CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, just popped a bean in my mouth. Just like that, I’m gone. I look down and can’t see nothing—no legs, no dick, no nothing. I feel myself. I’m all there, just like normal, only I can’t see myself. I give Coral’s tits a squeeze and watch’em bunch up, and Laveda stabs me in the back with a fuckin’ dagger.Hurts like shit. I go down, wondering why they went to all the trouble making me invisible if they’re gonna kill me.Laveda says, “I warned you not to touch her.” Then she tells me I’ll be okay, I can’t be killed’less I’m hit in a vital place like my heart or a big artery or I’m burned, or something; I’ve drunk at the river and I’m all powerful and I’ll heal up in no time flat. She tells me to get up, and I do. I can feel myself bleeding for a while, but pretty soon it stops.She tells me to take the bean out of my mouth. I do, and presto I’m there again.Long as I’ve got one of the beans in my mouth, she says, I’ll be invisible. When I spit it out, you can see me again. But if I swallow one, it’s so long Sammy for weeks, maybe months. It’ll digest, see, and some of it’ll get in my system. Long as any’s in my system, I stay invisible.Then Laveda lets me know what it’s all about. She’s got big plans for me. Tomorrow, I’m supposed to head off for D.C. and do a job on the president, the V P, the speaker of the house. Presto, instant chaos. That’s just the thing for Laveda and her bunch. They’ll be free to do what ever they want. And it’ll be a cinch for me, right? I can go anywhere, do anything. I can’t be stopped. I pretend it’s a great idea.Well that night, I get a few ideas of my own. Laveda’s right, I can go anywhere and do what ever I please; I could think of plenty of stuff I’d rather do than spend the rest of my life knocking off people for The Group.So I strip and pop a bean in my mouth, and do a little exploring. I explore my way right into Laveda’s room, which turns out to be just down the hall. Coral’s there, too. Just like I figured.They’re sitting around gabbing. Turns out, I’m the first guy they’ve done this number on. Laveda’d tried it herself, a year ago, and Coral’s saying how she’d like a crack at being invisible.Laveda sort of puts her off. I think I know why, too. Reason she hasn’t gone around making lots of her people invisible. It gives them too much power. She wants all the power for herself, wants to stay in control. She just made me invisible to get a job done for her. And I figure I’m probably expendable, she’ll wipe me out once I get it done.Well, they finally leave off their jabber and get down to rolling on the bed. You should’ve seen those two go at each other. Grunting and groaning, licking, eating each other out. I almost popped my load, just watching. Must’ve gone on for an hour. I wanted to jump right on’em and stick it in the nearest hole, but I held off. Didn’t want to mess with Laveda. The gal’s bad news.They finally get done. I see Coral making for the john, so I get in quick ahead of her. She starts taking a shower. Okay, I know Laveda’s out in the other room and if she gets me, I’ve had it. But I’m invisible, right? How’s she gonna hurt me if she can’t find me?So I climb into the shower with Coral. She suspects something when the door slides open, but before she has a chance to yell I bash her head on the tile and knock her out. More than out, dead. So then I lay her down in the tub and have my fun. You ever let it go after holding back for an hour? Nothing like it. Thought I’d bust, I came so hard.Okay, I get out of the tub and dry off—don’t want to be tracking water, you know. Then I get scared’cause I see myself in the fuckin’ mirror! It isn’t me, really. The place is all steamy and there I am, like a hole in it. Bad news! I wanted to get outa there. So I hurried and finished drying, and snuck open the door a crack, just enough to see out. Laveda was on the bed. Looked like she was asleep.I spent a lot of time watching her, wondering if I oughta turn off her switch. I mean, I knew I should. The bitch and her whole bunch would be after me for doing her playmate, and I’d be up shit creek if they ever got their hands on me. But I tell you what, I was scared. You’d be scared too. She’s not what you’d call normal. I figured, what if I made a try for her and I couldn’t kill her no matter what I did? She’s got this magic, right? I finally figure I’m not gonna chance it. I’ll just pull a vanishing act.So I sneak out and get back to my room for the rest of the beans. Then it’s
adios.No sweat at all, getting out of the compound. I walked right past the guards. Nothing there for them to see, except the beans in my hand, and those aren’t big enough that anybody’d notice. The one in my mouth, that’s invisible. Guess’cause it’s mixed up in my spit. I figured out, after a bit, I could pop’em all in my mouth when I needed to hide’em. Smart, huh? Better than leaving the things behind when I wanted to sneak in someplace: lost two, that way.Okay, so I’m out of the compound and walking down this road. It’s three miles, all of it through Group property, till I get to a highway. Remember now, I’m not only bare-ass, I’m barefoot. You try walking three miles barefoot, sometime.I wanted a car bad. You get out in the sticks around midnight and see how many cars go by. Zip. And the ones that did come along, how was I gonna stop’em? I finally made it to a farm house, dog tired. Speaking of dogs, that’s where I ran in to my first. I don’t know if they can see me or what, but they sure as shit know where to find me. This one at the farm raised hell, even took a nip out of my leg before I killed it.Farmer Joe came out to snoop around, and that gave me a chance to get inside. I waited till he was back in bed, then got a knife and went upstairs and slit his gullet. Got the wife, too. They had three kids. Just one was a girl. I had a good time with her.After that, I wanted to sack out. But what am I gonna do with the bean in my mouth? Don’t want it falling out while I’m asleep. So I just went ahead and swallowed it.I woke up, after a couple of hours, when this car pulled up in front. There’s Laveda, and half a dozen guys from the compound. The guys are wearing these weird masks. What they are, I figure out later, they’re infrared gadgets. Put on one of those suckers, and you can see me. See my heat image. Those bastards from The Group think of everything.Okay, I figured they wouldn’t know for sure I was there. They might think I just did my business and moved on, long as they didn’t see me. So I hid. I ran over to the boys’ room, and dumped the crap out of their toy box and hid in there. Sure enough, they didn’t find me. Spent half an hour turning the house, then gave up.But the fuckers set the place on fire. Insurance, I guess. Just in case they’d missed me. Tells you something, don’t it? Sure told me something. Told me they wanted my ass dead.I just about cooked, but I got out of that place. Their car was gone. Great, I’m home free. Then I catch a slug in the shoulder and go down. This is it, Sammy. They’ll move in now, and Laveda’ll get your dick just like she said. Except they don’t move in. Just this one guy comes out from beside the garage, decked out with a rifle and those infrared goggles. I play dead, and he’s dumb enough to come close and it’s bye-bye dummy. I grab the rifle out of his hands and ram it through his teeth and blast off the back of his head.Then I go over to the garage and hotwire one of Farmer Joe’s cars, and get the fuck out of there.