Blow Up the Outside World (2 page)

 He could feel its pain as well. He begged with the creature.

Potter finally forced open his eyes, threw back his head and screamed with such force he thought his lungs were oozing out of his throat.

His bloated stomach began to split open, blooming slowly and painfully into a fleshy flower oozing a blue milky secretion. The sacs around him began to bloom too… but their secretion was more akin to the blue of the diseased New York skyline (oh, how he missed the earth).

When the two milky chemicals finally made contact on the cage’s metal floor they began to give off an odd red glow… and a strange odor… something familiar and welcoming… like female musk.

The Valdrott, his silent watchers, were gathered all around his prison.

And then everything exploded… again.

PART TWO:

LAST HOUSE ON 42ND STREET

I. The Blast Picture Show

So I’m sitting there, taking in a movie at the Times Square Theater, and trying to mind my own business when the guy two seats to my right starts jacking off.

Once I saw that, I knew I should’ve gone to the Lyric and watched that Andy Milligan double feature. Sure, I had seen The Ghastly Ones three times and The Body Beneath twice but it still would be better than sitting there with the wet sounds of masturbation in my ear. And why the hell was the guy jacking off in the first place? We were watching Mondo Magic and it was far from arousing. Well, at least for me. Who knows what people found sexy nowadays?

I had to piss, too, which made me want to just get up and leave the theater altogether. To reach the less than adequate facilities in the Times Square Theater, you had to go through a dank labyrinth of trash and darkness full of potential danger. That danger could be junkie-thieves or angry transsexual hookers who won’t take no for an answer. They’d want your wallet or your ass. Or both. Even if you made it to the bathroom, you still have to worry about walking into a drug deal or blow-job. Trust me, those things did happen.

The urge to piss wasn’t overriding my desire for safety. I’ve heard stories about straight guys like myself being orally and anally raped by angry crack addicts or bi-curious pimps. Don’t get me wrong – I have nothing against fags – but I have no desire to experience any penis other than my own. And I only call them fags because all the ones I’ve ever known always referred to themselves as such so I don’t feel like I’m overstepping any bounds of decency at all. In fact, one guy I used to work with actually introduced himself as Frank the Fag. I’m not kidding. That’s what he liked to be called.

So anyway, there I was watching the movie and holding in my piss, trying not to hear the guy next to me going to town with his palm.

Then from behind me a voice said, “Hey, you got peanuts?”

I ignored it. I didn’t think he was talking to me. People usually kept to themselves in a place like this.

But then there it was again:

“Hey, you with the beard. You got any peanuts or what?”

I looked over at the masturbator to make sure it wasn’t him speaking to me. Maybe the pervert knew how to throw his voice. Who knows what he was capable of, know what I’m saying?  But it wasn’t him, thank God. He seemed oblivious to anything else but his cock and the action on screen. I turned around and saw a guy two rows behind me. He was looking me in the eyes, nodding.

I said, “What?”

“Peanuts,” he said. The guy bore more than a little resemblance to a young Klaus Kinski, that is, if Klaus Kinski was black and sporting a huge, glistening afro.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, man,” I said.

Black Kinski got up from his seat and jumped over the seat in front of him so that he was in the aisle directly in back of mine. He said, “You thick, man? You have a bag there. I’m asking you got peanuts in it. Can I have some?”

I looked down and realized that yeah, I had a bag on my lap I had bought at the concession stand but it wasn’t peanuts.

“It’s popcorn,” I said. It was weird. I didn’t even remember buying any popcorn.

“Now, was that so hard? All you had to do is say that in the first place. Man, you had to make things so difficult.” He leaned back in the seat and watched the movie.

I watched, too, but also kept my eyes on both the masturbator and Black Kinski. For all I knew they were some sort of gay rapist tag-team ready to strike. Mr. Jerk-off never stopped moving his hand up and down like he was churning butter or something. I was starting to wish I’d gone to the Lyric to see The Ghastly Ones. Not only would I probably not have to worry about these two guys but the seats were more comfortable in that theatre, too.

Five minutes went by.

Again, the voice from behind said, “Hey, can I have some popcorn, man?”

“Jesus Christ.” I handed him the bag. “Keep it.”

“Nah, I just want a handful. This shit gives me gas.” He dug his hand into the bag, grabbed some popcorn, and then leaned back again. “Much obliged, man, much obliged.”

Then I thought I knew what was happening. I was getting fully prepared to be offered some crack or junk at reasonable “deuce” prices but the guy just sat there watching the movie.

There was a grunt from the masturbator and then he doubled over, his forehead resting on the seat in front of him. He stood, adjusted his pants, and then squeezed past me. I held my breath and moved my head away.

Black Kinski jumped over the seat and into my aisle.

He said, “Fuck, that dude left his load right there on the motherfuckin seat.”

I looked over and saw semen glistening in the dull movie-light. Honestly that wasn’t the first time I had seen that in a theater. Anyone knows if you take a trip to the Deuce, you wipe the seat before you sit down or you take your chances.

“Yeah, I see it,” I said.

“Hey, man, you got any candy or something?” Black Kinski asked.

I wanted to be left alone. I was trying to figure out this fucking guy’s angle. My muscles tensed because this was the part where a knife would be pulled on me. I’ve heard stories like that, too. A friend of mine knew a guy who went to the New Amsterdam to see Rolling Thunder at 3:00 in the afternoon and ended up losing a wallet and gaining a stab wound in the gut. He almost bled to death in the lobby. He finally got rescued by a Good Samaritan but not before being pissed on by a gang of twelve year-old junkies who just got out of school.

I knew shit like that happened so I reached into my coat in preparation.

I said, “No, I don’t.” I almost added the word “sorry” but decided it wouldn’t have been sincere and I’m nothing if not sincere.

“Man, I gotta sweet tooth won’t quit, you know? In the lobby, man, they ran out all the good shit.” Black Kinski was getting comfortable sitting there and talking to me. He didn’t even keep his voice down. That was a telltale sign he was a regular. A new comer would whisper, thinking the other patrons would give a shit. Most of the crowd consisted of hustlers or loners, not movie fans.

I was the exception, really. I was and still am a total film nut. No matter what it is, I go to see it. Sometimes it feels like a compulsion as if the very flickers of the screen fill my lungs with air and my veins with blood. I guess it sounds stupid but that’s how I feel sometimes and at that moment, I felt Black Kinski encroaching on my lifeblood.

He said, “Hey man, I’m botherin you, just tell me.”

I sighed. “No, that’s okay.” I’ve always been way too nice.

“Thanks for the popcorn, man, but listen. I wanna show you somethin.”

Here it comes, I thought.

“You gotta come with me, though, I can’t show it to you here, know what I’m sayin?”

What the fuck, did the guy think I was stupid? Did he think I was going to follow him? Well, let me tell you. I was that stupid. I can’t explain why. There is no plausible explanation for my behavior. It was as if my body wasn’t my own.

Black Kinski got up and started walking toward the other end of the aisle. I wasn’t normally that passive but I closed my eyes for a second and found myself following him anyway.

I put my hand in my coat, though, and prepared for the worst. I may have been stupid but I wasn’t entirely so.

He led me past the hallway where the bathrooms were and took me to a door in the corner of the theatre I had never noticed. “In here, man,” Black Kinski said. He pushed open the door and walked right into darkness.

And like a dumb ass, I followed him.

For a few seconds I couldn’t see a thing so I took my gun out of my coat and held it at my side, prepared for anything.

There was a click and then the lights went on. Black Kinski was standing against a cement wall to my right, grinning like a maniac. He pointed to the other side of the room.

In the corner there was someone facing the wall. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. All I could see was they were wearing a bright silver raincoat. That wasn’t all that strange for 42nd Street but then I noticed the coat itself was moving, the silver color swirling like some sort of optical illusion.

Black Kinski said, “Man, what did I tell you? I wanted to show you somethin and there it is. You believe it?”

“Believe what?” I said, still entranced by the bright silver coat. The person in the corner moved a little bit, adjusting him or herself but not letting me see their face or any features at all.

“What do you mean, what? And what’s with the motherfuckin piece, man? You gonna rob me? And after you offered me your popcorn and shit. Man, that’s fucked up.”

I tore my eyes away from the coat and looked at him. “I didn’t offer. You asked,” I said, continuing what was probably the stupidest conversation of my life.

“Well, whatever, man, whatever.”

I said, “I’m not going to shoot you. But what the fuck am I supposed to be looking at? Who is that?”

Black Kinski gave me a face like I was both blind and stupid. “Man, when I saw you, I thought you were a smart guy, a guy I could trust, someone to bring into it all. Now I see you’re just a dumb motherfucker. A dumb, lily-white motherfucker with a gun.”

I looked back at the coat, my eyes burning from the bright silver. Relaxing my gun-arm but keeping it prepped, I walked closer to the figure in the corner. As I did so, the silver coat turned to black.

Then I realized the coat had not turned black. Black Kinski had turned the lights off.

I quickly turned and held the gun in front of me but close to my body, not wanting him to make a grab for it. My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness and I could see Black Kinski standing there twitching and waiting to make a move. I pointed the gun and shot him in the face.

I turned towards the person in the silver coat and fired a shot. The silver coat started to glow in the darkness, shades of silver and red that pierced my eyeballs like direct sunlight. The person in the raincoat shook like an epileptic but in the darkness I still couldn’t make out any features.

Then the lights came on.

II. Goodnight, Manhattan, You Lily-White Bitch

At that exact moment, high above the clouds and New York's smog-choked cityscape, hovering invisible in the sky like hellish omens... the lights of every single Valdrott Ship within forty miles of the island went dead.

Then the sky over Manhattan began to fall.

***

“This was expected,” one Valdrott said to another in their horrid language.

The older Valdrott didn’t respond but simply raised a purple-crinkled eyebrow that was adorned with human nipple-flesh, rotten and engorged.

The younger Valdrott continued. “Manhattan…”

Again there was no response from the nipple-browed Valdrott who just slid its phallic eyes back into its tiny skull with a slow slurping sound. It shook its malformed head.

The younger monstrosity hissed. “Think I’m lying…playing games?”

Finally the old Valdrott spoke. “Games….games…”

“Our sigils are losing power. We need to blow it up…before we lose all the ships.

It must be done now.”

“Then blow it up,” the elder Valdrott said. “Was getting bored anyway.”

“I’ll contact the one called Oswald…or was it Potter?”

The older Valdrott spat. “Doesn’t really matter, does it?”

***

Sarah’s shredded intestines recoiled like frightened snakes. The power had gone out and her innards were exposed to the air. The Saw Bugs had eaten away most of her insides but her body had started fighting back. Without any effort from Sarah, her cells began to eat away at the Bugs.

Her wounds started to close. The blood returned to her tear-stained face as she felt a renewed sense of vigor.

In seconds Sarah had healed completely.

But still, the ship she was in was falling fast, falling from space like a droplet of metallic rain and she still continued to think of the man who had beaten her. He had looked familiar, looked like someone she knew as a teenager. The abuse was painful nostalgia and oddly enough, she was starting to miss it.

***

Then the lights came on.

“Pain touches all of us like bittersweet tentacles,” I said, though I had no idea why I had said it out loud. I spat the words like an angry cat.

The room was empty now, no signs of Black Kinski or that thing in the silver coat. Somehow I could still feel an overwhelming dread that soon turned into pain as my kneecaps exploded like pipe bombs, sending bone shrapnel up to my eyes, blinding me momentarily. My spine turned to jelly, my body snapped forward, and I buried my face in my crotch.

Black Kinski’s voice said, “Should make you suck your own lily-white dick, you little motherfucker.”

My body sprouted tendrils of raw flesh. Insects that looked like organic razorblades began to crawl out of my pores. I was on the verge of being hurled into unconsciousness but I fought it by thinking it might be a good thing for me to be able to suck my own dick.

I crawled over to Black Kinski who was now smoking a cigarette. Hadn’t I just shot him?

“Yeah, you shot me, motherfucker,” he said. “So what?”