Block Party
When panic is cranked up to the absolute maximum, it doesn’t really feel like panic anymore.
Instead of some anxious rush, the whole world just kinda disappears.
I’ve recently learned that pain can also function like this—that there are finite limits to our senses, and what lies beyond is a mystery.
Blinding pain.
Blinding panic.
A whole slice of time has disappeared from my memory, that much I know. When the world starts returning it comes in fragments of observation, little shards that flicker into my conscious brain and then disappear just as quickly as they arrived.
A loud crash. My wrist hurts. Vomit taste. Everything sticky. Numb face. Someone’s screaming. I’m screaming. Waste of time. Gotta move.
Marlo’s in trouble.
This last fragment of thought pushes in deep and sticks, a sharp point caught in the fleshy mass of my brain. While the storm of mental images continues raging on around it, this marker remains steadfast.
I focus on the aching beacon, pulling my consciousness toward it.
The closer I get, the more surrounding details reveal themselves.
I see the bohemian bungalow. I see the coffee table I’m handcuffed to.
I see a massive pool of wet crimson that creeps out from the nearby bedroom and blooms across the wooden floor.
A cloud of pheromones still hangs in the air, thinning slightly after Eddie’s departure but leaving behind a pink haze. There’s something hypnotic about the way the tiny fuchsia particles drift and sway, like I’m trapped at the bottom of the ocean.
Of course, these are just the particles that are visible to my naked eye. Who knows how far Eddie’s influence can stretch without a human body to contain it? Who knows how hopeless this situation really is?
“Pull it the fuck together!” I snap, yanking myself into alignment.
I can do this. I just need to stay focused. What sits before me is a messy problem, an unruly tangle of yarn that will only straighten out if I move through it one step at a time.
Task number one: remove these handcuffs.
Coming out of my belligerent mental fog, I can see now that the metal has chafed my wrist raw, the bruises finally transitioning into a slow degloving.
If it weren’t for the fact that half my face is missing, I probably would be bothered by this bracelet of carnage, but right now it means nothing to me.
I’d have no problem sawing off my own hand if that were my only means of escape, but in observing this scene I notice something that could be even more efficient.
I heard the table crack when Eddie slammed into me, but at that point there was a lot more to keep track of. Now, without the distraction of an extradimensional, five-foot-long, talking earwig, I can see that the wooden rung I’ve been attached to has, in fact, fractured slightly.
This table is made of old, sturdy oak, and my knowledge of vintage furniture tells me that it’s much harder than bone and outrageously heavy. In most circumstances I’d be stuck here, but the force of Eddie’s tackle has not only torn the skin from my wrist, it’s offered a path to escape.
Gritting my teeth from the pain, I crouch down and investigate the oak bar I’m fastened to. The crack is enormous. I climb into position, lying on my back and pulling up my legs so that I can extend them against the table with the full force of my body.
I pause for a moment, making sure I’m positioned exactly where I should be and then fully accepting just how much this is going to hurt. If I had more time, I could probably find something to slip between the metal and my raw flesh, but right now there are more important things to consider.
I push back with a sudden jerk, putting all my force into this single movement.
“Fucking fuck,” I hiss through my teeth, bracing against the throbbing sting that radiates down my arm. My wrist tugs against the bar, and to my relief the oak bends a little under the pressure.
There’s a second, much louder crack, then a third as I repeat this process.
With my fourth push the whole thing gives way, sending me sprawling back onto the floor. I’ve hardly landed before I’m rolling over and sprinting toward the door.
Stop. Think. Plan.
I slow, hesitating as I consider the next few steps.
Instead of rushing outside, I turn and hurry back to the gore-soaked bedroom.
Mary’s body is the one producing most of this blood, her half-skinned corpse sprawled face down on the floor. The most shocking thing about this scene is not the corpse itself, though, it’s how far she managed to get before passing out.
Eddie’s discarded shell lies next to her, his whole face and neck distended in ways I never would’ve thought humanly possible.
It’s hard to quantify how that massive insect managed to fit within Eddie’s pale old frame, but rolling up and carving out a cavity in his torso might actually work.
The creature itself is quite flat, and if coiled tight, it could find enough space for each vital organ to keep pumping and thumping.
I’ve seen what it looks like coming out, but I can only imagine what it looks like going in.
I hurry over to Eddie’s former self and search through his pockets until I find what I’m looking for: the car keys.
I also discover the folded piece of paper tucked away in his pocket, and while I need to keep moving, there’s no doubt this information is important enough to pause for. This is a key, too—in its own way.
I unfold the page, my eyes darting across the undeniable proof that, despite his lifespan of more than a thousand years, Eddie’s personality has stopped dead at boomer. His layout is simple enough, ten blocks of text stacked along the left side in Times New Roman font.
I can now confirm that the watermark is a government seal, the letters PSME surrounded by an oval wreath. This sheet was printed at the Palm Springs medical examiner’s office, probably just before I picked Eddie up.
The same information categories are repeated over and over again down the left side.
First is the word Patient, followed by a full name.
The surnames are listed first, which immediately tells me this information was copied and pasted from some other official document, a larger database.
People don’t casually type names like this.
Below each name is an address. Out of the ten locations, the first four are marked with a red star. These are the places we visited tonight, including our mishap at the gated community.
Names and locations are what I expected to find, but what’s under them is so out of left field that it hits me like a slap, shocking my frantic mind into a state of sober attention.
Various ailments are listed, one in each information block. I see a few Merkel cell carcinomas, one squamous cell carcinoma, and the all-too familiar designation of melanoma covering the rest.
All of them feature a terrible additional detail: metastasized.
Most people know what these words mean, but in a sun-soaked town like Palm Springs, they’re even more prevalent. All these people have late-stage skin cancer.
I can’t help but wonder how close to being on this list Noah was. It’s possible the only reason he’s not currently skinning himself alive is because most of his treatment is through a specialist over in Rancho Mirage.
My eyes wander over to Mary’s half-flayed body, her bright red musculature still shiny and wet after its recent exposure to the outside air.
Eddie’s hunt for these specific people, and his disgusting meal after finding them, felt so needlessly macabre until this very moment, but suddenly I find myself awash with understanding.
It will likely never make complete sense to me, but the building blocks are enough to reveal something primitive and elemental, a necessity in his transformation.
Cancer cells are notorious for their powers of replication, dividing again and again as they create tumorous masses and destroy our healthy organs.
The destructive nature is a matter of perspective, though. To those of us with loved ones who have suffered through this horrible disease, it’s an assault—a tragic, frustrating battle cry of microscopic renegades against the very body that made them.
But as far as the cancer cells are concerned, everything is working out just splendidly. They’re simply growing, doing what they were incorrectly programmed to do.
If that regeneration could be harnessed in a different way, through some alien biology, then maybe these cells could serve a very specific purpose. Maybe they could support a supercharged mutation between caterpillar and butterfly.
Visions of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a children’s book that Marlo adores, fill my mind’s eye.
It’s a welcome break from all these thoughts of butchery and gore, but the reprieve falters when I compare it to the situation at hand.
Caterpillars are hungry because they’re storing energy, preparing for a chrysalis state.
Eddie is hungry to store energy, preparing for …
My gaze lingers on the horrifically distorted face and neck of Eddie’s former shell as I struggle to come up with a word for what just happened here.
No time.
I fold the paper and stuff it into my pocket, then turn and rush to the bungalow door.
The car key is gripped tight in my hand as I make my way back through the Fimi Date Farm complex, marching across the inner garden and then returning to the gift shop.
I pass the security guard, who now dangles from a center beam in the main room, extension cord wrapped tightly around his neck and his body swaying gently from side to side.