haul a tablecloth away without upsetting everything on top of it. The sock dropped to the carpet inside out, and Greg jumped back from it like it was a rattlesnake. He wadded up a bedspread and dried his arm off, never taking his eye away from the sock, as though terrified that it would jump up and try to pull itself back up his arm.
Von chuckled, but as quietly as he could, still listening for the sound of Sammy’s returning footsteps. They hadn’t heard anything from the attic for a few moments. He dug the Swiss army knife from his pocket and recoiled at the feel of the moist clumps of Rochester’s original tool. “I got the last one, boss man. This is all you.”
Greg accepted the knife a bit uncertainly.
“Get crackin’, man,” Von said. “He’ll be back any minute now. I’ll keep a look-out.”
Greg extracted the knife blade and walked over to the strung-up cadaver. This close up, he noticed the eyes were open. The lids had been removed. That was a trademark Sammy maneuver, just in case Greg had any shred of hope left that Sammy had nothing to do with this
He knelt before the Divided Man, thinking it was pretty sick of Sammy to have some naked dude with his guts on display. That girl with the dog head and tail, that would have been far more appropriate.
“Hurry!” Von commanded from the doorway. “He could come down any second now!”
Greg winced as though the tube sock misadventure was happening all over again. He reached for the man’s groin and grasped. The effect was instantaneous—the slop of immobile entrails squirmed free, a minor avalanche of the digestive tract right over Greg’s hands and into his lap. He sprang back, dropping the coils which had slickly gathered over his thighs onto the shag carpet with a surprisingly heavy slapping sound.
Their eyes both shot up to the ceiling as though it would dematerialize to reveal Sammy. When it did not, Von jabbed a finger in Greg’s direction. “Get your ass back over there and find it!”
Greg gave him a helpless look, like a little kid whose trail of bread crumbs had been eaten up by the ravens.
“Now!” Von snapped, somehow managing a scream at whisper level. He wasn’t sure Sammy would go ballistic over this, but since Sammy kept the Divided Man a secret, there might be some sentimental value attached to him. He’d undoubtedly notice the “alterations,” but maybe not before they were a few million dollars richer. And if he blew the whole episode out of proportion, they still had the option of killing him. They just better make sure that they got it right, because they would probably only get one shot at it. And obviously the guy wasn’t above surgical liberties with the male figure after all.
Greg had to step into the pile of entrails to get close enough. They squelched under his shoes. His left foot nearly slid out from under him as he tested the terrain like someone on a frozen pond. A length of intestine burst under his inquisitive weight. He reached into the obscuring mess still attached to the abdominal cavity. Everything felt like wet snakes. He had to extend his fingers and specifically pull aside various coils like vertical blinds, trying to uncover the crotch again. Finally irritated, he grabbed a fistful and yanked them like the starting cord to a lawnmower. They tore and spattered him with digestive juice. He tossed them over his shoulder and grabbed another handful. One of the cords holding the cadaver upright snapped. The Divided Man started to tilt, unbalanced, so Greg held him up with one hand as he withdrew more yellowish ropes from the other. He found what he was looking for, and then had to lean up against the body to keep it situated as he carved. It went easily, having expired soft. Greg closed his hand on it and stepped out of the gut pile. The body collapsed, its arms draping over Greg as though hugging him.
“Mission accomplished,” Greg reported, pushing the cadaver away from him. It struck the ground, face up.
Von shook his head. “You know what you look like?”
Greg gave himself a quick once-over. “No, what?”
“You look like a guy who just stepped in a heap of guts, tore some more out for good measure, and then sliced off a dead man’s wang with a Swiss army knife.”
“So you think Sammy’ll notice?”
“Only if he doesn’t fall down the stairs, break his neck, and die before he sees you again.”
As if on cue, the attic door slammed shut overheard and footsteps on the steps announced Sammy’s inexorable return. He did not fall down the stairs, break his neck, and die. He walked past the room, stopped, backtracked, did a visible double-take, and began to take inventory of the extensive damage.
The first thing he said was, “Why is that tube sock inside out?”
“Uh . . . it was like that when we got here,” Greg offered, the picture of innocence if that picture had a cracked frame. And no picture.
“Yeah,” Von agreed, painfully aware that they didn’t actually formulate any plans on how to take Sammy out. They had acted under the assumption that they would acquire the genitalia and then simply become the vessels for divine inspiration. They had a Swiss army knife between them and no powers of telepathy to coordinate exactly what to do with it.
Sammy had moved on from the tube sock to the mess of gore beyond it.
“The body was already like that, too,” Von said. “When we got here, I mean.”
“Uh huh,” Sammy said without tone. “Funny how that worked out, seeing as how it was perfectly fine when I walked past a few minutes ago . . . the body perfectly upright, the entrails neatly in place . . . the tube sock correctly oriented.”
Von remained silent, waiting for his associate to volunteer a predictably pathetic excuse. Greg did the same. An awkward silence stretched its legs.
“What’s that you got in your hand, Greg?” Sammy finally asked.
Greg hadn’t looked this surprised since his sister caught him masturbating in the shower (but slightly less so than when she’d hopped in and taken over the shucking responsibilities for him). He struggled for a good answer. What he found was, “Just . . . just some . . . gum. Like you . . . chew?”
Sammy smiled. “So chew then, Greg old buddy. Don’t let me stop you.”
“Yeah, Greg,” Von agreed. “Chew.”
If he’d been lost in the forest before, he was going into the oven now.
“Greg, you have the rare distinction of running over one man’s junk and disemboweling a cadaver while trying to procure a changeling penis, all within about 30 minutes,” Sammy said. “And you ruined a work of art in the process. So if you don’t start chewing in the next ten seconds, I’m going to tear you a brand new asshole, ‘son.’ And I will use all my surgical know-how to make sure that you live long enough to use it, too.”
Greg chewed. It may not have even been the most unpleasant experience in his life from the layman’s perspective (lest we forget other extracurricular activities with corpses, though female, whose every orifice he had lunched on, and ravenously at that), but it was altogether more humbling.
“Oh, hell,” he said between mouthfuls. “It’s . . . it’s really chewy, guys . . . Christ on a unicycle, it’s so damn
It was not hyperbole. His jaws worked mechanically, piston-like, to conclude this humiliation fast enough to break the sound barrier, but the morsels resisted. They bred in his mouth, tough as gristle with the texture of the fat on a steak. He could almost visualize each part as he chomped . . . the shaft, the head, the urethra, the veins, the erectile tissue. His own size seemed to wilt between his legs with each bite.
He cried as he ate.
“Fantastic,” Sammy complimented. “You took it like man, Greg. I didn’t think you had it in you . . . although I guess you do now, don’t you? So now that I trust you two dopes have been exorcised of your little substitution fantasy, you can get your asses on the horn and start making demands to Mrs. Rochester. Unless vibrator companies have jumped into the telemarketing biz, you’ll be the most welcome call of the night.”
Greg’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He gagged miserably, but held it down.
“Hurry up and swig some Listerine, dickbreath,” Sammy said. “The time is later than you think.”
Part III: Embryonic Necropsy and Devourment
“Make sure you dumbasses hit star-six-seven when you call,” Sammy admonished.
