame.”

And Mike—

—fires.