The Changeling

by Victor LaValle

And the body moved again. The mouth. The maw. It opened and closed, opened and closed stiffly, like a puppet’s jaw. Then he heard a straining sound, like an empty Styrofoam cup being squeezed and released, the hinges of the dry jaw creaking. Apollo feared more roaches would stream out, but that didn’t happen, so he held on to the body. The mouth stretched and shut. Not hard to see what it was doing. It was trying to feed. Drops of his blood quivered on those inhuman lips, the blood from his cut finger. Nothing else about the body suggested life. Only the mouth became animated. Not really alive, but impossible to think of it as truly dead. An automaton. Fueled by blood and belief. As it suckled blood from his finger, the creaking sound came in a rhythm, squeeze and release, squeeze and release. Apollo pulled his finger from the mouth, and in an instant the jaw stopped working. It lay as still as before. “Something made you and then left you behind,” he whispered.