It was a sign.
It was a large, broken, slightly off-white, vinyl sign laying on the fresh paved asphalt. The words Welcome to Your New Home were still visible in the mess, and flies orbited something dead underneath. A coyote? Blood pooled and caked into the asphalt under the sun, but it was too hot to smell anything.
The interstate floated in the distance. Cars hummed across it, their sound carrying across the empty desert to mix with the buzzing flies. It made my head pound. I flipped on the radio to cut through it, where some jockey with a smooth voice was accepting call-ins. Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior? one of the callers asked. You know this is the end. More flies danced around the animal carcass. Tufts of beige fur, stained brown with dried blood, stuck out of the torn canvas. Brain matter looked a lot like ground pork. When was the last time I ate?
A bead of sweat rolled down the side of my ear. I twisted the A/C knob back and forth even though it hadn’t worked in months. I pay more taxes than anyone in this city! But all crime does is goes up, up, up. The clock said it was 5:44 PM, and a cloud of dust approached in the distance. Right on time. It puffed larger and larger until the SUV producing the dirt storm pulled into the lot. Its windows were dark and clean, framing my reflection as it pulled up. I grabbed the paper bag of cash sitting next to me.
The window rolled itself down, replacing my face with that of some clean-shaven man in dark glasses. All he did was stare. Unmoving. The bag of cash crinkled as I stuck it out my window. Was that the right thing to do? This was my first time meeting the new suppliers. He wrinkled his forehead but eventually grabbed it and passed it to someone in the back.
The children are our future. But they’re not going to have a future if these heat waves don’t stop. The backdoor of the supplier’s vehicle creaked open, and a large man with polished shoes stepped out of the car carrying a large black duffel bag. He held it out, saying nothing. The gloves he wore matched his shoes.
Jesus is going to come. Mark my words. There will be earthquakes! Fires! I grabbed the duffel bag and turned to tuck it into the seat behind me. The SUV door slammed shut as the radio jockey was saying something about how this heat wave wasn’t even that bad. We’ve had worse. The new suppliers pulled away, leaving me alone with the sign, the carcass, the blood, and the flies. Welcome to Your New Home.
“I’m tellin’ ya, it’s all the same thing—Medusa, The Eye of Providence, Envy, Basilisks, George Orwell. You know? The details are different, but it’s all the same shit.” Spit was on a roll, he hadn’t even touched the coke yet.
The black duffel bag lay open on the coffee table. Jimmy weighed plastic containers, while I faded into the couch.
“So, what is it?” Jimmy asked. There was a fresh mark across his cheek. I bit at the scar on my lip.
“Fuckin’ surveillance man,” Spit emphasized. “The fear of other people. The master and the slave. It’s control. Power.”
I turned towards the TV that was running in the background. An actress I had seen a thousand times before, but whose name I couldn’t think of, raced a luxury convertible through an empty, black and white desert. Jimmy snapped a finger at me, offering over a small baggie of coke.
“I’m good,” I said, shaking Verona’s Xanax prescription in the air.
The camera framed the actress’s face. She stared through the TV screen as she accelerated harder, leaning into the wind. Large block words flashed against the scene. Desire. Danger. Beauty.
“The eyes are the window to the soul,” Spit continued. “It’s the ultimate metaphor.”
My own eyes weighed from exhaustion. Spit and Jimmy’s conversation waned into background noise as the actress with no name drove off the edge of a cliff. The logo for some perfume company flashed on the screen, and whoever it was fell gracefully into the open sea below.
The smell of ground pork woke me up. Clair stood against the stove in her robe, shaking salt into a pan. Meat sizzled and oil popped and my stomach shrunk into itself. Everyone else was gone—Spit, Jimmy. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw Nathan or Amity. The house wasn’t even creaking.
My phone said it was 5:03 AM, and there was a message from Verona.
“Look who’s up,” Clair said from the kitchen. “You were out for like twenty hours. I was worried you died.”
I set my phone down. “Where’s everyone else?” I asked,
Clair turned the burner on the stove off and scraped whatever was in it onto a plate. “Spit and Jimmy said they were going downtown to move some more shit, and Nathan’s out...somewhere. I’m not sure. I know he’s picking up Amity from the train station later.”
I bit the scar on my lip, the one Nathan had given me. Was that last week or last month? I couldn’t remember. Why did Clair even keep him around? She continued talking as I picked my phone back up to open the message from Verona.
It was a picture. She was posed in front of her full length bedroom mirror in simple, black lingerie. Her ass was sticking out further than it already did naturally, and the vase of lilies I had gotten her sat on a nightstand in the background. They were already dead. Every single one. Didn’t I just buy those a few days ago? Clair walked over from the kitchen. I set my phone back down.
“Eat,” she commanded and offered a plate heaped with eggs, pork, and cheese.
The TV was still on, and some old guy with perfect salt-and-pepper hair gave the weather forecast. This week was going to be even hotter than last. Clair went back into the kitchen, returning with her laptop and some green juice drink. The eggs on my plate ran into the bloody, brown meat and my stomach shrank even further. Clair kicked her feet up on the coffee table, next to the duffle bag, and started to work on her laptop. We are heading into a hotter week, but only barely. Nothing to worry about.
“How were the new suppliers?” Clair asked, keeping her eyes trained to her laptop. “Professional?”
“Sure.” I nodded. Clair would’ve made a great financial adviser, if it paid more than cocaine. She was the only drug dealer I’d ever met who budgeted. In fact, she was the only drug dealer I ever met who had their MBA.
Sweat seeped from my fingertips like the runny eggs on my plate. The weatherman had been replaced with some news anchor with golden eyes. Some residents have also been reporting small quakes. But while there’s no cause for concern, we can always be more prepared. My gut was a raisin, squeezing everything that was in it up my gullet. I dropped my plate on the coffee table and jolted for the bathroom.
The contents of my stomach projected themselves into the open toilet bowl, mostly gastric acid. Each time I heaved, tears formed around the corners of my eyes, and hot liquid drained out my nose. Eventually, my body realized that there was nothing left to expel, and I slunk back against the wall to catch my breath.
My phone vibrated another message. It was from Mark.
Got any blow?
I ignored it and went back to the picture of Verona instead. The longer I stared the more lightheaded I felt. The way her hips curved into her arched back. The way she stood up on her toes. The way her simple black hair matched her simple black lingerie. I was hard.
I knelt over the unflushed toilet, unzipping my jeans. Verona’s eyes glowed from her flushed face. Champagne cheeks. I tugged down my boxers, pressing my thighs to the cold porcelain. My eyes traced down her neck into her cleavage. I imagined myself pulling her down to the floor with me, but the vase of lilies kept derailing my attention.
In my mind, the dead flowers were shaking. Buzzing. A swarm of black dots poured from the vase surrounding Verona and I like flies. They gnawed at my scalp. I gripped the rim of the toilet bowl, my eyes shut tight. Patches of hair were torn free, and my scalp peeled away beneath. Giant chunks of skin fell from my bones like ground pork, splattering against Verona’s shoulders and lingerie. I tried shaking the image from my head, but my skin continued to peel off until I was nothing but skeleton. Verona screamed beneath me. Blood dotted her cheeks like paint and I moaned out loud, opening my eyes.
Thick white globs shot into the vomit and toilet water.