She yawns. “What time is it?”
“No idea.”
“How long have I been sleeping?”
“A couple of days.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Not very long.”
“Ezzy should be home soon,” she says.
“Cool.” My lips curl into a smile at the thought of my child. “I can’t wait to meet her. Uh, again.”
She touches my cheek and strokes my facial hair, saying, “I’m sure you two will just kick it off with no problem. Don’t worry about it.” Her face changes, eyes widening and jaw dropping, as her hand moves from my cheek to behind my head. “Jesus, what happened to your neck?”
“What do you mean?”
Her finger lightly brushes across it and I flinch, squealing out in pain. Sure enough, the progressively returning headache has now shot back into full focus, grinding its hellish fangs deep into my brain. “Don’t touch whatever you just touched again!”
“Sorry, just it’s all bruised looking,” Molly says, retracting her hand.
“Yeah, well, a lot of my body is pretty bruised up tonight in case you haven’t noticed.”
“No, I know, but this is different. It’s, like, black, or something...like it’s infected. Oh my God, no wonder it hurts...”
“How bad does it look?”
“There’s something in the dead center of it all, like an opened scab, or something. It looks like you were shot. Holy crap.”
“I think if I had been shot in my neck I would be dead right now.”
“Yeah, no shit, slick,” Molly says. “I just said that’s what it looks like, is all. I don’t know what the hell it is, but I’m betting this is the cause of that headache you’ve been complaining about.”
“Speaking of...”
“I think we have some aspirin in the medicine cabinet. Give me a second.”
“Nah, I already took something. Is there any blood in it? What does it look like? What the hell do I do?”
“I already told you,” Molly says, craning her neck back for a closer inspection. “It’s like this deep hole, but I don’t see any blood. It’s all like this black crust.”
“Mud?”
‘I don’t think so. This stuff looks more...” She trails off, leaving me waiting.
“More what?”
“More evil.”
That is a word I never ever want to hear someone use to describe something on my body.
Evil?
What the fuck?
A loud series of bangs erupt at the front door. We both jump.
“Who the hell is that?” I whisper.
“Oh, probably just the Rev dropping off Ezzy. You should probably put some clothes on.”
She gets out of bed and redresses in her sweats and purple V-Neck, striding across the living room to the front door. Still on my guard, I slide into my jeans and underwear, but before I have a chance to find my T-shirt, someone screams at the front door.
Molly.
Shit.
She stumbles backward into the living room, collapsing on her ass. Two men—one I recognize as Raoul—barge in, slamming the door behind them. They are both packing submachine guns, and neither one of them looks like they are in the mood to screw around. Raoul particularly, who grips his weapon with one hand only, the other hand now bandaged in layers of bloodstained gauze. The same type of gauze is applied to his shoulder, as well.
“No one fucking move!” he yells, waving his gun.
“Whoa, whoa, fellas.” I hold my hands up. “Can we help you with something?”
“Yeah, you can help me by saying one more word, because as soon as you do I will gladly tear your face to pieces with this here gun. So come on. Say it. Just one word, motherfucker. That’s all I need.”
Raoul looks at the other thug. “I told you we should have just came here first. You know how much time we would have saved?”
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t think someone would be stupid enough to hide out at their home when they know people are out to kill them. Especially people who know where they live...”
Raoul sniggers, as if he’s been waiting for him to say that. “Well, you see, Trig, normally your assumption would have been correct, but the thing is, Bob here isn’t exactly the smartest of the bunch.” He glances over at me. “Isn’t that right?”
I offer a guilty smile, as if to say, “You caught me.”
“Not to mention the fact that lately he seems to be having some problems with the ol’ memory box,” Raoul adds. “But that’s okay, he isn’t gonna be around long enough to have time to remember anything else. All he needs to know is that he’s living on stolen time as it is. Indigo wants his head on a motherfucking platter. You got all that, Bob?”
I nod.
“Now, since you’ve recently been suffering some brain damag, I am sure you’re expecting me to kill you right here and now—and believe me, I would love that more than anything else, but it is not meant to be. You and your pretty little girlfriend are gonna go on a trip with us back to the casino, and Indigo will properly deal with you. But don’t get the wrong idea, I have full permission to make your face go away with bullets if you so much as breathe funny. I will kill you. Kill you to death.”
No shit, I think, but only nod in acknowledgement.
“Another thing, I know you got a piece hiding somewhere here, as evidence of our earlier escapade,” Raoul says, gesturing to his shoulder. Then something seems to click in his mind, so he says, “Oh, and speaking of which...”
He calmly walks over to me, sporting one hell of a grin, and without another word, kicks me square in the testicles. Molly screams. I double over and collapse on my stomach, gasping for air.
“Shut up, bitch,” the other man, Trig, says.
Raoul crouches down next to me and whispers, “We’re not even close to being even, baby. I don’t know how you did what you did to my hand, but I will make you pay before we get to the casino. You and your whore.”
“We’ll see about that,” I say.
He laughs. “Yeah, you’ll see, all right. So, you gonna tell me where this gun is or am I gonna have to start chopping Molly’s tits off?”
He delivers a swift chop to the throat, creating a temporary block in my airways and making me choke on a breath inhaled prematurely. Both hands shoot to my neck, my mouth wide open and gagging for clean air. I can’t make up my mind which to hold: my throat or my scrotum.
Molly screams again and Raoul tells Trig to shut her the fuck up. Trig obeys, casually walking over to her, expression colored to a menacing shade of darkness, and backhands her across the face. Hard. She yelps like a puppy getting its tail stepped on and flies back against the wall, smacking against the plaster and falling silent.
Motherfuckers are going to pay for that. The both of ‘em.
Still crouched next to me and matching my kneeled-over height, Raoul says, in a near growl, “Where. Is. The. Gun.”
There’s no use in resisting, I know this now, not when Molly’s health is on the line. She is the only one I know in this world, the only one who makes me feel at home. I need her by my side or else everything will crumble, everything will die.
Ashamed, I point in the direction of the bathroom, refusing to look him in the eyes.
“What, in the bathroom?” Raoul asks. “The gun’s in there?”
I nod.
“Where at?”
“Co—ooot,” I stammer, choking again. It feels as if someone has tied a rope around my throat. It won’t be much longer before my windpipe is completely crushed and I topple over, defeated at last.
“Say that one more time?” Raoul leans close to my ear and if my balls weren’t halfway up my stomach, I think I may have actually mustered up the courage to headbutt this fucker right here and now.
“Coat...it’s...craa...ah...coat. Pock...craa...et!”
“Coat pocket?” he asks.
I nod, gagging on phlegm.
“Don’t take your e
yes away from these two for a second,” Raoul tells Trig. “Slightest bit of trouble, don’t hesitate to shoot. Do away with the girl first, then him. I want him to see with his own eyes what happens when you disobey me.”
“No prob,” Trig says, tapping the submachine gun in his hands. “It’s been too long since I’ve killed someone, anyway. Starting to get rusty.”
Raoul heads into the bathroom and searches for the coat, pulling back the shower curtain and coming up empty. After a second or two he finally figures it out, spotting the garment behind the door, and closes it to allow him better access, no doubt ransacking through the pockets in search of the weapon.
Like I would really be stupid enough to leave the gun in the bathroom.
I glance over across the room at the mattress, trying to engage my x-ray vision but failing. It’s okay. I know what’s under there, awaiting my touch. All I need to do is make it over there, pull it out from under the mattress, turn around, and shoot the two goons before they shoot me.
Or I can make their heads explode. Just focus hard enough and make them both go pop.
How long have I had these powers, anyway? This isn’t natural. It’s beyond fucked up.
But it’s coming in handy.
I stare at Trig and concentrate. I imagine his brain exploding within his skull and turning his entire head to mush. I think about the way his body will drop once there’s nothing on top of his shoulders.
Die, you bastard, die...
“Your girl isn’t looking so good, bro,” Trig says, unfazed by my attempts. “I think I might have hit her too hard. Damn, good thing boss only cares about you, huh?”
He steps toward Molly.
“Oh, shit,” he says, and calls out, “Dude, Raoul, I think I fuckin’ killed this broad.”
“I don’t care,” Raoul replies from behind the door. “All I’ve found so far is a candy bar. Why are there so many damn pockets in this thing?”
Trig’s so close that his back is now turned away from me, making me think he was right, he is rusty. Then I start worrying about Molly’s state of health and an intense wave of anger overpowers me.
What the fuck did he do?
The window next to Trig explodes and he screams, backing away and holding his hands up to his face. He turns toward me, revealing a face full of glass.
I jump up and scan the area for any potential weapons. Despite the glass, he still hasn’t dropped his submachine gun. I pick up the first solid hard object I come across without even paying attention to what it is. It’s heavy and feels like it can get the job done and this is all that matters right now.
Even if it is my girlfriend’s vibrator.
Shit.
I make it barely three feet before I stop dead in my tracks, frozen as Trig’s submachine gun waves in front of me. He grins, blood dripping down his cheeks. “Nice try, fuckface.”
His grin is short-lived, replaced by another scream and choking sound as his windpipes crush without me even touching him. He drops the submachine gun and falls to the floor, hands around his neck, gagging. I stare at him and continue concentrating on his throat. He’s falling apart. I’m killing a man by my thoughts. I am unstoppable. I am God.
I am dangerous.
Holy shitballs.
Gunfire bursts from the bathroom doorway. I dive to the ground as a spray of bullets sink into the wall behind me, and I can’t help but wonder if I’d still be alive if Raoul hadn’t lost all function with his good hand earlier.
Still on the ground, I throw the vibrator toward Raoul. It bashes against his nose, knocking him back into the bathroom. I’m on my feet and sprinting toward him before he has a chance to recover his submachine gun. I punch him repeatedly and scream, telling him he fucked with the wrong person, telling him that I won’t stop until him and every one of his piece of shit friends are dead.
I punch him a few more times, but it’s useless. The guy’s done. He stares up at me with eyes devoid of life.
Behind me, Molly screams my name, and a gunshot rings out. I spin around just in time to see Trig drop to the floor, blood and brains gushing out of his skull. Molly stands across the room, gripping the gun I’d found at the river. She shakes and cries and drops the gun. I meet her halfway in the room and hug her.
“Holy shit, Bobby,” she says. “I killed a guy.”
“It gets easier,” I tell her, and I know it’s the wrong thing to say, but I still say it, anyway. Sometimes there is no right thing to say.
All these killings. All these bodies.
All this blood.
None of this is about what I’ve become.
It’s about what I’ve always been.
* * *
“Is there a bag around here, something we can use for clothes?”
“I think there’s a duffle bag around here somewhere.”
“Good. The way I see it, we have about five minutes, ten at best, before more company arrives. Now, I don’t know whether it’s gonna be more of Lamb’s goons or maybe the police, but something tells me we don’t want either of the two barging in on us.”
Molly snorts. “This neighborhood’s a bit too poor for the cops to give a shit.”
“What? That doesn’t seem right, not at all. Police help citizens in need—that is the definition my brain feeds to me when I think the word ‘police’, or ‘cop’, or ‘law’.”
Molly shrugs. “I guess it’s correct if you have enough cash in your pockets.”
“This doesn’t make any sense. So you’re saying they just refuse to come out this way? They just ignore all of us? How?”
“I guess they figure we’ll settle it ourselves, someway or another. What does it matter, anyway? You said so yourself you don’t want any cops showing up. Remember?”
My face bunches up, as if I’ve just sucked on an extremely pungent lemon. None of this seems right to me. It’s like if an animal were to walk up, an animal with two pointy ears, a big wet snout, long waggy tail, and someone tries to convince me it is a cat. While believing her, I would still be fixated on the fact that I know she is wrong and it is a dog, not a cat, but for some reason I can’t help but take her word for it. She must know more than me, right? I mean, after all, I’m just the amnesiatic idiot who woke up in the mud one night, all his marbles rolling down the hill away from him, forever just mere inches from his grasp.
But yet, at the same time...
That is a fucking dog.
“Explain to me why I have this perfect image of these police officers serving justice, helping those in danger, doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing—explain to me why this is so damn clear when apparently it couldn’t be more false? Huh? Where did it come from? It must’ve come from somewhere.”
Molly scoots closer against the wall, folding her legs up and resting her jaw on her knees. “I don’t know, Bobby. Maybe you saw some movie and it’s mixing with your sense of reality. I have no idea. But you don’t need to be angry with me. This is hardly anything to be so upset over.”
I sigh, realizing she is never going to understand the sheer amount of frustration. It’s right there on the tip of my tongue, so close I can taste it...
But, on the other hand, I guess she’s right. Debating this isn’t going to help us any—it’s only going to slow us down, make us lose time we can’t afford to lose. Even if the cops aren’t coming, there’s still the matter of more gunmen arriving once Raoul and Trig fail to return. And I’m betting they’re due to return soon, too.
But still, another part of me just wants to scream off the top of my lungs: THAT IS A FUCKING DOG YOU CRAZY BITCH!
Of course I don’t scream that at her. Instead, I say, “My balls hurt, okay? Did you not see what he did? Those were steel-toed boots for Christ’s sake. I’m in a little bit of pain here.”
Molly says, “Yeah, and my head was knocked around a hundred and thirty-six degrees, so we’re about even, don’t ya think? Now can we please calm down a little? I love you, Bobby. Relax.”
&n
bsp; Again, she’s right. We’re never going to make any progress with me complaining and flipping out left and right. I take a few deep breaths, not taking my eyes off Molly standing in front of me, her hand resting on my shoulder. “Okay, I think I’m better. Sorry. Just...I’ve killed men tonight, Molly. Not just one man, but many. Some of them I killed with just my mind. By my fucking thoughts. I don’t know what is wrong with me and it scares the shit out of me. What am I?”
And now I’ve completely broken down, whole body shaking, lips quivering. I can tell that Molly doesn’t know what to say, obviously not used to seeing me in such a lost state, but it’s okay because I don’t really expect her to say anything. It’s good enough just saying all of this out loud rather than to continue dwelling on it in my head.
My legs very nearly lose their balance, my arms wrapping around Molly’s back and latching on with a fierce grip, rambling lunatic sobs.
“What am I?” I ask, begging for an answer, any answer, the eyes of those I killed looking at me, pleading for their lives to be returned. “What am I?”
Molly manages to loosen herself from my kung fu grip just enough to find the leverage to kiss me on the mouth, my salty sorrow smearing against her lips. I feel like such a miserable embarrassment crying like this in front of her, but I can’t help it, it just keeps coming and coming and oh my God, my balls really do hurt. I’m a merciless murderer and my throat is sore and my balls feel like they’ve been squashed up to my stomach.
Her soothing lips depart from mine ever so slightly, and she whispers, “You are the love of my life, Bobby. You’re not a killer. You were protecting me. You are a good man, do you understand that? I don’t know the details of your work but I’m sure it isn’t as bad as the mystery implies. And besides, whatever it is, it helped feed our daughter. The beautiful, perfect child who you and I created. Together. So please, get a hold of yourself, there is nothing wrong with you except for the fact that you’re having trouble remembering what a terrific family you belong to. And now that we are together again, there is no reason to fear. I love you, Bobby, and you love me, and that is all there is to it. Got it?”
The Mind is a Razorblade Page 11
