Riding the Centipede

by Smith, John Claude

  Rudolf smiled.

  “Now, get the drug. The syringe. It must be here, somewhere.” Warren Teagarden’s voice made Rudolf’s ears ache.

  “No, Father. You’ve taken everything else, but not this. This is mine and mine alone.” Marlon’s fists clenched, ball peen knobs at the end of his long arms.

  “Father, why didn’t you tell me you had survived the fire? Why didn’t—”

  “Tell your brother to give me the syringe, Princess. Tell him his father needs it in order to…to get better.” An undercurrent of something that itched at the cerebrum of all present infused the request with a sense of unwholesome need.

  “No. The drug is mine,” Rudolf said, arms folded over his chest. Deny me and die.

  Warren Teagarden, in all his repulsive glory, turned to Rudolf and said, “I paid you to get—”

  “To get you to Marlon. Which I have done. I expect the rest of my fee sent to my account promptly, as soon as we get out of here. But the drug…the drug is mine.”

  “No. Both of you. No. I’ve already injected my blood—my blood—into Burroughs. It’s my ride on the Centipede. No others can experience—”

  “No others?” Frustration from the mound of scarred, permanently melted flesh that was Warren Teagarden. “I want that syringe.”

  “Father, what are you doing?” Jane said, eyes glossy in the inconsistent light.

  “Getting what I want, what I need, Princess. As I’ve always gotten from your brother.” The statement prodded the truth from its hiding place, naked and ashamed. Marlon cowered, shaking. The look on Jane’s face was priceless, no deposit, no return, just drained of hope.

  Rudolf, though amused, remained firm.

  “And I’ve told both of you, the drug is mine.” The humidity in the cavernous room escalated to the edge of bearable, Rudolf’s ire felt by everybody.

  “Aren’t you listening? It won’t work for either of you. It will only work for me.”

  “Listen to the boy,” Burroughs said, from the sheath of shadows. “This is his ride, amigos.”

  Defiant, Rudolf turned to Warren Teagarden, leaned in so close his Sahara warm breathe dipped into the gristle-topped ridges and blackened crevices that defined the mottled, scarred flesh. “You wanted Marlon. You’ve got Marlon. I don’t care about what else you want, especially if it’s this wonder drug, this ultimate experience promised by it. No price will get that for you. Because it’s mine now. Mine now that I am here and it is here. Anybody who stands in my way will meet the most unpleasant of repercussions. Do you understand?”

  Warren Teagarden whined and sobbed. Quivered in anger, frustration. A multitude of curious sounds emanated from his mouth, even if Rudolf wasn’t certain exactly where the mouth was placed on this bulbous blob.

  “Did you…harm Marlon, Father?” Jane said, perhaps in need of confirmation of something else Rudolf didn’t care about.

  The sobbing hitched, a spike of laughter, a sign of sick perversion.

  “Enough of this. You all should congregate at the homestead and hash over the fond or fouled memories. I’ve the Centipede to ride.”

  Rudolf started toward Burroughs, when Cowboy angled in front of him.

  “You don’t want to do that, Cowboy.”

  “I can’t let you harm them on your way to the drug. Seems things are out of sorts and—”

  With one swipe of his forearm, Cowboy was lifted with little effort and tossed against a stone block. He slumped there, out cold.

  “Blake!” Jane said, two steps forward, into the path of Rudolf.

  “I suggest you—”

  Gunshots punctured Rudolf’s back. The sound was a dead thump. The sensation burned within him. He turned.

  Beef jerky grinned at him, as if bullets gave him any advantage.

  “Shoot him again. I want the goddamned drug.”

  “You should pay attention, amigo. This ride is for Marlon and Marlon alone.” Burroughs said. “You won’t like what it does to you. It’s Marlon’s ride.”

  “I don’t care. I’ve nothing left but pain.”

  Rudolf’s eyes pulsed brightly. Shiny dark gray tears streaked down his unhealthy looking face. Lead. The bullets did no harm.

  “Shoot him again, goddamnit,” Warren Teagarden said. His warbly inflection indicated conviction had been replaced by resignation. Or perhaps desperation. Rudolf didn’t understand either.

  “I don’t think so,” Rudolf said, stepping toward them.

  Beef Jerky and the other goon spun and hightailed it into the darkness from whence they came. No matter where they ran or hid, Rudolf would deal with them later.

  Warren Teagarden slumped in his wheelchair and seemed to crawl into himself.

  Rudolf thrust a searing talon into that clump of malleable meat and squeezed. Teagarden burned, but it was so much more than the burn that had left its scorched signature in Warren Teagarden’s flesh.

  The man yelped, a gurgling mix of shock and anguish.

  The woman, Jane, her confusion evident in her mixed allegiance, cried out.

  Marlon grunted, satisfied in a way.

  Even the Cowboy groaned from where he stood shaking and rubbing his head in Rudolf’s peripheral vision.

  Rudolf pulled his arm out of Warren Teagarden. A cauterized cavity yawned at him, still sizzling at his intrusion. It looked like a lumpy volcano. Steam wafted from the hole where Rudolf had reached in and squashed the heart into blackened pulp.

  Turning back to Marlon and Jane, keeping Cowboy in his sights, he said, “Time to take a hike, or take a dive. Which will it be?”

  Marlon ran into the strange shadows atop a stone block, speaking, but the words drifted past Rudolf’s ears without understanding. Nonetheless, Marlon’s urgency demanded Rudolf follow suit

  Jane was frozen in his path. Rudolf relished the possibility of distributing more pain as he raised his arm, eyes rimmed red with designs on slaughter. Cowboy entered stage left and shoved Jane from behind, pushing her out of Rudolf’s path. He stood tall as he moved in front of her, protective. “Marlon, it’s time to go,” Cowboy said, cojones as big as cannon balls.

  “It’s mine. It’s mine!” Marlon held up the syringe filled with a weird, iridescent fluid that promised so much. Not just blood, it was something else; something more.

  Rudolf’s attentions were realigned. Marlon. The syringe.

  “Marlon, please, dear brother. Let it be.”

  “No. It’s mine. If for no other reason than to blot out what that thing we knew as our father did to me. More so, the ultimate experience awaits.”

  “Like father, like son,” Rudolf said, marching toward Marlon with mad intent.

  Chapter 32 Blake

  Blake teetered, still woozy. He pressed his right hand to his ribs. At least a couple were broken. Breathing hurt. He should have listened to Potters, but this lost woman inspired rare compassion amid a life drained of any.

  Cats sprinted to and fro, agitated by the unaccustomed intrusion in their underworld paradise.

  The acrid stench of whatever Chernobyl had done to Warren Teagarden brought tears. Blake’s nose hairs twitched like the legs of surrendering spiders.

  Jane seemed oblivious to it all. Her focus was on her brother’s safety, which was in dire straits as Chernobyl bore down on him.

  The grogginess sifted through Blake’s head like a mist made of fluttering insect wings, distorting, the pixels rolling on a screen gone sideways.

  Chernobyl’s almost handsome yet ruthless countenance, though considerably scarred since their first encounter, started to bubble. Boils played a symphony of havoc, disfiguring him further. Mutilating from within. Blake sensed Chernobyl’s heat, the aura skating over his flesh and clothing. Electric charges gone awry.

  Blake would think it all impossible, yet with everything up to now, the impossible was most likely probable in this strange new world order.

  Marlon’s lean figure moved with insect agility, jittery, of a purpose, holding the syringe in hi
s hand at the end of an arm that seemed too long, too long. Ready, or as ready as he could be, to engage in whatever was necessary—battle; war—with the Russian. As if he had a chance. Yet, as Blake observed as Marlon’s knees bent backwards, maybe he did. With the general design of Marlon’s body a mystery, Blake had no idea what to expect.

  “Do something. That monster will kill Marlon.”

  “What can we do? You’ve seen what he can do.”

  “But…Marlon…”

  He had to try something. Talk was their only hope, Chernobyl’s strength too much for even Blake. Words might work, or words might fall to the concrete floor and join the insects drawn to Chernobyl’s bright eyes. Blake watched them swarm, yet during approach, they snapped, crackled, and bounced off the invisible field around Chernobyl, landing in charred clumps at the monster’s feet.

  What choice did he have?

  “Chernobyl. Let him go. Don’t hurt him. Please.” Blake did not know whether it was a plea to stop the inevitable or if Marlon really had a chance. The images filling his eyes only complicated the issue.

  “He’s lost. Please let us help him. Please Mr. Chernobyl,” Jane said, her voice like cool air passing through a crack in the world.

  “I don’t need your help, dear sister. I don’t need anybody’s help. You had your chance long ago to join me. You did not. Well, it’s too late. I’ve got what I want, and it’s time to inject this into—”

  Chernobyl grabbed Marlon’s too long arm.

  Blake took a few steps toward them, palm to Jane’s chest, making sure she stayed put.

  “You already had a taste, Cowboy. You know you don’t want to go there again.”

  Blake continued to approach them, then spoke again, uncertain of what action he could take that would make a difference. Something physical was out of the question, what with his broken ribs; more so, what with Chernobyl’s obvious advantages.

  “Marlon. You’ve seen what Chernobyl can do. There’s no winning here. There’s nothing but escape, and leaving this madman to his bounty.”

  “This is my ride. The Centipede is mine,” Marlon said, as Blake watched antenna sprout from his forehead. Blake rubbed his eyes and Marlon was just a man again, but Chernobyl was not…

  “I’m not one for patience, Cowboy. I’m not one to be denied. Marlon has made his choice. Like the rest of these infernal flying insects, he shall have his wings clipped,” Chernobyl said. He clamped his large hands on Marlon’s shoulders.

  Steaming boils burst and dripped acid down Chernobyl’s face. He smoldered, changed. Blake stood frozen as Rudolf Chernobyl tore Marlon’s arms from the sockets

  Marlon wailed, a wordless cry.

  Blake stumbled back, shocked, though he knew he shouldn’t be, by the ease with which Chernobyl had maimed the insect, Marlon.

  Chernobyl dropped the left arm, reached up to the still clenched fist of the right arm, and pried the syringe from the dead meat fingers.

  Blood spattered blackly against the concrete as Marlon tripped over his own feet, landing dully on the floor. His head hit full force, no arms to impede his fall. The crack ricocheted through the vast space. Ricocheted from far away, but made its way back to Blake’s ears.

  Jane, her face shiny with tears, the dam broken, shielded her gasping mouth with the back of her hand. She’d made steps closer, wanting to help her brother, but Blake’s raised palm was a stop signal she dared not cross.

  Chernobyl tossed the severed limb in her direction. The bent elbow slammed hard into her belly. She gasped again, this time for stolen breath. Blood stained her clothes, her face. She clenched her eyes closed.

  Blake figured she was praying to wake up from this nightmare. Because this nightmare, no matter how mad, felt like cement hardening in his bones.

  This was the most awake he’d ever been.

  “You think you’re one mean fuck, don’t you, Mr. Chernobyl? Trust me when I say, this was Marlon’s experience to be had. Ah-Puch and his death starved cohorts will have their way with you in Mitnal, if the Centipede doesn’t just eat you itself,” Burroughs said from the darkness.

  “Whoever you are, your words are accounted for and subtracted from recall. They mean nothing in my quest for the ultimate experience. Ah-Puch or any of his Mayan swine do not stand a chance against Rudolf Chernobyl.”

  Blake was at a loss for the vagaries of Ah-Puch or anything Mayan. Perhaps Jane could clue him in…if they made it out of here alive.

  Chernobyl peered into the fluid shadows around the block of concrete. Cats hissed and scurried from his glaring lighthouse surveillance.

  Blake backed away, sensing whatever was next was not something he wanted to experience, even if from the outside.

  Jane moved past him, eyes on Marlon while Chernobyl and Burroughs verbally waltzed.

  “In your case, Mr. Chernobyl, you will experience that which you have never experienced—”

  “That is the point of this whole ordeal, is it not?”

  Blake reached out and took Jane’s left hand in his right. His damaged right.

  She turned to him. “Perhaps I can drag him out of harm’s way.”

  Blake glanced at the lifeless slug of a body that was Marlon and knew harm had already had its way with him.

  He gripped her hand harder. The ache swelled.

  “The Centipede is meant for one person.,” Burroughs said. “Anybody else who interrupts, anybody else who takes the drug instead, goes for a ride into the darkest realm of themselves. Has nothing to do with the chosen one’s experience. Would have more to do with the evil mix masturbating in your baking, black soul, handsome.” Burroughs sniggered, a nasty sound accompanied by the taint of sulphur. “In your case…”

  “In my case, it’s time for the ultimate experience.” Chernobyl said. “Dark or light or whatever awaits. It will be mine!”

  “Quiet now. It’s too late,” Blake said. “Quiet now. And don’t watch.” He held onto Jane’s hand as she teetered between here and there, where her brother lay motionless.

  Rudolf Chernobyl thrust the needle into his arm and pressed down on the plunger until it was empty. Chernobyl’s already chaotic appearance, as if being boiled alive, went viral.

  He dropped to his knees and let out a wail that put Marlon’s arms-torn-off wail to shame. Though his was accompanied by words.

  “No. No. Father…” Chernobyl blurted, his mouth twisting and lips peeling.

  Blake wondered about Chernobyl’s father, as reported to him by Potters—“…born the day of the Chernobyl disaster, crawled from the radiation and took shape as a man, lightning bolt hair, some kind of new breed of human and radiation, a blotch, an aberration, cancer with teeth.”

  “Yes, Mr. Chernobyl. You will experience that which you have never experienced. And being of obviously strange origin, one can only guess as to what that might be.”

  “No. Not this.”

  Blake squinted as Rudolf Chernobyl went supernova. Watched as the madman’s, the mad-thing’s flesh burned bright, the light within searing as lasers dissecting a dead frog. But Chernobyl was anything but dead. The process turned him inside out in a rolling, roiling, regurgitating mass of bones splintering and grinding to dust, while flesh melted and organs roasted in a broth of boiling blood. Tumors, dozens and more, with black razor teeth smiled and salivated and chomped down on the thing that was Rudolf Chernobyl, cannibalizing him as well as each other.

  Eyes born of the deepest pit of Hell stared out at Blake as he stared back.

  “Dear God,” Blake said, his gorge rising but settling in the back of his throat.

  Jane pressed herself closer to him as she glanced back, turned away, and glanced back again.

  Chernobyl protested, the sound spiraling as an ambulance siren, but no help was to be had. The thing that was Rudolf Chernobyl mutated into a concentrated blob of raw, red meat in constant motion, as if caught in an invisible machine that pulled and teased him like taffy.

  The smells crashed as a wave ov
er him, entering his nostrils as well as his flesh. He gagged on the sickening scents of burned plastic and animal musk; damp, aged ruins and electrical currents. Blake found himself backing away as the invisible tentacles of intolerable heat reached out to him.

  The core of the thing that was Rudolf Chernobyl glowed as sunlight kissing chrome. The glare spread outward.

  Insects and lizards flew past Blake’s head. A percussive rhythm grew spastic as they smacked into the glare and instantly turned to ash.

  The thing that was Rudolf Chernobyl’s tortured scream droned on.

  Cats whisked past Blake and Jane, their claws tearing at their clothing, attempting to latch on to either of them. Scratching posts made of flesh, drawing blood. As if they noticed.

  The amorphous mass of Chernobyl swelled. The vortex of light to rival the sun’s became a vacuum.

  It was feeding.

  Marlon’s broken body was sucked toward Chernobyl.

  Broken, but not dead, Marlon mumbled something unintelligible.

  “Marlon,” Jane yelled as she shuffled swiftly around Blake just as Blake felt the pull at his back, the vacuum of the vortex demanding more sustenance. Her movement loosened his hold…and she was airborne.

  One moment. One moment that meant everything. One moment to save a life. Blake reached out with his damaged right hand—it was nearest to her—and grabbed hold of her small right hand—

  —When Blake was twenty-three years old, he met a stripper, Leticia Conley, at a club at the tattered edge of Portland, Oregon, while on a case. During the three weeks he was there, he got to know her well enough to understand in life we are given gifts, and perhaps this woman whose aspirations were much like his, just wanting a normal life away from the grime and grit and streets covered in shit, was his gift.

  They professed their love and were married two months later.

  Blake got a job doing construction, something he seemed made for. He liked the physicality of it, no matter the underlying aches and pains it weaved in his body.

  Normal kicked into high gear when Leticia got pregnant three months into the marriage.

  Nine months later, Claire was born. The light of his life, a reason to wake up in the morning…or the middle of the night. The couple embraced parenthood, even if they had no clue what they were doing.