The Chosen

get off on watching shit like that.”

Then Kyle, quite calmly, went back to his needle torture.

Yeah, this is a dream, Lee thought. So I can do anything I want, can’t I?

Of course he could.

He rushed forward, and cracked the Maibock bottle over Kyle’s shining, bald head. The glass shattered; Kyle howled and rolled off the pillowed bed. “How do you like that, dick?” Lee asked. “And don’t call me fatboy anymore—I’m getting a little tired of it.”

Lee, then, jammed the broken bottleneck into the base of Kyle’s spine. Ground it in deep.

Kyle collapsed, convulsing.

God, that was fun, Lee thought. It really was. Next, he contemplated a way to free the housemaid from her shackles. It shouldn’t be too difficult; this was only a dream. “Take it easy,” he assured the housemaid, who flinched naked against her restraints. But as he turned to find something to break them with, he—

BAM-BAM!

—fell to the dirt floor as if swiped at the knees by a scythe. At first, his shock left him shakily numb, then the pain exploded with his scream when he saw the two ragged, gristled knobs that had previously been his knees.

“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, fatboy.” Kyle stood above him, a huge smoking revolver in his hand. “It’s too bad. I was beginning to like you.”

Lee shuddered as blood oozed from his burst knees. Above, he noticed queer, shadowed figures converging on the bed. They seemed in glee as they inserted long needles into the housemaid’s flesh: her nipples, her navel, her clitoris. She jerked dumbly. Then more needles slipped into her nostrils, her ears, her eyes…

Kyle grinned. “She was getting pretty beat so we decided to check her out. But unfortunately, fatboy, you’ve seen too much. We gotta check you out too.”

Kyle set the pistol down and picked up something in its place.

God Almighty, Lee’s thoughts groaned.

The gutting knife slid serenely across Lee’s beer belly, parting fat in a neat divide. Lee felt electrocuted. A deeper slice, next, opened the abdominal vault, the lightning bolt of pain bloating Lee’s face like an angel food cake in a hot oven.

And from the sooty darkness, several more misshapen, hallucinatory figures approached. Twisted faces hovered in wait. Strips of sight showed Lee rows of glossy teeth, propped-open bulging eyes, and tongues skimming inflamed lips.

“Sushi, fatboy. You’re it.”

Lee’s only consolation was the thought which repeated in the fashion of a carousel: It’s only a dream only a dream only a dream only a dream—

—as he had the rare and unique experience of watching as the choicest of his organs were extracted from his gut and eaten raw.

— | — | —

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE}

Vera’s head felt as though something were pounding inside of it to get out. The more she slept, the less rested she felt. When she opened her eyes, recollection of her dreams closed them again, and the pounding continued.