The mark crawled under my skin and covered the left side of my chest. I had never felt so good. It was a feeling that ran deeper than my skin; it was a warm, comforting, exhilarating feeling, like being six years old and going to bed on Christmas eve. Despite the tsunami of bullshit I had to deal with throughout my life – and especially the last couple of months – I had the overwhelming feeling that everything was going to be okay.
As long as I kept slaughtering people.
There were a few dozen mini bigots locked inside of the house that I could’ve started with. A part of me wanted to. It wanted to quite a fucking bit. Not out of any sense of righteousness – I just wanted to see how quickly I could destroy the house.
I moved around the ring of black corpses towards the back door. The children looked through the windows and shrieked and contorted their faces in an attempt to convey to others the absolute terror they felt. The back door was made of solid mahogany, a deep red-brown, with no carvings or anything like that – just solid wood. I looked at it for a second, and decided to put my arm straight through the wall instead. It went straight through the brick and wood into the family’s kitchen. The screams were no longer muffled by the wall. I moved my arm around in the hole and widened it until it was big enough for me to fit through. For a second, I thought about sticking my head in first and saying “Here’s Johnny!” but I didn’t think they would get the reference.
So I climbed through, feet first, and entered a hurricane of panicking children of all ages.
“Everybody shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down!”
They must’ve heard that from their teachers before. They all shot to the floor instantaneously and sat cross-legged, looking at me. Their faces were still red, and most of them were unsuccessfully trying to hold back tears and trembles, but they were on their best behavior.
“Thank you,” I said. “How many of you saw what happened back there?”
A few kids raised their hands.
“Wrong fucking answer. Let me ask again. How many of you saw what happened back there?”
A few kids started to raise their hands again, but the kids next to them jabbed them in the ribs and they put their hands down.
“Good. When the cops show up, tell them your parents did that to themselves, for the Lord or whatever the fuck. If you do, you’ll never hear from me again. Sound good?”
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The kids did not respond, but I thought they got the point. I bid them farewell and got the fuck out of there.
Even after intimidating a room full of children whose parents I had just murdered in front of them, that warm fuzzy feeling didn’t go away. I ran all the way home, but I could’ve fucking skipped to my lou. I was fast before, but I was really fast now. I wondered if I could race a car on foot. Probably not, but it would’ve given it a shot.
Anita and Caleb were without-a-doubt asleep by now, so I didn’t go inside the apartment, and instead went to the little park area behind the building. It was a little fenced in patch of grass where people took their dogs to shit. Avoiding any unscooped piles, I stood inside and looked down the neck of my shirt. I figured I was going to need a little bit of space for whatever was going to come next.
Instead of the usual three blister-glyphs, there was only one on my chest – and it was a fucking ice cream sundae with chocolate fudge on top.
“What the fuck?” I said out loud into the quiet night air. “What is that supposed to mean?”
There was something like a mental sigh somewhere inside of my head. The blister-glyph morphed into another shape: a turtle. I still didn’t know what this thing was trying to tell me.
“I don’t want to be a fucking turtle. Jesus. I killed a hundred people for this shit?”
The turtle disintegrated and rapidly reformed into words:
IT’S A FUCKING SHELL
“Oh, alright,” I said, still talking to myself. “Could’ve just drawn a fuckin’ shell then. Don’t have to be a dick about it.” I pressed the blister down, and the warm-fuzzies intensified until I fell to the dogshit-laden ground in pure joy. Again, if someone saw me at that moment, they probably would’ve thought I was a junkie – only this time, I took just the right amount. Sludge pushed through the pores around my entire body without asking for my permission. It came from every part of my body – my arms, my legs, my back, my forehead. I continued to roll around, giggling like a stoned middle schooler, while the sludge swallowed me whole. I was encased in the stuff. Nothing but my face was showing. I stifled my giggles and stood up in my sludge suit.
My entire body was wrapped in at least three inches of hardened sludge. It wasn’t nearly as sticky as it normally was, but it wasn’t quite solid either. The consistency was somewhere between rubber and tar, and it was still pretty damn sticky, which was shown by the grass and turd nuggets that stuck to my chest. I picked them off and flicked them out of sight, and went for a walk.
I was noticeably slower with the sludge suit on, but I could still move with ease. No unmarked human being would be able to keep up with me, even with the suit on. Aside from the added weight, I didn’t feel any resistance when moving my arms and legs. The sludge almost felt like a part of my body, like it moved with my limbs instead of being carried by them. In a weird way, my body felt lighter, being suspended in a nearly-liquid suit.
The warm fuzzy feeling turned into full-throttle excitement the more I walked in the suit. I laughed out loud in the empty air, repeating a single thought in my head, over and over.
Mickey can’t touch me!