If…
If…
If…
If civilization could survive this fever, the whole goddamn country, the whole goddamn world, would be like ripe meat and the media were the buzzards that would pick it clean. The stain of this day and what was yet to come would never wash off for a hundred years.
He kept driving and then he slowed…slowed right down because something was not right. In his head… something was just not right. It felt like a swarm of black flies had been loosed in there, buzzing and crowding and filling his skull. He hit the brakes and skidded to a halt. He couldn’t seem to remember what he was doing or even who he was for a moment or two. It was like there was some devastating influence taking his mind, some invasion that was stripping away who and what he was.
He sat behind the wheel, his mouth hanging open and his eyes glazed.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror and what he saw looking back at him made him want to scream. A stranger. A perverse caricature of himself…something lunatic and twisted.
It’s happening, a very tiny voice in his head informed him. It’s happening to you right now, Ray. This is what it feels like when the cellar door of your mind swings open and all the black, shuddery, forgotten things come loping out…
And that was what he thought.
But he did not think it or even understand the train of thought for long, because suddenly he was gone. There was something else and someone else and there was no more rational thought as such.
He threw the cruiser in park very calmly.
He took the shotgun from the rack and stepped out into the sunlight. He could feel its warmth, the dying day and its final gasp of hot breath.
From deep inside, a voice was shouting at him, but he did not listen.
He gasped. He drooled. He shook and sweated and his heart raced. A wetness spread at his crotch. There was a shotgun in his hands and he brought the barrel up to his mouth, fingers on the trigger.
Goddammit, Ray, don’t let this happen. Fight, fight.
He would not do that, he could not do that. Putting a gun in his mouth was against everything he was. Yes, fight, he must fight. So he strained his muscles, but they were soft and pliable like putty. He had no more control over them than he did his bladder. He fought, but it was hopeless. His hands brought the gun up and the barrel rose, leveling out and dropping until it was in his face. His mouth opened to receive it. A long, strangled moan came from somewhere deep inside him.
The barrel of that twelve-gauge pump slid into his mouth, cool and metallic and tasting of machine oil.
The barrel slid further into Hansel’s mouth until the business end brushed the back of his throat and he gagged. He was powerless, weak, empty. He was nothing. He did not exist. He was just doing what he’d always wanted to do, always needed to do on some subconscious level. He’d known other cops that had eaten the gun and he wondered if this is what it had been like for them in their final moments before they sprayed their brains over the ceiling. Did they feel like this? Overcome, crushed down, broken, violated?
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
It was his own will making him do this, yet it felt like someone else was in charge of him. Making him do things that were against everything he stood for.
His fingers started putting pressure on the trigger.
Then he just lost all strength. Whatever it was, faded and fell apart.
The gun slid out of his mouth and Hansel was overwhelmed with dry heaves. He fell, the riotgun clattering to the pavement. On his hands and knees, wringing wet now with sweat and piss, the smell of blood and dead animals thick on him, he began to sob.
Then a voice, “Hell you doing, Ray?”
He looked up. Paul Mackabee was standing there. His uniform blouse was torn, buttons missing. There was blood all over his hands, streaked across his face. His eyes were filled with shadows. And, worse, he had the bloody pelt of a dog slung over one shoulder.
“Paul…Jesus, Paul… the whole fucking town…”
Mackabee kneeled down by him. He stank like oily carcasses. “Sure, whole town, Ray. Whole fucking world. Quit fighting it. Just…relax…and let it happen…”
Hansel thought he was crazy, no better than the rest. But he was tired, drained dry from what he’d seen. There was no fight left. He closed his eyes and let the darkness well up inside him until it spilled out of his eyes in ribbons of night. When he opened them, Huckabee was still squatting there.
Hansel grinned at him. The bloody pelt over his shoulder exuded a rank odor. It smelled delicious…
43
Swinging his nightstick by its thong, Warren moved up the streets flanked by Shaw and Kojozian. He stepped over the naked corpse of a woman and past a couple of dogs feeding out of an overturned garbage can. Across the way, a car had crashed into a fire hydrant and water was flooding the streets. Kojozian went down on his hands and knees and lapped water from the gutter.
“What are you? Some kind of goddamn animal?” Warren said to him, pointing his nightstick at the big man.
Shaw folded his arms and shook his head. “You hear that, Kojozian? He wants to know if you’re some kind of animal.”
Warren thumped Shaw on the back of the head with his stick. “What are you? An echo? He heard what I said. You heard what I said, didn’t you?”
Kojozian nodded, his face glistening wet, his streaked warpaint running some. “I heard you. I was just getting a drink is all.”
“Well, don’t be lapping like a dog,” Warren warned him. “Remember, you’re a cop. You’re wearing the uniform. You want to drink from a puddle, cup your hands; don’t lap.”
“I was thirsty.”
“Sure, he was just thirsty,” Shaw said.
Warren stopped. “You see these hash marks here?” he said, pointing to his sergeant’s stripes on his filthy uniform shirt. “These are experience. These say I’m in charge. And when I say a cop doesn’t lap water like a dog you better believe I know my business.”
They walked on, oblivious to the destruction and mayhem around them.
Yes sir, this was Warren’s town. He was a cop and he kept the peace. When you wore the uniform for a living, people expected things from you. Warren was unconcerned that his uniform was untucked, stained with blood and dirt, he only cared that his badge was shiny and his hat was on. Regulations. If a man didn’t live by the regulations, he lived by nothing.
He walked on.
The sun was sinking towards the horizon. It had been a fine day, Warren thought. A productive day. He looked up into the sky, noticing that a great many birds were circling above the town now…gulls, crows, ravens. A buzzard was perched atop a mailbox across the street. A flap of something was hanging from its beak.
They came upon the fleshy white corpse of an obese man out in the flooded street. A few more inches and he’d float away. A terrier with a blood-red snout was gnawing on his arm, a thin woman in a skirt and nothing else was chewing on his throat. Both seemed unconcerned that they were being watched.
Warren tipped his hat to her. “Evening, ma’am.”
She hissed at him.
Just ahead they paused. There was the sound of screaming. Warren looked at the other two. “Sounds like somebody’s having a party. We better break it up.”
They jogged to the end of the street, came around a corner and saw something which stopped them dead. Warren tapped his stick against his leg. Shaw patted his round belly and pulled the survival knife out of his Sam
