John heard a scream and looked up only to see a
body rushing toward him.
He stepped out of the
way just in time and nearly vomited when his face
was spattered with blood. The impact was solid -- one
of the limbs flew off, and the entire skull flattened
out like a vase might.
I have to get out of here, he thought. Looking up
again, he was amazed to see that another person had
jumped, or been pushed. He started to run. Ahead of
him, at the next intersection, a man was walking out
into the street even though the light was red.
Before John could yell
"Watch out!,"
a limousine plowed into
the jaywalker, with startling force. Contorted into
strange angles, the body flew up into the air and
landed on the roof of the limo, bouncing off and
finding rest behind the bumper.
The limo had stopped in a squeal of brakes. Now
John heard another loud horn as a business van
skidded, rocking back and forth, before the loud smack
and grinding crunch as it struck the limo. The force
of the van caused it to roll over, and another unlucky
car served to absorb the momentum.
A fire broke out, and there were shrieks and loud
moans. Then a gas tank exploded, and the whole
intersection was a giant inferno. More cars continued to
smash into each other in a parody of chaos. Sirens
sounded in the distance, adding that peculiar edge of
panicky glee to the scene.
"I'm not going to cross that street,"
John said to
himself. He decided to go into the bank to his right
and watch from behind thick windows.
A shot rang out as soon as the door had closed
behind him. Then another. A gruff voice yelled across
the room. A woman begged for mercy. The robbers,
evidently, were angry about the accident in the street
because now their getaway route was cut off. They had
decided to slay the occupants of the bank in retaliation
for their bad luck, and were doing so with
alacrity. John left the way he had entered, quickly.
Out on the street again, he walked back to the
scene of the high jumps and pushed his way through the
crowd. Now there were six bodies, in various states
of explosion, and one more was on the way. Everyone
around John was gasping, delighted and disgusted.
Freeing himself from the spectators, he walked on,
and managed to make headway for a few blocks. Across
the street there was a roar, and the sound of tinkling
glass.
A wave of hot air nearly knocked him off his
feet, and John started running when he saw that the
bomb that exploded had also started a fire on the
first floor and threatened to bring the entire building
crumbling down.
It was an old building, noted for
the unusual tilt which a settling foundation had imparted
upon it. The structural stress was too much,
in fact, and John stopped and stared for a moment as
the ancient brick walls gracefully dove into oblivion.
The cloud of dust engulfed him as he turned and walked
on.
A voice called to him from out of a darkened
doorway. A woman was there, yelling for help, being
raped by a large black man. The rapist looked dangerous,
so John moved on, figuring that rape prevention
was of no consequence any more.
Pretty soon he got home. Sitting at his kitchen
table, he glanced at the newspaper headlines. "Disaster
Strikes In Small Midwestern Town, said one.
"Cannibals Apprehended", "Stock Market Crashes", said
some others. All of a sudden the door was kicked in.
It was a policeman.
"You are under arrest,"
the
policeman said.
"What for?"
"Don't worry about that now, just come along with
me."
John contemplated resisting, but saw that it would
be futile as the policeman was waving a gun in his
face. As he stepped out into the hall, he saw that
everyone in the building was being arrested.
"Look here,"
John said. "What's this all about?"
The policeman read him his rights and slapped a
pair of handcuffs on his wrists. "You are under
arrest for second degree complicity."
"Complicity in what?"
"Ask the judge, big mouth."
The cop gave him a
slap in the face. "And don't say another word."
Just then a machine gun opened fire from the
direction of the elevators. John jumped on the floor
and hid behind the body of his arresting officer. A
bullet tore painfully into his shoulder.
Then it stopped, and John heard the old elevator
start to rise. He lifted his head, cautiously, and
saw that everyone except for one old wine was dead.
The wine moaned piteously.
John rose as best he could. Wrestling with the
body of the policeman, he found the keys to the handcuffs
and managed then to free himself. He took the
gun and ammo belt just in case.
When he got to the elevator he pressed the button
for down, and heard a loud snapping noise and some
yells, muffled, as if from behind a wall. He looked
to see if someone was behind him. A policeman was
moving.
"Die, pig!"
he called out, firing a bullet. John
smacked his lips in satisfaction at the clean hole in
the man's head, the blood rushing out. Then he grew
alarmed at a rushing sound, and realized he would have
to use the stairs.
Walking down he had to wade through festering
mounds of offal. Children in the building made a
habit of leaning over the rails to defecate, and
anyone that was too tired to take the garbage downstairs
just pitched it into the abyss.
Outside again, it was dark. He hailed a cab and
shot the driver. Driving, he had fun running over a
bicyclist and several tots who were playing a game on
the Sidewalk. He was going to see his former wife.
"Darling, I love you,"
she said when she opened
the door. "Why do you have to keep pestering me?"
"I have a stomach virus, Why do you think?"
"Let's make love. I'm horny after all these
years."
"No, Marlene, I'm tired of your games."
He drew
his gun and saw her expression, stark terror. With a
blank face he pulled the trigger until it simply
clicked on empty chambers. The bullets sliced through
her mid section, and the body fell to the ground.
Stooping over, he grabbed into the perforations
and caught hold of a section of intestine. Giving a
yank he began to pull out a string of soft warm tubing
that he wrapped around himself like a flower at the
maypole dances. Then he danced. He danced around the
room, pulling a bookcase over, smashing the glasses in
the pantry, clawing at the peeling paint on the walls.
He turned the television set on and watched it for
awhile in silence.
Then he dragged the bloody remains of his sister
all around the room. He made fingerprints with the
blood, decorating the refrigerator, the washer/dryer,
the broken windows, the Persian rug, the books. When
he was satisfied by that he drew a big knife from a
drawer and severed the poor woman's head, which he
attached with a string to a little toy red cart. Some
more string, and he had a comfortable handle.
Out in the hallway again, he knocked on several
doors before one of them opened.
A grisly sight the occupant saw: an executive-type,
in a three-piece, with intestines dangling from
his shoulder and neck, pulling a little red cart that
bore a bloody severed head.
"Come on in. I was just heating some coffee,"
said the man in the door.
"No, no, I was just stopping by, I thought I might
tell you the news about your best friend, he died in
the Congo of yellow fever last night."
"Oh, no!"
The man put his hands up to cover his
face, and John saw his opportunity. He raised his
knife and plunged it into the man's shoulder. Then he
disembowled the body.
"At last,"
he said to no one. With that he removed
his clothes and painted his body with blood
squeezed from the meat on the floor. "Now I can be
respectable once again."
"Yes? Can I help you?"
It was the cleaning lady.
"Give me that vacuum and beat it, you bitch!"
She dutifully handed over the rusting machine and
left. John opened the window and tossed the vacuum
out, not a second too late. The vacuum hit home, a
windshield, with a loud crack, and John watched as
the careening vehicle smashed into a bridge abutment
under the railway crossing.
He went to the next door down the hall and kicked
it in.
"Hi, honey, how was your day at work?"
She gazed
at him appealingly.
"Oh, okay, I guess,"
John grunted.
He's always grouchy after the office, she reflected.