Our Devils, page 17
The shock set in slowly, and then all at once. Aaron broke the silence. “So it can cure pancreatic cancer?”
“Only one case so far,” said the director. He could barely contain his excitement. “But I think it’s a great start.”
Chapter 35
The director ran off for a phone call only moments later. Meanwhile, the newcomers were soon reminded that their contracts included a ‘We can draw blood, stick you in an MRI machine, or make you poop in a cup any time we want’ clause. Given all of the interest in their scar bonding, the medical team put them through the ringer.
For two hours, Aaron and his devil were prodded, scraped, sampled, and tested every which way. They asked a barrage of health questions, like “How many times do you consume soda in a month?” and “How many times do you consume cannabis in a month?” Each answer was more mildly concerning than the last. Aaron hoped the other pair would go through the same routine, if they weren’t going through it already.
Once they had wrapped up, Aaron asked if they could see the other devils, the ones they didn’t meet before. After a few employees traded messages, they got the green light. Marcus and Aster joined them on the way.
If the hangar was like a small village, the bunk was more like a dog pound. Many of the devils there were kept in their own enclosures with food bowls, water dishes, straw piles, and places to do their business. The enclosures were just large enough to be humane, but they were surprisingly clean.
The first enclosure contained a bunch of dragonflies, now maybe eight inches long each. They looked almost cute at this size, their asymmetrical eyes blinking nonsensically. Instead of speaking, they whined in that weird way that sounded like children crying. They butted into the grated wall of the enclosure, looking more curious than dangerous. That was despite the small knicks that their wings left on the grate’s surface.
Aaron shivered a bit. He never thought he would look at dragonflies the same way again, devils or otherwise.
Next was a creature that looked like a small bipedal cow, a red squirrel with a spiky sharp tail, a funny-looking devil halfway between a dachshund and a crocodile, and so on. There were two thin ducks with two razor sharp beaks, a small moose minotaur with black and blue fur, a snake with a flamingo’s head, a creepy red bipedal goat with no eyes, and something that looked like a pineapple with legs. There was also a droopy sloth with ridiculously large claws—It kept yawning “Heeelloooooo” each time someone passed by, no matter how many times they passed by. The group watched as an automatic feeder dispensed food for a snake with a toucan’s head. It looked up at Marcus as if to say “What, that’s it?”
Together, the newcomers ran around while the labbies pointed out all sorts of weird quirks and findings. It also shed some light on why it was so hard to find each devil’s nutritional sweet spot: that beetle with the pompadour has a resting heart rate of 150. That bipedal shark with the bobcat ears has a completely different endocrine system than any mammal on earth. And that horned armadillo requires three times more potassium than any other devil there. Each devil there had very unique, sometimes paradoxical nutritional needs. Add in the fact that each of them could gain or lose mass, body parts, and even internal organs practically overnight, and the problem became exponentially more complicated.
But despite the fact that they were being intentionally underfed, it seemed like the lab team put a lot of love and care into keeping the devils happy. In addition to the essentials, many of the devils had a toy or two to play with. There was a tiny purple rhino batting a tennis ball around its cage with a bladelike horn. Three bipedal goldfish were taking turns with a paddle ball. Marcus and Aster stopped to cheer one of them on, but it got nervous, lost the combo, and had to hand the toy off. Aaron stopped to watch a bipedal jellyfish that was playing with a Transformer, and he was happy to give some tips when the devil couldn’t figure out which way the arms were supposed to bend. Pulsar found the woman with the frizzy hair helping a jumpy red lemur read through a Dr. Seuss book, and it made him wonder if he looked that foolish when he was first learning how to read.
Director Huxley rejoined them on the way out. He picked up the conversation from hours earlier as if they never lost it. “Now where were we?”
“I think you were telling us about Gates,” said Aaron.
“Gates, yes. What do you know so far?”
Aaron traded a glance with Pulsar and shrugged. “Start from the top.”
The way Director Huxley explained it, each Gate was opened from the devils’ world, though none of them knew how that worked.
Scar Gang’s devils agreed on the appearance of the portal: it was a flat, slowly spinning vortex of bones and fat and blood, somewhere between fifty and a hundred feet across. It was apparently made out of devil blood, in several different colors. Aaron couldn’t even imagine the smell.
The devils would step (or dive, or jump) into the portal and wake up in the human world. To date, every single emergence had been within a nine-mile radius, which encompassed most of Trinity City and a sizable bit of grasslands. It turned out that Pulsar had awoken in the construction site only minutes before the fight with the owl, while Aster woke up near a bus stop.
It was also hypothesized that each Gate had a fixed amount of energy to give. Smaller devils might slip through individually without much impact, but when larger ones (or a pack of smaller ones) slipped through, it would create adverse effects in all other devils that had passed through. This apparently extended to their bonded humans as well, in the form of nosebleeds, mouth bleeds, headaches and more. The agency referred to these as “Blood warnings,” since they usually involved blood and warned of devil attacks. There also seemed to be some delay to the effects: the blood warnings often didn’t hit until after the new devil was already conscious. That explained why Reyes always seemed to show up right after a blood warning—she actually had more advance notice than they did.
The director stopped and turned to face the newcomers, his expression turning grim for the first time since they arrived. “I’m sorry to tell you about this next part.”
The others looked at each other, a little alarmed by his sudden change in attitude. They let him continue.
“Soon after the last devil comes through, a Return Gate appears somewhere in the radius. Then, all the devils that have passed through during that opening begin to rapidly deteriorate, much like your blood warnings, except they don’t stop. If they don’t get through the Gate in time…” He let his hands float away.
Aaron looked down at his devil and his heart flipped over. No, he thought. Not Pulsar.
The little beast looked up at him and whimpered before turning to the director. “Is there any way to stop it?”
“Not that we have found, no. The last Gate stayed open for roughly 81 minutes before it dissipated. The one before that only lasted about 45. Some of the smaller devils that didn’t make it through bled out in five or ten minutes. The larger ones lasted until shortly after the Gates closed. But we have every reason to believe that the devils who made it there in time also safely made it back to their world. So when this next one closes, we are going to get every devil in this facility there as soon as possible.”
Marcus fell down into a crouch, resting his nose on his knuckles. Aster’s eyes grew wet, his voice trembling. “I have to… go?”
The director crouched down to pet the frog. “Afraid so, little guy. Maybe it will open again in our lifetimes, or maybe we’ll find a way to get it open. We would love to make that happen. But when the Return Gate opens… we have to move.”
Aaron’s heart fell out of his chest. Aster galloped down the hallway, sobbing madly. Pulsar took off after him, but Huxley motioned to his staff to give them some space.
When Marcus found his devil, he was hiding under an SUV. Marcus tried to reason with him, but Aster was too worked up to cooperate. After a few frustrating attempts, Marcus grabbed him by the leg and dragged him out, kicking and screaming. The other devils in the hangar pushed their faces up against the grating to watch. Marcus snatched Aster up and pulled him into his chest, wishing he could find him a new home somewhere in it. Then Marcus fell onto his back, sobbing with his frog. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
Aaron found Pulsar sitting on a flat roof not far from where they exited. The little devil was staring off into the sky as his tail twitched with distress. He looked away to hide his face, but his heaving shoulders kept no secrets. He screamed with frustration as Aaron approached, stomping his feet hard enough to rattle the roof. Aaron jumped up to grab the edge of the roof, swinging himself up in once fluid movement, and landed with a thud. The devil looked back just as the man pounced him, squeezing him with every ounce of strength. They held each other like the world would end any second, screaming each other deaf. The sound was primal, their voices cracking and frying and fading into the distance.
“I c-can’t go back. I can’t. Fucking. Go. Back.” The little monster heaved with despair, choking on his words.
“Fuck that. Fuck. That.” Aaron squeezed him tighter, trying to find any comfort in it. He tried to feel him, and remember the feel of him, overwhelmed with fear that his devil would evaporate the second he let go.
Chapter 36
Pulsar and Aaron left the facility in silence. The agent behind the wheel didn’t ruin that. The two sat in the back seat, their bodies tense and helpless. They sat with fingers interlocked, Aaron’s large ones wrapped around Pulsar’s larger ones, trying to hope against hope that things would be different this time.
The SUV reached the first chain link gate, the second, and the third. The car hit the main road as the sun dipped and the night began to glow. They traveled about ten minutes down the road, then five minutes down another, and then through a remote-operated gate. Finally, they arrived at a small trailer park. Marcus and Aster plopped out of their car, looking spent and miserable. A government woman in plain clothes showed Aaron and Pulsar to their trailer. It was a plain, forgettable doublewide with earth tone walls and a boxy hedge. There were breeze blocks around the covered porch and a thick paint smell radiating from the porch decking. Aster and Marcus slumped into their own doublewide, directly next door.
The trailer was blandly decorated with plush, beige furniture and a heavily lacquered Tuscan kitchen. Aaron didn’t see any of his belongings, but the government woman told him unprompted that everything would be delivered in the morning. She gave him a quick tour of the essentials, showing him where to find extra blankets and how to work the puzzling shower handle. The kitchen was stocked with a pretty standard assortment of staples, from mac and cheese in the cupboard to ice cream in the freezer. Aaron felt a brief pang of appreciation that they cared enough to go to these lengths for them. It was a small drop of light in a vast, cold sea.
As the two fell onto the couch, the woman gave them a pair of phones that they could use to contact staff, order food, and request supplies. They were locked down to a small set of functions that prevented them from communicating with the outside world. She asked if they needed anything else and Aaron took a deep breath. “Would it be too much to ask for some weed?”
Seeing his distress, the woman pursed her jaw and nodded. She went off into the coming night.
It was a long time before Pulsar or Aaron spoke. And when they did, they both tried to speak at the same time. It made them both laugh, which made them both cry. So they did the only thing they could: they cried it out. When Aaron broke away to blow his nose, he fumbled for the remote. “I just need to watch something right now.”
Pulsar nodded rapidly, grabbing his arm and curling up into his side. “Whatever you want, man. Anything at all.”
Aaron scrolled through the streaming collection slowly. Numbly. He sped up, skipped over three movies at a time, and then three rows. He scrolled until he reached the bottom, scrolled to the right until it looped, and dropped the remote. Then he tilted his head back and grunted in frustration.
“I know,” said Pulsar, rubbing his arm. “Me too.”
“Yeah.” The grim irony of their situation began to settle in. While Agency D wanted to cure cancer, he felt like his best friend was just diagnosed as terminal. He knew that wasn’t really true—Pulsar had survived on the other side before—but that didn’t change how it felt. “What are we going to do?” asked the man.
“What else can we do?” answered his devil. “We’ll.. do everything we can. And it might not work. And maybe the eggheads will figure it out, and maybe they won’t. And… Fuck.” he gripped the air, his hand searching for something to crush into dust. If only he could fight or bite his way through this one, he would tear its neck out without a second thought.
“And we’ll do everything we can,” said the man, dragging their foreheads together.
“Fuck yeah we will,” echoed the devil. His tail swooshed slowly against the couch. “How do we fight?”
“Dirty,” squeaked the human. “Fucking dirty.”
They cried in silence for a while, until they were interrupted by a gentle knock at the door. Pulsar opened it and found a dispensary bag sitting for them on the porch.
Chapter 37
Aaron wasn’t sure if it was okay to smoke in the trailer, and didn’t feel like bothering Mrs. Government again. So he picked a wicker couch on the porch and lit one of the prerolls for his devil. Then he lit a second one for himself. The porch was small, quiet and cozy, with a porch light and a set of string lights for illumination. Aaron took a bad hit and sputtered.
“I’m going to miss this,” whispered Pulsar. They looked out at the park which was almost entirely dark, save for their neighbors next door.
“Don’t say that,” said Aaron. “Let’s just enjoy it.”
“Yeah.” Pulsar took a big hit and released it with shaky breaths, trailing off into a few small coughs.
“It’s kind of cold out, right?” Aaron didn’t know if his shivering came from the weather or not.
“Since when do you get cold?” The monster chuckled nervously. He went inside and found a big granny square quilt, wrapping them both up in it.
Aaron settled in and re-lit his preroll. “Maybe I could come with you to your world.”
“No,” said the monster, decisively. “My world would eat you alive.”
“Good thing I have you, right?”
“No,” the devil repeated it a little more forcefully. “Please don’t.” Aaron smiled grimly, but didn’t say a word. “Please.” Aaron opened his mouth but couldn’t find the words. Pulsar sighed. “Have you ever seen a mother eat her own children?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“You would.” The devil took another puff. “I saw a worm the size of a barn eat itself alive. I once couldn’t find any food for so long that my arms completely shriveled away. I was just a head with feet.”
“I’m surprised you weren’t just arms,” Aaron said, running his fingers through the beast’s thick arm fur.
“Believe it or not, yeah. Of course I bounced back, duh, but that was pretty rough.”
“You’re a survivor,” said Aaron, not giving an inch.
The monster sighed again. “I heard that humans can’t live on meat alone. Is that true?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Aaron. “I know it would cause some serious shits.”
“Now imagine there isn’t any toilet paper.”
Aaron hung his head. He drew another hit. “Damn.”
“And the only toilets are trying to eat you.”
Aaron scoffed. “Toilet monsters.”
“The sky is always cloudy, and don’t get me started on the rivers.”
“Are you sure you’re not describing actual hell?”
“And your neighbors don’t ask you for a cup of sugar.” The devil had a funny glint in his eye. “They rip your head off and drink your blood dry. They don’t ask first either. No manners.”
“And I bet they don’t even have cable, huh?”
“Nothing but a VHS copy of Jerry Maguire. No VCR in sight.”
“Time enough at last.” Aaron took a drag.
“And when it snows, the snow is ash and doesn’t clean out of your fur. Like EVER.” Aaron started chuckling to himself, despite everything. “Seriously,” Pulsar held up his arm, far from serious. “These things used to be white.”
“Shut up,” said Aaron, nudging him.
“And when there’s a tornado that picks you up off the ground, there’s a green bitch that points and laughs at you.”
“Ha, yeah. Green bitch.”
“And when—shut up—and when it rains, you know what happens?” Pulsar sucked down the rest of the joint, snubbing the butt on the table.
“What?”
The monster leaned into him, their eyes inches apart, his voice quiet. “You want to know?”
Aaron’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”
The devil’s voice dropped further and his expression grew grave. “You REALLY want to know?”
Aaron gulped. His breath quickened. “What?”
Pulsar leaned in, ready to share the secrets of the universe. “It feels just… like… this!” And then he tickled his human clear off of the couch with a loud THUD.
“You fucker,” laughed the man, kicking him away. The devil roared with laughter and pounded the ground.
A door opened ahead of them and Marcus stuck his head out. He stopped to sniff the air and stepped out further. “Yo, you got weed?”
The park had a little communal fire pit in the middle of their cul-de-sac, flanked by a few gaslamp-style streetlights. The fire pit area was outfitted with several big benches, a couple of chairs, some stretches of astroturf and some low-maintenance landscaping. To their surprise, there was a stack of easy light wood waiting for them—a welcome gift in dark times. Aaron built the fire and lit up their little corner of the night.
