Shuffle: Part Two

Richard, still trapped in Cassandra’s body, watched the hairy tentacle seep towards him and the others. Oversized, insects’ mandibles opened and snapped across the limb, at the tip of which an orange light glowed.

Richard pointed at the hole in the cave’s ceiling, through which moonlight still flowed. “Everybody, up!”

He grabbed his six-year-old daughter, Kyoko (stuck inside the body of a twenty-something-year-old man). He yanked her/him towards the ceiling’s hole while the tentacle snapped at Cassandra (trapped inside Kyoko’s body).

“Go, sweetie,” Richard told his daughter. “Climb.” He turned to assist Cassandra, more concerned with his daughter’s body than the person inside it.

“But Daddy—”

Richard grabbed Kyoko/Hood’s hands and slapped them against the hole’s rim. “No ‘buts.’ Climb.” He raced towards Cassandra/Kyoko.

The tentacle snapped at his face, flung cords of moist drool. Richard dodged the limb and crashed onto his (Cassandra’s) side.

Hood (inside Richard’s body) screamed. The tentacle whipped across the air and lassoed his ankle before it tugged him into the shadows. His screams faded while he vanished from view.

My body, Richard thought.

Cassandra crashed into and past him. She sought the ceiling’s hole—just as Kyoko disappeared over its edge. Hood’s cries morphed into tortured screams. Cassandra hesitated.

Richard waved her through the opening. “Go without me. Watch over my daughter. I have to retrieve my body.” He ran into the cave’s pitch-black throat.

He heard his daughter’s concerned cries, Hood’s screams, his own heavy breaths, and something juicy and alien that echoed unnaturally across the cave.

Richard had, ever since he inexplicably inhabited Cassandra’s body, found himself cursed with her memories. He recalled her early childhood, when she watched her father react to beautiful women on TV. He felt young Cassandra’s concerns that she would never possess such beauty.

She had watched herself mature in her bathroom mirror. He experienced her self-worth crumble while she realized the limits of her attractiveness.

He felt her hollowness when she sat alone at prom.

She hadn’t forgotten a single face that, upon meeting her, stared her up and down, appraised her by her looks.

He felt her frustration at work, when she learned that her male counterparts commanded better salaries than she did, despite the equality of their workloads.

Hood’s screams silenced. Richard strained his eyes while he ran, tried to pierce the darkness before him. He made out his own unconscious body (Hood inside it), dragged down the cave by the hairy tentacle.

The tentacle’s speed tripled, jerked Richard’s body deeper into the dark.

Richard, exhausted, unable to push Cassandra’s out-of-shape body any further, slowed to a stop and wheezed. He swallowed, stumbled forward, and followed the tentacle’s orange light, which dimmed, flickered, and vanished.

Richard’s eyes adjusted enough for him to barely identify his own body, spread across the stone floor. He paused as he neared it. In what sort of shape would he find himself?

Richard knelt beside and shook his body. “Hood? You alive?”

Hood awoke with a start. He bared his teeth and hissed through them. “My arm. What the hell?”

“It’s my arm,” Richard said, “and it’s broken.”

Hood squinted. “Cassandra?”

“It’s me. Richard. Inside Cassandra. Can you walk?”

He barely saw Hood nod.

“Good.” Richard helped Hood to his feet. “Follow me.”

He led Hood back to the overhead opening and helped him climb through it. He followed the other man with a grunt, fought his way through the hole and atop the cave.

Dawn had arrived.

Cassandra (in Kyoko’s body) and Kyoko (in Hood’s body) awaited him. They sat around the hole that led back down into the cave. Hood (in Richard’s body) paced nearby.

Richard and the others sat or stood on a cliff that overlooked an impossible climb. They couldn’t hope to reach the mountain’s base. Worse, Richard saw no sign of a trail anywhere.

Cassandra spoke as if she read Richard’s mind. “We can’t go back into that cave. That thing with the orange light is still down there. Not to mention all those oversized worms.”

“There’s nowhere else to go,” Richard said with little conviction.

“Daddy,” Kyoko said. “I’m scared.”

Richard wanted to comfort his daughter, hug her, but she still existed in Hood’s body. He couldn’t force himself to touch her/him that way. He hesitated and said, “Don’t be scared. We’re safe.”

“Safe?” Hood spat the words. “Are you joking? We’re fucked.”

“Hood!” Cassandra said.

Hood turned on her. “You don’t understand. That thing that snatched me up? It shoved itself down my throat. Squirted something inside me. It burned. Still burns.”

Richard’s own fears mounted. Whatever had happened to Hood had happened to Richard’s body. What would happen to Richard after he and the others figured out how to trade back their bodies?

Another hairy tentacle armed with an orange light spilled up through the cave’s hole. It stretched, searched for Richard and the others. Its drippy mandibles snapped.

Richard grabbed his daughter, protectively pulled her towards him.

The tentacle wormed towards Hood (Richard’s body), waved as if it tasted his scent. It sank back beneath the hole and vanished with a light gurgle.

“It . . . it could’ve reached me,” Hood whispered. “Why did it go away?”

“Don’t complain,” Richard said. He squeezed Kyoko (Hood’s) shoulders. “Come to think of it, why did that creature let you go in the first place?”

Hood hadn’t an answer.

They fell asleep between the hole and the cliff.

Richard dreamed of steaks that frothed under a cascade of seasoning.

Richard awoke last. The sun hung directly overhead. His eyes scanned the others. He saw Cassandra, which meant.

He stood. “I’m not in her body!” He noticed his own body, which stood several feet away. “Who's . . .”

"It's me," Cassandra said from inside Richard's body. Tears glistened in her eyes. Her (his) left arm dangled, still broken.

Richard realized he stood inside Hood's body. “Kyoko?"

“I’m right here, Daddy.” Her voice quivered from inside Cassandra's body.

“How does this keep happening?” Hood asked. He, in Kyoko’s body, marched towards the cliff’s edge.

Cassandra marched Richard’s body towards him. “Calm down. We have to stay—” She screamed and dropped to her knees. The back of her head bulged, squirmed as if made from liquid. Her (Richard’s) hair fell out in clumps.

“What’s happening to her?” Kyoko wailed.

“What’s happening to me?” Richard asked.

The back of Cassandra (Richard’s) head split down the middle. Her shrieks turned to wet gasps. Thin, pale tentacles slithered from her skull. Orange light glowed from their tips.

“Back inside the cave!” Richard said. He ushered everyone through the hole while Cassandra’s gasps faded. She collapsed. Her (Richard’s) skull cracked apart, and a slippery spaghetti of oversized worms spilled free.

Richard jumped into the cave, landed hard—just as his mind ignited with his Hood’s memories. He cried out against the onslaught of information.

Hood and Kyoko grabbed his arms, forced him onto his feet.

“Keep moving!” Hood’s voice barely broke through the agonizing, white noise that served as the soundtrack to Hood’s memories.

Hood yanked Richard down the cave’s throat, back in the direction of the plane crash. Richard noticed, while they ran, a slim crack in the stony walls. He witnessed, through it, a lit room and a creature that stood like man.

Brown hair covered the creature from head to toe. Only its football-like nose stuck out from the brown, hairy mess.

Hood yanked Richard past the crack—but not before he noticed the creature’s hair part just below its nose, and a starburst of hooked tentacles blast free.

Richard and the others reached the cave’s mouth, and rediscovered the wrecked jet. Something unidentifiable about the scene struck Richard as wrong.

“Where are the bodies?” Kyoko asked.

Richard blinked. All the body parts that had resulted from the crash . . . appeared absent.

“Wait here.” Hood approached the accident. She searched a bit before he returned with a terrified expression. “They’re gone, but there’s . . . something else.”

Richard didn’t suspect he could handle much more. “What did you find?”

Hood hesitated. “Footprints. Bloody ones. But . . . they’re not human. They’re . . . too large, clawed.”

“Daddy?” Kyoko pulled back Cassandra’s sleeve, exposed a purple rash. Hood checked his (Kyoko’s) arms. The same rash decorated him. It smelled of raspberries and black pepper.

A throat cleared.

Everyone turned, faced Richard’s body, which stumbled drunkenly towards them from the cave. In Cassandra’s voice, the body said, “You’re not meat yet. You’re game.”

The body passed Richard, allowed him the gruesome sight of his own ruptured head, the entire back half of it a gory ruin. A few worms squirmed inside the cavity.

Hood bent over and puked the mac and cheese Kyoko had insisted upon for breakfast. He wiped his (her) mouth, flicked away the orange drool.

“What do you mean we’re ‘game’?” Richard asked.

“Sometimes,” the zombie said, “food reacts to marinades.” It sat, opened its mouth, and sang church music. It reached into its broken head and plucked loose a worm, which sucked a morsel of Richard’s memories.

“Everyone,” the zombie said, “reacts differently to the seasoning.” It ate the worm, licked its lips, and resumed its song.

Richard reached for his daughter’s hand. It didn’t feel any different from her normal hand. It felt like any other hand. Like warm meat.

Gurgling drew Richard gazed towards the cave’s shadowy stomach. Shapes squirmed and snaked towards him.

Hooked tentacles dripped from the cave’s upper lip, which started to open wider. Foul breath blasted, washed over Richard and the others, who stood in shocked silence.

The cave rose. The beasts behind its lips dissolved to hot mush. The cave’s tentacles stretched forward, caressed Richard’s (Hood’s) face, left a path of slime across his forehead. The cave flew forward, all darkness and hooked tentacles.

And the darkness overtook Richard.