The Brothers Crunk (4 page)

There is a constant hum buzzing in his ear, faint, but still distracting. He looks around for its source, seeing nothing.

The sun is just starting to rise. He decides to get a move on and get as much land traveled as he possibly can before the temperature becomes too unbearable. He removes a bed sheet from his pack and rolls Divey over onto it. He grabs the end of the sheet, dragging his brother and their supplies across the desert.

● ● ●

As the day grows older, Reynold’s eyesight nearly returns to normal. He still notices the gelatin feeling in his eye and the leaking red fluid, but everything looks so much clearer than before.

He’s not exactly sure how far he’s traveled, but he knows that he has been walking for several hours. The sun is directly overhead. It is the hottest time of the day. Reynold decides to stop and rest. He pulls the sheet out from Divey’s pack and builds a little makeshift tent to keep direct sunlight off them for a couple of hours.

He removes the lid to one of his Big Gulps and takes a swig. He kneels down beside Divey and tries to open his mouth, but it seems to be clamped shut. The muscles of his jaw are contracted and rock hard. He squeezes his cheeks, his lips part, but his teeth are still fastened together as if his mandible has been welded to his skull. He pours the Cherry Coke into his mouth. Most of it runs down the sides of his cheeks, but some of it leaks through the crevices between his teeth and into his mouth. Reynold replaces the lid and sets the cup down next to his pack.

He notices something peculiar about Divey’s face—his skin looks tighter. The lines in his face have disappeared. He examines him further, noticing an inexplicable gash from the top of his left arm down to his wrist. The gash is not bleeding, instead it is exposing a layer beneath—an odd rubbery purple layer.

Someone shouting in the distance interrupts his examination. A female voice. Reynold stands, cups his hands like a visor over his eye, and looks for the source of the scream. He sees a large feral creature about ten feet tall chasing a woman dressed head-to-toe in yellow and black spandex. She is much faster than the creature, but whenever she gets a good lead, she stops, removes a stone from a satchel tied around her waist and heaves it at its head. But all that does is make the thing run even faster toward her.

Reynold unfastens the Nintendo Super Scope strapped to his pack. He digs inside the pocket and fishes out a wireless jack and plugs it directly into the port located on the left side of his neck. He hoists the Super Scope onto his shoulders and places the sight over his eye. He follows the beast for nearly a full minute, timing the shot precisely. He squeezes the trigger. He hits the sensor directly—first shot. The beast explodes as though microwaved, showering the sand with meat soup.

“
Fack yeah! I still got it!” Rey mutters to himself, lowering the Scope.

The woman stops and looks around, confused, before finally spotting him. She points and yells something, but Reynold can’t quite make it out. He lifts the scope back up to his eye to get a better look. He notices she is not wearing a jumpsuit at all. She is naked. Her skin is bright yellow with thick black stripes stretched across her torso. Her eyes are like a giant insect’s. A Wasp Woman.

The Super Scope is swiftly kicked out of his hands. Reynold looks back just in time to see the sole of another Wasp Woman whizzing toward his face. He falls over into the hot sand. The woman wraps her arms and legs around him and pulls him close to her body, ripping the wireless Scope sensor out of his neck port. She spreads her wings and lifts him off of the ground.

A swarm of Wasp Women gather up Divey and the supplies. It takes five of them to lift Divey off the ground and even then they still seem to be struggling.

He feels a tiny pinch in his lower back as the Wasp Woman penetrates him with her stinger. She pushes it in so fast and with so much force that it pierces clear through his abdomen. The venom numbs him instantly.

In one final glance ahead, Reynold sees hundreds of Wasp Women swarming around a giant nest burrowed in the side of a mountain.

As the poison begins to blur his vision, the constant hum grows louder.

NINE

MEAT PETE

Reynold awakens several days later with a terrible pain in his gut. Three giant mucus-filled larvae are digging at the small hole in his abdomen, each trying desperately to be the first into the womb. Reynold stands and calmly plucks the parasites from his skin. He squeezes each of them until their flesh stretches like a water balloon and pops open. A clear substance similar to uncooked egg whites squirts violently out from between his fingers.

The venom still flows throughout his bloodstream. He is not able to make any sudden movements. It’s as if he is operating in slow motion.

He studies his surroundings. It appears they have been imprisoned in one of the hexagonal cells of the giant nest he had seen earlier. Everything is dark, but visible. The only light source comes from the small cell opening about thirty feet above. The wound on his arm has scabbed over and doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as it had days before, but he realizes this is probably due to some numbing effect caused by the venom.

Divey is lying on the floor beside him. Still breathing, but his body is noticeably larger. More of the strange purple skin is exposed. The outer layer is stretched across his new flesh in thin strips, resembling a spider’s web. Reynold runs his hands over his brother’s bloated body. He is cold. Dead man cold. But breathing. Divey is very much alive.
But what is this that he is turning into?

Reynold notices several shriveled larvae resting on Divey’s stomach. The larvae appear to have been dead for several days. Reynold presses firmly against Divey’s abdomen—it is as hard as oak. Their teeth must not have been strong enough to penetrate this new skin. He balls his fist and knocks. Solid.
But he is breathing. He is breathing. He is still alive.

Reynold suddenly becomes very nauseated. He hunches over and vomits on the floor. When he wipes his mouth with his shirt he notices the meat slabs have been removed from his body—and Divey’s, too. The slabs have been thrown randomly throughout the cell. Most are on the floor, some are stuck to walls and other places. One bloody steak rests perfectly like a widow’s peak on the crown of a human skull, still attached to its spinal cord. Reynold stares at the hollow sockets of the skull for several minutes in a daze. Then, as quickly as his body allows, he begins to gather the rest of the meat and pile it next to the skull. He sets the spinal cord up on its end and carefully stacks the meat around it until it is sturdy enough to stand on its own. He then rips the meat into thin strips and begins to construct a face.

Once the skull is completely covered, he decides to name it.
Meat Pete.

“
There you are, Petey boy. All finished!” Reynold says with a short laugh.

Meat Pete opens his mouth and exhales loudly. “Hhhhaaaaa, fuck! It’s great to be back!” He looks around the cell. “What the fuck is going on with your bro?” he asks, and before Reynold can answer, Pete looks back at him and asks, “Do you have my ciggies?”

“
The Wasp Women, they took everything. Trust me, if I had them, then I’d be facking lit up.”

“
Yeah, you know, I was gonna warn you ’bout killing that huge ass beast-thing. I had a feeling that the bitch was no damsel-in-distress. She was fucking hunting! Any fuck could have seen that, but no, not you . . . you bloody fuck-tard.”

“
What the fack did you just call me?”

“
I said that if it were your brother out there that day instead of you, then the two of youse wouldn’t even be in this mess. Hell, not only that, but Divey should be in fucking Terratown right now, stuffing his pockets full of cash, but no . . . you fucked that up for him too!”

“
Shut your goddamn mouth, Pete! I swear to fack I’ll kick your bloody teeth in!”

“
Look, man . . . you know it, I know it—the only reason that Divey isn’t lugging
your
comatose ass around the desert is because he felt obligated to fucking do right by you because youse two are brothers. That’s all. And furthermore, if he was thinking what was best for the team,
what was best for him
, then no doubt it’d be your fucking meat pile here, not mine, pal—”

“
SHUT THE FACK UP!!!” Reynold kicks Pete’s skull and sends it flying through the air. He kicks and stomps on the pile of meat until the room looks similar to how it had when he first woke.

He lies on the floor, curled in the fetal position, and begins to cry.

Ten minutes later, Reynold begins reconstructing Pete.

TEN

WAKEY, WAKEY

Reynold walks his coin across the backside of his hand, shifting his fingers in such a way that it flips in a perfect fluid-motion along the crevices between his knuckles. It’s a trick he learned from Master Otto, a door-to-door salesman/magician who visited his house when he was very young. He had begged his parents to purchase the magician’s three-part Betamax series, which they quickly did, most likely just to rid the man from their home. The videos promised
“Three hours of lies and illusions!”
and
the cover was littered with phrases such as,
“Deceive your friends and family!”
and
“Get everything you want from anyone you want! Never work again!”
The tapes were more about mastering pick-pocketing and lock-picking than magic. However, tricks such as the
Knuckle Coin Walk
were taught under sections titled,
“What To Do With It Once You’ve Got It.”

Master Otto was not a very good magician at all.

Reynold places the coin on the backside of Pete’s raw hand. The coin slowly slides off the wet meat and dances across the floor. The trick is only mildly difficult. Pete clearly isn’t even trying.

A large shadow appears overhead. A Wasp Woman flutters down into the cell and lands next to Divey’s body. She scoops the dead larvae in her palms and pulls it close to her chest. She looks sad, as if they were her own children.

Reynold takes cover behind Pete.

“
What the hell, man? Are you serious? You’re hiding from this buzzy biyatch?!” Pete asks.

“
Shut the fack up, Pete! She’s going to hear you.” Reynold whispers. The Wasp Woman raises her head.

“
You know, Rey, she’s actually kinda cute! You think she has a friend, huh?” Pete laughs like a dehydrated weasel. “And jeezus, man, just
look. At. That. Ass!
”