It was something in black and white, the movie.
Silent too. An actor carried an unconscious woman in his arms, ducking beneath twisted branches and darting up a triangle-shaped hill. A mob chased close behind. Get him! The title card flashed across the theater screen in large block words, and some guy in the front row kept looking over his shoulder at me and Verona.
It reminded me of the dark sedan, being watched. Spit’s eyeball necklace slid across my chest as I leaned against Verona’s shoulder. Nazars, they’re like protection. My skin settled against her breath. The Vicodin was kicking in, or maybe it was the Xanax. I couldn’t remember. She smelled like the flowers I’d bought her, before they died.
“Why did he kidnap her again?” I asked.
Verona put a finger to her lips even though we were the only other people in the theater besides the guy in the front row. On screen, grayscale buildings loomed over the kidnapper like prison towers, and I couldn't tell if they were real or not. It was like someone had drawn them with charcoal, like they belonged in that art gallery. The man in the front row grunted, leaning his head back as if he were a bobble toy.
My eyelids sank. When was the last time I slept? The air in the theater weighed on me like a blanket, and I yawned against Verona’s shirt, trying to force my eyes back open. The mob was getting closer to the kidnapper now. In order to escape, he had to drop her and dart into a small alley. Another title card appeared. Save the girl! The man in the front row turned to look at me again.
He held something in his lap. Light from the projector reflected off his eyes, and whatever was in his hands squirmed. A stuffed animal? A pet? Tangled knots of fur jutted off in different directions. Someone’s hair? My vision telescoped in and out of focus. The man leaned back again, moaning softly towards the ceiling.
Verona stayed glued to the screen, even as the front row seat started to squeak. The man had wrapped his hand around a clump of this thing’s hair, pushing it deep into his lap. A head. A woman’s head. Her earring glittered against the projector’s light as I dug my finger’s into Verona’s leg. On screen, the mob rushed to help the kidnapped victim. She’s dying!
The squeaking sound cut through the whir of the projector. Verona still didn’t notice. The man up front had started dribbling this woman’s head against himself like a basketball. I tried to say something, whisper into Verona’s ear, but my lips wouldn’t move. The silhouette of this woman’s skull sagged. It was caving in.
I tried to get up but my legs froze. The woman’s head was so deflated at this point that the man must have been stirring bone and brain matter together with his dick. The squeaking filled the theater so completely that it even muffled the sound of the A/C. My voice caught in my throat. I couldn’t push it out. She’s not going to make it! Her head collapsed, wilting over the man. A bag of meat and splinters. Help!
She wasn’t moving anymore, the woman, but the squeaking hadn’t stopped. It had intensified into a series of chirps. Something broke free from her mangled head. A swarm of black dots scurried out of her flesh like cockroaches, climbing over each other and heading towards me.
“Kurt.” Verona shook me awake. “Are you okay? You’re screaming.”
The theater was back to normal. No cockroaches. No dead women. The roaring A/C breezed against the sweat on my neck, and the man up front was completely engrossed in the movie. No deflated heads. A bucket of popcorn sat in his lap.
“I’m fine,” I said, gripping Verona’s hand tight. My chest shook as I struggled for breath.
On screen, the kidnapper had successfully escaped from the mob. He rested against a brick wall but was too tired to stand. He slid to the street, clutching his heart and breathing as heavily as I was.
The sudden light will blind you before you even hear the blast. If you manage not to get vaporized by the twelve-thousand degree burst of heat you will almost immediately experience severe, deep-tissue burns across your entire body. During the weeks to come, radiation will eat away at the lining of your intestines, causing acute bouts of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Your body will not be able to process water or food. If the dehydration doesn’t kill you, the sepsis will—
The narrator spoke with a soft English accent while some stoner sat at the edge of the couch, hypnotized by the screen.
“Can I steal a smoke?” Mark asked.
He seemed more lucid than usual today, and I extended my open pack towards him. The kid on the couch was slowly nodding off, while I was trying to remember why I came here.
“You know this heat wave’s the real deal right? It isn’t any of that Air Force HAARP shit. We’re comin’ to the end of an age dude, for real.” He paused to light the cigarette. “All sorta’ weird shit’s gonna go down. Revelations. Saint John. It’s biblical.” A stream of smoke from Mark’s cigarette twisted into the yellowed wallpaper that had started to curl off the wall.
“HAARP?” I immediately regretted asking.
“Yeah dude. Weather manipulation. It’s always been about power. They’ll try to control anything they can. I know for a fact they’ve even started experimenting with population control, you know? Mind reading.” Mark’s voice combined with the British narrator’s was making me lightheaded. I wanted to leave, but there was nowhere to go. Everyone else had a life.
—while only less than one-hundred people died within the first few weeks after the disaster, no one knows for sure how many thousands of deaths were caused by long term radiation exposure—
The stoner jerked awake before immediately falling back asleep, and Mark’s mouth was still moving. I nodded my head along with it.
“Kurt?” An unfamiliar voice asked from behind me.
I turned around. It was Verona’s friend from the house party, the one with the garbage bag neck. She looked even skinnier in the daylight. Some guy in a silk shawl stood next to her. He had beige-blue eyes, just like the plastic one Spit got me, and it looked like he shaved on a regular basis. He stared at me with a half smile.
“I didn’t know you knew Mark,” Verona’s friend said.
“Umm, yeah probably for like a year now.” No one else said anything.
—the body will go into shock and quite literally begin to devour itself in a process known as cellular autophagy—
Finally, Mark spoke up. “What can I do you all for?” The cigarette that had been hanging limp from his mouth was now active and erect. The switch he made from crazy to charismatic was unnerving. “I can roll you guys up a ball. Ten bucks off this time, for real.”
Verona’s friend and her companion joined us on the couch. “Yes please.” The man with the blue eyes pulled off his backpack, or his satchel, or whatever it was, and sat uncomfortably close to me.
“I’m Jade.” He extended his hand out towards me. His nails were immaculate.
I quickly shook his hand before leaning over to cut up some coke just so I had something else to do. The stoner in front of the TV was out cold.
“Cool, be right back.” Mark excused himself from the room. I did a line and tried to slide away from Jade so that his thigh wasn’t touching mine anymore. Besides someone snoring from some other room in the house, it was quiet. Claustrophobic.
“So, are you going to the exhibition next week?” The spindly girl asked. “I mean obviously you are, you’re basically the main event.” She stared at me like she was slightly hypnotized.
Shit. The art show. I forgot.
“Main event?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, everyone from class knows about you from Verona’s painting.”
Jade interjected, “excuse me for saying this, but you’re almost as beautiful in person.”
I laughed nervously. All the coke had been cut, so I reached for my package of cigarettes instead. They were empty. Verona did a painting of me? The thought that dozens of strangers knew my face disturbed me. My body tensed and my stomach whined like a leaky balloon. When was the last time I ate? Mark reappeared, shuffling around the corner, and dropped two small bags of white powder on the table.
“I can weigh them in front of you if you want,” Mark said. The girl who’s name I still didn’t know was already opening it up and dumping some out.
“That won’t be necessary Mark, but thank you,” Jade replied.
“No problem, dude.” Mark turned towards me. “Hey, Kurt, can I steal a smoke?”
The sudden shock of heat embraced me. And even though there was no humidity, it felt like I was being digested. The desert tried to suck any nutrient it could from me. I wiped my forehead and continued down Mark’s porch. A Detour sign resting against the side of the house, pointing at the ground.
As I got into my car, my phone started vibrating against my leg. It was Mark. I can save you, dude! That’s all it said. I ignored the message and started the engine with no idea of where to go. Verona was still in class. Who else did I have? As the car hummed to life, Spit’s plastic eye necklace vibrated against my chest. Nazar’s, they’re like protection.
I noticed the birdwatcher was back. Down the street, he stood with his telephoto lens aimed directly upwards. I turned up the radio. Some jockey on the radio was accepting call-ins. This town is Satan’s playground. Can you believe my husband up an’ left me for some college freshman. A literal boy, I tell you!
Sweat caught my jaw and slid down my neck. I needed a Vicodin. When was Verona done with classes? I tell ya, I think I need my man more than he needs me. The birdwatcher still had his telephoto lens pointed at the sky. But the horizon was empty. No birds. Not even a cloud. Still, the man had his face pressed right up against it as if he had something in his sights. The camera started to move. He lowered the lens from its straight up position like he was following something that was slowly falling from the sky.
He’s a good man. He is. He’s just all tangled up in Satan’s traps. Doesn’t know how to keep his eyes down, I tell ya. I stuck my head out the open car window to try and see what the birdwatcher was following, but there wasn’t anything. The sky was clear and exposed. Nowhere for anything to hide. I turned back to see the man continuing to lower his camera. He kept doing so until it was parallel with the street—pointed directly at me.