There’s a pause. Then Duffy says, “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Be there in a minute.”
“Goddamn right you will.”
I mute my Asimov.
More echoes of misery and sadness and madness bounce along the walls. Dark corners. That urge to flee and never, ever look back.
A shadow falls over my feet. A long, wobbly shadow attached to a woman wrinkled beyond her age. Her hair is the color of milk. With every minor gust of air, her blue gown tightened against her frail, bony body.
She’s stumbling.
I don’t move.
She walks up to me and lays two hands across my face. “My boy?”
I take her hands in mine. She’s freezing. A cold wraith. “Hey lady. You shouldn’t be out here. Where’s your room?”
“I miss my boy.”
I grab the ID tag around her wrist. “Come on, sweetheart. Gotta get you warm. Under the covers.”
I don’t know if she’s just old, or an Alzheimer’s patient, or suffering from dementia, or a stroke victim, or what. Her enormous hazel eyes never focus on any one thing and she looks perpetually concerned. Tired maybe. Or very scared.
I push the door to her room open. Lead her to the bed.
She sits on the edge. “I miss my boy.”
I pull the pale blue blankets back. Heft her up with an arm. Rest her against the stiff pillows.
Her hand snaps forward and grabs my wrist.
I grimace. “Lady, I ain’t your boy.”
Soon as I speak, her eyes drop and she sinks into the bedding. She looks too dehydrated to cry, but that doesn’t stop her.
Pills and a picture of a young man clutter the nightstand next to her bed.
I glance up and around. Her room is the yellow of rotted teeth. The fluorescent light above buzzes. There are no decorations. No sign that anyone has ever been here—which of course made it easier when someone has to leave. In a body bag or not.
No letters. No stuffed animals. No cards. No flowers. However much she loves her boy, it doesn’t seem as though he reciprocates.
I hate this.
I get close to her. Push the flimsy strands of white hair from her forehead. I whispered, “He hasn’t forgotten about you.”
Sometimes you have to lie.
She drifts to sleep. I turn to leave.
I don’t hear Duffy come up on me as tears well in my eyes and I press my fingers into the corners.
He puts his hand on my shoulder.
I bark. “I’m fine. Fuck off.”
He steps back. “I didn’t mean anything by it, dude. I just...” He regards me with something like pity. “How did you get in here?”
I close the door to the old lady’s room. Rub my eyes and start forgetting. “I got my photographer taken away by security for stalking patients and pretended to be from Schneer’s church. I told the receptionist that I wanted to talk to him about God.”
“She fell for that?” He scratches his head. “We gotta get a new receptionist.”
“Yeah, you do. Anyway, here’s Schneer’s room number. I have no idea where I’m going, so I need you to get me there and stand lookout.”
“Right on, man. Follow me.”
The weird darkness of Bellevue’s foyer and first floor permeates the entire building. Every corner is bathed in shadow. And, frankly, it’s a struggle to get up to the third level without going batty from all of the screaming that the patients are doing.
Worse, Duffy insists that we use the stairs instead of the elevators. He wants to minimize the chances that we see a doctor or patient or anyone else at all. Each step up the well reminds me of the toll self-medication has taken on my body.
I look out a foggy wire-window as we march up the third set of stairs. The black clouds of an all-too-common superstorm blot out the sun. It’s poised to begin weather’s winter assault on the city.
Duffy starts whistling on the fifth flight and keeps it up all the way to the far, frightening corridor where Schneer’s room is located.
He’s chipper and it’s annoying as hell.
Before Duffy opens the door to Schneer’s room, he turns to me and, without a hint of worry on his face, says, “We’ve got him in a straight jacket, but be careful. He’s a kinda bitey.”
“Bitey?”
“Like, he might try to bite you. He’s tried to chomp on three different orderlies. Anyone who gets too close. We haven’t finished his blood tests, but he’s way sick with something.”
“Rabies. Hooray.”
“Nah, prolly some entertaining new strain of neurosyphilis. Like that Law & Order episode.”
I scratch my head. “There are nine thousand seasons of Law & Order and I don’t remember any episode where the perpetrator uses his prick as a weapon.”
“Was on classics channel a while back, dude. Guy with neurosyphilis went nuts and murdered more than a few people.”
“Yeah, yeah I know neurosyphilis makes people nutters. He must’ve gotten it from the whore. That’s why he went after her.”
“Autopsy says the hooker was clean. Which makes some of the doctors think it’s a parasite. Something autonomous he picked up and didn’t realize. Maybe he was walking in the wrong place in bare feet and got it that way.” Duffy shrugs. “Just keep him at arm’s length and don’t spook him. He wigs out easy.”
I pull my datapad and a digital camera—fuck Declan—out of my satchel and motion for Duffy to unlock the door. “Let me know if anyone comes our way,” I say as I backed into the room.
Duffy offers me a thumbs-up and closes the door.
I tap on the glass to get my friend’s attention. “And stay close. I know these doors automatically lock when they’re closed. I might need to get out fast.”
He gives another thumbs-up.
The stench of Schneer’s room hits me hard. Carrion. The olfactory assault of a decaying hobo on a subway either at the last stop cuz he didn’t want to get off or the first stop cuz he had slept through the train’s turnaround. Neglected flesh rotting on bones.
Schneer huddles in the corner. Totally uninterested in me. He’s staring out the window. Grey snow has started to fall. It looks like ash and turns the view into a nightmare memory.
I clear my throat. “Hello, Mr. Schneer.” The datapad starts recording. I stare through the viewfinder of my camera. Snap shots as I talk. I take one centered on him. Then one where he’s in the far right side of the frame and the window’s centered. Isolation. Loneliness. That’s the desired effect. I keep taking variations to make sure I get the right image.
Even if this goes south, I tell myself, I can sell the photos. Exclusive. Money shots.
I say, “Mr. Schneer, I was wondering if you’d be able to answer a few questions. Like what you were thinking on the night you killed that hooker.”
Between shots, he rotates slightly toward me, but I don’t capture the moment cuz of the delay from the memory card reading the photo. It’s just a split second, but goddamnit.
“Mr. Schneer, what were you thinking when you killed Jocelyn? The prostitute? What would you tell your family if they were here now?”
A long, raspy wheeze slithers to my ears as he inhales. The skin on his forehead is mottled with scabs. It looks like he’s been scratching ferociously at his face. Chunks of his cheeks are missing. And as I zoom in on his hands, I can see a pulpy red and black substance under his finger nails.
I turn toward the door. Shout at Duffy: “Don’t you fuckers clean the patients? This guy is rank and it looks like he’s cut himself up pretty bad.”
“He’s only been here since this morning, man,” Duffy shouts back through the glass. “We cleaned him up when the cops dropped him off. That’s when he attacked the orderlies and after that we just tried to make sure he didn’t hurt anyone. I’ll make sure someone gets in here tonight.”
Schneer’s scabby dirty fingers...
It takes me that long to realize that Schneer has found a way out of that straight jacket. That his hands are free. That he intends to do very bad things with em.
I think: This is all fucked, but I want the story. Just have to keep him at a distance. Just have to make sure he stays over there.
One would be right in asserting, of course, that my own behavior is arguably also psychotic. Who would do this? Who would voluntarily stay locked in a room with a homicidal madman?
My own response to that hypothetical is that, yes, it is psychotic—or at least ill-advised in terms of self-preservation. But also, shut up. You ain’t a journalist.
I look again through the viewfinder and start snapping. Schneer turns to me. I zoom in on his face.
He’s done serious damage to everything except his eyes. They’re wild. His pupils are dilated beyond anything heroin can do. They’re cracked manhole covers.
I say, “What about the woman, Schneer?”
He inhales deeply again. Sucks air into his lungs.
“Jocelyn...” he says. “Damaged flesh. I wanted her. I wanted to feel good... Oh, God, oh, God, it’s not me in me. It’s the thing. Voice.”
He brings his dirty left hand up. Digs into a cheek wound that’s just barely beginning to clot. His fingernails slide underneath the little bit of scab that’s there. He punches through into his mouth. Droplets of blood curl out from behind his tongue. They spill. Stain the front of his jacket. Marking the floor in thick globs. He opens his maw. Wiggles a finger at me from the back of his jaw.
Finally, that sense of self-preservation kicks in.
This is fucked.
“This is fucked,” I shout to Duffy outside.
I look back through the viewfinder and keep shooting. It’s like stop-motion animation. His movements seem stuttered through the eye of the camera.
I try to stay calm. Focused. “Why’d you want her, Schneer? Revenge? To keep her quiet?” It’s not working.
His fingers wrap around the flesh of his jaw. Tugs down. Tears flesh. It sounds the same way ripping plastic does. The skin of his face stretches and pops as he wrecks the meat that masks his face’s bones. He’s taking off his entire cheek.
Rip. Rip. Rip.
And pitter patter goes the blood.
When he lets go, the flesh hangs loose around his chin. I shoot. He tilts his head and I can see all his teeth and red gums. I shoot. He runs his tongue along the left side of his jaw. I shoot. Blood streams out of his head. I shoot.
He struggles, slurring his words with what remained of his mouth. “I’m sorry! I didn’t want the sex. I wanted food.” Schneer makes all the words sound more squirted than spoken. “The thing. It gets inside you. The thing from them. Oh, God.” He makes retching sounds. “I’m just.” He clamps his fingernails into his tongue. “I’m just so hungry. So sorry.”
I back into the door. Hit it with my elbow. “Need to go now,” I shout. I don’t wanna turn away from Schneer, but I do. I try the handle. The door’s locked.
I slam my palm against the wired safety glass. Fear has fully mangled my masculinity and sense of purpose.
Schneer pukes. “I’m so hungry. I’m so sorry. The thing. The thing. It’s in my mind…”
I scream uselessly at the door. “Need to go now!”
Duffy isn’t there.
A headache explodes in my brain.
I turn back to Schneer. I shoot. He plays his fingers along his newly exposed gum line. Bites down on the tips of his digits. I shoot. His head snaps toward me. Those big blackhole eyes.
He squeals. “Food!”
I try the door again. No good.
I yelp. “Need. Go. Now.”
Schneer runs at me.
I lean hard against the door, taking photos as I stumble.
The door opens.
I spill out into the hallway.
I stare up through the viewfinder. Declan’s ugly mug enters the frame.
He says, “You filthy fuckin faggot.”
My finger holds down the shutter button. I keep taking photos.
Declan says, “I am gonna kill you so hard—”
He’s cut off by the charging monstrosity that Schneer has become.
I watch it through the camera.
Schneer goes sailing over me. His arms outstretched. He catches Declan at the shoulders. I thought Schneer was aiming for me, but I’m not sure he cares anymore.
Declan’s eyes go wide. A drop of blood falls down onto the lens.
I roll to the side. Stand. Schneer has Declan in a death grip. His hands tighten around the photographer’s neck, but Declan’s doing a pretty good job of keeping Schneer’s hungry mouth at arm’s length.
Schneer snaps his teeth forward. Declan grabs just underneath Schneer’s jaw and pushes up. Schneer keeps chomping.
Declan looks at me. “Dude, what the fuck. Help!”
I take another shot before tossing the camera into my bag. “Just keep doing...that. I gotta find something.”
Declan grunts. “Yeah. No problem.”
I haul ass down the corridor. There’s gotta be a fire station or something—anything—that might house a weapon. Around the corner and down the hall there’s an open security office. Inside is a fire station with a shiny red axe. I break the safety glass. Yank the tool from its holder. Charge back toward Declan.
Schneer has gotten him to the ground. Declan struggles to keep the former councilman away from his neck. And he’s doing fine.
Until he slips and pushes Schneer to the side.
When the psycho politician hits the floor, he scrambles for Declan’s arm and bites down. Declan yowls as Schneer’s teeth scissor through his skin. Schneer pulls his head back. The tendons and veins in Declan’s forearm tear and burst. There are muted snaps, crackles and pops.
Duffy appears at my side, zipping up his fly. He blinks. Rubbed his face. “Wow.”
I yell. “Call the fuckin security mutants.”
I realize in that instant that it could be—and by all rights should be— me there, on the floor, getting gnawed on by Mr. Skullfuck. I should be the one screaming. Bleeding. Panicking.
But, I ain’t. So screw that noise.
Duffy scurries off.
I run toward Declan and the violent pol.
The councilman goes for a second bite.
I swing down at an angle. Introduce my axe to the side of Schneer’s head.
The blade makes a spectacular thunk sound as it penetrates his skull. It impacts at almost the dead center of his eye and splits his head above the cheekbone diagonally. The blade shears his melon in half. A geyser of brain and blood ejaculate up. It just barely marks the ceiling. Bounces off. Sears it red. The burp of bloody bits lands in sloppy chunks.
Schneer wobbles on his knees. Declan’s skin still between his teeth. His jaw works the flesh over, unaware he’s dead.
In one perfect motion, the mad politician keels over, sends a stream of blood across the floor, lets loose a fart and pisses all over Declan’s right side.
Declan groans. “Thanks.”
A heavy hand grips my shoulder.
It’s Black and White from downstairs. Black pinches my arms behind my back. White gets Declan to his feet and does him the same.
I say, “Hey, that asshole attacked us.” I nod toward Declan “Look at this poor motherfucker’s arm.”
Declan tries to show em his shredded skin, wriggling free from the mutant’s grasp. White whips the photog’s appendage back into position. Declan hisses from the pain.
Colleen says, “You are a liar. Liars make baby Jesus cry.”
Man...
She keeps going. “You said you were here to talk about God. You said you were here to help Jonathon. To cheer him up.” She come
s close to me and pushes her fat face into mine. She stares. Waits for a response.
I say, “Yeah, well, the axe had other ideas.”
“I called the police, you murderer.” Then, with a touch of regret: “I thought you wanted to spread the Good Word.”
I can’t stop laughing.
That doesn’t help matters.
Chapter 7:
omgwtfbbq
I use my one phone call at the police station to get in touch with Fred. Explain the insanity of the situation. Plead for him to help get me out of this mess. He agrees. Cuz he’s a better friend than I am.
I would’ve called my editor, but I can’t remember his number. A heavy reliance on digital communications can do that to a person.
I also considered calling Helene. But picking up the phone to hear her boyfriend prattle on about a cannibal councilman and then why that boyfriend needs bail money probably won’t go over well.
“Oh, yeah honey. I may or may not have murdered someone with an axe, but it’s totally cool. Self-defense! Everything’s fine. Bring a lot of money. Kisses!”
Besides, she knows I was on assignment for Schneer. It isn’t totally out of the ordinary for us to miss one another cuz of our schedules. No need to worry her unduly.
Still.
Fuck.
I’m facing murder charges. Murder.
I see the judge. Say my piece. Get my court date. Wait to see how much bail is gonna be.
Think positive.
Haha. Positive? Fuck you!
So, uh, I try to think positive. This is a new thing for me, but I try. My company has the best lawyers in existence and my Journalism Insurance, which covers things like “Death by Email” and “Transitory Language Execution”—I don’t know what that is, either, so don’t worry—is all paid up. I can get out on bail, at least.
I tell Fred: “Be quick about it. The fascists won’t let me smoke.” I cock an eye at the NYPD soldier next to me. He isn’t amused.
Fred says, “I will. Wanna hear something funny?”
I don’t answer.
Fred carries on anyway. “There was a ninja attack in Queens. Some crazy dude got all made up like a B-movie reject and flipped out with a sword. He sliced an old Jamaican guy in half. Chopped the heads off two teenagers and hacked up four toddlers. Dunno why he killed the kids. I guess they were easy targets.”
Live, From the End of the World Page 6