First fucking thing I ever hear now I'm dead, and it's 'simon says--'
You remember playing that game as a kid.
You know.
Simon Says. Lift a leg. Raise an arm. Touch your nose. Touch your toes.
Little nigger Simon Says. Says, wake up, nazi boy, wake up, sun's almost up and if you don't get the fuck up, white boy, you gonna be toast, crispy burnt toast and--
I open an eye, and stare into the brown face of Adebisi, eyes yellow and cheshire cat grin. Jump up.
"What the fuck am I doing here."
His eyes go wide, innocent, bares fangs. "You're immortal, white boy."
I shake my head. "Fuck me. I'm getting outta here."
Eyes narrow to slits. Cheshire cat licks his lips, big, swollen tongue over brown, swollen lips. Big lips.
"I'm gonna do just that, white boy."
Shake my head. "Don't think so."
He moves forward, and I realize he's sweaty. Taller. "How you think you gonna stop me?" Cheshire cat swats at my shoulder. "Prag."
He gets close enough for my new nose to smell him. He smells dead. Big. Timeless. My stomach growls.
He parts those big lips with a wet smack, puts an arm on my shoulder rough and hard. I will not - but he smells dead. I'm hungry. "What the fuck is going on, Adebisi."
He widens his eyes, snorting softly, giant stallion, legs like tree trunks. "You're old, white boy. You're dead." He leans closer to me. I smell aggression. "And hungry."
"I - yeah." Hate myself for admitting it. "But I'm not touching you, nigger."
He shrugs, puts his hands in the waistband of his sweats, stomach portruding proudly, tongue hanging out the side of his mouth like a panting dog. Rotweiller. "You know the race war?"
I almost fly at him.
Cheshire cat grin gets greedy, flicking at imaginary whiskers with a long, wet tongue. Turns away from me when I don't answer, showing endless muscles rippling, flanks of steel. Mutters to the air, "You'll get it soon enough. New war."
I raise my eyebrows at the way he comes onto me. Stupid nigger. Ugly nigger. I'll get back at him for - this - hunger - but for now I don't have any weapons.
I snarl, "Yeah? On who?"
He flicks a hand at me, sharp, mocking, lip curled as he stares just over his shoulder. Sweat drips down his spine, smells like salt and dirt. Dead. Yeah. He answers, "Humans, white boy."
The sun's almost up, and so I move to get inside a nearby crypt. Handy, that. Guess this is where everyone who can't be seen ends up. "You running the show, Adebisi?"
He walks away from me, grass wet with dew already. I notice his feet are bare, big stubby toes digging into the dirt, ass wiggling like monsters. Dangerous fucking monsters, dark, headless. Useless fucker's cock's probably half-hard, too, just from bare feet.
I call after him, "You running things, Adebisi! I don't think so--"
He turns, face half-disappearing in pre-dawn shadows, and I'm left staring at his bright white teeth, dark, big lips stretched to catch them all. Eyes bulging out, round and wholly organic. He called back, "It runs itself, boy."
I smack one fist into the other as I lose track of him, and then get into the crypt. Sunlight, instinctively, hurts, and inside, I realize I'm going to have to do something about the slits that let it through, like cum out of the head of--
Sigh, try and get more comfortable, sleep. Hungry. Hunger.
Everyone looks black in the dark.
~
Night falls. Start stalking a pretty little thing, white neck creamy and veins pulsing - Bite. Suck. Wonder if this is what pretty little Beecher feels like when he sucks Keller off.
Throw the body away. Slink down the alley.
Lots of people advocate doing things subtly, with flair, with style. Nothing much doing, there - that's just a pansy-assed way of getting around cowardice. Cunts, walking around like they have cocks the size of the moon and a magnifying glass wouldn't even find it. Not me, not this white man. Not tonight.
Cute little poodle, looks just like the dog in Beechball's pictures - take a rusty axe, hack away at it for a bit. Grab it by the tail, greasy blood making the fur slick and the body hard to carry. Beech'll love this.
I'm sure he'll love this.
Stop for another snack on the way back to the graveyard, screaming little prissy boy, stick up his ass so far he was walking funny, glancing around looking for the big bad things in the night. Scared little fucker, and I laugh. Simon said--
Fucking nigger. Simon doesn't matter.
I go inside, and ignore the blood on my clothes.
~
Wake up next night, go to the liquor store for a few beers. The cashier tastes like drugs and dead fish, so I snap his neck, uneaten. Useless fucking teenagers. It's always drugs.
Kind of like prison, this new town. I don't see the sun. Don't have a gang, either, and both my sons are missing. Fuck, man, Beechball must be really unimpressed. Poor little sweet morsels dying cause of Hank. Everyone in this town overindulges, full of sunshine and California. Mixed people, ghettos in the suburbs. The docks are overrun with rats, and I don't mean the furry kind.
I pass a bathroom fixture shop, and the mirror in the front window lies to me; I don't have a face anymore, and nothing proves the difference between me and the brown, brown dirt.
~
Adebisi ends up tying my hands and feet with electrical tape, cuts off the circulation of my non-blood, black as night strips of plastic trussing me up good, like a pig. Little African boy, playing at being the big bad wolf.
He licks the sword in his hand, leaving beads of spit along the blade, tongue pink and wriggling against the black, black of his skin. Fat, pink and wriggling. Worms, going fishing.
Where's the hook, nigger, I want to spit at him, but they've taped my lips shut, too.
Adebisi's eyes follow me, yellow and wolf-like and huge, round. Fat fingers hold the fat sword over me, and I glare. Think you can get away with this, boy? Think you can pull this kind of shit?
He asks me, "Vern, boy. You know the new order, here?"
I can't speak, and he shrugs, grinning, licking with moist, pink, wormy tongue over the metal again. It smells like sweat in here, salty and warm and the way deep fried things smell if you them on the stove too long. Huge, monster shoulders shrug again, and then raise the blade.
Poet holds me steady, and I can't help but cringe. When I lose the arm below the elbow, the blood that dribbles out seems darker than normal.
~
They leave me alone for a while, after that, going out and about fucking around with drugs and bull elephants. I eat little shop girls, and get bored a lot. My left hand always itches, the one that isn't there, and it reminds me of the face I can't see in the mirror.
I must be filthy. I have no shower.
Down by the docks, trying to get work, Adebisi and two of his find me again. I rub my eyes. "What?"
He looks very innocent, and is holding a dead rat that looks moldy. "Nothing."
My palms itch. His legs are massive, and wet, and have no shoes on, as always. I say, "What do you want?"
He bites the rat absently, then throws it over his shoulder to land with a wet plop against a barge. "Take your shoes off."
My toes itch. For a minute, I consider it. The water beside me is black and grim, and laps up against the side of the barge with wet, sucking noises. I can't see the fingers on my left hand, but I can still feel the dirt under my fingernails.