A stench worse than death. Kelley stared at the garbage bag in his closet. Even through the plastic, something smelled off, as though rather than drying out the blood had turned sour.
He arrived at school early to toss it in the dumpster. It was his blood, but still, he didn’t want bloody clothes anywhere near his house. After all, he was still on probation. Better to play it safe.
For the rest of the day, he stuck to his scholastic ritual: appearing for attendance then leaving. School had never before been so easy, he reflected, sitting on the front steps. Now that he smoked, he enjoyed doing nothing.
His mind wandered back to that shitshow of a burglary. What a waste. He hadn’t come out of it with much. Little more than a horrible worm fruitlessly gnawing at his insides and an empty jewelry box. The face on the lock. It wasn’t too dissimilar to the woman who had left him with the silver mark. It bothered him. He could tell it was there, a kind of splotchy numbness to his wrist, but still he couldn’t see it.
The box. Worth keeping? No. He’d try to pawn it off somewhere. Maybe he’d get lucky. Tell a good story about its value to a dealer and be believed for once. Whatever bullshit, ethereal quality would net a better price. Maybe it belonged to the Queen. A duke. The pet chimpanzee of a celebrity. Dracula.
His heart sank. Where had he put it? Had he even taken it out of his coat pocket? Yeah, that coat? The coat he had stuffed in a garbage bag and thrown into the dumpster earlier that day?
He stomped on his cigarette then stormed back behind the school.
The dumpster had blossomed with garbage bags since the morning, bathing Kelley in a miasmatic odor of bioslop and sun-baked plastic. He swallowed his pride, rolled up his sleeves and then climbed into the metal bin.
Why did every bag have to look the same? He tore into each one briefly, noting the peculiar smell unlike that of his evil, rotten blood, then tossed it behind him. Ripping through yet another black bag, he caught a whiff of a soiled diaper and nearly lost it. Hacking, he took out a cigarette and lit it. It helped a little. He thought about lighting a second. Why bother? You deserve this. This is what you get for being a scatterbrained, loser, motherfucker.
“Kelley? Is that you? What are you doing?”
He spun around. Staring at him with saucer eyes was Helen, arms crossed. Her face the very picture of health. Something about it pissed him off, but then something else in him stirred pleasantly for a moment. He shooed it off.
“Me? Nothing. What are you doing?”
She frowned at him.
“Since when do you smoke?”
His cigarette dangled limply from his bottom lip. He turned away then took a heavy drag.
“It’s a,” he coughed. “A neuroenhancer.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know. It’s good for your brain. If I had grades like you, I wouldn’t have to.”
“If you showed up to class, you might have grades like me! Where have you been the past week? Why are you in the trash?”
“Jesus, enough. I threw something out this morning by accident, and I’m trying to find it. Why? Because I’m fucking stupid, okay?”
He knelt back down into the garbage, pushing aside some more discarded fliers and half-eaten sandwiches. Helen adjusted her hair.
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“Yeah? Thanks.”
“Do you want me to help you?” she asked, looking off to the side. “I can, if you want. You know, help you.”
Kelley poked his head out the dumpster, eyeing her suspiciously.
“What? Why?” he said bluntly.
Helen’s eyes frosted over.
“Forget it,” she said. “Thanks for letting me know you were okay. I’ll leave you alone now. I hope you enjoy your trash.”
She spun around and took off, probably to studygroup or tennis club or some shit. He flung a moldy sock behind him. What the hell was her problem?
He shut his eyes tight, the realization of having fucked up washing over him like an oncoming tide. He groaned and slammed his head softly against the bin before climbing out.
He found her sitting on a bench. She turned away from him as he came by. Why did she have to be so dramatic?
“You seem, uh, upset.” He sat down beside her.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be, you know,” he trailed off, still not entirely sure what he did wrong.
“It’s not just you,” she took a deep breath, then finally made eye contact. “But it is definitely you as well.”
“What’s wrong? Besides me,” he asked, relieved for the change of subject.
She looked at him with concern. He was always taken aback with how reflective her blue eyes were.
“The attack. Didn’t you see the news?”
“I don’t watch the news.”
“Well, you should. There was an attack downtown during the Halloween parade. A guy with a machete was cutting off people’s heads. I’m sure he was on drugs, or was sick with something. But it’s horrible. I can’t think about it without wanting to cry.”
“Really?” Kelley said in astonishment. “Heads? How many?”
“Kelley!” she scolded, pointing at his chest. “That could have been me. I was going to go. It was a miracle that my friend had gotten sick.”
“Sorry.”
“I cried all night. I couldn’t stop thinking about the people who did go. Who put their heart into their costumes, had plans with all their friends. And then, I don’t know. It’s just sad to think how fast that all changed. I saw an interview with a mom that lost her son. It broke my heart. Doesn’t that make you sad?”
“Not really,” he had to admit. “I don’t know if I care all that much.”
“Of course you care. What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t know any of these people. Why would I care about some strangers? Do you know how many people have died since we started this conversation? I don’t, but I know it’s more than one.”
“That’s cold hearted. I don’t believe you.”
“Is it? I guess so. I just don’t know what to do about that.”
“It hurts you, I know it does. You just don’t feel it yet. That’s what you’re like.”
Kelley wriggled uncomfortably like a cat caught by the tail.
“Who knows.”
“I just don’t understand it. What do you think drives someone to do something like that?”
Kelley shrugged, “He wanted to.”
“It’s not that simple. There has to be a reason.”
“Sure it is. He had an idea in his head and he couldn’t shake it. It hurt him that it wasn’t real. So he had to make it real.”
“He killed people! No one has to do anything like that!”
“No one has to, but someone clearly did it. I think maybe people don’t always do things because they want to, but because something else does. Because they’re possessed with some idea or spirit that wants to be born into the world. And because that desire is so much stronger than they are, they get taken over. Hollowed out and made into a vessel. They become a way this thing, this no one, this idea, can become real.”
“But cutting off heads? What kind of idea is that?”
“An old one,” he smiled unhappily.
Helen looked at him strangely, with knitted brows.
“Kelley…” she said.
“Did you know that almost every human society at some point practiced head hunting? Some tribes in the Philippines still do it. People that go out and find other people to cut their heads off. Normal, everyday behavior. Like going to the bank. And then society progressed, got a little more complicated, and the head hunting went away. But what if it didn’t go away? What if it just became something else?”
“No, I don’t think so. We know better now. We know that’s wrong. But Kelley…”
“Do we? You’re Catholic. You don’t hunt heads, but you eat crackers and pretend it’s human meat. I can’t pretend I don’t see something ancient in that. You’ve just hidden it inside a cracker. So you know what I see when I hear about a guy cutting off heads? I see an old thought form knocking at the gates. The cracker isn’t good enough anymore. The idea wants to live again.”
Helen put a hand on his shoulder.
“Look at me. What’s wrong with your eye?”
“Huh?”
“Your left eye is white. Are you wearing contacts?”
Kelley bolted up straight as though struck by lightning. He looked at his wrist. Staring back was a bright, silver spot.
“Shit,” he said to himself, holding a hand over his eye. He got up and left.
“Wait!” called Helen. Ignoring her, his pace quickened until he fell into a full-on sprint. He didn’t even know where he was running too. Home. Something had happened to his eye. He needed privacy.
Inspecting himself in the bathroom mirror, he saw nothing out of sorts. His eye was fine. The silver spot on his wrist had gone too. Maybe he was paranoid. But the Iris Eater had seen it. Was it hiding from him?
At the end of the night, he found himself staring at the ceiling lamp. He thought it was strange how the bugs died in the same little corner, as if they each intuitively agreed where it was best to die. Or not. Maybe it just took one with initiative.
He slept poorly that night, if he slept at all. A crocodile with cataract eyes chewed on his lower half. When it began to tire, it loosened its jaw.
“I need to take a break,” it said. “I can’t stand this unbearable chewiness.”
“Keep trying,” said Kelley.
“Alright,” said the crocodile glumly. “Let’s try it from the other end.”