The Sin Eater's Confession by Ilsa J. Bick

Author:Ilsa J. Bick [Bick, Ilsa J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Law & Crime, Social Issues, Homosexuality, Prejudice & Racism, Bullying
ISBN: 9780761356875
Google: CPlRLwEACAAJ
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group
Published: 2013-03-01T08:00:00+00:00

Even from a distance of fifty feet, you’d have to be drunk or stoned out of your mind to believe that someone had decided the cold concrete was just the perfect spot for a nap. I wish I could say that if you didn’t know better, you’d think that someone had left behind a tumble of old laundry. I wish I could tell you anything but the truth.

I thought I was ready. Working the ER, I’d seen a lot. Guys who did headers off barns. Little kids run over by their dad’s lawnmower. Construction workers in the wrong place at the wrong time when that girder decided to uncouple and gravity did its thing. There was one motorcyclist crushed by a semi; everyone converged, doing CPR and stuff, until a doc peeked under this towel draped over the place where the guy’s face was then told everyone to stop. (The short version: no helmet.) Of course, I’d seen the mess that was Del.

So I thought I could take it. I thought that, when I saw Jimmy, I already knew what to expect.

Still, I stood there for a very long time, unable to move, scarcely able to breathe. There was blood, everywhere: a wide purple lake of it and more hosed onto the concrete, spray-painted onto the picnic table because, of course, Jimmy hadn’t died right away, and the heart is a powerful pump.

From a distance, Jimmy looked … strange. The air hummed. Someone had draped a black shirt—a hoodie?—over his torso to cover his face and chest. Jimmy was on his back, legs splayed, his left foot missing a shoe. For some stupid reason, I zeroed in on that naked foot, his toes, the shoe that wasn’t.

I forced myself to move, one foot in front of the other. That hum was so odd … and then Jimmy’s chest … lifted.

Stunned, I let out a shout. I couldn’t help it. Oh my God, he was alive? I watched, eyes bugging, as Jimmy drew another shuddering, squirming breath … that hoodie bunching and roiling as the air brrrred…

Flies. My own breath came out in a sudden whoosh. Not a hoodie at all, but a thick mat of noisy, hungry blowflies swarming over moist meat and jellied blood.

“Get away,” I choked. Somehow I’d waded into that awful red-black lake and begun swinging my arms, trying to drive them off. “Get away, leave him alone, go!”

The flies churned and lifted in a droning inky fog, and then I saw Jimmy’s face.

Or, rather, what was left.

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