The Seven Habits

by William Todd Rose

  I’m thinkin’ about Ocean. What she’s doin’, if she’d been eatin’ right… hell, if she’s even still alive for that matter. Last time I was with her, she was gettin’ bitch slapped across the face by that fucktard Gauge. Anything could have happened to her and I’d never know. So yeah, I was worried about the girl. For all I knew, she was dead and the re-death of Clarice fuckin’ Hudson had no impact on her miserable life what-so-fucking-ever.

  And then I felt that ‘ole familiar wind tuggin’ at my soul. I hear the sounds all around me, feel my consciousness being stripped away, the jabs of pain that made my sore muscles seem like spa treatment. And it’s right there, man. Halfway between my cot and the stream of people who kept finding reasons to stroll by my cell for a quick peak at society’s latest monster.

  Now, I actually experienced two things when the Eye pulled me in. The first one, I ain’t gonna tell you about. I figure there’s some things a man just has to keep to himself, ya know? Not secrets really. More like these intensely personal experiences that burrow down deep inside, carve out a little niche, and graft onto your soul. These are the types of things that change a man. They can either crush him like a cigarette butt beneath the heel of Fate or make him even more focused. More determined to do anything and everything he can.

  But that’s all I’m gonna say about that. I will, however, tell ya about the second thing I experienced. This was one of those overviews of time… like I’d been lifted up on high by the wings of an angel with the immediate future spread out wide below me. Just this disembodied observer, yet somehow, I could still cry, if you can dig that. And I wept just like a little sniveling bitch… because I could finally see the truth of the matter.

  Within the coming months something changes, man. I don’t know, maybe it’s a mutation. Maybe environmental variables, some shit FEMA released in the air to try and fight this thing with, or maybe the sickness was really just a symptom all along, ya know? Something that gradually changed aerobic cellular respiration into anaerobic.

  All I know for certain is that it won’t matter if you’re infected. Not anymore. People are gonna die just like they’ve been doin’ for millenia. Old age, accidents, murder, suicide… but they’ll still come back. Those who get bit or scratched? Well, that will just kinda speed the process along. But, sooner or later, damn near everyone comes back.

  Turns out, I suppose, that you can’t fight nature after all. Not really… I gave it one helluva try, though, didn’t I?

  My first experience, that personal one that I won’t tell ya about, let me know that there were things I have to prepare for, things looming just around the corner. We have a limited amount of time in this skin, ya know, and we have to make the most of every possible minute. To some people, that means tickin’ off check marks on their bucket lists.

  But, for me, it means trying to do everything within my power to make sure my special little girl stays as safe as possible.

  I couldn’t stop the contagion, and now I’m gonna be locked away so society can sleep easy, secure in the knowledge that another madman has become nothing more than an interesting blurb in some Time-Life series.

  But the apocalypse is comin’, man, and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do to stop it.

  You may think you’ve written the last chapter in the Adventures of Bosley Coughlin, but I’m here to tell ya, jack… my story’s not over.

  Not by a long shot.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  The Eye of Aeons swirls like a vortex of perfect darkness. Within its currents and eddies, space-time crashes against itself like waves cresting over breakers in a lightless sea. Centuries and millennia swish and churn, distant lands dissolving into shifting patterns of molecules, energy sizzling like monstrous slabs of bacon in the kitchen of God. All the while, billions of voices drift in and out as dialects and accents melt into a wordless drone that originates from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.

  The sense of being trapped inside a cramped tunnel, that claustrophobic panic which feels as if everything is constricting like the coils of a giant serpent, squeezing and undulating, growing tighter and tighter as space seems to collapse in upon itself. At the same time, there’s also the knowledge that this place is limitless, a human body could travel his entire lifetime through the tumultuous void and feel as if no progress had been made at all. Distance and time mean nothing here, they are as formless as the consciousness of the man who’d been pulled, like space dust, into the gravity of a black hole.

  He has memories of the cycling hues of color that existed on the other side of the event horizon, the way it seemed like a radial aurora borealis in the air, and how powerless he’d been before its might.

  These aren’t exactly memories; he exists in a multitude of places and times simultaneously, each one happening currently, happening now. The sensations and experiences of a million lifetimes, of every possibility that has ever existed, blended into a shifting tapestry of perception… Here, he is nothing; here, he is everything, and all points in-between.

  Normally, he passes through the center of the Eye in what his obstinate consciousness thinks of as an instant. He is sucked through one side and spit out into the mind of someone else in a different time and place. For some reason, he is now trapped in a holding pattern, like a plane circling an airport, waiting for clearance from the tower. He stays within the Eye of Aeons, waiting for something to change as millennia co-exist around him.

  He can sense that he isn’t alone… He can feel another presence seeping into the core of his own being. He can feel it’s confusion, the panic tinged with remorse, and a sadness unlike any he’s ever known; but there’s anger there, as well. Like pinpricks of fire that jab him repeatedly, this outlander’s thoughts invade his own.

  You. You did this to me. You.

  I set you free. I saved you from—

  You killed me.

  You were already dead, you were dead the moment I laid eyes upon you. Let your spirit pass now, be at peace and move on.

  You did this.

  Flashes of a lifetime burst into clear focus in the darkness.

  A crying little girl being pushed toward a giant Easter Bunny by her parent’s encouraging hands.

  Pointing at the Washington Monument as her sixth-grade class presses their faces against tour bus windows.

  That awkward first kiss, giddy with nervousness.

  Clapboard hats flying into the air, kissing by candlelight, slipping on ice and falling into the snow as sidewalk people stroll by without a moment of hesitation.

  You took all this away.

  You were infected.

  Fear burst into the formless void like an atomic explosion, pummeling him with rapid-fire shots of terror that burned hot as phosphorus in the darkness. More snatches of imagery, like quick-cut jolts of memories best left buried and forgotten in the tides of time.

  A bathroom he now knew all too well, the slatted door of the linen closet closed and dark on the other side.

  The whine of a hair dryer, humming that seemed light and happy, and her reflection, hair with wet tangles, in the mirror. Switching the dryer off, laying it on the counter, counting brush strokes while the stomp and clap rhythm of Lady Gaga’s Teeth filters through the thin walls.

  Reflection of the linen closet door flying open, a pink blur of movement, a completely naked, wild-eyed man, glistening in sweat. Tom? Tom Stark? No. No, no, no…

  Hands yanking at her hair, fistfuls with pale, bulbous roots still attached to each strand; she’s pushing, scratching, clawing, screaming. Her attacker’s face leering so close the tips of their noses nearly touch; the linoleum cool and slick against her writhing back. Yelling, meaningless jumbles of words sharpened with animalistic growls and grunts, spittle flying from his snarled lips, she opens her mouth to scream for help, saliva so hot it seems to have been boiled sprays into her mouth.

  He’s trying to force his way into her; no, no, not Tom, not Tom Stark, not the friendly insurance agen
t from down the block, this can’t be happening, she’ll wake up at any moment, a dream, has to be a dream…

  You’re a murdering bastard and I hate you, you understand? I hate you!

  I didn’t…

  Her attacker scurrying out into the hall, the scent of singed flesh as thick and heavy as steam, little bits of flesh and charred eyebrow still sizzling on the end of the curling iron that had been heating near the sink. Not raped, thank God, not raped, but cowering in the corner of the bathroom, shivering, crying, spitting repeatedly because that bastard drooled into her open mouth and it makes her feel dirty, so dirty, like some tiny piece of him is still within her mouth, infecting and tainting her with its presence…

  See? You were infected and I had to… A sensation like falling through darkness and reaching terminal velocity instantaneously. Everything seeming to rush away at the speed of light and come crashing together all at the same time. A gasp, a burst of color and perception, the muted sensation of being in another skin, of anchoring into a mind that is fixed to a corporeal form. There is pain… physical pain that can only accompany having a body. There’s something else. He feels at home in this new skin. Like a well-worn chair that has molded and contoured itself over the years to fit the shape of his particular form. Familiarity.

  He knows what this body will say before its lips begin to part. He thinks its thoughts like a man reciting a poem with a recording of himself. He knows this body all too well…This time the Eye of Aeons has allowed him to jump into his own head.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  The sound of wood scraping over concrete cut through the fog in Ocean’s mind as efficiently as if it were Gauge’s sickle. He was really going to do it, he was going to lock her away in this dingy little room, would fulfill all of Vessel’s dire warnings. Warnings she had so desperately wanted to believe were nothing more than some transparent attempts to turn her against the very people who had taken her in. People she had trusted… people she had loved.

  Ocean sprang to her feet and threw her body against the door, hoping it would fly open and catch Gauge unaware. He must have caught the flurry of movement in the shadows, he quickly pressed his shoulder against the other side and Ocean slammed into a surface that was as immovable as the walls surrounding her.

  “I hate you!”

  Thrusting her hands through the bars, she grabbed for Gauge’s long hair but he pulled back with a laugh, leaving her with nothing more than a few dark strands in her fist.

  “Nothing personal, honey… but all that food in Heaven? It won’t last forever, you know. We need some way to … supplement it.”

  She wanted to say something that would cut him with its ferocity as thoroughly as he’d cut Vessel. To hurt him in ways he’d never been hurt before and make him see what it was like to bleed, but she could only stand there and glare at that crooked little grin on the smug bastard’s face.

  “Now, don’t you start giving me trouble, too. I’ll have to take a bit of that feistiness out of you.”

  I want to see him cry, to hear him beg as he tries to squirm away.

  “I’m gonna bar this door and then I’m gonna go fuck Levi for a while. Tell her how much I love her. Hold her and kiss her.”

  There’d be so much blood that he’d look on shocked that it could all really be coming from his own body.

  “And then I’ll be back to teach you what’s expected of you.”

  Like a serpent materializing in the air, a length of chain whipped out of nowhere. It hit Gauge’s face with a loud snap and the man reeled and screamed, grabbing his face with his hands. The chain lashed out again, bashing onto the crown of his skull and coming away wet with blood.

  “You get the fuck away from her, you degenerate son of a bitch!”

  The voice was thick and raspy, familiar… but there was also a power in it that she’d never heard before. As if years of repressed rage and hatred had come boiling out in a volcano of pure emotion.

  Gauge’s cheek had already started to swell from the initial blow, the skin puffy and purple, starting to push his cheek upward, forcing his right eye into an unnatural squint. His hands were away from his face, but he still seemed dazed, like he’d always believed himself to be invincible and was just now feeling pain for the very first time.

  “What the fuck? What the fuck are you doing?”

  “I said back the fuck off, man!”

  Corduroy stepped into view, his anger burning so hotly that even the twisted mass of scars covering his face couldn’t contain it. He held the chain in one hand as he advanced; it whistled through the air as he swung it in quick circles, forming what almost looked to be a blurred shield before him. In his other hand was a ball-peen hammer that shook with the currents of fury undulating within him.

  “You damn traitor. You wanna fuck her, Cord? Is that it? You want a piece of that little street rat? Shit man, all you had to do was say so. There’s plenty enough to go around.”

  Corduroy circled Gauge like a stalking animal, his eyes darting from the plank of wood in Gauge’s hands to Ocean’s face peering through the window.

  “I’m gettin’ ya outta here, Ocean. Don’t you worry.”

  “You ain’t doing jack shit, Corduroy. You think Levi hasn’t heard what’s going down? All the shouting? You think she’s not already on her way? You might be able to take me down, old man, but no way you can get both of us. So give it up… and I might find it in my heart to forgive you.”

  Corduroy stared Gauge directly in the eye and his answer was short and cold. “Levi’s dead.”

  Gauge looked as if he were caught by a surprise pain, and the color drained from his face. He moved his lips in a silent word Ocean soon realized was really one syllable repeated again and again—no.

  “Funny how quickly a pot of boilin’ water will strip the flesh off someone’s pretty little face if it’s held down long enough.”

  Gauge roared and rushed toward Corduroy, but the older man was ready. The chain lashed out again with a flick of his wrist and coiled around the wooden beam. He yanked with both hands, obviously trying to pull it from Gauge’s clutches in one swift move.

  Gauge responded with the reflexes of a soldier, however. At the same moment Corduroy was pulling, he twisted his body savagely to the side. Instead of the plank flying from his hands, Corduroy was jerked forward by his own weapon.

  The burned man swung his hammer with a yell as Gauge whirled, the rounded head passing within inches of his face. Then he was falling backward as Gauge tackled his attacker, slamming into Corduroy’s midsection, and the two were suddenly rolling across the floor.

  Their hands grasped and pulled at one another, scratching and choking and gouging as the hammer clanged to the ground. Neither one shouted or hurled threats, they were locked in combat. There were only grunts, strained growls, and gasps of pain.

  Somehow, Gauge managed to climb onto Corduroy’s chest and the younger man slammed his forehead into the bridge of Corduroy’s nose with a series of sharp whacks. Blood sprayed in the air like a crimson mist, but it was impossible to tell if it were coming from Gauge’s split and swollen lip or the torrent that gushed from Corduroy’s nostrils.

  Corduroy struggled to land a punch, to hit the squirming son of a bitch in the throat or solar plexus, but his swings were wild, as though he were seeing double and aiming at the wrong figure.

  “Fuck you, old man,” Gauge hissed. “I’ll make that little bitch of yours choke on chunks of your fucking flesh, you damn turncoat.”

  Gauge’s hand snaked behind him, the fingers grasping across the floor until they came into contact with the object they sought. In a blur of motion, the hammer descended in a deadly arc that ended with a thud on Corduroy’s forehead. The older man’s body jerked in a single convulsion, but the hammer bashed down again. And again.

  “I was a food warrior, mother-fucker! You can’t take down a food warrior, you stupid son of a bitch!”

  Gauge had been so focused on the struggle that
he hadn’t heard the cell door swing open. The patter of footsteps had been lost beneath the primal sounds of their battle and the heavy breathing from behind him would easily be mistaken as an echo of his own.

  His hand raised high for one final blow, the hammer held aloft like a blood-caked trophy. Then his hand was tumbling toward the ground and he knelt there for a moment, staring at the spurting stump, his brow knitted in confusion and shock.

  He reached out to touch the nub of flesh that had once been a wrist, to prove to himself that it really was gone.

  There was a flash of light and he was left staring at not one, but two severed appendages. Blood oozed from the wounds, seeming to bubble up from around the hints of bone through all of that wet, glistening flesh.

  He looked up as the first twitches of pain began to pull the corners of his eyes and mouth into a grimace. Ocean towered above him with the sickle held firmly in both hands. Her shirt and face were spattered with blood, her eyes nothing more than narrow slits.

  “I loved you, damn it.” No tears. No quivering emotion in her voice, just a flat statement of fact. “Do you understand… I loved you.”

  She snorted through her nose and shook her head as if in disgust. “I loved my Mama, too, but that’s okay, now. You taught me. You showed me what it takes to survive. That bitch deserved to die. Understand? I was her damn daughter. Her daughter.”

  Gauge wobbled back and forth as he pressed the remnants of his hands beneath his armpits. His face was as pale of the wax in the candles they’d always burned, candles Ocean now realized had been made from rendered human fat. His eyelids fluttered as he began to slip in and out of consciousness, so Ocean crouched down and put her lips close to his ear.

  “She deserved to die, and so do you. But not yet. Not like this.”