Chapter 10
Lars was kneeling on the cement floor of the storage room. He was in the back under shelves of protein powder and meal replacement bars. Lars had his back to Sven, and was bent over something on the floor in front of him. He was doing something to it or with it. To Sven, it looked like Lars was moving something back and forth on the floor. Sven heard an unmistakable sound—squishy chewing. Here was Lars, sitting in a dark corner and sloshing something about in his mouth, having left to sit there in the middle of his spotting duties? It made no sense.
Squish, squosh, squoosh. Squish, squosh, squish. Squish, squosh, squeesh.
There was a smell too, a strange, cloying odor. Sven began to feel a numbness inching up from his extremities, and a dizziness—
He shook it off. “Lars? What the hell are you doing over there? I was this close to being crushed in the—”
Lars turned, and the ice pack fell from Sven’s hand.
Sven stared at Lars in disbelieving shock. His workout partner’s skin was grey. His eyes were a dull black, and blood oozed from between his lips. A chunk of what could only be cat food tumbled out of his mouth and landed on the leg of his black man-tard. Small bits of Ivan’s wet food were strewn all over Lars, all over his skin and all over the man-tard. Cat food was all over Lars’s mouth—cat food mixed with blood.
Sven stepped backward, uncertain of the sight before him and feeling more lightheaded with every second.
Had Lars mixed weight gainer shakes again? But that hadn’t been this bad. Lars looked like he needed medical help. He looked extremely ill, maybe even on the verge of death.
“What happened? Are you okay?” Sven asked as he made himself reverse course and walk closer to Lars. Lars stared, black eyes unblinking.
The cat food-coated muscle man said nothing.
“Lars? Say something.” Sven walked close enough to see what was on the floor. Lars was kneeling before six cans of Ivan’s wet food.
There was cat food and blood all over the floor. There was cat food and blood all over Lars’s fingers, mouth, and lips. That’s where it was coming from—Lars’s fingers and mouth. Sven flinched when he saw that many of Lars’s fingernails were gone. Sven didn’t understand what he was seeing.
“Did you open those with your fingers and teeth? Dude we have to get you a doctor, you’re bleeding all over the place.”
Lars said nothing. His black eyes were fixed on Sven. Then Lars opened his mouth. Bloody cat food cakes rolled out. He must have cut himself on the cans, Sven thought, he must be really sick, I have to get him to a—
Lars groaned. It was a low groan, filled with what sounded to Sven like anger.
“Come on let’s get you up,” Sven said, but he didn’t walk any closer to Lars to help him. Something was keeping Sven back—Lars seemed wrong. Sven stood a few feet away from Lars. Then Sven made himself take a step forward. He had to help his friend. But his eyes, and his skin, what’s wrong with him?
Sven took another step forward, deeper into the wooziness that was now gripping his body. Lars kept up his mute, black-eyed stare. Sven put out his hand to help his friend. Looking at his own hand, he saw that it was trembling, but he couldn’t really feel it, it was as if the sensation in his hands and feet had been dampened.
“Come on,” Sven said, thinking that he might need a doctor himself if he kept feeling like this. Lars groaned again, then he raised his right hand and grabbed Sven’s arm just above the wrist.
“Alright,” Sven said, resenting the fact that Lars had thought it necessary to grab him that hard. Sven pulled. Lars’s body began to rise, but then sank back down. Lars was pulling hard on Sven’s hand, but he wasn’t trying to get up. Sven made a move to get in front of Lars for some more leverage, but he couldn’t do it. Lars was pulling on Sven’s wrist too hard.
“Let go, man. I can’t get you up if you don’t help me.”
But Lars wouldn’t let go. He pulled on Sven’s wrist with more force, and Sven had to grab hold of a shelf support to keep himself from falling down on top of Lars.
Sven felt like his wrist was caught in a vise. He tried to wrench his hand free but Lars wouldn’t let up. Then Lars’s gaze seemed to shift from Sven’s face to Sven’s forearm. Lars’s mouth opened wide—too wide—and he began to pull Sven’s forearm into his gaping mouth. Black saliva and bits of bloody cat food dripped from Lars’s mouth. The droplets landed on the floor in front of Lars and on the short legs of his man-tard.
Thoughts of rabid dogs flashed in Sven’s now unsteady mind. Sven pulled harder. He had to get free. Lars might have some kind of disease, and even if he didn’t, there was no sense in getting bitten. Sven pulled on the shelf support with his free hand. An enormous case of meal replacement bars tottered closer to the edge. Sven pulled again, harder this time. And then he pulled again.
Lars wasn’t letting up, but the case of meal replacement bars was getting closer to the edge. Sven’s muscles were beginning to fail, and it seemed like Lars could go on forever. The pain in Sven’s upper body from his near-death bench press encounter was agonizing.
Then Lars’s bloody, cat-food spattered teeth were less than an inch away from Sven’s forearm.
Sven braced himself for the bite.
Just then, the case of meal replacement bars fell from the shelf. It struck Lars on the side of the head. Lars’s death grip loosened and he slumped over onto his left side. Still pulling when Lars loosened his grip, Sven fell backward, sitting down on top of the cold ice pack.
Some of the feeling began to return to his extremities, the room stopped lurching. Sven’s heart raced. He was free.
Chapter 11
Milt heard a commotion in the back of the store. It sounded like someone falling, and was followed by a plainly brainless moan. The back part of the store was full of ancient DVDs and even more ancient video games—a section of primordial classics. There was even a Commodore 64 computer back there to set the mood. Milt wasn’t sure if anyone had ever bought anything from that section, and he wouldn’t be surprised if not one item had ever moved from it. The common people had no taste, and couldn’t appreciate the rarity and wonder of the wares in the back of the store. The newer, more plebeian stuff was in the middle of the store, toward the front, and it moved better.
“Please refrain from physical outbursts,” Milt shouted without turning away from his screen. “Pretend that you are cultured. This is a sophisticated establishment. Please make an effort to recall your etiquette training, though I doubt you have had any.”
Milt belched some caramel and listened for a retort from the ninny in the back, who, Milt suspected, likely did not know what etiquette training was. He regretted not closing the store for this battle—so much pride hung in the balance. The fool in the back would no doubt only distract Milt, and leave without purchasing anything.
No response came from the disturbance-causer, probably because he was stumped by Milt’s clever words.
Milt blinked and retrained his eyes on the screen, choosing to forget the distraction for the present moment.
The time had come. Milt entered the chamber where the naive dwarf Bane waited, trembling in his magical video game boots.
“I have come for the Twelve-Gemmed Hammer of Azrael,” Milt clattered into his keyboard. “If you surrender it to me without incident, I shall consider sparing your pathetic life. I assume, of course, that you know who I am, as I am sure my reputation precedes me, and so I suggest that you do not attempt anything foolish.”
Milt had no intention of sparing Bane’s life, but it was nice to toy with his victims a little before dispatching them to the netherworld.
“Yes, I know who you are,” Bane’s character typed back. “But you will never defeat me, for I have the hammer, and you are naught but a thieving, dishonorable scoundrel.”
A pleasant outrage seeped into Milt. He was surprised by the dwarf’s audacity, but Milt loved verbal jousting, and he would best the dwarf in banter before dis
patching him to the gates of hell.
Milt was about to type a taunting response to the knave’s foolish challenge when there came another noise from the back of the store—a loud rattle this time—followed by a crash of breaking glass and the scraping of plastic.
Milt couldn’t spare the time to get up and look back there. Instead, he yelled, “Stop that racket this instant or I will be forced to retaliate. You are on notice that I expect you to compensate me for all of the damage that you have no doubt inflicted on that most precious part of my store. The items in it are truly irreplaceable and invaluable. You stay right where you are and ready your cash reserves.”
Milt was angry now, and had to have two more miniature Snickers bars to refocus his energies on the task at hand.
Milt began to type a belittling response to Bane, “I know you are but what am—” when he noticed that Bane was no longer in the room with him. What? But how could that be? Did that coward sign off and think that he could escape that way?
Then Milt noticed that it was his own internet connection that had gone dead. But that was impossible!
Milt huffed and puffed and knew that it wasn’t impossible, for his internet provider was Time Warner, and of all the dastardly evil-doers that made up the internet provider oligarchy, Time Warner had no challenger as the worst.
Seething and gurgling nougat, Milt dialed Time Warner’s customer support, which he had on speed dial on his phone, and was preparing a barrage of insults when the whole middle aisle of the store was tipped over and came to a clattering, video game case-breaking crash. That put Milt at a point of infuriation that he wasn’t sure he had ever experienced before.
Milt put the phone down—he wasn’t getting a dial tone for some reason—put his hands on his desk and used them to spin his great bulk in his chair to face the long open room of the store.
Then he saw the man—was it a man?—the thing, that had caused the ruckus.
Hyperventilating, Milt forgot about Bane, and began to fish his inhaler out of his pants with his left hand while fumbling for another Snickers bar with his right.
The empty Coca-Cola bottle that rested on Milt’s stomach toppled as he panicked. It made a dull clunk on the carpeted floor beneath him, and did not break.
Chapter 12
Ivan was sniffing around the kitchen, wagging his tail and looking for a treat. He liked treats. He liked fish treats most of all. Sven usually fed him by now. Why hadn’t Sven fed him yet? Maybe it had to do with the bad smell. The bad smell was bad. Some bad smells said stand and fight. But this bad smell said run and hide. It was a very bad smell. Ivan didn’t like bad smells. Couldn’t Sven smell it? It was getting stronger, and Ivan was finding it hard to focus on his search for fish treats. Ivan wasn’t even sure he still wanted a fish treat with that smell lingering in the air. Ivan hoped Sven would finish playing with his clanking toys and come up to give Ivan a treat. Was Sven playing with his clanking toys? He had been earlier, but Ivan couldn’t hear any clanking now. Sven liked to clank. He was probably clanking the toys. Ivan shook his head, and decided that if Sven didn’t come to feed him soon, Ivan would go downstairs and give Sven a good, hard bite.
Chapter 13
Lars lay in a heap on the floor. Sven watched him, not knowing what to expect. A few moments passed. Lars groaned. It was a soft groan this time.
“Lars?” Sven said. His voice was a squeak, and he expected no answer.
There was none.
Lars gathered himself up on his hands and knees. Then he began to crawl toward Sven. Lars’s mouth was closed again. He made no noise as he crawled. Much of the blood around his mouth and fingers had dried. Lars had grown even paler, making the dried blood stand out more. There was a grey tinge to him now. It wasn’t a bad weight gainer that had done this to Lars. No, it was definitely no weight gainer.
Sven scrambled to his feet and took a step backward. Then he took another, and another. Lars was still crawling toward him. Sven took another step backward and bumped into the edge of the counter by the door. He felt for the doorway, and without taking his eyes off Lars for a second, Sven backed out of the storage room and closed the door.
He heard another groan through the closed door. He didn’t know what to do. He stood outside the door, unable to think. Sven’s mind wasn’t carrying its weight, but was flopping around like a fish on mud.
The door to the storage room didn’t have a lock.
Upstairs, Ivan hissed.
Chapter 14
“Vicky?” Jane asked. Jane couldn’t believe what she was seeing right now. Vicky’s head looked like a popped popcorn kernel—a grey popped popcorn kernel. There was no color in her face, and her head bulged in places it shouldn’t bulge in, and sagged in placed it shouldn’t sag in.
“Are you alright? Hey, I’m gonna get you to the hospital, okay? Vicky?”
Vicky rolled off the couch and crashed to the floor, her arms at her sides and her legs together like a grey popped popcorn kernel soldier.
Jane bumped into the TV stand behind her and realized that she had been backing up all the while. She reached out with a hand to steady the TV and then looked back at Vicky.
Vicky began to flop over toward Jane, turning as she went. Vicky groaned and flailed one of her arms as she flopped. To Jane, Vicky looked like a diseased rag doll rolling its way across the living room floor.
The glass shards crunched as Vicky rolled over them. Then her arms were outstretched, reaching for Jane.
Jane shrank back farther, her body filling with cold terror. It was obvious that this was no ordinary cold. She knew that she had to help Vicky, but she wasn’t going to touch her. She couldn’t, there was something wrong about her...and the air—there was a funny smell in the air—a wrong smell. It smelled like spicy, rotten fruit jam. The room began to sway...or was Jane swaying? She couldn’t tell.
Jane felt a pang of guilt for not reaching out to help her friend, but something was stopping her. Jane began to edge around the TV stand back toward the kitchen.
Vicky’s groans grew louder and more frequent, and it seemed she might be trying to stand up.
Jane noticed, for the first time, that her own cheeks were wet from crying, and that her hand was outstretched in front of her, as if she were still holding that glass of vitamin C water.
She had just gathered her thoughts enough to know what to do next—it was hard with that smell in the air—when a not so faraway scream distracted her for a second.
Jane looked down at the thing that was crawling toward her, and as the room’s swaying became more violent, she forgot her next move.
Chapter 15
He stood outside the storage room for a moment longer. Then, feeling cold, Sven picked up his shirt from the floor next to the bench and put it on. He stood in the basement and listened. Slow shuffling noises were coming from inside the storage room.
Sven dragged his bench press over and put it in front of the door, blocking it. He put the bar in place and, working through the pain, loaded it with all of the plates he had. Sven looked at what he had done. It should keep Lars in the room. But would it? Lars was so strong. Sven stood there a moment longer, his mind blanking again.
Ivan hissed, snapping Sven out of the sudden trance.
Sven went upstairs and found his cell phone. He dialed 911 and paced with the phone to his ear.
“Your call cannot be completed as dialed,” a robotic voice said. “Please hang up and try again.”
Sven dialed 911 again.
“Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and try again.”
Sven dialed 911 one more time, with the same result. He tried some of his other workout buddies, including Brian and Lundgren, each of whom was resourceful and would help in a tight situation. He tried his mom, his lawyer client, Memorial Gymnasium across the street, Gold’s Gym, his favorite online bodybuilding supplement retailer, Yuan Ho Chinese Restaurant, Asian Express Chinese Restaurant, Whole Foods Market, and Ivan
’s vet.
None of the calls went through.
Sven gave up, and with growing agitation and discomfort, tossed the phone on the couch. He walked into the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do next.
Then he heard scraping coming from the basement, and—
He at last saw what had displeased Ivan. There was a man in the back yard. It was Sven’s neighbor, Bob. Bob’s house was behind Sven’s. Bob was a tennis fanatic, and sometimes he managed to drag Sven out onto the tennis courts. Tennis was not Sven’s sport—he carried too much brawn for it. But it was nice to watch.
Sven stared out of the kitchen window at Bob. Bob wasn’t moving. It looked like he wasn’t even breathing.
Sven unlocked his back door and stepped into the back yard. He noticed that Bob looked thinner than usual. He was wearing his tennis clothes, complete with head and wrist bands, and he was clutching a tennis racquet with both hands. He just stood there, like a statue, his grey skin much greyer than usual.
Then Sven knew—this was the start of a very bad day.
Chapter 16
Jane watched Vicky stand up. It had taken a few minutes, and horror-stricken though she was, Jane couldn’t make herself turn away. She was frozen in place, staring, the whole time.
Vicky’s whole body had creaked as she made her way up from the floor. It took Vicky several tries, propping herself up, and then falling back to the floor, as if she had forgotten how to make her body work, how to coordinate her limbs in time.
Vicky was up now, and Jane found herself trapped by the cold, dark gaze of her roommate, who, Jane was now sure, was not exactly her roommate any longer. Jane’s body was rigid, and though she was willing herself into action—any action that would take her away from her transformed roommate—she could barely manage a shudder.
“Vicky...” Jane said, her heart pounding in her ears. “Vicky? What’s happening? What’s wrong with you?”