Eat'em (19 page)

Chapter
43

The band played to a sea of swooning girls and various punk rock wannabes that sang along to every word. It wasn’t the kind of environment I figured Dr. Reeder would be comfortable in. Even with his philosophies spanning the spectrum of human existence, I thought surely an independent pop-punk concert wouldn’t be his venue of choice, especially considering how far out we were from Arlington.

Aside from a slight buzz coming from one of the massive floor speakers, the acoustics in the converted basement were decent quality. I could make out every frantic drum beat and every crass lyric. A flurry of spotlights tore through the audience before finally joining together at the foot of the stage, where the lead vocalist poured his heart out to a flock of cheering women.

“You’re a pretty little thing but your love is like a pocket knife,” he sang. “Fun to play with up until you get your finger sliced. They don’t make bandages to cover up the wounds that you left me with, yeah baby!”

“No!” Eat’em belted out from his perch on my head. “No, no, no! Kill me! Kill me now! I will not be the sufferer of such a cacophonous racket. Human! Let’s go. Take me somewhere less awful, yes. The end of all that is good is in this room.”

“Shut up,” I said as we made our way through the crowd with Val and Isaac at my flank.

“Shut up? Shut up?” Eat’em said. “Oh how easy for you to say. You just say whatever you please, yes. Eat’em, shut up! Yes. No! I have done many things for you. I have saved your life from much turmoil. And yet, it is I that must do what you say? No! I will not have it. I’m no dupe. You remove me from this enclave at once or I swear to you, you’ll face the full force of a demon’s wrath!”

“And what wrath is that?”

“I’ll eat all of your food, yes!”

“You do that.”

“Then the silent treatment. I will not speak to you from now… until… five minutes from now. Starting now,” he paused and I could feel him holding his breath. As he exhaled he lamented, “Is this what you want? I’m not bluffing! Five minutes of pure unfathomable silence… aside from this mournful garbage. Tell me, yes, is that how it has to be?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Well, I won’t have it!” Eat’em bellowed. He grabbed my hair and yanked it back and forth, trying to turn me back toward the exit like a jockey rides a thoroughbred. “Turn around, you oaf! This is worse than the infection! This, yes, this is what you should be trying to expunge from existence.”

“They’re not bad,” Val screamed over the crowd. “What do you think?”

“I like it,” I said.

“No!” the imp on my head pulled and thrashed. “No, no, no, nononononono, NOOOoooOOOOoooOOOooo! Do you hear me!? NO!!!”

“What’s the name of the band?” I asked Isaac.

“Jamie something,” he said. “Maybe, Hello Jamie. I think that’s it. That guy,” he pointed toward the long-haired guitarist. A guy in his thirties, maybe; he had some chin scruff and long highlighted bangs. Isaac nodded to the beat as he pointed him out, “he’s the one from Dr. Reeder’s class.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I met him,” he said.

As we pressed through the crowd toward the front of the stage, I saw Dixie in one of her trademark sundresses. She smiled as we approached and waved to introduce us to a gathering of her friends.

“Jacob,” she grabbed hold of my hand in both of hers, “these are some of the girls I work with.”

Val leaned in and whispered in my ear, “you better introduce me, Orphan.”

“This is Valentine,” I pushed my uncle toward the girls with my free hand and then nodded back at Isaac. “And this is our friend, Isaac. He’s our neighbor.”

Dixie pulled in close to me as Val and Isaac joined the rest of the girls.

“This is so exciting,” Dixie kissed me on the cheek. “How long have I been telling you we need to go to a concert?”

“Don’t know,” I answered.

I gave into the bobbing of the crowd and ignored the screaming demon as the music spread through my core. I wouldn’t say I danced. I was never much of a dancer. But I swayed gently, Dixie clinging to my side, and watched the throng of Hello Jamie fans as they sang along with songs I’d never heard.

As my troubles began to slip away into the harmonic dissonance, my weary eyes finally caught sight of Dr. Reeder. He stared at me. Eyes black as coal.

Chapter
44

I pushed through the dancing mob, leaving Dixie and the group behind. The realization suddenly hit me. Reeder, the great philosopher, was at the head of the infection. That’s how they knew me. It all seeded from his classroom. He wasn’t merely spreading his beliefs, but also his very existence. He brought me here as some sort of showcase to his power. And now, I had the opportunity to end it.

He disappeared into a hallway lined with instruments and bands waiting for their turn to perform. I just had to reach him before he found a way to disappear for good.

“Finally,” Eat’em said, “We’re getting out of here.”

Entering the hallway, I found a waiting area with drums and guitars, and large portable sound equipment. To my right was a large bay door, almost like a garage. Tour vans and buses could park on the other side so the bands could more easily load and unload their instruments before and after each show. It opened to a long ramp, which led to the street. As I exited the building, I stopped amidst a group of hipster teens, smoking cigarettes and drinking illegally. Across the street were more buildings, painted with murals that emulated popular graffiti artists and urban taggers. Beyond was another venue, alive with music. Country music poured out somewhere in the night, though I couldn’t tell if it was from a live concert out of eyeshot or if someone blared it from the radio of a parked car.

I walked around one side of the building where Hello Jamie sang, “Gonna tear that ass up like I just got out of prison.” The lyrics resonated as being oddly appropriate, though I’d never been to prison. Still, if and when I found the doctor, my intention very much was to tear his ass up.

I didn’t know what that would do to the possible swarms of infected beneath him, but it didn’t matter. The police were more than willing to put down the infected once they became brain-dead shambling beasts. Once the mayhem unleashed, it wouldn’t be long before authorities brought it to a halt.

After determining that Reeder hadn’t gone around the building, I went back to the garage entrance where the band started a new song. Something about vampires.

If he’d run from the building at top speed someone would have noticed. Eyes would have been drawn in his direction. But if he had a car parked out back, nobody would have bat an eyelash. He could have hopped in and driven off without alarming anyone.

He had to be there.

Reeder relished in our conversations and the idea that I was a step behind at every turn. I knew he watched me. Wherever he was, he could see me.

A truck pulled up and a band began trickling out of the bay, loading their cases and stands and rolls of cable. I stepped out of their way and caught a glimpse of an alley hidden by the base of the loading ramp. I hopped down and stalked through the narrow walkway.

Heeding Val’s advice, I reached into my front pocket for a small can of pepper spray. It was that or a concealed gun license, in which case I’d be traceable. Pepper spray was cheap and easy to find.

The safety pin snagged on my belt loop and as I tugged it free, I inadvertently sprayed myself in the face.

Imagine jalapenos, cayenne peppers, and ghost chili powder – all mixed with a handful of sand and rubbed in your eyes.

Eat’em laughed at my shrill scream for mercy. 

I braced myself on a brick wall and attempted to get a hold of myself. Keep myself from coughing and gagging. Opening my mouth made it worse. My eyes burned and face began to sweat and leak from every opening.

Everything went black. I couldn’t open my eyes. When I forced them open with my fingers, my vision went nuts.
Bricks opened into porous structures that looked like sponge. The ground grew ever closer, transforming into an ocean of molecules weaving in and out of each other. Air converted from an invisible substance into swirling elements orbited by electrons and protons. I attempted to blink it away. Blink the world back into structure and sense. But everything continued to break apart.

I could
hear Eat’em laughing hysterically. “God, that was funny, yes! Brilliant! Brilliant!”

His voice came from a world of infinite depth.
My head screamed. I knew I had to will myself to see straight, but I couldn’t.

I waved my hand in front of my face, trying to see it, but all I could make out was the chaos of cellular life working together and fighting to be free of the imprisonment of my body. My skin became molecular structures as seen through a microscope with an infinite field of vision. As if I dissolved into a microbiological mosaic. Parts of me became the wind and the wind became me. Until all the world was all at once united bedlam.

Rubbing my eyes made it worse. My hands felt solid, but looked anything but. All they managed to do was spread the burning sensation to my cheeks and then my nostrils. I couldn’t breathe past the scorching snot that dripped from my nose. My lips felt like they’d kissed the sun. 

The icy sting of steel against b
one shocked me back to Earth. A knife stuck into my chest, reopening a wound that had long ago healed.

Chapter
45

The ragged blade dug through the muscle on the upper left part of my chest. Almost a decade had come and gone since the burglar had stuck the sharp end of a fireplace poker into that same spot. The overwhelming sensation of hot and cold burned through me the same as it once had.

Except this time, the heat was from a pepper spray misfire and not from the blade shattering my shoulder blade. Instead the knife prodded the inside of the bone, sending ice through my entire body. The blade twisted in Reeder’s cruel grip and I struggled to remain on my feet. My entire body wanted to collapse.

“Hit the spot, Jacob?” Reeder asked. His dilated eyes shrank and a malevolent pulse rose up his neck, beneath the flesh on both sides of his face. “Feel familiar?”

I tried to speak but only managed throw up. My tongue felt a couple sizes too big for my mouth.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Reeder said.

He pulled the knife from my shoulder and wiped the blood on my shirt.

I jerked, managing to knock the knife to the pavement, and in retaliation Reeder shoved me hard against the wall. He grabbed my throat with one hand and buried the thumb of the other into the fresh hole he created with the knife.

“Do you know how many times I’ve experienced death?” he asked. “How many times I’ve died for you? At your hands alone, how many times must I die? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? For what? You know, I told you before I liked you. But you’re really starting to piss me off.”

He pressed his thumb deeper into my shoulder. I dropped to one knee and he lifted me back up by the bone.

I screamed, quickly stifled by a closed fist and another clinch from Reeder’s menacing grip.

Part of me hoped my short cry would be heard over the noise of the surrounding bands, but nobody came to my rescue. Another fist hit me in the abdomen. The air escaped my lungs and refused to return. The sweet
taste of blood filled my mouth, cooling the fires started with the pepper spray.

“Shut up, will you?” he said. “Do you care to know how many pairs of eyes I have making sure nobody comes to your pathetic little time of need? Do you know how many opportunities I’ve had to kill you?”

“Why haven’t you?” I managed to choke out the words.

“I’m no killer, Jacob,” he said. “For God’s sake. I mean, really, there is no other species on this entire planet so dedicated to the complete eradication of their own. We cry out for peace and pray for the lives of our loved ones, and yet we’re determined to destroy the lives of countless others. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“This is gibberish,” Eat’em tugged at my pant leg. “Quit toying with him. Put him out of his misery.”

Reeder pulled me away from the wall and turned me toward the street beyond the alley. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder in faux-affection, keeping his grip firmly on my left clavicle to remind me of the bitterness behind the gesture.

“I am the secret to everlasting life, Jacob,” he said. He waved toward the rest of Dallas, hidden behind the veil of surrounding clubs and music halls that ensnared us. “You want to take that from people? Why?”

“There’s no such thing as everlasting life,” I said.

“Sure there is. Through each other, we live forever, no?”

“No,” I said.

“Am I not evidence enough for you?” he spun me away from the road and pinned me to the brick wall once more. “Have you not tried to kill me on numerous occasions now?”

“Not yet.”

“Then what have you been doing, Jacob?” he said, “Explain it to me.”

“Killing a parasite,” I said. The pain in
face and chest gave way to light-headedness. I was losing blood, less so with Reeder’s thumb blocking the wound, but enough that I felt consciousness fading in and out. Acid built up in my throat and the throbbing in my skull subsided, only to be replaced by a peppery nausea. I couldn’t tell what my most pressing need was – cry, puke, or pass out.

“A parasite?”

“Yes,” I choked. “You’re infected with a parasite. You’re spreading it to your victims. That’s all I know.”

He buried his thumb deeper into my gaping shoulder. Flashes of red obscured my vision. My knees softened.

“Explain it to me!” he said.

“I can’t,” I coughed. “I don’t know. Just. It increases the immune system. Makes you stronger somehow. Faster. Shared consciousness.”

“And this is worth killing for?” he said. “Dying for?”

He tossed me to the ground. The world closed in around us.

My head tilted toward my dearest friend. The little demon sauntered across the alley, carrying in his curled tail my only chance for salvation… the knife.

Eat’em moved as stealthily as only he could. The knife skittered and bounced behind him, leaving little divots in the gravel with his every step. I returned his smile as darkness began to enclose the three of us.

Reeder sat on my chest, his knees bent.

“I can heal your wounds,” he said. “With me, you can live forever.”

He leaned in, mouth open, his breath hot and sour.

“I don’t want to live forever,” I said. “I just want to live.”

I thrust the knife into his heart, turned my head, and puked.