The Carousel was in the ambulance, in his face now. “You won’t need medical care. No bleeding.”
Duff spat lung rubble. “Where is she?”
“She didn’t survive.”
“I know. Where is the body?”
“That went bad.”
“Messy?”
“Yeah.”
“In one piece?”
“No.”
“But it’s her?”
“Confirmed.”
Duff lunged from the ambulance into the rain. The Carousel followed him.
The Carousel lit a cigarette. The rain soaked the cigarette but he still toasted the tip orange, drew dry smoke.
“How do you do that?” Duff said.
“That’s my superpower.”
“Mine, it’s over.”
“No ‘Heroes?’”
“It’s dead.”
“This is one shit-fucking fucked-up day. We have to get you out of here and into AXIS treatment. A long rest and recovery period. Then we come back fresh, pick up the trail on this.”
Duff said, “I’m done.”
“The killers are out there. They must die.”
“The shit never ends.”
“You get used to that.”
Duff spat smoke.
The Carousel: “My advice? Use it.”
“Know what? Fuck this superhero shit.”
Duff walked off in the rain.
Duff walked the twenty miles to his apartment. The walk gave him time to plan it out. He saw the bathroom. He reached it. He ran hot water into the tub. He cracked one of the disposable razors, pulled a blade for his wrists. They would find him in the tub nude in a bath of red water. Slashed wrists in the bathtub was female but he didn’t care what people said about his method. It was for TC. It was more female because it was romantic. One blood-streaked arm propped on the rim, the hand outstretched like it was holding hers. His body nude in the red wine of his life essence. The initial slicing of veins would be a sharp twinge that was gross but he could take it. Over time he would feel every drop of his being empty into the hot water. He would pull off the boots, the tiles cold to his bare feet. He pulled off the smoke damaged jeans. He tore away what was left of the t-shirt. He would die in his birth clothes, stark naked. The water thundered into the rising bath, steam filling in the four corners of the bathroom.
No. He unplugged the tub. Clear water swirled into a spin down the pipes back into the city.
It now came to him what to do. Leave Brutalia. Across the Limit he would revert to the Down’s Syndrome he had been born with. Perfect. Better than suicide. It would be his monument to TC. Maybe he would be aware of what he had done, maybe have her stored somewhere in his brain, he had no idea. But there would be no Duff Nash to process it. He wouldn’t even need to pack a suitcase. All he had to do was put on a shirt and pants and shoes and go to the Greyhound station, buy a ticket out. Maybe back to West Virginia. And when he got off the bus there would be no Duff Nash.
Across his chest he felt her hand glide.
He looked at his bare chest. There was writing in red lipstick.
He went to the mirror, saw a word lipstick-scrawled across his chest.
Sinpiper.
He reached toward the glass. Deodorant knocked over toothpaste knocked over Sea & Ski nail cutter fell into the sink.
He reached again, turned, made the towel ripple from one foot away. Worked it. Left…right…left….
He looked again at Sinpiper. At his chest. Back at the mirror. In the mirror the word was not reversed.
About the Author
Embrack is the author of the AlienComics series and the Peter Surf novels. Cover art and design by Embrack.
Copyright © 2012 by Raymond Embrack.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. This book was printed in the United States of America.
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Big Superhero Action Page 20