Charlie Huston - My Dead Body

– Is a little discipline.

Which he starts to dispense.

And I have just enough in me to roll my head to the side so I don’t have to see it.

All I can see now is Evie, walking to me, one hand alongside her face, shielding her eyes from what the old man is doing.

She kneels next to me, shakes her head.

– I hate fights, Joe.

I’d tell her she shouldn’t have fallen for a fighter.

I’d tell her it’s only because I love her that I make such a mess.

But she’s got her mouth on mine, and I want that to last as long as it will, this kiss, here in the slaughterhouse, I want it to last till I die.

I dream a green and pink egg. It cracks, black ink leaks. Something is writhing inside, forcing its way out.

Amanda looks up from her microscope.

– Once it’s out, you can’t put it back in.

I look at the egg in my hand, the black dripping into my palm, the thing inside pushing the halves of the shell apart.

Terry spins the hand crank on his mimeo machine, turning out handbills for a protest.

– Let it, I don’t know, let it out, but make sure you keep a handle on it, let it out when its energy is aligned with your own desires.

I’m holding the egg in both hands, black dribbling onto the floor, a few fragments of shell falling away.

Predo sits at his desk, flipping through a file marked TOP SECRET.

– Close that thing up, Pitt. You are not suited to making decisions of this scope.

I’m cradling the egg in both arms, knees bent under the weight, rocked from side to side as whatever’s inside thrashes about.

Hurley pats the end of an ax handle into his palm.

– Step on da damn ting dere, Joe. Best not ta take any chances wit it.

It’s on the floor and I’m balancing it, keeping it from rolling over on top of me, a flood of black running off it and pooling over my shoes.

Percy takes a drag from his Pall Mall.

– That’s a problem you got there. Thinkin’ on that one, gonna give your head a hurtin’. Askin’ me, I say use it, before it use you.

I’m backing away from the egg, watching the shell shatter.

The Count looks up from the miniskirted teenager he’s making out with.

– Yo and just fuck it or whatever. What be will be will be.

The shell is breaking open, it’s coming out.

Daniel studies the sun through an open window.

– Simon.

I run to him.

– Daniel, what the hell is that?

The shell crumbles to the floor and a worm, glossy in the black blood of its birth, bursts out, its own tail in its mouth.

Daniel glances at it, shrugs, returns his attention to the sun.

– Got me. I’ve never seen such a thing.

– But you know everything.

He shakes his head.

– I fake a good game, Simon, but I’m just making it up as I go along.

It eats itself and grows and eats itself and grows and I back into a corner and someone puts a hand on my shoulder and I turn and look at Evie.

I shake my head.

– Baby, you’re not dead.

She nods.

– OK, well, neither are you.

Which is news.

I wake up with blood in my mouth.

I swallow and lick my lips.

– More.

Evie pushes the cup against my mouth and I drink the rest and lick the inside clean and nod and suck it from my teeth.

– More.

She holds the cup upside down.

– All gone.

I wince.

– Shit. I need. I’ll never make it without.

I feel for the wound the Count opened in my side and find a deep gnarled dent, slivers of bone poking through fresh skin.

– That’s not as bad as I thought.

Evie shows me an empty two-liter soda bottle with an interior glaze of tacky blood.

– You’ve had quite a bit.

I roll my head to the side, we’re still on the killing floor, but the killing looks like it’s done. New bodies scatter among the parts that had fallen from the hanging corpses. And living Enclave, in rows, unmoving, facing the old man at the front of the warehouse, like they used to do with Daniel.

But the old man’s not Daniel.

– OK, buddies, tell you what for and then some. Living up here, listening to ten kinds of bullshit. Buddies, forgetting what we’re made for. Made for killing and death. Made for the dark. Made to become strong in the light. Make a religion out of that when it’s supposed to be life. Do you doubt me?

He picks up a corpse in each hand and shakes them back and forth.

– Do you doubt me?

No one seems to doubt him.

He drops the corpses.

– Buddy over there.

He points at me.

– Buddy over there, he’s cracked your world in half. Let in the sunlight. Trust me he has. You don’t know it, but you’re standing in the sun right now. Buddies, everyone can see you now. And look at yourselves, are you burning? Do you melt?

He stomps, tosses his head around, screams.

– I can feel my skin being eaten by the Vyrus!

He plants himself and a grin slashes his face.

– I like it!

He starts walking through them, pulling them to their feet.

– Buddies, this is not where we live. Playing church games. We live in our natures. True to ourselves. We’re in the sun, and it’s not killing us, not a one. Only thing that kills us is one another. That’s over. Buddies, we’re going down now. Live like dark things live. Discipline doesn’t grow because you nurture it. It grows because you need it to live. And you!

He’s standing over me and Evie.

– You two.

He smells the air around us.

– You two got dead all over your smell, buddy. You ain’t gonna last.

I push myself up on my elbows.

– None of us are.

He gives his cat cough.

– Oh, buddy, look into my eyes.

He bugs them at me.

I look.

And I see it there.

– It doesn’t scare me.

He slides his lids closed, slides them open.

– And why should it, buddy, it’s just who we are.

He looks at Evie, grunts, nods.

– Yeah, buddy, I see, I see. I’m old, but I’m not gone. I see.

He waves a hand, flickers off.

– You cling to that life as long as you can, it’ll drag you down, both of you.

He’s at the sewer cap, waving the Enclave down into the ground.

– Told you before, buddy.

He clambers down himself, only his head visible.

– You belong down here.

His head drops.

– With us.

And quiet. Creak of dead-bearing chains above, slow trickle of blood. And the breathing of my girl.

She turns from the sewer cap and looks at me.

– Always interesting when you pay a visit, Joe.

I wave a hand at the havoc.

– Got to be the life of the party, that’s just me.

She puts a hand on top of her bald head.

– I shot the Count.

– Baby, you killed his ass.

She hugs herself.

– I never killed anyone.

She hugs herself harder.

– God, that felt good.

She holds up a hand.

– Not just anyone. Him. Killing him felt good.

She smiles.

– Reeeally good.

She hides the smile with her hand.

– Awful. I’m awful. Terrible.

– Naughty even.

She takes her hand from her mouth.

– His own fault. Such an asshole. Such a titanic asshole. Two years. Two fucking years in this place with him. Constant back-and-forth. Just trying to keep some kind of stability to the whole thing. And he just keeps bringing in more Enclave. Kids clearly not capable of adapting to this life. Pushing all the limits of what we can bear. And then he started these gladiator matches. Pitting them against each other. Said it was to strengthen the whole. He just pulled that stuff out of his ass. He just.

She draws up her knees, rocks back and forth.

– I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop it. Not without. My people, there weren’t enough of us. So. I could have tried. But. We all would have. And then what? Because no one would have been here to keep things.