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IN THE BLACK OF MY MIND

Creator Crudelitarum


��They were going to murder him: The dark one, Gillus. Their unanimous thought was to irrefutably harm the object of their dread. But they thought in terms external: penetrate-flesh-bleed, head-crack, veins-arteries-severed, death-now... They were benighted to the internal - the actuality of what truly lie beneath his fragile epidermis.

��“I keep everything, important, in the black of my mind,” Gillus would squeeze the phrase between overly-wetted lips making the sound of his words, combined with his insidious face, unbearable.

��“You mean the back of your mi...” Cody had questioned the first time he’d heard the peculiar phrase.

��“No,” Gillus interrupted. “I mean, the black of my mind.” Gillus would then tap a crooked finger to his temple and continue tapping all the way to the top of his head. “Somewhere in there,” he would say indirectly, as he walked down the school hallway. It was hard to say if Gillus was speaking to himself or if he’d found his way out of the solipsistic universe that he inordinately dwelled in. Either way, his nonsensical comments were a vexation to Cody, who was constantly wondering, Why do I have to locker next to the Freak?! Gillus, with his abnormally elongated skull, covered in a rat’s nest of black grease-dipped, tufts of hair. Different and disgusting, Cody had thought. His body was clad in faded black, his feet shod with sandals; Gillus looked like a homeless priest, a gyrovague. Although Gillus was hardly the type of senior classman that would give the impression of having intellect, Cody had once heard him read his assignment aloud in Composition class and knew Gillus was highly intelligent, in a disquieting way.

��Cody had initiated the idea to track down and kill Gillus. Although he had never spoken the word “kill” aloud to Emil or Sarah, he felt their approbation.

��“I’ll do it,” Emil stated softly. Cody could barely make out the words over the drizzle, but he knew what Emil meant. The night was silent, deep within the city. It was a weekday and third shifters had already arrived to their jobs. As far as the nightlife in Dayton went, it was an average, dead evening.

��“We’ll do it together,” said Cody, looking over his shoulder at Sarah and Emil. Sarah was shaking. It wasn’t cold on that May night, and the drizzle was only playful and depressing as its warm drops tapped their shoulders. Cody’s long shadow stretched over the brick walls of assorted buildings; his basketball-player physique moved with undaunted grace across the wet concrete. Albeit he was afraid. Maybe not as much as Sarah or Emil...but fear was swelling his head. Fear had impregnated his skull, and the feral fetus was beating at the back of his eyes, threatening to pop them out. His short, blond hair was matted to his head from the weight of the drizzle, and he shook his head sporadically to empty stray droplets that had slid into his ears. Sarah kept looking back to where they had parked Cody’s car. It was no longer visible. This was a tactical decision on Cody’s part. He would give Gillus no warning whatsoever, even if he had to park the car ten miles away.

��“We’re close now,” Emil exhaled. Cody was leading this digression, make no mistake. He was the team captain; he had been nominated for prom king. It could be said that he had a definite...charisma. Emil had committed but a smidgen of the dirty work. He had followed Gillus to the place where he slept: a lonely warehouse in the industrial district of the city. Why the dark one slept there was a mystery.

��“I’m...not sure,” Sarah started with nauseous insecurity.

��“Now look,” Cody brought his index finger up to her blanched face. “We have to do this.” He waved the finger before her eyes as if hypnotizing her.

��“But if, what if he didn’t kill Rachel or Gertrude? Then we’re killing an innoce...”

��“Just look in those fucking-dead eyes!” Cody gestured to his own eyes. “And you know he did it. He killed them both. I know it. You know it. Emil here knows it.” Cody shook his finger at Emil, who lowered his gaze when Sarah looked to him for support. “The whole fucking school knows it!”

��“I just, I wanna get away from here, this night, him, just away...”

��“Sarah.” Cody took her face in his hands lightly. “If we don’t...take care of this maniac, who will? You’ve heard about his stories. They’re evil. Just one sentence, one phrase. His words corrupt the paper he scribbles them on. You think it’s a coincidence? The stories and then the murders? Come on! Both girls were found shriveled up like dried fruit. Sucked clean of...shit, who knows what...but you know that doesn’t, and has never happened here. Until he wrote about it.”

��“And lived it,” Emil spoke up.

��“We’re just doing what nobody else has the guts to do. He’s smart enough to not leave any evidence. He knew the stories would be circumstantial...Sarah we already talked this all over. We decided. Don’t turn your back now. Remember the reason you got involved.” Cody let go of her flawless face.

��She said nothing, opting to just nod in agreement instead. Cody looked both of them over, making quite sure that they were stolid and then started to move on. How could she wanna back out now? Cody postulated. After all...she had come to them.

��Cody had lost a good friend, Rachel; Emil had lost his step- sister, Gertrude. Cody could see Gillus orating his wretched work in front of the class: “The Death of Joy and the Agonizingly Slow Rot of Hope.” Emil had been present also. Gertrude and Rachel weren’t in the class, but all the same, it was their description he had read of. “Found with their essences sucked clean from neath the skin,” Gillus had read. At least the resemblances were so close, but who would have ever thought of aborting fictional threats to fictional representations? No one. No one thought it a threat at all, just a morbid mischieviousness. After all, this was not some school-sniper kamikaze’s death threat. Gillus was far too deft for that. But sure enough, a month later Rachel was found shriveled up under a freeway overpass. Her once beautiful person lay dead beneath buzzing traffic, falling prey to insects and scavengers. Gertrude disappeared a month later and was located behind a gas station in the middle of town. Her body was in the same condition as Rachel’s. Cody would never forget watching Emil sob like a baby at Gertrude’s funeral. Why had Emil even accompanied him on this murderous exploit? Had Cody shed a tear at Rachel’s funeral? No! Of course not, he told himself.

��Sarah was here because she found out that Gillus’ narrative had given other descriptions of victims resembling fellow classmates. One of which, the next in the story to die, was a pinpointed representation of...herself. After the terror had filled the minds of the female students, one of her acquaintances had told her that she matched the description of a victim in the story - unambiguously matched. Gillus had a certain propensity for...characterization. The only thing missing was her name. And all the while no one would listen to the presentiments of the female students; Gillus was the subject of a cursory investigation only. And there was no suspension, and certainly no expulsion, of an A+ student with the top GPA of his class. So Cody knew that if they didn’t stop him, there would be more deaths. More...shrivelings.

��“Stop,” Emil said. “We’ll find him in there,” Emil pointed to a bleak, plain building squatting in the darkness just to their left. The three of them walked out of the alleyway that they had been stumbling down.

��“Why the fuck would he stay in a warehouse? I don’t get it,” Cody snarled.

��“I think, well people are saying that his parents basically disowned him. Probably read some of his stories - phff. I suppose that this place isn’t so bad. At least it’s out of the rain,” Emil expounded.

��“Let’s finish this chore.” Just another chore, Cody thought to himself. Just something that needs doing. You do it and don’t ask questions, his father would say. You know when something’s not right. You feel it. He felt it - like a virus in his system - a tumor with a pulse.

��They crept up to the front of the edifice as if Gillus might be watching them even now, perhaps through permeable walls. Cody stood before the huge, sliding cargo door and made a motion to it, looking to Emil for response. Emil shook his head and took off around the side of the building signaling them to follow. The warehouse had rows of windows. As they passed by, Cody attempted to peer inside but could see naught. Emil led them to a back door. Instead of trying to open it, he reached up to a window just to the right.

��“Locked,” he motioned to the door and whispered. As Sarah and Cody looked on, Emil opened the window and climbed in. A second later, the door opened and Sarah and Cody stepped over the threshold. A light shot forth from Cody’s flashlight; it shone on Emil’s face. Rachel fumbled into the warehouse, tripping over a dilapidated brick step. Emil ran a hand over his half inch height of hair, sprinkling water through the air.

��“Where?” Cody queried gravely.

��“This way,” Emil said in such a faint voice that it had to be read from his lips to be understood. The triad sifted over pallets and boxes, heading down endless aisleways; Cody could hear Sarah whimpering. Why the hell did I make her come with us? he pondered. If anything, she’ll be our undoing. Fucking crybaby. Grow up, take control! He wanted to turn around and slap her - burn her eyes shut so that no more tears could flow. The fear was getting to him too and was being processed into rage. That’s what his father had taught him. Sports had helped him learn to focus. He just had to hold out until they found Gillus. Then. Then there would be release. It had to be like winning a game, he thought to himself. He would be the hero of Dayton. Maybe an unsung hero but a hero nonetheless.

��Emil threw his hand up suddenly, thwarting their motion. Cody’s heart shot up into his throat, and he felt chilled and scorched at the same moment. Emil pointed up. Sarah and Cody looked aloft. The skids were on a triple-tiered rack, and each tier held skids stacked six high. Emil stood next to a ladder that connected to the end of the rack. He was looking up into black heights. Cody strutted over to him.

��“Well?” Cody asked.

��“He’s...up there, on top of the skids. At least that’s where he headed when I followed him two days ago.” Emil was beginning to show signs of anxiety.

��“All right. I’ll go first. Remember - after I restrain him you have to stab him. Do it quick. And Sarah...” Cody looked behind him. Sarah was quivering, staring straight up. “Sarah!” he hissed. She broke out of the trance. “If anything happens to us you have to go for help. All you have to do is wait here until we come back down. Okay?” Sarah nodded.

��The metallic ladder was painted a dingy yellow and most likely had never been so much as dusted off. With each grip upon each bar, Cody felt an amalgam of dirt, mud, grease, and finally rust scrape against his palms. Progressing to the top of the rack took only a minute for the two young men. The very top of the rack was covered with a flat piece of plywood that sheltered the triple layers of pallets. Emil shown the light over the rickety surface. Even though Cody had expected to find Gillus, he gasped when he saw the sleeping form. There in the dust was a sleeping bag filled up like a cocoon: a black bag. It squirmed a bit when the light hit against its lining. Cody raced forward and pulled the dark one from his nestled position. He yanked him halfway out of the bag and restrained his arms. The flashlight lay by his feet, shining toward Emil as he made his approach.

��“What is this?” Gillus giggled. “I knew someone would find me, eventually. No matter where I hide - hide and seek - hide and seek.” The texture of his words disturbed Cody.

��“Emil! Do it!” Cody summoned.

��“Yes Emil! Go on!” Gillus exclaimed.

��“Shut up!” Cody shouted, feeling uneasy now as to why Gillus wasn’t at least frightened. He had wanted that small satisfaction from him before he died. Shake a little you bastard, Cody yelled mentally, give me something. Cody tightened his clasp around Gillus’ arms. Emil crept forward.

��“It’s so easy Emil. Trust in me. It will be most exquisite.” Gillus stared at Emil through ratted, eye-length hair.

��“Shut. Up!” Cody slammed a fist into Gillus’ right kidney. Gillus wheezed. “Come the fuck on, Emil!”

��Emil closed his eyes almost completely and shot forward like a bullet. Emil plunged the knife in, lodging it between two of the dark one’s ribs. The blade skidded against one of the bones. The sound made Emil grimace.

��“Uhhh...” Gillus’ exhalation was prolonged, seeming to stem as much from his tight-lipped mouth as from his new wound - the sound of a dead body’s deflation under the scalpel of a coroner. Cody looked over his shoulder to see the blood just beginning to discharge. Something was amiss. Oh the blood did come, but it ran out like thick syrup. It was not like gushing blood from a fresh wound - more like partially coagulated blood. Cody had never witnessed anything of that nature. Wrong. This is wrong!

��“Now that we’re past the foreplay, the real amusement can begin,” Gillus said and tore his arms from Cody’s grasp as if it were a cardboard restraint. Before Cody could react, Gillus outbalanced him with a shove. Cody slipped over the side of the rack.

��“Aagghhh!” he shouted as he fell over the side. His hand grasped in desperation until it finally hooked some kind of strap that encircled one of the upper skids. “Emil!” He shouted for help, but Emil was on his way down the ladder.

��“Fuck this,” he said as he climbed/slipped down the ladder. The sight of the knife in Gillus’ ribcage, and the fact that it seemed to have no effect, filled him with terror.

��“And I thought tonight would be just another evening spent with the chatterings of rodents under cloudlets of dust. Instead, we’ll have such fun - hide and seek!” Cody could hear Gillus raving at the top of the pallets. After which, he heard him run across and jump to another section of racks. No doubt he was rushing to cut off Sarah and Emil. The fucking cowards, Cody fumed as he hung on to the strap. He had to make his way down. His hand was starting to bleed from the strap’s thin edges, so he let go and grabbed onto another strap, but this time it only protracted his descent. He didn’t secure the lucky catch he had gotten before. Auspiciously for him, the ground wasn’t very far below. Cody landed on his feet but still fell onto his back.

��“Fuck.” He put a hand to his back as he rolled onto his side. “Get up,” he told himself outloud. Subconsciously, he expunged the dust and grime from his back as he tramped through the warehouse.

��“And where are you off to on such a rainy night?!” Cody could hear Gillus squeal as he swooped down from the racks. However, the comment hadn’t been made to him.

��“Oh good God!” Sarah screamed from just up ahead. Apparently Gillus had cut their route short. Serves you right babycakes, Cody snickered inwardly.

��“Murderers and murderesses to milksops?” Cody could hear Gillus drolly say. A second later, Cody was around an offset and was standing behind Emil. “Ah! And here...is the hero. The mighty and courageous, Cody!” Emil made to run back in the direction of Gillus’ sleeping spot. “No other way out at this time of night, my friend. Best stay here and let the dark one relate a vignette to you.” Emil stopped in his tracks and turned around. He shook with the certainty that Gillus barred the only unlocked exit. “Sarah, my enchantress, I knew you’d come to me. Your turn will be soon my dear.”

��“Turn?” Sarah puled. Gillus smiled.

��“Yes, inamorato. I have written it, ‘The Subtle Defleshing of Virtue.’ So shall it be done.”

��“Not before you die, fucker,” Cody declared, still standing in place by the nearest rack, no closer than the others.

��“Still full...full of fight. I like that. I feel sorry for your friends here. So full of fear and angst. So...plaintive in their sobbings.” Gillus paused and reflected on Emil and Sarah. “But. Over all, you three are curious. Inquisitive. Ready to probe and plunge my depths, with word and weapon alike.” Gillus snickered as he glanced down at the buried blade and extruding hilt. “And so I will vouchsafe you, as I said before, a vignette. A pocket-sized autobiography of myself.” Gillus directed his stare to Cody who stood defiantly. “You seek the experience that your rotting loved ones glimpsed.”

��“You’ll feel the same...” Cody took a few steps forward. His face was blustered.

��“Now, now!” Gillus interrupted. “You’ll have your chance. But first, I believe I have the floor, and the right for exposition?” No one objected. Emil was scared stiff, and Sarah still cried freely.

��“Well then, it’s settled. I’ll state my piece in all rapidity, but I doubt that your bound brains will have the ability to fathom my words,” Gillus paused.

��“You see...I am a sufferer, and beneficiary of... craniosynostosis: skull deformity. When I was born, my skull sutures didn’t develop properly. That’s why my skull is elongated. The soft spot that we all have as infants has never completely healed. And my mind has evolved as a side effect. On the other hand, I suppose it has rotted and grown black, like the insides of a punctured egg. Over time I have realized my abilities; I have focused on the dark...on the decaying. In turn, I suppose that I have managed to bring myself somewhere in between death and life. You will note that I place death before life.” He looked at each of them in turn.

��“My heart still beats, yet sometimes it stops. My blood still runs, yet it’s partially coagulated, as you can see.” Gillus touched a finger to the ooze of blood and brought it out away from his body. The substance was connected from finger to wound like a string of syrup. Gillus shook the vileness from his fingertip. “Recently I have acquired adeptness...that is, I have achieved my objective. My magnum opus.” The triad listened raptly.

��“I have wrought a living nightmare. I have brought the black of my mind into reality. It’s no longer only imagination. Weeks ago I allowed my brain to feed on your friends. And selecting them was quite arbitrary, I assure you, though I grant that it was premeditated. I have literally fed my head with your female friends. As to their condition...I had to suck just a soupcon of everything: muscle, tissue, marrow, nerves, blood, and most importantly, essence. Only in a combination of the entire body will one find the soul...or, essence. That essence, of your friends, lives on inside my brain. Oh you could label it a soul and my brain that soul’s purgatory, where Rachel and Gertrude and many others to follow will spend eternity. In turn, I have grown stronger and continue to gain power. And now that I am a success, you three can share in my turbid triumph.”

��“You’re nothing. You’re scum. You actually believe all that spiel! You’re more deluded than I thought,” Cody spat.

��“You, and you’re comedic troupe here, will see for yourselves’.” As Gillus finished the sentence, Cody rushed him. He pulled the knife out and thrust it into Gillus’ chest. A globule of blood from the fresh wound stuck to his chin. Gillus grabbed Cody’s wrist before he could withdraw the knife again. Cody brought his wide, callused fist into Gillus’ brow. Gillus reeled from the clout for only a second and then threw Cody to the ground.

��“Help me you chicken shits!” Cody growled, as he was flung against the floor.

��Emil ran in, trying to wrestle Gillus to the ground. Cody knew why the sudden bolt of courage had erupted. It was because the door was directly behind Gillus, and Emil wanted out of the warehouse. Emil did succeed in tackling Gillus to the ground, but Gillus in turn bound Emil to his body, holding him with the tightness of a vice grip.

��“Iiictthh!” Emil rasped as the wind was squeezed out of him.

��“Oh nooo,” Sarah whimpered.

��“Patience, my dear,” Gillus said. He stood up with Emil still in his clutches. “I promise you’ll be next.”

��What the hell are you going to do now! Cody spurred himself on. He could feel the brick step obtruding into his back. Turning around, he jumped at the first thought that came into his head. A brick would smash his head in! So he began kicking at the step and then stomping it; dust was rising in a reddish haze from the activity. Cody turned frenetically to see the situation progressing behind him. Gillus was holding a nearly faint Emil tightly to him. It was then that Cody got a glimpse - a glimpse of something. Within the mass of blowsy hair on Gillus’ head, something...was moving. At first Cody thought that it was a breeze from somewhere, but then he saw it - moving like a black snake out of the middle of Gillus’s nest of hair. It was hard to discern the tendril-like thing, but Cody watched as it slid through Gillus’ slimy hair toward Emil.

��Hurry, Cody thought, kick harder. His foot slammed the brick so fiercely that he thought he had broken a toe. Next, he jumped into the air and landed on the side of the brick step with all of his weight. The step crumbled, sending him onto his knee - adrenaline shock. Pick up the brick! Cody grabbed the coarse block in his hand and turned to face Gillus’ back. The thing in his hair, seemingly protruding through a suture in his skull, just as Gillus had described, was moving toward Emil. Recognition alit Emil’s face, but he was too weak to scream. Sarah screamed for him.

��“Now you can be completely dead.” Cody brought the brick around in a windmill motion as he leapt into the air as if he were setting up for a slam dunk. The brick came down with such force that it cracked the skull in half. Cody cringed at the sound of Gillus’ cranium splitting. Emil was released, and he fell onto the floor praying for air. Gillus sank to his knees where he wavered. Cody stood behind him, looking down into the fractured skull; it looked like a cracked egg filled with rotten black yoke - festered and ulcerated. The brick was released from Cody’s hand as he stared in awe. Gillus closed his eyes and remained in this fixed position. Emil pushed himself up off the floor. Sarah sucked on the four fingers of her left hand.

��“Dead?” Emil asked hopefully, but Cody knew better. He could imagine what happened when skulls were cracked open, when brains were spilled; this was not it. Inside the skull, the murky tissue pumped. The organ was still alive. Gillus’ eyes shot open. His head tilted back to look at Cody. Emil jumped backward with fright.

��“It is hatched!” Gillus cried out. “The incubation is complete. The erumpent insides of my nest egg...are free to flow unobstructed.” Cody felt like he might vomit into the skull cavity. The skull looked like a dish full of quivering, putrefied jello. Now, instead of one tenebrous tendril, five were visible. The swarthy stalks probed the air around Gillus’ head like sniffing snouts.

��“Run!” Emil shouted at Sarah, and she did, screaming past Gillus as he began to stand up. One of the stalks reached out, about two feet from his head, trying to ensnarl her. The black undulation only managed to brush through her curled blond locks. Sarah flailed her arms about, as if a June bug had flown into her hair, and ran out the door. Cody was fixated on the mass of mind. He wanted to touch it for some reason - feel it. It couldn’t be real unless he was allowed to touch it. His finger moved robotically toward the cavity. A tendril suctioned itself over his index finger.

��“Fuck!” he hollered and pulled away. The strands seemed to be hollow, and the one on his finger began to give suction. He could feel flesh sliding from the bone. Another stalk moved toward him; this particular one had twelve needle-like appendages protruding from inside its hollow. Cody tried to detach himself, but the pain brought him to his knees. He grappled the neck of the tentacle and squeezed, but it was like trying to restrain a wet lamprey. The flesh was warm and revolting to the touch. At this point, Emil made a dash for the door. This action made the other tendrils react instantaneously. The needled one, and its four brethren, bolted toward Emil. Even the sucking one released Cody and moved on to Emil.

��“Agghh.” Cody fell away, holding the pained finger. It looked exactly as if it had been soaked in acid. Cody felt completely defeated now. This is pointless, he thought to himself. Save yourself. Screw that coward Emil. Cody got up and backed away toward the door, all the while keeping his attention on Emil and the dark one.

��“Emil, you bear witness to a scientific anomaly...

��brain-stems, in a literal sense.” The words grated out of Gillus’ throat. Cody felt sick from the insectile sound that Gillus’ vocal cords were now producing.

��“Do something!” Emil lamented. Can’t even die with dignity can you coward, Cody thought.

��“Oh he’ll do nothing. Especially not for a recreant such as yourself,” Gillus gurgled. Cody was ambivalent to the scene. He didn’t want to leave. The teeming tendrils were now attaching themselves to different parts of Emil’s body. A needled one went into his arm like a dozen injections, a suckling one went to his temple, and another, with a single, large prong, slithered underneath his back.

��“That’s it, let it all go. Come into me...” the dark one soughed. Cody was held captive by this freak of nature - held captive as he watched Emil’s skin shrivel ever so slightly. He descried the brain branches taking their sustenance. Go! he thought. Get out before the same happens to you. Cody had seen enough. He dashed out the door and ran, sprinting away from the warehouse, back in the direction they’d come.

��He could run for miles and not tire, thanks to basketball. Up ahead, he heard Sarah’s sobbing. I’m actually catching up to that whining bitch, he told himself. After a short while he caught sight of her - splashing through warm puddles like a retarded child. She was lost between buildings.

��“Sarah! Keep going you idiot!” he scolded. Sarah locked eyes with Cody and waited for him to catch up. She clung to him, and her tears rained against his shirt.

��“What are we going to do?” she squealed.

��“Stop that!” Cody instructed sternly. “Your tears won’t help a damn thing! We have to get to the car and get out of here!” Cody shook her back and forth to show her that he was in control.

��“Wh-at are we go-ing to-do...” she howled as he shook her.

��“You’ll be the girl of my dreams!” Gillus said as he arrived from the dark behind them.

��“How the hell...” Cody began.

��“The flesh of nightmares travels faster than its prey.” The dark one strided to them in one leap; his legs were as shadow stilts. Cody’s first impulse was to throw Sarah to Gillus, and so he did. Fuck that whimpering infant, Cody figured and ran away from the preoccupied Gillus. He could hear Sarah pule behind him like a dying kitten. Father had drowned plenty of kittens. Who needs the damn useless things anyway. Sarah was useless. He should’ve seen that before. Drown kitten! Drown in a pool of black, Cody thought as he ran. Useless things meet useless ends.

��“My mother always said I was a rotten egg. But I’m sure she never fathomed seeing a rotten egg hatch. Perhaps I should enlighten her as well,” Gillus was mumbling now. Cody was farther away, yet on the wind he could hear, “Forever mine, forever mine, sweet Sarah...sweet Virtue...you melt in my mind like honey.”

��***

��
Away. He had gotten away. The night had been sleepless, and he was exhausted. But he was too awe-stricken to stay home the next day, so he went to school. The dark one had not come for him. He had looked out his window all night, waiting for that bounding black-clad body to transgress his street with its quasi-Gorgan cranium. Gillus had vaporized like the nightmare he had become.

��Cody had watched the morning news: there was no report of bodies being found. At first, when he had awoken, he thought that it might have been some hallucination or night terror. Arriving at school cleared that up. There was no sign of Emil or Sarah. They were permanently absent, he knew. What about him though? Why was he still alive? He wondered. Something else had happened too. The fear in him had turned into fascination. Gillus needed to be killed, but then again, maybe he was not all that bad. He had spared the courageous Cody and had only taken the cowards. Cody imagined Gillus as a captor of crybabies. In the beginning, Cody had been red-hot for revenge, but now the urge had left him. Maybe Gillus had let him escape because he had inadvertently helped to unleash the mindmare. Cody re-examined his scar-encrusted finger while the teacher taught the day’s lesson.

��His thoughts were intruded upon. The interloper was a whispering voice, like that of the wind - Gillus’ voice carried by the wind - a breeze beyond atmospheric definition.

��Lavatory. Meet me. Now. We have unfinished...business, you and I.

��The words fluted into Cody’s head. He wasn’t afraid; he was excited. He ignored the teacher’s ongoing lecture and rudely demanded the bathroom pass. After he had the piece of wood in his hands, he jogged down the silent halls toward the nearest bathroom. He knew it was the right one.

��Last stall.

��The voice was louder now. He couldn’t tell if it was in his head or being spoken to him outloud.

��The door was unlocked. Cody opened it. There sat the dark one, relaxing within the stall, seated on the closed commode. His head was completely wrapped in bandages.

��“Shut the door.” Cody did as he was told. “Do you understand why I have called you?”

��“I think so...” Cody spoke softly.

��“You and I, we’re not all that different: both strong and stern, both cruel and calculated. When I awoke to your attack, I knew you’d be the one.”

��“The one?” Cody said with rapture.

��“Soon this brain will be bloated with essences, crying and begging for escape. I need you Cody. I need you to be in control of these weak wills. In here, you will be the overseer.” Gillus tapped his head.

��“Yes,” Cody rasped.

��“There will be momentary pain.”

��“Pain,” Cody said almost to himself.

��“Closer, my cranial companion,” Gillus said as he tore the bandages from his clean-shaven head. The crack was right down the middle and crossed over the original soft spot. The skull shifted, and the five tendrils slithered out like a nest of vipers. Gillus picked Cody up like a baby and held him in his lap. The needled tendril penetrated the veins of Cody’s left arm. Cody gasped, smiling. The suckling thing adhered to his temple like a lamprey; he could feel its warm wetness pulling at his brain. The pronged tendril went beneath him and penetrated his spinal cord. Another tendril probed his chest for his heart, and the fifth poked into his abdomen. All searching for essence. So Cody sat there and watched the instant corrugation of his skin while Gillus rocked him to sleep.

��Within a few minutes, Cody was transported and draped in darkness - a bath of tar. In that tar were squirming sufferers. He knew all four of them, and he knew they needed to be punished. His weightless essence ascended over the pit of blackness that they now resided in. Their screams were a song sung for him: pleading, beseeching. Cody descended to increase their torment. Somewhere far away he could hear Gillus speaking to him:

��Don’t worry Cody, you’ll always be the master, in the black of my mind.




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