Skull Full of Kisses

by Michael West

  “Mercer.”

  Dylan’s heart skipped a beat and he turned in the direction of the voice, seeing Mr. Skellern, his supervisor. He was a small man; taller than a dwarf, but short enough to be called such behind his back. The man’s hair could not even stand him, having abandoned his head at the earliest opportunity.

  “Do you have the Korean sales figures?” the bald dwarf asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Dylan pointed at the numbers on his screen. “I have them right here.”

  “Then why don’t I have them?”

  Dylan opened his mouth to give an excuse, but he was denied the power of speech.

  Skellern shook his shiny head. “If you can’t handle the job to which you’ve been assigned, Mr. Mercer, I’ll be forced to find someone who can.” He started to walk away. “I’m sure you don’t want that.”

  Dylan’s hand made a fist at his side. Idiot, his mind muttered.

  Skellern turned. “What did you say?”

  He froze. Had he said it aloud? No. He was certain he hadn’t spoken, yet his angry remark had been heard just the same.

  “My office,” Skellern snapped. “Now.”

  ***

  The desk that stood between them was huge, wooden, and unspeakably neat. Pictures stared at Dylan from gilded frames positioned on its lacquered surface with meticulous precision. There was the dark-haired trophy wife, the bald man shaking hands with celebrity—standing close to the stars of sport and screen as if to become popular by association—and even the slobbering image of the master’s faithful Great Dane. On the wall behind the desk hung parchments of academia, taunting Dylan with their calligraphy. Skellern, they said, is most assuredly greater than you will ever be.

  “I’m concerned, Mr. Mercer.” The words from his lips were comforting, but his eyes spoke a different language. “At Serra Industries, we try to provide an environment where you can grow and use your abilities to the best of their potential. But your work...let’s just say it hasn’t been your best as of late. In fact, it’s been down right sloppy. Frankly, I don’t know what to do with you. You’re consistently late or calling in...and when you are here, you do nothing but complain about this company and your situation.”

  As he listened to Skellern speak, Dylan’s hatred of the man deepened until there was no bottom to it. Of course he had nothing to complain about. What did this man know of work? He’d married the owner’s daughter. He’d been born into that designer suit, born into that chair, and nursed by the board of directors. He’d never had to drive himself to work in the morning rush. He’d never done time chained to a computer in a prison cell masquerading as a workstation.

  “Of course, I don’t think any of what I’m saying should come as a shock to you. I don’t know what is going on in your personal life—”

  Like this little man cared what Dylan did when he was not on his clock.

  “Are you listening, Mr. Mercer?”

  Dylan nodded absently and Skellern droned on.

  “If you need to take a leave of absence, clear your head of outside distractions, it’s possible that we could work something out. But while you are here, Mr. Mercer, your co-workers expect you to pick up your slack. They expect it, I expect it, and our CEO Joel Serra expects it.”

  Joel Serra doesn’t have a heart, Dylan thought.

  Dylan pictured Mr. Serra on his annual Aspen ski vacation, pictured his heart exploding in his chest as he snaked his way down the slope. The force of the imagined blast turned the old man’s ribcage to shrapnel that tore through his flesh and parka. In the vision, Serra fell face-first into a drift of fresh powder, blood and bile granting it the appearance of a huge cherry snow cone. The mental picture brought a grin to Dylan’s face.

  “If you proceed further down this current road,” Skellern went on, “I’ll have no choice but to respond with disciplinary action.”

  If I were in charge, Dylan thought, it’s you who would see disciplinary action.

  Skellern gave his head a shake, trying to play the disappointed father. “I’m sure you don’t want that.”

  If I had the power, you’d be fired!

  Without warning, the office door opened and Skellern’s young secretary entered the room. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but there’s an urgent call from the Aspen office—something about Mr. Serra being involved in an accident.”

  “Put it through, Miss Walsh.”

  She nodded and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  A moment later, the phone rang on Skellern’s desk. He looked up at Dylan as he reached for it. “Now you’d better get going,” he said curtly. “Your remark has already cost you quite a bit of your lunch hour.”

  Dylan ground his teeth. Fired!

  Skellern flew out of his chair and against the wall with tremendous force, shattering the glass covering his diplomas and certificates of merit. His face glowed with an inner light, as if the veins beneath were pumping phosphorus paint rather than blood. He opened his mouth to scream, and belched smoke and tongues of flame instead. Fire flared in his hair and spread out across his expensive suit, turning Skellern into a human torch.

  Dylan was on his feet, staring at the blaze, knowing he had somehow ignited it. As preposterous as that concept was, it had so much allure that Dylan could not shake it. The flames set off the sprinkler in the office ceiling and an artificial rain soaked him. His mind resurrected a long dead memory from his childhood, a buried vision of toys dancing by themselves, followed closely by the forgotten recollection of his mother scolding him.

  “They’ll take you away from me,” she’d warned. “They’ll lock you in a room somewhere and run tests on you and you’ll never see your family again.”

  The fire alarm blared in his ears. Dylan wished he could shut it off and his wish was granted. Behind him, the door opened. Someone was coming in. With a glance, he slammed it closed again—sending Skellern’s secretary flying back against her desk. He walked over to the body of his former supervisor, watching the flames die beneath the downpour, and tried to think.

  He’d killed a man just now—if you could call Skellern a man—and he’d done it with a simple thought. They would take him away now, just as his mother had promised. What could he do? What could he...

  Dylan paused a moment in his panic.

  What could he do?

  He had no idea. His dread and guilt waned, replaced by sudden anger. He thought of a life that might have been and felt cheated. All his days, people had slighted him, laughed at his misfortune. His entire miserable existence, he’d been a pawn, an obedient lapdog wanting approval from one master or another. And yet, it had been he who should have been master. At this simple realization, a smile dawned on his lips—the excited grin of a child. He’d just been given a new toy and longed to see what it could do.

  The door opened again.

  This time, he allowed it.

  “What’s going on in here?”

  Barbie Walsh came back into the room, her eyes and voice filled with concern. She was wet from the indoor rain, her clothes clinging seductively to her figure. Her dark hair was matted to her head like a black hood. Her skin was tanned and glistening.

  “Come to me,” Dylan urged and was mildly shocked to find her move toward him without hesitation.

  “What’s going on?” she repeated meekly.

  Dylan smiled. “I’ve always preferred blondes.”

  Her hair was eager to please him. The brown was leeched from it, washed away by the drizzle from the sprinklers above.

  And he was pleased. This was the kind of woman he should have been with, the wife he should have had instead of Miranda. How Dylan wished he’d invoked these powers in high school and college. All those lonely nights could have been filled with passion; all those laughing women could have been forever silenced. “Kiss me.”

  There was an odd look in her eye, a questioning glance, but she did as he wished. Her lips were full, her tongue soft.

  What would Miranda say if she coul
d see us like this?

  That odd feeling of guilt crept in again and Barbie broke the kiss. She took a step back, wiped her lips and slapped Dylan hard across the face. She might have been crying, but the tears were lost to the man-made rain.

  “Security is on their way,” she told him, her voice quivering. “When they get here, I hope they—”

  Something on the floor behind the desk caught her eye, a smoldering shape that had once been a man. She took two steps toward it.

  “Mr. Skellern?”

  “Don’t look at him,” Dylan commanded, the anger returning. “Look at me!”

  Her eyes rushed back to him, but her body had received no order. It continued to face the desk as her head spun farther than anatomy would grant. Her spine ground the cartilage of her neck to pulp, her tendons snapped, her esophagus knotted. She was dead before she hit the floor, her belly and the back of her head against the soaked carpet, her lifeless eyes still on Dylan.

  His stomach sank. For decades this power had been building within him untapped. I’ve got to learn better control, he thought as he backed away from what he had created. I’ve got to focus.

  “Hold it!”

  He whirled around to see the security guard in the doorway. The man’s gun was drawn and his eyes alternated between Barbie’s twisted body and Dylan.

  Dylan’s heart thudded wildly in his chest. This is what his mother had warned him about. This is why he’d made himself forget his own power. They would arrest him now. They would take him away and stick him in some lab in the basement of the Pentagon. They would...

  They can’t do anything I don’t let them do.

  Dylan blinked. Could that be right? Could he be that powerful? It was time to practice his control. He looked at the rent-a-cop’s handgun. “Very scary,” he told the man, “But not scary enough.”

  The skin on the guard’s trigger hand burst open, muscle fibers coming unraveled from the bone. Cords of naked ligament wrapped around the 9mm pistol like the glistening tentacles of a squid, flesh flowing over the metal until it became a new, deadly paw. The man’s face was flayed open beneath Dylan’s direction, transformed into a screaming skull. Teeth grew outward to form tusks and winding filaments of bone created a mane of thorns across the man’s meaty scalp. The guard-thing howled on and on, a string of rose-tinted drool hanging from its bony jaw. Dylan was pleased with the transformation, with the discipline he’d used to perform it.

  He had the hang of it now.

  Dylan looked up at the sprinkler heads and their shower immediately ceased. He walked calmly out of the office and into a flowing river of workers. With the drone of the fire alarm silenced, they were returning to their cubicles like bees to their honeycombs—all of their energy and lives spent toiling for the benefit and wealth of others. He was thankful he would no longer be one of them. No, he now had something far grander in mind for his life.

  When Dylan reached the nearest stairwell door, he opened it and left Serra Industries behind.

  ***

  The sun shone brightly as Dylan drove Skellern’s black BMW convertible down the highway. It was the kind of car he had always wanted, the kind he had never been able to afford as a lowly sales consultant. When he’d seen it sitting in its reserved VIP spot, he simply touched the door and it opened for him willingly. At the thought of driving it, the engine purred, and now, as Dylan pressed the gas pedal to the floor, it roared.

  He reached out with his mind and the slower traffic in his path parted like the Red Sea to his will. Cars flew and tumbled away in all directions as if blown from the road by hurricane winds, or wiped aside by the invisible hand of God.

  I am a god! Dylan laughed as a Dodge Caravan was flung out of his way and into a Saturn coupe on his right. Both exploded in a ball of flame. I have power over time and space, flesh and bone, life and death!

  Some of the cars ahead of him were now pulling over without his direction. They feared him. That was good. People worshipped what they feared. This was everything he’d ever wanted, everything he’d ever dreamed of as he sat drowning in the boredom of his workstation.

  As Dylan grew closer and closer to his home, the smile on his face widened. “Oh dear, sweet Miranda,” he said aloud. “Things are going to be very different around here from now on.”

  ***

  “What are you doing home?” she mumbled from the couch as he walked in the door. Her mouth was full.

  “It’s so wonderful, sweetie.” Dylan took off his tie and flung it at her. It landed on her belly and slid onto the floor like a dead snake. “I’m so alive right now. It’s almost like being reborn into another life—a better life.”

  Miranda hit the power button on her remote, silencing Oprah. “What the hell are you talking about? Why aren’t you at work?”

  “I quit.”

  The expression of utter shock on her face was hilarious, better than any he could have made for her if he had chosen to do so. After one failed attempt, she managed to lift herself from the cushions. She wore a large housedress that resembled a circus tent. She had not bothered to apply any make-up, and her hair was a wild, unkempt mane. No, he thought, there’s not enough magic in the world to make Miranda beautiful.

  “Dylan Mercer,” she scolded, “this had better be a joke.”

  His reply was a sly grin. He turned away from her and walked into the kitchen. The fridge opened its door and spat out a beer. Dylan caught it and popped the top, foam cascading over his fingers onto the wooden flooring. Could he turn all the rivers to beer? Something told him that, if he really wanted to, he could do just that.

  “Don’t you turn away from me,” she screamed after him. “You go right back there and you beg for them to give you your job back.”

  “Sweetie,” he said, “it’s you who should beg.”

  Miranda fell to her knees with a thud that shook the entire room. Dylan could not help but chuckle at the sight. All his married days, he felt as if he had been living in a minefield—aware that the slightest wrong move would set her off and never sure of what those moves were until it was too late. Now, to see this ogre fall, to see her kneeling before him as if to pray, was truly priceless.

  “You’re such a bastard,” she told him, rage bubbling up through the brown tar of her eyes. “Get your ass over here and help me up.”

  “Help you?” Dylan’s chuckle became full-blown laughter. “Sure, Sweetie. Sure. Let me help you.”

  He reached out to her with his mind, mental fingers curling around her bulk and slightly pressing. Miranda’s eyes widened at the sensation of pressure she felt against her abdomen. When he let go of her, Dylan heard her wheeze as she drew in rapid breaths.

  “Call 911,” she coughed. “You see what you’ve done? I’m...I’m having a heart attack!”

  “Beg me to let you live.”

  The rage in her eyes bled into her face, making it red with fury. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Dylan took a sip of his beer. “I’d say I was thinking clearly for the first time. You have no idea the power I have, Miranda. All these years, you’ve called me worthless, and spineless, and—”

  “You are worthless!” she roared. “I ask you to—”

  Dylan slammed his can down on the counter. “Don’t interrupt me, bitch!”

  “What did you call me, you miserable shit?” She actually tried to rise up and come at him, but he held her down with greater determination.

  “You need to learn your place now, Miranda. There’s a new pecking order in the Mercer household. From now on—”

  “I hate you!” she howled.

  “What did I say about interruptions?”

  Miranda’s tongue was yanked from her mouth by unseen hands, tearing loose from her gullet with a wet snap. She covered her lips with her hands and blood poured freely between her closed fingers. She tried to scream, but all she could muster was a sickly moan.

  Dylan walked out from behind the counter and crouched in front of his wife. Miranda’s tongue
was on the carpet. He picked it up and held it out for her inspection. “Since you can’t hold your tongue, I’ll have to do it for you.”

  She took her hands from her mouth and hooked her bloody fingers into claws, as if to repay his actions by scratching out his eyes.

  Dylan’s mind grabbed her again, squeezing much harder than it had before. “All this time, it’s you who’ve been worthless.” He looked into her eyes as they bulged. “All this time, it was you who should have feared me.”

  Thinner, he thought. I want her to be thinner.

  And now, as he continued to squeeze, he could see that she did fear him. Only now, as her sternum splintered and her hips cracked, did she fully understand just how powerful he was.

  Thinner, he wished.

  When Miranda screamed, it was a symphony to Dylan’s ears. For once, these were not screams of anger. These were cries of joyous agony. Her belly ruptured and her bowels unspooled, and still she screamed. The air filled with a bloody mist as her bones continued to fracture and puncture her flesh, and still she screamed. Her stomach rose until she vomited it, and her screaming stopped.

  Dylan kept squeezing, however. Thinner, he wished again. Thinner.

  Flesh and bone continued to tear and break, compacting, becoming more and more slender. Blood dribbled from her form like water wrung from a dishrag. Finally, when her skull caved and her eyes ruptured, when she was reduced to a steaming, oozing sac of flesh, he released her and she fell to the carpet with a sick thud.

  Dylan was breathing heavily. He stood over Miranda’s remains and shook his head. She had been useless to him. She could never have been his goddess. He needed a new and improved Miranda to rule by his side—a beautiful Miranda that appreciated him and his power.

  As he thought this, the blood that welled up from his wife’s ruined carcass frothed and bubbled. It slowly solidified, forming a fleshy cocoon laced with veins. Dylan watched in awe as the sack inflated with bone, sinew, and skin until a delicate hand pushed through its membrane. A newly formed human being stepped free of the chrysalis—a woman. Her hair was woven in flaxen braids and her body was toned and bronzed. Her eyes were the color of clear sky and her full, pouting lips were moist and wanton.