Flypaper Cast: Dark Psychological Thriller - Book 3 Page 4
Hellen was less impressed. “Who the fuck is that? Fuck you, cunt.”
Corpse’s mouth dropped open and spewed forth rage. “Oh no you did not.”
“Corpse.” Nick raised a hand. “Guys, I just need to know who you people have been talking to.”
Wormwood interjected. “We can’t tell you that. I’m sorry, but look, maybe we can come to some sort of agreement.”
“What sort of agreement?” It was a rhetorical question. Nick wasn’t in the mood for a negotiation, but he had precious few cards in his hand.
Another long pause. Wormwood and Hellen definitely had some unspoken means of communication between them.
Hellen spoke. “Nick, you know we have a lot of pull with the Myiasis community. We know some of the um—let’s say the fringe elements—have given you problems. Take the MaggotMaestro, for instance.”
Corpse raised her voice. “You put his shit up on a pedestal you—”
Hellen yelled back. “Shut the fuck up. I’m talking to Nick. Who the fuck are you? You’re a nobody.”
“I’ll show you a nobody. You have no idea who you’re fucking with.”
The two women screamed over one another until Hellen drowned Corpse out. “I’m talking to Nick. Nick. As I was saying.” She cleared her throat. “You come on the show. A few minutes, the whole thing, however long you want. You talk about whatever you want. The ear of every Maggot in the world will listen. Maybe you can mention how it’s not okay for them to, y’know, turn the good people of Forest Down into postmodern art.”
Nick looked at Corpse. She met his eyes for as long as she could without driving them off the road. She was still furious, but wasn’t about to make the call for him. He asked the only question that came to mind. “And what if I say no?”
Hellen’s voice sweetened. “If you say no? Why would you say no? This is a win-win for everyone. For us, for you, for the fans.”
Nick was unmoved. “Humor me.”
Hellen spoke, her voice just shy of pleading. “Nick. Mr. Dawkins. We’re big fans. This podcast is basically our entire life. Did you know that? We were able to quit our day jobs after the Maestro. We’d hate to see anything happen to you. What would happen to us? I don’t want to go back to retail.”
Wormwood whispered something. Hellen whispered something back. Both Corpse and Nick leaned into the sides of the car in an attempt to catch any of it. Nick turned to Corpse and put a finger to his ear. Are you getting any of this? Corpse shook her head.
“That said,” the sudden return of Hellen’s voice to conversational volume startled Nick. It had lowered in tone and slowed down in tempo. He couldn’t be sure, but she seemed to be smiling. “There are some truly sick Maggots out there. Before we got your mother, we were talking to someone who wants to eat you. And he’s the tip of the iceberg. Just imagine if some of them got it in their heads that the people of Forest Down were fair game. Or your little friend there.”
Nick turned to Corpse. She dug her nails into the steering wheel. She didn’t react when one of them broke.
Hellen spoke again before Nick could react. “You know what, don’t answer yet. Take some time to think about it and get back to us. Our e-mail address is on our site. We’ll be watching for a response. It was nice talking to you, Nick. And girlie? See you next Tuesday.”
The line went dead.
Chapter 5
Nick walked through his front door and kicked his right shoe off. It flew through the air and hit the wall. “Fuck my life.”
Corpse followed him inside and, arms full of groceries, locked the door behind them. “I like how in the past year you’ve been lit on fire, hit by a car and fed to rats, but this is the first time I’ve heard you say that.”
He hobbled over to the couch and tipped over the arm, landing on the cushions face first. He screamed into a pillow, only in part because his leg cried out from within its cast. The rest of the scream was pure frustration. A rock and a hard place hugged him tight.
The webmaster took the bags to the kitchen and unloaded them. “Do not break your leg again, I will end you.”
Nick rolled over onto his back, his leg propped up on the arm of the couch. Relief washed over him. His leg hadn’t seen that much activity since the night he broke it. He yelled into the air. “How are you not losing your shit right now? She called you the c-word, like twice.”
Corpse called from the kitchen. “What are you, eight? You can say cunt.”
Nick rested his forearm across his brow. “Isn’t it offensive if a dude says it?”
She strolled out of the kitchen, much calmer than he’d have pictured. “Have you met me? And believe me, I’m raging. But I also know I can burn those bastards down with the push of a button. Well, a few buttons, but still. Say the word and I’ll turn their lives into Chernobyl. Nothing will grow there for a thousand years.”
“Uh, nothing except toxic mutations and inbred rejects from The Hills Have Eyes. As much as I appreciate the concept, and as much as I’d like to do it on the sheer principle of how they talked to you, I’m not sure it’s the smart play. Right? I’m trying to be level-headed here, but can’t tell if my head is level or if I’m just feeling beaten down and tired.” Nick looked up at Corpse, who loomed over the back of the couch. “But if you want to take a stance of ‘this aggression will not stand’, say the word. Whatever.”
Corpse’s eyes narrowed. She gave the matter an abnormal amount of consideration. Her brain moved fifteen times faster than mere mortals. Nick had only seen her give that much thought to picking a movie from his DVD collection. When she did finally answer, it was slowly, as though she still hadn’t quite made up her mind. “You’re right. Vengeance can wait. Damn it.” She reached over the couch and picked up her laptop. “But if they give either of us shit again, I’ll burn them down. Believe. What are you going to do though?”
Nick sat up. “I’m sure as shit not giving them an interview. I’ll be cold and dead before that ever happens. They can take their best shot.”
Corpse raised a hand for a high five. “Fuck yes. Now you’re talking sense.”
He looked at her and furrowed his brow. “I wasn’t before?”
She walked off to her room. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you asked, diplomacy is for pussies. I’m feeling kinda wrecked. Gonna check out for a bit. Feebles later, yeah?”
Nick watched the door to the guest room close and opened the laptop on the coffee table in front of him. The smell of pot and the soul-shredding sound of doom metal drifted into the room. He opened a web browser, found his way to the Flystrike podcast, and clicked on the e-mail link.
It didn’t require a lot of effort to restrain himself. Whatever it was in his blood that boiled when against the wall had burned itself out for the day. He made sure he was sending from his junk address and typed in a single word; a word he hoped would be the end of things, but for all he knew would be the first shot fired.
Nope.
***
Hellen smacked the table hard. A little too hard. “Mother fucker.”
Wormwood got up from his computer and came around to her side. “What? What’d he say?”
She rubbed her hand. “All it says is ‘nope’. Son of a bitch, I thought if we pushed him a little he’d give.”
“Yeah, I knew it wasn’t going to work. Dude’s been lit on fire, it’ll take more than a few idle threats to scare him.” Wormwood walked back to his side of the table.
Hellen rapped her knuckles on the table. “Bitch, idle threats my ass.”
Her fiancé picked up his headphones and put them around his neck. “What, you wanna follow through?”
“I don’t know. Don’t you?” She tapped at her screen. “You’re the one who typed—what did you say? Use the Maggots as leverage.”
He tapped at his own monitor. “Uh, there was a question mark on there. Like, use the maggots as leverage, question mark? It was a thought, you were the one who decided to go all Bond villain.”
“All he said was ‘nope’. It’s hardly a screed.” Wormwood played with his mouse. He was already in the process of checking out of the conversation.
Hellen wasn’t done. Not yet. “He could have said something, instead he’s just like, nope, like fuck off, fuckos.”
Wormwood ran his fingers through his spiked hair. “Holy shit, you threatened him and called his girlfriend a cunt. I’m amazed that’s all he said.” He pulled his headphones over his ears and clicked around while Hellen rolled the situation around in her head.
Just another little push. That’s all they needed. If they pushed him once more and he still didn’t cave, they could always back off. “Get on Myiasis with me.”
He pulled off his headphones and snapped, “I’m sorry?”
She snapped back. “I said get on Myiasis with me, ass, plan B.”
Wormwood dropped his headphones to the table. A piece of plastic fell off them and rattled to the floor. “Seriously? You wanna push this?”
Hellen opened a chat program and created a new room. “We don’t have to get crazy, but yeah, I think we have to, right? We have to at least send him a message. If he doesn’t respond at least we’ve saved face, and if he does, maybe he’ll talk to us.”
“And what do you plan to do, exactly? I’m not traveling halfway across the country to mess with this dude.” Wormwood clicked at his mouse. She couldn’t see his screen, but he would’ve followed her onto the Myiasis message board if he knew what was good for him.
She clicked on the Myiasis icon and pulled up the Flypap3r memorial thread. “We won’t have to do shit. We have the ears of like four thousand people. Someone is bound to live near Forest Down. I made a new chat room. Hashtag op flystrike. Get on it.”
He clicked a few more times and tapped his keyboard. Good boy. “And what are we doing exactly?”
Hellen flicked her fingers at the keys. Attention Maggots. Flystrike needs you. “Like I said, we’re just going to send him a message. You’re right, idle threats won’t do shit. But we hit him where he lives?” She nodded to herself. “We’ll get his attention. And his little dog, too.”
Wormwood shook his head. “Oh good, and now you’ve gone from Bond villain to the Wicked Witch of the West. Plus, you do realize he’s been ‘hit where he lives’ like multiple times already, right? Not very original.”
“Stop talking, Toto.” Hellen raised an eyebrow at him. “Or I won’t choke you later.”
The worm stuck his bottom lip out. “Meanie.”
“What was that?” Her words stabbed at him.
“Nothing.”
Hellen went back to her post. “Damn straight. And believe me, what I have planned, he hasn’t seen before. Say what you will about his batshit ex, she posted some gold about Nick’s personal life while she was with him.”
Confusion sat on Wormwood’s face and wiggled. “So?”
Hellen continued typing and cracked a devious grin. “So we’re going to use that… scare the shit out of him and take something important from him in one stroke. Trust me.”
Chapter 6
Radical torture. That’s what this was. A blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions. He’d have words with the U.N.; demand a Congressional hearing.
Nick gritted his teeth, a bead of sweat running down his cheek. He straightened his leg out, lifting the cast into the air. His entire limb, from thigh to his foot strained under the extra weight of several pounds of fiberglass.
He wanted to scream, but refused to give the dead man he blamed for the break the satisfaction, just in case he happened to look up from whatever hell-pit full of dentists he’d hopefully found himself in. He pictured the long-haired odontaphobe surrounded by a thousand clones of Lawrence Olivier, all screaming, ‘Is it safe?’ while a neon sign that read Drill, Baby, Drill flickered overhead.
“Open wide, asshole.”
It was Nick’s least favorite parts of the day. Even walking around on his fractured leg didn’t hurt as much as the damn exercises he had to do every morning and every night.
He lifted his leg again. Overall, when he looked at the big picture, it had gotten easier; if only to a marginal degree. With any luck, that meant that when his cast was removed in a week or so, it wouldn’t have wasted away completely. He’d seen the pictures of legs belonging to people who didn’t or couldn’t exercise their broken legs. Best-case scenario, they were twigs. Worst-case, they didn’t heal right. They walked on canes forever.
One more one more one more.
He ground his teeth and groaned as he lifted the leg into the air, away from the side of his bed. Sweat seeped into his damn eye. Stung like a bitch, but it was nothing compared to the hot lasers shooting through his leg as the scar tissue stretched and strained.
Nick flopped backwards onto the bed, his legs dangling off the side. The morning sun shone through a crack in his curtains and into his face.
Stay out of the street in the dark, dumbass, even if being chased by a raving psychotic. Noted.
A cough echoed from the living room. Corpse moved around on the other side of the door, probably in search of food.
He hadn’t heard her during the night at all, which meant either she had been uncommonly quiet, or had slept uncommonly long. Preferably the latter. It couldn’t be good for her to sleep as little as she did.
Damn it. Sounding like an old man again.
Nick picked up the crutches at the end of his bed and planted them on the floor. Corpse had made or would make breakfast, if he was lucky. It was usually the first thing she did on the rare night she slept. Nine times out of ten, it meant she’d been in a weed coma and woke with the munchies.
He opened the bedroom door and was hit in the face with the smell of eggs.
Hot damn.
He crutched his way into the kitchen. “Eggs, honey, you shouldn’t have.”
Corpse held up a spatula. “Bitch, I will cut you. I keed, I keed. Sit yo happy ass down and I’ll plop you some scrambies.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Nick sat in a chair and leaned his crutches against the table. His childhood therapist would have been so proud. Nick could now watch another person cook his food without being overwhelmed by the urge to purge. It had been a slow but necessary transition, brought on by the initial days of incapacitation that followed his accident and surgery. At first he pretended that it was like food from a restaurant, prepared out of sight and then served to him. As he grew more comfortable with Corpse’s presence, he found himself talking to her from the hallway as she cooked around the corner from him. Eventually, he moved into the kitchen; by then his gag reflex was nonexistent.
There was no getting past it. Having the kid around had changed his life in unexpected but wholly welcome ways.
He rubbed his growling stomach. “I appreciate the breakfast. I worked up a hell of an appetite, you know… moving my friggin’ leg.”
She thrust the spatula at the eggs sizzling in the skillet. “I heard, I figured it was that, or you were crankin’ one out.”
Nick wiped the sweat from his brow. “Ew, how about we don’t talk about that? Like, ever.”
Corpse dropped a pile of eggs out of the skillet and onto a plate along with a fork. “I swear, Broseph, you can be such a stiff sometimes.” She turned and pointed at him. “Ooooohhhhh, you see what I did there? Stiff? Like a penis?”
Nick shook his head, but couldn’t help but smile. “No. Just no. You are awarded no points and may god have mercy on your soul.”
She set the plate of eggs in front of him. “Such a stiff, bro. Such a stiff.”
“I’m glad you seem to be feeling better. You weren’t quite yourself last night.” He picked up the fork and shoveled a mouthful of the fluffy yellow goodness into his maw.
Corpse turned off the burner. “Dude, I was beat. I hadn’t slept in a couple an
d then I only had like six Power Ups yesterday. That wasn’t healthy.”
Nick swallowed his eggs. Sweet Christmas in July, those were good. He only thought he could make eggs before Corpse showed up. “Okay, there’s like twelve things going on in that sentence that isn’t healthy, but I’m not going to get into it. I’m no role model. Reed gives me shit about drinking juice boxes.”
Corpse dropped the remaining eggs out of the skillet and onto another plate. “Whaaaaaaaat, fuck that, juices boxes are legit.”
Nick dropped his fork onto his plate. “That’s what I said.”
“Sheriff Stick-up-the-Butt’s trippin’. Save the rest for me, I’m Starvin’ Marvin. But first I need a pick-up-stick.” She fished a lighter out of her hoodie’s pocket. “Brb.”
Nick grabbed his fork and held it like a caveman might. Corpse’s cooking had that effect on him; it reduced him to an animal state incapable of proper table manners. He stuck the utensil into the remaining eggs on his plate and instinctively looked for his laptop in its usual place on the table. He cursed himself. He’d left the damn thing in the living room the night before. He looked at his leg and then at the empty space on the table. It just wasn’t breakfast without a perusal of what was happening in the world. What if there were zombies? Or aliens? What if Donald Trump’s hair had devoured New York? How would he know?
He braced himself for the effort required to walk to the living room and then back again with his laptop in hand. He grabbed a crutch and lifted himself up.
He turned the corner and saw the open door to the balcony. Corpse stood outside and shivered in the cold, flicking at her lighter. She covered it with her hand, shielding it from the biting winter winds.
A sharp crack ripped through the house. Corpse dropped out of sight.
Nick stood still for a moment and grappled with what had happened in front of him. It wasn’t just Corpse; the entire balcony was gone.