Exquisite Corpse (31 page)

Luke pushed the plunger on the hypodermic and sent a luscious flood of brown Mexican heroin into his vein. He let himself fall back on the dirty motel sheets, the needle still hanging from his arm, his heart taking a slow dive. His memories receded into a nightmare blur. He was still caked with blood and French Quarter filth, but as the drug coursed through him, he felt himself becoming clean and pure.

Their faces, cocks and balls grew into shapeless masses of blackened flesh. Swollen tongues like ball gags forced their jaws wide. Organs tumbled out of their bodies like distended winebags. From their decomposition rose wisps of steam and soft wet sounds of gaseous intimacy.

·  ·  ·

Luke awoke with dirty sunlight in his eyes: he had forgotten to pin the gap in the curtains before he nodded out. His throat was sore. His mind was utterly undrugged and lucid, and he could not bear this.

He was able to reach the bottle of whiskey on the table without getting all the way out of bed. He lay back on his wadded pillows and guzzled rotgut, trying to illuminate everything he had seen and done in the Quarter. He could smell death on himself. He had lines of rotting blood under each fingernail. Nonetheless, he would attempt one final piece of propaganda: he would understand how it had all happened, and he would grope toward why; he would convince himself that he had a book to finish and another year to live.

He fixed his eyes on the ceiling and began to talk.

Tran fell out of his binding straps and melted slowly into Jay's ribcage. A large, viscous, faintly iridescent stain ate up the concrete floor around them. Their eyes were black caverns. They gave birth to worms, generation after generation, until their bodies were covered as if in a living blanket. Soon they were picked clean, their bones an ivory sculpture-puzzle shining in the dark, waiting to tell their mute love story.

SCRIBNER PAPERBACK FICTION
Simon & Schuster Inc.
Rockefeller Center
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1996 by Poppy Z. Brite

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

First Scribner Paperback Fiction edition 1997

SCRIBNER PAPERBACK FICTION and design are trademarks of Macmillan Library Reference USA, Inc. under license by Simon & Schuster, the publisher of this work.

Designed by Deirdre C. Amthor

Manufactured in the United States of America

10

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Simon & Schuster edition as follows:

Brite, Poppy Z.

Exquisite corpse / Poppy Z. Brite.

p.  cm.

1. Murderers—Psychology—Fiction. 2. Serial murders—Fiction. 3. Cannibalism—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3552.R4967E97   1996

813′.54—dc20   96-2455

CIP

ISBN 0-684-82254-7

0-684-83627-0 (Pbk)
eISBN: 978-1-439-13640-9