Black Leopard, Red Wolf

The Bad Ibeji’s one hand splayed itself on the one-eyed scientist’s neck and chest. He unhooked each claw and a little blood ran out of each hole. The second hand unwrapped itself from the scientist’s waist, leaving a welt. I shook and screamed into the gag and kicked against the shackles but the only thing free was my nose to huff. The Bad Ibeji pulled his head off the twin’s shoulder and one eye popped open. The head, a lump upon a lump, upon a lump, with warts, and veins, and huge swellings on the right cheek with a little thing flapping like a finger. His mouth, squeezed at the corners, flopped open, and his body jerked and sagged like kneaded flour being slapped. From the mouth came a gurgle like from a baby. The Bad Ibeji left the scientist’s shoulder and slithered on my belly and up to my chest, smelling of arm funk and shit of the sick. The other scientist grabbed my head with both sides and held it stiff. I struggled and struggled, shaking, trying to nod, trying to kick, trying to scream, but all I could do was blink and breathe. The Bad Ibeji crawled up my chest, his body swelling like a ball and squeezing out breath like a puffer fish. He extended two long, bony fingers that walked past my lips and stopped at my nostrils. The Bad Ibeji’s eye blinked sorrow, then he shoved two fingers up my nose and I screamed and screamed again, and tears sprung from my eyes. The fingers, the claws scraped the flesh, pushed up the hole, pushed through bone, cut through more flesh, moved past my nose, and between my eyes started to burn. His fingers passed my eyes, pushed through my forehead, my temples pumped and throbbed, and my mind went black, came back, and went black again. My forehead burned. I could hear his claws, cutting, scurrying in me like mice. The fire spread from my head down my back, along my legs to the tips of my feet, and I shook like a man whose head was taken over by devils. And dark came over my eyes and in my head and then a flicker.