Hi I'm a Social Disease: Horror Stories (6 page)

Like in a dream, the thing sitting there looked nothing like Chambers, but Myron knew it had to be. He was naked. His skin stretched tightly over his skeleton, pale white but gorged with blood, giving him an almost rosy complexion. Dark red nails grew from his hands and feet. A sickly smooth pouch replaced his genitals. His eyes were small and black.

And, it took Myron a moment to realize it, but Chambers was pulsing, his whole body expanding and contracting with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Myron almost wanted to touch him just to make sure he wasn’t imagining it.

“
What are you doing?” Chambers voice sounded like sandpaper gargling blood, but with the same gruff cadence it had before.

Myron thought about charging him with the ax, chopping him up until there was nothing.

But he couldn’t move. He was rooted in place. The membrane had thickened and become like a rope, clinging to his clothes, reaching into his clothes and adhering to his skin.

“
You know what I’m doin,” Myron said. He felt stupid opening his mouth around this man. He felt small. Poor. Dumb. Uneducated. But he knew none of those things made him any less than this man.

Chambers chuffed out a laugh.

“
I know what you’re
trying
to do but let me assure you: Many have tried and many have failed. You don’t know what you’re up against.”

“
I have a pretty good idea.”

“
Is that so? Let’s hear it.”

“
A monster.”

He coughed out a laugh again. “You wish it was that easy. You’re a simpleton. You don’t know what it’s like to become.”

“
Become what? A monster?”

“
A god.”

“
You’re hardly a god.”

“
You’re right. I can only aspire. But the gods will continue to give me power if I continue to serve them.”

“
I don’t serve gods. Any gods.”

“
Well, then you are even simpler than I thought. You’re used to the gods of civilization.” Chambers picked up some coins to his right and let them plink back down into the pile. “The gods of this. That’s what makes you so civilized. The gods you’ve known don’t know the meaning of chaos and survival within that chaos. The gods of civilization were made to be housed by churches and books. They are gods of convenience, there to serve the believer when convenient. It makes it easy to deny their existence. I haven’t seen any proof myself. But my gods are the old gods. The oldest gods in the cosmos. And getting some of their power is as close as any one of us will ever get to them.”

“
The only god you serve is greed.”

“
Greed? Greed for what.”

“
Money.”

“
Money? Hardly. Although my gods did create money. In order to collapse a civilization, you have to give it the tools to build itself so that people can forget about the old ways. So people can forget what it’s like to live in fear. Fear of their neighbor. Fear of the creatures in the night. Fear of starvation. You have built walls between yourselves and fear. And you let us build these altars to the gods. Our gods. And we found a way to turn currency into souls. We found out how to deaden them, eat them. And with each soul death, we move a little deeper into your world. And people like me, we are the hearts in these altars, moving the blood of our gods from hand to hand and taking it back and hoarding it when we need to. Tell me, Mr. Barnes, how’s your soul doing? Bet you still wish Joanie and what’s her face were around. Don’t be surprised I know all this about you. I knew when you called. I knew how you pleaded with the clerks. But none of that helped. It amused me, sure. I don’t know how many laughs you gave me. You lost your job. You lost your money. You lost your house. You lost your family. I can see inside of you. I can see how small you are inside. Now you’re just a pawn in someone else’s game and you’re trying to turn it into something more than it is. I think you got back to the fear. Might have even found some gods of your own, despite what you said.”

“
It’s so much more than that.”

“
Is it?”

Myron felt the membrane separate into something like tentacles, reaching up through his shirt and coiling around his neck, around the wound from the dogman. Myron felt no pain.

“
Let’s be honest, Mr. Barnes. You’ve said you don’t serve gods so the only things you have left are life and death. You’re alive, playing the game, being a pawn for some nigger who lives in the sewer, or you can die and hope there is some afterlife to reunite you with your family. Or…”

“
Or what?”

“
Or you can follow me through this door.” Chambers motioned to the door behind him. It was the same door Myron had seen back in the real world, looking strangely anomalous amidst the bones and ooze. He’d wondered what was behind it then and he still wondered.

“
What’s behind the door?”

“
Behind the door is the world you left behind. So you can go back to that world and I can make you a very rich man. All that worrying about money you’ve done over the course of your life would be over. You can start a new family. You can still remember your old family, but you’ll have to start this new family just to show them how well you can provide for them. And I could give you the means to provide for them. You would have everything you need. You could give them everything they need. Your sense of worth would finally be restored.”

“
In return for what?”

“
Nothing at all. You will, of course, be serving my gods, but you already said you do not have faith in your gods so, really, what difference does it make?”

“
All the difference in the world.” Myron raised the ax.

“
You don’t want to do that.”

But he did want to do it. He could stand here and listen to Chambers talk for hours. Promise him things. That was how Chambers had gotten where he was today. Talking. Promises. Getting people to do things for him and offering what in return? Money? For what Chambers was asking for, money seemed a poor compensation.

Myron hoisted the ax above his head and threw it with everything he had before the membranous tentacles could wrap around his arms and restrain him. It sailed toward the pulsing heart of the old gods.

The ax struck Chambers in the shoulder and blood exploded outward. More blood than could possibly have been inside him. It spewed out in a slowly dying fount, covering the room, covering Myron.

The floor tilted beneath Myron. He thought about all those collapsed buildings around it and wondered if this one was collapsing too. Or maybe it was some kind of freakish earthquake.

The building lurched to the other side.

A deafening sound rumbled through the building, up behind the walls.

He reached down to begin tearing the tentacles away. Wrapping his hands around their slimy surface, he could feel the same breathing sensation he had felt since entering the place.

The breaths were further apart than previously.

He continued tearing at the tentacles, not knowing what he would do once he was free.

The building lurched again.

16.

The building was moving. Myron had to find a way out.

With each lurch, the treasure in Chambers’ office jostled around. The paper currency stuck to the membrane and blood while the coins and the gold clattered together with a happy jingle. The thickening membrane moved over Chambers, pulling him against the wall, cocooning him. The ax still jutted from his shoulder. The building moved with a slow gait. Myron wished there were windows. He wanted to see the absurd spectacle of this building lumbering down Wall Street, in between the crumbling ruins, trodding on the piles of dead bodies.

He pulled the last coil of membrane from around his ankle.

He moved toward Chambers. He pulled the ax from him. He looked at the heavy door set into the bones and the ooze. He wanted to open it. He wanted to see what was behind it. Would there be some kind of answer or just more nothing?

Myron chopped Chambers free from his cocoon.

He felt the building lift. The trotting gait no longer disrupted the office. Now he had a plunging feeling in his stomach and a feeling of weightlessness.

Was the building flying?

He slung Chambers over his shoulder.

Again he looked at the door. He turned the handle but it wouldn’t budge. It didn’t turn at all. Myron wondered if the handle was even real. He thrust Chambers up higher on his shoulder so he could hold the ax with both hands. He drew it back and slammed it against the door even though he wasn’t sure it was made of wood. Wasn’t sure the ax would do any good.

It didn’t.

The ax shattered—metal and wood—and it felt like Myron’s hands shattered along with it. Deep vibrations rattled through his bones, reaching all the way back to his spine.

He would have to take his chances.

If this wasn’t the door Papa Legba was supposed to open then maybe he was making a horrible mistake. But he didn’t have any other choices.

He invoked the image of Papa Legba standing by the door. The deity looked at him as if to ask if he was sure this was what he wanted.

Myron nodded.

The door opened.

17.

What he saw beyond was swirling blackness. A dark night over New York or this other world he had fallen into. He walked to the edge of the door. The building was flying. Black water churned below him. The building had been flying but now it seemed to be descending. Chambers had said the building was an altar but could he have been wrong? Could he have been lying? Could the building have been the old god? Could Chambers have been the heart of the old god? And now the old god was trying to go home, to the depths of the ocean, back to some pre-civilization where chaos was the norm?

There were too many questions for Myron.

Perhaps he would ask Mama Hodap about them some other time.

For now, he had to get out of the building. Away from this dying god. He had to go through the door.

He clutched Chambers tightly and leapt through the door.

He felt himself falling rapidly through the rain, felt the water sting his face, saw lightning flash around him.

He closed his eyes and opened them back in Chambers’ real office. The one in the Chambers building at the corner of William and Wall.

In one hand he held an ax. In the other hand, he held a black, meaty heart.

The office was still in relative disarray. Blood was everywhere. Todd and Steiner lay on the floor, sprawled out and mauled. A dog sat above each one of them. Both the dogs looked content, panting happily. They made no move to attack Myron.

Money, shit, and stock certificates were mixed in with the blood. The smell was ferociously terrible.

Chambers’ desk had been uprighted. Chambers lay on the surface, naked, the flesh of his torso ripped open to hang in flaps on either side of him.

Myron grabbed a wad of the stock certificates and wrapped them around the heart and put it in the pocket of his worn coat. He wiped his hands on some hundred dollar bills and let them flutter back down to the floor. Myron left the office and wondered what the police would make of this when they came upon it.

The receptionist area was relatively clean.

He wondered if the sacrifice had been claimed as brutally as she had been in that other world or if she had managed to escape. Had Lora managed to escape?

These were things he would happily put behind him.

He took the service elevator down to the lobby and slinked out the service exit like the under man he was proud to be. He was going back to the bottom. Back below, and he was taking a little piece of this place with him.

Disorientation dizzied him as he stepped back out onto Wall Street.

The furor and chaos had died down.

Most of the brokers had probably gone home.

The whole area felt decompressed.

The streets and sidewalks were wet with rain and there was a chill in the air. He breathed deeply.

“
Hey, buddy, ya got my money?”

The hotdog vendor was pushing his cart along the sidewalk. Packing it in for the evening.

“
I said I’d pay ya back.”

“
Hey, buddy, I was just givin ya a hard time. One hotdog ain’t gonna kill me, right?”

Myron reached into his pocket and pulled out the two hundred dollars.

“
Look, mister, you ain’t gotta…”

Myron handed him one of the bills.

“
I can’t take this, mister.”