Hi I'm a Social Disease: Horror Stories Part 2

"You know you're a murderer."

The man stomped up and down like a child throwing a tantrum. "f.u.c.k! f.u.c.k! f.u.c.k! f.u.c.k you! I don't have to listen to you or any other piece of trash from the street."

"I ain't from the street, Mr. Chambers. I'm from a place even farther below."

"I don't care where the f.u.c.k you come from." Chambers took a few steps toward him. "I'll cut you loose and you can go back to eating rats in the sewer with that n.i.g.g.e.r b.i.t.c.h. You have no part in this."

"I'm afraid I do." Myron spit at Chambers, saliva spraying the front of his suit.

Chambers turned his back on Myron and began walking toward the other side of the room.

"Steiner!" Chambers shouted. One of the younger men snapped to attention. "Take these certificates and feed them to this stupid f.u.c.k."

"But what if he tries to bite me, sir?"

Chambers drew back the lower leg and smacked Steiner on the shoulder. "You want to join him?"

Steiner took the stock certificates and approached Myron. He struggled against his bonds. He wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of screaming. He made eye contact with Steiner.

"Listen to me," Steiner said. "I'm going to shove these into your mouth and if you make one attempt to bite me you're going out the window. Understand?"

Myron shook his head.

"He's going to bite me! I know it! I can see it in his eyes!"

"If he bites you, we'll break out his teeth and shove them up his p.r.i.c.k."

"Open up," Steiner said.

Myron opened his mouth. As Steiner crumpled up the first certificate and pressed it against Myron's lips, Myron gnashed his teeth. Steiner drew back his fist and punched him in the mouth. Myron felt teeth shatter. Steiner shook his hand with pain, dropping the certificate to the floor. It was probably the first time he'd ever hit anyone.

"Lora! Front and center," Chambers barked.

The blond woman approached Chambers. The other man stood to his left, beside a thick-looking door. Myron wondered if it was some kind of safe. It looked like it was made from wood but it could have been lined with steel, for all Myron knew.

Steiner took the first certificate and shoved it into Myron's mouth. Myron gagged and spit the crumpled certificate and some blood back into Steiner's face.

"Little f.u.c.ker," Steiner said. He bent down and removed a very expensive brown leather shoe.

From the other side of the office, Chambers said, "I need servicing."

He unzipped his trousers and let them drop to the floor. His erection was enormous.

"No," Lora said.

"What do you mean, *No'?"

"I won't do it."

"Think about what you're saying. Out there," he gestured to the windows with the leg, "people are going out of their heads because they've lost everything they had. Now I'm offering you whatever it takes to get you down on your knees. How much?"

Steiner balled up another certificate and shoved it into Myron's mouth. This time he took his shoe and crammed the paper to the back of Myron's throat. Myron gagged but the shoe forced his gorge back down and then he had to fight to swallow the paper so he wouldn't choke on it. The aged paper worked its way down his throat. He coughed. Steiner had another certificate ready, shoving it in. It seemed like he'd hit some sort of groove. Myron tasted the old water flavor of the paper, blood, bile, street grime and shoe polish.

"This much?" Chambers produced a stack of bills from the inside pocket of his blazer. He peeled off a couple and threw them in Lora's face.

"I won't."

"This much?" He threw a couple more bills at her.

"This much?" He ground a wad into her face.

Myron wondered why she stood there and took this. Why didn't she turn and run? Why hadn't she run a while ago when Chambers had undoubtedly blown some kind of gasket? Maybe this wasn't abnormal. Maybe he always acted like this.

He dropped the entire stack on the floor in front of her.

"Still no?"

"Never."

"f.u.c.k it. Money's worthless anyway."

Chambers kicked the stack away and it exploded in a greenish flutter. He sat the severed leg onto the floor. He ripped off his jacket and his s.h.i.+rt, finished stripping off his pants, standing stocky and naked. Through Myron's watery eyes, he looked like a predatory animal. Chambers picked the leg back up.

"Todd!"

"Yes, sir!" the remaining man bellowed.

"s.h.i.+t on this stack of money."

"Yes, sir!"

Todd came out of his stoic stupor to walk over, drop his pants, and squat over the stack of loose bills.

"I'll just take what I want," Chambers said.

Myron choked down another certificate and coughed, "Lora!"

The woman turned to him as though she hadn't even realized there was anyone else in the room until now.

"Run!"

"I can't. The dogs." She stood there whimpering, looking down at Todd and the stack of money with disgust, bringing her arms instinctively over her chest.

Was she just hoping the madness would suddenly end?

Chambers snapped out with the leg and caught her on the side of the head with a meaty thunk. Lora fell to her right, b.l.o.o.d.y hair sticking to her face. Myron didn't know if the blood came from her or the leg.

He couldn't watch this. He had to do something. He pulled his knees up to his chest and savagely kicked out at Steiner as he reached toward him with another certificate. He planted the kick squarely in Steiner's chest. He staggered backward, caught himself, and was on Myron in a second, catching him across the face with the hard sole of his shoe. Myron went dizzy with the bolt of pain and the violent swinging of the rope. He wondered what he was suspended from. How easy it would be to break.

He heard fabric rip and Lora scream.

The office smelled like s.h.i.+t and vomit and blood. And beneath it all, the smell of old money and endless comfort.

He swung around, staring out over the city through the busted window and now back into the office. His eyes quickly followed the twisting rope to a vent in the ceiling. Steiner's shoe met his nose this time. He heard it pop and saw flashes of purple. Heard Lora savagely slapping at Chambers, saying, "No, no, no." Chambers laughinga"lecherous and guttural. Myron threw himself toward the open window.

"Crazy f.u.c.ker's trying to go out!" Steiner shouted. He sounded terrified or ecstatic.

Myron thought maybe the vent gave a little bit. He timed his next push for when Steiner came at him with the shoe again. It met him on the ear with a buzzing roar and he threw himself out the window, felt the air kiss his sweaty skin, heard a crumbling and a clanking and started his descent.

On the way down, he tried to think about nothing at all.

He hit the cement and everything fractured and exploded before it imploded upon itself. He felt twisted up and inside out but surprisingly whole. He opened his eyes to stare up at a black sky streaked with lightning and p.i.s.sing down rain.

If you ask the Baron to cause the death of another, you be prepared to pay. But just knowa"he is the master of death and it's only he can take you there. So you make sure to pray for him to keep your heart beating and leave him out of that other man's business. That other man's for human hands. You and me and everyone else.

Myron took a breath of the soggy air and felt his heart pound into life.

How many times would he be able to defy death?

He stood up, expecting to see a crowd of gawkers.

He didn't.

What he sawa"what he could seea"was much worse. This was the world of his vision. This was the world Mama Hodap had shown him. This was not the world he had left behind. Only maybe it was that world, perverted and decayed.

This was still Wall Street. The buildings were still there but they were in shambles, crumbling ruins. Every building except for the Chambers Building. If anything, it was even taller than before and now it looked more like a tower than a building. For a moment, Myron thought it was glowing. Several torches were stood up along the side of the road, almost like primitive streetlamps, their flames guttering against the rain. Naked corpses were stacked on the sidewalks to either side of the road. Men, women, children, animals. All stripped and thrown there like garbage, in various states of decay. Now was not the time to mourn them. He had other things to do. He had a purpose and now that purpose was renewed. Mama Hodap had felt it when she had touched him. She had said he was the one. She had said he had been brought to her. He had been chosen. He had not found them. They had found him. For the first time since entering the sewers, he was able to understand what she meant.

He didn't put himself together and stand up after falling forty-three floors for nothing.

He tried to shake the vision from his head. It didn't do any good. It was no longer just a vision. It was very real, slouching in front of him. The torches still burned. The bodies were still there. The rain continued to pour. Lightning continued to flash. He was in the belly of chaos. He was in the middle of Wall Street, adjusted to fit this savage world.

He turned toward the Chambers building.

This time he was going to enter through the front door.

He had encountered Chambers. He was still alive. He still had his dignity. He was still an under man, still a resident down there at the bottom of the world. But he was not unequal. He knew that now.

As he drew closer to the building he saw that it wasn't made of brick and concrete like most buildings. Not anymore. Bonesa"gray, white, and blacka"made up the intricate framework. It was covered in a luminous membrane. The glowing, oozing tower contrasted against the black sky. He reached out to grab what may have been a handle or maybe just a jaw bone when the door opened to receive him.

He pa.s.sed through it into the cramped, humid lobby.

The door shut behind him and Myron knew he wouldn't be going back out that way even if he wanted to. He turned to survey the lobby area. It was arranged much the same as the old lobby area. The receptionist's desk was made up of various bones. These bones, enmeshed with the membrane and bone meal, made up the interior walls, as well. They made him think of fossils covered in s.e.m.e.n. The membrane coated everything with that glow. It had to be glowing. He didn> In front of him, the floor was moving, opening up.

He stood rooted in place, staring at the disturbance.

A pair of little hands reached up through the ashy floor, followed by a mostly familiar face.

Joanie.

He breathed the name aloud. "Joanie."

This was Joanie after death. Gray and rotten but still mostly intact. She hadn't really been dead very long. He reached out to help pull her from the ground. He took her hand and pulled gently. He could feel the bone separating from the joint and shuddered with the thought of the arm coming off in his hand. He released her.

"Joanie," he said again.

"Daddy." Her vocal cords didn't work very well. The muscles of her mouth were mostly rotten. Dirt and insects filled her throat. It didn't sound like Joanie at all.

She pulled herself the rest of the way out. Black dirt caked her deteriorated clothes. He wanted to hug her but fought the urge. What good would it do? This wasn't his Joanie. He knew that. It would be impossible for his Joanie to be here. He imagined hugging her and having her fall to pieces in his arms just like she had died under his watch. He fought the crippling wave of grief and guilt threatening to pull him down.

"Follow me," Joanie said.

She turned to his left, walking with a quick, jerking shamble. She disappeared through a man-size opening shaped like a v.a.g.i.n.a. He followed her, pus.h.i.+ng the thickly dripping membrane aside, the thick lips of the v.a.g.i.n.a painting him in the substance.

Once through the opening, he found himself in a claustrophobic chamber even more sickeningly humid than the lobby. It breathed around him. Slowly. A sleep breath.

"Joanie?"

"Up here, Daddy!"

He looked up. A deep shaft ascended up through the building. Perhaps this was the elevator at one point. It didn't make any sense. The shaft was lined with what looked like circular bones, monstrous ribcages. He grabbed the first rung and began climbing.

His new body felt strong and powerful. Up to the task or merely equipped to take him to some awful end.

He knew where he was going.

All the way to the top.

Somewhere along the way, he lost sight of Joanie. But he figured he didn't lose sight of her. She was probably never there in the first place.

He climbed the rungs smoothly and as quickly as he could.

The shaft continued to ooze and breathe around him.

On the way, he thought about the path that had brought him here.

Shortly after the death of his family, Myron turned his back on the homeless shelters and the free government care that went along with them. As far as he was concerned, the only thing they had succeeded in doing was killing Melinda and Joanie. In the shelters and on the streets, he had heard whisperings of all kinds of things. It wouldn't do to go out looking for a job because a storm was brewing and the factories weren't hiring anyone and would probably be shutting down shortly. You could move out west but work was just as scarce out there and they paid slave wages for brutal days of backbreaking labor. None of that mattered to Myron. With his family gone, he didn't have anyone to work for anyway.

But Myron had kept his ears open. Eventually, rooting through a trash can behind a diner in h.e.l.l's Kitchen, he found Kevin Pierce. Pierce told him about a group of people who lived in the sewers and the subways. The Enclave, Pierce called them. Myron spent the day with Pierce. He was hungry and dirty just like everyone he knew. But he seemed calm. Toward the end of the day, Myron thought he had it figured out.

"You ain't searchin," he said to Pierce.

"Whaddya mean?"

"Well, ever'body else's lost ever'thin but they're tryin to get it back. They're all bunched up and anxious."

Pierce threw back his head and laughed, scratching the thick beard on his neck.

Then he told Myron about the Enclave.