PIHM Short Story: Beloved, Part Two by Kody Boye

We met with friends that night. Had dinner at one of the best restaurants in the city. Joked, laughed, and celebrated the life Paul had recovered, and the shining future that was obviously going to occur. His best friend Andrew, who had been distant for so long, hugged Paul at the end of it all, and cried as he gave his apologies. He said he hadn’t wanted to intrude—that he wanted to give the two of us our space—and yet, he admitted that he was scared of the end of things, of losing Paul forever.

The truth was: I had been scared, too. Was still scared, if I wanted to be perfectly honest with myself. Deep down, a part of me wondered if we were on borrowed time.

Time, I was quick to consider, that was not ours to control.

As we made our way home—winding through the streets of McAllen and into the lonely suburbs of Edinburg—I found myself considering what I would do if something horrible was to happen.

It turned out I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Paul began to complain of skin problems the first month after his miraculous recovery.

“I can’t believe this shit,” he said as he looked at his face in the mirror. “I’m thirty-eight years old and breaking out like I’m a teenager.”

I stared at his profile from my place in the bathroom doorway, both confused and somewhat perplexed at the sudden development, and watched as he ran a hand across his face. “Be careful,” I said. “You don’t want to break any of the sores.”

“They’re just pimples,” Paul replied.

“They look like more than pimples,” I replied.

Paul reached up and pressed a hand to his cheek, pausing only once to consider me out his peripheral, before sighing and removing his hand.

“Maybe we should take you to the dermatologist,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it, Jake,” Paul said. “It’ll pass. I know it will.”

But the truth was: the skin issues didn’t pass.

There was blood in the bathroom sink.

Having just come home from a day at the office after sitting in downtown traffic for nearly an hour, I’d rushed into the guest bathroom to relieve my aching bladder, which felt close to bursting.

I nearly pissed myself when I saw the blood.

It wasn’t a lot. Truth be told it was just a few specks. But Paul was normally so attentive to his cleanliness, especially in the bathroom. I’d rarely found facial hairs in the sink after he shaved, so seeing this—this blood in a place where there normally wasn’t any—left a sour feeling in my gut.

Somehow, though, I was able to relieve myself, and cleaned up the small mess before turning to face the doorway.

“Paul?” I asked as I stepped out of the guest bathroom. “Are you all right?”

“Don’t come in here,” he said from our bedroom. “Don’t come in here, Jake.”

“What’s going on?” Panic drummed through my heart, my lungs, my ears. “Did you hurt yourself by accident?”
           

“Don’t come in here,” Paul replied. “Let me clean myself up first.”

I reached out to take hold of the doorknob, only to find that it was locked.

“Paul,” I said. “Please. Unlock the door.”

“Jake—”

“Let me in!” I said.

The lock clicked out of place.

I threw the door open, nearly ramming Paul over in the process. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Why did you—”

Lock the door, I wanted to say.

But I was too horrified to speak.

The flesh of Paul’s face was in ribbons. Deep cuts lined his face from cheek to jawline, and the blood, dear God, the blood. It was everywhere. Still dripping from the cuts. Still running down his neck. Staining his shirt.

 “What happened?”

“I tried to shave,” he said. “I tried—I tried to shave.”

“We need to take you to the hospital,” I said, taking hold of his bloodied hand.

“No!” he cried. “No doctors! No hospitals!”

“Paul. We have to take you to the hospital.”

“I said no!” he bellowed.

I was momentarily taken aback.

He never yells at you, a part of me said. He’s never yelled at you.

“Paul,” I said, in as careful, gentle voice as possible. “What’s going on?”

“Something’s wrong, Jake. Something… something’s wrong.”

There was no denying, after that point, that something had happened—some terrible curse had entered our lives, just as the great blessing had before it. You refused to go to the hospital on the grounds that they would be able to do nothing, and I could only do as you asked. So, I cleaned your face up, and promised that there’d be no hospitals, no doctors.

“No matter what,” you’d said.

No matter what, I’d concluded.

Paul appeared to have some sort of infection.

It was obvious, from the way his skin was darkening, that something was going on. Yet he still refused to go to the hospital.

“Please,” I said. “Let me help you.”

He refused to look at me, and had, over the course of the past few days, taken to wearing sunglasses, though for what reason I could not know. I barely saw him most of the time. He’d taken to locking himself in the guest bedroom, and would refuse most of my care, my advances, my desperate attempts to help him.

“Paul,” I said. “Please. Let me take you to the doctor.”

“They can’t do anything,” he replied.

“But how do you know?” I asked.

“Because this is a curse,” he said.

A curse.

The words—so simple, and yet so powerful—took me aback, so much that I could not respond. A part of me wanted to argue. To fight. To lambast him for saying such a thing. But the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t help but remember what the bruja had said.

Magic is fickle. It does what it wants, how it wants, in what ways it wants.

A horrible thought came to me not long after.

Had I had done something wrong? Had I, in some karmic way, cursed Paul to this fate?

I opened my mouth to speak, but found myself unable to do so not long after.

“Please,” Paul then said. “Just… just leave me be.”

And so did as asked, and left the room.

A part of me wanted to stage an intervention. To try and help you, to save you. But I knew that there was nothing that I, nor even a doctor, could do.

Something had gone wrong.

The bruja’s magic had backfired.

What had once been a blessing had turned into a curse.

Paul started to refuse my visits. Most days, he only opened the door a crack to allow me to slide in a plate of food, and even then, the room was always dark, so I couldn’t see him, or his condition, or how much he was deteriorating.

I thought, What have I done?

I tried not to cry. In knowing what I had done, however, and what I couldn’t do? That was almost beyond my comprehension.

I couldn’t help Paul. I couldn’t even save him.

So, I did the only thing I thought I could:

I decided to visit the Bruja.

But even despite my utmost haste, and my vicious intent, I arrived in Laguna Vista to find a JUST SOLD sign on the outside of the home.

Nothing could keep me from screaming.

I returned home, and knocked on the bedroom door, only to be met with silence.

“Paul?” I asked, knocking once, then twice more. “Are you… are you okay?”

Again, he didn’t respond.

A thousand devilish thoughts played through my mind, waxing poetics on my conscience, whispering sweet nothings in my ear. A part of me argued that he might be asleep. But another? Another thought he might be dead.

That thought spurred me to twist the doorknob to find there was no resistance, then to open the door.

The room was dark and, worst of all, it smelled, so badly my first instinct was to retreat from the room.

“Paul?” I asked, trying my hardest not to breathe through my nose. “Are you… are you okay?”

When no response came, I flicked on the light—

And almost screamed.

Paul was lying upon the bed. His lower body was covered in a blanket, but the rest of him was exposed, revealing the horrors the curse had ravaged upon him.

The reason the room smelled wasn’t because of the plates of food I had slipped inside.

Paul was rotting.

His flesh was gangrenous—black and blue and purple all the same. Even his face, which had suffered the beginnings of this horrifying trauma, was covered in sores.

He still wore the sunglasses over his eyes.

“Paul,” I said, taking a careful step forward. “Please… answer me.”

He shifted, then, seemingly dead man walking, moaned, “Jake.”

“What is it?” I asked. “What is it, Paul?”

“I can’t see.”

I reached out to take hold of the sunglasses and, as carefully as I could, pulled them away.

I almost screamed when I pulled them away.

Paul couldn’t see not because it was dark, but because he no longer had eyes.

I made the decision, then, that no loving partner ever wished upon themselves.

I made the decision to ease your suffering.

I wish I could say more.

This is my last confession.

I held the gun in my trembling hand, and tried my hardest not to cry.

This is for the best, I told myself. This is what needs to happen.

Paul was beyond saving at this point. No doctor could cure him, and even if someone could, I could not bear to wish life upon a man who would likely end up dying anyway, even if he was the man I loved.

There was no denying what I had to do.

I had to end Paul’s suffering.

Walking from the master bedroom, all the way down the guest quarters, left me reeling from a thousand memories, a million impressions.

Our first date.

Our first kiss.

Our first anniversary.

Our wedding.

I came to a halt in the hallway and looked at the picture of us as smiling mid-twenties men—our hands laced together, our faces beaming with pride. We were both so young, so full of life, ready for the future and anything it could possibly throw at us.

Who knew it would throw something like this.

Swallowing, I reached up to wipe snot from my face with my bloodied hand, and took the last few steps into the guest bedroom.

The sound of his wheezy breathing left me with the impression, and knowledge, that Paul was a husk of the man he once was. Again, I knew that there was no going back. That there was no saving him. That there was nothing I, nor anyone else, could do.

Stepping forward, I approached his bedside, and reached down to take his hand.

“Please,” Paul said. “Help me.”

“I will,” I whispered, tears in my eyes, my voice in my throat. “I love you, Paul. I love you so much.”

I raised the gun and fired.

The deafening sound, and the pain in my heart that followed, should have only been emotional. But as a blossoming agony began to spread across my chest, I looked down, only to find blood quickly staining my white shirt.

Ricochet, I thought, staring at the metal headboard. The bullet ricocheted.

I dropped the gun in my grasp and stumbled, first against the wall, before sliding down the floor.

“Paul,” I whispered with my last dying breath. “I’m sorry.”

But there was no one there to respond.

Paul was gone, and soon, I would be, too.

As I reached up to take hold of his hand, and as I felt my last breath fade away, only a single word ran through my head.

Beloved.

Kody  Boye is a young adult horror, science-fiction, and fantasy author living in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. He is the author of the When They Came and The Beautiful Ones trilogies, as well as the Red Wolf Saga and The Scarlet Jane Files. When not writing, he enjoys playing video games and with his cats. You can find him online at www.kodyboye.com.