[Part 1] [Part 2]

“…five daysss left...”

The words prickled through my cerebellum. I didn’t remember falling asleep, just waking to the sounds of scratching and Knox whining.

I blinked up at the blurry ceiling, catching waning glimpses of mold, cobwebs, and water stains. I scraped at eye crust, coughed out dust, and realized I was still in the defunct motel room.

I rolled to the edge of the bare mattress, narrowly avoiding protruding springs. The frayed padding hosted a collection of stains that you didn’t need a black-light to understand. The bed served as a DNA guest book of the room’s past residents, highlighting their sordid encounters.

Knox growled, pawing furiously at the bathroom door. I squinted that way.

“What’s wrong, buddy?”

By the looks of things, he'd been at it for a while. His nails had shredded the cheap wood, carving deep grooves in its surface. Whatever the hell was on the other side of that door, he didn't like.

“What is it? You smell something? There a critter trapped in there?”

He barked, fangs bared, nose ramming into the doorjamb. He tore at the worn carpet, desperate to burrow underneath it.

I was fully awake now. He never gave false alerts.

“Okay, boy.”

My curiosity turned to caution, especially considering the bizarre circumstances from the past 48 hours. I dug into my backpack and pulled out the only weapon I carried, a four-cell flashlight. It wasn’t much, but it was heavy and dense enough to bash in a skull if necessary.

I crept over to the door, raising a finger to my lips to let Knox know we had to be quiet. He huffed once more, then backed up, allowing me to close in. I pressed my ear up against the door and listened, the splintered wood scraping my skin. I heard something… low and distinct… an unsettling gurgle interspersed with strange crackles and pops.

I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it wasn’t Rice Krispies.

Something was in there.

I leaned harder against the door and it suddenly swung open.I tumbled inside, flashlight clattering to the tile below. I landed hard on my hands and knees. The flashlight spun, its illuminated cone casting a murderous merry-go-round of light and dark.

I snatched it up, neck covered in goose flesh. I slashed the light in quick arcs around the room. My pulse throttled. I shivered as my breath crystallized in a sudden cold. I could feel a presence nearby, but I couldn’t see it. My pupils darted left and right, searching the darkness for a beast or a council of shadows.

Instead, I found a clogged toilet and tub, both filled with rotted biological stew. Air bubbles rose to the congealed surface and popped, frothing like meringue. I pinched my nose and gagged at the acrid stench. I flinched as black ovals darted out on the floor. Roaches. A whole colony.

Great. So much for a shit and a shower.

I stumbled to my feet, wincing at the fiery pain in my side. I clutched my bandaged ribs. For the moment, the growth remained silent. I hadn’t heard its thick, hissing growl since its taunt the previous night. And that was fine by me.

I preferred the quiet.

As a kid I rarely spoke. Some thought I was mute. My father wasn’t having it. Though, he died five years ago, I could still hear his deep, bellowing voice. “Don’t be timid! Don’t be quiet, boy! Won’t nobody respect you! Speak up! Look ‘em in the eyes. Speak up and let ‘em know!”

I’d been a loudmouth ever since.

I stood there, enjoying the momentary mercy of nostalgia. A slight reprieve from my horrors. I took a few deep breaths. Maybe this was all one big hallucinatory dreamscape… the result of Scorpion Dave’s weed… or one of his spells.

My hand twitched as something skittered across my hand.

“AHH!!!”

I smacked a palm down, crushing it. A spider. I scraped its gooey carcass onto a rusty towel rod. I sneered at spent condoms in the waste basket, then hunched over the sink, staring at the ghostly apparition in the mirror.

It looked like me… only dead. Tattered skin hung loose, like a flayed garment stretched across spiky bony. It had ink blots for eyes. Twisted, thorny whiskers. Its flesh-picked fingers reached towards me, sprouting out of the mirror’s surface, grabbing me by the neck.

I snapped back to awareness, fumbling a prescription bottle into the sink. Doc Williams’s gift. I picked it up, wrestling the child safety lid to get at the painkillers inside. I tossed two in my mouth and chewed them, scowling at the bitter taste.

I turned on the faucet. No water came. Instead, there was a loud, shudder… a sputtering knock swelling within the walls. The tiles creaked as cracks splintered up the wall’s surface. The faucet shuddered violently before spewing a black oily discharge that splattered across the sink basin.

The flow thinned and lightened as actual water followed. I reached past the goo, stealing a cupped palm of water. I downed it, desperate to chase the taste from my mouth. The runoff spilled down my chin, dripping below.

Only, the drops were red.

I snapped my head up, peering at my reflection. Blood streamed from my nose.

“What the hell…”

I pinched my nostrils, my fingertips coming back wet, but clear. I did a double take. There was no blood in the sink, on my fingers, or face.

But, I know I’d seen it.

My head lolled, legs quivering. My mind spun.

Had I imagined everything? Was I losing my grip?

I turned to Knox, who stood in the doorway, eyeing me with concern. I took a step toward him and he backpedaled.

“What’s wrong? You afraid of me?”

He whimpered, lowering his head. Then, he flashed his fangs. Growling. Eyes glaring with a savagery I’d not seen before.

“Easy buddy. It’s all right. It’s just me.”

Spittle flew from his jaw as his lips trembled, signaling his desire to attack. I took another step toward him, and his growling intensified.

“Knox?”

He started barking, full throat, jaws gnashing, eyes narrowed, haunches high. I heard sloshing behind me and froze in place.

Knox wasn’t barking at me.

The liquid sounds increased in volume, as if something were rising out of the bio slop. My eyes shot to the flashlight on the counter. I reached towards it, feeling cold breath whisking the back of my neck. My muscles clenched as gooseflesh down my spine.

The squelching grew closer. My fingers fumbled, grasping for the flashlight.

I spun around, training the beam on a humanoid figure emerging from the jelly. It rose, unnatural, in a straight column as if pushed by a vertical lift. It was five-foot tall, misshapen, forming like a wax statue melting in reverse.

A scream caught in my throat as I stumbled backward, landing on my ass, right next to Knox’s snapping jowls. I held him back as the figure stepped out of the tub, planting slimy feet on the floor.

It stood there, hardening from gel to man, translucent skin wrapping its frame, encasing nerve branches, arteries, tendons, and guts like a sausage skin. Jellied eyes bubbled into hollow sockets. A tongue sprouted, surrounded by moist teeth and gums. Organs formed, encased in a tapestry of bone and blood. My heart galloped as its skin clouded with pigment, taking on an ochre speckled hue.

Were those liver spots?

The figure was fully formed now, taking on the hunched, wrinkled appearance of a nude Asian man in his 70s. Odder still were the garments that seemed to sprout from his pores, first as individual threads, blooming like hairs. They wove together, forming undergarments, shirt, slacks, and a matching suit jacket. The final piece was his topping crown… a classic bowler hat.

The old man stood there, unblinking, staring through me with the darkest of eyes. He resembled an elderly version of Oddjob from Goldfinger, had he lived longer in this world. He advanced towards us with jilted, unsteady steps.

The flashlight trembled in my hands, its light flickering like a strobe.

He got closer and closer.

The growth broke its silence with that unmistakable hiss.

“…sssssentry…”

I couldn’t believe it. There, standing before me was an in-flesh manifestation of the tumor’s power. The first of its prophecies come true.

The sentry leaned down, opening his mouth, revealing a hollow portal stretching off into eternity.

And from that void, came an unearthly shriek. Loud and terrifying. It flung me against the far wall, the shockwave rattling my bones and blood.

I stared up from my back, eyes scrambling for focus, my hands grasping around. I could hear the sentry’s footsteps as it neared. I could hear Knox barking. I could hear the growth cackling.

“…four daysss left...”

I touched my head and felt the warm wet of leaking blood as darkness crashed down like a curtain.

[Part 1]

“…sssix daysss left…” the voice hissed.

Those words drifted through my skull like a fog through tombstones as I dreamt about the frightful events from the night before. I was startled from my sleep by thunderclaps and heavy rain. The roof of the car drummed like an old tin snare as sheets of water swallowed the windshield.

The car rocked as a shadow bumped into it, blurring past my window. I bolted upright, heart racing. I clutched my chest and caught my breath as I realized it was just an intoxicated motel dweller stumbling back to his room.

I exhaled, rubbing my jaw, clicking it from side to side. My mouth was sore. Lips cracked. Felt like a football had been rammed down my throat.

“…sssix daysss left…”

What did it mean? Was it real?

Six days left until what?

And, the warning came yesterday.

Did that mean there were only five days left now?

I clawed at my hair. I was so hammered and sleep deprived, I didn’t know what to think. I just knew I was cold and haunted by that reptilian hiss.

My stomach gurgled, my belly assaulted by sharp stabs of pain. I hiked up my shirt to see a bloated gut bulging beneath the bandages. Nausea swelled and I grabbed the car door, surprised to find it already cracked. Fresh rainwater drizzled inside.

Had I left in the middle of the night?

No time to wonder as I vomited reddish orange chunks onto the street. My heaves woke Knox from his nap.

“Sorry, bud.”

Beyond traces of bile, there was other residue in my mouth. I wiped my lips, cotton tongue flicking the stale taste of copper from my teeth. I fished a finger around my gums, picking out bits of fat and sinew.

What the hell did I eat?

My eyes snapped to my bandaged fingertips. They were stained red.

Was that blood?

I spied my reflection in the rear-view mirror, shocked to see dried crimson all over my face.

“WHAT THE HELL?!”

Knox snapped to full alert.

“It’s okay… we’re okay,” I reached over to pet him and he recoiled.

I looked around the car, suddenly aware of the red handprints everywhere.

Where did this come from? Whose blood was this?

I peeled back my lips, checking to make sure I didn’t have fangs, then slumped back in my seat, teetering between hysteria and anguish.

I was too bloody to hit the gym. I washed up in pooled rainwater beneath an underpass. The locals didn’t seem to mind. One of them awoke and cast a suspicious glare in my direction. I shot one back at him, staring at the brown paper bag in his hand. He took a swig, nodded ‘Touché’, then curled back into his pile of blankets.

The library was my lifeline. A place to get off the streets. Decent bathrooms. Free WIFI. I hit the computer lab with the midday regulars. A few professionals, the unemployed, and scavengers like me. Hermit crabs, carrying the entirety of our lives on our backs. I reached into my backpack and pulled out a worn notebook. A cheap spiral number, ragged and stained, curled pages detailing the only thing that still mattered to me… the search for my son.

I logged onto a computer and searched his social media, scouring the web for any clues of where he went. There were no new posts. Last photo was six months ago. He didn’t seem happy. His eyes looked vacant. I wondered who had taken the pic. I printed a hard copy.

…where are you, son?

My side itched. I raked fingers across my bandage. A fleck of burnt skin tumbled from the folds. I picked it up and inspected it. Noticed the person in the cube next to me, staring with disgust.

“Feeeeed...”

There was that voice again.

I sat up in my chair.

Oh shit. It was real.

I wasn’t wasted or asleep. I looked around to see if anyone else had heard it. Nope. Just me.

“Feeeeed...” it called again.

I replied with a thought, “Feed what?”

“Ussssssss.”

The words landed like syrup on carpet. My stomach frosted over. I quivered at that booming hiss.

“Who are you?”

“Feeeeed usss.”

“Tell me who—”

“FEEEEED USSSS!” it shouted in my mind

I stood up, clutching my skull.

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!”

I realized I had yelled this out loud. All eyes were on me. I quickly gathered my things and scrambled towards the exit. People pointed and whispered, shooting accusatory glares, some muttering that I was crazy.

Who knows… maybe they were right.

I bounded out of the front doors and stumbled down the steps to the car. I threw my body inside, keyed the ignition, and took off. I white-knuckled the steering wheel, gunning the gas, not sure where I was headed. Knox whimpered from the passenger seat.

“FEEEED USSSSS!”

“YEAH, YEAH, I GOT IT! FEED US! NOW, WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO—”

I blacked out, mid-sentence.

I woke up, lying next to the car, parked at a rocky overlook. Knox was curled up beside me. I tried to piece things together. I remembered slices of time, bits of an afternoon. A grocery store… snatching raw meat… chewing sanguine flesh… blood running down my chin… stomach cramps… crapping behind a dumpster.

My hands trembled. Knox sniffed around as I sat on the hood of the car, gazing down at a suburban sprawl. Homes filled with families like the one I’d lost. I broke down, cupping my head, as tears spilled between my fingers.

The voice hissed from the rafters of my mind, “…five daysss left…”

“Who are you? Why are you here?!” I asked.

“Travelersss… here to consssume…”

“Consume what? Raw meat?”

“…and dessstroy.”

My blood ran cold.

“Destroy?”

“Thisss planet.”

My flesh crinkled as it spoke the words with the frigid indifference of fact.

“In five days? How?”

“Burn. It. All.”

I laughed at the sheer lunacy of it all.

“Man, you’re just a hungry-ass space pimple. There’s no way you can possibly—”

“You will witnesss four terrorsss firssst.”

My laughter died as it laid out four omens to come… promises of its power… each dotted with a slithering drawl.

“The sssentry…

…the masksss…

…the ssshadowsss…

…and you ssshall sssee the light.

Twenty minutes later, I was sprinting out of a Mega-Mart, arms full of stolen gin, gauze, X-Acto knives, and peroxide. A heavyset security guard gave chase but couldn’t keep up. He hunched over, shaking a fist, as I sped off in the car.

I dumped the stolen supplies in a gas station bathroom sink. I unwrapped my bandages, doused peroxide on my side, and uncapped the X-Acto knife. I stared at the blade, wary.

“Ssstop.”

I took a belt of gin, blood pressure be damned, and brought the blade to bear on the edge of the growth. The tip pierced my skin, and I groaned through gnashed teeth as the first drops of blood splattered into the sink below.

“We cannot allow it.”

More drops of blood, big and thick, as I shoved the blade in further, wrenching it back and forth, digging into the meat. The razor carved a jagged, circular path through misshapen skin that looked like melted wax.

“We cannot allow it.”

“Yeah? S-s-sstop me!”

I stabbed the knife down. Goopy pus and red jelly spilled from my side. I hacked the blade, tracing around the outer edges of the tumor. Satisfied with my cut, I dropped the razor in the sink, grabbed the edge of the incision, dug my fingernails beneath the lip, and started to pull.

“WE CANNOT ALLOW IT.”

CLINK! CLINK!

“SHUT UP!!!”

The burnt clump of meat started to tear from my side. I screamed as the mound of flesh stretched and twisted away in wet ribbons.

“WE CANNOT ALLOW IT!”

CLINK! CLINK!

I tugged and yanked at the growth, but it fought back, black tendrils lashing out, keeping it tethered to my frame like fleshy bungee cords.

“GET… OFFF… MEEE!!!”

CLINK! CLINK!

The entire world fell away from me and I found myself sitting in the car, Knox to my right. We were parked behind the motel. The pot-bellied manager stood outside my door, beneath an umbrella. He had milky eyes, a scarred neck, and a gun bulge beneath an ill-fitting track suit.

He rapped on the glass with a gold pinky ring.

“You hearin’ me, pal? I said we can’t allow it. You can’t park here no more. Getting’ complaints from our upscale tenants.”

He studied my bewilderment, then shook his head.

“Ah fer chrissakes… look… I been there. I got one room. Out of order. No power. No hot water. But… I can give you a few hours… just til’ morning. Then, you gotta clear outta here and never come back.”

I shivered, naked, in the motel room. My chest heaved. I stared at my rib cage, horrified. There, rising and falling, sat the unbothered mound of charred alien flesh. There wasn’t so much as a scratch. Its bond to my body had strengthened with thick fleshy roots.

And it was growing. Pulsing. Hissing a defiant new warning.

“…five daysss left...”

SUNDAY

My son disappeared six months ago. Right after his 22nd birthday. He wasn’t doing well with our divorce. Started hanging with the wrong crowd and skipping work, before totally vanishing.

We used to be close. Building Lego starships. Swapping comics and anime. I thought our bond was unbreakable. But, then he ghosted everyone. Ignored calls. Unread texts. An abandoned apartment. Neither I nor my ex had any idea where he was, who he was with, or what he was doing.

Was he safe? Was he hurt? Was he… alive?

It damn near destroyed Theresa. Just like our marriage, she blamed me for everything, and I took it on the chin. Tried to be strong, but inside, my heart was caught on jagged nails. The more I wondered where my son was, the more my flesh tore apart.

Time passed in a blur. I drank to numb the pain. Stayed fucked up. Blood pressure went to shit and so did everything else.

Got fired. Lost my apartment. Moved into the car with Knox, my Jack Russell Terrier. Couldn’t drink any more so I switched to weed.

Hustled where I could… day labor and Door Dash to make a few ends. Showered and cut my hair at the gym. Walked Knox at the park. But, I always stayed high.

There was no pleasure in it. It was an empty, perpetual state of zombie-hood. Wondering how I’d ended up divorced and with a son who didn’t want shit to do with me.

I opened my stash box and discovered I was dry. A few green crumbs the size of a pinhead. Maybe enough to get a cockroach fucked up, but that’s about it.

Knox licked my fingers as I rifled through my wallet. Ten bucks. All I had to my name, but at least I could smoke.

Scorpion Dave sold the best weed. The problem was, he lived way out in the middle of nowhere. ‘The Flats.’ A bone-dry wasteland. An endless sheet of dead earth.

Still… if this was gonna be my last mental escape for a while, I needed it to be good.

I texted him saying I needed to pick up. A simple thumbs-up emoji told me to bring my ass on.

Scorpion Dave was a curious creature. He carried himself like some sort of desert shaman. A recluse who dabbled in Eastern philosophy, meditation, and the mystic arts, he lived about as far off the grid as he could. But, he had connections and he knew how to get the stickiest shit around.

Knox and I headed out there around noon. It was abnormally dark. Thick storm clouds threatened overhead, choking off the daylight. The sun had stepped outside, said ‘fuck this,’ then dipped out like a runny yolk sliding off a plate.

Knox leaned on the dash, peering ahead with a concerned whimper.

“It’s okay, buddy,” I reassured, rubbing his fur.

He wasn’t convinced.

Can’t say I blamed him. Driving out there was eerie. Nothing but cracked earth for miles and poisonous critters ready to let you know you were in the wrong neighborhood.

I parked next to Scorpion Dave’s Airstream, my tires kicking up plumes of dust. Knox scampered around, sniffing and pawing the dirt. Chilled air bit at my skin. I rubbed cracked fingers together and stomped on a scorpion as a coyote howled in the distance.

Man… fuck this place.

The trailer jostled, some movement inside. Its shiny, sausage-like frame rocked from shifting weight. The door flung open and Scorpion Dave popped out, arms outstretched like a long-lost brother.

“Brooooo, it’s good to see you, man.”

I nodded and cracked a forced smile, “Yeah, you too.”

He was a living puzzle… a sunburnt, sixty-something hippie decked out in pretentious enlightenment and new money flex.

He rocked garb befitting a Saharan monk… a loose-fitting hemp tunic spread wide to show his dark, leathery chest. Every inch of his skin was covered in runic tattoos. Yet, he wore a smartwatch and a gaudy array of gold bracelets and rings. He had two smartphones clipped to his belt, a silver man-bun, and rhinestone beads woven into his beard.

He strolled over in baggy harem pants and old Timbs kicking up salt dust. A shiny talisman jangled among his neck chains, and the solar goggles, perched on his forehead, gleamed like bug eyes.

He leaned down and petted Knox’s belly, “Who’s a good boy? Yeeeesss, yes you are.”

A moment later, I went to dap him up and he interlaced our fingers and pulled me into an unexpected hug. He sniffed me, as if trying to inhale my soul.

“Yo, hold up, bro…” I said, trying to block him. But, he had old man strength, which he used to clutch me tighter, sniffing all the harder.

…the fuck?

“Relaaaaaax. It’s been a minute, brother. Gotta check your chakras.”

Knox cocked his head, confused by our strange embrace.

Scorpion Dave finally let go, clicking his teeth, “Mmmm, not good…”

He stepped back and studied me like some sort of specimen, deciding which of his latest healing methods to employ. His expression shifted, “Where you been? You ain’t been smoking?”

“Nah,” I waved.

Couldn’t tell him I’d been buying cheaper shit elsewhere.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he laughed, “but you look like a sack of reheated dogshit. No offense, Knox.”

Knox barked.

Scorpion Dave turned towards the camper, “Come on. We’ll smoke and talk about what’s troubling ya.”

The inside of his trailer was a cyclone of unchecked bachelorhood. Dog-eared philosophy books and empty pizza boxes. Piles of dirty clothes and Amazon packages. Classic rock posters tacked to the walls. A vinyl collection. And a perpetual thick cloud of haze surrounding it all.

I spied a stack of cash on the counter and entertained the brief daydream of robbing him. That thought disintegrated as soon as he pulled a polished 9mm from his waistband and set it next to the money.

Knox stood near the coffee table, sniffing vacuum-sealed bags stuffed with bud. They had various names scrawled across in Sharpie. Things like ‘Purple Nurple’, ‘Zoot-Topia’, and one peculiar label that caught my eye, entitled: ‘See God.’

He caught me staring at it.

“You wanna try that one, don’t you?”

He grinned like a kid on a snow day, flicked out a switchblade, and stabbed the bag open. He handed it to me and I brought it close, taking a deep whiff. The rich, dank aroma billowed out, spiraling up my nostrils.

“Smells strong.”

“Ain’t nothing stronger, brother.”

He made room on the table and set down the most intricate piece of glassware I’d ever seen. He called it ‘King Bong.’

A few minutes later, Knox was curled up in an old blanket, and we were taking huge rips from the water pipe. I never coughed so hard in my life. I felt my heart pounding through my chest, rattling in my eardrums.

“Whoo, I don’t know, man. This stuff is—”

“Fffffucking amazing!” he said.

He pointed at me with a sudden sternness, “Now, we need to discuss how you’re gonna get your life back on track.”

I nodded through my stupor as he went on.

“You can’t just use the herb as a crutch. You also gotta do the work, man. The mental work.”

He gestured with his hands as if he was referring to diagrams on a giant invisible whiteboard.

“Everything in the cosmos is interconnected.”

Knox poked his head up, curious for a moment, before stretching out and closing his eyes once more.

Scorpion Dave took another huge toke, exhaling thick tendrils of smoke from his nostrils as he continued. “Weed may help you open your third eye, but the question is, what are you seeing?”

My vision started to quake.

“Oh shiiiit…”

The outer boundaries of my peripheral sight warped and flexed as if my visual field had suddenly become elastic.

Scorpion Dave’s voice devolved to a distant, hollow drone. It reverberated and echoed, as if I was listening to him through an old P.A. system.

“Don’t worry, bro, weeeeee’re gonna get you right.” He laughed, “Oh yes. Weeeee’re gonna get you riiiiiight.”

Over the course of the next few hours, things took a strange turn. I blacked out a few times. In the brief slices of consciousness in between, I saw things… odd things.

I couldn’t tell if they were real or imagined.

One time, I opened my eyes and saw Scorpion Dave hovering over me. He had some sort of deer antler headdress atop his matted hair like a crown. Bits of bone and beads dangled beneath from corded leather strands. He held sticks of lit sage, wafting smoke all over while performing some kind of strange chant.

Another time, I woke up and he was inches close, nose to nose, eyes staring deep into mine. He had the strangest smile, and I could see the glimmer of fresh saliva coating his teeth.

I finally came to after sunset. I didn’t bring up the fever dream shenanigans. I was too distracted by ravenous hunger. My stomach growled from neglect.

Scorpion Dave didn’t have much around in the way of food. I scrounged through his cabinets, finding an old tin of beef jerky and a half bag of stale chips. Knox and I scarfed them down without second thought.

My gut roared, unhappy at the rotten fuel. I stumbled into the John, dropped my jeans, and blasted the bowl with an ungodly torrent of liquid shit.

I was in the middle of pinching my nose and spraying lemon air freshener when I heard something outside.

A tumbling shrill whine, like a diving slide-whistle, nearing from the distance. It sounded like an incoming missile or bomb.

I stood up, mid-shit, and peeked out of the porthole window behind the toilet. I couldn’t see much but was able to make out a faint trail of fire slicing across the twilight sky.

“What the hell is—”

KRA-KOOM!

The trailer jolted from a violent shockwave. I pitched face-first into the door, landing hard on the floor, drenched in brown, goopy water. I felt the bridge of my nose, checking to see if it was broken.

It wasn’t.

Lucky. If you call being coated in shit, lucky.

I stumbled out of the bathroom, groaning. Knox barked by the door. I flung wet arms, “WHAT WAS THAT?!”

Scorpion Dave was already on his feet, pistol in hand, peering out of the window.

“Don’t know… but we’re fixin’ to find out.”

He sniffed the air, then looked over at me, “Damn, you stink.”

Seconds later, Knox and I were trailing his flapping tunic outside.

I did my best to towel off as we hustled forward.

“Hey, man… maybe we should hang back in the trailer,” I suggested.

“Quit being a pussy,” he trudged ahead.

He held a flashlight in his left hand and the gun in his right. We kept marching over the desert floor, approaching something bleeding smoke off the horizon.

Knox took off into a full sprint.

“HEY, COME BACK!” I yelled.

Too late. He was determined to investigate.

Scorpion Dave picked up speed, pointing ahead, “What is that?”

I struggled to keep pace, still dizzy from my spell-like delirium. As far as I could remember, it was the first time I’d ever seen Scorpion Dave rattled.

We caught up with Knox, who was busy barking and sniffing around a fresh, six-foot-wide crater in the ground. Steam hissed, rising from the gaping hole.

We reached the lip and peered down into the darkness. I spotted the pulsing glow of a strange, metallic object embedded in the center. It was oblong and oval, tapering down to pointy ends. It looked about two feet in length. Its shiny surface crackled with iridescent sparks.

“What is that?” I said. “Space junk? Part of a satellite?”

“Not no satellite I’ve ever seen.”

With all his years of heavy partying, not only was Scorpion Dave a paranoid psych guru, he also was a certified, tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist.

“Naw… this gotta be some secret governmental shit. Area 51 ain’t far. They got all kinds of weird alien shit over there. Always testing and launching. Then, they bury it after… to keep things quiet.”

As much as I hated to admit it, Scorpion Dave was right. Upon closer inspection, the object didn’t appear to be man-made.

It looked like a celestial football that had been punted from the universe, ejected from the cosmos.

“What do you think it is?” I said.

“Escape pod? Seed capsule? Don’t know. Don’t wanna know.”

He gestured for quiet, “Shh. You hear that?”

I cocked my head like Knox, as if pointing my ear at that angle might help me hear better. There was something else… a high-pitched hum. A frequency you might hear from appliances or radio interference.

“Yeah, what is it?” I said.

“If you’d shut the hell up, we might be able to find out.”

There was a metallic squeal as spider cracks splintered across the object’s dented hull. Blinding creases of light spilled from its core.

Scorpion Dave took a few steps back, unsettled. Emboldened by my high, I stooped down, leaning to get a closer look. A luminous goo, like lava, seeped from the fractures. The object sizzled and popped as the earth beneath it baked into hardened glass.

“Get away from it, man!” Scorpion Dave said.

“Okay, who’s the pussy now?” I laughed, and that’s when I noticed his face had gone completely slack.

His jaw hung loose, his mouth agape, eyes full of an expression I’d never seen on his face before.

Abject fear.

“Brother, you really should step back.”

“Why?”

PSSSSHHHH!!!

The metal object split open, spewing hot orange goo across the left side of my torso.

The fabric of my shirt instantly vaporized as the slime clung to my skin, searing it like napalm.

“GAAAAH!!! IT BURNS!!!!”

Knox barked, instinctively trying to protect me.

I ran in circles, ripping off the remnants of the smoking shirt, patting my hands all over the raw burns. The flesh from my fingertips stuck to my side, peeling away like melted cheese as I yanked them back.

“AAAH, GET IT OFF ME!!! GET IT OFF ME!!!”

“STOP, DROP, AND ROLL, MOTHERFUCKER!!!” Scorpion Dave motioned with the gun.

I hit the deck, rolling my bare skin across the ground. The white-hot pain of salt in the wound short-circuited my nervous system.

The last thing I remember was staring up at the starlit sky, and Scorpion Dave leaning over me in a blurry swirl.

His words stretched out in slow-motion slurs.

“Are youuuuuu okkkkkayyyyyy???” he said. “Dooooo youuuuuu seeeeeee Godddd?”

His face flickered, just slightly, changing into something else. Pale as aspirin. Inhuman. Though, I couldn’t read any fine details through the blur.

Then, everything went dark.

I woke up later that night with Knox licking my face. His whimpers of concern turned into gleeful panting.

I rubbed my eyes, surprised to find white medical tape wrapped around my burnt fingertips.

We were back in my car, only, we weren’t out at the flats and Scorpion Dave was nowhere around.

We were parked behind the shitty motel where we’d held camp for the past few months. A cheap hourly dive that mostly housed prostitutes and tweakers.

I peered through the windshield, meeting the suspicious gaze of a streetwalker puffing a cigarette. She crushed the butt under-heel, adjusted her cleavage, then headed around the corner.

I touched the left side of my ribs and winced, feeling the burns beneath a neatly applied ACE bandage wrap.

Was Scorpion Dave a nurse, too?

I tried texting and calling him but got no answer. Maybe he was as fucked in the head as I was.

I let Knox out to pee and walked around the car, pleased that there were no new dents. At least I hadn’t crashed into anything during my blackout.

The Gym was closed, so I headed to a gas station and washed up in the single stall bathroom. I groaned, looking in the cracked mirror, trying to find any remnants of humanity in the bony sack of skin staring back at me.

I hardly recognized myself. Gaunt. Malnourished. Salt-and-pepper whiskers. Looking way older than my forty-five years.

I poked the spongy bags beneath my eyes, hocked a glob of mucus into the sink, and scratched my balls.

After some deliberation, I sniffed my fingers.

Ugh.

Tighty-whities were due for a change.

BANG! BANG!

I flinched, the rusty lock rattling, as somebody pounded on the door.

“Uh, yeah… just a minute,” I said.

I stared in the mirror again, transfixed, my hands moving back to the bandage. I prodded around with my fingers, wincing with every press. There was fresh swelling. I touched it.

What is that?

Whatever came out of that object had done a real number on me.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Urgent knocking this time.

“Just a minute!” I said.

I started to peel the bandage away. It clung to my skin, pulling away reluctantly, tearing bubbling skin off with it.

“OW! SHIT!”

I tugged a little more, until I saw the oozing, gnarly edge of warped flesh.

What the hell…?

BANG! BANG! BANG!

“ALRIGHT, I’M LEAVING!!!”

I threw the door open and found myself face to face with an elderly man leaning over his walker. He clutched his crotch as a wet stain spread across.

“Sorry, man,” I muttered. “Here. Let me help you.”

I slumped back into the car and clawed at my side. The burns were tap-dancing on my nerve endings. The itch and pain, searing.

Reminded me of the time I had gotten Shingles a few years back. Dreadful condition. Started out like a few tiny mosquito bites and ended up a vicious beast that ravaged the left side of my body. It culminated in white-hot needles of pain, stabbing and tasing me at their whim.

I’d be damned if I was gonna go through that again.

Knox watched me scratching with a curious gaze. It was almost as if he could feel my pain. A year prior, he had run through a patch of poison ivy. I had taken him to the vet, who gave him a cream.

“I could use some of your medicine right about now, bud.”

I snapped my fingers and Knox cocked his head.

We drove towards Dr. Williams’s office. Knox’s vet. On the way, Knox whimpered, nervous in the passenger seat.

I patted his fur, promising we were going there for me and not him. He didn’t seem convinced.

It was 10 p.m. The office was closed. All the better since I didn’t have money to pay for a visit.

We scuttled into the rear alleyway.

“Keep an eye out for me, will you, bud?”

Knox huffed and swiveled his head, looking around.

Good boy.

I hoped karma would be forgiving as I wrapped my fist in an old rag and punched through the glass window in the backdoor.

“Ow!”

I slid my hand back out and plucked a jagged, triangular wedge of glass from my knuckles. I tossed it aside applying pressure to slow the bleeding.

Drops of blood splattered on the pavement below. So much for not leaving any evidence at the scene of the crime.

I pushed the door open and knew I didn’t have to worry about an alarm. Doc Williams was behind the times and far too trusting. At Knox’s last visit, I told him he should upgrade his office with a modern security system. He laughed and waved it off as unnecessary, offering some quip about still having faith in humanity.

Yeah, well… I had faith in myself once too. Some shit just changes you.

I tore open drawers, rifled through boxes, and eventually jimmied my way into the locked medical cabinet where Doc Williams kept the good stuff.

Not that I had any fucking clue what to use.

I was squinting at the tiny label on a vial when…

CLICK!

…I felt the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed against the back of my neck.

“That’s enough, son. Hold it right there.”

I immediately recognized the voice of Doc Williams.

I turned around and met his gaze. His expression softened, then hardened once more as he lowered the gun.

“Lenny?” he said, shaking his head. “Boy, what the hell you doin’?”

He meant it in the fatherly sense, and I could tell from his eyes he had the disappointment of one too.

“I, uh, I’m sorry.” I gestured with my bloodied hand. “I’m flat broke. And I got this thing on my side. Hurts and itches like hell.”

“Ever heard of an emergency room?!”

I hung my head in shame as he shuffled past me, snatching the vial from my hand.

“Got no insurance. Emergency room wouldn’t see me for hours. Then, they’d tell me to take an aspirin and send me on my way. Besides, I wasn’t gonna steal nothing. And I was gonna pay for that window. I was gonna make it up to you.”

I paused with a sudden wonder of how I’d gotten caught, “Wait a minute… You own a gun? You didn’t even have a security system.”

He smirked, placing the pistol inside a desk drawer.

“Put a silent alarm in a few months ago.”

“What about all that ‘faith in humanity’ stuff?”

“Faith in humanity is all well and good, but my insurance adjuster didn’t give a shit about that.”

He furrowed his brow, “Why didn’t you just call me?”

I looked away, embarrassed once more, “Stupidity. Shame. I don’t know. Guess I didn’t think you would help.”

He kicked aside some broken glass.

“Well…” he let out a deep sigh, the kind only a father could know. “Lemme see what was so damn urgent that you had to break in here and do all… this.”

Moments later I sat on his table. Knox backed into the corner, still unsure if this was all a ruse to get him in the exam room.

Doc Williams sat on a stool, snapped on rubber gloves, and angled a swing lamp over my midsection.

“All right, let’s see it.”

He peeled back the bandage with care.

“Ooh, that’s a doozy,” he whistled as he got his first look. The noise he made was like the falling space object.

He flipped down a magnification visor that distorted his eyes, large, like a cartoon character.

“How’d you say you got this again?”

I hadn’t peeked down yet, not ready to bring my eyes to bear on the ruined flesh.

“Doing a stupid ass thing,” was the best I could come up with.

He continued prying away the ribbons of my wrapping. One by one the concentric layers of gauze fell away, revealing a complete portrait of the damage. I heard a gasp escape Doc’s throat.

I gulped down some air of my own, then looked for the first time, startled at the misshapen web of flesh that now covered the left side of my rib cage.

“That ain’t poison ivy,” Doc muttered. “I don’t know if I got anything that’ll clear that up.”

My skin was a doughy mess, freckled with raised blisters, some cracked and leaking pus. Black tendrils, like varicose veins, sprouted from a central raised lump, stretching out across my torso like tree roots seeking water.

“What the fuck is that?” I yelped, heart catching in my throat.

“Nothing from any textbook,” Doc Williams rubbed his chin, marveling at the sight.

He whipped out a ruler and got busy scrawling measurements in a notebook. I could tell he was enthralled and intrigued by this medical mystery.

“Six centimeters in diameter,” Doc Williams grinned, “He’s just a little fella.”

The ruler grazed the center nodule. It recoiled with a lurch, flexing with sweat.

“Ooh, he didn’t like that,” Doc Williams whistled again.

“Can you stop calling it he? And did it just… move on its own?”

He pressed it with the tip of his gloved finger. The lesion squirmed, swelling and deflating, as if it were respirating.

“L-looks like it’s breathin'.”

“Impossible,” he shook his head.

He was a science man after all. Everything had a logical explanation. Well, except for church and God.

“Abscesses don’t breathe but they can jiggle with fluid. We’ll aspirate. No need to worry.”

He swiveled to my left and picked over a tray of gleaming medical instruments, none of them friendly.

“Ah, there we go,” he smiled, raising an empty syringe with a three-inch-long needle. He flicked its barrel, “That oughta do the trick!”

“Trick! What trick?!”

He pushed me flat on my back. I winced as the scarred flesh beneath my shoulder blade contacted the cold steel table.

“Don’t worry, this won’t hurt a bit.”

“The fuck it won’t!” I tried to get up.

“Oh, fine,” he grabbed a spray canister, “…if you’re gonna be a little bitch about it.”

He spritzed a numbing agent over the wound and told me to look away and think happy thoughts. And that might have worked if I hadn’t seen the reflection of what he was doing in a glass cabinet on the opposite wall.

He inserted the needle tip into the center of the mass, popping a gooey pustule as he went.

“AAHHH!!!” I yelled, gritting my teeth and clenching my fists.

“Easy does it,” drew back the plunger with a chuckle. “Didn’t know you had such a nice singing voice. We could always use another choir member at church.”

On one hand, I could appreciate what he was trying to do. On the other hand, I wished he’d just shut the fuck up. Still, he was helping me, and he hadn’t called the police. So, the least I could do was put up with his stale humor.

I stared at the reflection, watching as a thick yellow gel filled up the vacant syringe.

PLOCK!

He withdrew the needle, staring at the full tube with amazement.

“You’re no donut and that ain’t cream fillin’. Gonna send this off to the lab.”

He stitched up my hand, wrapped a fresh bandage over the growth, gave me a tube of ointment, and some pills for the pain.

I promised to come back and pay for the window. He declined and told me to take better care of myself and Knox instead. He patted me on the shoulder and asked, “Hey, how’s your boy doin’? Joey?”

“Goes by Joe now. And, uh, I don’t hear from him much.”

“Well, you know how them young’ns are. When you do hear from him, tell him Doc Williams said hey.”

Knox and I left and we settled back in the car for the night. There, in the quiet prison of my mind, I heard the faintest whisper. It was low, dark, and menacing. It spoke three simple word that warbled as if passing through fan blades.

“…sssix daysss left…”