Trashland a Go-Go (9 page)

Coco hated that idea more than anything, but Rudy was right. There was no other way to get out of the Chamber, and the pointed heels of her shoes had already proven they could do damage to the floor. She tied another strip of fabric around her face, sat down and took off her shoes. She strapped them to her hands and began digging into the wall opposite the door.

Feces oozed out of each new wound she tore into the walls. It seeped into her shoes while she dug and squished between her fingers. The more the wall broke down, the more shit covered Coco’s arms. When she stopped, she was up to her elbows in human waste. She shook her arms vigorously before she heaved her entire body against the wall. It only moved a few inches.

Barefoot, with shit oozing between her toes, Coco backed up to the door and got a good running start. She threw herself against the wall full-force. A large piece of it fell over, and Coco rode it to the ground. The rest of the wall fell around her.

She wriggled and dug her way out from the pile of shit-filled diapers and looked around. Coco was pretty sure she knew which direction the Castle was, so she started toward it. She was going to save Adrian, and make the Queen pay for what she had done.

Coco trekked on, covered in shit and baking in the sun. She didn’t even care about the smell now that she had a true mission. She was going to save Adrian. She was going to save them all. Rudy had given up trying to talk to her. In her fury she stomped through the garbage muttering and swearing. Rudy took this opportunity to wallow around in the chunks of shit clinging to Coco’s dress and arms.

“Coco…?”

A familiar voice called from the surrounding garbage.

Victor sat beneath an old camper shell, hiding from the blazing sun. He squinted at her in disbelief.

“Victor?”

He scurried from his hiding place like an excited cockroach and threw his arms around her.

She shoved him away. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“You’re alive!” he said. He looked at his streaked shirt, “And covered in shit.” He grabbed her filthy, feces-coated hands. “Coco, I think I’ve gone completely mad. Arnie and I went for drinks after we… well, you know… and I crawled into that dumpster because I love you. I just needed to be near you.” He pulled her close and nuzzled her matted hair. “And now I’ve found you! But this place is so strange. The flies talk to me. And the rats. And that old woman in the rotting meat house. I think I must have snapped.”

Coco pulled away from Victor. She eyed him suspiciously. “You came to find me? But you threw me away. Like garbage.”

“No! It was Arnie! I mean, I helped him. But you know how he gets. He’s fucking terrifying. But I missed you. I crawled into the dumpster to be with you, and then I woke up here. There is something seriously fucking wrong with Waste Management Services.”

“That’s disgusting! You crawled into the dumpster to be with my dead body? You sick fuck!” She slapped him across the face with her shitty hand.

Victor stared at her, mouth hanging open and a shit-print pasted across his cheek. “But, but, I did it because I love you,” he stammered.

Coco kneed him in the testicles.

Victor fell to his knees before he toppled onto his side into the fetal position and moaned.

Coco kicked him in the ribs and turned to walk away.

“Wait! You can’t just leave me here!” he groaned.

She thought that she very well could. Victor was obviously sick. She wanted no part of his obscene lust for her. But it couldn’t hurt to have a full-sized ally going into battle. Coco agreed to let him come along with her to the castle on the condition that he help her bring down the Queen once and for all.

Victor had also made an unlikely friend on his journey through the landfill—a rat named Theo.

Theo and the rest of the rats had been banished much like the flies. While the flies had been left to their own devices, the rats were placed on reservations outside the kingdom. Much like the flies, they were enraged at having been ousted from their homes.

“We’re better off than the cats.” Theo twitched his whiskers. “They’re being held as a food supply. I guess that must be why the rats are still kept nearby, to feed the cats. Or in case they run out of cats.”

Coco gagged, recalling the taste of cat meat, pre and post digestion.

They marched toward town, and devised their plan. Rudy went to gather their troops and fill them in on the plan. They would need all the flies. Coco hoped her plan would work. She hoped she could count on them.

The Queen was resting in her quarters—a converted horse trailer at the top of a stone tower. She was surrounded by knights with bulbous purple protrusions affixed to various areas of their bodies. Their legs, arms, faces and necks all pulsated with purple spores.

The affected knights fanned the Queen with newspapers, rubbed her calloused feet, and dusted her belongings. One of them swept the excess spores out the door and into a barrel where they were set on fire. Any knight without a task to perform stood over their Queen’s bed staring at her with an expression of dumb adoration plastered across their face.

The Queen reclined on a battered velvet chaise lounge, with stuffing pouring from the seams and cigarette burns. She waved her hands and leisurely called out orders to the men filling her room.

The Queen was just beginning to drift off to sleep under the gentle breeze of the newspaper fan, when a servant burst into the room, startling her. “Your majesty! The girl has escaped!”

“She’s what?!” the Queen launched herself off the chaise lounge onto her feet, “How? No one escapes the Chamber!”

“I went in to check on her and it seems she’s dug her way out. I scouted the area, but she is nowhere to be found.”

“Unacceptable!” the Queen shouted. She clapped loudly for the knights’ attention. “Go and find her! Bring her to me!”

The knights marched out of her room, single file and spread out, scouring the kingdom for Coco.

“Dead or alive!” the Queen screamed from her window. “Bring me her fucking head on a plate! I’ll eat her heart!”

Coco needed to find a good place to corner the Queen once everything else was in place. She turned down a narrow alley, and there she saw Adrian. He was turning over boxes, looking inside holes in the wall. Looking for
her
.

“Adrian!” she called out and ran to him. He turned to her with that same cold expression. Only a faint glimmer of recognition flashed through his eyes as he approached her.

Coco threw her arms around him. Adrian stood perfectly still, a shell of who he once was. He did not smile. Coco was desperate to save him. He wrapped his hand tightly around her wrist and began to drag her from the alley, without a word.

“Where are we going?” Coco asked.

“To the Queen. She wants to eat your heart. My love will have the meal she desires.” His words fell flat without any meaning behind them, like a drone.

Coco dug her feet into the ground and pulled away from his grip. “The hell she will! Adrian, please! Help me stop her.”

“Stop her? The Queen will have whatever her heart desires. I want to make her happy. I love her,” he said flatly.

“But you don’t. She’s brainwashed you. You wanted me! It’s this spore. It’s making you say these things. This isn’t want you want.” She pleaded with him, hoping to get through. Hoping that just maybe there was some small piece of him inside that remembered that he had cared for her almost instantly. That he liked her.

Adrian just stared at Coco with dead eyes and said, “You’re covered in shit.”

Coco looked around for something sharp. She found a large piece of broken glass on the ground and picked it up. Adrian grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the castle.

She played along, shuffling a few paces behind him. Once she was sure he was not going to turn around, she walked a bit closer. She held the glass deftly in her hand and slid it between the spore and Adrian’s skin. She twisted the glass to pry the spore from his head. The spore made moist, slurping suction sounds as she peeled the thing off her knight’s head.

Adrian stopped mid-stride. The spore landed on the ground with a squishy plop. It immediately began to squirm toward him, but before it could move an inch Coco impaled it with her glass shiv. She stabbed it once, twice, three times, until it was a puddle of purple goo.

Adrian bent over, one hand on a knee to support himself, the other clutching the back of his head. The area where the spore had been attached was a gory mess. The spore had eaten away a portion of Adrian’s skull to get at his brain, and Coco could see the gray bloody tissue poking out from the wound. She knelt beside him as he slowly crumpled to the ground.

“Coco,” he smiled at her through his apparent suffering. “I’m not going to make it. No one survives the spores.” He coughed and rested his head in Coco’s lap.

She looked down at him, knowing he was dying and there was nothing she could do about it. She cradled his head and stroked his hair. “But I didn’t even get to know you. You CAN’T leave me. Please.” Coco began to weep.

Adrian smiled weakly. His eyes slowly floated up and back, until they were stark white. Adrian let out a gurgling moan and he was gone.