Just like that, she goes limp, kinda falls over right there in the hallway. But I’m not the trustin’ sort, I’ve seen way too many horror movies, man. So I whack away on her head with a bunch more blows. The entire time I can feel this surge of excitement floodin’ through me, and I let out a wordless battle cry—part yell, part scream, part crying.
But I’m alive, damn it. I’m alive and I can fuckin’ appreciate everything. The throbbing pain in my hands and knuckles. How my shoulder is so sore that I wince every time I jostle it. The way I’m hot and sweaty inside the suit but my face feels all cool.
Finally, I stop hittin’ the bitch. She ain’t gettin’ back up. I made damn sure of that, cause you can’t even tell she has a face anymore, man. Looks more like a pumpkin that’s been tossed outta a movin’ car or some shit.
I walk into the bathroom and turn the faucets so that the tub finally stops overflowing, then I reach down into the bottom and, even through the Tyvek, I can feel the chill of that water. It felt so damn good, man. Almost like I’d never really felt water before, ya know?
Once it’s all gurgled and swirled down the drain, I drag that corpse by its feet and kinda plop her ass down in the empty tub. I’m sittin’ on the edge and I’ve got my duffel bag by my side and I’m pullin’ out all these heavy duty lawn and leaf bags that I brought along. Then I get that hacksaw and set about to business.
It’s harder than it looks on TV and the movies, man. I mean, you really have to work to get those little teeth cuttin’ through bone. The wrists weren’t so bad ‘cause I guess they’re kinda thin, but when I started sawin’ just below the knees… man, that was a bitch. Had to stop once when the blade got wedged in real tight like, and snapped in half.
I just kinda left that part of the sawblade sitckin’ out for the time being and decided I should take care of what was left of the head while I still had the strength. I figured if the knee was that much of a bitch, what the fuck would the neck be like, ya know? Only it wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe I’d gotten a rhythm down or some shit, but it came off like it was made of cheap wood.
So I’m sittin’ there, holdin’ this severed half a head by the hair, just kinda lookin’ at it. For some reason, I started giggling, don’t really know why. There wasn’t anything particularly funny about the situation. But at the same time, everything was funny, and, before I know it, I’m laughin’ so hard I’ve got tears rollin’ down my face and that battered head is just swingin’ in my hand like some bizarre pendulum.
That’s about the time you boys in blue showed up, and all I could think to say, even though I knew it could be used as evidence against me in a court of law, was: Ocean, I don’t regret a thing, honey. Not a damn thing.
Everything after that is kinda vague. It’s like my mind’s this pitch black sky and every so often fireworks of memory flare in the darkness, burning brilliant as the crowd below goes ooohhh. I see my little Honda bathed in red and blue strobes, crowds of people whispering and pointing, then sitting on this bench with my hands trussed behind my back so tightly that my shoulders almost feel like they’re bein’ pushed forward. Blackened fingers rolling across these little cards and a woman’s high pitched laugh that bubbles up through a drone of voices. But all of these bursts of recollection fade quickly, dissolving into this shower of fragmented sparks that wink out in the night.
The next thing I do remember clearly is layin’ in my cell. Even though there’s a mattress beneath me, it feels like I’m on a slab on concrete and my muscles are so sore that I can barely move. So I’m just racked out there, starin’ up at the ceiling and tryin’ to ignore the smell of piss and vomit that seems to have soaked into every molecule in there.
I’m thinkin’ about Ocean. What she’s doin’, if she’d been eatin’ right… hell, if she’s even still alive for that matter. Last time I was with her, she was gettin’ bitch slapped across the face by that fucktard Gauge. Anything could have happened to her and I’d never know. So yeah, I was worried about the girl. For all I knew, she was dead and the re-death of Clarice fuckin’ Hudson had no impact on her miserable life what-so-fucking-ever.
And then I felt that ‘ole familiar wind tuggin’ at my soul. I hear the sounds all around me, feel my consciousness being stripped away, the jabs of pain that made my sore muscles seem like spa treatment. And it’s right there, man. Halfway between my cot and the stream of people who kept finding reasons to stroll by my cell for a quick peak at society’s latest monster.
Now, I actually experienced two things when the Eye pulled me in. The first one, I ain’t gonna tell you about. I figure there’s some things a man just has to keep to himself, ya know? Not secrets really. More like these intensely personal experiences that burrow down deep inside, carve out a little niche, and graft onto your soul. These are the types of things that change a man. They can either crush him like a cigarette butt beneath the heel of Fate or make him even more focused. More determined to do anything and everything he can.
But that’s all I’m gonna say about that. I will, however, tell ya about the second thing I experienced. This was one of those overviews of time… like I’d been lifted up on high by the wings of an angel with the immediate future spread out wide below me. Just this disembodied observer, yet somehow, I could still cry, if you can dig that. And I wept just like a little sniveling bitch… because I could finally see the truth of the matter.
Within the coming months something changes, man. I don’t know, maybe it’s a mutation. Maybe environmental variables, some shit FEMA released in the air to try and fight this thing with, or maybe the sickness was really just a symptom all along, ya know? Something that gradually changed aerobic cellular respiration into anaerobic.
All I know for certain is that it won’t matter if you’re infected. Not anymore. People are gonna die just like they’ve been doin’ for millenia. Old age, accidents, murder, suicide… but they’ll still come back. Those who get bit or scratched? Well, that will just kinda speed the process along. But, sooner or later, damn near everyone comes back.
Turns out, I suppose, that you can’t fight nature after all. Not really… I gave it one helluva try, though, didn’t I?
My first experience, that personal one that I won’t tell ya about, let me know that there were things I have to prepare for, things looming just around the corner. We have a limited amount of time in this skin, ya know, and we have to make the most of every possible minute. To some people, that means tickin’ off check marks on their bucket lists.
But, for me, it means trying to do everything within my power to make sure my special little girl stays as safe as possible.
I couldn’t stop the contagion, and now I’m gonna be locked away so society can sleep easy, secure in the knowledge that another madman has become nothing more than an interesting blurb in some Time-Life series.
But the apocalypse is comin’, man, and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do to stop it.
You may think you’ve written the last chapter in the Adventures of Bosley Coughlin, but I’m here to tell ya, jack… my story’s not over.
Not by a long shot.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
The Eye of Aeons swirls like a vortex of perfect darkness. Within its currents and eddies, space-time crashes against itself like waves cresting over breakers in a lightless sea. Centuries and millennia swish and churn, distant lands dissolving into shifting patterns of molecules, energy sizzling like monstrous slabs of bacon in the kitchen of God. All the while, billions of voices drift in and out as dialects and accents melt into a wordless drone that originates from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.