The man with my face said, “You have thirty seconds to answer, and then I start cutting.”
“There is no right answer. You could make the argument that both the…”
And then it hit me.
“Okay,” I said, “I get it. All three are naturally occurring.”
“Please explain.”
“Because humans shaped the stone blade and manufactured the scalpel, but humans are naturally occurring organisms. So anything we build or create is also naturally occurring.”
“Correct! Erosion by flowing water and chiseling by human hands are both just atoms moving atoms. Molecules grow into cells and cells grow into brains and organs and limbs to shape the stone. A colony of fungi, an anthill, a human city—all are a convergence of particles and forces that alter the landscape. In fact, any substance or occurrence that is not naturally occurring must, therefore, be supernatural in nature. So, that leads us to the second question. Of the two cutting tools you see before you, which was made by choice?”
“I see where this is going.”
“Do you? The crude blade there was made five hundred thousand years ago by a hooting, stinking creature you would in no way recognize as human. So, when that hairy primate fashioned this blade for the purpose of slicing meat from bone—the same purpose I intend to use it for—did it choose to do it? Or was it just following its animal instincts, the way an insect will scurry from the light?”
The wheezing bug on my chest had crawled off my shirt, and I could feel its feet tickling my neck.
He said, “Twenty seconds.”
“I don’t know, man, ask a scientist. Maybe it was just hungry and had a dead animal in front of him he couldn’t bite into.”
“So, you’re saying that hunger was the inventor. Why, then, is that different from the scalpel? Otherwise, you would be suggesting that there is an energy that allows you, as a man, to defy the simple mechanism that causes the tree to grow toward sunlight or the insect to flee from it. An energy that lets you defy the physical chain reactions that govern the behavior of literally everything else in the universe, from subatomic particles to the grunting ancestor who made this blade. An energy that exists only in modern humans.”
“Then none of them were made by choice. That’s the answer you want, isn’t it? So there you go, that’s my answer. We’re all just … fucking animals or whatever. How is that relevant to the situation at hand?”
“Final question. If you are correct and we are not able to make choices, and are just following the same impulses as the insect, then how do I have the choice to not peel your face? I would be driven along by impulse, as beholden to them as that insect.”
The bug was scaling my chin now. It was breathing hard with the effort. I thought I heard it curse under its breath.
I said, “What you’re saying is that you’re going to peel off my face one way or the other. Which is irrelevant because this isn’t actually happening. Right?”
“You tell me.”
Nymph snatched the scalpel and climbed up on the gurney, straddling my chest. He grabbed my face, but then things got confused and suddenly I was the one on top, the struggling man’s face in my own grip, the scalpel in my hand. It was John on the gurney, not me. The blade pierced skin and I pulled it across his jawline …
16. THE GREAT DILDO FLOOD
I snapped back into my own body and found I was in fact straddling John. In my hand, instead of a scalpel, was a pink dildo. I was pressing it against his chin, as if trying to slice it open. John meanwhile was cramming something into my face, something that was crumbling against my jaw. We were splashing around in an inch of dirty water.
John said, “EAT IT! EAT IT, YOU SON OF A BITCH!”
I said, “WAIT! STOP!”
We both blinked and froze in place, taking in our surroundings. We were in the Venus Flytrap, which had now succumbed to the encroaching flood. There were open empty sex toy packages scattered around the floor, as if the place had been ransacked by looters looking to spice up their marriages. The place smelled like farts.
I got up off of John. He groaned and dumped something out of his hand—a handful of Oreo cookies he’d been trying to shove into my mouth, for some reason. He stood up out of the water, then lit a cigarette.
I said, “What happened? How long was I out?”
“I … don’t know. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Soy Sauce. At the Beanie Wienie cannery. I got some in my system, everything went weird. Then I woke up here. Just now.”
John nodded. “Yeah, me, too.”
“You took off running. You dove through a second-floor window.”
“No memory of that. I’m really sore, though. Got scratches all over me.”
I called out for Amy. No answer. A hint of sun was peeking through the windows, from the east. There were several shopping sacks from a local hardware store near the door. I briefly looked through them, and found several sealed plastic bags of a bright yellow powder. One had burst, spilling its contents—sulfur. So that’s where the stink was coming from. Had we bought it? If so, why?
I checked to see if I had my phone, and did. I dialed Amy.
She answered with, “Is this you? Where are you?!?”
“Venus Flytrap. I woke up and John and I were having a dildo battle.”
“Where have you been?”
“Don’t know. How long have I been gone? All night?”
“All night? This is Monday morning. You’ve been gone for two days.”
“Oh. Shit. Have you not heard from me at all?”
“You took the Soy Sauce, you looked at Chastity and yelled, ‘It’s dildos all the way down, baby,’ and ran out of the building. You had told her to wait an hour but you never came back. That was Friday night. She actually stayed until the next morning but she’s long gone now. I hear nothing all day Saturday, or Sunday. I’ve been worried sick. What were you doing for two days?”
“No idea. Maybe it’ll come back to me. And nobody has come after you?”
She said, “Not so far. Maybe they don’t work weekends.”
“Okay. Okay … so, where are you staying?”
“I’ve been sleeping at the Beanie Wienie. Didn’t know where else to go. Been sleeping in my clothes on the sofa, freezing at night. Got Nicky to bring me food. Nobody has bothered me here, though.”
“Okay. Good. Well … shit. I’m sorry, Amy. But maybe John and I took care of it. While we were on the Sauce, maybe we fixed everything. Have there been, uh, any more developments while we were gone?”
“Yes. Ten more kids have gone missing.”
“Did you say ten?”
“Went missing yesterday. All from the same place, the Roach Motel. They were the biker kids. They had a room there they were using as a day care. Yesterday most of the bikers were out at a memorial for Lemmy. They came back, the lady who was watching the kids was frantic. Says she turned her back for one second, and they were gone. Christ’s Rebellion is on the warpath. They’re tearing the town apart.”
“Shit. Wait, now hold on—are these real kids or is this a situation like Mikey?”
“I’ve seen photos.”
“Oh. You have?”
“Yeah, I’m talking to the parents now. I’m at the motel.”
“What are you doing out there?”
“I just told you, we’re trying to help them find out what’s going on. What did you think I was doing all weekend? I’m working the case.”
“All right, all right. We’ll be right there.”
“The world doesn’t just grind to a halt when you’re not around, David.”