Fiend Read online

  We turn onto Marshall. I see my boy Tibbs walking down Seventh. This makes me feel better. Like things are normal, okay. Type says, Bet Tibbs is holding, could hook it up with a teener for the road.

  Not trying to flee yet, I say.

  Huh?

  Get to my apartment. Got a few Klonopin. I need to sleep, man, like my head is bad.

  Feel you, Typewriter says.

  We pull over at my sublet. I get out. Stretch. I wonder where the hell everyone is. Nobody’s waiting for the bus, nobody’s driving or honking, there’s no foot traffic over at the Groveland Tap. Typewriter scans the streets too. He looks at me. I shrug.

  We go around back of the split-level and it’s nothing but red chipped paint and cracked sidewalks but Rebecca gave me the tiny-ass apartment for three fifty a month, so whatever. I open the door. The house splits inside the tiny foyer, one door to the two upstairs units, one door to my dungeon of an efficiency basement. The mildew stench from the walls is at an all-time bad. I think about complaining to Rebecca but decide against it, having smoked July’s rent.

  It’s a strange feeling inside my apartment—part relief, part dread—and I wonder if that’s what everyone feels coming home. Like, yeah, I see the one piece of furniture I own, my mattress covered in unwashed navy blue sheets, and I’m like, motherfucker, I missed you. But I see nothing but dust bunnies on the scratched wooden floors—and I’m like, motherfucker, this is it. This is my life.

  What’s up with those benzos? Typewriter asks.

  I walk to the bathroom next to the efficiency kitchen. It doesn’t have a door. I open the tiny medicine cabinet. A toothbrush that has gone unused for weeks sits next to an Advil bottle. I pour out its contents—four beautiful Klonopin. I think about swallowing them all, the four of them spreading through me like the warmest of quilts on a January night. I run the faucet. I want to sleep and forget what happened with the umbrella-socked demon. I glance up. Something is staring back at me. I nearly scream. It’s me. My eyes are the deepest of oceanic trenches.

  Give it here, Type says.

  I hand him two pills and swallow mine.

  I think about how much time I spend trying to find a balance between artificial moods, the equilibrium of acceleration and deceleration.

  I plug my cell phone into the charger. Typewriter lies on my bed.

  Get the fuck out, I say.

  Bro, where am I—

  Not on my bed.

  But there’s no other furniture.

  Sorry, not all of us have a house from our mom.

  Typewriter looks at me like I’ve spit in his mouth. I feel like a dick. I say, Listen, man, I’m sorry. We need to sleep and figure out what the fuck happened, you know, like what’s real, what isn’t.

  He starts to get off the mattress. I tell him it’s fine, just don’t try any faggy shit. He calls me a faggot. I tell him that was a good comeback. I lie there and my heart still thunders and I’m willing the soluble shell of the Klonopin to break open and spill its contents into my bloodstream, for my eyes to become heavy. Typewriter curls at the foot of the bed like a wary dog. This reminds me of the rottweiler. The little girl. The giggles. The little fist coming through the door. The typewriter. The flames. I picture the police there, the fire department too, Typewriter’s childhood house alive in its death, flames reaching toward the telephone poles, the electric wires connecting everything. I should call KK. Tell her I might be going away for a while. How long until they come looking for Typewriter here? I strain my ears to hear Rebecca’s TV through the floorboards. I can’t hear anything. This is odd. That fat bitch has that thing blaring at all hours of the day. I yawn, and this makes me smile. They’re working, the Klonopin. I know that when I wake up, I’ll be terrified, either because of what we’ve done, or because of what drugs are turning me into.

  7:51 PM

  I wake up, not ready to. Typewriter slaps at my feet.

  What?

  It was real, he says.

  Huh?

  He points to his shirt. It’s still covered in blood. I look down at myself and see the same thing and I’m thinking, fuck my ass, what did we do? I rip off my T-shirt and throw it on the floor. I look at my pants. Smears of the little girl stain the denim.

  Bro, Type says.

  We need to get out of the bloody clothes. Burn ’em or some shit, I say.

  He understands then, stripping down.

  There’s a pile of clothes in the corner, all dirty. I pull out a white T-shirt and a pair of green sweatpants and toss them to Typewriter. I dress in jeans and a navy blue shirt, musty with cooled sweat.

  Then I’m packing what little I have in a trash bag. I stuff in some clothes, my phone charger, a jacket. I’m thinking about passports, about money, about Mexico or Canada, my parents, KK, about not using the one credit card I still have because they can track those things, about maybe ditching Typewriter because one person disappearing is easier than two. I pack my toothbrush, my unopened mail. Typewriter stands at the one excuse for a window, looking up through the basement metal grate. I feel a slight craving, just a hit to get my head straight. I wonder if Typewriter still has a shard. I ask. He doesn’t respond.

  Yes or no?

  He shakes his head.

  What the fuck does that mean?

  Still nothing and I want to bash his head in because he can be such an idiot. So helpless. So desperate. Playing the whole poor-fucking-me-my-mom-died-of-cancer junkie thing. And he’s shady as hell. Always stealing people’s scraps, shorting bags. And here he is, facing murder, staring out my piss slit of a window like he can’t get enough of the sunset.

  You gonna help? I ask.

  Something’s not right.

  I laugh. You kidding me right now?

  Look, he says.

  I decide right then and there to leave him. I’ll be better off without his constant bitching, his tendency to destroy everything he touches.

  Help me pack up the bloody clothes.

  Chase, look.

  I’ll humor him until we get out of the city, until we stop for gas. I’ll leave him while he’s paying.

  I walk over to the window and look up to the street level. There’s nothing. I ask him what he’s talking about. He points. I say, Yeah, so?

  Nothing, he says.

  That’s a good thing.

  Not one person. Nobody. When’s the last time you saw Seventh empty?

  We don’t have time for this, I say.

  Serious. When? Never, bro.

  I look back out. I half expect to see the little girl with umbrella socks and flakes of missing face. He’s right. There’s nobody walking around and I want to tell him that it’s probably because people are at work or maybe the Twins are playing, but even as I formulate these objections, I’m countering them—nobody works banker hours on West Seventh, not one pregnant teen is waiting at the bus stop, I can’t hear the motor of a single car—and I realize that something is wrong.

  I tell Type to go check it out.

  Not going out there.

  Then pack this shit up while I do it.

  He tells me no. He picks at the constant scab on the left side of his jaw. He whispers something. All I catch is apocalypse.

  Just stay here, okay? Pack up those bloody clothes so we can get the fuck gone.

  Chase.

  Do it.

  He nods. I walk outside. At this point, I’m still hoping it’s the drugs, maybe the Albino’s latest batch was cut with a PCP derivative, that we’re spun. I stand on the sidewalk and see not one person on the street. The Groveland Tap is empty. No cars. I walk around to the front of Seventh. I’m starting to shiver because it’s like that dream when you’re walking alone and you finally realize it—your solitary venture through this life—and skyscrapers are covered in vines and the road is buckled open like a whore’s gap and it’s just you and your stupid footsteps, the sound of your rubber soles dragging on aged asphalt.

  I’m thinking about a conversation with KK, back when
we were sober, in love with second chances and each other’s naked flesh. She’d asked, if I was offered the gift of immortality, would I take it? I’d kissed her German triangle of a nose, said something cheesy about only with you. She’d said, No, that’s not what I mean. Everyone you know will be dead but you. Would you do it? I’d thought about it, KK straddling me, my dick starting to harden, my lips brushing against her self-proclaimed biggest embarrassment, her nose, wondering if my breath was foul. I’d said, Yeah, I would.

  I stand there, feeling my sanity stretch to its limits, thinking about KK fucking that scumbag Jared, that stupid fucking prick.

  I take another look toward downtown St. Paul. Lights are on in the modest skyscrapers. I hear birds. The sun shines but just a little. There’s a slight wind coming from the Mississippi. Are Tibbs, Type, and myself the only people to survive Armageddon? I laugh. I realize it makes more sense that I’m really sitting on Typewriter’s couch, the glass pipe in my lap, my heart having finally quit.

  I walk back to the apartment. Typewriter’s still standing by the window. I tell him I’m going to go see if fat Rebecca can tell me what’s going on. He says he’ll come too and I want to tell him that isn’t smart, but he’s practically crying so I say, Let’s go.

  At the top of the landing I knock on her door. I wet my lips and try to do something with my hair. No answer. I knock again.

  Everyone’s gone, Typewriter says behind me.

  She never leaves. Even gets her groceries delivered, I say.

  I press my ear to the door, expecting to hear the shuffling of slippers.

  Fuckin’ stinks, Typewriter says.

  The mildew in the walls, I say.

  I knock one more time. Then I test the handle. It turns. I open the door a foot and call her. I step in and the smell is horrific, like rotting pot roast. I pull my shirt over my mouth and nose. Her apartment looks just like always—a couch and recliner centered on a TV, the kitchen full of takeout Chinese boxes, everything dirty as fuck.

  We should go, Typewriter says.

  I walk into the main room and feel the TV. It’s cold. She has that thing running twenty-four–seven. I push Power. The screen fills with static that bathes the evening room with white light.

  Something crashes in the bedroom.

  I stiffen. Typewriter runs for the door and I flash on what the little girl did to the dog and think about whatever is in the next room doing that to me. I see a streak of black. A cat freezes in the doorway, staring at us. It runs back to the bedroom. I follow. I’m cautious, I know whatever I see will be bad, and Typewriter is behind me, which I’m glad about.

  The bedroom door is open a slit.

  I nod to Typewriter. He nods back. I push open the door. All three hundred pounds of Rebecca is splayed out on her bed. Her slew of cats look over at me, their mouths covered in blood and flesh.

  Jesus Christ, I say. I turn back to the hallway.

  What? Typewriter says. He looks inside. He says, Fucking shit, man, they’re eating her. The cats are fucking eating her.

  I want to cry. To throw up. To go back to Typewriter’s house and have my only concern be trying to find a minute alone to smoke a dime piece.

  Let’s get gone, Typewriter says.

  I follow him to the door. One of the cats stares at us like we’d just interrupted something sacred. It keeps licking its bloodied whiskers. I’m beginning to grasp the reality of our situation and I just need some sort of confirmation. I need somebody to tell me this is real. That everyone I’ve ever known has died or disappeared somehow. That we did, in fact, crush the skull of some possessed child. That it was okay because we had no choice.

  I knock on the door to Svetlana’s, the Russian tenant.

  Bro, let’s get ghost, Type says.

  She’s got Internet. Just need to see what the fuck is going on.

  She’s gonna be dead.

  The door is locked. I kick the shit out of it. The wood splinters on the first kick. We go in. It’s the same smell and we both pull our shirts over our faces and I walk over to her computer. An old Soviet flag hangs on the wall. I sit on a ratty brown couch, right next to about seven dildos, a bottle of lube, and a butt plug thicker than a baseball bat.

  Typewriter gives a chuckle. He says, Bitch be loving dick, huh?

  Did those webcam shows, I say.

  He’s holding the black butt plug. He gives it a tentative sniff. I think about telling him to grow up. He’s smiling though. I sit and get the computer going. The shit takes forever to get warmed up.

  You ever hit it? Typewriter asks.

  I shake my head.

  Bullshit, some Russian debutante sitting up here all day fiddling her pussy, and you never hit it?

  Windows loads. I don’t tell Typewriter I can’t remember the last time I’d been sober enough to get a hard dick. I click on Internet Explorer. He’s on to the dildos now, holding them up to one another, maybe mentally comparing where he would stack up in the equation.

  Finally, the Internet is up and I’m at her home page, 18 to play.com, and I see my face streaming on the screen. I really do look like hell, nothing but scruff and scabs and eyes sunken like the Titanic.

  You streaming? Typewriter asks.

  Yeah, guess so.

  I move the cursor to click to a news site.

  Hold on, he says. He sits next to me, giving me a shove. His face streams online. He’s the only fat meth addict ever. His cheeks take up the whole screen.

  He says, Is anybody out there? Anyone? Is there any single motherfucker left alive in this world?

  Stop, I say.

  Type keeps going, overenunciating like he’s talking to a retarded kid, We are in St. Paul, Minnesota. There is nobody left. Maybe some little girl but she was—

  Fucking stop, I yell. I push him out of the way. You stupid?

  Typewriter balls a fist. Part of me hopes he swings, hopes this can be the logical end to our relationship. He relaxes his hand. He says, There’s got to be somebody out—

  A chime comes from the computer. I look at the screen.

  BIGHRYBALLS: wtf u do w Russiandoll69?

  Another chime.

  BIGHRYBALLS: she ok?

  Typewriter yells, Hello, hello?

  BIGHRYBALLS: don’t tell me she’s gone.

  I say, Can you hear me?

  BIGHRYBALLS: did she turn?

  Can’t hear you, write something, Type says.

  I peck on the keyboard. It chimes.

  RUSSIANDOLL 69: Who is this?

  BIGHRYBALLS: is she walking?

  Typewriter says, What is this guy talking about?

  RUSSIANDOLL 69: What is happening?

  BIGHRYBALLS: you kill her—y or n?

  I’m hoping this guy is fucking with me. Maybe he’s some narc trying to uncover the murder of that little girl. At least this is what I’m telling myself. Like it’s so much better to be wanted for murder than for… shit, I don’t know, whatever the fuck the alternative is.

  RUSSIANDOLL 69: Of course didn’t kill anyone.

  BIGHRYBALLS: she didn’t reanimate?

  Ask him where everyone is, Typewriter says.

  RUSSIANDOLL 69: Please tell me what is happening.

  Where is everybody?

  BIGHRYBALLS: dead

  My stomach drops out of my ass with this chime. Typewriter is saying he fucking knew it. I’m thinking about the little girl and about this guy’s comments about walking and I tell myself that it’s only in movies and comics where people can come back and eat flesh. I’m thinking about every show I’ve ever seen, every film, about arms outstretched, moans, and decaying flesh, and ghouls and living dead.

  I’m muttering no, no.

  BIGHRYBALLS: u kill her?

  RUSSIANDOLL 69: I said no.

  BIGHRYBALLS: why not?

  I hear something resembling a two-pack-a-day fit of laughter. I scream. Standing maybe ten feet away is a naked Svetlana. Her blond hair is matted to the side of her face, which is h
alf dark, like her blood has pooled there and there alone. She just keeps laughing. Typewriter and I run to a corner of the room. He’s holding on to a giant black dildo like a sword.

  She takes a step forward.

  The computer chimes and chimes and chimes.

  She rolls her head and we hear a cracking of vertebrae and she’s smiling, laughing, walking toward us. I’ve envisioned my death countless ways, none of them at the hands of some walking dead Russian whore. She’s getting closer. I need to do something. I’m looking for weapons. Typewriter throws the dildo. It bounces off her chest. This really gets her going. This is my chance; she’s distracted, thinking how that rubber dong would do anything but annoy her. I reach for the coffee table and shove it with everything I’ve got. It bumps into her knees, sending her back a few steps. Then in one motion, she kicks it to shit, shattering the glass across the floor. A jagged piece shaped like a slice of pizza clatters at my feet. I grab it.

  Fucking run, Typewriter says.

  I try to grab him before he sprints for the door. It’s too late and he’s running and she turns and claws at his back and there’s blood and I’m not thinking, just acting, reacting. She’s got one hand on his shoulder and she’s clawing and scratching and he’s flailing and crying, begging for God to save him, for his mother, and I’m behind Svetlana, and I don’t know the first fucking thing about arteries or jugulars but that doesn’t matter. I stab the shit out of her neck. She seems to go limp for a second. I do it again. Thick, oil-like fluid oozes out of her. Then she’s on the ground and I’m screaming and still stabbing. I feel something break and I think it’s the glass but no, it’s still in one piece in my sliced hand. I look down. The end of her spine juts out from the top of her neck. Her severed head rolls in a semicircle.

  The computer keeps chiming.

  Her naked body gives soft jerks. I think of KK falling asleep, how her path to sleep was violent.

  I’m holding on to Typewriter’s arm and we’re running down the stairs. We’re outside and the sun is about to set behind the small river valley of St. Paul and we’re not alone anymore—the streets have started to fill with what looks like the usual haggard motherfuckers of tame midwestern ghettos—and we get in Typewriter’s Civic and they are coming toward us, these people, these walking dead motherfuckers, all of them probably having reanimated and broken down their doors, and we’re driving away from them all.