Fuckin’ nature.
The door creaked open. The slow shuffling sound of her bare feet on the porch. A pause. More sobs. A deep breath that rattled and wheezed and clicked in her throat.
He opened his eyes.
She stood in his hall, the bathroom in front of her. Took a step off a porch that didn’t exist on Eidolon. She took another step. Her hand grabbed air as she stumbled and paused and fought for breath.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Fuck man, if this is a fuckin’ dream, if I’m flyin’, then let it happen. Let it finish. Once it’s finished, I’ll wake up and Eve with the blue lips and forked tongue will be next to me and bitch whore mom will be dead and I can go on with life.
Knock.
He lifted his head. The floor had bounced with that knock.
He sat up. She still stood, her back to him as if she was gathering strength for the next step.
Knock, knock.
It sounded like knuckles against wood. But it wasn’t. Was it against the floor?
Knock, knock, knock.
No, it was the wall.
Knock, knock.
No, the floor and the wall.
Knock.
He looked up. The ceiling fan was swaying. Was it up there, too? He stood up to look. The room fuckin’ spun. He sucked the air through his teeth. His neck felt like the flesh was peeling away in big, bloody strips. His back, the skin on his back, was hot. Too hot. Like roasting on a spit hot and then being carved clean on the edges of fuckin’ samurai swords. He stretched his fingers and almost cried. If he had the courage to look he’d probably see the skin pulling away from the nails. See raw flesh and blistered knuckles and holes gouged into the top of his hands and his palms. The skin buzzed and snapped.
The fuck?
He looked.
Small snakes slithered on his fingers and whipped around his hands. Over the top. Around to the palm. Between the fingers and underneath the nails. But not on the skin. Fuck no, they were in the skin. Like tattoos. Living tattoos. Red, green, blue, white tattoos that were living in his fuckin’ skin. But under the flesh like worms. Worms with fangs. His skin moved in ripples when they moved. Itched and clenched when they wrapped tight around the bones. Burned when they pushed out to inch along his nails. Attacking the octopus on his wrist and tearing it in two. Squeezing the mermaids into a bloody pulp and twisting the sailors until their heads popped off. Upending the ships and splashing into the waves.
“Mom,” he said aloud, though he wasn’t sure why. He took a step, his knees popping and creaking, his legs like a fuckin’ bonfire. He looked down as the floor thumped with another knock.
There was no more skin. His legs, his feet, everything was gone, replaced by snapping, snarling, twisting, turning snakes. But fuck no. No way. What the fuck kinda fuckin’ trip was this? He wasn’t flyin’, but, FUCK, his arms, his hands and fingers and feet, all these snakes were fuckin’ living tattoos. Embedded in his fuckin’ skin. They wound around his toes. He could see them cleave through the Chinese lettering on his shins, up his knees, onto the inside of his thighs, and around the back of his legs. Dart up his hip and along his stomach. The little fuckers even wandered along his chest and dug into his pecs. Were he to lift his hand, they’d be on the back of his neck. Could sense them on his face, the tips of his ears, the top of his head. He could even feel them spilling from the Gates of Hell on his spine.
But fuck no. He was flyin’. He must be flyin’. Count back from ten, count back from ten, count back from ten, motherfucker. Just count the fuck back from ten.
He stumbled to the bathroom to look in the mirror, the glass jumping as the walls shook with another knock. Head over his shoulder, he turned, and turned again. Couldn’t see anything.
FUCK!
Snakes. Nothing but snakes. He was made of snakes.
How the hell? Sobbing, he turned away and leaned back against the mirror. What the fuck, man? He couldn’t stop the tears. What the fuck? What is this? Was it a dream? A nightmare? I’m not flyin’, man, but wake up, bro. Wake the fuck up.
WAKE UP!
He lifted from the mirror. Felt something wet. Something tight. Pulled away to stand. The skin of his back remained. Already in pain and lost in emotional chaos, he didn’t feel it sticking to the glass and pulling free from his muscle. Didn’t feel it separating from his spine and his ribs, his collar bone and shoulders, as he turned to face the mirror. Hadn’t noticed the slimy sound of ripping and tearing. Didn’t know he’d left his flesh behind until he saw it hanging, a bloody swathe of discarded skin, shining and wet. Dozens of veins snapped and broken and pumping blood down the door. Snakes crawling like maggots through pink flesh. Dripping spider web strands of who knew the fuck what clinging to him as he stood and turned and stopped.
The FUCK?
He couldn’t catch his breath. He could feel the blood rushing down his ass, the back of his legs, his ankles. Could feel the steaming puddle gather around his feet.
He couldn’t fuckin’ see right. He blinked as he looked down. Blinked again. Wanted to rub his eyes, but was afraid to raise his hand and touch his skin. Couldn’t handle the thought of more flesh creasing and cracking and falling.
Covered in blood, his blood, they landed in the pool of red at his feet. All sizes and colors. Small, large, medium. Black, green, some blue, they pushed from his exposed muscle, from under his ribs, around his hips, the hollow under his collar bone and the top of his spine to fall like drops of rain in a squirming, jerking pile, their bodies tangled, bouncing as the floor knocked again.
“Mom?”
He heard a phone ring. From underwater. From the can. He looked over at the pile of shit squatting on a mountain of toilet paper and chunky yellow puke, all sitting in a cloudy pool of dark piss.
It rang again.
“This room is alive.” Eve stood near, nipples jutting from her tank. Her forked tongue licked her lips. “It found her. It brought me and now it wants her to find you. To see you. And she does. She sees you. She suffered because of you. Was terrified because of you,” she said as she drew close, her eyes on him,
five blue
short fingernails stroking his cheek. “And she hasn’t forgotten.”
“My phone,” Miss Emma said from behind him. He turned his head. She wrapped her arms around him, her hands sliding between the snakes, her fingers lost in their tangled, shimmering bodies as she rested her face on the raw weeping muscle of his back, the blood staining the
seven red
bruises on her face where he’d punched, punched, slapped, punched, bit, slapped, punched as he’d gotten another quick one in before tossing her skinny ass out the door.
“Get it, man,” Skippy said as he twirled
four yellow
strands of platinum hair in his fingers. His dead friend looked toward the toilet. “It’s for you.”
He belched, the taste of five Eves, seven Miss Emmas, and four Skippys on his tongue. His friends. Yeah, he was flyin’. He must be. This was all some fucked up stupid crazy flyin’ dream.
Why are you here? he wanted to say. But his tongue wouldn’t work. It was too thick and jumpy. And his lips twitched and burned. His vision was fucked and it was hard to breathe. He kept wanting to take the skin off the mirror. To turn around or something. Lean into it and push it back in place maybe. But that was crazy. It was all crazy.
He laughed, the tender flesh of his lips splitting as he smiled.
The knocking was growing. From the floors, the walls. The ceiling jumping. Insistent. Consistent. Never. Fuckin’. Ending.
They watched him. Eve with her blue lips. Miss Emma with her red bruises. Skippy with his yellow hair. Just stood there, all quiet and shit. He thought of that group the other night—last night?—on Eidolon. With Eve at the door, her arm around his waist as he’d fought to put the fuckin’ key in the fuckin’ lock.
I don’t want to die, he’d thought.
Chill.
Th
e phone rang.
The walls cracked, rips running floor to ceiling. He thought of Mom with her bleeding scabs. How they’d crack and weep red. The floor jumped beneath his feet. He wanted to sit, but was afraid he’d tear and split and weep, too. The ceiling was buckling and breaking. Dropping tiles and dust. Dangerous small splinters that would stab if he stepped wrong. The flesh of this apartment, the skin, it was ripping apart. Like his fuckin’ skin and hers at the end before she fell in the dirt and died. And the knocking, it wouldn’t stop.
Through the slab of flesh still stuck to the mirror, all he saw were snakes. He couldn’t see himself anymore. Just snakes. Everywhere snakes. He’d lift his arm. Snakes. Stretch his fingers. Snakes. Moved closer to get a better look, his hand smearing the mirror bloody red as he wiped away the skin, and saw tiny snakes running rings around his pupils and swimming in the whites of his eyes. He swallowed. It still burned and felt thick. He ran his tongue along his teeth. Felt long, skinny snakes climbing from his gums.
FUCK!
If he opened his mouth, would his tongue be forked? Like Eve’s? He opened his mouth.
In the dark, he could see the roof, the inside of his cheeks, his tongue, the gums around his teeth, even down his throat, everything was the shiny squirming of living dark.
He swallowed. It felt thick. He took a breath. It was shallow.
He felt the cold of the toilet bowl against his arms. He was kneeling. Shooed away the flies. Felt the rain on the floor cooling his knees, his shins and the tops of his feet. Ignored the thought of that wet filth sticking to the snakes. Could still hear the muffled, wet ringing of the phone. He sighed and hoped he’d wake soon. Smelled the shit and the piss and the puke and decided it wasn’t so bad after all. Thought of Eve dragging her thumb on his lip and sucking the vomit from it.
“Cool tats,” she’d said. Yesterday? Who the fuck knew anymore.
He slipped his arm into the toilet. The water was chilly, the shit slimy and wet, the puke sticky and chunky and muddy. His fingers broke through the toilet paper. It stuck in long torn streaks to the snakes infesting his flesh, their slippery bodies sliding under it and around it before shaking it free. He reached further, deeper. Groped. The dark piss swam between the snakes. It burned. Like alcohol on an open cut. But this was along his hand, between his fingers, up his forearm to his elbow. A burn eating him in one big bite.
“I thought she was dead,” he said to Eve. She still stood near, her lips still blue, her nails still blue, her hair still fifty shades of black. “She was dead. I swear it.”
He found the phone. Gripped it. Lifted it through the toilet paper, the puke, the piss, the shit. Wiped it clean. As clean as he could get it. Looked through the brown, red, green, yellow to find the button to answer it, the cell glowing bright with each ring.
Ignoring the flesh creasing and cracking and weeping as his elbow bent, he pressed it to his ear. “Hello?”
The ceiling buckled and snapped like thunder, this great yellow cloud vomiting snakes, their slithering bodies pummeling the floor like a fuckin’ hail storm. The gaps in the walls ripped and split, more snakes falling free to race along the broken boards. And the floor thumped and splintered as still more snakes tried to rise, to break free. With a deep groan and the sharp snapping of wood, the ceiling fell, the walls caved and the floor heaved. An ocean of snakes rolled forward to cover the apartment and slither their way toward him.
“FUCK!” He jumped up, jumped back.
“They found me.” His mother’s voice crackled from the phone. “Spiders, bugs, beetles. Snakes.”
The seething wave rushed near. He closed the door. Slammed it shut.
“Mom!” He pushed against the mirror, the discarded flesh of his back hanging inches from his cheek.
“They made their home in me.” Her voice was clear and calm. The voice of revenge. Of an anger that was patient and deep. “I was still alive, Bullet, and they crawled down my throat and in my ears and through my eyes and up my nose.”
The door was bending. The snakes were pushing. His feet were slipping. The snakes on his arms and around his fingers were tightly coiled, their tails snapping. Their bodies rearing back and lunging under his skin, their fangs drawing blood as they tore the muscle and poked through the flesh.
“You left me.” She was loud. So loud. From this tiny cell phone dropped and laying in pieces on the floor, her voice had taken over the room. Like the voice of God. “Why did you leave me? Do you know what that’s like? To have them push through the scabs. To climb from torn skin. Slide out my ass, out my-”
“Fuck no, man! Stop!” The door was inching open. He could feel them on the other side. Could see them in his head, a massive storm of slick, slippery black. “I didn’t know, Mom. Please.”
“I wasn’t dead,” she said. They were starting to sneak through the cracks. Searching for their brothers living in his skin and on his flesh, these tattoos that had come to life and now covered every inch of him.
“More things came. Bigger things.” Her voice was calm, but it cut through the slapping of bodies slithering in pools of blood and the slow creak of a door breaking. “Tore me apart. Peeled the skin away.
“I watched them. Saw them run into the woods, dragging my guts in the dirt.” More snakes spilled in. More creatures. Strange, long things with heads that were too large and eyes too round. Tiny arms that looked human with even smaller fingers that gripped and grasped and reached. Tiny teeth behind lips that were too much like his. Sighs that smelled of sulphur and ash. Things that stretched their necks to see and draw close.
With the snakes, they slithered to gather around his feet, his knees. Crawl up his legs.
“Do you know what that’s like? To be left to that?”
“No!” The door split in two, a wall of snakes, of other things, rushing in. And the living tattoos, they broke free. Burst from the cracks in his skin and popped those islands of white on his flesh to rear back, shining and wet. They were all over, from his neck to the soles of his feet. Their bodies rustled as they dug into his ears. Smacked his teeth as they pushed between his lips. Made him cough and gag as they slid across his tongue and dove down his throat. Felt like a fuckin’ shiv made of fire as they stabbed into the cracks surrounding his eye balls.
“You will,” she said. The cell phone sputtered and clicked, the light growing dim as the battery died. “You will.”
Weighed down by snakes, lost in a pit of jerking, twisting dark, he was on his knees, his head resting on the toilet seat. Felt the world growing quiet.
I’m sorry, he thought as he fought to dig the little fuckers from his eyes. Jammed his fingers in his mouth to catch ‘em and yank ‘em out. Damn near shit as their fangs gripped the inside of his nose as he tried to pull ‘em free. I didn’t know what to do, man. I was scared. I ran. I’m sorry.
They were sliding down his throat. Their scales scratching, the bodies wrestling as they pushed down. He gagged and then gagged again, the taste of slithering black burning the roof of his mouth. His lungs moved as they lurched and tore through his body. Pushed aside his guts and squeezed his heart. Plunged through the gashes in his skin. Wormed their way through his brain, his head, under the skin of his face. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t see. And right before he felt the sharp pop of his ear drum splitting, all he heard was the never fuckin’ ending thump, thump, thump of crawling snakes.
He rested against the toilet. Closed his eyes as they jammed his throat. He couldn’t swallow. He couldn’t cough or gag. Hell, he’d shove his fuckin’ fist down his throat and try to puke ‘em up if he thought it’d work. But it wouldn’t. I’m sorry, he silently said before all thoughts of his mother and his colorful friends—Eve with her five blue, Miss Emma with her seven red and Skippy with the four yellow—left him for the last time with his final breath.
***
From the hall he watched. His mother, healthy and clean, stood, her hand in his. She smelled of clean soap and washed cl
othes. Smells he’d never associated with her, but which he loved. Steps away, he saw himself kneeling next to the toilet in a pool of bloody puke. What is this?
It’s the building. Her eyes found his.
What is? He turned to her.
This, it wasn’t you. She smiled. It never was.
Together, they turned to go.
He glanced at the dead Bullet’s ankle, the face that was no longer his resting in the island of shit and toilet paper and puke floating in an ocean of dark, cloudy piss.
There was nothing there. On his leg. No snake. Nothing at all. Nothing but familiar ink. Dead, useless ink. Chinese characters spelling fuck knows what on a lifeless foot resting in a pool of vomit spiked with the remnants of pancakes and five blue, seven red, and four yellow pills.
APARTMENT 1C
CLICK
Monday, 3:24 PM
They’d made love, once, when she was warm. Now she sat at the kitchen table, her silence speaking volumes.
“I’m sorry,” he said for the umpteenth time.
Nothing.
He’d discovered her an hour ago at the foot of the stairs in the lobby.
Hair a soft brown, eyes large and kind, skin pale and freckled. She’d sat facing the mailboxes, lost in thought, her lithe body, despite the rainy afternoon, in a sleeveless sundress, her small feet in strappy sandals.
Although he saw her many times before, strolling the park or sipping coffee in the cafe, he’d never approached or spoken with her. There’d never been the chance.
Until now.
And she was perfect.
Then again, they always were in the beginning.
Not wanting to startle her, he approached cautiously.
Seeing him, she stood. “Oh my goodness.” Her heel caught the hem of her dress. “I’m sorry.” Balancing on one foot, her hand gripping the railing, she fought to wrestle it free. “Just let me—”
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast Page 9