by Platt, Sean
Dr. Williams shook his head. “He’ll never agree.”
“Please,” Boricio begged. “Please just try. Don’t let Rose live like this. She deserves more. Hell man, I deserve more. The vials worked with Luca; they’ll work with Rose, too.” Boricio repeated himself in case he’d been speaking Chinese the first time.
“Rose has been through enough,” Dr. Williams said. “Will won’t put her in any more jeopardy.”
“How much worse can it get? She’s in constant pain and her memory is getting even worse!”
The doctor shrugged. “It’s too soon to gauge her recovery, Boricio. Things like this take time and it’s too soon to throw in the towel on her chances. I’m not sure how much you know, or what I’m allowed to say, but I can tell you that something is happening with Luca — something we don’t understand. Something directly related to the vials. There’s no way Will is going to risk us using it on another person.”
Boricio’s growing anger went to worry. “Luca? Is he okay?” Boricio only gave Williams a second to speak before the anger returned and he growled, “What’s happening and why don’t I know?”
“You’ll have to ask your father.”
“You’ve gotta give me something,” Boricio insisted. “There must be something in Luca’s folder that you could tell his older brother.”
Dr. Williams sighed, swallowed, paused, then said, “Luca’s abilities are rapidly increasing, Boricio. And appear to be growing unstable.” He shook his head, though it looked to Boricio like he wanted to say more. But he didn’t. Just, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.”
Boricio scowled, said, “Fine,” then turned his back to Dr. Williams and climbed back into the air vent, leaving the grate on the doctor’s carpet. He crawled back to Rose’s bathroom, dropped onto the floor, replaced the vent, and then returned to her bedside.
“I’ll figure this out, baby,” Boricio whispered in her ear. His lips lingered on her cheeks in a long farewell before he left the room.
The guard outside turned to Boricio. “I didn’t expect you to be in there for half a year.”
“Yeah,” Boricio said. “Sorry about that. I had to make a grunt sculpture. Hope you don’t need to use the bathroom before we head back.” Boricio waved his hand in front of his nose, while the guard soured his face as if he could smell what wasn’t really there.
Boricio swallowed, then followed the guard down the long hall, scared for Luca, and terrified that the drop of hope waiting like dew on his Rose had just evaporated under an angry sun of nothing.
* * * *
CHAPTER 7 — Charlie Wilkens Part 2
Charlie turned to Imaginary Boricio who was standing beside him, shrugging his shoulders.
“You can see him?” Charlie asked the yellow hazmat-suited Boricio. “I thought he was in my head!”
“He is in your head. But I can see in there.”
“What kinda voodoo hoodoo French fried vanilla fuck shake is this?” Imaginary Boricio said. “Can you see this, ya’ fuck?” Boricio asked, giving hazmat-suit Boricio the only finger that mattered.
If he could see the insult, bald Boricio didn’t react.
“How can you read my mind? What are you?” Charlie asked, feeling invaded, and quickly trying to bury his thoughts, though the more he tried to hide things, the more his brain wanted to put the sordid images of his memory on full display, like any number of the 2,348 or so times Charlie had jerked off to Internet porn.
Stop it!
Think normal shit!
Imaginary Boricio looked at Charlie with feigned disgust, “Woah, you are one sick puppy, Downtown Charlie Brown! I thought I was sick, but the red lights in your district are downright nasty!” He laughed.
Fuck you.
“Excuse me?” Hazmat-suit Boricio said.
“No, not you. Fuck you heard that? Stop! Stay outta my head!”
“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. It’s a side effect . . . Anyway, um, how do you know me? I see all these memories you have of me. But I’ve never met . . . Oh. Shit.”
Hazmat-suit Boricio was staring off into space, looking like he might have just untangled string theory.
“What?” Imaginary Boricio said. “Spit it out, Fucker!”
“What?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t know why I didn’t see it before,” hazmat-suit Boricio shook his head. You’re not from here. You’re from the other Earth. The one where Luca went.” Then, “Holy shit. . . he did this!”
“The fuck are you talking about, Willis?!” Imaginary Boricio said.
Hazmat-suit Boricio either ignored or didn’t hear his imaginary twin. Perhaps he couldn’t read Charlie’s mind when he was deep in thought himself.
“What are you talking about?” Charlie asked.
“I want you to tell me everything that’s happened since October 15.”
“What? Everything?”
Hazmat-suit Boricio raised his eyebrows. “You got somewhere else to be?”
Charlie filled him in on everything from the moment he woke up in the basement of the cult compound to the moment he woke up in the glass cell.
“Where is this other Boricio now?” hazmat-suit Boricio asked.
“Like I said, we haven’t seen him since we went back to the compound. But he wasn’t there the last time we were.”
“You think he might be there now?”
“I dunno,” Charlie said. Then, “When are you gonna tell me what the hell is going on?”
Imaginary Boricio chimed in, “Yeah, we told you our Liliad and our fucking Odyssey, so start gettin’ chatty, Kathy!”
“On October 15, so far as we know, almost everyone on this planet died or vanished in an instant. A few were spared, for reasons we still don’t know. But everyone else, dead. At least I thought the people still here had been spared, anyway, but now I’m wondering if he didn’t pull a bunch of you all over somehow.”
Charlie wasn’t sure he believed a word this Boricio was saying, though he had no reason to doubt him, not with everything else he’d seen. It made a hell of a lot more sense than any theories he’d come up with on his own.
“How? Why?” were the only words Charlie could think to ask as he continued to process Boricio’s words. “Wait a second. Does this mean my mom is still alive? And that everyone else I know is still alive back on my Earth?”
“I don’t know,” Boricio said, seeming to marinate in the thought. “I can’t even guess.”
“So, can I get home?” Charlie asked.
Boricio said, “No.”
“Why not?” Charlie said, almost whining.
“Because you’re infected. If you go over there, this could spread. Then it would wipe out your planet like it did mine.”
“So what will it take to cure me?” Charlie asked.
“We’re working on that. With your help, perhaps we can figure this out.”
Boricio put his hand on the pad outside the door and opened it for Charlie. “You’re not going to do anything stupid again, are you?”
“No,” Charlie said.
“Good, I would like to show you something so you can understand what we’re up against.”
Boricio led Charlie down the hallway and out the door. He watched as they passed two Guardsmen. “Have someone mop up that mess in there, eh?” hazmat-suit Boricio said to the two men, referring to Foster’s corpse.
Four other doors were on either side of the hall, then another at the end, which looked like an elevator. They turned on the first door to the right, then walked up a steep incline along a narrow but well-lit hallway until they came to another door, to a room which — if Charlie had been charting the course correctly in his head — was directly above, or close to above, his own cell block.
The room was dark until Boricio said, “Lights.”
Lights illuminated the cell block. It was smaller than his own, with two glass cells, one of them empty. The other held a mutant, equal parts human and monster — legs were human, one ar
m a clawed appendage, his torso appeared split almost down the middle between human and black monstrous flesh. His face, however, was entirely human. He opened his eyes, weary, and dull.
“Hello, Ryan,” Boricio said. “How are you today?”
“Today’s been a bad one,” Ryan said, his voice full of gravel. “Who’s this?”
“This is Charlie Wilkens. And he might save your life. Or,” Boricio said as he turned to Charlie, “Ryan might be the end of yours.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 8 — Mary Olson Part 2
Mary was shocked.
Maybe shocked wasn’t enough. Dumfounded might be better.
She held the spaghetti in her mouth, almost scared to chew too fast and miss a detail of flavor.
The pasta in her mouth wasn’t just the best she’d had since October; it was the best meal she’d had period. And the aroma reminded her of a small Italian restaurant she used to eat at, which served the best food ever. And seeing how Boricio had “exactly dick and six curly ball hairs to work with,” the dish was that much more amazing.
“Where did you learn to cook like this?” she asked Boricio.
He shoveled a full fork, twisted full of pasta into his mouth, then answered. Red stained spittle slurred his speech. “I went to the Institute of Culinary Education in New York,” he said. “Spent six years perfecting my craft.”
“Really?” Mary was shocked. Paola and Luca both looked up from their plates, their faces as filled with surprise as she imagined hers was.
Boricio cackled then slapped the table. “Fuck no. Boricio don’t need no Rachel Ray to show him how to rip shit the fuck up. I learned how to cook by loving my taste buds like they were a perfect pair of titties, and I learned to cook by working in a million and one restaurants, making everything from grilled cheese to arepas.”
“Arepas?” Paola said, before Mary could. “What’s that?”
Boricio lit up. “Shit girl, your tongue is a crap pile until it’s tasted an arepa. They’re these corn-dough patties. Least that’s the canvas. Cheese and tomato and avocado and meats; shredded chicken, carnitas, steak; that’s all the paint. The dish is Venezuelan, and the most beautiful thing about the country outside of the bi..the boobies.” He smiled and took another bite of spaghetti and smiled.
“You’ve never been to Venezuela have you?” Mary asked.
“Do you need to see a pile of shit to know it stinks?”
Mary was as shocked to find herself enjoying the last few verbal spars with Boricio as she was by the quality of his cooking. While she didn’t ever expect to lose the edge she felt while around him — or the anger for what he’d done — at the moment Mary thought Boricio seemed more loud than dangerous.
She opened her mouth to challenge him, but was cut off by a sudden roar of motorcycles from outside. Boricio’s fork clattered on his plate and he bolted from the table, his back against the wall and his finger lifting the curtain as he peered outside a second later.
“Get the fuck on the floor,” Boricio barked. “All of you!”
They all hit the floor, Paola assisting Luca. Mary said, “What is it?”
“Looks like we have ourselves an intruder alert at Boricio’s Clubhouse,” he said. “Too bad we can’t call in G.I. Fucking Joe.” Boricio clucked his tongue. “Ain’t no never mind. Looks like there’s four of them, and even with two bleeders and a feeb, that seems like an even match for Team Boricio.” He looked back out the window and whooped. “Holy shit, one of them thinks he’s King Fucking Arthur!”
“What do you mean?” Mary whispered, her heart hammering inside her chest.
Boricio was crazy enough to wear a smile.
“Three of them fuckers are smart enough to come packing, two with sawed offs and another with what looks like a .45, though I’m not sure from here. But the biggest fucker is wearing a sword on his back like he’s goddamned He-Man!”
Boricio laughed again.
One of the bikes went quiet, then the other three followed, seconds apart. Boricio pulled his head from the window, dropped to a crouch, then started to whisper. “All right Team Boricio, it’s showtime. I’m gonna need you to hightail it upstairs and stay up there until I deal with the Dreadnoks. Take your guns but stay away from the windows. Keep your backs to the wall and shoot any fucker who comes into the room, in case something happens to me outside — which it won’t.”
Boricio paused, then added, “They’ll be handing Pluto back its planetary status before four dumb bitches on bikes can fuck with ol’ Boricio.”
“We have guns,” Mary said. “Why don’t we just shoot them from inside?”
“I shouldn't have to explain myself while death is waiting to be dealt outside, so I’ll just say this once and hope you’ve got your listening cap turned to high, Miss Mary.” He took another quick look outside, then turned his eyes to the three of them on the floor. “Never mind. They’re about to come inside this house. You all need to scoot your asses upstairs — right fucking now. And get your guns ready!”
**
Without another word, Boricio kicked open the front door, then went outside and hollered, “Well hello there, weary travelers, welcome to Motel Boricio where roaches check in, but they don’t fucking check out!” Mary pictured him spreading his arms like wings and twirling around.
“Come on!” she whispered, crawling toward the stairs while Luca and Paola crawled behind her. She paused at the first step, waiting for Paola and Luca. Paola went up the stairs first, then Luca. Mary followed behind. By the time they were upstairs, peeking out the window like Boricio told them not to, Mary could clearly see that Boricio was even crazier than she thought.
He was surrounded by a semicircle of four men, who all looked like they were from that Mel Gibson movie from the ‘80s that she couldn’t remember the name of — the one from back when Mel Gibson was handsome and not yet crazy. Like Boricio had said, all four men were armed, three with guns, while the tallest, largest, and obvious leader wore a sword in a scabbard at his back.
Boricio said, “I’ll admit, since I don’t have much company these days, I’m easily flattered. But I also have to confess to all sorts of warm fuzzies seeing as how you could smell Boricio’s Famous Sloppy Spaghetti from whatever side of Mad Max Island you’ve all come riding in from.”
Mad Max, that was it!
The leader grunted into Boricio’s bravado. “How many people are in the house?” he snarled.
Boricio laughed. “Ah, I wish there was more than just me, because I tell you what,” Boricio leaned closer to the leader in a growling whisper that was loud enough for Mary to hear, upstairs and behind a window, “Man, woman, or something with fur, it’d be nice to give ole’ Rosy Palms a break. But sadly for me, my many calluses and our bottle of Jergens, it’s just us.”
“Bullshit,” the leader said. “I’m gonna ask you one more time, how many people you have in the house?” He pulled his sword from its scabbard and waved it in front of Boricio.
“Ha,” Boricio cried. “Aren’t you gonna say, ‘I have the power?’ That’s how He-Man does it, you know.”
Mary might have laughed if she wasn’t terrified; half-certain they were minutes from dead. He may have been scarier than the Boogeyman himself, but Mary had to admire Boricio’s unvarnished grit.
The leader growled, and it looked like he was about to start swinging his sword, when Boricio took a giant step back and said, “Wait!”
Boricio held his hands high in the air. “Now, not to alarm you,” he said, “but I’m gonna reach behind my back and pull out my Beretta. Then I’m going to set it right here on the driveway. If I point it at you, or make a move that looks like it has a ball hair of danger, I grant you full permission to open fire on my stupid ass. And you can keep pulling the trigger until I finally stop twitching. If not, then let me set my gun on the ground so you can give me a minute of your time.”
Boricio didn’t wait for anyone to agree, just reached his hands behind his back and pulled
out the gun like it wasn’t suicide, then set it flat on the ground like he said he would.
“Now,” he said. “You strike me as a smart bunch of young men. And since you’re smart men with intelligent transportation and a brilliant set of weapons,” Boricio grinned and nodded his way from the pistol to the shotguns, then back to the sword in the middle. “I figured you might appreciate a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join Team Boricio.” He waited for a second then added, “So what do you say?”
All four looked confused. The leader looked like he was seconds from lobbing Boricio’s head off and into the garden.
Mary’s heart continued to race. She wanted Boricio to take a step back, so he was at least clear from the sword’s orbit, but she knew Boricio well enough even after only a few days to know that in his mind even a small step back was retreat, and retreat was a recipe Boricio would never cook.
“I can see your confusion,” he went on. “And I don’t want you to be confused, so I’ll explain.” Boricio cleared his throat. “Team Boricio is the winning team at the finish line of the world, and I’m the team captain.”
Boricio’s back was to Mary, but she could picture him beaming, and was pretty sure he was pointing at his chest. Why the three men with guns hadn’t opened fire on him already was beyond her. Then again, it was beyond her how they could circle so calmly around Boricio, with none of them seeming to worry whether there might be people at the windows with guns, waiting to shoot. Like they should be doing now.
“So I’m giving you one chance to join.” Boricio turned from the leader to his men on either side and added, “Now, I’m not asking you to overthrow nothing. This isn’t a mutiny in motion. I’m just letting you know your options, and seeing if maybe you want to take advantage, and join right now while we’re still offering a free membership package.”
Mary looked to Paola and Luca, who both looked as amazed as she was. How Boricio could keep the men from killing him, simply by spouting sentence after sentence of uncut nonsense was simply astonishing.
