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John nodded, as if he were colanced up at ot any final requests, in case this don’t end well?"
"Yeah Avenge my death"
WE WERE POSITIONED in a circle by the front of the door, each with a high-proof cocktail in each hand I studied the s on the bundle of wet cloth crammed into the bottle My heart hammered Molly whimpered behind lass bottle I could hear Ji next to me, felt a trickle of sweat roll down my temple
The latch clicked and scraped Every muscle in my body tensed I looked down and squeezed the beer bottle into die here
The door slowly ground up in its tracks A band of palein as the door slid upward There he was, revealed from the shins up Jeans and shirt and--
Oh, holy shit
Justin looked ht, blond hair rustling in the stiff breeze, a pi about six inches from his skull
The pupils at the end of their nehite-and-pink stalks twisted horribly in our direction, staring at us for a very long and terrible uard by this that it killed ourthe person next to them to make the first move
To Jennifer’s credit, she broke the paralysis by weakly tossing a fla bottle at Justin The Justin round, rolling to a stop The wick flickered and went out Shitload curled his twin optical skull-erections down and looked at the sad bottle draining its contents into the dirt After a moment he turned back up to us and said, "Put that shit down and co to realize his eyes were dangling fro, jerky neck movements sucked them back in
We stood there for a moment, looked at each other with a kind of deflated sha forfor me to push the attack, to lead the Disappointlance around shoere squarely in the ht and in small-town Nevada that apparentlydemon hive and Limp Bizkit fan, led us across a dusty yard onto a paint-peeled dusty porch where a pair of ancient and very dusty shoes satin the dusty desert air
The door was ajar and had only a perfectly round hole where the knob should have been
Propped next to the door was a dust-covered but new FedEx box, which almost certainly was a delivery mistake since this place looked to be in its tenth year of vacancy
Justin pushed in through the door, indifferently kicking the box inside as he passed
As we moved inside I noticed for the first tilass jar in his hand and I vaguely re it or one just like it in the Jamaican’s makeshift basement He placed it on the floor and walked around to us one by one, arranging our bodies, seated, in a se and could only pray that I wouldn’t co like a white kid raised next to a cornfield trying to record interlude skits for a gang-sta rap albuoddaettin’ around in this, all in these bodies and shit? You act all scared that I’ I could do for you, yo Deadworld, man, it’s alternate layers of rot and shit and rot and shit"
I looked around the di off of tears on Jennifer’s cheeks Big Jim had his eyes closed, maybe in prayer Fred Chu looked around as if uninterested, stroking his goatee with one hand and fidgeting with a strip of carpet foa vacantly at a spot on the other side of the room, already distracted into a dull stupor Molly licked her crotch
Ladies and gentlemen: The Undisclosed Hell-Conqueror Strike Force!
To at least feel like I was doing so, I said, "Deadworld? Is that where you’re from?"
"No, dude That’s where you’re from It’s where we are now This place, it’s a horror show If the guy next to you decides to knock you out of this world forever, he can do it with just a piece of metal or, hell, even his bare hand You blobs, you sit there, chillin’ in this roo in the acid of your guts You suck the life from the innocent creatures of this world just so you can clock another day You’re machines that run on the terror and pain and mutilation of other lives You’ll scrape the world clean of every green and living thing until starvation goes one-eight-seven on every one of your sorry asses, your desperation to put off death leadin’ to the ulti Dude, I can’t believe you ain’t all paralyzed by the pure, naked horror of this place"
After a long, long pause John said, "Uh, thank you"
John’s eyes never moved as he spoke, and suddenly I saw a look there, a confidence I followed his gaze, sahat he was seeing, and then quickly looked away again
I glanced back at the Justin ht on But he was busy He twisted the lid off the old pickle jar, and a s, like a dried-up earthworm, dropped out and landed quietly on the floor
Shitload went to the kitchen and I heard hi around with the sink in there No water He came back, studied our faces, and pointed to Fred
"Piss on it," he commanded