Free Ariel by Steven R. Boyett Page B

thing had been a few minutes before, I knew that. There'd been a Change, and the world would never again be the same.
    I never found my mother or my brother. I left behind me the house I'd grown up in, empty except for the stiffening corpse that had been Grace.
    Eight
     
    God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of the unicorn.
    —Numbers, 23: 22
     
    I opened my eyes.
    I was flat on my back in a bed, staring at a ceiling. It was covered with centerfolds, pictures of nude women in an amazing array of poses. I followed them with my eyes, across the ceiling, down a wall—Ariel stood by the door, looking at me unblinkingly with those dark eyes. "Hi, there," I said.
    "You're back," she said.
    "Back? I never  .  .  .  ." And then I remembered. I looked down at my stomach. I wasn't wearing a shirt and could see the scar tissue where the bolt had come through. "Yeah," I said, avoiding her eyes. "I'm back."
    She nodded and turned away, walking silently out the door. A minute later Malachi Lee entered, wearing baggy black pants and a white T-shirt. On the front was a picture of two vultures sitting on a fence. One of them was saying, "Patience, my ass—I wanna kill something!" Malachi's sword was slung at his side. I wondered if he ever let it out of arm's reach. "It even stays at the head of my bed when I sleep," he said, watching me look at it. I smiled.
    "You certainly look better," he said as he came to the head of the bed. "How do you feel?"
    "Like shit. How long did it take you to collect enough magazines to wallpaper this room?"
    "Not long. I went to an adult bookstore downtown and brought them back in a wheelbarrow."
    "Christ." I looked around the walls. "Don't you think this stuff is degrading?"
    He shrugged. "It was something to do. You haven't seen the bathroom walls—one-dollar bills."
    "Toilet paper, too?"
    "Show some respect. Toilet paper is large denominations only, preferably with at least two zeroes. There's a healthy stack beside the chamber pot in case you need some."
    I looked away from him. "How long was I out?"
    "A long time. Four days."
    Four days! "Did I eat anything? I ought to be starving but I'm not."
    He nodded. "Last night you came out of it long enough for us to get some food and water into you. I don't think you knew where you were; you had a fever for three days. The sheets were soaked from your sweating. It broke last night."
    I looked again at the pink mass of scar on my stomach. "It couldn't have been too bad; I'm almost healed. I thought I was dead when it happened."
    He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. "It was pretty bad."
    "Oh, I'm sure I was probably a mess. I know the bolt came through here—" I patted my stomach "—but I must have lucked out and it didn't hit any vital organs—or did it? Come on, you can tell me. Did you have to do any backwoods surgery on me? I can take it, doc, long as I can play the piano again. What'd you have to use? Sewing needles and brandy? X-acto knives?"
    "We were too late for surgery. You were dead by the time I got to you."
    His face yielded nothing. "Yeah, sure," I said. "That's why you're telling me about it now."
    He shrugged. "Have it your way. Do you want anything to eat?"
    "How about just a glass of water?"
    He nodded and left. I looked at the nude women on the ceiling. Dead? No, how could I have been? I was here now. But I remembered that darkness I'd felt, and I shivered. It must have been a dream, a fever dream—one of the strange, eidetic dreams a person can have while sleeping a recuperative sleep. Or maybe in some way I had been aware of my comatose state. Hell, I didn't know.
    Malachi returned with a glass of water. Ariel followed him in. I thanked him and he left. I drank. The water was warm; nobody had a way to keep water cold in the summer anymore.
    "How are you feeling, Pete?" asked Ariel.
    I set the glass on the nightstand to my right. "Fine." I avoided her gaze and after a minute she began looking