Invasion (4 page)

Staring at the photo of Carly and Mark, I feel sorry for her.

Bastard.

Looking into the sad green eyes of the dark haired woman –
Carly –
I whisper, “Tell me your secrets.”

All of them.

Every one of the lies behind those pretty eyes.

The soul does not suffer for your sins

The mind does

M
y curiosity is piqued, but the hole in my belly takes precedence. I have food to eat, fresh and warm. It’s enough to make me feel half human, and it’s almost enough to put me in a good mood.

With my senses adjusting to the new environment I stroll back to the kitchen, heating up my dinner while checking the coffee selection. The scent of lasagna burrows into my olfactory nerve, straight to my gut. My emaciated stomach growls and gurgles in anticipation while the scent of sustenance permeates the deserted kitchen.

Carly doesn’t have instant coffee, or ground, instead she’s got one of those fancy machines you put a coffee pod into. That’s when I spot the calendar hanging next to the fridge. Lady, I don’t know you, but I could kiss you for being such a naive twit.

Only imbeciles mark the day they’re coming home, with their flight detail and arrival time, for complete strangers to find. I’ve got a sweet three full weeks of freedom in this crib before Carly gets
‘
home from Hanover, flight 874’. It’s marked in bold red lettering, neat and slanted.

That gives me weeks without worry of discovery.

Using the dish towel I grab my meal from the microwave, pop the cardboard lid off, and search drawers for cutlery. Finding top of the range silverware I grab a fork and dig in, indulging in a smile. Food, bed, water, leisure, and the lady has no house plants or pets. No one is coming here for maintenance in her stead. I’m free!

In a sense I really am free. I don’t know how old I am, who my ex is, who my folks are, if I owe anyone money, if I’m a criminal or junkie; it’s all erased. This is a fresh beginning, a haven where I can recoup, regain my strength without wasting energy on vigilance, or on maintaining body temperature under leaves and newspaper.

I could hate my folks, they could be dead, or we could be closer than Tetris blocks, and none of it matters because you can’t miss what you don’t know, and you don’t run when you don’t know if you owe the Triad money.

Shoveling food into my gob at an alarming rate, I hardly chew, swallowing down nutrients and protein like a bodybuilder bulking up for Mr Universe. It bothers me that in the vacuous realm where my memories hide, my thoughts keep turning to peril. Why do I assume I’m being hunted? Why do I assume the worst?

I don’t feel like a pessimist, rather I’m a realist. I have to accept the things I can’t change, yet in my gut I know I’ve never gone looking for help because I fear discovery. My sixth sense is honed sharper than a sickle probe and it tells me to lay low until memory returns.
If
memory returns.

Fuck!

I wish I could recall the trauma that induced this situation, so I’d have a ballpark ETA on the return of my hard earned intellectual intel. Experience is stored in memory, it’s crucial background and without it I’m partially vulnerable. Like that arrival date for dear Carly, she knows exactly what day she’s coming home; I need that for my brain.

It’s frustrating as fuck knowing zilch on how I got these tattoos, why I have dog-tags in the sole of my left boot, or why I’m ready to attack innocent pedestrians when they walk with too much purpose, when they encroach on my aura and press paranoia into my adrenal glands. Every muscle tightens and my mind races with retaliation, scenarios to defend and assault at the forefront of my mind the second someone gets too close. I haven’t even frequented places that feed the homeless because queues of strangers cut my soul so wide open I have the urge to scream and slaughter. They could be innocent people, or this impulse could be based on a memory currently off limits.

This is like being crucified by your own body. As if life isn’t hard enough I now have my own weakness thrusting duress into my life – daily.

There’s no way I had a desk job with these instincts.

Did I live in isolation for me to see throngs of strangers as a threat?

Was I in prison and just got out? Did I spend too many months in solitary confinement and now I can’t socialize? Or was I some kind of captive, or experiment, set free to make my own way now that they’ve melted my neurons and cortex? The brain makes duplicates of memories, there’s always a back up when an engram dies, so I should recall
something
!

I’m too young to have a faulty hippocampus. Yeah I know, I don’t know how fucking old I am, but I’m built like a machine, lean and strong, fast on my feet, my vision is twenty-twenty, my pulse is below sixty beats a minute, which infers that I’m supremely fit – hardly a sign that I’m a middle aged couch potato who lived a life of inertia. My agility and speed do not in any way suggest I’m aged, and when I shave this rug off my face and clean up I’m sure the face looking back at me will be in his twenties somewhere, at the most early thirties. I’ve never heard of someone getting dementia this young.

No, this isn’t natural. Someone did this to me.

The question plaguing me, is why?

There is nothing dumb about luck

It is a cunning servant of intention

I
freeze mid-step when the phone rings so loudly it rams my heart to my eyeballs and drops my pulse to comatose. I don’t move a muscle, the neurosis ripe and ready to pop an attack in every direction. I’m flicking my gaze left and right while listening beneath the jarring intrusion to my cocoon for an idling car, or the approach of a visitor.

Most folks call if it looks like no one’s home.

I blacked out all the windows and now can’t see if there are headlights at the gate.

Shit!

Beeeeeep. This is Carly, you know what to do … beeeeeep
.

“
Oh for fuck’s sake! Don’t ignore me, Carly. This is why we didn’t work - because you ignore issues. You can’t dodge my calls forever. What do I have to do, hire a bounty hunter to find you, get a court order enforcing you to tie up our estate so I can move on, what? The silent treatment doesn’t work when it can land your ass in jail, darling. Grow a brain, try and use common sense. Now get off the couch, stop eating tubs of Häagen-Dazs ice-cream because you’re depressed, and come talk to me baby. Come on, pick up …”

I stare at the phone while my pulse reactivates. Mark sounds like a cunt. He’s so nasal and self-righteous it makes me want to punch his Adam’s apple through his neck to disable his voice-box.

“
Caaaaarleeeeee …” calls into the house.

God damn answering machines that broadcast the shit all over the house like a turbine engine mincing geese. I’m fighting the impulse to pick up and tell him to go fuck himself.

“
Okay darling, I can picture you, curled up next to the phone crying, staring at it like picking up will poison your fingers, so hear me out.”

He swallows, and his voice drops to a hushed croon.

“
I miss you, sweetheart. I do. I miss the things we used to do. I miss the way you cry when I hold you after. Do you miss me? Even a little bit? I know you do. Call me. Let’s talk about babies. Take one for the team darling, just to get mumsy off my ass. Don’t make me come to you, because I will. You know I will. Will you open the door when I get there? With the eagerness you used to have when I was away at work, you couldn’t wait to open your legs when I got home. I miss that you’re my saucy slut, Carly. I miss you. Fucking call me!”

The asshole disconnects, the machine makes all the required digital noises to announce as much, and I’m glaring at that piece of shit like I can damn him with a stare. Mumsy? For real?
MUMSY!
What kind of grown man calls his mother
mumsy
?

He’s a fuckwit Carly, what the hell did you see in him?

You cry after you cum? Fuck, now that’s something I’d pay to see.

I’m stressing, battling my ingrained reaction, my fists so tight blood is engorging my forearms until my veins throb.

“
Fuck you, Mark. Fuck. You! Come here and I’ll destroy you, motherfucker!”

There are certainly unanswered questions regarding the life of David Hearse and why I feel supremely drawn to this woman, whom I have come to know as Carly. It isn’t empathy, rather a pull heavy in my gut; a deep seated yearning for truth. Maybe she is a puzzle piece to the answers I seek. Maybe I was drawn here because this is the nest where my identity hides. I can’t make assumptions about who I am.
I want to shout at Fate when she cackles in the back of my mind, while still contemplating my purpose. Stupid skank.

I graze my palm down my face, populated with unkempt growth. I can’t say I begrudged my prior living arrangements, but something about the hair on my face has me irritated, constantly manipulating the coarse hairs attached to my strongly stout jaw; the need to be clean-shaven has reached beyond mere annoyance.

I have a tick in my head, a nuisance that is attempting to exhume my past from the accursed gray-matter. Is this part of who I was? Who I am? An OCD regulation freak who has an aversion to body hair?

The need for order scabs
its way to the surface, slowly rising through the suffocating scar tissue
where recollection burrows; screams from my afterlife needle to be heard. Though I know not who I am, I feel like I could have already lost my shit half a dozen times, yet I didn’t. Perhaps I am a man who is controlled under duress? I have a huge hunch that I’m in possession of incredible self-discipline. But what does it all mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.

The four walls of Carly’s living room are staring at me, mocking my quandary as I continue to tug on the unruly strands growing from my chin. My teeth clench, and before my motion is preempted my feet are moving to a subconscious melody, so graceful and beautiful, steady and sure, that it gives me great pleasure knowing that I am able to move like an adept huntsman. I can’t fathom what I am hunting, that has yet to be determined. I can only hope that my brain holds the answers somewhere as the electric impulses between neurons act like a map that will lead me to my resolution.

The gold-plated doorknob turns, creaking incrementally, making my ears crack and my heart drum, creating a whooshing pulse. I feel high as a goddamn kite, floating along the cacophony of creaks, ticks, and impulses, which will lead me to the long lost treasure of David Hearse’s life!

I am a treasure, a riddle, both require tenacious attention and commitment to solve, to get to the X on the map. I don’t believe in coincidence, I’m here for a reason. Intuition drew me here, a spiritual thread spooling until I reclaim the whole.

Descending down the stairwell of the unfinished basement, the hardness of the stairs takes me down to the paradise that awaits me.

The warmth from above is gone as cold air bites my skin. The ecstasy that set me alight is nullified as Fate cheers herself on in my head, the answers that I long for recede beneath the firmament of a stubborn mental obstacle.

A metal strand hits me in the forehead. I reach up, pulling the light on until it buzzes and flickers, annoyingly so, so I can survey what is around me. I furrow my brows as the order from the above living arrangement is lacking; boxes scattered about over the unfinished concrete floor is an unprecedented pattern.

It’s all relative. Everyone is superficial, filing away their sharp edges until they are pretty from the outside, yet the deeper you go, the further in you travel into someone’s life… the more fucked it gets. We all pretend order while chaos rattles beneath. No matter what you present to the world it’s a mirage, a projection like a hologram. We’re all fucking carrots. Pretending we have our shit together, but where the secrets are stashed there’s disorder and mess.

This is shit.

Mark’s name is scratched out in Sharpie and various curse words litter a copious collection to the side. I decide to rummage through the top box, labeled ‘Cocksucker’. Golf shirts and other crap are toppled in disarray at the top. I imagine how Carly used to fold the Lacoste shirts perfectly, but Mark would likely scold her for its lack of perfection. I think Carly labeled this box right.

Deeper into the box I pull out a toiletry bag and unzip it, only to feel like I have hit the jackpot. An electric razor is in my grasp as my thumb flips the switch. It buzzes to life, and I have to kill my desire to laugh out in joy.

I decide against the golf shirt and grab a pair of jeans and T-shirt from the box. He’s a small runt, but here’s hoping this gear fits. I haven’t had the luxury of clean clothes for weeks.

Now upstairs, in her bathroom, my cock is swollen. Within my defective skull I think of her silken skin being bruised by that son-of-a-bitch, a.k.a cocksucker, and am at odds.

With cocksucker’s razor in my hand and the reflection of a man who has lived over twenty-something years staring back at me, I start shaving my face. First I have to cut the thatch short with her nail scissors. It’s like shearing off angst, a lightness and jubilation multiplying like bacteria in my blood.

My eyes pierce the replication mirrored at me while I ebb my way into Carly’s life. Here I am, shaving my dirty beard off into her vanity sink with her ex-lover’s razor. I’m already better than him, learning the things that make her weak. What makes her strong? I need to know that too if I’m to gain control. Manipulation is a tool in my repertoire.

Fragile, yes. I daze on, dreaming of her knees getting too feeble to handle her feminine frame, blooming pain in my groin. My cock strains against the cargo trousers. I smile back at the man before me, sinister thoughts soon develop into a realism of disgust and perversion.

I fluff the hair free from my chin, proud of my work, and open her medicine cabinet, my eyes ferret over a wide array of creams and perfumes, whitening strips and mouthwash. I settle on her purple toothbrush. I run my tongue over my teeth, deciding they need a good scrub. Brushing back and forth against the grime caked on my enamel, I imagine her mouth on mine and how she would taste… like peppermint kisses.

I spit in the sink and rinse my mouth out, inspecting the toothbrush while smiling deviously as it makes its way into my now clean mouth. My tongue tingles with invigoration. I suck and lick the purple toothbrush, playing the role of Carly as the brush is my cock. Fuck, this bullshit is too much. I need to mark something of hers with myself. Plant my mark inside so that I know a part of me will stick with her.

Literally.

While transforming into a suave creature who won’t stop until he gets what he wants, I strip naked in her bathroom, combing the toothbrush through my pubes. I throw my head back while my other hand grasps my cock, slowly jacking myself while simultaneously picturing what her wet cunt would taste like; the perfect concoction of sweet and saline. Fuck.

I toss her toothbrush on the sink and step inside the shower, turning the water on as the cold drops assault my inked skin. Soon the shower is almost too hot to handle. I feel like my insides want to explode. Feeling the rampant urge to know every facet, fucked and all, of this women, is alarming. But not even a small part of me tries to stop as my hand clutches her pretty pink razor. I lather my cock and balls with her cherry blossom bath wash, thinking of her standing here shaving her tight cunt bare.

Stroke, shave, stroke. The repetitions are glorious but not enough. I need more. I want to ensure that she has part of me on her. Inside her.

After my pubes are washed down the drain, I turn the water off and go through her lotions again until I find a tub of anti-wrinkle night cream. Opening the sixteen ounce jar, the aroma instantly abrades, setting my nostrils onto a path of delight and unpredictability. Using two fingers I cover them and bring them to my nose, inhaling her while imagining proximity against her face, licking her like a feral
mate would.

The cool marble tiles are smooth against my naked feet as I pad over to the toilet, straddling it backwards while moving my hand over my dick as it dips into her potion. Yes, Fate. Take that, bitch. Carly’s cunt would hug my cock so tight, I’d want to tear into her so she would know who owns her. Pain would envelop her, but bliss would follow as my cock tickled her g-spot. I’d make her squirt hard over my shaft. My hips pump erratically, the cool cream bathing my cock as I am tipped over the edge, my cum squirting inside the tub. I want to cheer from the highest mountaintop
as Fate pouts in the background.