The Seven Habits

some chink in their offensive, some way that she could break through the cluster of walking corpses that surrounded her, but there weren’t any.

They were packed so tightly together that by the time she pushed one out of her way, three others would already be grabbing at her shirt and hair. She knew exactly what they would do, she’d seen it countless times before. They way they’d tear into her flesh would make what she did to her mother’s throat look like play acting.

She wanted to scream for help, to shout until it felt like her vocal chords would snap beneath the strain, but that wouldn’t do any good. Even if there was anyone around to hear, they wouldn’t come. They’d stay safe within their hiding places, would remain as silent and still as possible, as they alternately whispered a prayer for the person screaming and gave thanks that it wasn’t them out there.

No… she was on her own, with a pack of rotters rapidly closing in, nowhere to run and nothing to fight with. She was staring Death right in the face, for the second time in as many days, only this time, she really didn’t see a way out of it.

She would die out there on the street; maybe at some point in the future, some little girl would sit and envision pictures from the stains her blood would leave upon the dirty concrete.

Maybe it was what she deserved. She had, after all, killed her own mother hadn’t she? She certainly deserved to be punished for such a horrible act. She’d killed her mother and stole the dead woman’s rat—maybe this was the universe’s way of setting things right.

Ocean closed her eyes, bracing herself for the first touch of rough, decaying flesh, for the first scratch and bite. The first flair of pain.

She readied herself for death.

CHAPTER FIVE

I know what you’re thinking. It’s written all over your faces—dude’s seen too many Romero films, read too many books by David Moody and Eric S. Brown. You’re thinking Hollywood nightmares have fed my delusions, right? But that’s only because you haven’t been through the Eye of Aeons, man. It’s because you’re not willing to admit, even for a fraction of a second, that this cosmos is far stranger than your narrow little minds give it credit for.

You cling to linear time, you bow before the altar of flawed science and religion, and subscribe to this view of reality that society has this unspoken pact to accept The Way Things Are. Once you’ve stepped outside those prefab boxes, once you’ve risen high enough to tell it’s not even a box at all, not really, then—and only then—can you start seeing the true nature of things.

You guys are even worse than your average citizen. You know why they used to call you black and whites? Because that’s the way you see things, man. In the eyes of Johnny Law, everything is either right or wrong, good or bad. It’s rigid, inflexible, and not at all in accordance with the natural order of things.

There’s all these gray areas, see? All these ethical dilemmas that just aren’t as clear-cut as your ordinances and statutes would like them to be. Out there, in the real world, things get fuzzy really fast, and you just kinda bumble along, trying to do the right thing as best as you can.

Say for example you got all the money in the world. I mean, you’re so loaded someone could swipe a card down your crack and your ass would spit out hundreds. So you’re just loungin’ around the mansion one day, doin’ whatever the fuck obscenely rich people do, and there’s this knock on the door, right? Turns out to be a bunch of pasty scientists out there, and they’re sayin’ how they’ve had this breakthrough… they’ve discovered the cure for cancer or some shit, dig?

But they ain’t got the funding to distribute this miracle drug to the masses, so they’re going door to door, selling these boxes of prepackaged brownies to raise money. Yeah, that’s right… they’re having a fundraiser just like the fuckin’ girl scouts. This is a parable, man, so roll with me, okay?

So anyway, as I was saying. You know you’ve got enough bread that you could single-handedly scarf up every box they have to offer. Your billions could rid the world of one of the worst blights ever known to man, but there’s a catch, man… there’s always a catch. See, you happen to know—through your various business contacts—that the tasty treats these geeks are hawking are produced in some third-world sweatshop. I’m talkin’ the type of place where they’ll lop off a finger if they even suspect you might be carting some of that product home via armpit express to feed your starvin’ family.

So what do you do? Do you condone child labor and so many human rights violations that even Amnesty International would say whoa, man, now that’s fucked up? Or do you condemn millions of people to a drawn out, agonizing death?

Now that’s a morally ambiguous brownie, man, but that’s the weight of the decisions I’ve carried around on my fuckin’ shoulders, see? That’s the shit I’ve gotta deal with and yet you have the audacity to sit there and judge me? To write me off as some damn lunatic who can’t tell the difference between the fantasies in his mind and what’s real.

Well fuck you, man… fuck you. I know which way the wind blows and I know it’s blowin’ with the fires of Hell and it’s gonna consume us all. Burn us down, man, to cinders and ashes. And we’ll be the lucky ones, oh, you better believe that. The people who come after us? They’ll only wish they’d had such an easy death.

So what did I decide, then? I decided to buy those fuckin’ brownies. You choose your battles and I picked the devil I knew, man. I mean, I’ve been in Ocean’s head, dig? I’ve heard her innermost thoughts, all those little secrets we’d never dream of telling another soul, and I’ve seen her for who she really is.

And if there’s any way that I can spare that poor girl even a fraction of the bullshit and pain she’s been through… if there’s even the slightest chance I can save her ass, you better believe I’m gonna take it. I mean, I love her, man.

Don’t look at me like that, you sick bastard. Jesus, she’s can’t be older than fourteen, man. I don’t mean I love her in a hey, I’ve got some free candy and puppies in the back of my van kinda way. It ain’t like that at all. I wanna protect her, see? I wanna make sure she never knows heartache or loss, to shelter her from all the suffering and sorrow and regret. I want her to laugh and play and run. I want her to be a fuckin’ kid. Is that so wrong? To safeguard the ones you love? If it is, then lock me up and throw away the key, dude ‘cause I’m guilty as friggin’ charged.

Being dimensionally unstable gave me a way that I could help her, see? When you’re not restricted to past, present, and future you get the big picture. You see things develop like a time-lapse film. You witness how everything falls into place. And that’s how I learned about the seven signs, ya know? Because I’ve been all over that timeline.

Clarice fuckin’ Hudson. She was just one of the brownies in those boxes, man. She was a threat to Ocean, ya know? To humanity, for that matter.

See, I was in the Dollar Bonanza… you know, that place in the mall where you can get just about anything for a buck? Yeah, the one right between the shoe store and that shop with all the goth kids milling about. That’s the one, man.

Anyways, I was in Dollar Bonanza trolling for victims, right? Shit, dude… I’m just fuckin’ with ya. You shoulda seen the look on your faces. Priceless.

I was there looking for shaving cream, man. Razors and shampoo. Normal stuff. I was wonderin’ if there would be some way I could take one of those little glass penguins or a kid’s book with me through the Eye of Aeons, ya know? Inside, I knew it was a losing battle since even my own body couldn’t cross over. But it was a nice thought, dig? One of those things you’d like to do, but know you never will.

So I’ve got my basket hangin’ off my arm and it’s practically overflowing with junk. Most of it I didn’t really need. But you know how those stores are. You go in for the bare essentials and come out with a miniature zen garden, three shot glasses with snotty little bunnies on ‘em, and a DVD or two of old Kung Fu flicks. I take my place in line and at first, I’m just looking around at the candy and the sunglasses and shit. Taking a few steps forward every couple seconds and then finding something else to divert my attention.