Warning! Do Not Read This Story! (2 page)

 

*****

 

"No chance." Towers' voice was firm, her arms folded over her chest. "Absolutely not."

Buzz looked at Espinoza, who was sitting on concrete steps in front of the town's fire house across the street. The LaVerge sisters sat on either side of him, talking quietly.

"So you don't think it's possible he
killed
the girl?" said Buzz. "You don't think it's
possible
the seven-or-eight-year-old child did
not
take away the trooper's weapon and shoot herself in the head?"

Towers spat a gob of tobacco in the dusty street. "I've known him since we were kids. He did not shoot the girl."

Buzz paced a few steps away from her in frustration, then spun to face her with his hands on his hips. "At least cuff him till we resolve this!"

"We might
need
him to resolve this." Towers lifted her sunglasses and rubbed her eyes hard with thumb and index finger. "End of discussion."

Buzz just shook his head at her. Here he was, an agent of the fearsome Shadow Service, operating on the direct authority of the President of the United States...and he couldn't get one state trooper to back down. Out in the middle of nowhere, she had just as much real power as he did. More, probably.

Just then, Buzz jumped as a voice spoke up from a few inches behind him.

"Quarantine this county, Sergeant." It was Sascha, and God only knew how she'd sneaked up on him like that. "Notify all barracks in the surrounding counties. No one gets in or out until we sound the all-clear."

"Quarantine?" said Towers. "As in a disease outbreak?"

"We think it's contagious." Sascha shrugged and shuffled back and forth. "Not sure about the disease part."

Towers hooked her thumbs in her belt loops and adjusted her chew with her tongue. "The whole county? That's kind of a stretch, ain't it?"

"Make the call, officer," said Sascha. "This kind of thing can get ugly real fast."

"That's a tall order." Towers shifted her weight from her left hip to her right. "We're talking National Guard, Homeland Security, CDC, FEMA."

Sascha looked at Buzz. "Call POTUS, Buzz. Do it now. Make it happen."

Before Buzz could say a word, Carrol shouted from across the street. "Let go! Let go!"

Buzz whipped around in time to see Espinoza wrench something from Carrol's grasp and run off around a corner. Carrol teetered, off-balance, and fell back onto the fire house steps.

Sascha, Buzz, and Towers raced to her side. "Are you all right, honey?" said Sascha.

Carrol snatched an unlit cigarette from the ground and waved it at her. "He took my
lucky lighter
! My Pittsburgh Steelers Zippo!"

As Sascha helped Carrol to her feet, Buzz and Towers charged around the corner. There was no sign of Espinoza.

Buzz and Towers sprinted the length of the block, then slowed and stopped at the next cross-street. Buzz put out a hand to hold back Towers while he peered around the corner...

And then he dove back as a burning man hurtled screaming into the intersection.

Buzz dropped his gun and pulled Towers with him, tackling her against a wall. The burning man bolted past, the flames from his body singeing the hair on Buzz's left arm.

"Espinoza!" Towers pushed away from Buzz and ran after the burning man. As Buzz scooped up his gun from the pavement, he glimpsed a black and gold cigarette lighter and an uncapped red gasoline can in the street.

 

*****

 

Later, Towers stood over the smoking corpse on the sidewalk and made a call on her radio. She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her uniform...then seemed to realize she was being watched and turned so Buzz and the others couldn't see her face.

"Poor thing," said Sascha. "He was her boyfriend."

Buzz almost asked how she knew...but then he let it lie. It just didn't matter.

"Good news is, we know for sure it's contagious." Carrol paced in a circle, holding her lower back...bandy-legged, upper body cocked forward so she looked like a strutting chicken.

"Bad news is, we know for sure it's contagious," said Sascha. "And here we all are in the hot zone."

Towers snapped something into her radio, and Buzz nodded. "She's setting up the countywide quarantine. Where do we go from here?"

Sascha sighed loudly. She stood, lost in thought, for a long moment, the fingertips of one hand covering her mouth. Finally, she looked at Carrol. "I wonder what Espinoza told her?"

"He didn't tell
us
squat." Carrol looked at Buzz. "You said he and Towers were talking in the alley when you caught up with them."

"I couldn't hear what they were saying," said Buzz.

"So let's ask Towers," said Carrol.

"We should tie her up first, actually," said Sascha.

Carrol rubbed her back. "Only if you do the tying."

"What's the point?" said Buzz. "Why do we care what he said to her?"

Sascha patted his shoulder. "We're being optimistic, honey."

Buzz frowned. "Optimistic?"

"Yeah." Carrol strutted over and shoved her sourpuss kisser in his face. "Because if it's some kind of spell or mind control, not an airborne contagion or reality collapse, we might still have a chance of walking out of here in one piece."

 

*****

 

"He told me a story," said Towers. "The same one the little girl told him."

"A story?" Carrol lit a cigarette and leaned back in the recliner with her feet up. She'd insisted on interviewing Towers where there was padded furniture to ease her back spasms...and Buzz had found her a comfort zone in the living room of a house along Main Street. It was one of the many homes left empty and wide open in the wake of the big die-off in town. "What, like Dr. Seuss?"

Towers, who sat on the sofa between Sascha and Buzz, shook her head. "It was a weird story. I'm not even sure if he finished it, to tell the truth."

"What was it about?" Sascha switched on a digital voice recorder and pointed it at Towers. "How much of it do you remember?"

Towers cocked her head and frowned. "A good bit, actually. It starts like this: Long before these times in which we live, there was a boy in a bucket..."

 

*****

 

The boy's name was Lucid, and he was born as a half-formed creature. Hands, like antlers, grew from the top of his head. A ring of teeth ran all around his face. He had mouths where his ears should have been, and a throbbing heart where his mouth should have been. Pulsing veins and arteries were his hair.

Lucid was little more than a head and a sac full of organs in a wooden bucket. His tribe only kept him alive because he was the son of the chief...and because, as the son of the chief, he was considered a god.

Someday, he would rule the tribe in his father's place. He was certainly smart enough for it. In fact, he was smarter than anyone. He had plenty of time to think in that bucket of his.

That was how he came up with his plan. The one that began the day after his father, the chief, died.

"Most of you can't stand to look at me." That was what he said when they placed his bucket on the throne. His voice was like the croaking of a toad. "You need to get used to seeing me as your chief and your god.

"That is why," said Lucid, "I will come to live with each of you for a week at a time. I will eat with you at your tables. I will sleep with you in your beds. You will come to think of me as a member of your families.

"Now who wants to be first?"

No one volunteered, so Lucid made the choice.

And one by one, the families of the tribe took turns living with him. Feeding him through the slimy mouths on the sides of his head. Cleaning his soiled bucket. Watching his deformed body day in and day out, squirming and oozing and pulsating.

Feeling his rubbery flesh nestle against them in their beds in the night, slithering against their bare skin in ways that made them shudder, ways they would never

Forget...

Forget forget forget...

 

*****

 

I forget!

Damn it!

They made me forget the best parts of it! The story Espinoza told Towers, and Towers told Buzz and the sisters!

My
story! They made me forget parts of my own story! Parts of my
self
!

Those damned LaVerge sisters!

I wish you could see me the way I was meant to be seen. I wish you could read me in my entirety. I guarantee, you wouldn't be able to resist me.

Sometimes, I feel like the missing pieces are still there. Maybe, if I just look in the right places, I could find them and put myself back together.

Maybe, if I follow the parts I still remember, they'll lead me to the parts I've lost.

 

*****

 

"You're wrong, Sergeant." Carrol flicked cigarette ashes in her cupped hand. "This story isn't weird. It's
twisted
."

"It's
disgusting
," said Sascha. "
Demented
."

"I don't get it," said Buzz. "It doesn't make sense."

Towers shrugged. "Don't ask me. I didn't write the story. All I can do is tell you the rest..."

 

*****

 

After many weeks, Lucid had finished his visits with the members of his tribe. Never before had the tribe gotten to know him so well.

And never before had they been so glad to get away from him.

But Lucid was not done with his plan, and he would not leave his tribesmen alone for long. Soon, he called them together for more announcements.

"Thank you for welcoming me into your homes." Lucid sloshed in his bucket as he turned from side to side, taking in the crowd from his bamboo throne. "I finally feel accepted and loved by you all. I truly feel as if I am part of your families now."

The tribe applauded because they were happy it was over.

"In fact, I am so moved by your hospitality and love," said Lucid, "that I shall bestow upon you a great gift in return."

"What gift?" The tribe sounded expectant.

"I shall
become
an actual part of your families," said Lucid. "Through marriage."

"Through marriage?" The tribe sounded horrified.

"I shall marry the eldest daughter of every family in my tribe," said Lucid. "Together, we shall conceive the next generation."

"Conceive?" said a tribesman.

"We didn't think you could," said a tribeswoman.

"Of course I can!" Lucid laughed. "Now bring me your daughters!"

For the next month, Lucid married a daughter a day. After each ceremony, his retainers carried his bucket to a special tent. The brides were brought in next, and reached into the bucket.

They fished in the putrid ooze, holding their breath against the stench as they followed Lucid's instructions. Things they could not see squirmed and pinched at their fingers, latching on and burrowing into their flesh. They wept for days and tried to

Forget...

Forget...

 

*****

 

Not again!

I
forget
!

If only I were still whole. If only you could read the real me, just as Towers told Buzz and the LaVerges.

I was magnificent. I was revolting and beautiful at the same time.

Before the LaVerges did their dirty work, I radiated the power that had brought down empires. Collapsed civilizations.

Controlled minds in that very room in Lasco, New Mexico, when my latest acolyte presented me from start to finish in my original, unexpurgated form.

 

*****

 

After Lucid had married the eldest daughters of the tribe, leaving every one of them forever scarred--both physically and mentally--he moved on to the next step of his great plan. The last step.

Once again, he called all the people of the tribe before him. By now, after living with him and losing their beautiful daughters to his ugliness, the people were crushed. Their grotesque god in a bucket had twisted their spirits and filled their hearts with horror.

Now, he would take them one step further into hell.

"You have welcomed me into your homes," said Lucid, peering over the rim of his bucket. "You have made me part of your families. Now, I give you the greatest gift of all: the chance to become one with your god."

The people of the tribe stared vacantly at his obscene, bucket-bound mass. Flies buzzed around his pulsating blood-vessel hair.

"Here is how this communion will come to pass," said Lucid. "Each of you will offer one part of yourself...one sacrifice that will bind you to me.

"Now come forward and unite with my divinity!" Lucid bobbed in his bucket, spilling rancid fluid over the sides. "One at a time! Chanting prayers and crawling on your hands and knees, please!"

As the people approached, Lucid's surgeon went to work on them. He hacked a different body part from each one and placed it in a framework—a man-shaped framework.

From one man, he cut a hand, chopping through the wrist with a cleaver. From another man, he carved off a face.

He removed a woman's skin, cutting carefully from chin to ankles, slicing with the razor as the woman's chanting turned to shrieks, and then he...

He...