Bride: an except

An except from Bride: The Monsters Part One

S he was terrified, unable to look up. She only stood staring at the floor, trying to force her eyes to adjust to the light. After a long, painfully quiet moment, she took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold. The floor was poured concrete, like the swimming pool. This comforted her and seemed like a more stable option than the metal grating of the hallway.

“Take your shoes off.”

The voice was deep and even and resonated in the room, even though he had barely spoken. She gasped and fell against the wall, looking around, searching for the source of the sound. With the ceiling lights off, the sunglasses worked against her, and she pulled them off. As she caught her balance against the wall, the heavy door rolled shut behind her and clanked into place. She was locked in.

“Where are you? I can't see,” she managed to sputter out. Her mouth was dry, and she struggled to gather her words. Looking around the room, she could only make out vague shapes. The room itself was round, approximately fifty feet in diameter. On one end was a desk or table of some sort. The soft yellow glow of a lamp came from this area. Following along the wall around, she could see lumps that could have been furniture on the far side of the room, but from the doorway, it was too far away to tell. To her right, she could make out a plastic curtain hanging from a U-shaped rail protruding from the wall. She assumed this was some sort of shower or bathing area. It reminded her of the tub she bathed in, and the familiarity gave her a moment of comfort.

A light popped on directly across the room from her. It was still too far to see details, but she could just make out the shape of a full-sized bed and end tables. There was a lamp on one of the tables, along with a stack of books. On the wall above the headboard was a shelf full of books. There he was, sitting on the bed. Her heart sped up, and she stopped breathing when she saw him. In the dim light and through the fog of her over-dilated eyes, she could just make out the shape of a man sitting up on the bed. She stood there for a long moment, trying to force her eyes to do the job they were built to do. Reluctantly, she stepped forward, fear gripping her heart but curiosity and an overwhelming sense of purpose pushing her toward him.

“Take your shoes off,” the voice said again, in the same even and measured tone. The shape of the room bounced the sound of his voice, making it seem to come from everywhere at once. “Please,” he added, seemingly as an afterthought. Shaking, she reached down and slipped the sandals she had so carefully selected off her feet, stepping barefoot onto the floor. The hard concrete seemed to suck all the warmth from her body. She took another step toward him, and he became a little clearer. He was sitting against the headboard. She couldn't see his eyes but could feel him watching her.

“Stop,” he said. This confused her. She did as she was told and waited for a terrifying minute. That's when he stepped onto the floor and faced her. He was a giant. At least seven feet tall. His arms hung like telephone poles at his side. They seemed to be out of proportion to the rest of his body. As he walked toward her, striding casually but covering so much ground with his tree-trunk legs, she nearly fell over, startled at how quickly he moved. Her eyes fought valiantly to process the sudden change in imagery. She watched him appear in the brief seconds it took him to traverse the room. He was pale, nearly white, and shirtless. He wore tattered pajama pants that were far too short for him. It would have been comical if it hadn’t looked so primitive. The threadbare fabric stopped halfway down his calves, bouncing above his bare feet. A head of shaggy blond hair fell over his face. She tried to focus and take in what she was seeing, but by the time she got a handle on it, he was too close. She backed up instinctively and stumbled over her sandals, nearly falling. An arm shot out, faster than it should have been, considering its size, and took hold of the front of her dress, holding her up. She kicked briefly, retaining her footing, but he held onto her dress, staring down at her. She forced her gaze up to meet his, and when she saw his eyes, her mouth dropped open, and her breath came out in quick, uneven jags. One of his eyes appeared to be blind. The right one was clouded over and seemed to stare at nothing. His left eye was a rich brown, flecked with green and gold. It appeared to burn with life. Awful, angry life. Not hateful but devastated. This eye met hers, and she had to look away. She couldn't take it. It hurt too much. He leaned forward, pulling her closer to him by the front of her dress. She felt it rip at one shoulder, and the threshold of her panic stressed under the weight a little more, but it didn't entirely break. She felt his breath in her hair and was suddenly sure he was smelling her. He pressed his nose against her forehead, and she felt his breath huff out of his nostrils and down her face in thick, quick bursts. She closed her eyes as a flash of memory flitted through her mind. A farm, a horse, and the grunting, sloppy sounds it made as it nuzzled her face.

When she opened her eyes, she realized she had absentmindedly leaned toward his chest, which was inches from her face. He had the narrow, lanky body of a swimmer. Muscled, but not sculpted. He pulled back and looked down at her. She could feel his gaze and felt obligated to meet it, but couldn't bring herself to do it. The thought of feeling that one eye looking into her was more than she could handle. Instead, she stared at the odd shape of lumpy scar tissue that ran up the center of his torso, splitting at his sternum and extending toward his shoulders. Unlike the meticulous, nearly invisible scars on her own body, what she saw sprawled across his body was a ragged mess.

He released her, and she stood before him. She was scared, but the overwhelming amount of information she was processing gave her a moment to regain her composure. He didn't seem to want to hurt her, even though he had ripped her dress when he caught her. He sniffed her, like some kind of animal, but then he released her and appeared to be waiting for her to come around to him rather than pushing her. He only spoke enough to ask her to remove her shoes, which seemed like a reasonable request.

She was still trying to gather all the information when he reached up with a gentle, oversized hand and tilted her face to look at him, his finger under her chin. As soon as their eyes met again, something clicked in her head — the scar on his torso. The Doctor, crazy as a loon but a skilled surgeon, hadn't made that horrible scar. That wasn't his handy work. That was an autopsy scar. That was a scar made by a coroner with large stainless-steel shears and a bone saw, right before he removed and weighed this man's organs. This dead man's organs. Looking into his eyes, one grey, and dead, and sightless, the other wild and inhuman, the dam inside her broke, and she began to scream.