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Jacob limped into the
bus depot. His right leg burned and itched, pulsing bursts
of hot pain coursed from his lower leg to his thigh. Sweat
dripped down his forehead onto his two-day-old beard. He
turned his head one more time: darkness, wind, silence.
For the first time in
two days, Jacob stopped, gathered his thoughts, and surveyed
his surroundings. The bus station boasted one
wooden—rotted—bench, a vending machine that flashed more out
of item lights than not, and a gaunt, almost gray-skinned,
spectacled man -- looked to be in his early forties -- with
bushy eyebrows and blotchy white skin sitting behind
bulletproof glass and flipping through a National Geographic
magazine.
Jacob approached the bus
station attendant close enough to see the name "Gus" in red
bold letters on his black jacket pocket, but the pain in his
leg forced him to stop before he reached Gus's window. Jacob
spotted the bathroom and veered to the right. He turned his
head and took another look at Gus and decided he needed to
recoup before he approached this extra from The Night of the
Living Dead.
Jacob pushed the
bathroom door open and gagged on the stench. He hopped over
to the sink, luckily as far away as possible from the stench
of the rusty stalls, and lifted his leg so that his
snakeskin boots rested on the reddish-brown stained
porcelain. He carefully pulled up his blue jeans and winced
when he saw his blood-soaked calf. The bandage right below
his knee was seeped in blood. He untaped it and carefully
slid it down. Hot throbbing pain turned to pins and needles
and finally a dull throbbing as the bandage was removed.
Blood flowed quicker now that the bullet wound was fully
exposed. Jacob wished he could do a Rambo and pull it out
with his knife, but he knew he was a wuss when it came to
his pain, though he had no problem hurting others.
He thoroughly washed his
wound and the bandage. A rivulet of blood flowed toward the
drainage hole and trickled down the sink. Jacob must have
been woozy, for it seemed the drain hole closed, then
opened, then closed again -- as if it were drinking the
blood
Jacob reached into his
pocket and pulled out his bandana. He thanked God it was
somewhat clean and dressed his wound with more care than he
could or would ever show any other person but himself. He
patted his other pocket and made sure his prize -- the
reason he found himself in this
blip-on-a-map-hick-town-bus-stop -- was still there.
He placed the semi-clean
dressing in his pocket and began scrubbing his face
furiously, trying to rinse away the last two days of his
life. For a fleeting moment he hoped another face would
greet him when he looked up into the dirt encrusted mirror,
but through the few clear spaces of reflective surface, he
saw the man who had killed, among others, his dog Louie, his
father, and his partner in crime, the latter being a fresh
kill of less than forty-eight hours.
"You never were a pretty
boy," a gravelly voice said from behind.
Jacob reached into his
pocket, grabbed the end of his knife and turned to face a
gun pointed directly at his head from the bathroom entrance
Earl Jenkins. His other
partner.
It wasn't for lack of
trying that Jacob found Earl standing there with a cocky
grin on his pimply, bulbous-nosed face. It had always been
Jacob's plan to knife Earl after the robbery as well, but
Earl had booked from the store as soon as the alarm went
off.
"Uh, uh, Jake. Let’s
remove the hand from the pocket right now," Earl said.
Jacob gripped the knife
tighter but when he felt the stab of pain in his calf caused
by his sudden movement, he released his grip and took his
hand from his pocket.
The sink rumbled, pipes
screamed and rattled, like a baby crying for its bottle.
Jacob turned his
attention toward the sink but Earl said, "Hey, focus here
man. Look at us. We pull off the biggest heist in years and
you lead me to this nowhere town of Eldred. Pretty smart to
take the scenic bus route. Oh, and by the way, thanks for
taking out Tom. Just one less hassle for me bro."
"How the hell did you
find me?" Jacob asked, already knowing the answer but hoping
to stall while he thought of a way out.
"Please, Jake," Earl
said as he brought his free hand to scratch the crust from
his dirt blond hair. "You used your credit card for Christ’s
sake. What, did you forget I could track a person on the
Internet like Grizzly Adams could track a bear in the
woods?"
"No, I didn’t forget,
man," Jacob said as he reached for his pocket once again.
"Hey!" Earl screamed as
he moved closer to Jacob.
"Dude, I’m just getting
it out," Jacob said. He pulled out a black pouch from his
jacket and hefted it in his hands.
Earl’s brown eyes
widened and he lowered his gun. Jacob shoved his hand in his
other pocket, grabbed the knife and before Earl could raise
his gun again, Jacob flung the knife at Earl. Damn, it was
too low: Thud followed by a scream as the blade slammed
into Earl’s right shoulder.
Jacob dove towards Earl
and shoved the pouch in Earl’s mouth, hoping to stifle his
screams. He grabbed the knife and pushed it in further. Earl
screamed again but the pouch muffled the sound. As Jacob
realized he needed leverage he pulled Earl’s body toward the
sink. Jacob's calf throbbed more violently now but
adrenaline moved him forward. Earl struggled but in one
motion, Jacob yanked the knife from Earl’s shoulder and slit
Earl's throat from ear to ear. Blood now flowed freely down
the sink. The sink rumbled and rattled again and Jacob
staggered back. He rubbed his eyes. The pipe leading from
the sink to the ceiling bulged and a gurgling, almost
swallowing noise emanated from above. Earl's body lurched
further into the sink and shook as if he were having an
epileptic seizure. The sink screeched and gurgled until,
finally, Earl's body went limp.
Jacob cautiously
approached the sink. His calf burned hotter now, a steady
pain that caused him to limp even worse. A thick, black
liquid oozed through the drainage hole of the sink. It
smelled like the well a week after he had dumped Louie's
body. That dog never would shut the hell up. Jacob covered
his nose with one hand and flipped Earl's body over with the
other. His gag reverberated throughout the bathroom and he
turned toward the door to make sure the station attendant
hadn't entered. Jacob had looked into Earl's eyes when he
slit his throat. He always made it a habit to look in his
victim’s eyes He wanted them to know he was not afraid of
killing. He would not be tormented by nightmares. But the
lifeless face that stared at him at this moment was not the
same face he had just confronted: Earl’s mouth was
contorted, the whites of his eyes had turned black and a
thick, dark fluid oozed from the corneas Blood drained from
his nose, ears and throat. Numerous puncture wounds filled
his face, like someone had yanked the needles from Pinhead's
face.
Jacob pulled his hand
away and clenched it into a fist. He looked down and saw
that it was shaking, blood trickled from his hand into the
sink. The pipes clanked and rumbled.
Suddenly he felt
something cold, thin and slithery grab his hand, like when
he had shot his father for hitting him when he was fifteen
and his father's blood soaked arm tried to grab onto
Jacob's. Jacob looked down to see a long, thin, pink, fleshy
substance wrapped around his wrist He tried to pull his hand
away but thin, sharp, black pins protruded from the sink’s
pink tongue and ripped into his flesh. His eyes widened in
terror as the pink tongue engorged from the feast it was
receiving. Jacob remembered the knife in his hand and with
one motion sliced at the appendage. The tip fell in the bowl
and released a dollop of black ooze; the remainder flopped
up and down like a severed worm. The base of the sink
rumbled A section of the pipe leading to the ceiling oozed a
viscous red liquid.
Jacob quickly limped to
the door and pulled. It was locked. He yanked on the handle
with all his adrenalized energy. However, the door wouldn't
budge. He dared not scream. He looked around: the window.
The sink was pulsing now, like a junkie having part of his
fix, knowing there was still more to have, and calmly
waiting for it.
The gun. It was right in
front of the sink. Earl’s body was now slumped between sink
and gun, his arm over his head, like a fan cheering for a
runner at a track meet. Crap. The black pouch was hanging
from Earl's mouth, begging to be picked.
Jacob looked down at his
hands. Blood rained on the floor from his numerous puncture
wounds. For the first time he noticed the floor dipped
toward the far wall of the bathroom, and his blood slowly
crept toward the sink. It coalesced right at the base and
disappeared down an unseen hole. Jacob heard the drip, drip,
drip as the blood vanished.
He closed his eyes. He
heard the wailing of the thing in the sink. He now knew it
needed to feed. He looked toward the only other exit: the
window; it was slightly ajar. Okay, he had been in worse
pickles than this, but he had to admit this was the
weirdest.
He closed his eyes again
and tried to push the pain in his calf away. He succeeded,
but this only made the pain in his throbbing hand all the
more prevalent. The sink and pipes had stopped their
rattling. Was it meditating as well?
He shook his head and
leaped forward. He rolled on the ground and reached up to
grab the pouch with his left hand. As he yanked it from
Earl's mouth, the wall exploded and a tidal wave of rusty
water flooded the bathroom. The rush of the water swept the
gun under one of the stalls. Before Jacob could react, a
creature that he could only describe as an octopus that OD'd
on toxic waste rushed forward.
"Damn it!" Jacob
screamed as one of the creature's tentacles wrapped itself
around his wounded leg. Jacob dropped the pouch and reached
for his knife. He pulled it out and slashed at the
creature's closest tentacle. Jacob covered his ears as the
creature's high pitch wail threatened to rupture his
eardrums.
Jacob was mesmerized at
its monstrous visage. It had two obsidian eyes, no
discernable nose and a mouth that looked to be in the
permanent shape of an "O."
The severed tentacle
flopped on the slippery ground like a captured trout on the
bottom of a fisherman’s boat. The creature backed away and
Jacob crawled toward the stall. He reached for the gun. As
he grasped it, two tentacles grabbed at his feet and dragged
him toward the creature’s mouth. The ever-waiting mouth
loomed larger as Jacob slid toward it. Jacob's shaking hand
cocked the gun and aimed right between the creature's eyes.
He pulled the trigger and gelatinous goo splattered the
walls.
The slippery, yet
pincer-filled, tentacles eased their grip on his body. The
creature receded into the wall and muffled whimpering echoed
softly from all sides.
Jacob had no time to
ponder the unbelievable events that had just transpired. Gus
would -- should -- enter at any moment. Jacob wiped the
fingerprints from the gun and dropped it in the toilet. He
then picked up the pouch and approached the window. He
slowly turned to the door and wondered how thick that
bulletproof glass was for Gus not to hear anything that was
going on in here.
He shrugged and with a
shaking hand, saluted his former partner. As he turned
toward the window he heard swishing sounds emanating from
one of the toilets and without looking back, he dropped down
from the second story window. Before hitting the ground he
felt his inertia fail and his stomach lurch as something
grabbed his leg and flipped him over. His head crashed into
the concrete just before he was yanked back up. The stabbing
pain in his head swayed his attention and his hand loosed on
the pouch. He tried to catch it before gravity fully took
it, but he only succeeded in loosening the strap and small
diamonds twinkling against the moonlight rained on the
ground.
His body slid up the
wall of the bus depot and the last thing Jacob Weintraub saw
was a wide gaping mouth salivating for its well-earned meal.
#
The bathroom doorknob
turned and Gus entered. He surveyed the damage. Well, it was
worse than last time, but it was repairable.
He opened the stall door
and peeked into the toilet. He reached in and picked up the
gun. The toilet water bubbled and a tentacle gingerly poked
its way through the toilet bowl hole and caressed his hand.
Gus petted it in return and whispered soft cooing sounds.
The creature continued whimpering and Gus rubbed his cheek
against the slimy tentacle. He waited until the sounds
quieted and the tentacle retreated, then, he got to his feet
and hung an "Out of Order" sign on the bathroom door before
returning to his station.
He took out the key he
had around his neck and opened up the bottom drawer of his
desk. He placed the gun next to the other two already in the
drawer. He reached into his pocket and dug out a handful of
the diamonds he had salvaged from the back of the depot.
This time, he could really fix up the bathroom for poor Old
Bessy. She deserved it. Ever since he found her, she made
his job a lot easier, especially since she took care of all
the troublemakers that came through here -- and there were
plenty of those.
He then rummaged through
the other drawer and pulled out a tube of Neosporin: Old
Bessy was pretty much a self-healer, but a little help
couldn't hurt.
Suddenly, the front door
of the bus depot squealed and a greasy haired, nose
ear-ringed youth staggered in. He had a brown paper bag in
one hand and his dirty duffel bag in the other. He put the
paper bag to his lips, took a long pull and burped. He
banged his fists against the thick glass and yelled, "Hey!
When's the next bus coming through?"
Gus pushed his glasses
back against his face, turned the key on his drawer and
said, "Oh, won't be for another hour. You just missed the
last one."
"Damn, I gotta take a
leak. Where's the john?" The man sneezed against the glass
and snot mixed with saliva formed a hazy barrier between the
two.
"Sorry, it's out of
order," Gus said, fixing his glasses with one hand.
"Listen Point Dexter,
I'm either gonna piss on your glass right here or I'm gonna
piss in the bathroom. It's your choice," the man said and to
show his determination, he already had unzipped his pants.
Gus picked up his key
and unlocked his door. "Yes, sir, right this way," he said
as he led the man to the bathroom. Gus unlocked the bathroom
door and stepped back.
After locking the
bathroom door, he returned to reading his magazine, humming
a tune, oblivious to the blood-curdling screams coming from
the bathroom.
End
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