The Book of Paul -- A Paranormal Thriller (56 page)

“I’m afraid I must decline your gracious invitation…though I’m sure I’ll be seeing you later,” Paul shouted back. “Then we can have that little tussle you’re craving.”

“I look forward to it,” The Striker said, pulling a three-inch splinter from his bicep.

“Oh, I surely do as well!” Paul dropped Martin’s pistol to the floor with a loud clunk as he pointed to the purple-veined length of The Striker’s bony, bloody arm. “It should be quite a battle…a real nail biter. Look at the reach you have on me!”

Loren looked up with a sneer. Paul gave him a salute and watched him disappear in the smoke, then turned around and knelt beside Martin.

“What a pity,” he said, gazing into his wide-open eyes. “They’re so beautiful. I might as well keep one.”

Tetrodoxin and curare. Separately, either one could kill you in high enough doses. In much milder concentrations, the combination does something quite remarkable: it simulates death.

Tetrodotoxin, also known as fugo poison, is an extract taken from the puffer fish. It induces a coma that is virtually indistinguishable from death. In Haiti, the substance is used in Voodoo rites of zombie creation. The witch doctor usually administers the drug in low doses over time. Gradually, the victim becomes more helpless and dependent, unable to even feed himself. Eventually, he’s drugged into a deathlike state and buried in a ritual ceremony. Later, the doctor digs him up to put him back to work…as his personal slave. Martin made his own special variant of the potion, combining it with an extremely low dose of curare. Curare, he learned after many long nights in the public library, is used in blow darts by native jungle tribes to paralyze their prey. It creates complete paralysis almost instantly, though the victim is still alert, and able to feel pain.

One of his pistols was loaded with special ammunition…gel caps filled with a mixture of that wonderful potion and a generous dollop of fake blood, just for color. The gel cap cartridges were designed to penetrate at least one layer of clothing and enter the bloodstream, much like an aerosol hypo. He intended to use it on Paul, so he could have some extra fun with him before he killed him for real.

Unfortunately, Martin made a very careless mistake in his rush to suit up for the big shootout. He put on the wrong vest. It looked just like his other Kevlar vest, but it had some special modifications. It was designed to perform a triple function: stop bullets, release blood squibs (so the attacker believed the bullets hadn’t stopped) and release a small amount of the Magic Potion into his bloodstream via a spring-loaded injector he had taken from an Imitrex migraine kit. Martin called it his “doomsday vest.” It was about to live up to its name.

He got the idea for it when he was bounty hunting. He’d taken a slug in his regular Kevlar vest on three separate occasions, making a big show of toppling over and then popping back up like a jack-in-the-box, guns blazing. Wouldn’t it be cool to add a little razzle-dazzle with some blood squibs, like in the movies? He did just that, and rigged a parachute rip-cord to trigger the squibs when a bullet came near him, resulting in some very entertaining arrests, while sparing himself the extreme discomfort of actually being shot in the chest.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Martin took his invention to the next logical level. Logical, that is, for someone like Martin. What if he
really
looked dead? That would make for an even more dramatic reprisal…right? He did some research, discovered the amazing properties of tetrodoxin and curare and went back to the drawing board, creating the doomsday vest. So, when Michael fired his completely unexpected and remarkably accurate bullet, instead of doing his standard dead-man-fake-out routine, Martin was totally paralyzed. And much, much worse…he could still feel
everything.

Bean was pretty much in the same anchored boat. The bullet lodged in his brain could have killed him at any second, with the slightest jog of his body. It also could have restored all his motor functions, with the same little nudge. When Paul spoke to him and he tried to answer, the warped lump of metal in his brain shifted, three millimeters south. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. The spreading paralysis that kept his hand clutched on his pistol and his mouth smiling like Dr. Sardonicus instantly became total paralysis. The effect wasn’t much different from Martin’s potion. And like Martin, he could feel
everything.

Michael had a hard time making sense of it. When the bullet moved and his tongue froze and stiffened, he wondered what had happened. Was this what it felt like to be dead? He heard stories of people floating outside of their bodies, but never watching from the inside
.
He could hear and smell too, which was also strange. He watched Paul come over and look into his eyes with that big fucking smile on his face.

Then he walked over to Martin.

Martin watched with his paralyzed eyes as Paul came closer, his steps sounding like the wheel of fortune spinning at the San Gennaro festival. Where it stops, nobody knows. When he held the sickle up to his mouth, Martin was terrified. When he stood back up again, Martin felt a huge wave of relief. Hallelujah. Martin thought that maybe, just maybe, he was going to get out in one piece. Then the fire started. That was bad, but it only went downhill from there. After Loren crashed through the floor, Paul came back. As he leaned over him, Martin couldn’t even blink. But he could feel Paul pry his eyelids apart. He tried to move his fingers. He tried again before the blade descended.

Martin’s agony was surprisingly surpassed by his torment for fucking up his chance to kill Paul. But the drug had to wear off eventually, right? It was already past the five-minute mark. If he woke up right away, there was still a slight chance he could kill Paul, escape the fire, and save Rose. Then he heard the firemen arrive and fall silent, one by one. Paul put on a black and yellow fireman coat…and picked up his book. At least one of them was smart enough to have an escape plan. Paul looked at him one last time with his gas mask on. He winked before dangling his own eye in front of him. It looked so small now. Bye-bye.

Martin felt the wood get really hot beneath him. He thought about Paul, still alive, while the flames licked at his back. Then he thought about Rose and cursed himself again.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
screamed the trapped voice in his head. The smoke was starting to strangle him, and he still couldn’t move.

Bean watched as Paul took Martin’s eye. Paul did it so…professionally, that there was hardly any blood. He used his thumb and forefinger to pop out the eyeball, then snipped the muscles and nerves with his long, curved knife. When he was finished, the eyelid sank into the empty socket like a loose tarpaulin. Michael guessed, correctly, that he’d done this before.

The smoke thickened, but Michael couldn’t cough, no matter how much he wanted.
You can’t be dead and want to cough, can you?

He watched Paul depart and tried to shout, “Please don’t leave me here! Don’t leave me all alone!”

His lips didn’t even quiver when he tried.

Twitch. Twitch.
Martin’s finger moved like Frankenstein’s monster, tapping against the wooden floor that was only minutes away from total ignition point. The smoke was overwhelming, thick and greasy gray. A section of the floor near Bean’s body was already beginning to flame. It was the second thing Martin noticed when he willed his legs to stand. The first thing was the gel cap pistol Paul had thrown on the floor. Martin pocketed both pistols and crawled on his belly to minimize the smoke inhalation. He was only a few feet into the hallway when he found the second fireman’s body. The heat was incredible and growing worse by the second.

His one remaining eye stung as though an army of fire ants were biting it. The other ravaged socket hurt even more. He wrestled the oxygen tank from the fireman’s body and stuffed the hose into his mouth.
Ahhhhh.
He took three deep breaths and stripped off the fireman’s tank, mask, coat, pants and boots in less than half a minute. He put everything back on even quicker, shoving his pistols in the big coat pockets. He was about to make a mad dash down the hallway when he felt an irresistible urge pulling him back to the chapel…and Bean.

The walls and floorboards were burning, igniting Bean’s army coat. There was a plastic rectangular box poking out of his front pocket. The remote. Holy fuck! How could Paul have left it behind? Had he forgotten it in his haste to escape the fire?

Bean was even more perplexed when Martin first stood up.
Am I the only one who’s dead around here?
He watched helplessly as Martin left the room and came back wearing the fireman’s gas mask and clothes. Bean stared in horror as his own jacket began to flame. When his dreads caught fire like candlewicks, he tried to shout at Martin.

Don’t just look at me! Do something!
Martin did. He snatched the remote right before Michael’s pants caught fire, giving it a flip in the air before holstering it in his pocket. He did everything but blow imaginary smoke from his cocked fingertip. There was enough smoke around anyway.

“Thanks,” said Martin in a muffled voice behind the gas mask, tipping the brim of his fireman’s hat. Then he walked away.

No! Don’t go! PLEASE SAVE MEEEEE!

Martin turned around quickly, staring at the kid’s open eyes, studying the grin still frozen on his face. Hmmm. That was weird. He could have sworn he heard somebody screaming. Then he shrugged and walked down the hallway.

NOOOOOO! COME BACK! DON’T LEAVE ME!
Michael tried to yell. But still no sound left his lips. And Martin didn’t come back.

He could smell his scalp frying like bacon. The smoke grew black. The altar was burning. Now the angel too. The flames from Michael’s clothes and flesh joined the glow. When his skin began melting like candle wax, he realized the biggest truth about his sadly mistimed encounter with Paul.

There really was a Hell, after all.

After he shed the fireman’s gear in the burnt out basement of the apartment across the street and whumped his way past the gathering crowd, Paul settled comfortably into the back of the black Lincoln Town Car waiting for him on Ninth Street.

As the Lincoln sped away, he pulled out his present, wishing he’d had time to wrap it. But it looked so perfect in its natural state that it would be a travesty to conceal its beauty, even for a few moments, regardless of the dramatic effect a slow unveiling would have. He turned it over again and again in his hands, reveling in the cool, round smoothness, the few pebbled buds of texture caressing his blunt fingertips like the bumps on a milk-swollen nipple.

He put the orb in his top shirt pocket and patted it gently.

It’s going to make quite an impression.
He imagined the look on her face when she saw it. He wondered if she would guess right away where it came from, or whether he’d have to spell it out.
She’s pretty clever. I’m sure she’ll know.

The buildings were a blur as the Lincoln rocketed up First Avenue. When they passed Forty-Second Street, Paul pulled out his gift again, dangling Martin’s eyeball from its severed muscles.
So beautiful. So blue.