Body Surfing

rage as the world flashed orange, red, purple and then black.
    For the first time all day, Gunther was speechless. He approached the prostrate body at the edge of the river warily, sniffed it curiously. There were a bunch of beer bottles down there, an empty Styrofoam cooler, a man’s belt; at the river’s edge there were a half dozen rotting fish skeletons as well, dozens of tiny cracked snail shells. Gunthersniffed at each of these in turn before returning to Van Arsdale’s fallen body. He licked his master’s face and got no response. He whined, yipped, let out one nervous bark. Nothing. A flash of movement caught his eye—a rabbit!—and, barking uproariously, he ran off into the bushes.
    A few minutes later, a second, ghostly figured emerged from the trees. Its hands were pressed over its ears and its face was contorted in pain. It lingered a moment over John Van Arsdale’s fallen body, then, having determined the man wasn’t Jasper—wasn’t someone who could turn off the wall of sound that battered his eardrums—it proceeded to the river. This is where Jarhead had last seen Jasper when he was alive, and this is where he’d first seen him after he died. This is where he would see him again, when he returned.
    Jarhead waded into the river. The cold water washed the bat droppings from his skin, but that wasn’t why Jarhead submerged himself. It was, rather, the protective muffling the water provided. The world had been shrieking at him for two days now, and nothing he did could turn down the volume. Even the bat’s creaks pierced his ears, seemed to stab right into the center of his brain. His head throbbed; he was dizzy; he didn’t understand how this had happened. All his life he’d wished he could hear like normal people, but if this is what the world sounded like he’d rather be deaf.
    The river closed over his ears, proffering its blessed silence. Jarhead pulled himself into deeper water and let his body sink down, his eyes open and staring into the murky depths, giving him the appearance of a fetus floating in its mother’s womb. Without thinking he opened his bladder, and a faint yellow cloud stained the water a moment before dissipating. His arms and legs moved slowly, just enough to keep him from rising to the surface, but when a two-foot pike moved in for inspection, Jarhead’s right hand darted out and caught the fish just behind the head. The pike’s tail churned the water rapidly until Jarhead squeezed so tightly that he shattered the fish’s spine. Reluctantly, he made his way to the surface. The cold enveloping stillness was the only thing able to soothe his aching head, but, sadly, he still hadn’t learned to eat underwater.

6
    Q . stared at Michaela for a long time.
    “This is, you know. A little weird.”
    “You’re telling me,” Jasper said. “I’m the one who’s dead, remember?”
    Q. checked his rearview mirror, then turned around to look at the road before he pulled away from the curb. It didn’t look like he was checking traffic though. It looked like he was checking to see if anyone was following them. Without looking at Jasper, he said, “So tell me again what happened to Dr. Thomas.”
    Jasper balled Michaela’s hands into fists as he recalled the feeling of the sigil’s cord against the psychiatrist’s neck. The man had somehow programmed Q. to poison him, had apparently planned some kind of torturous interrogation. But still. He hadn’t meant to kill him.
    “I told you, Q., it was an accident—”
    “I don’t care about that,” Q. said, heading swiftly out of town. “What I mean is, how dead was he?”
    “Huh?”
    “Cuz he called me. Right after you went in the hospital. And what I’m thinking is, either you totally misjudged his condition, or a demon jumped in and fixed him up. And, you know, I have no idea how many of you there are floating around out there, but I’m thinking the chances that it’s not Leo are pretty slim.”
    Jasper remembered the way the doctor’s head had dangled off his shoulders.
    Fuck , Michaela said inside him.
    “Fuck,” Jasper said out loud.
    “Fuck is right,” Q. said. He looked over at Michaela. Looked her up and down. Touched the spot on her neck where Ileana’s knife had sunk in. “Jesus fuck.”
    “Does he know? That you know he’s Leo?”
    “I think I played it cool. He said he was back in the city, but who knows if he was telling the truth.”
    Q. was quiet for a long time. Finally he cleared his