“What do you mean it was licking its lips?”
“I meant the fuckin’ thing licked its lips! A long purple tongue licked the lips and the man held the heart up to its mouth and the fuckin’ thing starting eating it. Blood ran down its mouth! It was eating it!” Tito rubbed the back of his neck again.
“Don’t touch it,” Gloria said.
“It really hurts.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“That’s where it bit me.”
“There, on the neck?” She moved his collar and looked closely. “We’ll take you to a hospital in Monterey. I don’t want to take you to one around here. Just tell me what happened.”
“A man stood at the side and hacked Roger’s body to pieces. They brought pieces of Roger to the statue, pieces it could eat. The statue was able to eat some, other pieces fell out of its mouth. At that point it was Michael’s turn. Michael was fighting. Seeing that fuckin’ statue take a bite out of Roger got us out of our stupor. Michael broke free but the muscled man tackled him and put him in a headlock while other men punched and kicked at him. It was too much for Michael. He was too weak from the beating. They then tore his heart out too. I started to scream at that point. I turned away. I could hear the fuckin’ thing chomping though, I could hear it. I tried to get away but they dragged me to it. I fought hard. I even snapped the muscular man’s head back with a punch. I almost broke free but one of them kicked at my legs and knocked me down. I couldn’t fight them off anymore. I thought they would do the same to me as the others but they picked me up and carried me to the statue. They placed me in front of it. I felt its arms come alive and they were strong, they embraced me and wouldn’t let me go… Then, then…the thing…it penetrated me with its dick. From behind. It put it in there and then it bit my neck.” Tito grew quiet. “My head.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything’s really weird right now. Something’s not right.”
“Do you remember how you got away?”
Tito shook his head, feeling the lump on the back of his neck. It was much bigger now. He would have been alarmed had not the drink stolen that emotion from him. He then turned to Gloria. It started to come back to him.
The statue had let him go and he collapsed on the ground in a fetal position. The cartel members did not approach him but a woman did. In his state of bewilderment he vaguely recognized her face. She cradled his head on her lap and said consoling words in Spanish, moving the hair back from his forehead which she kissed. He then knew it was Gloria and smiled up at her. That’s when the drug runners approached, helping Gloria with the young man, carrying him to her car where they placed him in the backseat with his clothes.
“I feel really bad!” Tito said, standing from his barstool.
The bartender watched from far away but did not approach.
“You were there!” Tito yelled, pointing at Gloria as he clutched at the back of his neck with his other hand. “What did you do to me? It’s moving!”
Indeed, underneath the rise of flesh at the back of his neck there was movement, a squishing sound, a thrust of weight.
“Oh god! Gloria, what did you do to me!” His legs gave out from under him and he collapsed.
Gloria then looked to the other men sitting at the bar and said, “He’s going to hurt it.”
“No,” the acne-scarred leader said. “He won’t.”
Tito looked at the cartel members. Where did they come from? He shook his head. The drug in his drink was kicking into overtime. He tried to stand but collapsed again.
“Hermanito,” the acne-scarred leader said, “you’re a fool. You know what December 28th is? It is our fool’s day. And you, hermanito, are the biggest of fools. You didn’t believe them when they said not to come to my country, didn’t believe me when I told you about Gonzalo, and didn’t believe me when I said he gave us the gift of invisibility. But he is old now, hermanito.”
Tito felt his eyes grow heavy, his limbs relax. The cartel members lit up cigarettes and ordered drinks. Gloria said her two dogs back home were probably missing her.
TITO AWOKE ON THE ranch as dawn streaked the eastern ridge with red and yellow clouds. He saw the muscular man bent over him, holding Tito’s head up several inches off the ground. Tito felt an extreme pain in his neck. He cried out and could not understand why his body would not move. He realized that he was in the field where his friends had been murdered. He looked for the statue but could not locate it. Then he realized it had been taken down. A stone pedestal remained on which the object had rested.
Tito screamed as his neck seemed to have been torn open. His eyes moved to his wrists which he saw were tied to what looked like tent pegs at either side of him. He looked down and saw his legs were tied in the same fashion. The muscular man said something to someone. He sounded content. There were people behind Tito but he couldn’t see them. They began to give applause.
The muscular man rose and Tito’s head fell backwards, blood gushing from the back of his neck. Tito could now see the people behind him. It was the cartel. They were all dressed in suits, their hair carefully combed. Gloria was there as well, wearing a white dress. She had fixed her hair so that it fell in curls over her shoulders. The muscular man laughed. He cradled something in his arms. Tito realized that it had come from his neck. The muscular man held it up for all to see, a small wooden child with the head of a goat. The muscular man pulled a large dagger from his belt and knelt close to Tito, plunging the blade deep into Tito’s chest while Tito saw the lifeless wooden child with the goat’s head lick its lips in anticipation.
Tito smiled. A tear ran down his face. He felt strangely proud as the sight faded from his mind and as his head tilted glassy-eyed to the side. It was his after all. It was new to the world, to be fed by a world of fools. And it was his.
THREE, TWO, ONE
by Nate Southard
JANUARY 1ST, LAST YEAR, 1:14 AM
Just made it home and got the door shut and barricaded. Whole lot of close calls on the way back, but I had my eyes open. Amazing how easy things can be when you’re one of the few who knows what’s going on.
Pretty loud out there right now, but I think it’s going to get a whole lot louder. Way it sounds this second, it could still be people partying. Well, maybe half. There’s plenty of screams. It’s a weird smash of noise, all of it just pushing together into this strange bunch of chaos. Makes me wonder how it’s all going to go, if it really will get louder or if this is the worst of it. Maybe it’ll start to ease off soon. What if Manhattan’s a ghost town by noon? I don’t think it could happen that fast, but what do I know? We didn’t exactly get a chance to rehearse this. It’s the night, yeah?
Exciting days.
Walking through Times Square before midnight…well, it erased any doubts I had, right? It was like a zoo. Even smelled like one. All those people crammed up against each other. They’re slapping hands and laughing, kissing. I walked past one couple kissing in the middle of the throng. He had his hand down the front of her pants, and his entire arm was working. The woman moaned into his mouth as she worked her hips against his hand. I looked around to see if anybody else had noticed this disgusting scene, and the only other man who had was laughing, cheering them on while he snapped a picture. Probably wanted to join in the fun.