by J. S. Volpe
29
On their way to the final battle with the leucrota, Calvin, Tiffany, and Cynthia had passed a dozen metal dollies lined up against the warehouse’s north wall. Now, Cynthia and Brandon went and retrieved one and parked it beside the leucrota’s corpse. While they did that, Calvin and Tiffany went in search of something to wrap the leucrota’s body in.
Their search took them toward the rear of the warehouse, where the zoo-like stink grew nauseatingly strong. In the southwest corner of the building they found a short corridor that led to a locked and chained side door. A big gray plastic bin lay on its side in the mouth of the corridor, its interior facing the warehouse. The bin was floored with a carpet of tattered rags and pieces of plastic and cardboard, all of them caked with filth and littered with black and tawny hairs. The floor nearby was covered with shit and piss, as well as some human remains that had been even more fully devoured than those in the shipping office. A scrap of a blood-soaked Megadeth T-shirt was visible amid the jumbled bones and wads of rotting flesh. This must be the other graffitist, the one who had been dragged out of the puddle of blood next to the entrance.
One hand cupping his nose and mouth to block out the stink, Calvin swiftly swung his light away from the gruesome find and fixed it on the overturned bin again.
“A doghouse,” he said, his voice muffled behind his palm.
“What’s that up there?” Tiffany said, peering at something on the wall above the bin.
Calvin raised the flashlight beam, revealing another black graffito. This one read:
If you got this far
You’re a star, you’re a star
Oh yes you are, a shining star—
A speck of light in the middle of endless darkness
Have a beautiful day!
“That voice,” Tiffany muttered. She nodded at the writing. “It was him. I’d bet my life on it.”
“It’s probably just nonsense,” Calvin said, trying to reassure himself as much as her. “It was probably just some nutty street person with a voice all shot to hell from too much cheap booze.”
“Then why didn’t he end up like that?” She nodded at the graffitist’s remains.
Calvin didn’t have an answer for that. Frankly, right now he didn’t even want to think about it. Not here in the dark with the stench of death all around them.
“Come on,” he said. “We still need to find something to wrap the leucrota in.”