Blood of the Covenant, Water of the Womb

I. The Burial

    All the air broke from her lungs, leaving them shriveled like the tips of fingers when left in
the water too long. She reached into the sticky scarlet pool, scooping him into her arms. The violent shaking that arrested her frame was a result of malnourishment or the grief that tore through her skin, not clean but jagged and vengeful. Patting his already cold cheek, she pleaded with him to respond, but the light had long departed from his eyes.
They had only been apart for fifteen minutes.
    She kicked the knife that lay next to his thigh as though it had the potential to do more harm. The sharp metal skidded across the floor, settling by the doorway. If it weren't for the stain on its blade, it would appear like it had just casually fallen there. Like someone was chopping onions and, in the flurry of stinging tears, had accidentally knocked it off the counter. That's what she told herself. It was just an accident. The crimson soaking into her clothes wasn't the life force that flowed through her brother's veins but spilled paint. The knife, the puddle of red paint, were all a mishap, misfortune, misery.
Now, she was all that was left.
    It took her an hour's sweat to dig a hole large enough for his body. He'd recently gone through another growth spurt, adding two whole inches to his height in just a few short months. She'd poked fun at his high-water jeans, calling them capris. He was less than amused, so once she'd had her fill of pleasure, she'd found an abandoned Walmart as a truce. He'd tried on a few pairs of pants while she kept an eye out. She wasn't worried about running into any other people. There was no one else, but wild dogs and other beasts often found their way into broken-down buildings looking for food. If they weren't watchful, they'd become the meal.
    It was his clothes that went into the grave first. She told herself it was so he could have a soft place to land as if he could still feel the hard, damp earth below him or the tickle of critters that would soon make a meal of his meat. No, the truth was, it was so she wouldn't have to look at them anymore. So they wouldn't get the chance to remind her one day, weeks from now, when her resolve had broken down, and she finally opened the door to his room.
    Carrying him was out of the question. He'd outgrown her long ago. She'd drag him instead, collecting rocks, dirt, and debris along the way, then lay him parallel to the opening and roll him in so his body wouldn't twist and break on the way down. Though the mix of fabrics below did soften his fall, the wet thud of his body hitting the bottom still sent a chill down her spine. She wasn't sure if she could bring herself to look. It wouldn't fix the grizzly image that was already burned into the cortex of her mind, only add to it, so she buried him blind.
    Digging a separate small hole next to where he lay, she dumped all his things: a lighter, a Walkman, playing cards, a picture of their family, a tiny figure from one of his old tabletop games, and the murder weapon. All traces of him could decompose along with him.
Stepping back through the sliding glass door, she stood in the kitchen looking down at the stains on her jeans, a revolting mix of blood and dirt forming the color of decay. She wanted to peel them off, along with the layers of skin underneath, but first, she'd clean the floor. Grabbing several towels, she soaked up what was left of her brother. It was an unceremonious way to savor his remains, but she had no intentions of hanging them up and building an altar beneath them. No, she would burn them, along with everything his blood touched. Maybe she'd throw herself into the flames. The legacy of mankind, nothing but a heap of ashes in a garbage pail.
    What did she owe humanity now? She had lived for him and him alone.
    By the time she'd gotten around to washing herself, Helios had already taken over the waning sky. It dawned on her then, as she scrubbed at her tender flesh, how long it had been since she'd thought of her childhood obsession. If only the gods had been real, then she could march down into the underworld, pluck her brother from the abyss, and reckon with him for abandoning her. She thought of this over and over until her skin burned, until the place where she was scrubbing bloomed with pinpricks of blood. Sucking her teeth, she held her arm under the water and watched the clear liquid turn a vile shade of pink before it disappeared as though it never was. She didn't spare herself the sting of washing her wound—penance for having such frivolous thoughts.
    Sleep refused to wrap her in its comfort, to remove remembering and take her to a world void of death. After supplication, she lay under stiff sheets, eyes wide, watching shadows dance across her ceiling. They moved like headlights from a passing car, only there were no cars, no people to drive them, no lights at all, only shadows. Shadows that swallowed one another until they became one colossal obsidian globule hovering inches above her face, causing every hair on her neck to stand to attention. Closing her eyes provided little reprieve from the menacing, inky mass. She could still feel its cold breath against her cheek and hear the rattling of exhalation. It was an unsettling melody of breath laboring through layers of mucus coating the walls of the throat. She stayed there, perfectly still and eyes closed until exhaustion overcame her busy mind.
    A clamor in the kitchen awoke her. She didn't know the hour, but the sun streamed in through the blinds and over her sheets, and the shadows were relegated to the corner of the room. She stared at that corner. The inky mass was still there, shrunken by the light, waiting for nightfall, waiting to feed again. The sound of pots clanging against one another startled her out of her stupor. She cautiously made her way to the kitchen, holding a gun ready, assuming an animal had found its way into the house. When she turned the corner, her blood went icy in her veins. Before her was her brother, an apron tied around his waist, making breakfast.
    How? She had buried him only twelve hours prior.
    Edging into his line of sight, she saw him as he was, before the "accident." A sweet smile streaked across his face when they locked eyes. It was as if nothing had changed. He opened his mouth to speak and formed words with his lips, but no sound came out. She curiously inched closer, taking in the full picture of what was before her. A cutting board on the island before him was full of raw, bloody meat chopped into small cubes. He handed her a plate, but the meat wasn't cooked, and the animal's fur was still wrapped snugly around its skin. She didn't know why, but she took it from him anyway, and as she did, out of the corner of her sight, she spotted the head of an ermine, whose eyes had been plucked out of its sockets. In horror, she looked down at the plate in her hands and saw maggots and mealworms gorging themselves on the bloodied meat. Dropping the plate, she quickly turned away, but her brother blocked her path. Only this time, he was as she last saw him and the deep gash across his throat spurted red all down the front of his apron. She screamed, but again, there was no sound. As if to mimic her cry, his head snapped rearward till it touched the upper part of his back, turning the slit into a gaping dark hole, and out of that darkness came the inky mass from his throat into her open mouth.
    When she startled upright, slick with sweat and laboring for breath, her stomach twisted painfully. She looked around her room, still cloaked in night, and saw nothing array. No inky mass, no shadows, no brother. Before she could settle in relief, she felt bile sneaking its way up her throat and into her mouth. Running for the bathroom, she slipped, lurching toward the toilet. The impact of her knees hitting the cold tile floor caused the vomit to spew from her mouth. Some made it into the bowl; some landed on the ground. After a moment's breath, she reached for the sink and pulled herself up, stopping short of fully standing when her eye caught a shiny silver object barely illuminated by the incoming moonlight. It was sitting on the right corner of the sink, like it was waiting for her.
    Turning to flick on the overhead light, she was sure that when she turned back, it would no longer be there. That the shadows were simply playing a cruel trick on her or that her mind had conjured it, but when her gaze fell on the sink again, it was still there. A tiny figurine of the Dark Apostle, the same one she had buried in the backyard next to her brother. It was possible he'd had more than one of this kind, and she had simply missed it, but picking it up, any doubt in her mind was silenced. There in the creases of the figure was dirt, tightly packed in.

To be continued... (11/10/2023)