THE AFTERMATH
DREADFUL - PROLOGUE
“What happened here?”
Alice Rockport’s question went unanswered as she stepped out of the rusted sedan. The macadam beneath her heels was still saturated with yesterday’s heat. This was the bullshit that made Alice want to leave Dallas behind: the endless, relentless heat. It was October, for Christ’s sake. Even worse, the weather was half of what everyone spoke about, as if they had become numb and stupid to the geographical placement of the city.
The other half being the price of gas.
Being a field reporter for the lowest-rated news station in the city didn’t help her odds of leaving. Things could be worse, Alice told herself each night. She could be ugly. Or poor. Or riddled with the self-awareness required to understand the faults she refused to acknowledge. It’s true, her career trajectory may resemble a toddler learning to swim, but it could be so much worse. Honestly, Alice could quit her job, live off the generational wealth she believed she’d inherit once her father croaked, and find some timid man to give her just enough to keep her sane. Oh yeah, that could work.
Her daily mirage flickered and brightened with each step along the muted street. Alice returned to the present after rounding the corner and seeing a dozen police cars and half as many ambulances scattered in front of the building. Most of the personnel stood idle and waited in slack stances for the chain of command to dictate their next movements.
“What happened here?” she asked again.
“Just another story . . . Same as always,” Gary said, each word deliberate and spaced out to hide his shallow breaths. As Alice’s cameraman, Gary was destined for a life of early-morning calls, driving the rusted sedan, and lugging all the equipment alone.
Unlike Alice, Gary Glibberman didn’t mind his life trajectory. His current situation allowed him to spend countless hours with Alice. Gary utilized their time together as if Alice were a re-discovered species. He studied every inch of her body. He observed her puffed-out lips, which, after consulting older photos of her, Gary realized were juiced up with filler. He looked at her meticulously sculpted nose. And what about her toned arms and manicured toes? Wowsers! Sometimes, he pretended to find loose change on the ground so he could bend over and stare at her BBL. One time, she even confessed to him about looking into vaginal rejuvenation, and Gary spent hours researching the procedure. When they were together, Gary had to catch himself during moments of impurity where his fantasies extended into reality as his jeans tightened.
To Gary, Alice was God’s greatest creation and deserving of his watchful inspections.
And like any worthy creation, you needed a favorite piece. While all of Alice’s enhancements were stunning and pushing boundaries, Gary’s obsession focused on Alice’s tits. Cliché perhaps, but undeniable in their beauty. They were round and firm and . . .
No, no, no.
That’s not sufficient. Horrendous, actually.
Gary winced as he dug his fingernails into his hand. He had spent hours sifting through the Merriam-Webster app to find better words than round and firm. A goddess like Alice Rockport deserved more than his one-syllable, elementary-school-level language.
He squeezed his hand harder until his skin separated.
Yes. Yes.
That’s a meaningful way to repent.
Gary refocused on Alice’s tits, letting the magniloquent thoughts overtake him. The tits were voluptuous and invigorating and mesmerizing. Gary imagined that if Alice’s tits could write stories, they’d be responsible for literary classics. They could end wars and terraform new planets. They could feed generations with an unending yield of bountiful harvests. Their shape mimicked twin planets of a distant galaxy he’d never explore. Gary could only hope that one day he’d be the sun that they orbited, making them worship his presence and the gift of light he offered. He pictured (what he assumed to be) her perfect nickel-sized nipples, sewn back on by the doctor who made Alice’s magnificent tits, well, more magnificent. During their live broadcasts, Gary reminded himself to focus the camera on Alice’s face, not her delicious flesh mountains. Perfection deserved airtime too, he rationalized with himself. And what happened when those illuminating tits spoke for the first time? He had to make sure he was filming. He had to preserve history.
“Gay Gary, Gay Gary. Pay attention,” Alice said, snapping her fingers in his face. She found the nickname amusing, always teasing him about his unknown sexuality. Gary, on the other hand, knew she didn’t give everyone pet names, so he learned to embrace it. He’d have her screaming that name one day, you can bet the house on that.
“Gay Gary, at your service,” he said, choking back a pathetic chuckle.
“I’m going to get more information and ask questions. Stay here and get the camera prepped, will you? If you’re feeling like taking your job seriously today, you could even get some B-roll footage. How does that sound?” Her voice climbed an octave as if she were negotiating with a dog. Gary fought against the urge to drop to the pavement and beg for a treat.
“Okay, Alice. Anything for you.”
She shot him one more disdainful look before turning toward the crowd. Gary knew the distorted facial expressions weren’t negative. They liked each other. He’d even argue that she was close to considering him a friend after working together in proximity for four years. If he repulsed her, why would she have suffered him for so long? Think about it like that and the proof is, as they say, in the muddy water.
Gary placed the camera on the grass and sat cross-legged next to it. He poked at the buttons, unsure of what most of them did. He understood how to zoom in and out, and for a local news station, that’s all the expertise one needed.
Gary looked into the lens, ensuring no dust mites blurred his vision. Cleanliness is second to godliness, his mother would chirp while scrubbing his fingers raw with soap. He pulled at his shirt and used the excess fabric to wipe away the unwanted remnants. He huffed his hot breath onto the lens and watched the fog appear and disappear like magic. He rubbed harder at the streak the shirt left behind on the lens. Again and again and aga—
“Garrrryyyyy,” a voice crooned.
A cold rush went down his body, meeting the hot air rising from the ground. He shivered once.
That voice.
No, no.
Gary squeezed his other hand until the nails drew blood. He craved equilibrium. He required balance. What he really needed was to see Alice’s tits again. They always centered him. They always returned him to a neutral state. Where was she? Should he go loo—
“Garrrrryyyyyyyyy. Did you remember to finish the laundry? Cleanliness is second to godliness. Isn’t that right?” The voice whispered into his ear with a disgusting sweetness he hadn’t heard in a decade. His mom spent her last days in hospice, holding on to life because a bitter bitch such as herself refused to die peacefully. Gary’s life recalibrated and burst free from its shackles the moment he watched his mom close her eyes for the last time. She had no parting words, no cognitive ability to give thanks for all he’d done. Out of all the siblings, only Gary hung on while she rotted. He tolerated her abuse and archaic beliefs and the thousand other things that made him hold the phone away from his ear each time she called. Many times, Gary sought understanding on why he couldn’t abandon his mother like the rest, but the only fuzzy answer to surface was that misery had seeped into him. Her three decades of relentless, tireless nagging and torture had burrowed into Gary’s core. He became a one-dimensional monster, the kind he read about as a kid. A mindless zombie. A ravenous vampire. A swamp creature lurking for its next victim. He lost his purpose and worth. His retched mother distilled him down to a subatomic level that left him broken. As much as Gary would convince himself otherwise, not even Alice’s glorious, irreproachable tits could erase the trauma he endured.
So yeah, how could Gary forget her dour screech that spewed sewage?
Gary swatted the words away. They softened and then faded. Returning to whatever horrid place they originated from.
He swiveled his head several times to pinpoint the source. He expected to find a decayed version of his mother staring down at him, smiling with broken teeth and eyes hanging loosely from her skull. Instead, Gary observed nothing except for the silent street behind him. Ahead of Gary, the piles of people still loitered, with Alice lost amongst them.
Gary brought himself to his feet and surveyed the area one more time. The cold rush still settled into his spine, working hard to convince him that the voice wasn’t gone. A small patch of blood was imprinted into the grass, reminding him of the pain he endured for Alice. He’d show her one day. He’d press a bloody hand into her face until she breathed it in and licked the wound clean.
“Gary. Pay attention.” The words were harsher this time, laced with the coarseness his mother so easily slipped into.
Gary snapped his head around and saw the woman standing on the sidewalk thirty yards ahead. Her stark red dress stood out against the decayed shrubs and crumbling concrete ruined by tree roots. Her long black hair was pulled taut into a ponytail that reached her midsection.
She spoke: “Gary, I have something for you.” The words returned as a whisper into his ear. A tingling sensation danced through his stomach as he tried to reconcile how this mysterious woman could speak with such softness from so far away.
“What is it?” he asked, trying to squash his rising fear. Gary knew this wasn’t normal. Far from it. The thought didn’t stick as he took a step forward and nearly stumbled over the camera. Attention from any woman disrupted Gary’s neurons. He sucked in the saliva that sought freedom.
The woman stroked her hair, waiting with reducing patience for Gary to come closer.
Gary crossed the street with caution, but there was no need. Not a single car had passed by since their arrival. The area seemed frozen outside the pocket of chaos that Alice had merged into. How long had it been since she left? Gary felt emptiness and loneliness rushing toward him. Whatever veil covered this area was slipping away.
Up onto the sidewalk and down the block he moved, toward the woman who bore no resemblance to his mother but spoke in all of her variations.
The apartment complex they were here for remained to his right. He walked past each shrouded window, feeling the pursuit of judgmental eyes. He walked past the empty balconies and mismatched brick colors. Contemporary, some would call it. Luxury, others would try to sell it as. All Gary knew was that death had run untethered in that building, but that the woman before him wasn’t responsible.
She was what followed.
“Almost there,” she sang into his ear. “Almosttt thereeee.”
He stopped five feet away from her and allowed himself a clearer look. Her facial features were ordinary and borderline trite. Once Gary’s attention drifted high enough, he couldn’t ignore the pit that inhabited the woman’s left eye. Perhaps a maw. Perhaps a . . . Further words failed to coalesce into substance. A mass of fluid swirled within her disturbed eye, and Gary felt a violent tug of disarray the longer he stared.
Gary tilted his head upward. Vibrant leaves dotted each tree. He watched as one fell from a high branch and landed between him and the woman.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said. Her voice dropped its needless façade. Something more inhuman replaced it.
Gary took another step closer, crushing the fallen leaf into the concrete. He didn’t notice how quickly the orange tint had changed to a lifeless gray.
Gary stretched his arms wide and embraced the woman in a hug. Desire, more than anything else, fueled him. Desire to feel a woman’s body. To have his head pressed against her chest. To experience something real for himself instead of watching it online.
There, on the sidewalk beside the apartment complex that suffered countless tragedies the night prior, Gary Glibberman experienced bliss. The woman stroked his thinning hair and avoided the rolls of fat at the nape of his neck. Seconds ticked by as Gary’s bliss morphed into sobs. Erosion gripped him as the decades of torment by his mother’s actions dissipated all at once. A better version of himself was bound to be waiting on the other side.
All it took was a mysterious woman with a distorted eye.
As Gary found inner peace, the woman went further, pushing into her next form. She muttered the words passed down to her and felt the ripping sensation on her forehead. An oblong hole appeared with the outer edge morphing into a flaky, crust-like material. No pain was associated with this transformation. The woman was unfamiliar with such a concept. She extended far beyond something so trivial.
This was a process she had done a thousand times to a thousand individuals. She harbored no remorse. Another foreign concept to her.
A stream of green phlegm dripped down her forehead from the wound that appeared. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and brought it to her lips. She sucked down the liquid with greed, lusting for more. It was the part she savored the most. That minor act allowed the cycle to continue.
With the phlegm removed, the stream turned black and ran heavy. The ooze ran down the woman’s face, providing a necessary symmetry between What Was and What Is To Be.
After reaching her chin, the blackness dripped onto Gary’s head.
He jerked himself away from the woman, breaking out of the trance. He brought a hand to his scalp, only for it to come away clean.
Gary looked up at her in dismay. The black ooze dissecting the woman’s face was still there, but it now remained still. Frozen in place by a logic Gary couldn’t decipher. “What was that? What are you?” he asked.
She didn’t need to provide him with answers, only commands.
“Open,” she said.
“Open what?”
A guttural noise burst from her throat, and then a single word. “Now.”
Gary let out a small cry as his head yanked upward toward that terrible eye. The pressure against his skull reminded him of a vice grip, like the ones he put his fingers in as a kid. Back then, he enjoyed testing his tolerance, but now, not so much. Gary snapped his eyes shut, wishing he hadn’t crossed the street or collapsed into the woman’s arms. The vice grip moved inward, peeling back one eyelid at a time. With each resistance, his eyelids pulled further apart. He was certain they would rip off, and that he’d need to scurry to find the pieces. The sound of tearing skin echoed in his head as if his eyelids were as flimsy as paper. What would he do then? What woman would treat—?
His meaningless thoughts vanished as he locked eyes with the woman’s void. The mass tumbled over itself endlessly and with no urgency. He lost himself, slipped away to some place that shouldn’t exist.
Gary had no control as his mouth opened wide and the woman tilted her head forward. The ooze ruptured from her forehead and down Gary’s throat. He gurgled and choked, each noise cutting through the silence surrounding them. His legs shook and buckled under the magnitude of what the woman was forcing into him. His hands reached wildly for anything to latch onto. He finally found her arms and dug his nails into the meat of her triceps. The flow continued undisturbed.
Shaping him.
Giving him everything he required.
Alice Rockport returned to the plot of grass where she had left Gary. She carried a small notebook in her hand and tapped a cheap pen against the pages. Her notes were scarce, matching the minimal information she scrounged up. She believed herself to be persistent, with a knack for getting people to spill their guts, regardless of whether it was in front of a camera.
But this apartment complex proved to be a mystery.
She paced around the area, sidestepping the camera, and talking aloud as she pieced together what she’d say. Nothing concrete; all speculation and allegations.
Sources say . . .
We’ve been told by . . .
Authorities have stated . . .
Bullshit like that. Just enough to pique curiosity and not allow anyone to accuse her of inflating a story. As if it mattered. No one watched their shit broadcast anyway. Maybe it was because the station sent her to chase dead-end stories like this one. Alice spun around and confirmed a suspicion: no other news trucks swarmed the curb. Wonderful. They were chasing a news story no one else gave an iota of hogshit about.
Sounded about right.
She paced around more, allowing her mounting frustration to clash against the flimsy narrative she was meant to build.
“Let’s just get on with this,” she said. Alice stabbed at the notepad three more times in quick succession, as she kicked out a foot and into the side of the camera. It wobbled, considered, and then tipped over onto its side. “Goddammit, Gary. One job. You have one job, you gross fuck.” She hovered her other foot over the tilted camera, quickly defogging a better story. One where Gay Gary finally lost his only screw and fled into the backstreets of Dallas, never to be seen again. He left the camera behind for her to haul back to the busted sedan as one last fuck you. She laughed at the idea of Gary becoming some feral creature, terrorizing the placid residents. At least in this part of town, he’d fit in. Why else would they call it the gayborhood, right?
Another mirage. Another fantasy.
In reality, Gary was the best cameraman she had ever worked with. Punctual, patient, and attentive to her needs. It was almost enough to make her shake off the countless times he stared at her chest, mouth half open, one tiny step away from drool sliding down his chin.
Almost.
For retaliation, Alice objectified him too. She stared at his receding hairline and the excess weight that puffed out his cheeks and widened his neck. He wasn’t obese, but Alice figured that any doctor would scold him for what surely was a heightened BMI. Moving downward, she wondered why he wore shirts that defined his nipples with such clarity. They were petite and always erect as if Gary was in a perpetual cold snap. His hairless arms always freaked her out because wasn’t that a sign of femininity? That was a top-tier red flag for her. Best of all, though, Alice would gaze down at the bulge in Gary’s jeans and wonder whether it was all dick or all balls. She knew the general division of men either being growers or showers, but there was a third category no one spoke of: big balls. They pushed out a pathetic penis and made it more appealing than it was. She knew Gary was a part of this minority. All balls and no dick. Alice pictured herself pulling down his jeans and laughing uncontrollably at what stared back at her. It fueled her. Gary’s physical appearance gave her the push she needed during her lonesome nights. And sometimes, she told herself that if no one came along and swept her off her feet, she’d settle for Gary. She’d let him play around with her tits. She’d fondle his giant—needlessly large—balls until he purred her name. She’d pretend to be happy and satisfied.
Just like most other women, she supposed.
“You ready?” a voice asked.
Alice looked up and watched Gary walk across the street with fading enthusiasm, as if he hadn’t been missing for fifteen minutes.
She dodged his question to ask one of her own. “Where the fuck have you been?”
Gary licked the corner of his mouth. “Down the block there.” He pointed behind him. “I was looking to see if we could get better lighting.”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay. Like you have ever cared about that before.”
Gary shrugged, letting his indifference show.
Alice glared back at him. She wanted a fight. She wanted to pick at him until he was nothing. Instead, she said, “Let’s start rolling. I’ll pull something out of my ass.”
Gary bent over and picked up the camera, making no comment on its haphazard state. He hoisted the camera against his right shoulder, clicked several buttons, and pressed his eye to the lens. He followed Alice as she posed herself in front of the meandering crowd.
“Ready,” she said.
Gary held up his free hand and counted down from three and clicked the REC button.
Alice slipped into her field reporter voice as she described the chaos and uncertainty at The Amorphophallus, a luxury apartment complex in the Oak Lawn neighborhood of Dallas. Authorities said they received a spike in emergency calls from the complex. Operators could not gather more information before encountering line disconnections. For hours now police have been trying to make their way into the building, although it appears the entrances are bolted shut. Sources also say that no one has come out of the complex since authorities arrived.
“It sounds like the beginnings of a cliché horror novel,” Alice said into the camera. All high-pitched and cheery and completely inappropriate given the travesty of what indisputably happened. “We will continue to update you as we know more. As things stand, we may never get the full story of what happened here. This is Alice Rockport, reporting for Channel 7 news.”
Gary stopped recording but continued to watch through the camera as Alice turned back to the building. An immaculate conception of mud-colored brick. A modern marvel that mimicked all the other creations throughout the city. No one would care that this one was gone. It would just pave the way for the next. The woman passed along that wisdom. People were adept at forgetting, or, better yet, not caring when the tragedy spared them.
Gary panned out further and waited for something else. A clue. An advancement to the plot. His finger hovered over the REC button. Dangling threads only satiated viewers for so long. They needed closure and a reason.
“They’ll never know,” the voice whispered to him again. “But you do.”
A small string of black ooze leaked from Gary’s eye. He let it linger, and soon it dried on his cheek. To wipe it away would have made him unworthy of his gift.
Gary’s hand twitched and formed into a claw, begging for the space to be slotted with a pen. Blue ink, preferably. And paper. At least two reams worth. His mind cartwheeled with images that told fragments of stories.
So many stories.
Too many.
All of them steeped in sin and coated with despair. Rinsed by gore and bound in brutality. Already, Gary knew none of it was righteous or fair. That was the point.
Slowly, on the sidewalk near The Amorphophallus, the fragments tightened into scenes and sense. And as they did, Gary dropped the camera and cared little for the lens that cracked. He pivoted and hustled toward the car. They wanted to know. They needed to know.
They demanded a record, and he was the only one who could provide it.