Page 11 of You Weren’t Meant to Be Human

On the stairs of Aspen and Birdie’s house, Crane thinks, a fly must have followed him to Virginia.

Or there’s a hive creeping away from the mountains and closer to cities, real population centers, that caught scent of him in the suburbs.

He stares at this man—this man with a swarm lodged in his throat.

This thing , whatever he is, that shouldn’t exist. As far as Crane knows.

He wasn’t running. He was going to come home.

He’ll come home now, actually. Right now. Promise. Swear it.

Just don’t go upstairs.

Just give him a second to make it believable.

Crane gets the time he needs, because the worms and the flies and the hive and the swarm are nothing if not understanding.

The man watches, waiting, as Crane fetches his clothes from the laundry, resets the back door the best he can, and shoves his feet hard into his shoes.

Aspen and Birdie will be confused when they wake up.

Paranoid too, when they notice the lock broken.

That’s okay. As long as they’re safe, as long as they don’t try to follow.

They don’t know where he lives. He’s never given them a town; he’s never even given them a county.

He leaves a note, too. It’s simple. Sorry. Then he spends a moment considering a whole don’t come looking for me spiel, before deciding that’d just make it worse.

The note goes onto the coffee table, between a candle and a copy of The Little Engine That Could.

What are the chances that Crane has already crossed the line?

Already branded himself a defector by stepping foot in this cluttered house and sleeping in the warm bed upstairs?

Given how desperately the hive tears its traitors apart, this whole “killing himself” thing might be moot.

Oh shit, would Levi be the one to do it?

As he takes one look back at the living room, one final inspection to make sure it’s all in place, he reviews everything he knows about Levi and tries to decide whether his not-really-boyfriend would insist on being the one to uphold the rules.

As he steps out onto the sidewalk, he fails to come to any kind of conclusion. Levi doesn’t love Crane—Crane doesn’t love Levi either—though he likes to think they’ve ended up with a semi-sentimental attachment to each other, the same way you grow fond of a stray cat in the neighborhood.

But the hive will understand. Right? If he tells the hive he’s pregnant, they’ll understand why he panicked. He’ll apologize and they’ll fix the problem together and it’ll be okay.

He’s leaving the house. He’s doing what he’s told. He’s good at that. It’s the only thing he’s good at.

It’ll be fine.

The strange man follows.

The strange man walks oddly, stiffly, as if his body isn’t quite his and it’s taking some getting used to. He trails Crane like a herding dog. The streetlights glow, and at the mouth of the neighborhood cul-de-sac, a car drives by on a late-night errand.

Aspen and Birdie and Luna are safe. That’s what he focuses on, because that’s what matters. He did the right thing.

Crane unlocks the Camry and gets in. Is he allowed to be proud of how well he’s keeping it together?

With how prone he was to meltdowns and tantrums and anxiety attacks as a kid, this is an improvement.

The repetitive numbness of am I going to die soon, I didn’t mean it I was going to come back, the hive has to understand— that’s better than the alternative of losing his shit.

Aspen would correct him: no, this is called dissociation . Or a complete removal from the survival instinct, which is in and of itself a form of suicidality. Both are bad.

The man with the swarm in his throat drops into the shotgun seat and swings the door shut.

Silence.

Quiet, except for the blood in Crane’s ears and the air in his lungs. The creak of body weight and the shuffling of clothes. He’s been wearing this outfit for over twenty-four hours now. The shirt has taken on the distinct over-warmth of clothing kept too close to the body for too long.

Crane puts the key in the ignition, because he is doing as he’s told, but does not get the chance to turn it.

The man snatches. Not for Crane, but for the seat-back lever.

It falls and Crane falls with it, yelping.

And then the man is grabbing him, scrabbling for Crane’s legs with his strange, fucked-up puppet-movements, and pulling him and wrenching him until Crane’s legs are sprawled over the center console and, oh fuck, no no no, the man is on top of him.

What if the man came to kill him instead.

The survival instinct kicks in.

Crane flails. Fights for distance. If he can get some space , he can pull the door handle and fall out backward into the parking lot and bolt.

Or grab the metal pipe he keeps between the seat and the door.

Crane can’t get it. Too far back. The man’s too heavy and keeps pinning him, putting weight on him. Holding him down.

Levi taught him, though. Hit dirty and hit hard, hit the throat and eyes and nose and make it hurt.

Crane catches the neck gaiter. Twist and it’ll cut off the air supply, make it feel like the eyes are going to pop out of the skull, because that’s what it feels like when someone’s choking you, really choking you, and not the fun way. The I’m going to die way.

But the gaiter comes down off the face and something’s wrong.

Crane figures it out in pieces. Has half a second to sort it out while the fabric is tight in his hands.

It’s not that the face itself is wrong; he doesn’t like that phrasing here, doesn’t like the impreciseness of it in this moment.

The face is flat and distinctly strange, sure, the features slightly off from where they should be.

Like this man was disassembled and put back together in a hurry.

It’s what’s under . Between the muscles and under the skin.

An artery on the neck slithers away from the makeshift garrote.

Crane jerks back. Hits the hard plastic of the car door, and his vision swims. His hips are wrenched at a bad angle. His legs are spread like he’s inviting something.

“Stop.”

There are worms. There are worms under his skin, and he speaks like the hive. And there are hands gathering up Crane’s throbbing head, cradling his skull, holding him tightly but so carefully. So kindly. The gloves are bite-proof, Crane thinks. They have the fresh smell of a hardware store.

“STOP.”

Crane stops.

The car is quiet again.

He doesn’t know what’s happening and he doesn’t know what he’s looking at anymore. Just do it. Whatever’s going to happen, Jesus Christ, get it over with, please.

Slowly, the man with the swarm in his mouth and the worms under his skin releases Crane’s head. Inch by inch, waiting for Crane to lunge, or bite. Crane doesn’t. He was told to stop, and he stopped.

So the man takes the hem of Crane’s shirt and pushes it up. Exposes the belly, the sweat to the sweltering air trapped in the car; soft fat, dark hair, the traitorous organ underneath. It rises and falls as Crane breathes. Stutters as his lungs do.

The man, with all the gravity of a religious rite, presses his face to the skin.

Prostrates himself to the altar of Crane’s insides.

The hive knows.