Stefan Petrucha - Dead Mann Walking

Grandpa pointed at the vat. “That’s what the acid’s for, to make it easier.”

“What do you mean, easier?”

“You’ll see,” the old man said. He and Watt put some thick gloves on; then, with a nod from the high priest, Grandpa put his hands on Ashby’s shoulders.

“No!” I shouted.

I tried to move. Watt grabbed me from behind, but I managed a quick kick to his groin. I prayed it’d put him down, but he mumbled something about chemical sterilization and got me in a bear hug. My arms were pinned, and seconds later my feet were dangling off the ground. I grunted and kicked, but any strength I had was useless.

Ashby looked very worried. “Heh-heh.”

Mr. Mask put a yellow-gloved finger to his lips and said, “Shhh! Shh!”

Ashby stared at him like he was watching a cartoon. I could see how he’d make the mistake. Watt tightened his bear hug until my ribs felt ready to crack.

Grandpa turned and whispered to me, “Don’t tell him. It won’t change anything. You’ll only scare him.”

“Sweet of you to be so concerned,” I said, croaking more than talking. “What’s he going to do with the kid’s head? Keep it as another souvenir?”

His eyes flitted to the duffel bag, then back to me.

Grandpa gritted his teeth. “He doesn’t want his head. He’s an experiment. The acid should destroy him faster than fire. Completely . You tell him what’s going to happen, he’ll spend his last moments thinking about it. What do you think would be best for him?”

“Killing all three of you and getting out of here. But I guess I shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Ashby’s head twitched from me to Grandpa to Watt to the mystery man.

“Are we going to find Frank? Heh-heh.”

It may have been my imagination, but when the kid said Frank , it looked like one of the bowling balls in the duffel bag twitched.

Christ, I didn’t want to think about it.

Gramps gave Ashby a paternal smile. “You’ll see Frank in a second. First you gotta take a little bath.”

“I don’t like baths. Heh-heh.”

“Even for Frank?”

“Frank didn’t say take a bath. Frank said to run.”

“That was a game,” Grandpa said. “Game time’s over. Now it’s bath time.”

He hooked him by the arm and walked him toward the vat. Ashby looked back at me with a grin that deserved to be a picture in the dictionary, next to the word insipid .

“A bath. A bath for Frank, heh-heh.”

Death, real death. I knew there was worse than that, and hell, maybe it would be better if he didn’t know it was coming. What did he have to look forward to, anyway? Fuck. Moral questions are easy when the situation’s black and white. The tough shit is figuring out the lesser of two evils. You can’t win, but you have to choose anyway. I decided that the bigger evil would be satisfying the son of a bitch with the headgear. If he was for it, I was against it.

“Ashby, for fuck’s sake, fight!” I screamed. “Poke his fucking eyes out! Kick! Scratch! They killed Frank and they’re going to kill you!”

“Killed Frank? Killed Frank? Heh-heh?”

Moving fast for his age, Grandpa snapped off a glove, yanked my head back by the hair, and stuffed it down my throat. But I’d made my point.

Ashby screamed, writhed, whirled, twisted, and kicked. Good for you, Ashby.

I tried to help, if only by fighting Watt. I pulled and kicked, but my best didn’t impress him at all. As for Ashby, well, for a second it looked like he was actually getting away from the old geezer. Instead he flew sideways into the concrete. Grandpa had thrown him to the ground to avoid the kicks. Then the old man plopped himself down on Ashby like a cowboy roping a calf, slapped another set of cuffs around his ankles, and tied his knees together.

As Ashby writhed, the masked man shook his head at me like it was my fault. I would have said if he didn’t like it he should take his vat and go home, but there was this rubber glove in my throat. It filled my mouth and throat with an acrid taste that I was sure wasn’t healthy even for dead things. I only hoped it wasn’t burning anything important.

I wanted to scream. I tried. I tried to scream as Watt chained me to a support beam, tried again when the two of them hefted Ashby into the air. I kept trying as I pulled against the chains so hard it felt like I was breaking my own bones. When I heard Grandpa caution Watt to be gentle in order to avoid spills, yeah, I tried screaming then, too.

As they hoisted him up and over, the kid’s eyes looked like they were trying to pop out of his skull and run away without him. I froze. Watt and Grandpa, as if they were dumping fresh-cut potatoes into a deep-fryer, let go and hopped back.

With a final, “Heh-heh,” Ashby disappeared. The viscous green crap didn’t even splash as it swallowed him. It was so thick, it just made a sickening plop, like radioactive pea soup.

The liquid churned like water not quite willing to boil. Maybe Ashby was struggling as the acid ate him. I thought I saw a bone-white elbow rise above the surface, but it was gone before I could be sure. After a minute or so, the churning slowed. Swampy vapors, a lighter green, hovered on the surface. The chemical odor was joined with a smell like burning meat.

“Most of it’s gone now,” Grandpa said. “I think the bones take a little longer.”

Even he looked a little grossed out, but our host was absolutely fascinated, intent as Ashby had been on Misty. To him, this was the equivalent of something shiny.

After another minute, the liquid, slightly darker, stopped moving altogether. For the first time, I believed something other than fire, or being ground by a millstone, could kill a chak.

The killer gave off a victory laugh, as if to say, Wow!

Grandpa wiped some sweat from his brow. “It’s sure as hell better than chasing someone all over the desert. That Boyle fellow took hours.”

Something in the bag twitched again.

Before I could think about what that meant, Watt undid the chain connecting me to the column. My turn.

The masked man stepped over to the table and regarded his pretty tools. He lifted the metal pole with the leather harness and stepped toward me. I think I made out a wide smile beneath the mask.

Then he said three words, drew each one out in a ridiculously singsong way. The voice was boyish, hauntingly familiar, but that could have been a put-on.

“We’ll talk later.”

17

Iexpected I’d be D-capped, my head harvested, my body tossed into the acid. The idea of losing my head always got to me, but I’d been picturing it clearer and clearer ever since I’d first heard about Wilson: blades pressing my neck, cold metal so razor-sharp I wouldn’t have the slightest idea when they first sliced my skin. There’d be pinching as the muscles and veins snapped, more pressure, and one final crunch as my spine was severed.

Little happens the way I expect. With Grandpa and Watt flanking me, everyone’s favorite mystery date came closer holding not the choppers, but the leather strap I’d seen among his toys. In a flash, I caught onto the plan. He’d use the strap to keep my head above the acid as they lowered the rest of me in. As my body melted into human stew, if the liquid was clear enough, I’d get to watch. I didn’t figure I’d be able to talk after that, what with no lungs, but I did think I’d see, and keep seeing, unless someone buried me . . . or shoved me in a duffel bag.

Why? Maybe it was some kind of experiment, or maybe he got off on seeing pain, the way boys take a magnifying glass to a bug and watch it burn. Maybe there was no malice at all, just a gross curiosity.