Slag Attack Read online

  Slag Attack

  Andersen Prunty

  Copyright © 2010 by Andersen Prunty

  Cover Artwork © 2010 by Alan M. Clark

  www.alanmclark.com

  Paperback ISBN: 1-936383-09-8

  Published by Eraserhead Press

  205 NE Bryant

  Portland, Oregon 97211

  www.bizarrocentral.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Also by Andersen Prunty

  The Sorrow King

  Fuckness

  My Fake War

  Morning is Dead

  The Beard

  Jack and Mr. Grin

  Zerostrata

  The Overwhelming Urge

  Contents

  The Devastated Insides of Hollow City

  Vincent Severity

  Corpse Mountain

  All Alone at the Edge of the World

  The Devastated Insides of Hollow City

  1.

  In the flickering bathroom light Shell adjusts his eyepatch and runs a hand across the black scruff of his jaw before vomiting into the sink. He glances at himself in the mirror, a single cold blue eye glaring back at him, surrounded by a hundred and forty pounds of waste. He dips his fingertips into the puke, moving it around, looking for signs of infection.

  He breathes a sigh of relief at the absence of the tell tale maggot-like worms. Was it relief? Perhaps.

  He coughs and turns the tap on cold. He catches the water in his hands and splashes it on his face, trying to get the puke smell off his upper lip.

  The flickering light irritates him. He reaches up to either tighten or unscrew the bulb altogether and notices it’s covered in a number of thick, sluglike worms. Adult slags. He can’t bring himself to touch them.

  The Rotting Man never told him this city was infested.

  But Shell isn’t here because of the infestation. He is here for a different reason. That reason is, as yet, unbeknownst to him.

  He checks his watch. Two more hours until The Rotting Man will call. Maybe he has enough time for a nap.

  2.

  His tiny room consists of a bed and desk. The door opens outward, banging into the far wall of the narrow hall and there it is. His bed. A single bed. No floor space. The small desk sits atop the bed. The desk has a chair but in order to lie down in the bed he has to put the chair on top of the desk before crawling beneath it. It’s the worst room in the world.

  He pulls all the covers from the bed, making sure there are no slags on it. He doesn’t really need the covers anyway. It’s nearly a hundred degrees and humid. Summer in Hollow City. He’s already damp with sweat.

  Lying in bed, he listens to distant sirens, trains and, closer, insects. They sound frenzied. As much a victim of the slags as humans. He falls asleep only briefly and dreams of torture and explosions. In the dream, he’s another person entirely but everyone pretends to know him and, for some reason, this makes him violently angry.

  He awakes to the desperate blatting of his cell phone. He looks at it. A picture of The Rotting Man, drunk, greets him. The picture was taken at last year’s Christmas party. The Rotting Man had drunk way too much and kept asking people if they wanted to go out and roll winos at the train station. That was just before The Rotting Man’s left ear fell off.

  Good times? Doubtfully.

  Shell flips his phone open.

  “Yeah.”

  “You asleep?”

  “It’s like six in the evening. Why the hell would I be asleep?”

  “Different strokes for different folks!”

  “Is everything you say a fucking cliché?”

  “Find Pearl. That’s all I got for you. And that’s no cliché.”

  “Who’s Pearl?”

  “Find her. Do what you do best.” Another cliché.

  “I don’t suppose I’ll get any help with this one?”

  “Help is all around you, friend...”

  “Okay. Gotta go.” Talking to The Rotting Man is headache inducing. There’s only so much of it he can take and, because of the clichés, Shell could almost predict how he would answer his questions. So why even bother asking them?

  There is an awkward pause. Shell holds the phone away from his ear to see if the call has ended. The seconds continue to roll on the tiny screen.

  “Say it!” The Rotting Man blurts.

  Shell takes a deep breath and says, “See you later alligator,” in his customary monotone.

  “After while crocodile!” The Rotting Man gleefully yells back before ending the call.

  3.

  Shell slides out of bed, which means he’s now standing in the hallway.

  Help is all around you. Is that a cliché? Shell isn’t sure. He thinks it sounds like a cliché. Whatever. Most of what The Rotting Man says is bullshit anyway. But he’s the boss.

  Shell straightens his tie and grabs his coat from the chair, pulling it on and smoothing out the wrinkles. It’s what his ex-wife disdainfully calls “detective brown.” He again touches his eyepatch, a weal of nausea streaking across his insides.

  He walks down the short and narrow hallway until he comes to the dim living room. Miss Fitch, an older lady mostly made of bones and hair, is on her knees. Her arms are clasped around the flickering television. Her cheek is pressed against the glass and she’s crying loudly. Gushing. The static has captured her hair and spread it across the television. From what Shell can tell it’s just a harmless sitcom. At first he thought it might be more of the plague footage: mountains of dead, slag-gnawed children, skinny three-legged dogs wandering through it all, cities abandoned and destroyed. He stands and stares at her. Earlier, she had been sitting on the couch, her hands demurely folded in her lap while she stared catatonically at the wall.

  The landlord, a fat hirsute hunchback named Mr. Blatz, had warned Shell about her. “She came with the building,” he had said. “She’s always been here.” Then he had offered to knock ten dollars off the rent. That sounded good to Shell. He wouldn’t need the apartment much more than a night, anyway.

  Between the sobs Miss Fitch bellows, “Stop looking at me!” Flecks of spittle hit the screen, pixilating it. “Oh God just quit looking at me.”

  Shell clears his throat. “I’ve gotta go in the kitchen and make some calls. Do you think you can keep the crying to a minimum?” He holds the thumb and forefinger of his right hand very close together.

  She is once again wracked with sobs. “Oh God now it’s talking to me.”

  Who is she talking to?

  “I’ll have you know,” Shell begins. “I am not an ‘it’. I am a man. Living. Breathing. Human.”

  She pulls away from the screen to face him, her teeth bared. She snarls, “Hollow. You’re all hollow!”

  Shell can’t take her seriously. Half her hair is still plastered to the television. He remembers what Mr. Blatz said about trying not to instigate her but he can’t seem to help it.

  “I’d think a resident of Hollow City wouldn’t be so quick to make that judgment.”

  But she’s turned back to the television, rubbing her cheek up and down it. On the screen, a fat man in a red bra laughs uproariously as someone sprays him with a garden hose. “Please,” she whispers. “Just make him go away.”

  “As I said,” Shell crosses the living room, giving Miss Fitch a wide berth. “I was just going into the kitchen to make some calls. I’d rather not be bothered.”

  But she’s gone, licking the television and rubbing her nose in the saliva. Shell looks for slag movement in th
e saliva but doesn’t see anything. He makes his way into the overly bright kitchen. A large sullen man in overalls sits at the table and stares at a plate of runny scrambled eggs.

  Shell turns back to the living room to address Miss Fitch. “Say, do you know who Pearl is?”

  Slowly, she pulls her glistening face from the screen and pushes a button, turning the television off and plunging the living room into darkness. Her eyes have once again gone blank. She slumps over to the couch and plops down.

  “Pearl?” he asks and knows he will not get a response.

  4.

  Shell approaches the man sitting at the table.

  “Mr. Blatz didn’t say anything about you.”

  The man says nothing.

  “That means I don’t really have to let you stay. Normally, I wouldn’t mind. You seem quiet and I won’t be here long. But I need some privacy. I have some calls to make and that room...” he gestures toward his room, “is far too small and hot to think.”

  The man makes no attempt to leave. Shell picks up a handful of the eggs and shoves them into the bib of the man’s overalls.

  “Just take your eggs and go.”

  The man pats his egg-filled pouch, slides his chair back from the table and stands. “You’ll be sorry,” he says softly and slowly.

  “Do you know who Pearl is?” Shell asks.

  “I wouldn’t tell you if I did. You’re very rude.”

  Then, in a half-hearted attempt at confrontation, the man flips his plate over onto the table, the remaining eggs slathering across the surface.

  “Dick,” Shell says.

  “Monster,” the man says softly, lethargically pushing Shell’s shoulder.

  “I don’t want to fight you.”

  “You’d lose anyway.” The man lumbers to the door, turns back and says, “I hope you fail.”

  “I probably will,” Shell says and thinks, I almost always do.

  He finds the best way to thoroughly insinuate himself into a city is to use a local land line and call local people. The phone is mounted to a wall and covered in slags. He grabs the dirty plate from the table and attempts to knock the writhing slags from the phone. They fall to the floor with wettish plops. He stomps them. This is really the perfect size to combat them. Not large enough to make a giant mess but not small enough to go undetected. The baby ones could be anywhere. Even inside you. Before you know it they are all over and all hope is lost.

  He picks up the phone and calls a random number.

  “Hello,” a male voice says.

  Calling someone is like putting himself right in their house. He can hear if they are watching television. He can hear if they have a dog or children. If they’re eating. This guy doesn’t seem to be doing anything. It’s easy to imagine him just sitting by the phone and staring out into nowhere.

  “Hi,” Shell says. “Um, what are you wearing?” He feels this is a good opening line. Sometimes people hang up on him but there are always plenty more numbers to call.

  “Well,” the man says. “I’m wearing pants and a shirt.”

  “What about shoes? Are you wearing shoes?”

  “Yep.”

  “What kind?”

  “Brown work boots.”

  “What about socks?”

  “Yep.”

  “Ankle, crew, or tube?”

  “Um, well, I guess they’s ankle socks.”

  “What kind of pants are you wearing?”

  “Just jeans.”

  “Blue?”

  “As the sky.”

  “What about your shirt? What kind of shirt are you wearing?”

  “It’s a t-shirt. And, well, I’m ashamed to say this but... it’s kind of pink. It used to be red but it’s faded a lot.”

  “Can you tell me about Pearl?”

  “Pearl?”

  “Yeah. Pearl.”

  “No. I’m afraid I can’t.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Oh, everybody knows Pearl. She’s the Queen of Town.”

  “The Queen of Town?”

  “Well, of Hollow City anyway.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “Do I know you?”

  “Yeah, definitely. I’m Mike from down the street.”

  “Well, if anyone knows what Pearl looks like then I would think it should be you. Wanna do me a favor? Stop yankin my cock. Bye.”

  “Wait.”

  “Bye.”

  Shell doesn’t hang up the phone. He waits until he knows the other person is gone. But this guy doesn’t seem to hang up either.

  “Are you still there, Mike?”

  Shell doesn’t know who the man is talking to until he remembers that he’s Mike.

  “Still here. Are you ready to tell me yet?”

  “I just say you should know ‘cause you was the last person to see her.”

  Suddenly, Shell feels confused, like the man is accusing him of something. He bangs the phone down in its cradle on the wall and takes a deep breath. Miss Fitch has worked her way out of the living room and is dragging herself into the kitchen by her arms, her legs trailing out behind her. Shell wonders why she does this since he just saw her walk only moments before. He has to get out of the apartment. He opens the door, slams it behind him and walks briskly out into the hallway, down the stairs and outside.

  The city isn’t anything like it was when he went in.

  5.

  When he had first arrived, the area surrounding the apartment building had been just like any other slightly rundown Main Street of a small city. Stately trees stood by the side of the road. Children played in yards. People sat on the porches of their large, old houses.

  Now it is a flurry of noise and activity.

  A squad of at least four helicopters, maybe news choppers, maybe police choppers, swoop low over the houses, scouring the early evening streets and alleys. It seems like everyone is outside, yelling and pointing. They parade up and down the streets, most of them looking furious and ready for a fight. The doors of many houses have been flung open, furniture and other debris flying out the door to land in porches and yards. The children have formed two large packs, now engaging in a rumble in a vacant lot at the corner. A young woman wields a chainsaw and cuts down a tree by the side of the road. The tree falls out into the road, smashing cars parked along the curb, and she ritualistically moves on to the next one. A car speeds down the road until it slams into the downed tree. Rather than driving around the tree the driver continues forward in an attempt to drive over it. The front wheels squeal over the tree in a smoky grind of burning wood and rubber until both sets of tires are suspended, spinning around and around in midair. The driver, furious, gets out of the car, slams the door and levels several vicious kicks at it until there is a very visible dent. Then he flings his arms up into the air and collapses into a screaming heap amidst the leaves fanned out on the asphalt.

  Standing in the parking lot of the building Shell wonders what he will find if he ventures forward. The man in overalls stands to his right plucking scrambled eggs out of his overalls and eating them. He looks at Shell. Fear, or something, twists his facial features and he collapses to the ground on all fours. He heaves out the eggs onto the asphalt. Shell doesn’t feel so well himself. He clutches his stomach and vomits next to the man. Crouching down, he once again sees that his vomit is clear of infection. The same cannot be said for the man in overalls. His puke crawls with baby slags. Enough to make it look alive. And a smell, something Shell equates with death, wafts up and hangs around both men. The man rises and wipes the back of his hand against his mouth. Shell takes a cautious step back from him.

  Apparently their vomiting together has forged some sort of solidarity.

  “It’s okay to laugh at me,” the man says. “I know I’m dying.”

  Shell surveys the destruction, the fervid activity all around him, and realizes he has many questions but only one that really matters.

  “I’m sorry you’re dying,” he says to th
e man. “I wish I could help you but I have to find Pearl. Do you even know who Pearl is?”

  “She’s the Queen of Town.”

  Shell watches the man’s puddle of vomit as the slags disperse outwards from it, making it look like the puddle is growing.

  “I’ve heard that. Do you know what she looks like?”

  “She looks like a Queen. Only she’s very small. Young. Like eight.”

  “An eight-year-old is your Queen?”

  “Stranger things have happened. She doesn’t control everything...” He takes a deep breath. “Just the stuff that matters.”

  Shell gestures at the chaos around him. “I would have thought she controlled everything judging by the way her absence has allowed complete and total anarchy.”

  “Anarchy?” The man says. “This isn’t anarchy. These people are all trying to find Pearl. They want to bring her back from wherever she is. If it were anarchy then it would be like it was before Pearl and I don’t... I don’t even want to think of that. I’d love to stay and chat but I have to join the search. Everyone is looking for her.”

  “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know anyone named ‘Mike,’ would you?”

  “I know a lot of Mikes.”

  “Is your name Mike?”

  “I have to go.”

  With that, the man in overalls walks out amidst the chaos.

  Where to begin? Shell thinks.

  6.

  He doesn’t even have any transportation. What does The Rotting Man actually expect him to do? He sends him to a town to look for someone the whole town is already looking for. What makes The Rotting Man think he will be any luckier? This is not the standard case. The Rotting Man didn’t even mention a commission and Shell, so flustered with his environment, didn’t think to ask. Usually he found himself looking for people who everyone else had given up looking for. In this day of the slags and the plague it was easy for state and local authorities (those that still existed, anyway) to write people off. The common belief was that people became infected with the slags and then crawled out into the woods or the bowels of some huge city to die. For the person to be found, this could be a good or a bad thing.