“Wayne Coyne!” she shouts and bites her tongue. She’s been biting her tongue a lot lately.
The maggot continues to cross the floor. Maggots are so sick and gross. She wonders if anyone is searching for her. She wonders if people just think she has run off. As far as she knows, she has never given them a reason to think this.
The maggot inches sickly, grossly closer. She reaches out her foot and squashes it beneath her big toe. The feel of it makes her gag.
The door to the room bangs open.
Vincent stands there, his eyes swirling with rage. His dog is beside him. At first, Amber thinks it’s standing on its own and then she realizes he’s holding it by the collar and the dog is limp. He holds the knife in the other hand. He is not wearing a shirt. His chest is hairy; the rest of his skin is pale and covered in sweat. His plastic hair is messed up. This scares Amber. She doesn’t know why but she feels like, once he lets his appearance slide, Vincent is capable of doing just about anything.
“Thurston Moore!” She bites her tongue again and curls into herself.
Vincent rushes over, dragging the dog with her. He slices at her arm.
“Say it! Say it! Say it!”
“Vincent Severity! Vincent Severity! Vincent Severity!”
“Yeah, bitchface, that’s better.”
He steps back from her and tucks the knife into the back of his pants. He grabs his crotch with his right hand and shifts his cock around. She can see it outlined in those tight blue jeans. He probably isn’t wearing any underwear. Gross.
“Want you to see what you done with your shoutin. You done kilt Boy.”
He pulls his left arm up and the dog goes with it. He shakes it in front of her. Some maggots fall off and onto the floor.
“He ain’t never gonna be the same.”
Amber wants to run but she’s backed into a corner. She wants to kick Vincent’s face away from hers and run but she’s wearing the ankle cuffs and knows she will not get very far, even if he is sick. She starts crying. She can’t help it.
“Stop cryin! I should be the one cryin! I’m the one just lost his dog!”
Two or three of the maggots are crawling up her calf. She can feel them but doesn’t want to look at them because she’s afraid that will make her puke.
“You need to say your goodbyes.” He squats down, takes the dead dog’s head in between his hands and forces it up to her face.
“Boy loves kisses,” he says. Now he’s rubbing the moist nose and stinking lips against her face, against her mouth. She can feel the maggots crawling around the dog’s teeth, pressing against her lips. “Yeah, give old Boy some kisses. Let him get one last taste of ya.”
She looks at Vincent, the sweat running down his plastic skin. She looks at the dog, its eyes open and all milked over. Now she sees the dog is covered in maggots. They’re squirming all over its hide. And Vincent’s forcing the maggots and the stink into her hose, into her mouth, and she thinks she’s finally losing it. A person can’t be subjected to this and then expect to come back.
She vomits.
Throws up all over the dog. The puke runs down and covers Vincent’s hands.
And he’s using the dog’s head to hit her in the face and shoulders, rubbing her puke back onto her.
She continues to cry and murmurs, “Daniel Johnston.”
“You’ll never learn. You’ll never learn! You’ll NEVER LEARN!”
He stands up, leaving the dog’s crawling carcass on her body, and heads for the open door. In the doorway, he braces himself, vomits, and looks back over his shoulder. “Say it!”
“Vincent Severity!” A shout from a burning throat.
She wishes she was dead.
She hopes he’ll forget to shut the door but he doesn’t. It slams shut and she hears the bolt slide into place and then the lights cut off.
She doesn’t know if it’s good to not be able to see the dog or bad to not know where the maggots are.
8.
Since being taken prisoner, she has grown very adept at working with her hands behind her back. Once she adjusted to having them there, her whole range of movement consisting merely of the expanse of her buttocks, she learned to use them quite well. Not a second has passed when she hasn’t thought of escape. When Vincent comes in, he can’t see her. She has watched him from her place on the floor. She has watched him open the door, squint and blink. The next time he comes in, she thinks, she’ll go for it. The lights flick on. It doesn’t take them long to heat up. She looks toward the pile of Boy on the floor. What used to be Boy. Oh God, she thinks. Then blurts, “Trent Reznor!” The dog has been reduced to a pile of bones. The maggots cling to the bones, make them wriggle and look alive. The maggots spread out all over the floor. Some of them are on her. She closes her eyes against the heat, against the sight of all those maggots. She thinks she might not be the only one in trouble.
Vincent enters suddenly, surprising her just enough to throw her finely honed design all out of whack. He slides the door open and stands there wearing only his stained white briefs. He’s dragging a television beside him. The television is on a cheap metal stand. The kind with wheels. The kind usually found in the seediest motel rooms.
He looks sick and wasted away.
“The whole world’s gone to hell,” he says. “You ain’t Wanda. Wanda ain’t never comin back.”
He flips the television on. The picture rolls and then comes in staticky. It looks like the news. He crosses the room toward her. As he gets closer, she can see his skin bulging and twitching and she imagines him filled with maggots.
“They’re callin em slags,” he says. “They say they’re everwhere.”
He grabs her from behind the neck and pulls her out into the middle of the floor, kicking the bones of Boy away.
Amber watches the television and realizes not even the names could keep the plague gods away.
Vincent kicks her knees out from under her and forces her onto the floor, onto her stomach. She thinks he’s going to kill her and thinks she’s blown her chance.
He circles behind her.
“You ain’t Wanda. You ain’t never gonna be Wanda. First you kilt Boy and now you’re killin the world.”
He drops to his knees behind her and she hears his underwear slide down his thighs.
She watches the television.
The dour newsman drones: “New York. Boston. Chicago. Miami. Atlanta.” He continues reading off his list of major cities. He looks tired and gray and Amber hopes it’s just the television making him look that way. Vincent is pressing his cock between her legs. He’s spitting in his hand for lubrication. He’s leaning with one hand pressed on her ass cheek. She thinks about fighting back but, as she continues to pay attention to the television, she continues to wonder if there is even a point in fighting back.
“Los Angeles. Portland. All under quarantine. All infected. The CDC and the government have both advised you to stay in your homes. If you see any signs of slags, these maggot-like organisms, in your saliva, vomit, stool, or discharge, do not go to the hospital. I repeat: DO NOT GO TO THE HOSPITALS. They are all full and desperately understaffed. They will not be able to help you. You will only spread the infection.”
Vincent presses against her. It hurts. She grits her teeth. She opens up and he keeps going.
“No hope,” he says. “No hope at all.”
And he thrusts into her, slowly, tediously, painfully.
On the television, the anchorman says, “Really, what’s the fucking point to all of this?” And then the television cuts to video footage. Traffic jams. Fires. People dead in the street. Armies in haz mat suits mowing crowds down with flamethrowers.
Vincent wraps his hands around her arms and pumps harder.
The television cuts back to the anchorman. His nose is bleeding and he looks even more disheveled. He’s reading from a piece of paper: “If you are in the southwestern Ohio viewing area and you are not yet infected. I repeat: NOT YET INFECTED, then you a
re ordered by the power of the United States government to report to Hollow City. You are needed...”
Vincent lets out a growl and she feels him come into her and she wonders if she’s infected. If Vincent is infected, it seems like she should be.
He pulls out of her and she can feel the slags wriggling around deep inside her bowels.
“I have to go,” she says to no one in particular. She rolls over on her back, sits up on her ass, and presses her thighs together. She can feel the slags moving beneath her.
“You’re sure as hell infected now.”
He’s standing there in front of her, the television flickering against his waxy skin. He’s holding his penis in his hand and working it until it softens. She can see the slags peeking out the tip, crawling in and out, around the head. He pulls his underwear up and smacks her in the face. He drags her back to the corner and shoves her face in it.
“Don’t move from there. HEAR ME! I need to figger some things out.” He coughs and spits on the back of her head.
“Bruce Dickinson,” she mumbles.
She hears him grab his knife from the top of the television and he slices her with it.
“SAY IT! SAY IT! SAY IT!” he shouts before having another coughing fit.
“Vincent Severity!” she yells.
“That’s fuckin right.”
He grabs the television and throws it at her before leaving the room. It smashes on the floor at least two feet before her.
The lights go off and she knows that the next time he enters the room has to be it. If he ever enters the room again. If not...
What if he dies while he’s out there?
No choice. She has no choice.
9.
Time seems strange. She thinks maybe he really isn’t coming back or maybe it’s just her mind playing tricks on her. He’s already fucked her, so what is the point in him coming back? It was a desperation fuck. She knows this. He didn’t delude himself into thinking he was fucking Wanda. It was just something to do before he died.
Before he died.
Leaving her in this room with the bones of a dead dog and the slags covering the wall.
The light comes on and she gets her hopes up.
10.
She feels dead with hunger when the door actually opens. Maybe it won’t be him. Maybe it will be someone there to rescue her.
No.
It’s him.
Go for the eyes, she thinks. That has been her mantra ever since realizing what she planned to do.
He reaches down to clasp the door handle and she knows if he actually closes the door then it’s all over. She will never make it out alive. She wants to remain silent. She’s crouched right beside the door. She wants to not blow her cover until she is right up on him but she blurts, “Syd Barrett!” and then she has to act. She springs at him, standing right there beside her, and rams her head into what’s left of his face.
He slashes out with the knife, catching her just below her ribs. It goes in deeper than the other ones had. Those had been warning, cautionary cuts. Keep him from the door, she thinks, and go for the eyes. Go for the eyes.
He reaches out for her but maybe his eyes have not fully adjusted to the light because he can’t grab her. She throws her body crossways into his knees and feels the blade come down hard into her ass. Already, she is covered in blood. She has to move before he has the chance to stab again. He’s bent over. She raises her head as fast as she can, praying she doesn’t run it into the knife. The back of her skull connects with his nose and she hears a popping noise, feels the slags squirming against her scalp.
“Robert Smith!” she shouts. Then she falls onto her hands and sweeps her legs around behind his, dropping him to the ground.
“Stop sayin those fuckin names!” he shouts, swinging his arm out with the knife but now he is on the squirming floor and she is standing up. She eyes the distance, sits down perpendicularly to him, brings her ankles together, raises them and brings the heavy cuffs down onto his left kneecap, shattering it.
She wants to go for the eyes but he has the knife.
And he’s trying to stand up. If it weren’t for the damn ankle cuffs she could just run and she’s pretty sure she could outrun him. She can’t let him stand up. She leaps across him, bounding from her place on the ground, and brings both her knees down into his other knee.
He swings the knife down toward her back but she’s already moving away from him and the blade slices rather than plunges. Her organs are grateful.
She has visualized so much of this in her head. What he would do with the knife, how she could maneuver in her restrained fashion, that it feels almost like she is fighting something she has practiced before.
He swings out with the knife again and she raises the cuffs behind her enough to snag the point in one of the few chain links. Quickly jerking her wrists, the knife falls from his hand and she throws herself on it.
He still has upper body strength, she reminds herself, thinking of that bullish head on those bullish shoulders. But he’s weakened so much. Parts of his skin have been eaten away.
He sits up and pushes her back, trying to get her off the knife but she already has it in her hands. His face is a mass of blood from his exploded nose. She turns with her back toward him, still on her knees, and thrusts herself backward, careful not to let go of the blade’s handle as it plunges into his flesh. The knife hits to the right of his bellybutton, barely missing the huge transplanted nipple. Using his still considerable arm strength, he grabs her around the neck, squeezing brutally and lifting her up. She manages to plant her feet on the floor and give another great thrust, this time aiming the knife near his head. His hands, slick with blood, slip, and she buries the knife in his left eye. He squeals in pain and clamps his teeth on her lower buttock.
Knowing she is in position, she mentally gauges where his right eye would be from the position where her hands are. She is surprised she hasn’t penetrated the brain. His teeth grind against her flesh.
She savagely stabs the knife downward, feels it punch into his eye, and screams, “John Lennon!”
This is her time to leave, while he is blinded, while those powerful arms are off of her and reaching for his wounded head. She stands up, continuing to clutch the knife, and begins hopping toward the door. He drags himself through his expanding pool of blood and slags, almost catching her, snarling, “Stop sayin those stupid fuckin names!”
Crossing the threshold, she clasps the large handle of the iron door and, looking down at him, shouts a little rhyme she has worked on in the madness of her confines, “Vincent Severity isn’t so severe. With both his eyes gone he’s really quite dear!” before slamming the door and searching the house for the keys to the cuffs.
11.
She finds the keys. They’re hanging right next to the front door. If she hadn’t become so used to doing things with her hands behind her back, she never would have been able to get them unlocked. It’s painful. The cuffs dig into the flesh of her arms but she’s lost so much weight that she’s able to slide them up, manipulate them so she can fit the key into the hole and slowly turn. She rummages in his closet for some clothes. She thinks about looking for some gas to burn his whole fucking house down. But when she thinks about the slags slowly consuming him, she realizes she likes that idea better. She takes the keys to the El Camino and walks outside.
She has the desire to shout a name but she quickly realizes there isn’t a name in the world that can undo this kind of damage. The plague gods have found her but, miraculously, she feels like she is not infected.
She climbs in the car and starts toward Hollow City. Past the destroyed and burning buildings. The trees stripped bare. The mounds of burning dead piled up outside of towns. Past all of this.
On her way to Hollow City.
Corpse Mountain
1.
Two men sit in an El Camino and watch Reverend Hacksaw set fire to the Baptist church. The El Camino is nearly totaled. It came barr
eling into their trailer about three days ago. The woman driving it was dead. Hence, the accident. It still ran okay and they decided it was theirs. They didn’t figure there would be much in the way of an insurance settlement and thought they needed some form of repayment.
The dead woman is still in the car.
“What do you think he’s doing?” Rambo asks.
“Fuck if I know,” Cobra says.
2.
Until a week ago they had been John and Larry. Larry said, “Fuck it. If God is dead then I don’t need to use my God given name anymore.”
“What should we call you now?”
“Rambo.”
“Fuck yeah. Call me Cobra.”
They toasted over goblets of gasoline and went to see how Will was doing with the robots. Will became Commando. Commando thought he knew two things. One: drinking out of goblets was medieval and badass. Two: Robots could save the world.
3.
“That’s a fuck ton of gasoline that guy with hair is using,” Cobra says.
Rambo says, “Yep, he’s got gasoline and legs.”
It’s a pointless observation. The church is really burning now. The Reverend says something about building a mountain to God and throws himself into the fire.
Rambo forgets where he is, forgets what he’s watching, and chalks it up to the gasoline intake or maybe thinks he has a slag stuck somewhere in his head.
The sky is blue.
The smoke is black and covering it up.
Cobra has two eyes and a unibrow and for a second Rambo wants to punch him in the face to make the unibrow separate in two.
“Smells like burning,” he says.
Slag Attack Page 6