Perry wondered if he should try it again, try to get the rest of them out. But brute force obviously wasn’t the way to…to…
Perry blinked a few times. His mind dry-fired, stayed blank as he tried to comprehend what had just happened.
He’d clearly heard a voice. Was he going loopy? His mind filled with vague memories of his homespun surgery and that same voice echoing through his drunken head. Great. On top of dying, now he was developing a split personality. He was going loopy. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Insane in the membrane.
“I’m crazy. That’s it. I’m apeshit crazy. That’s the only answer.” you no crazy we no think so
That one stopped Perry cold. He managed a parched swallow and ignored an untimely rumble from his underpaid belly.
The voice had said, “we no think so.”
We.
As in more than one.
As in…
As in the Starting Five.
Perry was beyond speechless-he was thoughtless.
“I’ll be a sonofabitch,” Perry whispered. sonofabitch the voice echoed, a voice he heard as clear as day, although his ears didn’t pick up a thing. He could hear the voice in his head-no vocal characteristics or tone, just words. sonofabitch feed us
It was them. The Starting Five. They were talking in his head. Perry leaned heavily against the counter, in danger of falling to the floor as if struck by a physical blow. His rashes had turned into triangles, and now they were talking to him. Should he answer them?
Hello, Perry thought-no response. He tried concentrating, focusing. HELLO, he thought, as hard as he could. Still no response. feed us we hungry
“Feed you?”
A response slammed through his head like the roar of a Rose Bowl crowd on New Year’s Day. yes yes yes feed us we hungry
They’d answered him. Perry squinted his eyes and “thought” as loudly as he could. Why’d you answer me that time? He waited, but again heard no response. Answer me!
His stomach grumbled loudly, the sound bordering on an internal roar. Despite the shock of hearing voices in his head, he couldn’t deny the gnawing feeling in his gut.
“I’m pretty hungry myself,” Perry whispered. so are we feed us we hungry
His head lifted with final understanding. “Can you hear me?” yes we hear you
“You can talk into my head, but you can’t hear my thoughts?” we send words through your nerves your nerves no send words back are you hungry now
What escaped Perry’s mouth was somewhere between a laugh and a cry and a stutter. A sick, twisted bark of despair, a laugh that may have once echoed through Andersonville, Buchenwald or any of history’s dark places where human beings give up all hope.
Perry fought back tears, tears that welled up in response to an emotion he couldn’t define. His chest felt tight. His one good leg felt weak. He leaned heavily on the kitchen counter, head hanging down, eyes staring at the floor but seeing nothing. feed us we hungry
The voice in his head grew louder, as did the grumbling in his stomach. Sudden stabbing pains in his belly snapped him out of his grim reverie. He hadn’t eaten properly in days. Grinding hunger combined with a slight echo of sickly pink nausea. sonofabitch feed us we hungry
The voice in his head (it felt funny to use that term in all seriousness, for it was a term reserved for comedy or bad horror novels, but now it was simply accurate) gave up all attempts at sentence structure and moved toward steady chanting. feed us feedus feedusfeedusfeedus
Perry hobbled a bit to open the fridge and survey the contents. Some leftover tuna fish; a mostly empty tub of Country Crock; a mostly full jar of Hershey’s chocolate syrup; an old, slightly gamey jar of Smucker’s strawberry preserves; and-stop the presses-an unopened jar of Ragu spaghetti sauce.
Perry removed the jar from the fridge and explored the cupboard, looking for noodles. True to his current run of luck, he had none, only some Rice-A-Roni and a half-empty bag of Cost Cutter plain white rice. He also found one can of Campbell’s Pork amp; Beans, half a loaf of bread and a three-pound can of butter-flavor Crisco. What a time to realize that he’d let his shopping duties slip.
It was enough to get started, anyway-he felt so hungry he wouldn’t have turned down chocolate-covered cockroaches. He crammed two slices of bread into the toaster and another into his salivating mouth. He opened the pork and beans and took a big sniff, yesyesyesyesyesyesyes then dumped them into a bowl and tossed them in the microwave. He finished chewing the bread and stuffed another piece into his mouth before the toast came up. He immediately put in two more slices.
The microwave timer beeped insistently. Perry removed the scalding-hot bowl, grabbed his toast and hopped to the table. It was covered with blood. His blood. He decided to eat standing at the counter. He leaned over to the silverware drawer, grabbed a fork and dug in even though the beans were still hot enough to burn his tongue.
Aside from a piece of toast and some egg yolk, he’d gone days without food. His body rejoiced in the meal. The pork and beans tasted better than anything he’d ever eaten before-better than shrimp, better than steak, better than fresh lake trout.
By the time he polished off the beans and all the bread, he felt much more himself. His hunger satiated for the moment, his thoughts centered on the rather unique problem at hand. He realized that the Starting Five hadn’t made a peep since he’d started eating.
“Hey,” Perry said. He doubted anything could feel as surreal as talking to Triangles embedded in his body, which apparently talked back to him via his own nervous system.
“Hey, are you there?” yes we here
They sounded calmer, far more relaxed than when they’d complained of hunger.
“Why aren’t you talking?” He wanted to hear them talk, both because he wanted to know more about these bizarre horrors and because they had been quiet for days, and when they’d been quiet, they had grown. wait to eat food comes now
That phrase sent a shiver through his chest. He immediately understood the situation. The Triangles were like a tapeworm or something, absorbing the food he digested. Even though he had huge triangular organisms living in his body, he found the internal vampirism even more horrifying.
These critters were anchored into his muscles, tendons and skeleton, and tapped into his bloodstream like a baby cow nursing off a mother’s teat. Anger swelled up inside him, hot and tumultuous and lava-red. But as the anger brewed, so did a realization.
They couldn’t eat unless he did, which meant they weren’t feeding on him. The good news? They’re not eating you from within. The bad news? They’re growing inside you even faster thanks to a highly nutritious pork-n- beans buffet. He felt violated, like the victim of some horrible, biological rape.
He grew more aware of the pain in his body. His head hurt. His leg hurt. His stomach felt a little queasy. His eyes kept closing. He wanted to crawl into bed and give up, forget about the whole thing and let fate run its sadistic course.
He made it as far as the couch, hopping carefully on his one leg before easing himself onto the welcome and waiting cushions. The couch seemed to caress his body, sucking away his stress, taking it, perhaps, under the cushions with the dirt and loose change. Maybe he’d die in his sleep, but he couldn’t stop sleep from coming.
37.
Dew smelled it right off.
Unmistakable. Unforgettable.
