Infected

He turned back to the sink. He ignored their pleading voices. They couldn’t get in, and he had unfinished business. He looked at the butcher’s block.

Looked at the Chicken Scissors.

He shook his head, he couldn’t do it. The doctors could cut it out, the doctors could fix it!

The sink’s top was at waist level; he reached into his wet underwear to lift his s.c.r.o.t.u.m and rest it on the counter, but when he touched it, his hand instinctively flinched as if he’d just unknowingly grabbed a rattlesnake.

It hadn’t felt right. It hadn’t been soft and pliant; it had been hard, crusty, swollen, with solid b.u.mps that didn’t belong.

stttop S toP STopej

you cag’t Do NO NOG

NO NO

The Triangle’s voice wavered badly. Perry didn’t know if it was the Tylenol coursing through his body, the fact that it was the only Triangle left, or a little bit of both. It didn’t matter. He reached into his underwear again, ready for the horrid, stomach-churning feeling this time, and lifted his s.c.r.o.t.u.m up to rest on the edge of the sink.

It was the most horrible thing he’d ever seen.

Tears instantly poured down his cheeks. Not the tears of pain that had sneaked out of his eyes once or twice during his self-mutilation sessions, but tears of frustration, tears of a man who’s lost everything.

There wasn’t a doctor in the world who could help him now.

He hadn’t looked at this Triangle since the day he’d pulled that tiny white thing from his thigh. He hadn’t examined his b.a.l.l.s since then. Not even once. Had he looked, had he seen, he might not have fought at all.

The Triangle was huge. It was almost black under the skin of his s.c.r.o.t.u.m. The center of the pyramid head pointed up as if his b.a.l.l.s rested under a fleshy pup tent. Most of his pubic hair had fallen off, leaving his skin bald and unprotected. His left t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e was hidden somewhere under the Triangle. His right t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e was barely visible, the end of it pus.h.i.+ng against the inside of his s.c.r.o.t.u.m, stretching the skin. His d.i.c.k jutted out at an odd angle — the Triangle had grown right underneath its base. There was little room left for the tissue that connected the p.e.n.i.s to his body. It looked as if it were on the verge of falling off, severed at the bottom by the edges of the ever-growing Triangle.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

The tentacles had grown under his skin, just as they had

The last tentacle? The last one was the worst of them all.

The last tentacle reached right up the side of his p.e.n.i.s, distending the skin, a thick, black vein that wrapped around and around, that reached almost to the end, as if it were pointing at the head of Perry’s d.i.c.k. Pointing and mocking.

His naked body s.h.i.+vered with fear and dread. Dread because he knew he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t cut off his own d.i.c.k and b.a.l.l.s. The little f.u.c.kers had won they had won they had won f.u.c.k them all to h.e.l.l f.u.c.k you all to h.e.l.l! Perry leaned forward, his unit still on the sink, and yanked one of the steak knives from the butcher’s block. He laid his arm down on the sink, palm up, and placed the point of the knife at his wrist just below the hand. He’d heard somewhere that you have to slice down the length of your wrist, not crosswise, to do it right.

His father’s voice: "What are you doing, boy?"

Perry’s tears fell into the sink. Sobs racked his body. He looked up into the mirror, and once again instead of his own ravaged reflection he saw the tight-skinned face of his skeletal father. Jacob Dawsey’s eyes glowed bloodred, his lips so taut they didn’t move when he spoke — he was nothing more than skin and bones, his muscles long since consumed by Captain Cancer.

"I’m sorry, Daddy," Perry said through choked sobs. "I can’t do it. I’m gonna end it right here."

"You can still win, son. You can still beat them all."

"Daddy, I can’t. I just can’t!"

"You gotta do it, boy!" Daddy’s voice took on the harshest of tones. "You’ve come this far — you can’t stop now. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!"

Perry hung his head. He couldn’t do it, and he couldn’t look at his father’s face. He pressed the blade against his wrist. A drop of blood formed around the knife point. Two quick slashes and he’d be done.

Sorry, Daddy, but it’s got to end here.

He took one last look at his misshapen, monstrous genitals, blinked back the tears and gathered his strength to...

He wasn’t sure he saw it at first.

It happened a second time, and he knew he hadn’t imagined it.

His genitals jiggled.

hatchuing timeddf

for hatfhueing timy

fort hatchfring

No.

No sir, no how, no way. If he killed himself right now, the Triangle would still hatch out of his body and join the others, do whatever hatch

lings do, dance around the dead bodies of the silly humans, play gin rummy, watch The Brady Bunch or whatever else they did he didn’t know and he just didn’t give a f.u.c.k.

Perry screamed at his genitals. "f.u.c.k you! f.u.c.k you f.u.c.k you f.u.c.kyou! It’s not going to happen, do you understand?"

The Triangle in his s.c.r.o.t.u.m jiggled and twitched. He watched in horror and absolute rage as it started to bounce outward, pus.h.i.+ng both to break free of the skin and to break the tail, the umbilical cord that had kept it alive all this time.