Eat'em (8 page)

Chapter 16

When someone you love dies, it’s as if the oxygen is sucked out of the room. Your breathing becomes heavier and you feel like you’ll never get enough air. It’s like surviving a plane crash in the center of the ocean. You don’t know where to go, or what to do. You don’t know if you’ll ever be home again or if it’ll ever be the same. You feel as if the world will swallow you before you ever again find dry land.

Witnessing the death of a stranger, even causing the death of a stranger, is hardly comparable. The faceless man beside me meant no more to me than the victim of a wreck that represents an obstacle for all those stuck in traffic with places to be. Even driving by a collision of immeasurable horror hardly ever elicits an emotional response; rather passersby simply pause long enough to soak it in – to keep a mental memento. Death can represent nothing more than a trophy used for bragging rights in drunken conversation.

Lou’s final breath wasn’t what sent my heart into a frenzy. My melancholy derived from the same deep seeded nightmare that consumed my sleep every night.

My chest pounded fiercely. I couldn’t breathe. My ribs were prison bars for a heart that wanted out. Weighted pressure crushed against my cheeks. I could feel my face redden. My ears rang from the unforgettable sound of gunfire.

For a moment I was back in the ambulance, open wounds covering the entirety of my torso. I felt the needle pull from my arm as Eat’em snuck a drink from the IV. The vehicle raced through traffic, sirens blaring, and I heard myself ask, “Are they dead?” and the moment ended. I returned to Lou’s carpet.

“Good job,” Eat’em said, patting my hand. “I knew you would win. You shouldn’t have gone so easy on him though.”

From the safety of the floor I assessed my damage. I had some pretty decent cuts and some sore muscles, but nothing was broken.

I cradled the Smith and Wesson in my arms, thankful for its existence. Hesitantly, I wiped the gun as best I could and put it back in its rightful spot under Lou’s bed. It seemed pointless. Blood and prints must have been all over the house. I promised myself Eat’em and I would lay off the cop dramas.

Walking out of that house, leaving a trail of bloody footprints, sopping head to toe in the wretched scented insides of who-knows-what, my gut churned and my heart felt heavy.

Eat’em followed close behind with a half-drank can of Jolt he found in Lou’s fridge. I crossed the yard; kicking off my shoes, the red ring of blood stopped at the top of my pale feet. I wiggled my sore toes on the soft, manicured lawn.

The clouds dissipated and the sky cleared up once more. Texas weather was always so schizophrenic.

I almost fell back onto the dewy grass. I wanted to let the wet sod strip away the thought of having killed Louise Parsons… twice. Instead, I walked.

I drifted up Cooper Street as a ghost. My feet barely touched the sidewalk. Eat’em skipped quietly beside me.

I’m not sure how far I’d actually walked. It had to be several miles. I was lost in my own thoughts, trying to piece together the events of the last few weeks. I almost didn’t hear the chirp of a siren. When I did, I thought it was only a fragment of a memory I ached to forget. Then the blue and white Dodge Charger skidded to a stop right beside me. That was the moment I met Lieutenant Bellecroix.

Chapter 17

“I’ve got some questions for you, Violent J,” Val turned from the front passenger seat of his car. Isaac drove, which never happened before. Val would have to be passed out drunk in order to let someone else drive his Mustang, but there he was letting our neighbor drive us from the police station.

“Alright, Shaggy 2 Dope,” I said, mocking his unintended reference to the band Insane Clown Posse, all the while ignoring Isaac’s judgmental glare from the rearview, “I’ve got some answers for you. You go first.”

Eat’em gestured for a semi-truck driver to honk and grunted at the lack of results. He held himself up by the ceiling handle behind the driver seat, pressing his tail against the seat to keep from swaying with each turn.

“Why are you covered in blood?” Val said. His temples throbbed, which they did when he ground his teeth, a habit of his when something angered him. His raised pitch was rife with accusation. “It sure ain’t dog blood, like you told the police.”

“It’s ketchup.”

“Ketchup?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I was auditioning for a play.”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“Don’t act like I’m a criminal.”

“Look at you,” Val said. “You look like a criminal.”

“I’m not.”

“What are you then?”

Eat’em dropped to the seat and threw his arms above his head. “The Champion!” he said in his best ring announcer voice.

“Misunderstood,” I said.

We swerved and Eat’em fell into my lap. “HEY!!!”

“You look in over your head to me,” Isaac said. He angled his visor to give me a better look. An expensive looking pair of Ray Bans hid the intention behind his eyes.

“I’m more worried about you being a victim,” Val cut in. “You look like you got your ass kicked.”

“Well,” I said, “you should see the other guy.”

I jolted forward as Isaac hit the brakes and pounded the horn. A car slammed to a halt in front of us and the driver flipped us the bird before running the red light.

“What a piece of shit,” Isaac said. “I never understand it. Schools of fish, birds, freaking ants can move together in a coordinated effort without near death collisions and chaos, yet the most ‘intelligent’ species can’t make a 20 minute commute without nearly killing someone.”

“Road rage much?” I asked.

“No,” Isaac took off his glasses. His hazel eyes were bloodshot with fury. “I’m just not having the best day, alright? Your uncle having me pick you up from a prison sure isn’t helping, and neither is the traffic. If everyone could just get on the same page, I’d be okay.”

“Ah yes,” I said, “the collective.”

“Damned right.”

“Hey,” Val interrupted. “Quit changing the subject. I want to know what happened, Jacob. You can say it in front of Isaac, it doesn’t matter, okay. I don’t care what it is. I’m just worried about you. And if you’re in trouble…”

“I’m not in trouble.”

“You sure?” Isaac raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“He’s pretty much a badass, yes,” Eat’em crawled onto the center console. “Right, Jacob?”

I grimaced. I didn’t feel like a badass. Actually, the adrenaline from my encounter with Parsons ran dry hours ago and I actually felt like I’d come out the other side of a combine. Getting a better look at myself in the passenger side mirror only confirmed my suspicions. I didn’t look like Iron Mike. But I looked like I’d met him.

“Isaac,” I said, “can you drop me off at Dixie’s?”

“Who’s Dixie?” Val asked.

“A friend of mine.”

“Girlfriend?” asked Isaac.

“Just a friend,” I said. “She doesn’t live far from the apartment.”

Val gave me a crooked glance. “You might want to get cleaned up first, Hannibal Jakester.”

“No,” I said, “she won’t care. I don’t want to go home.”

“Why?” Val asked. “You think we’re done with the conversation?”

“For now.”

“I’ll take you to your girlfriend’s,” Isaac said. He seemed a bit cooler after getting his grief out on the other driver.

“She’s just a friend,” I reminded him.

“Can we meet this friend of yours?” Isaac asked. “Any woman who doesn’t care whether you show up to her house looking like you slaughtered a man in cold blood is the kind of chick you want to lock down. Or does that go against individualism?”

“No,” I said, “it doesn’t.”

“Would y’all knock it off with your philosophy shit?” Val asked. “Please and thank you.”

“Well, can we meet her?” Isaac asked.

“No,” I said again, “you can’t.”

Chapter 18

On the edge of Dixie’s bed, I flipped a page on her biology textbook. She let me shower and gave me a fresh set of clothes – sweatpants and a hoodie. Not particularly appropriate for the schizophrenic weather, but at least they fit. Etched to the side of the sweats was the word ‘Timberwolves!’ which was the mascot to a high school about ten miles south of us.

She didn’t say anything about my outfit or cuts and bruises. She just offered her wardrobe and led me to the shower. A shower tucked in a bathroom with a doorway stringed with beads. No door. Not that I ever had much in terms of privacy. But it was a little jarring knowing she could easily walk in on me at any moment.

I asked her afterward if we could study. I needed to be occupied by something other than the events of the last few weeks. Super powered old men. Missing woman. And death. And police. Valentine. And Isaac. I wanted to think about Dixie, to be honest. It was a weird thought to jump in my mind only hours after shooting a man to death, but all I could think about was wanting to be with Dixie.

Eat’em clung to the front of an oscillating fan. He hummed as he drifted back and forth, back and forth. Every so often he would speak into it and his words would spiral mechanically through the room, only noticeable to the demon and myself.

Dixie sat dangerously close to me. Her crossed leg draped over my knee. She fluttered her toes against my ankle. I could smell her skin, scented with a lilac perfume. Her breath ruffled the front of my shirt.

It was a nice escape from my uncle’s probing questions and my neighbor’s prying eyes.

Clothes and knickknacks cluttered Dixie’s room. She had a shelf lined with empty liquor bottles. Most of them were Asian brands I hadn’t heard of. Sapporo was the only bottle with English characters. She didn’t have a blank surface, as everywhere I looked were Post-Its with motivational quotes.

Whatever you are, be a good one. – Abraham Lincoln

I break away from all conventions that do not lead to my earthly success and happiness. – Anton Szandor LaVey

“
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who matter don’t mind and those who mind don’t matter. – Dr. Seuss
” Eat’em read the last from a vanity mirror behind the fan. He laughed into the whirling blades and yelled, “You don’t mind, yes? Do you, Jacob?”

My arms squeezed tight to my side. Dixie didn’t have any deodorant for me, and I feared I might be ruining the flowery scent. She squeezed tighter to me and pressed her finger to the textbook in my lap.

“I don’t get this at all,” she said.

“It’s tough,” I didn’t know if I agreed or not, but it felt wiser than saying it was easier than it looked. “I get stuck on genotype and phenotype. How one can have the genes for a trait they don’t have… or show… or whatever.”

“What about your red eyes?” I felt her breathing on my cheek as she leaned over to get a closer look. I tried my best to avoid eye contact. “Were those passed down to you? Think you’ll have a red-eyed kid?”

“I don’t know,” goose bumps ran up my arm as it brushed against her. My chest pinched. “Maybe. I figure the devil gave them to me. They’re awful for pictures, though, that’s for certain.”

“Do you believe in the devil?”

“I believe in demons.”

Eat’em laughed a mechanical cacophony of
‘Hahaha’
and yelled, “I’m a demon, yes, Jacob?”

“Why do you say your eyes are horrible for pictures?” Dixie asked.

“I haven’t had a professional picture done in my life where they weren’t edited out. And now most cameras have built-in settings that automatically remove red eyes. So, I always look… normal.” The further I pulled away the closer she pulled toward me. Her warmth intoxicated and suffocated all at once. “Most people don’t see them as a spectacle. They see them as a bad omen. I get told I look like Steve Buscemi a lot. With horrible contacts.”

She grabbed my chin and turned my face toward her. “I would have said you’re more of a toss up between Benicio Del Toro and James Dean. You have Del Toro’s eyes for sure… but more dangerous. Definitely have a James Dean thing going on.”

“What is she talking about?” Eat’em burped into the fan. “Tell her you’re done studying and done talking about stupid things, yes.
Time is better spent masticating than wasted copulating. – Eat’em.
”

My attention snapped to the oscillating demon on the word copulating.

“You don’t have to turn away,” Dixie’s fingers wrapped around my mid thigh. “You’re so shy.”

I swallowed. The gulp seemed cartoony, but my mouth was oversaturated. I swallowed too much. And blinked too much.

My leg twitched.

I bet she felt it. My nervousness.

“Ew…” Eat’em dropped from the fan and climbed onto the opposite side of my lap. He pointed to her hand, gently squeezing my left leg. “She loves you, yes. She desires you. Offer her a progeny.”

“I’m not shy,” I pulled away and focused on the textbook. “Just, the things you say. Nobody’s ever talked to me like you.”

Words became jigsaw puzzles. The pages split into tessellations. I tried to blink it back into sensible structure, but I couldn’t. I saw the threads and fibers that made up the paper and all the nooks the ink missed during print. Dixie’s hand on my thigh seemed to dematerialize into living cells. The fine lines on her knuckles grew into caverns. Her freckles blew up into giant splotches. The thin hairs climbing up her arm were a forest with no canopy.

I looked out the window and felt like I could see across the city. “I killed someone today.” Without thinking the words fell from my lips as if letting go of an untied balloon.

“That explains the clothes,” Dixie said calmly.

“I’m not a murderer,” I feared looking at her. I feared her judgment. I feared her hatred.

Unexpectedly, she drew nearer and squeezed my arm to keep it from shaking. “You don’t look the type.”

“I don’t?” I searched her eyes for doubt.

“No,” she said. “You’re not plain enough to be a murderer.”

“Plain?”

“Murderers are plain and boring. You’re abstract. You are beautiful. You, Jacob Brook, are full of heart.”

I smiled. “Abstract, huh? That’s fitting, for some reason.”

“Because you are.”

“Yeah…” I said. “I’m also a killer. I mean, I’m not a killer, I guess. I only killed one guy… twice… kinda.”

“Twice?” she cozied up to me tighter, stroking my arm, calming me. “This I have to hear.”

“It’s what I went to Kempter about,” I said. “I think he had a virus. I saw him attacking a girl at the school. A blonde. He was… I don’t know… I think he was eating her, maybe.”

“So, like a zom…”

“No,” I interrupted. “Nothing so crazy as that. I mean, maybe crazier, who knows. But he wasn’t rotting or dead, just a normal guy… except fast. And strong. And he could jump like crazy. And pretty much he could heal instantly.”

“Wow…” Dixie smiled, “…and you killed him?”

“What?” I asked defensively. “I don’t look capable?”

“No, no,” she said, “I’m sorry. I believe you. Just impressed. That’s all. Go on.”

She shook me and as I loosened up she draped her legs over mine in a way that she pretty much sat across my lap.

“It’s just,” I hesitated. “I don’t know what happened to this girl. I thought she died. I thought
he
died before today.”

“What if he gave her whatever virus he had?” Dixie asked. “What if they’re already spreading it to others as we speak.”

“They?”

“Him and her?”

“He’s dead.”

“Are you sure this time?”

“This time,” I said, “yes, I’m pretty certain he’s dead.”

“I don’t know,” she kissed my cheek. “You might have to kill him again.”

I couldn’t tell if she was serious or joking, if she believed me or thought this was a joke. Either way, I didn’t care, just talking about it seemed to lift a pressure from my shoulders, even if she didn’t believe me.

“No,” I shook my head centimeters from her lips. “No. Nonono. No. I’m not a murderer.”

“No,” she said, “you’re not. But you did kill someone in order to save a pretty girl.”

“I never said she was pretty.”

“Was she pretty?”

“She…” I pictured the blonde’s crystal blue eyes. “She was pretty, yes. I guess you could say she was pretty.”

“See,” Dixie said. “And fighting for a pretty girl doesn’t make you a killer. It makes you a hero.”

Her breath caressed my lips. I wanted to tell her
she
was pretty, but I froze, transfixed by her.

“I like you, Jacob,” her mouth felt buttery; soft with Chap Stick. She kissed me. Our teeth clicked together and her tongue, smooth and rough all at once flicked the tip of my own.

Her fingers ran through my hair. Flakes of dead skin glided away from my scalp. The air filled with them. Swarms of discarded pieces of myself swam along the fan’s current, pulling back as the air stilled.

“Ugh…” Eat’em bellowed, “I bet she tastes like raw meat.”

She traced my ear with her fingertips. Through her purple locks I could read every Post-It as if at once. My peripheral vision widened. The world became too clear to cope with.

Her hand dropped to my jawbone, ran down my neck and found my collarbone.

“Barf!” the demon bemoaned. He leaned onto my arm, propped on the biology book. I tensed under the prickle of hundreds of tiny quills. They were more hedgehog-like than porcupine, the tips couldn’t puncture flesh, but they were imposing enough to ward off curious animals. “You’re going to get a disease. Herpes. Gonorrhea. AIDS. Chlamydia. Syphilis.”

He proceeded to describe images we’d seen a few years earlier in a sexual education seminar required for my high school. That’s when he first decided women were disgusting.

Dixie inhaled deeply through her nose as our lips remained locked. I’d stopped breathing. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to suffocate. Part of me wanted to suffocate. To die pressed to her lips would be the best death of all. If not for the demon.

“Pustules and swollen lymph nodes, yes” Eat’em rattled off.

Dixie’s thumb found the cavity on my shoulder.

I could hear the sirens start up again. My mind started drifting. Screams. Gunshots. I’m sixteen again.

I should have been lost in the kiss, but instead I was lost in my nightmarish memories.

Somewhere in the house a window shattered. I scrambled under my bed accompanied by my pipsqueak demon. My stepfather yelled. A gunshot. My mother screamed. Another gunshot. Another. Silence. Agonizing silence. An eternity passed. I crawled out of my room and slowly moved toward the stairs. My mother sprawled out on the living room floor. She breathed slowly. Her face frozen in fear. I smelled the blood before I saw it – metallic and sour – a hint of something that smelled like fire.

The twelve steps descending into the living room were higher than they’d ever been. I braced myself with against the wall as I approached my mother, listening to the shrill sound that escaped chest with each rise and fall. I knelt beside the fireplace and tried to touch her hand. I tried to say something, but I couldn’t. A man came out of my parents’ room.

He had sunken cheeks, pale eyes, and disheveled black hair. His face was placid and emotionless. He had a gun.

I grabbed the fireplace poker and gripped it with two hands. He laughed. He could have shot me. Could have taken my life. Instead, he reached for the poker. And I let him grab it from my shaking hands. I remember the icy sting as the first thrust punctured my ribs and cracked my shoulder blade. And my mother’s eyes as I collapsed beside her. I blacked out shortly after the second stab. I woke in an ambulance to Eat’em drinking my IV fluid. My neighbors had called the police. The intruder was gone. Made off with some jewelry and the contents of my mother’s purse. They never caught him.

DixD
Dixie pulled herself closer and kissed me passionately.

I wanted to enjoy this. Part of me did enjoy it. The taste of her tongue. The smell of her skin. The softness of her touch.

I fought back the memories, trying desperately to come back to the present. I read the notes of encouragement surrounding us as Dixie hand caressed my ravaged body, wounds new and old.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. – Edmund Burke.

I never fought back before. Maybe it was a second chance.

“The only cure for this is castration,” the grating voice I couldn’t get rid of. I have to admit, his timing is impeccable. “Yes. You will most likely have to live in a Eunuch colony. It won’t be so bad, huh? No more girls!”

“Stop.” I pushed Dixie away. “STOP!”

The world was an intergalactic map of particles. I felt like I could push through the floor. That ebb and flow of atoms that made up Dixie’s bed shouldn’t be able to hold me. Dixie stood. I couldn’t make out her expression.

I searched for the crimson demon in the sea of visual noise.

“Jacob?” Dixie’s tender cadence.