Sitting there on the floor, I finally got back to normal, if you could really call it that. Let’s just say I returned to this current state of reality.
Walter noticed that I was finally coherent enough to comprehend the situation, and he made his way towards me with that gigantic knife. He was determined to do, well, something, and he looked really pissed off, but clear-headed.
It’s important to remain calm because when you don’t, when you start flailing around in an effort to get to your feet before Walter can get to you with that knife, Devereaux will shoot you in the right arm, and you’ll end up exactly where you started, only with more blood.
“Don’t worry about that arm, Mr. Eliot. It’s really quite amazing what you can do with only one.” He waved hello with the cleaver. “You can, for instance, decapitate a young man who helped another young man, a Judas, a Brutus, murder two dozen people.” He turned around and walked slowly towards Dave, saying, over his shoulder, “I’ll show you. Pay attention.”
I looked over at Dick, whose eyes were no longer on his laces, but now huge and almost connected to this man who was about to kill his nephew, my friend, Dave. Poor Dave. I’d totally fucked him over, and now he was about to be headless.
I looked over at Angela, and she looked sadder than she did in the podium. I suppose the circumstances were a bit more severe now than they were back then, when life in a secret cannibalistic society was all nice, cozy routine. I understood where she was coming from. I also made a mental note of her in those ropes…
I looked up at Devereaux, his gun still pointed at my face. He was watching Synchek, watching the mammoth blade in the man’s hand, and he was grinning. Big. Man, it was sinister, that crazy bastard. Unfortunately, he could still see me with his peripheral vision, so I was stuck on the floor, about to watch the beheading of my friend.
And then the most wonderful thing – the banquet room door, across from the hall door where Dick stood with clenched jaw and everything else, directly behind where Devereaux stood with his gun on me, the banquet room door opened with Conicella in tears, wailing, “She’s dead! She’s dead! All of them! I went to take a shit, and shit! What fucking happened?!”
Devereaux turned to see. Synchek turned to see.
It’s important to remain calm because when God’s not opening a window, as they say, He’s opening a big fucking door, and you’d better be ready for it.
I wasn’t ready for it.
But Dick was. He lunged after Synchek and knocked him to the floor, the cleaver sent sliding across the tile and spinning to a stop right in front of Angela.
Devereaux, with those policeman instincts of his, spun and took aim, but the scuffle left him no shot, as he might have accidentally hit Synchek.
I don’t really remember getting to my feet, but there I was, standing behind Mr. I’m Gonna Fuck Your Girl And Then Kill Her, opening the nozzle of my little acid cannon and squirting him in the face when he turned back around.
If you’ve ever sprayed hydrocyanic acid into a person’s eyes, you’ve learned that first he’ll scream and try to shoot you. He’ll miss, of course, and by a happy twist of fate catch Conicella right in the eye. Then he’ll drop his gun, drop to the floor and convulse like an epileptic at a rave, and die. You’ve learned that this all happens almost immediately.
If you’ve ever researched the dangers of hydrocyanic acid, you’ve learned that it’s bad, very, very bad, to get it on your skin. You’ve learned that it will kill you, but thankfully not nearly as quickly as it has that poor bastard who just took a shot in the eye.
If you’ve ever woken up and had the distinct feeling that you’re not really a part of what’s happening, that you’re just an observer, you’ve learned that it’s no big deal to dive to the floor after that meat cleaver and lop off your own hand before the poison gets into your bloodstream. You’ve also learned that this involves an awful lot of blood.
I lay there on the floor, bleeding but relieved, and a big black shoe appeared in front of me, it’s reflection upside-down in my blood. I looked up to see Walter. He was a grinning, sweaty-toothed madman, and he had picked up Devereaux’s gun.
“I’m going to kill you all. And then I’m going to eat you.”
I was getting weak. I couldn’t stand. But I could speak. “You’re going to kill your own niece? And your best friend? What are you?”
“I am everyone who’s become a part of me. And soon I will become you as well, my young friend. This is what happens to those who betray me. You can say goodbye to Angela, if you’d like.”
I turned my head, but she was no longer in her corner. Synchek noticed.
“Pity when a man dies alone. I honestly thought she liked you, too.”
And then I saw it. That cleaver. The one I’d used to hack up my friend. It was next to his head, stump-side, and then it was under his chin. And then there was Walter, on his knees, hands around his slit throat, choking on his own blood as he looked up to see his niece, holding the blade that cut him.
“So much for living forever, you sick fuck,” she said. And then she looked at me and took a step to help me up.
“Come on,” she said. “I need to get some air.”
There was a voice saying softly, calmly, “Don’t get it on you. Don’t get any of it on you. Get out before you get any of it on you.”
I knew this voice.
“Don’t get it on you.”
I was tired, so tired, but I knew my voice.
“Stay calm,” I said, mostly to myself. “Stay calm.”
The story isn’t over yet. The story has time to change.
If you’re alive, you’re not dead.