by Murr
Let the starving artists wither and die. Richard was far removed from that. He understood his place. He had been reborn, christened into the pantheon, and the City knew his name. He was Art, and there were always new ideas swimming behind his eyes.
David W Barbee
David W Barbee writes weird stories full of dark monsters and strange maniacs, influenced by a deranged childhood diet of cartoons, comic books, and cult movies. He is the author of JIMBO YOJIMBO, BACON FRIED BASTARD, THE NIGHT'S NEON FANGS, THUNDERPUSSY, and the Wonderland award-nominated A TOWN CALLED SUCKHOLE. He lives in the mangy wilderness of Georgia, next door to one of the world's most polluting power plants.
COCK NECKED by David W. Barbee
Pat couldn’t remember the first time he’d woke up with the pain in his neck, but he’d had it for at least a month now. It hurt just to turn his head to the left. At first he figured he’d slept wrong. That had happened plenty of time in the past. Sleeping one off with your legs splayed apart, your torso twisted around, and your head turned sideways against a firm pillow was exactly how you get a crick in the neck. So he ignored it at first. In a few days he grumbled and rubbed at it and rotated his head around, but the ache remained.
The pain swelled each morning, pulsing in the upper tissue of his left trapezius. Over the course of the day he sicced fistfuls of aspirin after the pain, but the crick endured. The pain dulled toward the end of the day, or at least it had worn Pat down to a state of physical numbness. He tossed and turned, falling asleep a few hours at a time, but at the start of each day the pain was there. Pat gritted for a few more days until the discomfort finally convinced him to visit a doctor like a sensible person would.
The last time he’d seen the doctor he’d been told he was healthy as a horse. But that was ten years ago when Pat was twenty. Now the doctor was older and balder than Pat remembered, his face lined with deep rutting wrinkles from worrying over other people’s health. The doctor prodded Pat’s neck and watched him flinch. He took Pat’s vitals and worked the numbers over in his mind. He told a nurse to fire up the x-ray machine.
They scanned Pat’s head and printed out an image with a fuzzy white stain on the side of his neck. The doctor went over Pat’s numbers again, explaining that his calcium deficiencies were draining his strength, and the pressure on his jugular vein was messing with his blood pressure. He made an appointment for Pat with a specialist who could better diagnose the white stain on the x-ray. It could possibly be a tumor.
Pat tuned out the rest of the doctor’s words. He nodded and mumbled his way out of the rest of the appointment, then went back to his apartment and locked the door.
He never came outside again.
Both of Pat’s parents had contracted cancer, and all of his grandparents, too. It killed Pat’s dad when he was twelve and tried the same to his mother three separate times. His sister had even gotten it in her blood once. Pat didn’t need a specialist to tell him about tumors. It was his turn now, simple as that.
He contacted his sister Tori and had her bring over some of the opioids she had in her stash. He told her he’d sprained his ankle and needed something to get him through the pain. She was happy enough to give him pills, but worried about the frail tone of his voice. Pat met her at the door of his apartment and wouldn’t let her inside. After some small talk, he managed to get the pills and Tori left with slightly less concern.
He went through the half-filled bottle in three days. The pain of the tumor faded away but fought back as soon as the pills were gone. Pat lay in his apartment in a stupor, working his jaw so that he could feel the lump in the side of his neck. He prodded it with his fingers, trying to know the thing inside him poised to take his life. He massaged the lump and the hard muscle around it. He widened his jaw and chomped his teeth at the air. He tilted his head and surprisingly felt no pain. But he felt hunger. Plenty of it.
Pat tore through his fridge and cupboard, shoveling leftovers into his mouth, gorging himself his meagre stash of groceries, and microwaving every entre in the freezer.
He missed the next week of work and his supervisor sent a series of emails and voicemails that grew more hostile until he was eventually fired. His last check auto-deposited and he started spending it on takeout dinners. Pat figured that death sentences made you incredibly hungry. He didn’t bother paying the rent, and soon he heard the landlord stomping onto his porch to drop a letter in his mailbox.
Pat knew he’d be evicted soon, but by then it wouldn’t be his problem. They’d be the ones hauling out the corpse, not him. His face shined with sweat, and his teeth had been stained dark with grease and grit. He felt gross, like he was already halfway there. Pat stretched his neck to the right. The pain had returned, and no amount of jaw flexing could massage it away.
A knock at the door snatched his attention away and Pat moved to the peephole faster than he’d thought himself capable. The man on his porch wore a black suit over a short, narrow body. His face was smooth but with pale bags under his eyes. A bushel of gray hair combed backwards that betrayed his age. He stood there for a half hour, knocking every five minutes, as if he knew Pat was inside.
Pat stayed at the door, staring silently, listening to the old man’s rhythmic knocking. Finally he turned the bolt and threw open the door, bleary eyed and pale, wrapped up in his filthy blanket, already on edge before the man could make his first knock. “What do you want?” he growled.
“Nobody likes hearing this, sir,” the man said, “but I’m from the government, and I really am here to help.” The joke bounced off Pat’s face. “You’re Patrick Kendrick, correct?” said the government man, holding out a wrinkled business card. Pat took the card and held it at his side without looking at it.
“Mr. Kendrick, I’m Agent Santino with the Fourth Hand. I’d like to—“
“Fourth Hand?”
“It’s true, sir, our department doesn’t have a high profile. We’re sort of a branch of a branch, relatively closely affiliated with the FBI. Fourth Hand specializes in cases too abnormal for conventional law enforcement tactics. It goes back to an old CIA initiative originally referred to as Double Fist, with two departments representing the two hands, but there was unexpected blowback and a third hand was needed, and by the time the fourth hand was established the original initiative was rebranded. Fourth Hand is still here, though. I’ll admit it sounds shadowy, but it lets me travel all over the country and I get to see some very interesting sights. Seeing is believing, and since my eyes have seen it, I believe in a great deal of very strange phenomena.”
It was a speech the agent had given a million times, and he recited it in such a steady stream of two-dollar words that Pat just blinked at Agent Santino in response.
“Mr. Kendrick, I’d like to ask you a few questions. I promise it won’t take up too much of your time.”
“I don’t have any time.”
Pat moved to close the door but Agent Santino fired a volley of questions, each one stunning him into stillness. “Have you experienced any unusual pain recently? In your thighs or neck region? Have you had any contact with a Mr. Leonard Davis? Specifically during the last week of June?”
“I… uh, Leo? He used to work with me…”
“At the drug store,” Santino finished for him. “But Mr. Davis disappeared during that week. No one’s seen him in about seven weeks.”
“Whoa… We worked together and all, but I didn’t…”
“Of course not, Mr. Kendrick. You had nothing to do with Mr. Davis’ disappearance. I’m asking if you had any contact with him right before he disappeared. But more importantly, you’ve disappeared, too, haven’t you? According to your supervisor at the drug store, your employment was terminated eight days ago. It seems like you’re disappearing like Leonard Davis did.”
Pat huffed in defeat. “I’m sick, dude,” he muttered. “I got cancer.”
“That’s right, you went to the doctor recently. But you neglected your appointment with the cancer specialist. S
o how do you know you have cancer?” Before Pat could reply, more questions came. Worse questions.
“Has the pain worsened these past few weeks? Are you having mobility issues? Any headaches? Leakage?”
“What?”
“You haven’t come out of your house in about two weeks, Mr. Kendrick. Your landlord can’t be happy about that, can he? And what about all the takeout you’re ordering? In a typical day it’s three pizzas or big fat bag of Chinese food, isn’t it? About a half dozen sub sandwiches? Couple buckets of chicken? You seem to like those a lot.”
“Are you…?”
“I’m looking out for you, Patrick. I think you’re sick, and not with cancer. You have what Leonard Davis had and you need help.” Pat’s head tilted to the left with a short jerk and he slammed the door on Agent Santino. He crumpled up the business card and returned to the bucket of chicken on his couch. He gnawed on a drumstick as the agent called out through the door. “I can help you, Patrick. You don’t have much time.”
Patrick went to bed that night and woke up with yellow mucus caked to his cheek, gluing him to the blanket. The mucus had dried into a brittle crust that crackled apart as he peeled his face away. He didn’t bother checking the mirror, just scratched the yellow mess away from his face. The yellow slime filled his mouth and Pat struggled to collect it all on his tongue and swallow it back down. He sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve, but his nostrils were determined to drip. The yellow crust had oozed in between his teeth and hardened, filling his mouth with some taste that he couldn’t identify. He plopped down in the TV room and ordered a few pizzas. He picked his nose and scraped out a few fat green boogers while waiting for the pizza to arrive, then he drowned the mucus taste in marinara and cheese.
Judge Judy was on when he heard another knock at the door. This time it was the familiar drum beat of the landlord, Mr. Kwan. “Kendrick!” he shouted. “You missed the rent again! For the last time! You get your ass out by the end of the week or else!” Mr. Kwan never minced words with Pat, who had admittedly missed the rent a few times in the past, but he’d been right on time with every payment for the last year. He hadn’t said a word to him during that streak, but one missed check and now Mr. Kwan was right back in Pat’s face. “My god, it stinks!” the landlord said. “Your ass is getting sued, Kendrick!”
Pat listened until he heard Mr. Kwan step off the porch and walk away. He sighed with relief. The deliveryman with the chili dogs would be there any minute. Pat slowly rotated his face to stare back at the TV and wait for the chili dogs.
He didn’t remember falling asleep, just waking up the next afternoon by another knock, this one softer. Tori, his sister.
“Patty,” she said. “I know you’re in there. Um, a man called me? He said you lost your job and hadn’t come outside in a month. Are you… sick?”
“I’m on the toilet!” Pat’s voice had melted into a wet squawk, each syllable sounding off like flatulence.
Tori put her face close to the door and called out to him. “Are you okay? Like really okay?”
“Yeah! I got a virus… or somethin’. Just flushin’ it out.”
“Well then let me in!” she said.
“No! I’m, uh… stuck here, you know?”
“Just open the door! I don’t care about the smell!” A woman smoking on the porch of the apartment next stared at her. Tori gave her an embarrassed smile. “Pat, let me in,” she said. “Me and mom are worried about you. Neither of us can get ahold of you and some stranger called saying you were in trouble. He said you need help. What the fuck is up with that?”
“I’m fine!” her brother belched.
The smoking lady chuckled, and Tori’s face clenched at the sound. She grabbed the door handle and squeezed it, like she had the strength to break in if needed. “Patrick,” she said in that life or death voice their family had learned before either of them were born. “Don’t you fucking do this to me.” There was no answer, and Tori left long after her knuckles had gone white around the door knob.
Hours later Pat still sat on the couch with his head cocked to the right so hard his ear touched his shoulder. The yellow mucus drained from his nose and the corner of his mouth in thick, slow-moving streams. Pat’s head shuddered once, then again, and the tense position held by his neck began to loosen. His head cranked upward on the hinge of his strained vertebrae and then locked into an upright position. Pat drew in a deep breath, as if he’d nearly drowned.
Fuck.
Pat rose from the couch and made his way to the bathroom. He turned on the shower and shucked his shirt, which was stained from a month of sweat and food and mucus. He unclasped his belt and his pants collapsed from his narrow waist. He gripped the sink as he stepped out of them. Pat hooked his thumbs into his boxer shorts, pushed, and the skin of his crotch stung. Pat let out a whimper. The mucus had been leaking from his ass and his dick, and most of his boxer shorts were glued to him. He grit his yellowed teeth and yanked the boxers down, crying out as they pulled free of his body. The crusty shorts fell over his bare feet, covered in hardened mucus and scraps of soft, bloody skin. A long strip of skin had come away right down his ass crack, splitting around his balls and then taking chunks out of his withered foreskin. His inner thighs felt worse, with palm-sized patches of pale skin torn away, exposing red muscle saturated in bright blood.
Looking down at his wounds, Pat felt the crick in his neck return, stronger than ever. He turned his head upward to avoid the pain. He wrapped himself in a clean towel and sat down on the floor with the shower still running.
A knock at the door interrupted him. Agent Santino. “Mr. Kendrick,” he said. “Your sister just left, and she knows you’re lying. She didn’t manage to lure you out, though. Luckily, the situation is still contained, but not for long. Your landlord is coming tomorrow. With the sheriff.”
Pat turned off the shower and staggered out into the TV room to listen.
“They’re going to evict you, Patrick. And I can’t let that happen. I know you can hear me in there. I know you think you’re just sick, but you’re not thinking straight. It’s part of what that thing does. You know what happened to Leonard Davis? He tried to jump into the tributary. Parasites, virus mongers, homicidal cults… they always want the local tributary. By the time my partner and I got to Leonard was right on the bridge. We begged him to stop but it was like he couldn’t hear us. The thing had a hold of him. We had to incinerate him before he could climb the railing.”
The word incinerate filled Pat’s mind with hatred. His head shuddered and began to tilt. Pat grabbed his head to hold it still, then jacked his arm downward, made a fist, and uppercutted himself right in the jaw. It was fast, like a reflex. “Agent Santino?” he said, holding his own trembling head.
“Patrick!” Santino shouted. “Let me in! I can still help you!”
Pat stumbled toward the door so his voice could be heard. “Do you have a gun, Agent Santino?”
“Patrick, you won’t believe this, but I’ve seen this sort of thing a hundred times. You don’t have to end up like Leonard Davis, you can—”
“Gimme your gun,” Pat growled.
“Patrick, you know I can’t do that.”
“Put it… in the mailbox.”
Agent Santino waited for a response. When the silence lasted half an hour, he finally turned and stepped off Pat’s porch. He walked up the stone path, stopped halfway, and walked back to the porch. He looked at the metal box nailed to the wall next to Pat’s door, stuffed with bills and ads and flyers. Santino pulled his revolver from its holster under his jacket and stuffed the pistol in amongst a month’s worth of mail.
Later that night, the door to Pat’s apartment snapped open, an arm reached out to grab the pistol. It disappeared back inside as fast as possible.
Early the next morning Mr. Kwan approached Pat’s apartment with a sheriff’s deputy at his side. They saw Agent Santino standing at the end of the sidewalk, watching, but Mr. Kwan was too pissed off to take
his attention off his tenant. The sheriff’s deputy knocked on Pat’s door and called out to him. “Mr. Kendrick,” he said, “we’re coming inside. You and your possessions have to come outta there, son.” Mr. Kwan inserted his key and opened the door. Back on the sidewalk, Agent Santino started walking toward them.
The stench hit Mr. Kwan and the sheriff’s deputy like a wave of aerosol shit. The deputy covered his mouth and nose and stepped through the doorway. Mr. Kwan gagged and backed away. Agent Santino moved around him and followed the deputy into Pat’s apartment.
Pat sat on the couch in front of them, naked and pale, covered in crusty mucus and open sores that wept watery blood. His head twitched right, softly bumping his temple against the barrel of Santino’s revolver, held there by Pat’s skeletal arm. Pat stared up at the men with pinkish eyes lined with pebbles of hardened mucus that clung to his lashes. The deputy pulled his weapon.
The left half of his neck was bloated now, the skin stretching out, pulsating and quivering. The bulge leaned on his spine, pushing his neck to cock rightward and give the creature control.
“No!” Santino shouted. “It’s what the parasite wants. At this stage it doesn’t need him anymore. Pat! If you’re still in there, listen to me! It’s making you do this! It wants you to kill yourself so it can be free! The next stage of its lifecycle is to emerge from the host and lay its eggs, and you don’t even want to know what hatches from them.”
