B01M0OJOU7 EBOK Page 3

  The bricks. They’re moving. It is time to run before your father comes around here looking for both of you. I don’t want that. To the park. Listen to the winos sing about their lives lost.

  We’re in front of the neighbour’s crumbling adobe. These houses were once the height of fashionable living. Now the hipsters won’t even touch them for refurbishment and push up our house values and bring with it an impossible cost of living and trendy legal highs. It’s lost on you.

  The wall had a taste of your brother; it wants you now. Run, you mother fucking fool. I know what you rich kids get up to in those fancy modern builds with thin walls. It ain’t just your mother and the family poodle you fuck either. Sperm babies dying in socks in closets. Occasional incest baby born out of your mother’s affair with “the postman”. Skeletons in every closet, you know. Brick doesn’t mould to an arm as easily as sixty-year-old plaster held up by forty-year-old textured wallpaper.

  I’d fuck you, too. You aren’t pretty, but you’ve got a rugged look about you, and you need that stick pulled out of your arse. Run mother fucker. Before it gets you. I want to suck that stick right out of your arse and replace it with the bones of your brother and my former lover. Don’t think me and your brother’s not-so-pretty friend will be seeing you again.

  1234BOOM!

  Andrew Bell

  What I’m about to tell you really happened, so if you don’t want or can’t believe beyond your limited imagination, then I’m sorry that you have stumbled upon this manuscript. Please put it back where you found it, in the derelict, skeletal frame, this shattered building I used to pride myself in calling my home. But why write it if not for the posterity? Is this just some nostalgia trip? I guess I’m not the only one out there who knows about the diamond. You can almost see my shoulders shrug as you read the words. Why should I care, right? I know how it feels to have the stuff in your veins, okay? Someone needs to know the effects of 1234Boom! But if you decide to turn around, then nothing will come of it. Or you can carry on and simply read what I have to say.

  Good, you’re still here, reading this. You have good taste; I like that in a person.

  My new assistant, Nadine, has written my words for I cannot type. With stumps for fingers, just knobbly, jutting bones really, there’s no use in trying. And if you’re reading this, you’ve probably read written elsewhere over a thousand times, then we’re dead.

  When I first took the drug known as 1234Boom! I thought it was over-rated. I had heard the stories. They were as common as table salt. They promised a high that was unsurpassed. Other barbiturates just couldn’t come close, and I had tried everything. I guess I had everything, but nothing at all. Because I tried to escape the stale lifestyle I lead. Alvin, who was my assistant before Nadine, had dropped it into the palm of my hand.

  “You won’t know what hit you,” he said. Neither did he know the true affect it would have on me, although he knew I would relax a little, he didn’t expect this.

  “1234Boom! That’s what they call it; it takes only five seconds to get hooked to the stuff,” that’s what he said. But what he didn’t warn me about was that you needed it to stay alive. I mean it was like blood; without it I was a husk just waiting to die.

  “Good job I’m a billionaire then,” I had managed to stutter, scratching the skin on my neck. It reddened under my fingernails’ attention. I needed another hit of the drug.

  “I know,” he replied. “Others aren’t so fortunate.” He knew I’d change. Alvin said I would finally know how it really felt to be a man. Not to enjoy women; I knew that feeling very well. He meant alive.

  “Love makes the world go around.”

  “Bullshit, Michael,” he said. And he meant nothing by it; he was entitled to his opinion. “You can say that because you don’t have any other worries.”

  He told the truth. I lived a crime fighter’s kind of life. Under the cover of darkness, I’d sometimes walk among the real ones. But that stopped when my legs did, although the technology of 2023 helped me to move.

  Without my skin, at least it seemed that way, I’d move as though I walked a tightrope. Everything seemed to have an edge, and it was razor sharp. It would cut into my every pore and unveil the muscle there. Dust motes were constellations of metallic stars that would tear me to pieces, so an action as simple as the human touch was like salt to the flayed, and rain to the desert. The slightest touch was all I needed to start Death’s ball rolling.

  1234Boom! was a small square of diamond, a hundred thousand times more addictive than methamphetamine. One touch and you were hooked. I fail to recall the bloody things I’ve done to get my veins a hit of the drug. If you scratched its back, it scratched yours. It kept me alive, if you may call it that. I had my younger brother, Nathan, murdered for a block of the ice, it was that addictive.

  I wear a protective suit now as the air itself would kill me. You see, it weighs too much now, the air that is. Specially fitted to what is left of my skin, it helps me to move without breaking anything. My bones and remaining organs are still doing their job, and I intend to keep it that way. I have tanks attached to a frame that Alvin can move around, for they are on wheels. Twice a month, a young man comes to refill them, he only asks for cash. I think his middle name should be discretion. He saw me naked once as the mask was placed tenderly over the skull that had become my face. I don’t think that he was very impressed, as I have another supplier of the tanks.

  Part man, part skeleton, I crave for the drug. It has eaten me alive. Alvin brings me ladies, they cringe when he removes their blindfolds. I guess they do what they have to then leave. I watch them from the balcony, leave hurriedly towards the limousine I arranged to pick them up, and to take them back to the street where they were found. They are never working their usual beats again, says Alvin. He said that they’re changed, touched.

  But, I’m still lonely. No matter how many whores I’m provided with, I still won’t experience companionship.

  ***

  She wore a cap of black cloth and the bill was pulled right down. I saw her face in its shadow. The neon pink light beside her caught the fullness of her lips, and I knew that I just had to make her mine. Her flaxen hair cascaded over her shoulders, and I could see the aura of light through the blonde locks.

  “You can’t hide,” Alvin repeated my words through the small opening of the driver’s window. “How much?”

  She blew a large pink bubble in his direction. The bubble popped silently. A scent of cherry filled the air. She dismissed my words, or better still ignored them. After all, I was not the important thing for such an exchange.

  “Thousand bucks a pop,” she said.

  Alvin hesitated as he awaited instructions from the shadows behind him. He knew it was steep, almost sixty percent higher than last night; after all, he’d only be cruising the same beat tomorrow night and the night after - forever. The wad of cash was heavy in the palm of his hand, and as she attempted to grab the money, his hand gripped hers instead.

  “Now you have to get in the car.”

  ***

  I had her cap removed. And she spat in my face. It’s okay, the phlegm simply rolled down the glass of the helmet I wore. I watched the liquid dribble down the visor. It contained tiny bubbles, and I noticed the blood colour there.

  “Gugg,” I meant to say, “Good,” but you’ll get used to how I speak. You see, I have no lips to form proper-sounding words. That part of my head went a long time ago.

  “What do you want, old man?” she shouted the words, but it didn’t take her long before she saw how young I was. My eyes were a deep brown, depending on my mood. Sometimes they were yellow. But that’s when I smiled. And at night my arms were strapped down tight in case I tore my eyes out in my sleep. She looked right at me, and I felt scrutinised for the first time. She didn’t look away, even when Alvin tightened her binding. The straps went to the next notch, and she yelped.

  “What do you want from me, except the obvious?” she tried to say, he
r lips were bloody and broken. I had Alvin pluck her teeth from her throat so she would not choke after her beating. I know it was wrong but it was the only power I had over her.

  “I gon’k geed ghat gighk gow, gayke kaker,” I smiled, even though I always wore a grin. I needed a hit again, so Alvin pushed some of the drug the girl had provided, through a slot in the helmet I wore.

  On the outside it was a stainless steel plaque that twisted to the right, but to me it was the portal to pure nirvana. With 1234Boom! Inside, churning away, I felt it seep into whatever veins I had left, and my deeply weak eyes rolled in their sockets.

  She watched the affect the drug had on me and averted her eyes.

  Then Alvin shaved the top of her head. She moved her face forward, her head from side to side.

  “There’s no use trying to avoid the rock,” said Alvin, injecting the anaesthetic into the skin there. Immediately she felt a numbness encapsulate the side of her head. Then he went over to a small table and picked up the scalpel.

  ***

  All she could see was a dirty wall, and she felt nothing.

  Alvin crossed the room and dropped the scalpel into a stainless steel pan. He waited a while to regain his composure, breathing deeply, then picked up a needle and thread, and returned to the operation.

  He had given the man/skeleton four doses of the drug so far. It kept me alive.

  She waited for the feelings to return so that she could get the hell out of there.

  Too weak to speak, I managed to scribble on a piece of paper what I had done to her:

  Alvin has given you something I couldn’t possibly. Being addicted to 1234Boom!, or whatever the fuck it’s called, expect to feel more than is humanly real.

  Now you are like me, you will stay here, or we can move on. I don’t care anymore…He will get us what we need, I promise you.

  Here you are safe. After about a week you will need a suit. Why isn’t important right now, and I’m getting itchy again. That’s just one of the side-effects.

  I passed her the slip of paper, and she read it. Her faun-coloured eyes moved across the words scribbled there. She looked at me and I could see the beginning of tears form there. She closed them.

  “Why?” she whispered, beads of water now running down her face. She looked at the wall now as Alvin took a deep breath and removed his rubber gloves.

  I felt the power running through my veins again as the diamond was inserted into my skull. Alvin lit a cigarette and sat heavily on the instrument table, swinging his legs, drawing deeply on the tobacco.

  “Guy got?” I said, looking at her, her head to one side, all bloody and sewn up with black thread. I looked forward to spending our short lives together.

  Alvin said, “Should I remove her mouth?”

  I nodded slowly, keeping my eyes on her as Alvin grabbed a fresh pair of gloves from the box nearby, and chose another scalpel from the table. We both heard her screams as the light caught the edge of the blade. How it threw the bright illumination around the ceiling and the walls, like a prism of light.

  Then Alvin grabbed her chin and kept her forehead steady with the crook of his left arm, as though he held a rugby ball and was about to run with it. It was futile for his captor as the blade began to shear through the plump, ripe flesh. Sweat began to appear around his right armpit as his arm swept in several movements. Beads of blood ran down and slapped upon the floor, her screams shattered the silence. We had heard it before, many times. But the captive was still with us.

  “She’s a tough one,” he said, finally. He held the lips up to the light. They resembled small, bright leeches. And I could hear him laughing. But they soon died out.

  I nodded, talking over the silent screams, for she had fallen quiet, her eyes wide with shock as she averted her eyes.

  “Gees g gone.”

  ***

  I know that I looked ridiculous; nobody had heard of or seen a skeleton wearing lips but wear them, I tried. I thought I would be able to mouth my words, like a real person. I acquiesced, putting them in a small box of velvet, placing it in my pocket on the hip of the suit. Maybe I could use them as a tool on myself later? They were too heavy anyway, I thought, feeling my arms ache. I had failed, unable to form my words.

  She scratched at her arms, and I could see welts forming there, as she paced the small room.

  “There must be some way?”

  I saw her jaw lift and fall, I could almost read her bloody mouth.

  She held herself as though the temperature of the room had fallen considerably.

  Moonlight lanced through a single window high, near the ceiling.

  I knew what she was thinking, her chain, which was attached to her ankle stopped before she could get anywhere near it. She wanted the diamond, I could sense it. She didn’t want to escape, she just wanted 1234Boom! Except I couldn’t risk letting her go.

  At the centre of the room, Alvin stood breathlessly, holding his hips. Getting the chairs together had been work he could have done without. Sweat pasted what was left of his hair across his forehead, and his chest heaved after moving the objects.

  “A king…,” he said, pointing to the chairs, “Needs a queen.”

  As if she knew what was going to happen next, she scrambled at the wall, trying to reach the window and its promise of freedom, but the loop about her ankle gripped her tightly. Her fingernails bent backwards against the bricks, but she couldn’t quite reach the window. Grey streaks were left behind where they had been. They soon became bloody.

  Blood followed her, step after step, like dark footprints. The drug had dug its barbs into her veins now, and as she walked across the floor, her steps slowed, as though she carried an ever-increasing weight. She cried as even the air hurt her, her lungs lacerating at its touch.

  Alvin picked up the cable, then sighed, as he moved towards her. He had been quick to grab her in a headlock to attach the cable. This way he could stand at a safe distance and still pump the drug into her system. He placed a diamond into its end, and like a vacuum cleaner, sucked it up completely. Immediately she slowed, looking at me. The fixed grin upon her face. She breathed raggedly, the drug making her eyes roll in their sockets. As she fell to her knees and relaxed, so did I begin to get comfortable on one of the chairs Alvin had wrestled to get in the right position.

  I knew that there was no point in fighting; soon she would be completely in the drug’s thrall. She was a fighter alright, but my servant had been right all along. I needed a queen to share what little time I had left. Having money was nothing, being able to travel the globe, not having a care in the world, was fine. But, although it’s a cliché, having no one to share it with was true. Wealth was nothing.

  She sat down in the chair beside me, and a sob racked her thin frame.

  I have to admit, I possessed zero strength. Raising my right hand slowly, Alvin took the sign that I needed another hit. He took a small diamond from a box beside the row of scalpels and placed the rock in the end of my pipe.

  Instantly, the drug drilled into my veins.

  I looked at her bright eyes, somehow for the very first time, I realised, and watched them roll as 1234Boom! did its dirty work. I almost willed her to move in her seat. Skin started to roll down her face like steamed chicken falling from its bone. Her eye sockets began to blister then explode, her eyes felt the pain and she screamed as those orbs blistered but remained swollen. Their irises bled also; there they stayed, watching me.

  Despite her horrific injuries she twisted her neck, sniffing the air, knowing as if by instinct where Alvin was.

  His back was towards us as Alvin prepared the drug from the box. When he turned around, the girl had vanished, leaving me sitting all alone. After a beat, he felt the cord around his neck, and looked into the waxen mask before him. Even though she was now shockingly disfigured, she gritted her jaw and pulled the breath from the man’s throat. Slowly the struggling stopped.

  “Guy,” she said, pulling the pipe tighter, hearing Alvi
n’s screams as he slowly fell to the floor. Die, he did. His eyes never left mine as the life left him, and I actually felt sorry for him.

  At first I thought it was a bad idea, but we needed to start afresh. It was too bad that our bodies were already dying.

  I had the money to start over.

  She found the gasoline from the adjacent room and started pouring it around the house. On her knees she crept, I could hear the yelps of pain as she moved. I saw the trail of blood and her backside move as she made her way out of the room. Gone for almost an hour, she returned with a tank of fluid. It swished about and flew from the nozzle in tandem with her swaying movements, but she was careful not to get any of the fluid on her.

  Feeling for the lighter in her jeans pocket, her hands shaking uncontrollably now as they found the metal object, inside she smiled with relief.

  If a house could actually scream, then this one did. But we needed every ounce of soul that remained to escape that spreading conflagration. But we’re here, testament that life truly does move on.

  ***

  Our supply dwindled as time went by.

  We didn’t need food, only diamonds.

  We found a way of communication even if we didn’t have lips. We scribbled our words on paper, like I’ve already demonstrated.

  If we don’t get some stuff soon, then we’ll die. It’s as simple as that.