She burrows and invites
Smoke hisses out of the wrinkled, larva-ridden pomegranates lying under the shadow of their withered tree.
The manchild stares at the hole pulling fruit and dirt within, as Mother wails beside. Not upset about the mess or the rotting stench, her tragedy is the neighbors gossiping over her weird garden tree.
His brother Jonas grips the manchild’s shoulder, and the manchild winces. “Don’t worry, Ma. Pipsqueak and I will chop it down. Right, Pipsqueak?”
The manchild nods. He hates the nickname, but hates it more when Jonas traps him in a chokehold.
Mother plods back inside. “Take care of it, you two.”
Jonas grins. The manchild knows he’ll chop the tree alone.
#
The manchild’s house is a world of polar opposites.
A garden well-tended with tall trees to hide the mess inside: plastic bags bulging with rank veggies, used up cans, and ant trails carrying breadcrumbs.
“Mother is a burrower,” Jonas said once. “Likes it dirty in secret.”
From the toolshed, the manchild retrieves an axe.
The manchild’s armpits drip sweat, gluing skin to shirt. He imagines the tree is Jonas as he swings the axe.
When nightly chill wraps around him, he hears a whisper.
No one’s there.
The pomegranate tree groans as it leans over the dark patch. With a thud, it lands and quickly blackens, hissing burned honey odors as it dissolves into the hole.
Exhausted, the manchild retreats to his room.
The pomegranate tree no longer obscures his bed from the condos opposite his window. He slips his hand under his mattress and extracts his mags and torchlight.
He hopes the neighbors aren’t watching.
#
He awakes to Mother hoisting a mag over his face. An encrusted dried stain keeps the crinkly cover of the naked woman glued to the first page. “Disgusting pervert. Get up. Gather apples for breakfast. Be useful.”
He carries a basket to the garden, and bites the first apple he plucks, dripping juices to his shirt.
A whisper. “You, sweet thing?”
He turns. No one’s there.
“Down here, you.”
Feminine voice. Seductive rasp. The manchild kneels over the hole, carefully avoiding the blackened earth. An insect skitters the hole’s rim—beetle body, but a drooping antenna carries a bulb reminding him of angler fish. “You’re … inside the hole?”
“Yes. I live alone, a hermit below.” She chuckles. “Would you keep me company?”
His cheeks warm. “Yes.”
“Your name?”
“I shouldn’t share my name with strangers.”
“Do you want us to stay strangers?”
The manchild swallows. He palms his crotch. “No.”
“Whatchu doing, little weirdo?”
Twigs snap under Jonas’s feet.
The manchild hides his hand behind his back like a guilty secret. “N-n-nothing.”
“Damn right nothing. Your basket’s empty.”
The manchild rushes to fill the basket, but Jonas grips his shoulder. “I’ll be gone tonight. Tell Mother I’ve gone to friends downtown. Will stay there overnight.”
“Tell her yourself?”
Jonas squeezes so hard the manchild yelps. “She might not let me go. Are you gonna be a little bitch about it?”
The manchild winces and curls away. “All right. All right. I’ll do it.”
Jonas unclenches. “I’m meeting a girl, you know. I’ll fuck her, too. Real good.”
The manchild grabs the basket, and, on his way back, crashes the angler-fish beetle under his foot.
#
Unable to sleep, the manchild shapes a curvy mental image of the hole-girl.
Clad in nothing but torn underwear and a tank-top, the manchild ventures through chilly midnight, and shines his torchlight over the garden hole. “I—I thought you’d be lonely.”
The hole geysers honey smoke, and skittering beetles gather in the dark, their hanging bulbs firefly-glowing. “Won’t you join me here?”
There’s movement between the manchild’s legs and his chest pounds, but his eyes linger on the rotting grass at the hole’s rim. The glowing beetle bulbs have features, and in his midnight fantasy they remind him of baby faces. “I don’t think it’s safe. Can’t you come up?”
The smoke fades as a woman’s face pokes out, framed by dark earth.
Dimple-cheeked, almond eyes, grit clings by her lips like beauty marks.
The face vanishes below again. “Your turn. Come down here, you.”
The manchild’s crotch is rock-hard. “I—it’s not safe. It swallowed the tree—”
“Are you afraid of some rotten wood?”
“I’m not! But it blackened the fruit and—”
She giggles and shame fills the manchild. “I promise I will protect you from the spoiled fruit. Come on. Or was Jonas right? I don’t lay with little bitches.”
The manchild fumes. “I’m no little bitch.”
He leaps into the hole.
A long fall. Something buzzes. Something shines under his flailing torchlight.
Membranous wings glitter mirror-bright.
A glimpse of a long proboscis. A man-sized insect.
He splashes on swampy earth, his torchlight spins away. “A monster! Help! I can’t see anything!”
“Only a pet,” she says. “Don’t worry. Come here.”
He wades toward the voice. “It’s dark here, I can’t—”
Her face glows, emitting verdant light from her skin. Her body is invisible, cloaked by shadows.
“How do you do that?” he asks.
She giggles. “Would you like to see? What is under the shadow cloak? Come closer. I’ll show you.”
Emboldened by the darkness, the manchild grabs his manhood.
He steps on something soft, and it hisses like a pin-pricked balloon.
A wrinkled, larva-ridden arm.
The manchild barely recognizes Jonas’s face. Sunken cheeks and eyes replaced by smoking sockets.
The manchild lifts his head. The woman’s face is close now. Her body is not cloaked by shadows.
It doesn’t exist at all.
Her head hangs from a gleaming stem, like an apple bobbing in an orchard.
Or a hook on a fishing line.
Spindly fingers tickle his neck, reminding him of skittering cockroaches. The massive presence latches on his back, flapping a cold draft with its wings.
Something punctures the manchild’s neck, something thick, proboscis-sized. A weight lifts off his body.
Now arousal seizes him whole. Because the woman’s pretty face bobs beside him, and whispers dirty words into his ear.
Akis is a writer of bizarre things, a biomedical AI scientist, and maybe human. He also enjoys cooking, playing piano, gaming, and hanging out with new and old friends. His words have wormed their way into Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Flame Tree, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and Uncharted, among others. Visit his lair for more: akislinardos.com
