Infected

82.

Perry stumbled out of the bathroom, bleeding, coughing, crying, dripping snot and spit and blood everywhere. He was so far gone he didn’t see the hatchlings scatter about the room, hopping out of his way as fast as their uncoordinated little bodies would carry them. They filled his head with nonsense words and abstract phrases.

Juggling an armful of stuff, Perry whipped the first bottle against the wall just inside the door; it shattered, spreading Bacardi 151 all over the wall and floor.

He saw one of the hatchlings dash toward him. He grabbed the bloody Chicken Scissors. The hatchling leaped for his leg, wrapped its tentacles around his calf. He felt a stabbing, cutting pain, but it was distant, like the sound of a shout from a mile away. He arced down with the Chicken Scissors and punctured the hatchling’s body.

A five-part scream ripped through his head, a woman’s scream that poured from each of the hatchlings.

“Why can I still hear them?” Perry mumbled, his voice bordering on suffused hysteria. “I got them all… why can I still hear them, goddamn it! ”

He lifted the scissors, taking a moment to stare at the jittering, wriggling hatchling impaled on the bloody blades. He flicked his wrist, flinging the hatchling across the room. It fell on the floor, broken, twitching, staining the carpet with purple goo.

Perry looked up and growled a primitive challenge, but the rest of the hatchlings stayed away. He moved to the door, stepping over Fatty Patty’s body. He noticed that her lower legs and hands were gone, gnawed to bloody stumps. The hatchlings popped up and down in a sickening dance, chirping, clicking, filling his head with disjointed threats.

You’re going to pay

You bastard.

You’ll get yours.

And very soon.

Perry ignored them and hopped to the entryway. He juggled his armload of goodies as he unlocked the three locks, then opened the door. He smashed his last bottle on the door frame. Rum soaked the carpet.

You’re a bad man.

We’ll be coming for you, we’re going to get you.

He looked back at the hatchlings, who stared at him with utter spite, black eyes gleaming with absolute hatred.

Perry said nothing, his mind incapable of articulating words. A thin string of drool hung from his lip, swinging in time with his uncoordinated movements. He dropped the Chicken Scissors to the floor.

In his arms he held two more things. One of the things was the lighter. He flicked his Bic.

Perry Dawsey stared at the room with eyes much older than his twenty-six years. He bent and touched the flame to the rum-soaked floor.

Flames shot up instantly, a warm blue at first, but quickly turning yellowish-orange as the carpet caught fire. He dropped the lighter. Now he held only one thing. The flames grew, crawling up the door frame, reaching for the ceiling.

Perry looked back at the hatchlings one last time. They ran around the apartment like some satanic version of the Keystone Kops, bouncing off walls, furniture and one another in a blind terror-the fire quickly spread back from the door frame into the apartment proper, and there was no place for them to avoid the flames.

“Yes you gonna burn, ” Perry said quietly.

He turned to leave, but the map caught his eye. Fire tickled the paper’s bottom corner.

Perry reached out and tore the map from the door. He left the apartment, went to his right and started hopping as the flames spread out into the hallway behind him.