The Mind is a Razorblade

by Max Booth III

  oasis drops the whistle to the ground. i’m pretty sure i’m the only one who notices the deep gust of breath dave chokes back as he watches it bounce off the sidewalk.

  ‘a whistle,’ oasis mumbles, no longer amused.

  ‘uh, yeah, ya know,’ dave says. ‘in case someone tries to rape me. i keep it on me at all times.’

  oasis dismisses the thug and glares at me #2, who has now taken the role of the one smiling. ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ the cop says.

  ‘never,’ me #2 says. ‘now, if you don’t mind...’

  ‘screw it,’ oasis says, and gets back in the sedan. he flips us the middle finger as he pulls away.

  me #2 picks up the whistle and holds it closely. ‘a goddamn whistle. this is what you were so scared about people seeing?’

  ‘hey, man, that is one powerful whistle,’ dave says, grunting as he climbs back up to his feet. he takes the whistle and stuffs it in his pocket, while me #2 re-collects the items oasis had knocked to the ground.

  ‘what a dick,’ dave says. ‘no wonder cops get such a bad rap.’

  ‘well, to be fair, we are pretty dangerous criminals,’ me #2 says.

  ‘true.’

  ‘i mean, just look at that fucking whistle. hardcore, man.’

  ‘oh, go eat a bag of dicks,’ dave says, walking again. ‘let’s get moving.’

  and that’s what they do, and i of course follow. but all i’m thinking about is how oasis looked back at the river, with a bunch of bullet holes in him. he didn’t seem so authoritative then.

  what the hell happened?

  * * *

  the faster we walk, the more i notice how the passing cars fade from reality. it’s like the people back at that bar, how they weren’t really there, at least not to me. the cars have done the same thing—they’ve transformed into these floating orbs.

  who are these people? where are they going?

  where are we going?

  i keep asking this, yet nobody is answering. no one hears me. i am alone.

  ‘are we alone?’ dave asks, stopping suddenly.

  me #2 looks behind us and nods. ‘uh, yeah. as alone as we’re gonna get.’

  ‘just get the feeling we’re not.’

  ‘just me,’ me #2 says, and i can’t help but laugh.

  ‘there’s something i still don’t get,’ me #2 says. ‘why are we even needed, in all of this, when there’s harvies to do the dirty work? i mean, they do the harvesting, so why do we transport the shit? why can’t they just do that, too?’

  dave shrugs. ‘they aren’t exactly the best behaved around humans.’

  ‘meaning?’

  ‘what do you think?’ he says. ‘anyway, it doesn’t matter. we’re here.’

  we (me #2 and myself) look up at the same time toward an abandoned warehouse towering above us. most of the windows are broken, and those that aren’t have been colored black by dust and neglect.

  ‘of course this is it,’ me #2 says. ‘it’s only the creepiest damn building in the whole city. what other place could it be?’

  ‘lamb was very specific, this is where...it’ll be.’

  me #2 sighs. ‘hey, at least we have a whistle. ’

  thanks to all the broken windows, the interior of the building is much more lit than expected. although, as an unfortunate consequence, all the cobwebs and hobo shit are perfectly visible.

  ‘if lamb is wrong about this, i’m going to kill him,’ me #2 says. ‘this is absolutely ridiculous.’

  ‘shh, remember what i said about talking about people. these walls can talk.’

  ‘these walls can kiss my ass. it’s humid as balls in here and smells like a circus of monkeys had a field day throwing feces everywhere. let’s just find this dude already so we can move on with our lives.’

  dave throws up his hands, defeated, and we continue onward. there’s obviously no one else here right now. maybe come nightfall, things will change. it looks like an ideal home to vagrants. and what’s wrong with that? everybody needs a place to sleep. it doesn’t seem like the building has any other use, after all.

  ‘isn’t this going to be dangerous?’ past me asks. ‘something as evil as this thing, i’d think we would be more prepared than just a whistle. like a gun, or something.’

  dave shakes his head. ‘nah, a bullet would just whiz right past one of these things. this whistle is what can control it. uh, so i’m told.’

  ‘hmm,’ me #2 says. ‘and how, again, did lamb know that it’d be here, in this building of all places?’

  ‘lamb didn’t know—indigo did. and indigo told lamb.’

  ‘ah.’ me #2 nods. ‘but, uh, how reliable is this indigo fella? i mean, none of us have even seen him.’

  ‘i have.’

  we’ve reached the end of the first floor, and now begin the short trek up the steps. they grunt with each motion, yet to me, this doesn’t feel like exercise at all. it’s like i’m slowly gliding behind, a rope tied around my waist, with my doppelganger pulling me along.

  ‘bullshit,’ me #2 says.

  ‘it’s true,’ dave says.

  ‘bull...shit.’

  ‘no, really.’

  ‘when?’

  ‘a few months back. i was in the casino, watching the fight. you know that one room behind the cage, up on that balcony? the curtain was waving, like someone had just been up there. then i think i saw a hand. pretty sure i saw a hand.’

  ‘and that’s your amazing indigo sighting story?’ me #2 asks.

  ‘better than your amazing indigo sighting story.’

  ‘well, i don’t give a crap who lamb and indigo think they are: whoever gave them their intel is a goddamn fool. this place is empty.’

  and of course, like the gun at a racetrack, this marks the start of the race.

  a huge gust of wind suddenly runs rampant through the room. i know this not from the sensation, but from all the dirt and trash blowing around like a greasy hobo tornado. the hairs on me #2’s head swirl around comically, lashing him across the face.

  ‘what the hell—?’

  a loud shriek similar to the screeching of tires infiltrates the room, and in comes a huge blur—something i actually mistake as a literal tornado before i realize that it’s just another man running through the room. a man dressed all in white.

  ‘oh my god, do you think that’s him?’ dave yells over the screeching.

  ‘no, that’s just some other dude who coincidentally looks exactly like who we’re looking for,’ me #2 yells back, and watches as the white tornado man throws dave clear across the room, knocking him on his ass.

  ‘get him,’ dave says, throwing the whistle toward us. me #2 attempts to catch it, fumbles, then hugs it to his chest—all the while staring wide-eyed at this strange tornado creature. staring like we just saw something we didn’t actually believe existed. staring like our whole world has been flipped upside down.

  i try to hide behind a table, then realize the irrationality of my fear. i’m just here for the show, after all. this isn’t my action scene. not anymore, at least.

  the white blur of a man knocks a few more things to the ground and zips down the steps. me #2 gives dave a confused, hopeless look, and says, ‘well, shit, now what?’

  ‘go get him!’ dave screams. ‘if he gets away, lamb will castrate us both! my damn ankle is sprained, so it’s up to you.’

  ‘why do i get the impression that your ankle is actually fine?’

  ‘now is not the time for questions, bobby.’

  me #2 shakes his head. ‘typical.’

  he runs down the steps.

  well, i’m not following him. there’s no way in hell.

  but i’m not given a choice. standing here, ghost-arms crossed over my chest, i am smacked in the face with the huge, mighty dick of gravity, and fall straight to the floor. being the helpless victim that i am, i can do nothing but scream and shout for the assistance of people who can’t hear me as my body melts into the hardwood floor and leaks out
below, dripping down to the first story. the room spins for a few moments, and slowly i regain sense of vision.

  i am not meant to stay away.

  i am meant to see.

  standing in the main lobby, i find myself face-to-face with another one of those doctors. the ones who...like to smell. and this one is smelling me. despite not really existing here, the goddamn thing is smelling me. this...harvester. this harvey. it knows i’m here.

  it recognizes my odor.

  and the worst part is, i can feel the air trickling against my skin from its nostrils.

  i can feel it smelling me, oh my god, i can feel it.

  ‘get away,’ i whisper. ‘please just get away.’

  and the thing, this doctor, it says something to me. not to past me, but to ME me.

  it says, ‘kill him.’

  and that’s when me #2 stumbles down the steps, whistle in mouth. he blows down hard, and even though i don’t hear the tune it makes, i can tell by the harvey’s facial expression that it hears plenty. its mouth extends wide in a merciless scream, eyeballs pulsating like a black sun.

  and then it explodes.

  just like before.

  me #2 watches the same way i watched the other harvey self-construct at the drugstore: horrified.

  i look down at where the harvey had just been standing, and i see no signs of its existence. in fact, there is nothing on the ground at all.

  nothing...except for tiny, black spiders.

  chapter fifteen

  Everything fades. Return to present and it’s the same kind of huge, black spider that’s just been pulled from out of my neck. The one that’s now on the ground, running amok in the Rev’s dubious excuse of a residence. It’s the size of a softball. A black, furry softball with eight legs. I puke a little in my mouth as we watch it skittering along the hard concrete floor.

  Meanwhile, the Rev has jumped on top of his futon, shielding himself with a stained pillow. His accent vanishes as he shouts, “Kill that fucking thing!”

  Molly backs up against the wall, wide-eyed and trembling.

  I crawling toward the fleeing neck-demon, grabbing at it with sweaty hands, but it’s too fast. It dodges my every attempt, like it’s able to predict each move before I even make it.

  “What are you doing?” Molly says. “Get away from that thing—oh my God, Ezzy, no!”

  I see it happening, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  The spider redirects its course straight for Ezzy, freezing time in its place. All I’m thinking is, I can’t let that thing bite her. Who knows what kind of crazy poisons it’s carrying. Who knows what this thing even is. It’s more than a spider. It’s more than any of us can ever possibly know.

  Please, no...

  But before the spider can sink its monstrous fangs into my daughter, Ezzy swoops her hand down, picks the creature up, and bites its head clean off. She tosses the decapitated body behind her, like a banana peel.

  We all just look at her, blankly watching as she chews on the spider head. She nods in approval.

  “Yum, Da-doo, that’s yum!” she exclaims, and more vomit introduces itself to the inside of my mouth.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Molly says.

  I swallow, grimacing. “Way ahead of you.”

  The Rev jumps off the couch, excited. He picks up Ezzy and swings her in a circle, the two of them laughing and smiling. “Yes!” he shouts. “Now that is how you fucking kill a spider!”

  “Language!” Molly says, taking our daughter from the madman with a mohawk. “I can’t believe she did that. Good Lord.”

  “I know,” I whisper.

  “Do you think she got anything from it? Like some of its poison?”

  “I don’t know, Mol. I don’t know.”

  She cradles Ezzy close to her chest, rocking her to sleep with her purple teddy bear gripped tightly in her arms, and I’m sitting on the floor and all I’m able to think about is how the harvey had exploded.

  How all that was left was a spider.

  I look back at Ezzy, as she slowly drifts asleep.

  What just happened?

  * * *

  “All right, do you guys think this is a good time to wonder what the hell a fookin’ giant arse spider was doin’ in your neck, or what? Because I can’t think of a better time,” the Rev says.

  We’re all sitting on the floor now, Ezzy on the futon, sound asleep. I wish we were all passed out, too. My body can only go so much longer before it will randomly combust like the harvey had exploded back at the drugstore, back at the warehouse. But there’s still too much to talk about. Specifically, the whole “spider in my goddamn neck” dilemma.

  “Obviously it’s been in there all night,” I say, and it suddenly occurs to me that I have no idea how much time has passed since awakening at the river. This has been the longest night in the history of all nights. Outside, the sun is only just now rising. Our sleep schedules are going to be so screwed up, it’s not even funny. “It’s been in my neck all this time...just waiting for you to pull it out.”

  “But why?” Molly asks.

  “Maybe it didn’t want me to pull it out, ya know?” the Rev says. “Like, I dunno, maybe it wanted to stay in your neck.”

  “Why the hell would it want to do that?” I say, rubbing the hole in the back of my neck and wincing at the pain.

  “No clue. Maybe it’s comfortable, I don’t know, I’ve never hung out in some dude’s neck before.”

  “Either way, it’s dead now,” Molly says, looking at our sleeping infant.

  “That thing was something else,” I say. “I get the feeling it was the cause of my shot memory. Someone put that inside me. I just know it.”

  “Lamb?”

  “Who else?”

  “Maybe Indigo, dude,” the Rev says.

  “You know,” I say, “I keep hearing that name, but nobody’s telling me who the fuck he is.”

  “All right,” the Rev says, “since you’re still all brain stupid, I’ll let this one slide. Ya know how Lamb seems like this big tough cunt, ya? That is, until you blew his face off. Well he was an ant compared to Indigo. Indigo practically fuckin’ runs this city. The police listen to him. He calls the shots. You know that casino at the edge of the city, on Collie Hill?”

  I just look at him stupidly. “No, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Jesus, dude, at least pretend,” the Rev says. “Look, there’s this huge fuckin’ casino, all right? It’s on top of a huge fuckin’ hill. I guess you could call it Indigo’s lair, if you were a nerdy virgin. Normal men call it a fuckin’ casino, and it just so happens to be the place Indigo never leaves. Seriously, I don’t know if he’s on house arrest or what, man.”

  “So he’s rich.”

  “Straight fuckin’ balla.”

  “You think he’s behind this shit?” I ask.

  “If there’s shit going on, Indigo can pretty much be guaranteed to be behind it,” the Rev says. “He makes it his business to be behind it. That’s common knowledge, mate. Get your bearings together.”

  I crack my neck and instantly regret it, the pain from the spider hole inflamed again. “So Indigo wants me dead. The man who controls the city, and everyone in it.”

  “Most of everyone,” the Rev says. “And yeah.”

  “Then what are our options?”

  The Rev shrugs. “We gotta get the fuck out of this city. Out of this state. Shit, we need to be in a whole new country. Even that may not be far enough. Who knows how far Indigo’s reach goes.”

  “All right, fine, we’ll leave. You have any idea how the hell we do that with his goons everywhere?”

  The Rev thinks for a moment. Molly cradles our child in her arms. I wonder if the spider’s head has already digested. What did it taste like? Will this provoke a new food fetish for my daughter? I don’t want to know the answers to any of these questions.

  “Hey!” the Rev says. “You know Jed, right? Oh, wait, of course
you don’t. Anyway we know a guy named Jed who’d be perfect for our...uh, predicament. His special skill is, er, making people go away. You know, disappear.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  The Rev gives me an annoyed look, as if I’m intentionally playing dumb. “I mean he gets rid of dead bodies.”

  “But we’re not dead.”

  “So?” the Rev says. “Can’t be that different. If anyone will know how to sneak us out of this shit hole, it’ll be Jed. Trust me on this.”

  “Okay.” I nod and walk over to Molly and our daughter, wrapping my arms around them. Lips connect to her neck as I whisper, “What do you think, Molly? You up for this?”

  “The alternative would be death,” Molly says. “Of course I’m up for it. What other choice do we have?”

  “I’m sorry I’ve done this to you and Ezzy. I honestly can say I don’t know what I was thinking, but I was a dumbass.”

  She smiles and kisses me softly on the cheek. “But you’re trying to fix it now, and that’s all that matters.”

  Yawning, I return the smile. “We all need to get some sleep first. I’m about to pass out.”

  “Good idea, mate,” the Rev says. He jumps on the futon and promptly falls asleep, within seconds.

  “Did he really just do that?” I ask, still standing in the same spot.

  Molly shrugs. “You’re adorable when you don’t have a memory.”

  * * *

  My eyes open, and I find myself sitting on the cold floor of the Rev’s “house”, leaning against the wall. Molly lays in my lap, and Ezzy lays in hers. Thanks to the lack of sun inside this storage unit, there’s no telling how long we’ve been asleep.

  The Rev sits on the futon reading a book called The Anarchist Cookbook. It sounds familiar. I don’t think it’s actually about food.

  “Hey, Rev,” I say.

  ‘Yeah, mate?”

  “What’s your real name?”

  He laughs. “I’ve known you for how many years now? What makes you think I’m gonna tell you now? I am the Rev and that’s all I’ll ever be.”

  “That’s kind of sad.”

  “Eh,” he says, “it is what it is.”