IV: Sunday Afternoon
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Gradually, I came to understand things. Little things, hints at ideas, started seeping from the thing in my head to me. First it was that she used pills because she didn't trust anyone else in the room with a deadly weapon. My fear only intensified when I realized that the idea made sense to me.
Roger lay on the floor now, breathing shallowly. His eyes rolled up into his head. In moments he'd be dead. In my own head, I lay quiet, absorbing the information I could. Its control of me was total, but I could still think. My mind wasn't dead and replaced, just disconnected entirely from my body. The thing in my head came between my brain and the rest of my body both figuratively and literally.
The creature in my head was called a Yeerk. Its name was Edriss 562. It was from a planet far away, a planet with multiple moons and perpetually stormy skies. I thought briefly back to the print in the hallway. It fed every three days on the rays of a device mimicking its sun.
Could I escape in three days? Would it be too late before she used my body to enslave others?
{Silly little Eva. You are not the first host to believe you can escape in three days' time. You will not be the last,} it said.
Suddenly I fought to take control of my body, but Edriss had anticipated my move. I didn't have the autonomy to even twitch my eyelids. Couldn't clench a fist. Couldn't reach to tear the vile thing out of my head.
{You see? I have total control. I'll break you eventually.} Edriss said calmly.
For the first time, I spoke back, thinking at her {you won't break me. I promise}.
{I've heard more people say that than follow through,} it said contemptuously. It rifled through my memories some more, pulling up more recent ones. My schedule, my appointments for the day. Older memories, too. How I drove a car, where I lived.
Edriss paused on a memory of Marco, holding the gift-wrapped football. He was unfastening himself from the car, beaming and excited. His hair fell in his eyes as he opened the car door.
{You have a child,} it said matter-of-factly. It skimmed through more memories, birthdays and the like. Marco's short life flashes through my imagination. It felt almost like more of a violation than anything else. The creature that was going to mimic me was taking notes on how to greet my son after school, what cereal he liked, how to convincingly kiss him goodnight. I knew right then that my role was being abducted. At the same time, Edriss seemed to be expressing an inordinate amount of interest in these memories, rather than the other memories she could use to impersonate me.
It must have sensed that I'd noticed its interest. {Your child is spoiled,} it said, and moved on.
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"Eva! You're alright! We called your house but Peter wasn't there," Jean said.
It was eight o'clock, a full four hours after I was supposed to pick Marco up. Jean must have been worried senseless about what to do with him. I wondered if he'd been worried or just happy to spend more time with Jake.
Jean's eyes shot down to the bandages on my wrist. And then her eyes lingered on the red rug-burn on my face, from when Gutierrez had subdued me. "You are alright, aren't you?"
"I got into a minor car accident on the way here. I had to stop at the hospital. I'm fine, Jean, just a little banged up, is all." Edriss excused. "I tried to call but the payphone at the hospital was out of service, and you know how those ER waiting lines are."
"Well, thank God you're okay. Marco and Jake are upstairs with the new Nintendo system. Jake's cousins are up there too." She led Edriss and me up the stairs, to the playroom in the attic she'd set up for Jake and Tom. I'd been in the house a few times before, so I was familiar with the layout. "They all had dinner, even though they should've been pretty stuffed on birthday cake. The metabolism of youth, right?"
"Right. Try as we might, we're never going to be able to get away with eating half of what a young boy eats." Edriss said. I might have said it, under normal circumstances. Its – her – simulacrum of me was unsettlingly accurate. "Your boys seem to be putting it to good use. Between the two of them they've probably put on a good foot and a half in the last year."
Jean chuckled. "Just wait until Marco hits his growth spurt. You'll understand the pain of having to buy your kid longer pants every month. At least Jake can use Tom's hand-me-downs."
"Marco will just have to get used to wearing shorts all year round, I guess." Edriss said. A flawless mimic, but maybe it was that Jean didn't know me well enough to spot the differences. If there were differences.
{My son will know. He's a very perceptive child.} I told Edriss.
{Your son will never even notice that you're gone.} She said back.
From the other side of the attic door I heard a female voice. "I don't get why you have to spend all this time on puzzles instead of just slicing Ganon up."
And then Marco's voice, responding "if this game was just a button-masher it would be boring. Duh. Now be quiet, Jake's trying to concentrate."
"It wouldn't get boring to me," the girl replied.
We followed Jean up the fold-down stairs into the attic. Five kids were sitting on the couch up there, Marco, Jake and his brother, and whom I assumed were Jake's cousins, two blonde girls. One was probably a few years younger than the rest, absorbed with a Fox and the Hound picture book. The other was intently watching the videogame with the boys.
"Mom!" Marco jumped up out of the couch and ran over to give me a hug. His little arms squeezing me tightly made my body flinch at the pressure on the bruises from earlier. "I got worried. "
"Mama's boy." The older cousin rolled her eyes.
"That's okay, squirt. Sorry I didn't call." Edriss said, patting him lovingly on the head. Marco cast a winning grin at me, then, having acknowledged my presence, jumped right back onto the couch to berate Jake's playing, as children tend to do.
He hadn't noticed. Hadn't seen anything. Had no idea that inside her own mind, his mother was weeping and screaming and devastated that he hadn't sensed the slightest difference.
{It's alright, Eva.} Edriss said to me. {There's no need to be disappointed. I'm the most skilled Yeerk in the Empire. The most knowledgeable about humans. I've never been suspected by anyone, much less a child.}
"Jake, you need to get the Pegasus Boots for this level!" The five of them continued playing their game. The little cousin slowly mouthed the words to her picture book. Jake pushed buttons with precision and thoughtfulness and his cousin criticized how slowly he did it. Tom watched tolerantly, bored with the game but keeping an eye on the younger kids. And Marco squirmed in his seat, noting all the things Jake did wrong.
Oblivious, all of them. Absorbed in the normal, average lives of elementary school children.
"Five minutes, Marco," Edriss said out loud. And then, to me, {you'll need to lower those high expectations.}