Slag Attack (8 page)

   
She could have told him that girls like her don’t typically tan—they redden. And then the red goes away and they are as pale as they ever were. But Vincent carries on with his savage dream.

   
In the room, Amber has a lot of time to think and, naturally, everything she thinks about involves her escape. One day, Vincent had come into the bright room and dragged her into the bathroom where he held her head over the bathtub and bleached her dark hair. He had to lean over her, against her, to do it, and she could feel his hardness through his jeans. That was when she realized she was becoming more attractive to him and it scared the hell out of her more than anything else he had done so far.

7.

She feels a sense of being out of control, like she’s racing toward something she can’t stop. She figures she only has a couple of days. A couple of days until she is just another Wanda. Maybe that will buy her a certain amount of freedom but she can’t think of what she’ll have to do for that. The thought of Vincent touching her, let alone fucking her, makes her physically ill. What will he do the first time he rapes her and she vomits all over him? She knows the answer to this. His name is Vincent Severity. He does very severe things. He’s a very severe man.

   
He’d do something very severe.

   
He might even kill her.

   
After all, the world is full of Wandas. All they need is a lot of tanning and a lot of bleach and a lot of hairspray and anyone can become a Wanda.

   
Lately, he’s been acting crazier than usual. She hears him in the other room, even through the heavy metal door. He yells things. Crazy incoherent things. He throws and breaks things. When he comes into the tanning room, he’s pale and sick looking.

   
She crouches naked in her corner as he yells and slams around the other room.

   
She watches a maggot cross the floor. She wonders if the people of Scruffington are still quarantined but doesn’t dare ask him about that. That feels like another world to her anyway. To be a Wanda is to be a part of Vincent Severity and nobody else.

   “
Wayne Coyne!” she shouts and bites her tongue. She’s been biting her tongue a lot lately.

   
The maggot continues to cross the floor. Maggots are so sick and gross. She wonders if anyone is searching for her. She wonders if people just think she has run off. As far as she knows, she has never given them a reason to think this.

   
The maggot inches sickly, grossly closer. She reaches out her foot and squashes it beneath her big toe. The feel of it makes her gag.

   
The door to the room bangs open.

   
Vincent stands there, his eyes swirling with rage. His dog is beside him. At first, Amber thinks it’s standing on its own and then she realizes he’s holding it by the collar and the dog is limp. He holds the knife in the other hand. He is not wearing a shirt. His chest is hairy; the rest of his skin is pale and covered in sweat. His plastic hair is messed up. This scares Amber. She doesn’t know why but she feels like, once he lets his appearance slide, Vincent is capable of doing just about anything.

   “
Thurston Moore!” She bites her tongue again and curls into herself.

   
Vincent rushes over, dragging the dog with her. He slices at her arm.

   “
Say it! Say it! Say it!”

   “
Vincent Severity! Vincent Severity! Vincent Severity!”

   “
Yeah, bitchface, that’s better.”

   
He steps back from her and tucks the knife into the back of his pants. He grabs his crotch with his right hand and shifts his cock around. She can see it outlined in those tight blue jeans. He probably isn’t wearing any underwear. Gross.

   “
Want you to see what you done with your shoutin. You done kilt Boy.”

   
He pulls his left arm up and the dog goes with it. He shakes it in front of her. Some maggots fall off and onto the floor.

   “
He ain’t never gonna be the same.”

   
Amber wants to run but she’s backed into a corner. She wants to kick Vincent’s face away from hers and run but she’s wearing the ankle cuffs and knows she will not get very far, even if he is sick. She starts crying. She can’t help it.

   “
Stop cryin! I should be the one cryin! I’m the one just lost his dog!”

   
Two or three of the maggots are crawling up her calf. She can feel them but doesn’t want to look at them because she’s afraid that will make her puke.

   “
You need to say your goodbyes.” He squats down, takes the dead dog’s head in between his hands and forces it up to her face.

   “
Boy loves kisses,” he says. Now he’s rubbing the moist nose and stinking lips against her face, against her mouth. She can feel the maggots crawling around the dog’s teeth, pressing against her lips. “Yeah, give old Boy some kisses. Let him get one last taste of ya.”

   
She looks at Vincent, the sweat running down his plastic skin. She looks at the dog, its eyes open and all milked over. Now she sees the dog is
covered
in maggots. They’re squirming all over its hide. And Vincent’s forcing the maggots and the stink into her hose, into her mouth, and she thinks she’s finally losing it. A person can’t be subjected to this and then expect to come back.

   
She vomits.

   
Throws up all over the dog. The puke runs down and covers Vincent’s hands.

   
And he’s using the dog’s head to hit her in the face and shoulders, rubbing her puke back onto her.

   
She continues to cry and murmurs, “Daniel Johnston.”

   “
You’ll never learn. You’ll never learn! You’ll NEVER LEARN!”

   
He stands up, leaving the dog’s crawling carcass on her body, and heads for the open door. In the doorway, he braces himself, vomits, and looks back over his shoulder. “Say it!”

   “
Vincent Severity!” A shout from a burning throat.

   
She wishes she was dead.

   
She hopes he’ll forget to shut the door but he doesn’t. It slams shut and she hears the bolt slide into place and then the lights cut off.

   
She doesn’t know if it’s good to not be able to see the dog or bad to not know where the maggots are.

8.

Since being taken prisoner, she has grown very adept at working with her hands behind her back. Once she adjusted to having them there, her whole range of movement consisting merely of the expanse of her buttocks, she learned to use them quite well. Not a second has passed when she hasn’t thought of escape. When Vincent comes in, he can’t see her. She has watched him from her place on the floor. She has watched him open the door, squint and blink. The next time he comes in, she thinks, she’ll go for it. The lights flick on. It doesn’t take them long to heat up. She looks toward the pile of Boy on the floor. What used to be Boy. Oh God, she thinks. Then blurts, “Trent Reznor!” The dog has been reduced to a pile of bones. The maggots cling to the bones, make them wriggle and look alive. The maggots spread out all over the floor. Some of them are on her. She closes her eyes against the heat, against the sight of all those maggots. She thinks she might not be the only one in trouble.

   
Vincent enters suddenly, surprising her just enough to throw her finely honed design all out of whack. He slides the door open and stands there wearing only his stained white briefs. He’s dragging a television beside him. The television is on a cheap metal stand. The kind with wheels. The kind usually found in the seediest motel rooms.

   
He looks sick and wasted away.

   “
The whole world’s gone to hell,” he says. “You ain’t Wanda. Wanda ain’t never comin back.”

   
He flips the television on. The picture rolls and then comes in staticky. It looks like the news. He crosses the room toward her. As he gets closer, she can see his skin bulging and twitching and she imagines him filled with maggots.

   “
They’re callin em slags,” he says. “They say they’re everwhere.”

   
He grabs her from behind the neck and pulls her out into the middle of the floor, kicking the bones of Boy away.

   
Amber watches the television and realizes not even the names could keep the plague gods away.

   
Vincent kicks her knees out from under her and forces her onto the floor, onto her stomach. She thinks he’s going to kill her and thinks she’s blown her chance.

   
He circles behind her.

   “
You ain’t Wanda. You ain’t never gonna be Wanda. First you kilt Boy and now you’re killin the world.”

   
He drops to his knees behind her and she hears his underwear slide down his thighs.

   
She watches the television.

   
The dour newsman drones: “New York. Boston. Chicago. Miami. Atlanta.” He continues reading off his list of major cities. He looks tired and gray and Amber hopes it’s just the television making him look that way. Vincent is pressing his cock between her legs. He’s spitting in his hand for lubrication. He’s leaning with one hand pressed on her ass cheek. She thinks about fighting back but, as she continues to pay attention to the television, she continues to wonder if there is even a point in fighting back.

   “
Los Angeles. Portland. All under quarantine. All infected. The CDC and the government have both advised you to stay in your homes. If you see any signs of slags, these maggot-like organisms, in your saliva, vomit, stool, or discharge, do not go to the hospital. I repeat: DO NOT GO TO THE HOSPITALS. They are all full and desperately understaffed. They will not be able to help you. You will only spread the infection.”

   
Vincent presses against her. It hurts. She grits her teeth. She opens up and he keeps going.

   “
No hope,” he says. “No hope at all.”

   
And he thrusts into her, slowly, tediously, painfully.

   
On the television, the anchorman says, “Really, what’s the fucking point to all of this?” And then the television cuts to video footage. Traffic jams. Fires. People dead in the street. Armies in haz mat suits mowing crowds down with flamethrowers.

   
Vincent wraps his hands around her arms and pumps harder.

   
The television cuts back to the anchorman. His nose is bleeding and he looks even more disheveled. He’s reading from a piece of paper: “If you are in the southwestern Ohio viewing area and you are not yet infected. I repeat: NOT YET INFECTED, then you are ordered by the power of the United States government to report to Hollow City. You are needed...”

   
Vincent lets out a growl and she feels him come into her and she wonders if she’s infected. If Vincent is infected, it seems like she should be.

   
He pulls out of her and she can feel the slags wriggling around deep inside her bowels.

   “
I have to go,” she says to no one in particular. She rolls over on her back, sits up on her ass, and presses her thighs together. She can feel the slags moving beneath her.

   “
You’re sure as hell infected now.”

   
He’s standing there in front of her, the television flickering against his waxy skin. He’s holding his penis in his hand and working it until it softens. She can see the slags peeking out the tip, crawling in and out, around the head. He pulls his underwear up and smacks her in the face. He drags her back to the corner and shoves her face in it.

   “
Don’t move from there. HEAR ME! I need to figger some things out.” He coughs and spits on the back of her head.

   “
Bruce Dickinson,” she mumbles.

   
She hears him grab his knife from the top of the television and he slices her with it.

   “
SAY IT! SAY IT! SAY IT!” he shouts before having another coughing fit.

   “
Vincent Severity!” she yells.

   “
That’s fuckin right.”

   
He grabs the television and throws it at her before leaving the room. It smashes on the floor at least two feet before her.

   
The lights go off and she knows that the next time he enters the room has to be it. If he ever enters the room again. If not...

   
What if he dies while he’s out there?

   
No choice. She has no choice.

9.

Time seems strange. She thinks maybe he really isn’t coming back or maybe it’s just her mind playing tricks on her. He’s already fucked her, so what is the point in him coming back? It was a desperation fuck. She knows this. He didn’t delude himself into thinking he was fucking Wanda. It was just something to do before he died.

   
Before he died.

   
Leaving her in this room with the bones of a dead dog and the slags covering the wall.

   
The light comes on and she gets her hopes up.

10.

She feels dead with hunger when the door actually opens. Maybe it won’t be him. Maybe it will be someone there to rescue her.

   
No.

   
It’s him.

   
Go for the eyes, she thinks. That has been her mantra ever since realizing what she planned to do.