The Resurrected Compendium (42 page)

In her head was a flower.

Maddy was a flower.

“Maddy?”

I. Am. The. Boss.

The picturewords moved, telling her a story. Showing her everything that could happen if she just let them do what they wanted. More flies with honey, that’s what Gramma had always said, more flies with honey. Flies with honey, flies on shit, pigs in shit, happy as a.

Maddy’s eyes snapped open. Now she knew what the wormthings wanted. She could give it to them, not because she wanted to give in, not because they were the boss of her, but because giving them what they wanted was going to make Maddy not just the boss of herself and the wiggly squiggles in her brains…but of everything.

Of everyone.

She wasn’t going to give her mother the gun, oh no. Not that. Maddy had something better than that. She opened her arms. She opened her mouth.

“Oh, Mother. My sweet, sweet Mother. Come give me a kiss.”

55

“Grip it with your thighs and your hands. Brace your feet against the wall, your back against the other one,” Dennis said. Sweat beaded his forehead and upper lip; he licked it away unselfconsciously. The feathery bits of his hair had matted to his cheeks. “When you get to the bottom, you’ll have to feel for the panels. One for the right hand, one for the left. There will be two small ledges with buttons on them.”

“Nothing’s gonna bite my fingers, will it? No razor blades or anything?” She was only half joking. Kelsey’s stomach churned and lurched and twisted. Acid burned in her throat, but she forced herself to take deep breaths. She could do this. She had to do this.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“You have to do better than that!” She cried, her shout startling them both. “You have to know, Dennis! You have to be sure!”

His hands on her shoulders, fingers on the good hand squeezing. He pulled her close, and she was so surprised that she let him without a protest. He pressed his lips to her temple, his fingers stroking her hair. They stayed that way for a minute while she timed the in-and-out of his breath to her own.

“You can do this, Kelsey. I know you can.”

She clung to him for a moment longer before pushing away. Taking a deep breath. She looked him in the eyes. “Thanks.”

Dennis looked puzzled for a second. “For what?”

“Believing,” she told him.

Before she could over-think it, she patted her hands as dry as she could make them on her shirt. Her palms, along with her armpits, the small of her back and the space between her thighs were all soaked with sweat. She’d already pulled her hair back with a piece of string, but small annoying bits clung to her forehead and cheeks until she swiped them angrily — and then she needed to dry her hands again.
 

Kelsey, unlike a lot of the women she’d come to know, the other ones with fake tits and dyed hair and plumped lips, the ones who sought boyfriends as conquests and financial security, not for love, had never done any sort of pole dancing. It was the one thing she’d refused to do, no matter how much money she could’ve earned. Whoring herself to a lover for rent and clothes was different, in her opinion, than eye-fucking random men for a couple of dollar bills stuffed into a cheap thong. She respected women who danced for a living, there was no question about that. They worked damned hard for their money. But she’d never done it, and now the metal pole between her thighs felt thick and strange. She couldn’t seem to get a grip. She slid down a foot or two into the hole in the floor, letting out a strangled cry, before she caught herself.

“Brace with your feet,” Dennis said. “And your back.”

To do that, she had to let herself fall a few more feet, and her hands and thighs would not un-grip. Kelsey took a deep breath, then another, her head spinning. Sweat dripped in her eyes, but she couldn’t wipe it away. The small flashlight Dennis had pulled from one of the supply boxes pressed uncomfortably between her breasts, the only place she’d been able to stash it.

“You can do this,” Dennis said.

With a determined nod, Kelsey eased her grip so that she started to slide. A few inches, then a few more, until she could press her bare feet against the metal tube surrounding her. Without giving herself time to think, she straightened her legs just enough to press her back against the other side. No longer sliding, firmly braced, she looked up.

Dennis looked serious, but gave her a nod. “When you get the door open, there will be just enough space for you to move forward. It’ll be a small alcove, with another door that leads into the basement. Beyond that is the door to the tunnel.”

“Also locked?”

“Yeah. Of course. But I’ll be able to help you with that combination. Yell up to me, and I’ll come down.”

“Your hand,” she said.

Dennis looked at the mess of bandages. “I’ll have to do the best I can, that’s all.”

They had no other choice. She wanted to kiss him suddenly, and couldn’t. She settled for a smile he slowly returned.
 

“I’ll see you at the bottom,” Kelsey told him. “And then we’ll get the hell out of here, yeah?”

Without waiting for an answer, she let her weight pull her down again. The metal pole dragged on the skin of her thighs while the wall at her back pushed her shirt up and scraped the bare skin there too. The sting was nothing compared to other indignities she’d suffered, and Kelsey gritted her teeth and kept going. With every inch, the air grew more stifling. She could smell smoke, but faintly. She had no idea when she’d reach the bottom, so every few feet she cautiously felt with one foot for a floor.
 

Above her, the circle of light and shadow of Dennis’s peering head seemed very far away. Below her, darkness and heat. At last the tips of her toes touched solid ground.
 

She stopped moving, but couldn’t make herself put her weight on the ground. What if there was a trap, triggered by weight? What if a hundred stabbing spears shot out and gutted her?

“What if,” Kelsey muttered, “you moved your ass and got the hell out of this carnival horror show?”

The pain isn’t unbearable — nothing much is unbearable, Kelsey’s figured that out long ago. But it is excruciating. A metric fuckton of bricks on her chest, pressing, not to mention the stabbing sharp bite and sting along her incisions every time she moves. Her stomach rolls with the pain, though it’s not as bad as it had been when she woke up from the anesthesia.
 

The surgery went really well, according to the doctor who came in to check on her, to the nurses who held her hair while she vomited bile into a small, curved bowl. She’ll be recovered in no time. It doesn’t feel that way, lying here in her bare, white bedroom with the radio playing the same four songs over and over. When she can barely get herself up to use the toilet, much less make herself something to eat or drink or to brush her teeth.

She’d lied about having someone to stay with her, and wishes now she’d hired someone to come. Someone to help her change the dressings, at least. She couldn’t afford it, but at this moment when she grips the back of a chair and tries to keep herself from pitching forward onto her face and crushing the thousands of dollars of work she just had done to her chest, Kelsey thinks any debt would be preferable to this.

Standing in front of the full-length mirror, what she sees is something from a monster movie. None of the other surgeries have been this extensive, and somehow, oddly, what she’s done to her face and teeth seem to have changed her way less than what she’s had done to her body. The breasts seem comically immense, jutting from her like mountains. Much of it is still the bandages, she knows it, but when she turns to the side to look at her new profile, all Kelsey can think is that she looks like a fashion doll.

She needs to see them. She needs to see what she’s done to herself. Not irreparable, she tells herself. She can always go back to what she was before. Implants can always be taken out.
 

And still, she can’t move to unclip the bandage. Not even when the room spins the longer she stands, and she has to put her head down to keep herself from fainting. She can’t move. She is paralyzed by her own indecision and fear.
 

“You promised,” she whispers to nobody. “You promised yourself, Kelsey. You would never let yourself be stuck like this again. Never let yourself be helpless like this.”

She stares at her reflection, eyes hard, mouth a thin line. “You promised yourself.”

And, remembering that, with shaking hands she starts to unwind the bandages.

Kelsey moved. She’d made it this far through the minefield of life without getting herself blown to pieces — some of it was luck, but most of it was just raw determination. If she was going to die at the bottom of a metal tube while fire raged all around her and the shambling undead waited for her outside…well, that was how she was going to go.

Nothing happened when she lowered herself to the floor. Clicking on the flashlight, she found the keypads. She tucked the light back into its place in her cleavage, letting herself let out one small laugh at how useful these big tits had been, in so many different ways. Dennis had given her the codes, and she could type fast and accurately without looking at her fingers, but she wasn’t going to take any chances.

Fingers resting lightly on the keypads, she pressed the first two numbers.

When nothing shot or gouged or burned or sliced her, she let out the breath she’d been holding. Number two. Three. Four. Just before the final set of numbers in the sequence, she took another long, deep breath.

Push.

The door in front of her slid open with a creak. Hot air, but thankfully no smoke, rushed in to pummel her. She stepped forward, turning to call over her shoulder to Dennis that she’d made it safely.

That’s when something that felt like a thousand angry wasps closed on her ankle.

56

Three days. That’s how long it would take. Maybe four. But no more than that. Maddy lay in bed, hands folded on her belly, staring up at the dark ceiling. Her bedroom at home had glow-in-the-dark stars on it the ceiling, but here it was only darkness.

To see the stars, she’d have to go outside.

It wouldn’t be any easier to get outside than it was for people out there to get in here. Even though Maddy had made a habit of sneaking around down here, she wasn’t quite sure how to make it past the locked doors and barriers they’d set up to keep everyone safe. She’d need an adult for that, and she’d have to do it soon, before Mom became…something else.

She squeezed her brains out of habit, just to keep the squigglethings in line, but really, they were hardly moving or doing anything right now. The whispering and pictures had faded, replaced by a constant tingling all through her.

She needed to see the sky. She needed this like she needed to breathe and eat and drink and sleep and go to the bathroom. Maddy ached with her need for the stars.

Out of bed, wearing her favorite nightgown, the one with the teddy bear on the front, Maddy went into her parents’ room. Dad was snoring, but Mom lay awake with her hands on her stomach the way Maddy’d been laying earlier. She didn’t blink, not even when Maddy leaned over her.
 

Mom’s breath smelled so bad Maddy had to hold her nose. “Get up.”

Mom’s lips parted. With a grimace, Maddy backed up, waving a hand in front of her face. Mom turned her head on the pillow to stare at her.

“Maddy?”

“Get up. I need you to do something for me.”

Mom didn’t move for another few seconds, but before Maddy could tell her again, she sat up. Slowly she put her feet over the edge of the bed. She put a hand to her forehead, then her cheek, like she was checking herself for a fever.

“Sleep, baby, sleep,” Mama sings as she puts a cool cloth on Maddy’s head to chase away the bad bugs. Maddy got a bug, that’s what Mama said. Chicken Soup and ginger ale will kill them. “Feel better.”

Maddy can’t sleep. She’s too hot. She throws off the covers and then is
 
cold. She cries out, and Mama’s always there with a cool cloth, something to sip at, a tissue for Maddy’s sneezes.
 

Maddy blinked at this memory of being small and sick, of her mother loving her. Her mom had taken care of her for her whole life, and now…The tingling in her fingers and toes became a shock. Lightning raced up her arms and down her spine. It circled inside her skull, stabbing her all over, and Maddy doubled over at the sudden pain.

She was the boss, but it had taken her by surprise. She fought it, gasping, until Mom’s cool hand cupped the back of her neck and Maddy looked up. She couldn’t see at first, nothing but a red haze swimming with those black worms. She blinked and blinked until they went away.

She heard nothing but Dad’s snores.

“I need to be outside,” Maddy whispered. “You need to get me outside. I need the stars.”

57

At the sound of Kelsey’s scream, Dennis didn’t hesitate. He leaped into the hole in the floor, agony slapping him when he gripped the pole with his bad hand. He slid ten feet before he managed to get himself braced, and didn’t stay that way for more than a few seconds before he kept sliding down. He tried to judge the distance, second floor to first, first to basement, but he was wrong. The foot he’d put down to test for the floor hit so hard he swore he heard his ankle snap.

Not broken, he thought disjointedly when he could put weight on it. Sprained bad enough though. Inches in front of him, he saw light from the flashlight he’d given her. It was shaking.
 

“Kelsey!”

“Get it off me,” she cried, pointing the light at her ankle.

Shit, oh shit. It wasn’t a bear trap, though the design was similar. A snap-trap, triggered by weight, but instead of a heavy duty claw, both sides of the trap were made of wire-thin and barbed spikes. They’d clamped on Kelsey’s ankle, some of them interlocking, others going straight through her flesh and out the other side.

“Fuck you,” Dennis muttered to his mother’s memory. “Why can’t we get a fucking break?”