William Rose - The Seven Habits

This couldn’t really be Gauge, after all. He wasn’t like this, it had to be some sort of charade, a character he was playing…

“I’ve had just about enough of this shit. If you don’t get your ass back in that room right this minute, I’m cutting that meat out of your damn belly and eating it tonight.”

Gauge stormed toward Vessel, his face pulled into a long scowl as he hurled the threat.

At the same time, Vessel let out a cry like an enraged beast. She pitched herself forward, drawing her hands up and hooking her fingers into long talons that swiped through the air. Her fingernails connected with the stubble on Gauge’s jaw and three jagged furrows filled with blood in their wake.

“ You fucking pregnant whore! ”

From where she stood, Ocean could see Vessel’s eyes grow round and her mouth form a perfect O as she gasped. What little color had been in her face drained and she seemed to be hanging from Gauge’s shoulders. He turned away from her sharply, pulling his right arm back simultaneously. There was a sound like the ripping of wet fabric, and another like something between a splash and a squish as Vessel fell to her knees.

For a moment, Ocean could only look at the little droplets of blood that dripped from the blade of Gauge’s weapon. They seemed to fall to the ground hesitantly, like they knew within the span of a few seconds they would splatter against the concrete below and end their short existence.

He hopped away like the crimson puddle easing across the floor would melt his shoes, and then Ocean could clearly see the older woman. Vessel rocked back and forth as she knelt, the air escaping her throat in a series of staccato wheezes.

Her arms formed a bowl just below the arch of her stomach; something pink and glistening slid through the bloody slit in her smock and plopped into her waiting arms. It just seemed to keep coming without end; within moments, the fleshy tubes with their folds and creases were spilling over the sides of her arms and a smell like vomited shit filled the room.

Vessel looked at Ocean as if she were about to say something. Her trembling lips struggled to find words, but before even the smallest utterance, she crumpled over onto her side. Her mouth still agape, she stared at some infinitesimal spot in the cosmos that no living eyes would ever behold.

Ocean became aware of a rhythmic lull that seemed to hum in her ear. She blinked several times and forced herself to look away from the pregnant woman’s body, away from the circle of blood that blossomed around her.

Words. There were words. She saw Gauge, saw his lips moving, and struggled to concentrate. What is he saying? She could tell he was speaking to her. The sounds strung themselves into words, words into sentences, yet there was still a slight delay between hearing them and understanding.

“…some of that? You want to end up like her?”

Ocean shook her head, reality seeming to take a fraction of a second to catch up with her movement.

“I didn’t think so.”

Gauge grabbed her short hair in his fist and pulled Ocean along behind him. She stumbled over her own feet, staggered as she tried to keep up with him.

There should be pain, shouldn’t there? He was dragging her by her hair… it should have hurt. So why was there nothing more than a slight pressure on her scalp? A tingling that was more like an itch?

“…ahead of schedule but you should have listened, Ocean… to keep the door closed… your turn.”

He was pushing her toward the open wooden door. The bed of wadded up paper and the thin sheet stretched across it. The bucket in the corner with its dark smears and shit encrusted lip. The dirty walls and floor… these things were thrown into sharp focus as they loomed larger before her.

No, no, no, no…

She wanted to fight, to kick and claw and scream and bite. It felt like something was keeping the impulses from speeding out to her nerves and muscles. Some invisible barrier which was content to let her be shoved through the doorway so roughly that she stumbled and fell, her knees banging against the unforgiving floor. She could hear Gauge’s voice again, sounding distant, as though it were rushing away from her with each flutter of her heart.

“That’s it… that’s a good girl, you little bitch.”

She looked up just in time to see the door swing shut with a thunk. Light from the hallway spilled through the little window, casting a pattern of striped shadows to the floor.

“There’ll be plenty of time for us to get to know each other better.” Hollow laughter echoed as if someone had just told a particularly amusing joke.

“We’ll be together for a long, long time.”

You know what? I couldn’t do it, man. In the amount of time it takes a synapse to spark, I thought about Ocean out there, alone and hungry and scared. Somehow, givin’ up on myself felt like givin’ up on her, too. That’s just not something I was willing to do, dig?

So that bitch’s teeth are headin’ toward my neck like a striking snake and I did the only thing I could think of. I just kinda bucked , ya know. I used every muscle I had, kinda throwin’ my shoulders back while thrustin’ my chest and stomach up. At the same time, I’m pushin’ my hands against tits that were colder than two baggies of melted ice. Just kinda shovin’ off, and I musta had some kinda leverage, cause that thing went flyin’ off me like I was the prize bull at a rodeo.

There was even a brief second where I could still see my hand prints on her boobs, like these pale ghosts that just kinda lingered around. And then I’m scrambling to get up ‘cause I figure if I stay on the floor, I’m a dead man, right? I mean, that bitch pins me again and I don’t know if I could repeat that little bronco trick I just pulled off.

My heart felt like it was about to explode right outta my chest and that damn dust mask felt like it was some psycho killer tryin’ to suffocate the life right outta me. My lungs are achin’ for some cool, fresh air, to just suck down huge gulps of it, but I don’t dare take that damn thing off.

Besides, even if I’d been stupid enough to do so, I just didn’t have time.

I wasn’t even halfway off the floor before that bitch is startin’ to charge again. See, she didn’t know what fear was. She didn’t get tired, couldn’t be hurt. The perfect killing machine—she’ll just keep comin’ at ya and comin’ at ya, wearin’ ya down with the persistence and ferocity of a rabid weasel.

And me? I ain’t got so much as a pen knife on me. The gun’s out there in the hallway somewhere with my duffel bag and even if it weren’t, it wouldn’t do me any good anyhow. I mean, I wasted all my rounds, pumpin’ them into her chest like that.

I’m usin’ the edge of the tub to help boost me up and she’d crossed half the distance between us when she just kinda launches herself at me. I mean, one moment she’s running toward me and the next she’s divin’ through the air, flyin’ at me like some fucked up superhero. Got her arms strecthed out in front of her, ready to latch onto my face…

This time, it was dumb luck that saved me. I slipped, see, in all that water on the floor. One second I’m strugglin’ to get up and the next it feels like someone just pulled the world out from under my feet. I fell hard, man. I mean, the thump rattled the panes in the window and it felt like my spine was about to shoot right outta the top of my head.

That fuckin’ corpse thing? She just passes right over top of me. Her ankle smacked me upside the temple as she flew by but then there was this sharp crack from her head hittin’ the tile, I suppose. There was a big splash like someone had just done the cannonball at the pool, with drops of water sprayin’ everywhere.