The Mind is a Razorblade

by Max Booth III

  oh god.

  no.

  the boiler room throbs and pulsates and the bodies around me disintegrate into nonexistence. the room disappears, leaving me floating in absolute nothingness. my only companion is the sound of the man’s scream stretching throughout all eternity.

  chapter eighteen

  Yeah. I know the Refragatio.

  The Resistance.

  Rebels.

  The poor souls with enough balls to fight back against Indigo, to tell him he isn’t shit. In the end, most of them suffer fates similar to the pot of boiling water. But then again, in the end, everybody eats a dirt sandwich. People on Indigo’s bad side just don’t usually get a proper time to digest it.

  “How do we get to the tunnels?” I ask Jed, finally taking him up on a second beer.

  “There’s a trap door I’ve installed under my toolshed in the back. It’ll lead us to ‘em. But don’t even think about trying to find the Refragatio by yourself. You’ll just get lost, place is a goddamn maze down there.”

  “How much to take us to them?” I ask, knowing that I don’t have a dime to my name—or, at least if I do, I’ve forgotten about it. And I doubt Molly and the Rev have anything, either.

  But, fortunately, Jed laughs and waves the thought away. “You can all pay me with the satisfaction of pissing off Indigo. Like I’d just let you lot get killed. I ain’t no monster.”

  “Of course not,” I say.

  “Anyway,” Jed says, “once we get down in the tunnels, trust me, even with me as your guide it’s going to be a hell of a trip. Very easy to get lost. I try not to go down there unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “And the Refragatio, they’ll be willing to help us?”

  Jed smiles. “Yes, I think for you, they’ll especially be willing.”

  “Well, what the hell does that mean?” Molly asks.

  Ezzy erupts with a crying fit from the spare bedroom across the hallway.

  “Shit,” Molly says. “I thought she would have slept longer than that. Poor girl. I’ll go take care of her.”

  I hold out my hand. “Let me.”

  “You sure?” she asks.

  I nod. “I have some forgotten memories to remember.”

  In the bedroom, Ezzy’s still crying under the blanket. She has it thrown over her tiny little body.

  “Da-doo,” she whimpers. “Da-doo, Da-doo.”

  “What’s wrong, baby girl?” I ask, sitting down on the mattress. I slowly pull the blanket off her head. Tears stain her cheeks. She pushes her face against my hand, trying to get closer to me. I pick her up and hold her against my chest, letting her sit on my lap. “Everything’s all right, I promise, it’s okay.”

  “No, no,” she says. “Not okay. Not okay.”

  “Yes it is, honey. Calm down.”

  “Bad, bad, bad. Bad.” She points at the window over the nightstand, lips quivering. “Bad, bad, bad.”

  “Bad?” I ask, my stomach tightening.

  “Bad.”

  “What kind of bad, baby?”

  “Berry bad.”

  I lay her back down on the mattress and stand up, leaning over the nightstand and peering through the window. Beyond the glass, there is nothing but darkness. If I concentrate hard enough, I can see the outline of trees along the perimeter of the cabin’s property. I lean closer, nearly pressing my face against the window, searching for...something. Something bad.

  And something bad finds me.

  Within the darkness, a white glow appears sudden and bright, like a candlewick giving birth to a flame.

  A face, pale and deathly.

  A smile, ancient and grotesque.

  A harvey.

  Its nostrils tense as it attempts to breathe us in through the glass, and its smile widens at the sound of my scream. I grab Ezzy off the mattress and sprint out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind me and running into the kitchen. I stop cold at the sight of a dozen armed gunmen, pointing their weapons at myself and everybody else. Lamb stands at the lead of the gunmen, his dreadlocks hanging over his face. His jaw’s bandaged and stained with blood. Jesus Christ, how can he still be alive?

  “Hey Bobby,” the Rev says. “You recognize this fucker?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I put a bullet in his face not too long ago.”

  “No, no, not that cunt. The other cunt.” He points at a dirty, raggedly looking man holding a snubnose pistol. “He was the bloke at the mono station, the one with newspapers for drawers. Motherfucker snitched.”

  “Shut your faces, sinners!” the gunman says. “You’ll all pay for going against the word of Conundrae.”

  “Shit,” I say.

  “Shit, is right,” Lamb says. When he talks, I can hear the strain in his voice. Every syllable must be a bitch to pronounce.

  “How are you still alive?” I ask him.

  “Funny,” Lamb says. “Last night, I was the one asking you that question.”

  “Hell,” I say. “We’re all just full of mysteries, aren’t we?”

  I look down at the kitchen table. Jed’s face is covered in blood, but he’s still alive, still breathing. Molly’s just sitting at the end of the table, shaking, eyes glued on our daughter. I hold Ezzy close against my chest, not knowing where this is going, but knowing it isn’t going anywhere good.

  “Ow, Da-doo,” Ezzy says, and I realize I’m holding her a bit too tight.

  Remarkably, all Lamb’s goons look nearly identical, like carbon copies of Raoul. Somehow I doubt my abilities in taking them all down as I had the last group. For one thing, I’m fresh out of vibrators. I try to concentrate on my mind powers instead, but the strain just inflicts a migraine.

  “Where do you get all these guys?” I ask, as Lamb nears. “The Big Dumb Bad Guy Warehouse?”

  “There’s a staffing agency,” Lamb explains. He holds up his gun and jams it into my face. “I don’t know how the hell you keep getting away, but there won’t be no repeat this time, motherfucker.”

  Ezzy reaches up and wraps her tiny fingers around the huge barrel of his gun. She giggles at the coldness.

  “Well, hello,” Lamb says, eyes looking down. “What’re you doing, little girl?”

  “Fuck off,” I whisper, and he knees me in the gut, making me double over with a very audible grunt. Lamb snatches Ezzy from my arms.

  “I’ll take that,” he says gleefully, and brings down the handle of his gun into the back of my skull. My face meets the floor.

  “No, Da-doo, no!” Ezzy cries.

  I look up from the ground just in time to see Molly charging at Lamb, only to be elbowed in the face by one of his goons. She falls down next to me. The Rev starts to stand up from the table, but sits back down after another goon shoves a gun muzzle in his face.

  Ezzy screams, howls. “No, no, no!” She smacks Lamb in the face repeatedly.

  “Dammit, girl,” Lamb says, “I’ve punched a baby before, don’t think I won’t do it again.”

  He hands her to one of his Raoul-looking goons. “Take her, will you? Indigo might be interested in her, see what he says. Not everyday we can offer Conundrae a fresh baby. Just anything to get her the hell away from me, I can’t stand to listen to a goddamn baby cry.”

  “Yes, boss.” Two of them leave through the kitchen exit, one carrying Ezzy. She screams for me to help.

  “No!” I shout, attempting to get up. I am put right back down by another pistol-whipping from Lamb. Molly doesn’t even seem to move—the elbow to the face must have knocked her out cold.

  I watch the man walk away with my little girl.

  No.

  I sit up and stare at their backs, burying my vision within their flesh. I visualize their skeletons ripping apart and turning to dust. I visualize—

  “Oh, no, I don’t think so, motherfucker,” Lamb says, and shoots me in the chest.

  And then all I can understand is pain.

  Ezzy’s cries fade in the distance.

  Everything fades.

&nbs
p; Life fades.

  Ezzy...

  I’ve failed.

  No...God, no...

  chapter nineteen

  Something’s wrong. I’m not dead.

  The pain’s too strong to open my eyes, but at least I can actually feel pain, instead of the alternative. Instead of nothing.

  My chest feels like it’s on fire. Everything’s in pieces and I wither on the floor. I hear Molly screaming my name, but I can’t acknowledge her, can’t even fucking look at her.

  The insides of my chest seem to be moving around, like loose flecks of dirt in the wind. Everything is warm, everything is hot. Everything is miserable. But, somehow, I am not dead, and I can’t forget that. Forgetting that means forgetting how to breathe, forgetting how to function.

  I need to function if I’m going to save Ezzy.

  And I must save Ezzy.

  I try to sit up, but my body doesn’t budge. All my energy’s concentrated on my chest—no, not just my chest, but my heart. That motherfucker, he shot me in the heart.

  How am I still alive?

  What is happening to me?

  I think about the harvey in the window. I think about my powers. My weird, stubborn abilities. They don’t come when I want them to, but when they feel like it. And right now, they certainly feel like it.

  I think about what Jed had said.

  (“With a harvey, life continues, even if the organ in question is no longer connected to where it’s supposed to be connected.”)

  And I realize that the sensation in my chest isn’t just in my head: there really is something moving around. My literal broken heart’s being sewn back together. Holy shit. The power is in my mind. The life force is my brain, and whatever’s hiding inside it.

  How many spiders are in me right now, working me raw like a perpetual motion machine?

  Slowly but surely, sugar pie.

  That voice again. Who does it belong to?

  “Bobby! Oh, God, Bobby, wake up!”

  I open my eyes. Molly’s kneeling over me, sobbing on my face.

  “I think I’m good,” I say, and she gasps and kisses me.

  It doesn’t last long.

  Lamb kicks her off of me and gives me a curious look. “You are one powerful motherfucker, I’ll give ya that. Whatever Indigo did to you, goddamn, imagine what I could do with some cool Superman shit like that. Maybe my jaw wouldn’t be so fucked up right now. Ugh. You really did a number on me. And you’re over here bitchin’, yet you got the super duper healing powers and shit. Fuck it. Maybe you can survive one bullet, but you ain’t gonna survive a whole motherfuckin’ clip, nigga.”

  My skull feels like an empty, metal bucket, and there’s a crazy person inside of it swinging an aluminum baseball bat against the walls. Gritting through bloody teeth, I say, “Your bullets are mosquito bites.”

  I spit at him. He just stands there, completely still, the spit trickling down his cheek.

  He raises his gun toward me, then gasps. His legs collapse and he falls to the floor beside me, motionless. A large steak knife sticks out of his back.

  I look up. Molly’s standing above us, breathing heavily, crying.

  “Nice one,” I tell her.

  “Let’s go,” she says.

  “Good idea.”

  The Rev helps me to my feet. All of Lamb’s men are gone. “Where the hell did everybody go?”

  “He has them searching the premises,” Jed says. “They’re trying to find my entrance to the tunnels.”

  “What should we do then?” Molly asks. “Those bastards have my daughter.”

  “She’s probably gone by now.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, the people who took her have gained too much distance. We won’t catch up to them on foot.”

  “Well, where would they take her?” I ask.

  Jed stares at me and waits for me to answer my own question.

  “The casino?” I guess.

  “Indigo almost never leaves the building. Of course they’re taking her to the casino.”

  “Well, that’s where we have to go then.”

  Jed nods. “Agreed, but first, we have a small army outside ready to tear us apart. We need to be able to defend ourselves.”

  “And how do you suppose we do that?” Molly asks.

  And Jed grins.

  * * *

  Jed leads us out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the master bedroom. Molly grips Ezzy’s Donut, trembling and silently sobbing.

  The Rev takes one look at the king size bed and says, “Mate, now is not the time to take a nap.”

  Jed grunts and nods to the opposite site of the bedroom. “This way.”

  He opens a door and pushes us into a walk-in closet, shutting the door behind us.

  “We can’t just stay here and hide,” Molly says. “We have to find Ezzy.”

  “We’re not hiding,” Jed says. He sounds distracted, preoccupied. “Just hold on a second, will ya?”

  “Unless you have Narnia hiding back here, this plan is terrible,” the Rev says.

  In the darkness of the closet, someone knocks on the wall. An instant later the closet wall slides open, revealing a brightly lit room beyond the hanging coats.

  “Holy shit,” the Rev says. “You do have Narnia.”

  We enter the secret room and our eyes glue themselves to the walls. Various weapons hang from floor to ceiling: pistols, shotguns, machine guns, rifles, chainsaws, samurai swords, the works.

  “Welcome to the armory,” Jed says, limping toward the guns. He gives Molly a small pistol and tells her how to use it. He nods at us. “Get something and make sure it’s loaded. We’ve still a long way to go.”

  The Rev’s eyes glow as he zones in on a shotgun. “Oh, hell yes.”

  I grab a machine gun since it’s the closest thing within reach. Every one of these things can kill. There’s no reason to be picky. Jed takes a machine gun of his own and collects extra ammo and shells for our weapons, distributing them to the group.

  “You guys ready for this?” he asks.

  “No,” Molly says.

  Voices erupt from the master bedroom: “They’re in the closet!”

  “Oh crap,” Jed says, and sprints across the armory. He slams his fist against a red button and the secret passageway slides shut just as a round of bullets bursts through the closet.

  “It’s all right,” Jed says. “The entire room is strong enough to withstand a nuclear bomb.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” I say. “What do we do now?”

  He shrugs. “Sit and wait, I suppose.”

  “Man, fuck that shit,” the Rev says, rocking up and down on his toes. “Let’s go kick their asses!”

  “Are you insane?” Molly says. “As soon as we open the door, they’ll shoot our faces off.”

  We stand there, holding our weapons and listening to the men in the other room shoot at us. The gunfire is muffled by the walls, making it almost sound like we’re underwater.

  “Well,” Jed finally says, “we could always just blow them up.”

  He moves across the room and pulls a hand grenade off the wall. He holds it up to us like a trophy. “This will shut them up a bit, yeah?”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  The Rev pulls another grenade from the wall and sticks it in his kilt pocket. When he notices me watching him, he shrugs. “Hey, we might need one later.”

  “You’re gonna end up blowing your dick off.”

  He shrugs again. “I’ve had worst things happen to it.”

  “Anyway,” Jed says, “it’s probably a good idea if y’all get to the other side of the room. This ain’t gonna be pretty.”

  Jed leans his ear against the wall, listening. Then he opens the door again, pulls the pin off the grenade, and tosses the grenade through the coats, into the bedroom.

  “Hey, they’re not dead!” one of the men shout.

  Jed closes the door again just as the bedroom explodes. The armory shakes for a moment, then goes
still. The men are no longer shooting.

  “All right,” Jed says, “the goal is to get to the toolshed. There’s a small crawlspace opening behind it—we go through that, we get to the tunnels. Best way to the toolshed is through the door in the kitchen. You guys ready?”

  Yeah. We’re ready. We have to be. Every second we aren’t moving onward is another second Ezzy’s not in my arms.

  The time to move is now.

  The bedroom is destroyed. Half the ceiling has collapsed into the room. Blood stains the floor, sticking to our feet as we pass through. We exit the bedroom and move down the hallway, toward the kitchen. Jed holds up his hand and indicates for us to stop until he can confirm the coast is clear. He peeks his head into the kitchen doorway and immediately pulls back seconds before a round of gunfire bursts past.

  “Shit, how many are there?” I ask.

  “Two, maybe three.”

  “We’re screwed,” the Rev says. “I don’t even know how to use a shotgun.”

  “Then why did you choose one?” Jed asks.

  “Because it looks badass.”

  “How thick are these walls?” I ask.

  Jed shrugs. “Not very.” He realizes what I’m thinking, and nods. “Let’s do it.”

  “You go ahead,” I tell him, kneeling down by the doorway.

  Jed presses the muzzle of his machine gun against the wall and holds down the trigger, blindly releasing a spray of bullets.

  Ignoring the pain in my chest, I leap into the kitchen and dive over the table, tackling one of the gunmen as he shields himself from Jed’s bullets. Amazingly, I manage to dodge the bullets as well.

  I slam the handle of my gun into the man’s skull and he stops struggling. Another smack to the head and he’s completely limp—either unconscious or simply dead, I don’t care which. Ahead of me another one has realized what I’m doing, and he’s fumbling for his own gun. I unleash a round of machine gun bullets in his chest before he even has time to aim.

  Another one screams behind me as he rises from cover, raising his own machine gun toward me. The Rev’s shotgun goes off from across the room, and the man about to shoot me suddenly suffers from exploding head syndrome.