Panting, sweaty and out of breath, Shell maneuvers into the kitchen and picks a butcher knife up from the covered floor. He rolls Miss Fitch over and doesn’t even bother to feel for a pulse. Briefly, he feels a sense of contradiction. How could he save that kid at the Mikes at the possible expense of Pearl and then open up this woman to find her? The feeling passes. He wills it to. If Miss Fitch isn’t dead yet with all those slags writhing on her, she will be soon. Miss Fitch isn’t doing anyone any good. The people of Hollow City need Pearl, Shell convinces himself. Because convincing himself of that is better than believing he wants the money or wants to go out on a memorable note. It seems too perfect. The only thing that could make it more perfect would be if Miss Fitch were named Miss Oyster. Open the oyster, find the Pearl.
Shell slashes her from the hollow of her throat down through her rotten sex. Gullet to groin.
And there’s nothing inside. She’s filled with slags. Absolutely packed with them. Shell hopes his repellant is still active. He stands, takes a deep breath, and lets the knife drop to the floor. He wanders outside to vomit and just keeps wandering home.
13.
The Rotting Man sits behind his desk, plump, gray, and stinking. A small pile of cash sits on the left hand side of the desk. His once white dress shirt is stained yellow at the shoulder and plastered to his skin. Shell sits facing him.
“I failed,” he says.
“You gave it your best. We can’t all be winners.”
Cliché after cliché after cliché.
Even though he spouts words of encouragement, The Rotting Man looks unusually depressed. He pushes his glasses up his fleshy nose with his right hand, turned a purplish gray with the rot. “I am sorry to say, however, that you will not be receiving any of this.” He pushes the pile of cash off the desk with his left hand. It hits the floor and scatters only slightly in a puddle of fetid fluid.
“I think I’m giving it up anyway,” Shell says.
“Quitting the agency?”
“Yep.”
“But you’re the best detective we have... In fact, you’re the only detective we have...”
“And a failure.”
“Come on now. You’re too hard on yourself. Tell me: when you were out there in Hollow City... they ever tell you how small Pearl was?”
“Pretty small. Diminutive.”
“That’s a pretty fancy word. You pick that up there?”
“Yeah. Well, I kind of knew what it meant. That was probably the first time I’d ever heard it in conversation. This was an interesting case. I know you have confidentiality clauses with your clients but, seeing as this is my last one, I was wondering if you could tell me who was offering to pay you for looking for Pearl and what exactly they wanted with her.”
The Rotting Man looks down at his desk and shakes his head. “You’re right,” he says. “This was a strange case because there was no client. Actually, I guess there was. The client was Hollow City. It was an open reward. To the first person who finds her.”
“I knew that.”
“I was going to give you this amount,” he gestures to the sopping money on the floor. “And take Pearl back to Hollow City, claiming to have found her myself. Their reward was roughly double what I offered you.”
“Actually, you didn’t offer me anything. I just assumed it was the standard amount.”
“Which it was.”
“Which is probably why you never went into specifics.”
“Could be. I needed someone who could bring her back here without anyone ever knowing it. Or else they would have pounced on you, restored Pearl, and given the reward to you.”
“You really are a greedy shit.”
“I know. That’s what this business is all about. Pure greed. Anyway, it’ll be tough to see you go.”
“It’s not just the failing. I haven’t been feeling well lately. Nauseous all the time...”
“Maybe you have a parasite or something.”
The Rotting Man holds his middle finger and thumb about six inches apart. Shell notices he has lost a pinky since the last time they met in person. “They say she was about that big? Say anything about her ‘magical powers’?”
Shell nods.
“Maybe more like this?” The Rotting Man decreases the size considerably. “Do me a favor before you go—just to satisfy my morbid curiosity—let me see what’s under the eyepatch. You never have told me how you lost it.”
“My ex-wife plucked it out during our last great battle. It’s kind of gross-looking.”
Shell slides his chair back from the desk and stands up.
“You visit Fugueland while you were there?” The Rotting Man asks.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Shell leans over the desk. He’s kind of nervous. He’s never voluntarily shown anyone what was under the patch before.
“That’s where I caught the rot,” The Rotting Man says, standing up to meet Shell over the desk. “Yep. Many years ago. I used to live there. In Hollow City.”
“I never knew that.” Shell puts his fingers on the patch and lifts it up, seeing his reflection in The Rotting Man’s glasses.
He sees The Rotting Man tense up and, in the reflection, he sees why.
A brown eye stares back at him. He moves his fingers up to poke at it. How did that get there?
“You have her,” The Rotting Man says. “That’s her eye.”
Shell takes a step back.
The Rotting Man unleashes a noxious stink.
“So what if I do?” Shell asks.
“She’s mine.”
“Actually, she’s the people of Hollow City’s. If anyone’s.”
“She’s in you. I need her powers. They’re the only thing that can stop the rot.”
“And now we come to the truth. I think I’ll take her back myself. Maybe I’ll take the reward.”
“You won’t.” The Rotting Man throws open a drawer and removes a huge, antique revolver. Shell immediately regrets leaving the Glock at home.
“If you shoot me then she’ll die too.”
“I only need a little bit of her power. And then you’ll be free. Both of you will be free.”
Suddenly, Shell feels a whole other system of thoughts move in his brain. It takes control of his brain, his processes, and he feels himself recede to the back of his skull.
“I’ve never been free,” the Queen says loudly, with Shell’s voice, with Shell’s mouth. “So you want to keep me here as a cure for your sick condition or take me back and throw me to a pack of sycophants. I don’t see how I can win.”
The Rotting Man thumbs a button under his desk. The lock in his door clicks closed.
“Heal me,” The Rotting Man says through rotting lips.
“Let me go,” the Queen says.
“Just touch me in the rotting parts. Please.”
Pearl moves Shell’s arm across the desk, within an inch of The Rotting Man’s torso, hovering just in front of it, before driving the fist forward, into the feverish insides of The Rotting Man’s body. The Rotting Man chokes on his insides, aims his gun, and fires for Shell’s heart but hits his shoulder instead. Shell is thrown back into the door and, looking at The Rotting Man standing there with the gun in his hand, doomed but bent on destruction anyway, he feels a giant force build inside. It starts at the base of his spine, works its way up through the back of his throat and erupts from his mouth.
The Rotting Man is driven against the back wall by this invisible force. He continues to gargle and spew and now he is rotting at an alarming rate, the stench of putrefaction filling the room as his insides explode from puffy, rotted flesh to land on the dingy tiled floor. The gun falls to the ground and it isn’t long before The Rotting Man is a pile of dried meat and bones.
The Queen directs Shell’s body outside into the gray summer afternoon.
14.
An unlikely pair, Pearl and Shell drift as one into a dim, narrow alley. The conscienceless Shell and the consciousness of
a whole town. Shell’s insides feel swollen. He drops to his knees, bracing himself against the grimy brick wall. He feels his skin stretch to bursting and then further. Ripping. He can hear it rip and he wants to scream, wants to cry out but doesn’t want to attract attention and, besides, Pearl controls his mouth. And she, apparently, doesn’t feel like screaming at all.
Shell collapses onto his back and watches Pearl rise from his split flesh. She is not diminutive in the least. She is a beautiful young woman who looks lovingly down at him. She places her index finger over her lips, “Shhh,” and reaches down toward Shell. She takes a fragment of bone from his rib and a long strand of her hair. The bone becomes a needle and she feeds the hair through its eye.
Within a few minutes he is all stitched up but strangely flat. She leans toward him and at first he thinks she’s going to kiss him. Instead, she lifts up his eyepatch, encloses her generous lips around the socket and exhales. Shell watches his body inflate and feels her breath move through his insides. He coughs, dragging himself up into a sitting position. He doesn’t feel so sick anymore. In fact, he feels kind of great.
“Why?” he asks. “Why all this?”
“To get away,” her actual voice is soft yet authoritative.
“Away from what?”
“Hollow City. I don’t know. Everyone.”
“Being adored must be difficult.”
“It is if that’s not what you want. Or maybe it’s because it’s the only thing you’ve ever known.”
“So you get to just walk away?”
“It looks like it. But think about it. You get to be a human again.”
“I’ve always been a human.”
“You call what you used to do for a living being human?”
Shell shrugs and says, “It put food on the table,” and feels like The Rotting Man.
“I guess you’ll justify it however you see fit.”
“Since you’re so pious, how do you justify leaving your city in ruins?”
“I’m sure I’ll be back to pick up the pieces. Eventually. They need a little self-sufficiency. Besides, they’re not really in ruins. They’re just crazy because they’ve always had me to look after them. Maybe they’ll grow up.”
“Speaking of growing up—I thought you were, you know, diminutive.”
“I was. Now I’m not.”
“It was Happalance, wasn’t it?”
“I shall not tell.”
“Yeah, Happalance put you in my eye socket and...”
“You can sit here speculating all you want to but I’ve gotta go. There’s a whole world out there to see.”
She walks down the alley, toward the city street and Shell feels a brief pang of regret. Regret and pity. He fears for her insides and wonders how long it will take them to become devastated and smashed. He hopes they won’t. He hopes the world she wants to see is still here a little bit longer. He stands up, coughs, adjusts his eyepatch and heads home. He has to find a new job.
Vincent Severity
Months earlier…
1.
Amber Toulouse gags a little when she turns on the light in the break room. She was going to grab her half-eaten sandwich from the refrigerator but decides to leave it. The break room smells like decay and looks like some kind of maggot infestation has taken hold over in the corner near the trash can. She turns off the light and shuts the door. Let the cleaning crew deal with it. Maggots are not in her job description. She decides she can probably just call it quits and go home.
She works in the office of Ames Construction. Times are slow. Nobody seems to be building anything. She’s taken like three calls all day and the other lady in the office, Martha Sleeveless, went home around noon. Said she was feeling sick. Amber thought it was more like she was feeling bored and it was a gorgeous Friday and the construction crew hadn’t come in at all today.
She turns off all the lights in the office and heads to her desk to turn off the computer and radio and grab her purse. As she puts her hand on the radio’s switch, she pauses at the word, “quarantine.” She listens for a couple more seconds.
“The Mayor also advised all residents of Scruffington, New York to stay within the town’s perimeters. It is also advised that travelers bypass the city.”
Hysteria, she thinks, and flips the switch. Just some burg in New York. By Monday, the Mayor will be rolling out a travel brochure for Scruffington. Quarantine would kill the economy. Besides, that is New York. This is Ohio. She doesn’t really care what happens in New York.
“Joey Ramone!” she shouts and shakes it away, slinging her giant canvas purse over her shoulder and heading for the door. The office really does smell rank. She wonders if she should call the owner and then decides she doesn’t want to talk to him. She pulls the door shut and locks it, heading down the hallway and the stairs until she is out in the bright sunlight.
2.
Some people look straight ahead when they walk. Some people, dreamers mostly, look up at the sky. They are usually clumsy, always running into things. Amber is a head down kind of walker. A psychiatrist would probably say this is because of low self-esteem.
“Elvis Costello!”
She listens to her voice blare out in the early summer light thinking it doesn’t really sound much like her voice at all. The only time she ever shouts is when she has to shout the names. She turns to head into the alley she claimed as her shortcut after starting this job nearly a year ago. She can’t wait to get home and change out of her dress shoes and skirt, dump her giant purse. And her shirt has felt more binding as the day progressed.
She looks up and sees a tacky blue El Camino blocking the exit of the alley. Her heart jumps in her chest. Adrenaline not usually there becomes a torrent under her skin. Probably just someone doing a crazy ass parking job. She has never had any problems with the alley before. Muttering curses, she turns to head back out to the sidewalk when a man grabs the back of her neck. She nearly shouts, “Ian Curtis!” but is cut off. The man quickly and expertly covers her mouth in duct tape.
Immediately, she knows what is happening but it still has a dreamlike quality to it. She has to get away. She knows this much. She springs forward, not caring who the hell is gripping her arms in his powerful hands. But all of her energy is useless. He slams her down on the asphalt, wrapping her wrists together with twirl after twirl of the tape. Then he picks her up and slings her over his shoulder.
Is he taking her to the car? That’s where she thinks he is heading but the only thing she can see is the bottom of his jacket and his powerful-looking legs, covered in tight blue jeans. He clutches her purse in the hand not restraining her. Maybe somebody will see her before he can get her into the car. These kinds of things did not happen in Celine. Of course, it is really too early in the afternoon for anyone to be out and about. School hasn’t even let out yet and the lunch rush is over.
Keeping her on his shoulder by pressing his right hand down on her ass, the man pulls open the passenger side door with the hand holding the purse and throws her in. Rather than wasting time to circle the car and reach the driver’s side, he crawls over her and slides deftly into the driver’s seat, covering her with the smell of his heavy cologne. He stuffs her purse behind the seat. She quickly swings her legs up on the vinyl seat and kicks at the man. Kicks at his square head with the black plastic-looking hair and the tightly clipped black mustache that makes him look like a loose-cannon cop in a horrible seventies action show. But he smothers her legs and, for a brief and horrifying second, she thinks he is going to rape her right there in the car. Her skirt slides up her legs, virginal white underwear in plain view. He brings the tape up, snarls at her, and wraps it tightly around her ankles.
“Frank Zappa!” her brain screams. No. It is her brain commanding her mouth but her mouth won’t move.
The man reaches across the seat and grabs her hard in between her collarbone and neck.
“Now you listen here, Amber.” He speaks quickly, his voice sharp and clipped. �
��My name’s Vincent and I do very severe things. I’m a very severe man. You don’t wanna fuck with me. Now I’m just gonna take you someplace and we’re gonna have us a little talk. And if you even think about screamin for help or tryin to get away you can kiss your ass goodbye. You can kiss your family’s ass goodbye too. I’m a very severe man. I do very severe things.” He continues to stare at her, that strange snarl fixed on his face. She looks into his eyes and doesn’t quite know what it is she sees there. Madness, definitely, but something else.
He reaches into his shiny, tight brown leather jacket and pulls a very sharp-looking knife from its inside pocket. Holding the knife in his left hand, he reaches down with his right and squeezes her left nipple hard. She screams almost inaudibly and takes in a breath only to get a mouthful of the chemical-tasting tape.
“Nyah,” he says, continuing to squeeze her nipple. “Your nipples ain’t nothin. Them’s just tiny little bitty things. I’ll show you what a nice big nipple looks like.”
Finally releasing her, he reaches down to his belt and pulls his heavily starched shirt up to the top of his stomach. There, just to the right of his navel is a nipple the size of a silver dollar.
“Now that there’s a big nipple. Too bad its owner was a screamer. She screamed and screamed and didn’t amount to shit. I’m a very severe man. I had to do it. I do very severe things.”
Then another look, maybe reflection, creeps into his eerie brown eyes and he stares out the windshield for just a moment before saying, in a softer voice, “But that was before you. That was all before you, Amber Toulouse.”
He pronounces her last name all wrong and she wonders who the hell he is. Turning the key in the ignition, he pulls away from the alley and drives out of Celine. Amber feels her hope sliding away. She wants to continue working against the heavy tape but she doesn’t know what Vincent will do if she escapes. She likes her nipples where they are. As they drive along the state route, Amber blurts, “Iggy Pop!” against the tape but Vincent shoots her a hateful stare, reaches out and whacks her on the skull, lightning-quick, with the haft of his knife.
Slag Attack Page 4