The pigs

(Just one more and I will finally let this go. I think.)

Sharon rummaged in the closet for her sweater, the pink one with the wide neckline, it showed off her collarbones. Gary was taking her out for dinner, first night home after visiting her parents in Wisconsin, clothes all jumbled around, suitcase hanging open like a mouth on the bed, earrings brushing against her neck.

"...it took 'em days to get the whole thing cleaned up, and the stink, baby, was un-fucking-believable."

"-what?" Sharon pulled her head out of the closet to look at Gary, in his boxer shorts, standing in the middle of the room like he'd forgotten what he was doing, blue shirt half-buttoned, one sock on.

"The pigs, you remember I told you about the pigs, I - ?" Gary broke off, and lifted his head to one side, like he could almost hear something, not quite, he pushed his brows together, listening harder.

"Oh yeah," Sharon spotted the pink sweater and yanked it out of the pile, grinning that she didn't disturb the rest of the stack, "the drowned pigs. Weird."

"A-" said Gary.

Sharon was pulling the sweater on over her head when Gary said something else she didn't quite catch, and then she heard another voice, a deeper one, one she didn't recognize, did someone else come in, dear god she's half-naked, skin prickling up she yanks the sweater quick hard down over her head her hair all in her face now and panicking she brushes it out of her eyes someone else is here.

"Who's there?"

Gary is standing right where he was a second before, but now he's half-crouching like he just ducked something that whizzed over his head, eyes open wide.

"Who is it?" Sharon hears her voice whine, can't see anyone but she knows she heard a voice, not Gary's.

"My name is Legion," said Gary, or, Gary moved his mouth in the shape of those words, but like he was dubbed, someone else's voice came out, not someone's, a hundred, a thousand someones, millions, the whole world spoke out of Gary's mouth and Sharon felt the chill crawling up her neck, running on million-insect feet, up into her hairline, Gary still ducking something she couldn't see, eyes big, looking toward the ceiling, like a cartoon he was frozen in his boxer shorts and Sharon knew the universe had shifted and any minute, any minute now the earth would dissolve out from under her feet and she and Gary would fall forever.