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DOOM MAGNETIC! - CHAPTER FIVE:
CHORIZO
William Pauley III
The town of Chorizo, Nevada is easily and often overlooked, bordering on ghost town. Pretty much all of Nevada is bordering on ghost town with the exception of beautiful downtown Las Vegas, which hasn’t seen so much business since the days back before the Texan War. Once Texas declared its independence and rocketed itself out into space, tourism slowed. It was a tough time for the Nevadan economy. People were literally too afraid to leave their homes. It wasn’t long ‘fore the other states followed in Texas’ footsteps. That’s when Japan finally fastened their reigns on Earth.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Even of those who live in Nevada, not but a handful have ever heard of Chorizo. And of that handful, only a finger or two has actually been there.
Chorizo is full of dusty streets, gritty men and filthy women. The sun doesn’t shine on a town like Chorizo. It can’t penetrate the thick black clouds that hang above, dangling over the town like some sort of wicked mobile. But I reckon that don’t matter too much, the people here don’t seem to mind the darkness.
Being the tiny spec of a town that it is, it’s no wonder that Gusto Geraldo Herrera, Jr had passed it several times, both ways, before finally being able to locate his destination. Crunch’s Saloon. But finally he spots it.
He hops off his steel horse and stretches. It was a much longer ride than he was expecting. He yawns, scratches his belly, and lazily walks up the steps leading into the saloon.
Just before he enters, he spots the hand of a dead man on the inside, stretched out, reaching for the doors. The hand and arm have been picked clean of its skin and muscle. He draws his gun and kicks open the swinging doors, aiming straight ahead of him, just in case trouble is still lingering. But he sees no trouble, just the aftermath of trouble. He shoves the gun back into the waistline of his jeans and walks over to the bar.
The place is empty, except for about a hundred decomposing carcasses, both human and Mope, spread randomly throughout the room. The putrid smell of rotting flesh lingers in the air. He walks behind the counter, cracks open a bottle of whiskey and takes a whiff.
“Well, hello there, sexy,” he says to the bottle, then presses his lips against it, pouring its contents down his gullet. He chugs what’s left of the bottle in one painful gulp and tosses it across the room. Glass confetti showers the floor as the bottle shatters against the wall.
Gusto spots him in the corner of his eye. Qoser. Well, at least part of him, his headless body.
“Jesus, Qoser,” he says, as he leaps over the counter. “Shit, man!” He stands there in shock, staring blankly at the corpse. He covers his mouth with both hands, trying to hold back a projectile of vomit.
“Don’t just stand there, get me off this fucking floor!” a voice yells from somewhere in the distance.
“Qoser? Is that you, man?”
“Who else would it be, imbecile?!” Qoser shouts.
“Oh my god, bro! I thought you were dead! Your body is all the way over here! Tough break, man.” Gusto looks around the room. Qoser’s head is nowhere in sight. He looks high and low.
“Where the hell are you, bro?”
“Well, that all depends. Where are you standing?” Qoser asks.
“I’m over here…by, uh, by the coat rack.”
“Come forward, past the bar.”
Gusto walks past the bar.
“Now, take a right and then after walking about five feet, immediately go left.” Gusto does exactly that. Still no Qoser in sight.
“I’m still not seeing you, bro.”
“Under the table, you horse’s ass!”
Gusto kneels and sure enough, Qoser’s severed head is resting there, his one good eye stares back at him.
“Jeezus, man…you look like shit,” Gusto says, swatting the swarm of bugs away from Qoser’s face. “These things really did a number on you, man. Your face is fucked.”
The skin on the left side of Qoser’s face has been completely eaten away, halfway digested in the abdomens of about seventeen insects and two different types of heterocera. In some places, like the top of his cheek and parts of his chin, bone is exposed.
After Gusto flicks the last of the insects off, he picks up Qoser’s head.
“Uh, Gusto. There’s still something inside me. I…I can feel it…moving,” Qoser says in a surprisingly calm tone.
Gusto holds Qoser’s head up above his own to examine. Sure enough, squiggling about is the slimy tail of a gastropod, its head buried deep inside his neck meat. Gusto takes ahold of the tail and gives a taut tug. The worm slowly slides outward, fat from gorging, and finally slips out with a sickening slop. Gusto drops the fat worm on the floor and it splatters upon impact, bursting like a pus-filled water balloon.
“Damn,” Gusto says, wiping worm slime on his shirt. “Sourpuss wasn’t lying when she said you were in some serious shit, Qoser. You’ve been in pretty deep before, boss, but I ain’t never seen you like this.”
“Sourpuss,” Qoser whispers under his breath. “Where is she? I thought she was coming for me.”
Gusto shrugs his shoulders and cradles Qoser’s head on his forearm, like a football.
“She said something about having some last minute business come up, or something. I dunno, I just know she said she would shell out 50 clams if I were to come out here and get you myself. So, that’s that.”
Qoser stares off, quiet in thought. Gusto’s words pass through one ear and out the other. A shiver of pain shudders along his face and tender neckline, reawakening his senses and snapping him out of his daydream.
“Shit,” Qoser says. “You won’t believe this, but the bites on my face hurt eleven times as much as having my entire fucking head lopped off. I think the green one was poisonous. Does my face look swollen to you?”
Gusto looks down at Qoser, resting like a baby in his arm.
“Yeah, dude, your face is totally fucked. It’s all swollen and bleeding and shit. You look fucking disgusting.” Qoser closes his eye and bites his lip in anger. “What? I’m just being honest.”
“I need you to clean my wounds,” Qoser says. “Set me up on the bar over there and pour some of that whiskey over my face and neck.”
“Whatever you say, bro.” Gusto sets Qoser up on the bar and grabs another bottle of whiskey. He pops off the cap and takes a swig.
“Yup, it’s whiskey alright.” He takes a second swig before pouring the rest over Qoser’s goulashed face. The alcohol soaks into his skin, painful at first, as it burns every trace of bacteria and infection, but eventually the sensation morphs from pain into downright soothing. He feels as if he’s breathing through his entire face, not just his mouth, as the alcohol clears his pores.
After a few minutes of silence, Qoser finally speaks.
“We need to get back to Japan. Can you securely fasten my head and body to your motorbike?”
“Sure thing, bro. I’ll get to working on that now.” Gusto walks over to his body, hoisting it onto his shoulders. Gusto is a brawny guy. He may not have brains, but he’s certainly someone you want to have on your side of the fight. He kicks open the batwings and disappears on the other side.
Qoser closes his eye and quickly falls into a deep slumber. Dark grey clouds billow and fill his every thought. Little jolts of lightning encase his brain and shoot slivers of energy into each of its cavernous folds. His mind inflates and deflates like a balloon, twisted, like a kiddie carnival. A tiny ball of fury pushes up from his throat and engulfs his eyeball. He throws open his eyelid. Behind it, there blazes a great white ball of fire.
A shadowy figure steps into the saloon, a bright light shines from behind, silhouetting the man and the batwings behind him.
Smoke drifts in through the doorway. The man walks closer to Qoser. The closer he gets, the more the white smoke fills the room and clouds Qoser’s line of vision. When the man is finally standing before him, Qoser is totally blind.
Maundin?
“Hey, uh, Qoser, I hate to wake you up and all, but you think you could do your trick with the lightning, you know? Cause that drive is fucking brutal, man. I don’t think I can do it again without maybe taking a little rest first, you know?”
Gusto’s voice immediately snaps him out of his day-coma. He awakens to find that he has been duct-taped to the abdomen of his own cadaver, which too has been taped to the back of Gusto’s motorcycle.
“Oh, uh, sure,” Qoser answers, pretending as if he was awake all along.
Immediately, they’re struck with a bolt and sent hurling through space, riding its current all the way back home.
Paid subscribers! The next chapter of this story will be posted on December 6th! Stay tuned for Proof Detention!
Chorizo
© William Pauley III, 2009
All rights reserved.
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