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“How peculiar,” Levi said thoughtfully. “Jonesey, c’mere a sec, wontcha?”
Navidson popped a huckleberry in his milk pail before his head surfaced from the wave of shrubbery caught in a net of pines. He found Levi squatting over an odd ditch in the ground. The sun was patchy above Navidson, rays cooking his skin, and he felt like a giant jerky strip. God, he knew he should’ve followed Jim’s advice and worn shorts today. His jeans sucked his hips and thighs and bred a dome of hot air beneath the fabric, and his Oingo Boingo shirt licked his back. The thought of cropping it when he got home struck him, fantasizing about the wind sweeping his back while he stretched and got to his feet.
“What’s up?” he asked, side-stepping huckleberry shrubs toward Levi. Navidson sucked his berry-stained thumb, and a tang of penny assaulted his tongue—undoubtedly from the cut he received earlier that week, freshly scabbed and velvet.
As he reached him, he realized it wasn’t a ditch but a very deliberately dug hole sandwiched between a meadow and the coniferous forest. Golden tufts of wheat and dandelions poured around the rim, Levi hunched over a patch of daisies that swayed to and fro against his billowy button-up. His milk pail was half-full, planted beside him. Navidson cooked up a comment toward the lilac stains throughout Levi’s clothes before it caught mid-way up his throat when his eyes followed Levi’s into the pit—more so the thing in the pit.
His eyes widened and had a knee-jerk reaction to shove Levi away, except he didn’t and squatted beside him.
“Gee whiz,” Navidson said, neck craned uncomfortably as he pulled his sunglasses from his nose and slicked them back in his hair. “Whatcha got there?”
“I’m not all too sure, Jones.”
A giant gelatin-like mass resided at the bottom of the pit. It was the color of freshly harvested limes and moved as smoothly as the ocean tide. At first, Navidson took it as a weird science experiment dumped and left to rot in a weirdly dug hole—discarded for nobody to find except for two yahoos in the middle of a mountain looking for cobbler berries—but he discarded the idea once he favored the idea of it being a massive slime instead.
Shit, Navidson thought, it looks like a five-year collection of loogies minus the color. He’d know because, in grade school, Navidson and his friends often held loogie competitions. There were rules, often spat the furthest, biggest, most uniquely colored loogie won, and Navidson never found himself a championship since his loogies always found themselves dribbled mid-way down his chin and pathetically slapped between his sandals like a giant egg yolk on the street.
Navidson’s eyes fell half-lidded when, suddenly, the slime jerked.
“Hi!”
Navidson tumbled back on his boots and brought Levi down with him. They both fell to their asses in the patchy dirt.
The thing in the pit had risen to the top, its slimy body molding itself to create poorly modeled hands to grasp the rim as it formed a face to smile at them.
Navidson and Levi swapped alarmed looks, and questions beat against his skull. Before Navidson’s stunned lips could speak, Levi said what they both were thinking:
“It spoke.”
Navidson made room between them and the thing in the pit as it bounced in place. The sun struck it, and everything glowed golden-yellow around it. Disco ball, he thought absently. Its body slowly sculpted to resemble something almost human, creating a squarish jaw, a sweep of hair, eyes (a little too circular for comfort), a button-up, and even slime-rimmed glasses pushed high against its nose.
Navidson blinked in disbelief. It might’ve almost passed as human if it weren’t for its absurd color.
“Oh my God, do my human flesh bits deceive me?” it said as its body swayed toward Levi. “You’re Leviathan Latte from Home Sweet Home!” It shifted its gaze to Navidson. “Oh! And Navidson Jones also from Home Sweet Home. Hello!”
Levi’s face twisted. “Flesh bits? Human? Jones, what is that thing?”
“Human flesh bits, I guess.” Navidson shrugged.
Levi frowned, his eyes crescent moons, and gave Navidson a look that begged him to be serious. Navidson smiled wanly, daisies dusting his navy jeans with pollen, and returned his focus to the pit.
Typically, he’d be a lot more skeptical of creatures in Heath, but most of them would’ve leaped and mauled Navidson and Levi by now. If anything, it curiously sucked at the back of his brain like a leech, and Navidson couldn’t help but share a smile with it. Besides, it probably learned of them through listening to their chatter prior—though that didn’t explain how it knew where they lived.
He said, “Hey, what are you? How do you know us? What’s with that pit of yours?”
The thing smiled wide and bounced up and down. “I’m bones, Navidson Jones from Home Sweet Home! I’m just a completely goop-less guy. I know everybody! Everybody on this funky, gunky rock us human flesh bits call earth. I live in the dirt!”
“You’re bones?” Navidson couldn’t help laughter.
“Yes! I’m so much human flesh bits! So many bones reside in my goopy human body—all three hundred bones, just like everybody else.”
Navidson pulled Levi over and tousled his straw-colored hair. “Looks like we’re not the only human flesh bits out here, big man.”
Levi shoved Navidson away, and Navidson fell back on his ass and laughed.
“Don’t feed into its delusions! Are you insane? It’s a huge piece of sludge encased in some pit, probably by some God, so it doesn’t escape to destroy us all!” He tried to fix his hair, which had been swooped to the side through presumably hours of preparation. That part still shocked Navidson because he wasn’t self-aware of looks until at least ninth grade, and Levi was only twelve and put more effort into his looks than Navidson ever had. He wore a tan button-up tucked into brown trousers, sleeves rolled to his shoulders, and supported by suspenders—nothing appropriate for huckleberry picking. Still, Navidson doubted Levi owned anything under a hundred-dollar bill.
Navidson cocked an eyebrow at him. If Levi called it delusional, he should really hear himself sometimes.
Levi drew his focus to the thing and struck a finger at it. “And you . Don’t feed us your bullshit lies. How do you actually know us?”
The thing lowered in its hole, and its lime body slowly lost color as its eyes darted around the dirt. A plump bumblebee lumbered over its pit before it jumped back up, color and smile restored. “I’m just a slippery fella. I goop around and listen. I know everything, Leviathan Latte from Home Sweet Home. I know about your math test that you’ve been studying really hard for, and I know about Navidson Jones’ date last night. What a funky time!”
Navidson’s heart stopped. “My date?”
“Why yes! Your date last night with—”
Navidson lunged forward and slapped a hand over its mouth.
Silence struck them all.
A breeze tasseled the grass.
Bumblebees floated from daisies with their wax-paper wings.
Conifers rattled in the canopy.
“…Jones?”
Navidson blinked himself out of it— shit —and withdrew his hand. The thing looked innocently at him as Navidson’s face stung pink, and large entrails of gelatin latched onto his palm. Panicked, he scrubbed it against the earth, which, in hindsight, was a terrible idea when his hand came back soiled in dirt.
He glanced at Levi, who gave him a look that asked: What the hell?
“Nothin’. It’s nothin’.” Navidson waved his hand dismissively and ignored the sudden cottony-dry of his mouth. “Just an uncomfortable date last night with J’s.”
But it wasn’t that, wasn’t it? he thought. It wasn’t that at all.
An unbearable heat scorched his face, and he scrubbed his mind for even the slightest glimpse of spotting this thing last night: the diner, the drive, the walk in the forest…Navidson didn’t get it. He was always careful. There was no way this thing knew what happened.
He imagined the quick, picturesque cartoon playing in his head, Navidson exclaiming, It knows too much! before materializing a comically oversized hammer from his back pocket and smashing it down on the slime thing.
Levi was a problem. How was Navidson supposed to question it with him around? Salty jewels popped against his skin and struck the sun. There was no way Levi wouldn’t report this to authorities; the kid wasn’t that loyal.
While Levi and the thing argued over the logistics of whether a slime could maintain a heart, Navidson became all too aware of the pocket knife Jim supplied him in his rear pocket. He slipped it out, mindful of where Levi’s attention landed.
Navidson had to be quick, precise. The hand was a complicated limb. He could easily damage tendons, nerves, blood vessels, or even muscles if he weren’t careful. Hands weren’t particularly avoidant of severe injuries; in fact, fingertips were notorious for sustaining the most nerve endings, which was why splinters and paper cuts could even make a grown man flinch.
A shaky breath left his lips. Levi continued arguing.
With that in consideration, Navidson would feel everything from the sting of the blade to the incision of his palm flayed from the muscle, though it wouldn’t look believable anywhere else, so the hand had to do. Sure, a scrape on the leg might, but a knife cut through the jeans was far too clean.
He tucked the warm steel against his palm, checked if Levi had glanced over, and tore the knife back. Pain seared, and he quickly tossed the knife below the shrubbery— “Shit!” —and grasped the branch of a nearby chokecherry with a greasy hand.
Levi’s head whipped over, charcoal eyes agape. His mouth opened, a bridge to unspoken words, before he loudly gagged. Quick to his feet, he strode beyond them in the golden-bright meadow. He watched the soft swish of the tide of rocking wheat, hands planted on his hips.
“Mother of God,” he said, his hand balled partially over his mouth. He almost looked green. “Jesus, what happened?”
“Slipped. My hand slipped and caught a thorn or somethin’ on the branch.” Blood pulsed thickly with his heartbeat, and tendrils of scarlet wrapped around his hand. Navidson cursed; he hoped he hadn’t cut too deep. “Levi, boogie down to the truck and get Jim’s first aid, wontcha? It should be in the backseat somewhere. He never lets me leave without it.”
“And leave you here alone with that thing ?” Levi peeked back and heaved.
Navidson hid his hand. “What do you suggest?”
He already knew what Levi would say; he suggested that Navidson go to the truck alone, where Navidson retorted, saying Levi was only twelve and that it would be more dangerous if he were the one alone with it. Levi fumed and paced before eventually giving in and stomping down the hill after Navidson told him to hurry before he got an infection.
Thank God he’s at that impressionable age.
Scarlet droplets tapped daisy petals below with a rhythmic tap…tap…tap , and Navidson tore the hem of his shirt— he supposed he was going to crop it, anyway—and stuffed it against the greasiness of his palm. He hissed through his teeth and looked up at the thing in the pit, which had felt invisible for the last minute. It bore a frown.
“Why did you do that?”
Navidson listened to the syrupy cadences of its voice and shrugged.
“Navidson Jones from Home Sweet Home, last time I checked, the red person meat is supposed to stay in your bones. Why on person earth would you want it out?” It abandoned any seriousness from its last statement and smiled again. “Open your meat article to me and allow the slime to mend your bones!”
Yeah, sure, why not? Navidson cast his hand to it, and it cheerfully grabbed on—except too tightly, and Navidson found himself jerked dangerously close to the mouth of the hole, almost swallowed. Its human-esque hands reverted back to slime, and green tendrils snaked up his hand and sank into the wound. Others followed. First, two or three, then fifteen and twenty. Soon, giant bulging veins squirmed beneath Navidson’s flesh like snakes under a rug. He yanked away only to find it was too late; the lime tendrils became oily with blood, and he suddenly felt weak.
Navidson blinked himself out of it. The slime thing still smiled at him, awaiting a response. Unfortunately, becoming a human prune didn’t sound too awesome, so he politely declined and sat cross-legged, pulling out a pack of Mavericks.
“Do you mind?” Navidson’s lighter flashed in the sun.
“Addiction! Addiction is bad for your calcium bones!”
That wasn’t a yes, so Navidson’s hands trembled around the lighter as he lit a cigarette. He puffed, exhaled, then said, “What do you know about last night?”
“Why, everything Navidson Jones from Home Sweet Home! Quite the gloopin’ time you two had. Mavis Pascual from Haven went with you last night and never returned home.”
The Mavericks slipped from Navidson’s hands. Cigarettes scattered against the dirt.
“Ah gee, are you feeling alright? Your human organ bits are beating faster by twenty percent. You look slicky, too, just like me!”
Sweat dribbled down Navidson’s nose, tapped a leaf. “Yeah. Peachy keen.” His shaky hands fetched and basketed the cigarettes, stuffed them in their box, stained with lavender and crimson fingerprints, and tucked them away. He wondered what his fingerprint would look like, stamped black and ugly on a fingerprint card. Would his scab come out? How prominently? “How often do you lip off to folks? Many come by?”
The slime looked heavenward in thought, its hands dribbling its syrupy bones (as it gleefully called it) on the new grass. “So many meat people come and visit my hole. Flesh bits of all shapes and sizes, bones of various calcium levels. Some are quite the character, but none as interesting as you, Navidson Jones from Home Sweet Home! I’ve been watching you.”
A pang of ache swelled in Navidson’s throat, and he swallowed. “Have you told anyone about me?” he asked, almost as if he hadn’t wanted an answer.
It steered away, and its face flushed a richer green. “Ah, geez. Too many questions, too many thoughts. I’m gravy, Navidson Jones from Home Sweet Home. I’m just a large portion of gravy in my hole,” it said uncomfortably. “ Mmmmm aybe?”
“What do you mean maybe?”
“Maybe there was a guy, maybe there wasn’t. There are hundreds of thousands of years to recall, and I’m gloopin’ right now; I can’t remember.”
What do you mean you can’t remember? Navidson wanted to say but caught the words in his throat when he sensed the aggression laced between them. He ran a dirty hand through his hair and sucked his cigarette.
Shit shit shit.
His palm throbbed under the cloth.
Navidson looked at the sky, which was a fierce blue that afternoon—the kind of blue that could make any wildflower blush—and thought about Jim. Oh God, Jim. Inhale, exhale.
You look sickly; what happened? he imagined him saying before cruisers attacked the house. All they left Navidson with was the picture of Jim on the front stoop, pale as putty, hair a mop of drained blood poured over his head and falling greasily over his face as they stole him away.
“Navidson Jones from Home Sweet Home?” it queried, head tilted. “I’m serious when I say you don’t look too well. You don’t even look like a peach!”
Navidson took a last drag and crushed out the cigarette butt with a boot. “Call me Jones.” He smiled. “Most folks do.” Drunk with sunlight, he billowed his shirt collar when an idea richer than gold struck him; Navidson’s eyes brightened. “Say, why don’t you come with Levi and I? Y’know, relocate somewhere nicer?”
Its big kiwi eyes blinked at him from behind gloop-fashioned glasses, utterly perplexed as if Navidson had asked if it worshiped the devil. Then it sunk in its hole and rolled its eyes away.
“Do I have to?” it asked like a fussy child. “It’s just so damp in here!”
Navidson gnawed the question, nodded, and struck out a hand. “Can I suede you if I dig you an even damper hole? I’ll throw in a quarter if you can make up your mind in under a minute.”
Does this thing even know what currency is?
Despite Navidson’s doubts, it gasped and bobbed around jovially. “A damper hole? Is that even possible, Jones from Home Sweet Home?”
“Give me an hour with a shovel and a hose, and you’ll be impressed.”
It clasped Navidson’s hand with a wet slap, and the squish electrified a tingle down his spine. He squeezed his eyes shut and tugged, boots slipping against golden grass and crushing clovers until it stumbled forward from its exhibit.
“Woah!” it said excitedly. “It’s so dry out here!”
Navidson immediately stumbled back once he realized how big this thing was. It nearly stood eye-level with him, hit or miss a few inches, and much like its upper half, the lower was perfectly sculpted to mimic a human body…trousers, loafers, the whole ordeal. It was uncanny.
He wondered if it could mold itself into anything it wanted while its eyes rivered through the pines and the blond meadow. Bumblebees and clouds reflected faintly on its gelatin body, and through its transparency, Navidson could see the far mountains and an orchard of cherry trees.
Navidson fetched his and Levi’s huckleberry pails once he was confident the slime wouldn’t jump him. “Pick up your shoes, slime man, and let’s go Scooby-Doo Levi.”