Infected (45 page)

It hadn’t felt right. It hadn’t been soft and pliant; it had been hard, crusty, swollen, with solid bumps that didn’t belong.

stttop StoP STopej

you cag’t Do NO NOG

NO NO

The Triangle’s voice wavered badly. Perry didn’t know if it was the Tylenol coursing through his body, the fact that it was the only Triangle left, or a little bit of both. It didn’t matter. He reached into his underwear again, ready for the horrid, stomach-churning feeling this time, and lifted his scrotum up to rest on the edge of the sink.

It was the most horrible thing he’d ever seen.

Tears instantly poured down his cheeks. Not the tears of pain that had sneaked out of his eyes once or twice during his self-mutilation sessions, but tears of frustration, tears of a man who’s lost everything.

There wasn’t a doctor in the world who could help him now.

He hadn’t looked at this Triangle since the day he’d pulled that tiny white thing from his thigh. He hadn’t examined his balls since then. Not even once. Had he looked, had he
seen,
he might not have fought at all.

The Triangle was huge. It was almost black under the skin of his scrotum. The center of the pyramid head pointed up as if his balls rested under a fleshy pup tent. Most of his pubic hair had fallen off, leaving his skin bald and unprotected. His left testicle was hidden somewhere under the Triangle. His right testicle was barely visible, the end of it pushing against the inside of his scrotum, stretching the skin. His dick jutted out at an odd angle—the Triangle had grown right underneath its base. There was little room left for the tissue that connected the penis to his body. It looked as if it were on the verge of falling off, severed at the bottom by the edges of the ever-growing Triangle.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

The tentacles had grown under his skin, just as they had in Fatty Patty, right out the sides of the Triangle. One tentacle reached up and over his right testicle. Another spread from his scrotum down into his inner thigh, a cordlike infection pulsing huge and misshapen.

The last tentacle? The last one was the worst of them all.

The last tentacle reached right up the side of his penis, distending the skin, a thick, black vein that wrapped around and around, that reached almost to the end, as if it were pointing at the head of Perry’s dick. Pointing and mocking.

His naked body shivered with fear and dread. Dread because he knew he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t cut off his own dick and balls. The little fuckers had won they had won they had won fuck them all to hell
fuck you all to hell!
Perry leaned forward, his unit still on the sink, and yanked one of the steak knives from the butcher’s block. He laid his arm down on the sink, palm up, and placed the point of the knife at his wrist just below the hand. He’d heard somewhere that you have to slice down the
length
of your wrist, not crosswise, to do it right.

His father’s voice: “What are you doing, boy?”

Perry’s tears fell into the sink. Sobs racked his body. He looked up into the mirror, and once again instead of his own ravaged reflection he saw the tight-skinned face of his skeletal father. Jacob Dawsey’s eyes glowed bloodred, his lips so taut they didn’t move when he spoke—he was nothing more than skin and bones, his muscles long since consumed by Captain Cancer.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Perry said through choked sobs. “I can’t do it. I’m gonna end it right here.”

“You can still win, son. You can still beat them all.”

“Daddy, I can’t. I just can’t!”

“You gotta do it, boy!” Daddy’s voice took on the harshest of tones.

“You’ve come this far—you can’t stop now. A man’s gotta do what a
man’s gotta do
!”

Perry hung his head. He couldn’t do it, and he couldn’t look at his father’s face. He pressed the blade against his wrist. A drop of blood formed around the knife point. Two quick slashes and he’d be done.

Sorry, Daddy, but it’s got to end here.

He took one last look at his misshapen, monstrous genitals, blinked back the tears and gathered his strength to…

He wasn’t sure he saw it at first.

It happened a second time, and he knew he hadn’t imagined it.

His genitals
jiggled.

hatchuing timeddf

for hatfhueing timy

fort hatchfring

No.

No sir, no how, no way. If he killed himself right now, the Triangle would still hatch out of his body and join the others, do whatever hatchlings do, dance around the dead bodies of the silly humans, play gin rummy, watch
The Brady Bunch
or whatever else they did he didn’t know and he just didn’t give a fuck.

Perry screamed at his genitals. “Fuck you! Fuck you
fuck you fuckyou!
It’s
not
going to happen, do you understand?”

The Triangle in his scrotum jiggled and twitched. He watched in horror and absolute rage as it started to bounce outward, pushing both to break free of the skin and to break the tail, the umbilical cord that had kept it alive all this time.

Perry grabbed the Chicken Scissors.

He cut his underwear twice, one snip on either hip, and the wet cloth fell to the floor.

He pulled his body away from the sink, just a little, so that there was a space between his hips and the counter, just enough of a space for the Chicken Scissors to slide, one impossibly thick blade resting atop his scrotum, one impossibly thick blade below.

hatCHing Her’we We

CoME Heert Wer Comesfg

If Perry Dawsey had any scraps of sanity left, they slipped away, snapping like a bungee cord pulled past its limit, both ends recoiling back from the break at wind-whistling speeds.

“At least the voices will stop.”

The first sound was the metallic scraping of the Chicken Scissors.

The second sound was a scream.

APARTMENT 202

No one had answered at Apartment 202, and Dew was halfway through picking the lock when he heard the horrible scream. It was a man’s scream, and one that sent a wave of fear dancing at the base of Dew’s spine. There was something in that scream, something beyond pain or fear.

Dew jumped up, his knees popping loudly in the still hallway. The back staircase was closest. He sprinted up the steps, pulling out the cellular as he ran.

“Otto, get them in here!”

YA GONNA BURN…

Perry stumbled out of the bathroom, bleeding, coughing, crying, dripping snot and spit and blood everywhere. He was so far gone he didn’t see the hatchlings scatter about the room, hopping out of his way as fast as their uncoordinated little bodies would carry them. They filled his head with nonsense words and abstract phrases.

Juggling an armful of stuff, Perry whipped the first bottle against the wall just inside the door; it shattered, spreading Bacardi 151 all over the wall and floor.

He saw one of the hatchlings dash toward him. He grabbed the bloody Chicken Scissors. The hatchling leaped for his leg, wrapped its tentacles around his calf. He felt a stabbing, cutting pain, but it was distant, like the sound of a shout from a mile away. He arced down with the Chicken Scissors and punctured the hatchling’s body.

A five-part scream ripped through his head, a woman’s scream that poured from each of the hatchlings.

“Why can I still hear them?” Perry mumbled, his voice bordering on suffused hysteria. “I got them all…
why can I still hear them, goddamn it!
”

He lifted the scissors, taking a moment to stare at the jittering, wriggling hatchling impaled on the bloody blades. He flicked his wrist, flinging the hatchling across the room. It fell on the floor, broken, twitching, staining the carpet with purple goo.

Perry looked up and growled a primitive challenge, but the rest of the hatchlings stayed away. He moved to the door, stepping over Fatty Patty’s body. He noticed that her lower legs and hands were gone, gnawed to bloody stumps. The hatchlings popped up and down in a sickening dance, chirping, clicking, filling his head with disjointed threats.

You’re going to pay

You bastard.

You’ll get yours.

And very soon.

Perry ignored them and hopped to the entryway. He juggled his armload of goodies as he unlocked the three locks, then opened the door. He smashed his last bottle on the door frame. Rum soaked the carpet.

You’re a bad man.

We’ll be coming for you,

we’re going to get you.

He looked back at the hatchlings, who stared at him with utter spite, black eyes gleaming with absolute hatred.

Perry said nothing, his mind incapable of articulating words. A thin string of drool hung from his lip, swinging in time with his uncoordinated movements. He dropped the Chicken Scissors to the floor.

In his arms he held two more things. One of the things was the lighter. He flicked his Bic.

Perry Dawsey stared at the room with eyes much older than his twenty-six years. He bent and touched the flame to the rum-soaked floor.

Flames shot up instantly, a warm blue at first, but quickly turning yellowish-orange as the carpet caught fire. He dropped the lighter. Now he held only one thing. The flames grew, crawling up the door frame, reaching for the ceiling.

Perry looked back at the hatchlings one last time. They ran around the apartment like some satanic version of the Keystone Kops, bouncing off walls, furniture and one another in a blind terror—the fire quickly spread back from the door frame into the apartment proper, and there was no place for them to avoid the flames.

“Yes you gonna
burn,
” Perry said quietly.

He turned to leave, but the map caught his eye. Fire tickled the paper’s bottom corner.

Perry reached out and tore the map from the door. He left the apartment, went to his right and started hopping as the flames spread out into the hallway behind him.

APARTMENT 304

Dew came up the stairs just as the flames lashed out into the hallway, five feet high and growing fast. The place was going up like a dry Christmas tree. He stopped, looking for a target. On the other side of the hungry flames, he saw a huge naked man clutching something in each hand.

Through the distorted, waving heat haze, Dew saw that the man stood on one leg. The other hung limply, the foot a few inches off the floor. The man turned and hopped away, his bulk already obscured by the raging flames.

Dew started firing, emptying the seven-round magazine in less than three seconds. The lethal .45-caliber bullets disappeared into the fire—Dew didn’t know if he’d hit Dawsey or not.

And there was only one way to find out.

He popped a fresh mag into the Colt .45, hesitated for only a moment, then sprinted toward the raging fire.

HIPPITY HOPPITY

With a coordination born from complete lack of regard for safety, Perry leaped to the next landing, clearing six steps in one hop. When he landed, blood splattered from his crotch. Momentum slammed him into the wall, but he didn’t fall; instead he turned and cleared the next six steps with one powerful thrust. When he hit the second-floor landing, the towel fell off his arm, leaving him completely naked save for his socks.

Anyone watching would have thought it was impossible, that he was sure to break his neck. But he kept hopping, not knowing that Dew Phillips was only a few steps behind.

The outside door burst open, swinging wildly on its hinges, slamming so hard the handle gouged a chunk from the brick wall. Perry, wide-eyed and screaming, hopped out into the snow, the cold hitting his naked body like the fist of Old Man Winter.

He hopped fast, remembering somewhere, somehow, that he was supposed to get a car, go to Wahjamega and finish this crazy odyssey. He also wanted to get to a hospital, because some stupid motherfucker had just shot him in the left shoulder. That had almost knocked him over, but he’d been hit harder many times.

Oh, but he needed a hospital for a few other things, too, eh, Daddy-O? A hospital to stitch up an arm that gushed bright, steaming blood onto the road’s packed snow, a hospital to piece together whatever was sliced in his calf so he could walk with two legs again, a hospital to treat the huge burn blisters on his back and head and ass, a hospital to pull that bullet out of the back of his left shoulder, a hospital to suck the rotting black goo out of his shoulder and ass.

And, above all, a hospital to sew his dick back on.

ONE SHOT, ONE KILL

The front door to Building G hadn’t quite closed when Dew Phillips smashed it open again. He raced out onto the snowy pavement, trailing smoke and flames behind him. He rolled once, twice, a third time, then stood, the flames defeated, his jacket a smoldering ruin of acrid polyester.

He was in that place again, that murderous place, the spot in his mind where he sent his feelings and emotions and morals when there was killing to be done. He wasn’t Dew Phillips anymore; he was Top, the death machine that had taken more lives than he could count.