Except that these weren’t insects, or the larvae of insects: he could see that plainly now. They were pieces of the European’s flesh. He was still alive. In pieces, in a thousand senseless pieces, but alive.
Breer had been unrelentingly thorough in his destruction, eradicating the European as best his machete and failing hands would allow. But it had not been enough. There was too much stolen life buzzing in Mamoulian’s cells; it roared on, in contravention of any sane law, unquenchable.
For all his vehemence the Razor-Eater had not finished the European’s life, merely subdivided it, leaving it to describe these futile circles. And somewhere in this lunatic’s menagerie was a beast with a will, a fragment that still possessed sufficient sense to think itself-albeit stutteringly-into Carys’ mind. Perhaps not one piece, perhaps many-a sum of these wandering parts. Marty wasn’t interested in its biology. How this obscenity survived was a matter for a madhouse debating society.
He backed out of the room and stood, shivering in the hall. Wind gusted against the window; the glass complained. He listened to the gusts while he worked out what to do next. Down the corridor a piece of filth fell from the wall. He watched it struggle to turn itself over, and then begin the slow ascent again. Just beyond the spot where it labored lay Whitehead. Marty went back to the body.
Charmaine’s killers had enjoyed themselves mightily before they left: Whitehead’s trousers and underwear had been pulled down, and his groin scrawled on with a knife. His eyes were open; his false teeth had been removed. He stared at Marty, jaw sagging like a delinquent child. Flies crawled on him; there were patches of decay on his face. But he was dead: which in this world was something. The boys had, as a final insult, defecated on his chest. Flies gathered there too.
In his time Marty had hated this man; loved him too, if only for a day; called him Papa, called him bastard; made love to his daughter and thought himself King of Creation. He’d seen the man in power: a lord. Seen him afraid too: scrabbling for escape like a rat in a fire. He’d seen the old man’s odd species of integrity in practice, and found it workable. As fruitful, perhaps, as the affections of more loving men.
He reached across to seal off the stare, but in their zeal the evangelists had cut off Whitehead’s lids, and Marty’s fingers instead touched the slick of his eyeball. Not tears that wetted it, but rot. He grimaced; withdrew his hand, sickened.
Just to shut off the look on Papa’s face he thrust his fingers under the corpse to heave it onto its belly. The body fluids had settled, and his underside was damp and sticky. Gritting his teeth he rolled the man’s bulk onto its side, and let gravity pull it over. Now at least the old man didn’t have to watch what followed.
Marty stood up. His hands stank. He baptized them liberally with the rest of the Scotch, to cancel the smell. The libation served another purpose: it removed the temptation of the drink. It would be too easy to become muzzy and lose focus on the problem. The enemy was here. It had to be dealt with; put away forever.
He began where he was, in the hall, digging his heels into the pieces of flesh that crawled around Whitehead’s body, squashing their stolen life out as best he could. They made no sound, of course, which made the task simpler. They were just worms, he told himself, dumb slivers of mindless life. And it became yet easier as he went up and down the corridor grinding the meat into smears of yellow fat and brown muscle. The beasts succumbed without argument. He began to sweat, working out his revulsion on this human refuse, eyes darting everywhere to make sure he caught each wretched scrap. He felt a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth-now a low laugh, quite without humor, escaped. It was an easy decimation. He was a boy again, killing ants with his thumbs. One! Two! Three! Only these things were slower than the most laden ant, and he could stamp them down at a leisurely pace. All the power and wisdom of the European had come to this muck, and he-Marty Strauss-had been elected to play the God-game, and wipe it away. He had gained, at the last, a terrible authority.