Brain Dead Blues

by Matt Hayward

  With that, the creature bit down on Richard's leg. He yelped and thrashed about on the grass, kicking out blindly to try and dislodge the beast. Angela's excitement began to devolve into distress.

  What if somebody heard him? Richard was making an awful lot of noise, after all. If someone knew that he was here, then they'd know she had something to do with him going missing. That's what was going to happen, right? Richard Hogan was going to be eaten alive. Angela Hughes was going to be responsible.

  The critter tore through Richard's jeans in a matter of seconds. It gnashed its pointy little teeth again and again, working its way down to Richard's hairy leg. Then it went to work on the fatty meat there.

  Richard fell to the grass, his skin smeared in sweat and blood. He grated his teeth together as he looked down to the source of the pain.

  “What the hell is that thing? Get it off me!”

  But Angela had no intention of removing the monster. Instead, she'd scooped up her father's garden trowel from the ground and stalked towards Richard.

  “What in God's name is this?” Richard grabbed for the critter in panicked lunges, but it was too quick. It continued to feast. The creature reminded Angela of a piranha, using its fishhook teeth to tear the man's ankle to ribbons. “Angela, help me!”

  Angela shook her head. The whole world seemed to have transformed into a twisted dream. Her body felt light as a balloon as she glided across the grass, the garden trowel clutched tightly in her small hand.

  Then she stopped. Her eyes grew wide.

  “What's happening?” Tears streamed down Richard's scrunched face. By now, the creature had devoured most of his calf, that purring noise mixed with hungry whines.

  Angela had stopped because a dark shadow had fallen over the man, one that made her bowels threaten to go loose and finish destroying her tights.

  Two creatures stood behind Richard, both looking almost like her new pet, only much larger. They had come out of the forest at the end of the yard, undetected. They were easily each over six foot in height, their thick brown hair oily and reeking of decay. Their leathery faces were haggard and wrinkled. As they watched Richard Hogan, their black eyes shining and excited, their nostrils quivered, attracted by the scent of blood and flesh. Their extraordinarily long arms came down to below their bent kneecaps, ending in sharp, black nails. They had come to feed.

  Angela dropped her trowel and ran for the house. She could hear the monsters join their companion in the feast. Perhaps they were her new pet's parents, brought forth from the depths of the forest by the notion of fresh meat.

  Richard Hogan's shrieks only lasted seconds, drowned out by terrible, slopping sounds. Something ripped, like velcro, and Angela tried hard not to vomit.

  Was that his leg? Her mind was frantic. Or his head? Oh god, please don't say that it was his head.

  Slamming the door behind her, Angela gawked out of the window. She stood on her tiptoes to see clearly, her breath heavy. She trembled as she saw the source of that godawful ripping noise.

  It had been Richard Hogan's head, after all.

  The two larger creatures lapped at his body with sickeningly large, black, slug-like tongues. The blood dribbled from their mouths, soaking into the dirty fur of their chests. One of them had Richard Hogan's head clasped in its claws. There was a strange clicking noise as its jaw dislocated and its mouth fell open to a nauseating size. Sharp rows of teeth, like shards of glass, lined its lips. It inserted Richard's head and bit down. A repulsive crunch rang out across the yard.

  Angela moaned. Now that she could see the creatures more clearly and from a safe distance, she noticed the difference between the two. The one who had eaten Richard's head had breasts. Her chest was much larger than the one on the right. Besides, Angela thought, the one on the right was definitely a male. The sight of that thing made her want to scream.

  The male creature mercifully began to drag Richard's carcass towards the thicket of the forest. Angela's pet was still on Richard, now taking mouthfuls from his thigh. The bushes rustled as the critters passed through, birds taking flight in all directions. The grass in the yard was painted in gore. Then the garden fell still.

  Angela waited for an hour to pass, giving the creatures plenty of time to get far away from her house. She didn't want to go out there and have them see her. If they did, they were sure to devour her. Yes, she had taken care of what she guessed was their child, but still, she wasn't stupid. They were animals, after all. Angela knew animals couldn't be reasoned with – especially ones who had an appetite for human flesh.

  The mess of innards and blood had been easier to wash away from the grass than Angela had expected. The creatures had left little evidence behind other than a shredded piece of what must have been muscle. Besides that, there was only blood – a lot of blood. It had washed away easily with the garden hose, foaming like a red river. Angela inspected the yard before returning to the house. It was all gone. Everything. The garden was back to the same way it always had been.

  The next morning, Angela woke to her father's voice from downstairs.

  The day before had been strange. Angela felt as if she had the word guilty tattooed across her forehead. When her father came home, every glance he gave her made her stomach lurch. He had asked if she was feeling okay and said that she looked a little ill. Angela had agreed with him, suggesting that maybe it was something she had eaten. He'd put her to bed early and stayed up later than usual, on account of Richard Hogan's disappearance. Angela had heard him on the phone with his best friend, Rodger. He said that Richard Hogan was an alcoholic, and he'd always expected the man to up and leave his family. He was just surprised it had taken so long to finally happen. After that, a phone call from a very distressed Linda Hogan, Kathy's mother, had come in. Angela's father had tried to reassure her that Richard would show up eventually. He'd suggested that maybe Richard just needed some time to himself. He was sure Preston would also be back very soon. Dogs do wander off, after all.

  “What's up, Daddy?” Angela stretched and scratched her hair as she made her way down the stairs. She felt better after a good night's sleep.

  “Look at this.” Her father pointed to the open front door, where scratch marks streaked across the wood. They only reached knee-height, and looked deep. Something had desperately tried to get in while they slept. “Looks like that little terrier came back to town, after all. Must have been scared and confused being out at night, came to the wrong house. At least that's one mystery solved.”

  Angela smiled. “Sure. Must have been Preston trying to get in, all right. Or maybe another wild animal? Something that wanted to be my pet?”

  Angela's father cocked his head and chuckled. “You're a strange one, missy.”

  Cordyceps

  “Annie Lee? What's she doing out and about?”

  Sam cut off the bandsaw. “What'd you say, Leonard?”

  The air was thick with floating sawdust. It drifted out of the gloomy garage that served as the Grey Wood Carpentry work space and into the bright sunlight of Mayfair Street. The screeching saw settled down as Sam lowered his protective goggles and exhaled. It was too hot of a day to be cutting timber.

  “Annie Lee just walked by. Haven't seen her in months. Ain't she got cancer?”

  Sam nodded. “Last I heard, yeah. I need to get some air, come on. Smoke break.”

  Stepping out of the clammy garage, Sam squinted from the bright glare of the day. All along Mayfair Street, the carbon copy homes were bathed in sunlight. It seemed as if Leonard's Garage was the only building in town that sat in the shadow of Harrison, the mountain that made up this side of the valley. The Harrison Trail was the only draw the small town had, and each year during the summer months, families flocked there to walk the twelve miles to the top of the mountain and back. Why in the world that passed as a recreation to them, Sam wasn't sure.

  Leonard pointed up the street, his old, weather-worn hand shaking. “See? Annie Lee. She's outside.”

 
Sam was more concerned about the shaking in Leonard's hands. He worried about how much time they had left to run the garage together. At sixty-nine, Leonard should by all means have stayed in retirement and left the shop to Sam, who still had a good twenty years before he threw in the towel. But Leonard was stubborn, and hard times called for desperate measures, he said. They'd play it by ear until they couldn't anymore. Sam was thankful either way, because without Leonard, he'd still be unemployed and trying to find life's answers at the bottom of a bottle.

  Sam fished a cigarette from his pocket and sat on a cinder block by the garage door. “She's going for a walk. What's the big deal?”

  “She hasn't been out in months, Sammy. I'm telling you, it's strange. Lillian, her caretaker? She pops by now and then to chew the fat with me, and I just saw her last week. Said that old Annie was just about ready to kick the bucket. Couldn't even get out of bed anymore. It's just peculiar. Don't you find that peculiar?”

  Sam lit his cigarette. “Things might have taken a turn for the better, who knows?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, maybe.”

  Folding his arms, Leonard watched Annie shuffle further down the street. His liver-spotted brow wrinkled in concentration. “It's curious, all right. I mean, it looks like she's going for the Harrison Trail. That's a twelve mile hike up and back. What's she thinking?” He shifted his weight to his other foot. “Do you mind if I pop over to Lillian to see what the deal is?”

  “We're due for a lunch break anyway. I'll come with you.”

  Flicking his cigarette butt into the yard, Sam stood and slipped his dirty baseball cap onto his sweat-slicked hair. He remembered when that cap used to be red, but now it was so oil-stained it was nearly jet black. No point to try and clean it at this stage either, he thought. It would only be black again within a month due to the many hours that he and Leonard were putting in lately. Grey Wood Carpentry was the gift that just kept on giving, Sam joked to himself. But in all honesty, he couldn't complain.

  Following Leonard down Mayfair Street, Sam lit another cigarette. They passed by the quiet, prefab houses, all identical except for the color of their front doors. Air as thick as soup hung heavy yet fresh, as it always was in this part of North Carolina. That reason alone was enough for Sam to move here from Seattle two years ago. He'd grown weary of city life, and since the factory let him go, he'd needed a change of scenery. Back to his family roots in North Carolina seemed as good a place as any. Leonard had welcomed him to town with open arms and a new job. Sam was forever grateful.

  They climbed Annie's porch and Leonard rapped the door melodically as Sam flicked away his second smoke.

  The door slowly opened on its own but no one appeared to be in the house.

  “Lillian?” Sam pushed the door open wide. “You here?”

  No reply. Somewhere out on the street, a dog barked relentlessly.

  “She's not here, Leo. We can always phone her.”

  “Just a minute.” Leonard stepped into the house, his index finger raised. “I just need to make sure everything's okay.”

  Sam stayed on the porch. A cold turkey sandwich waited for him back at the garage and his stomach called for it angrily. Missing breakfast had been a mistake but he'd overslept and had to rush. A nice tall glass of cold water wouldn't be a bad idea either, now that he thought about it.

  “Oh Jesus!”

  Sam had never heard Leonard's voice sound like that before. Fear licked across his stomach in a cold wave. He made his way into the shadows of the house, his boot heels clicking on the hardwood. His heart punched at his ribcage. “Leo? Where are you?”

  “Kitchen.”

  Sam pushed open the swing door and stopped in his tracks.

  The thing that lay on the kitchen floor had once been Lillian Palmer... the thick, wavy brunette hair gave that away. Apart from that, she was wholly unrecognizable. She was a horror show.

  Thick white cords that looked like bone sprouted from her pink blouse, the fabric left shredded. They spiraled upward from her chest to neck-height, like crooked tree branches. At the root they were a deep red, fading to the purest white by the tip.

  The largest one grew from Lillian's forehead. The skin around it lay in tattered ribbons.

  The older man's voice croaked, “Oh sweet Jesus, Sam. What's happened here?”

  The room spun, and Sam held onto the counter for support. The bizarre sight was unlike anything he'd ever seen. The mushroom scent of decay hung in the air, the odor churning his stomach.

  How long had she been here? And what in God's name were those bone-like appendages spiking through her flesh?

  Sam couldn't speak.

  “Should I call Dr. Philips? I should, shouldn't I?” Leonard rubbed his hands together nervously.

  Sam finally found his voice. “Yeah. That would be a good idea. Call Dr. Philips, and if he's not available, call 911.”

  As Leonard pulled his phone from his pocket, Sam leaned against the counter and tried to control his breathing. His legs wobbled as he made his way to the kitchen sink for a glass of water. His skin quivered at the very idea of having his back turned to the abomination that lay on the floor, but he needed to do something to calm down. He hoped the water would help.

  Sam stopped.

  A brown paper bag lay open beside the kitchen sink. White powder glistened inside. Sam lifted the bag gingerly, cringing at the weight. There must have been kilos of the stuff. The bag crinkled as he turned it over in his hands, some of the contents spilling.

  Someone had hand-written on the side of the bag. It read: Cordyceps

  The words seemed a childish scrawl, as if a five year-old had written it. Or somebody very old, Sam thought.

  Leonard peered over Sam's shoulder into the open bag. “Cordyceps?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “What is it?”

  “It's a fungus. Some people think it's a kind of medicine.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “I pay attention to things. I know pharmaceutical companies sell it all over, like supplements in tablet form and powders and so forth, all FDA approved, you know?”

  Sam turned the bag over. The childish scrawl fell into view. “Well, this one is hardly FDA approved now, is it? Leo, is it ever used to treat cancer?”

  “Maybe.”

  They looked at body on the floor, though now it hardly even appeared human. The arrangement of spiky bones looked like a miniature forest growing from her torso.

  “Disgusting.”

  A knock at the door startled Sam, and Leonard called, “Dr. Philips, come in. We're in the kitchen.”

  Terry Philips entered the kitchen. He was a quiet man at the best of times, a characteristic that most folks in town seemed to like. The doctor's knees popped as he knelt beside the body. He unzipped his bag and muttered something to Leonard that Sam couldn't hear.

  Sam's heartbeat drummed in his ears as silence fell around them. A clock ticked away somewhere in the house. Then something smashed that silence.

  One time, when Sam was fifteen, he'd slashed the car tires of a man he knew to be sleeping with his mother. He knew his dad knew nothing of the affair. The oxygen bled from the tires in an airy gust. The sound he heard now sounded an awful lot like that.

  “Out!” Dr. Philips commanded. Sam didn't need to be told twice.

  The three men raced together to the front lawn of Annie Lee's house, looking back at the home like it was a snarling wild animal. Sam swallowed. A lump the size of a tennis ball seemed lodged in his throat. He eyed Dr. Philips up and down. The man was caked in a white powder.

  Terry Philips spluttered and pulled at his clothes, sending the dust away in a dancing white cloud. He blinked quickly, getting it off of his eyes.

  Fear crawled up Sam's spine. “What happened?”

  “She exploded.” The doctor's wide eyes reflected the panic in his voice. “No one goes back inside that house. Understood?”

  The doctor ripped his tweed overcoat from his back and thre
w it. It hit the lawn with a puff of dust. The wind carried the cloud away down the street. Sam watched it drift away up into the air until it disappeared.

  “I need to get to the hospital,” Dr. Philips said. “Call an ambulance.”

  Sam was stunned, but Leonard said, “I know what Cordyceps is. I know it infects ants. Imagine it infected a single ant. Which it has done, by the way, many, many times. It's a parasite. Once infected, that ant's mind then belongs to the fungi. Its infected mind makes the ant climb upwards, and if any of the other ants in the colony spot any signs of odd behavior, they'll carry that infected ant far away. As quick as possible...”

  “Why do they do that?”

  “Because...” Leonard looked uncomfortable. “The Cordyceps needs to grow...it erupts from the host ant... when it grows to its full height, those deadly spores will burst from its tip and infect more ants. Ants know this somehow and remove the infected member. Otherwise, the infected ant will climb high enough so that the spores will rain down upon the colony and infect them all.”

  Sam felt lightheaded. His brain wouldn't allow him to process what he heard. “Can it infect human beings?”

  “Well, you saw Lillian...” Leonard's voice trailed off as he punched 911 into his cell phone.

  Suddenly Dr. Phillips spoke. “Yes.” The doctor's voice sounded dreamy.

  Sam's stomach dropped at the sudden change in the man. Like someone had flicked a switch, the doctor now appeared to be as high as a kite. “Excuse me, gentleman. I need to go,” the doctor said.

  “Go?” Sam asked. “You mean, when the ambulance arrives?”

  The doctor ignored him. “Up,” he said. “I'll go up. It seems so much nicer up there, don't you think? It's a beautiful day for a walk up the Harrison trail.”

  The doctor lurched down Mayfair Street, his eyes glazed and a smile splitting his lips. Sam and Leonard watched him go without a word. Sam was too afraid to move, and too afraid to stop the man. Instead, he turned to Leonard. “You don't think...you don't think he's acting like those ants you talked about, do you?”