Less Than Human (4 page)

The claws were getting louder.

Joey struggled upright, his fingers groping outward until they found his dad's face. They began exploring the ravages etched there by time and drink. His touch was gentle. Soothing. He seemed beyond the pain that had torn him just moments before.

"Papa, you know you should never drink. You've made Mama angry, and now she's going to make the blackness come." His voice was plaintive, tinged with sadness. "I don't like the blackness. Bad things happen then."

Sighing, Joey pulled back his fingers and began tracing the profusion of scars that decorated his own young body, as though they were a road map that would lead him to understand how he had come to this place. His fingers undulated along. Rising over peaks. Sliding down valleys. Riding the huge, misshapen lumps that had appeared.

Then a sound came.

Indistinct.

Muffled.

An ice pick punched into a bag of wet leaves.

The sound came again, louder this time. A scar bulged, then burst open as a head emerged from the torn flesh and looked blindly around the room.

When the old man saw the head belonged to a rat, he screamed—a raw, harsh sound. He scrambled toward the door. When he realized it wouldn't open, he tried to scream again, but all that came out was a mewling noise, and then, after a moment, that too died.

Only his eyes moved, darting back and forth, flickering with incomprehension, blank, like those of a dog Joey had once seen on the subway tracks, pinned in the oncoming headlights.

Somehow knowing its life was forfeit.

Not quite knowing why.

Joey went rigid, and another rat burst free. And another. The illusion of life was peeling away from the boy, like layers of rotten bandages, to reveal the shrunken husk beneath. Dark things were swimming inside his stomach cavity, small, as though far away, slowly growing larger as they fought their way to the surface.

Then every scar on his body erupted, spilling rats out onto the floor. Faster and faster they came—a row of fire hydrants wrenched open all at once—crawling from Joey, blood slicked, spewing out with wet smacking sounds, an ocean of dark vomit that seemed endless until, at last, the room was covered with rats… a swirling mass, a whirlpool with claws and teeth that eddied toward his dad, slowly at first, then with greater speed, flowing over him, pulling the old man down.

"Help me, Joey," he pleaded, "please." His mouth gaped open and a rat darted inside. A violent flurry of activity followed. It emerged with something pink and bloody in its jaws. The old man saw his own tongue and screamed, his straining mouth forming perfect oval after perfect oval as the muscles in his neck knotted in agony, but no words came out.

Only sounds.

Wet sounds.

"You can scream louder than that, Papa. I did. I screamed a lot louder, but it didn't do any good. You know why? Because there was no one to hear me." His voice was a sigh, a distant cold wind on the road of memory. "After Mama died, you said I could go with you. You said you'd never leave me, only you got drunk and locked me in the room. And when you went away… the rats came…."

The words tumbled out, tortured remembrances of a child with the smell of the grave clinging to him. "I tried to fight them off… but there were too many. Too many. They bit me." His eyes were reproachful. "They kept on biting me, and then they crawled up inside of me. Don't you want to know how I know that?"

Joey stared at the feeding rats while bitter emotions raged across his face. Yet his voice was calm, devoid of emotion as though he were talking about someone else.

"Because I was still—alive."

A hand darted up from the midst of the wriggling bodies and grasped Joey's jacket. It was all of the old man he could see, the rest was covered over. He pried the bloody hand loose and held it for a moment. The gnarled fingers locked onto his wrist, clutching at him as they tried to maintain their grip. But the hand was too slippery. Inch by inch it slid free until it could no longer hold on.

The hand fell back, rose, fell again, each movement slower than the last.

One last time the twitching fingers broke the surface, a drowning swimmer flailing toward shore the old man reached out for Joey.

His reach fell short.

And he was gone.

"Rat magic, ladies and gentlemen," Joey whispered, sorrow holding him in a cold, white embrace. "Now you see it…."

He tipped his imaginary hat, but, this time, there was no imaginary applause. His shoulders hitched and the sounds he made were those of an animal in pain. A single tear rolled from his eye and dripped to the floor, yellow and viscous as pus from a festering sore.

Suddenly he doubled over, struck by an unseen hand. His hands darted to his stomach and he felt movement. Something was still down there. It was huge and restless, and it had claws. His insides were being ripped and torn with incredible savagery. The pain was beyond imagining.

He was being torn in two.

Joey felt, more than saw, the thing inside him crawl out and drop to the floor. The body landed with a meaty thud and lay there twitching. Then it began moving toward the feeding rats, leaving a trail of glistening wetness. With each passing second, the dark shape was growing stronger.

It rose, shook itself like a dog after a bath. The darkness sprayed outward in countless drops. Covering the walls.

Mesmerized, Joey stared at the huge, crippled monster with fur the color of pissed-on snow. The misshapen head swiveled and looked at him. Their gazes locked and the malice in the rat's eyes was tangible.

The leathery lips peeled back from the teeth, not in anger, Joey realized but in a smile.

And what Joey had been unable to remember came rushing in. He was overwhelmed by the flood of memories.

"Don't punish me," Joey pleaded. He tried to tear his gaze away from the monstrous rodent, from the eyes that bored into his head and filled his brain with hot coals. "I wasn't trying to hide the old man from you. It's just that sometimes I forget how things really are… that they're not really Papa."

A silent communication passed between them.

"It won't happen again. Please… I promise I'll get more of them for you. The streets are full of winos." Joey backed toward the door, his halting steps those of a windup toy broken beyond repair. He ground to a stop. His back pressed up against the wall and he could go no farther.

The eyes pinned him there, filled his entire world, filled it with fear and pain. He began shivering, sobbing for a breath that refused to come. His legs buckled and he saw the floor rush upward and slam into his face. Blood trickled from his busted nose, and when he tried to climb to his feet, his legs refused to obey. He began a frenzied dance, around and around, leaking wet black stains onto the wood… slowing slowing… until a final shudder wracked his body.

Until darkness began taking him.

The boy looked up and saw the huge rat studying the pulse ticking in his throat. Slowly it reached toward him with claws that could disembowel another rat… paused… and soft as a whisper, gently brushed the hair out of his eyes.

Only now it wasn't a rat. Joey saw the man who held him, but Joey's eyes were dimming and he couldn't make out the man's face.

It was a pale blur, receding.

J
ohn Warrick gasped and struggled to separate from the dying boy, but couldn't. The night sounds outside the apartment ebbed and flowed in time with Joey's laboring heart. Stopped. Came once again. And then ceased as the heart beat for the last time.

There was silence, a letting go. It was like a sigh in an empty room. All that Joey Estevez had been began drifting away. His fears, his hopes, his dreams.

John again tried to separate himself from the dead boy. Again he couldn't. His mouth opened in a soundless scream when he was pulled deeper and deeper into the blackness that was Joey's mind. John felt himself being sucked down, free-falling away from the light. His own heart began to slow. Missed a beat. The will to fight back was meting away and he knew it would be so easy to go along for the ride. His heart stuttered again and this time it took much longer to resume.

The light was very far away now, no bigger than a dime, growing smaller. Smaller. Images and sounds from Joey's life rushed past John, a fast-moving endless train with scenes from the boy's life splashed across the sides of the boxcars: Dirty rooms, darkened backseats of cars, grunts of men having sex with him, some of them angry, some of them crying, his mother singing a lullaby to him when he was very young, a park on a winter morning, pristine and white, achingly beautiful. Rain pounding on the roof. A fire crackling. The distant echoes mixed, lapped over each other like rippling water.

And grew quiet.

The light was now a pinprick on the skin of the vast night.

His heart stuttered one last time, stopped. He was letting go, the train was stopping for John.

But something deep inside of John Warrick rebelled. He bit down hard on his tongue and warm saltiness flooded the back of his throat, choking him and he awoke to—find himself lying on the floor. He was terrified and he tried to crawl to the bathroom before he threw up. He didn't make it. He lay face down on the beer stained carpet and waited for the shaking to finally subside. His entire body was soaked with sweat, acrid and stinging. His terrified mind tried to sort out what he had just gone through while images flashed in and out of his mind. The train was still running and it still wanted him on board.

After a while he made it to his knees.

Most of what he had gone through was symbolic, he knew that. It couldn't be interpreted literally. And yet what he had just seen defied all logic. He could make no sense out of it.

When he finally found enough strength to make it to the bathroom, he found more than just his bitten tongue. His nose was busted and his entire body was covered with red welts. Some of them were bleeding. The worst injury was the oozing slash across the top of his forehead. He looked as though someone had tried to scalp him.

Chapter 3

J
ohn was too keyed up to sleep so he eased the cue stick under the mattress and left his room. At three in the morning the parking lot was dead quiet, with only a few shadows chasing after the cars on the interstate, in the motel lobby the night clerk sat behind the counter, asleep, bathed in the soft glow of the Coke machine, settled back in his chair with a paperback perched atop his protruding stomach. It rode there like a small schooner on an ocean of blue.

The night was still clear and it looked as though they were going to get the first frost of the year. John was glad he was wearing the denim jacket that Louise had given him last Christmas. For a moment, he thought about calling her up. She would know what to do. But he didn't. Instead he fired up a cigarette and tried to think. He touched his nose. It was no longer bleeding, although the cold air made it sting. The welts were almost gone; the gash on his forehead was still oozing red.

What in God's name had he seen back there in his room?

He didn't know. Most times all he got in his visions was a few vague images, feelings of fear, lust. Nothing so detailed. Nothing so frightening. He could still feel those damned rats crawling around inside of him. Worse, he could feel that kid's heart stopping.

Had any of it been real or had he just picked up a little mental debris from some psychotic? What if he had seen an actual murder? Jesus, what was he going to do? He knew the streets he'd walked in the vision. They were just off the strip in Vegas. A lot of rough trade went on there. If you had the money you could get anything you wanted. Anything at all.

From one of the rooms he heard a woman laugh, and he knew that he wanted to be around people. All this quiet was getting to him. He crushed out his cigarette and climbed into his old Jeep Cherokee. The first thing he did was to turn up the radio, even before he turned on the heat.

Most everything was closed at this hour of the morning, but he knew that Pop Turner's doughnut shop would be open and the coffee there was always good and hot. He wanted coffee, lots of coffee. The thought of going back to his empty room and trying to sleep was out of the question. Maybe he could even negotiate a little female company. Pop's primarily catered to two groups; cops and hookers.

Both groups were well represented when he slid onto a stool at the Formica counter. A couple of the girls gave him the once-over as he ordered his first cup, but he found he wasn't that interested anymore. One of them wore perfume that smelled a lot like Joey Estevez's after-shave. It made him queasy.

Pop came over, poured the coffee. "You look a little rough, son. You want something to eat?"

John tested his bitten tongue and shook his head no.

"It's on the house," Pop said.

"No, I'm okay, Pop. Got plenty of money." He pulled out a twenty and laid it on the counter. "Just keep that coffee coming."

The sun came up while John was on his seventh cup of coffee and second pack of smokes. He stared out the plate-glass window with red-rimmed eyes as the early morning traffic piled up. He almost envied the people who had normal jobs, someplace to go, someone to go to. His prediction about the frost had been wrong, but he had made up his mind about what to do. He hoped it was a better call than the frost.

Pop gave him an understanding look when he asked for five dollars in quarters and made his way to the phone. He glanced at the clock before he dialed the Crowder Flats number. It was a little after six.

It rang four times. The voice that answered sounded a little harder than he remembered.

"Hello, Louise."

"John, is that you?" She seemed faintly surprised.

"Yeah, it's me. Sorry to bother you but I wanted to catch you before you went to work. I need a favor."

The line went dead and then filled with laughter. "I've got to hand it to you, John. You're one in a million. We haven't seen you in over ten months and you call at six o'clock in the morning to ask for a loan. Things have been a little tough around here lately. I can't loan you any more money. Amy's got tuition to pay for."