“People spend much, if not all, of their lives complaining or weeping or cursing or just being loud and unpleasant. When we die, however, we are completely silent—inert. Our bodies are utterly vulnerable to the elements and to human hands, of course.
“It was during that first semester that I discovered not only did I enjoy being in Cadaver City with all those half-dissected corpses, but that I could find complete peace with them. I used to lay next to them on the dissection table. I would hold their hand, if it hadn’t been dissected yet. Sometimes I’d pet their hair, like you would a cat.”
The doc ran a hand from the top of Brendan’s head slowly down to his neck, where his fingers lightly tapped like a spider inspecting a new area.
“It’s standard that they keep the faces of the donated bodies covered for much of the semester. It’s easy to cut open arms, legs, stomachs, but most people find it particularly challenging to cut the face. It’s usually the last thing you do.”
Genuine nausea had gathered in Brendan’s gut and now he gripped the sides of the toilet harder and needed to vomit. That would stop this horrible story from this horrible man.
“In my solitary sessions, I would uncover all the faces. I liked seeing the peacefulness that Death had left there. Sometimes, I would strip naked and stand before those bodies like an equal member, only living of course. I’d lay down naked with those bodies and then I’d start cutting up their faces.
“I cried for many of them as I did it, but it got easier and easier as I went along. Stripping the skin back, revealing layer and layer of fine muscle. The human face is extremely complicated. I’d work sometimes all night and only get half a face finished. But each slice of my scalpel and every new layer of discovery was an epiphany. I wasn’t merely discovering human anatomy, I was discovering God.”
What would Ellis and Dwayne say about that? How did the psycho doc’s medical school behavior fit into God’s Grand Plan?
He sounds empowered.
And totally fucking nuts.
Dr. Carroll squeezed him with both hands, shoulder and neck. His beard prickled Brendan’s neck like pieces of dry hay. “I learned, son, that in the darkest corners of our minds there is a gateway to the illumination of the soul.” He let that piece of wisdom sit for a moment. His breath stuck to Brendan’s skin like slime. “Let that give you comfort if nothing else.”
He had to vomit, had to force out whatever was in his stomach, if anything, because he had to get out of this situation, get this weird fucker off of him and get the hell out of the house if that’s what it took.
The doc was almost on top of him, practically humping him. What if he was getting turned on? The doc’s crotch was right by Brendan’s ass; the doc could slip a hand down to Brendan’s belt buckle and then slide his pants right off. Bile came into his throat.
“Let me comfort you,” the doc whispered. “You’re a very special boy.”
Brendan couldn’t stop the tremors shaking his body. He gripped the edge of the bowl harder and imagined chunks of orange and red vomit floating before him.
“You remember when I gave you that myth book? Remember what I told you?”
It had been something about being strange and being a Greek or something.
“I told you not to worry about being weird. The Greeks would have thought you special, a gift—they would have made you a priest, a keeper of the peace between man and God. You are very special, indeed. Don’t be afraid.”
He saw maggots squirming in the chunks. Yet vomit did not usher up from his stomach. “That book is stupid,” Brendan said.
“Did you finish it?”
“I don’t need to.”
The doc’s hand gripped Brendan’s neck more tightly and then relaxed, his fingers sliding over the skin like worms. “That’s my boy,” he said.
Three thunderous knocks sent Dr. Carroll to his feet and quickly to the door. He wasn’t going to let Tyler in, no, he meant to lock the door and stay in here until Brendan finally spewed his guts or until the doc had his way with Brendan’s “dark hole,” as his friends called it. Tyler, however, had come to save the day; he burst into the bathroom and caught the doc mid-stride, arm extended toward the knob with a lost expression on his face as if he had forgotten where he was.
“My mom needs you,” Tyler said.
After a moment of indecision, Dr. Carroll told Brendan he’d be back to check on him and then went off to Mom’s bedroom.
“Sorry that took so long,” Tyler said. “But it’s done. You alright? You’re pale.”
Brendan couldn’t answer him. Was he alright? How could such an easy question be so hard to answer?
“You really sick?”
“I don’t know.”
They stayed like that for almost a minute before the grinding wine of the automatic garage door vibrated beneath them. Dad was finally home.
7
Tyler was on the phone (it was Delaney’s cell, all pink with shiny rhinestones that formed a “D” on the front) with Paul—hung over now, nursing “a bitch of a head throb”—when Dr. Carroll’s black Town Car pulled into the driveway. The short man got out of his car, that same stupid tie with pink flowers on it dangling beneath a drooping face.
“Christ, now the family doc is here.”
“You’re living in a fucked-up world these days, my friend,” Paul said.
The branded arrowhead on his hand had started to throb a few hours ago and hadn’t let up. “No shit.”
“You running out of options.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, what the fuck were you thinking last night? We were trying to send a message and you go all hero on me.”
“Stupid, I know.” He had taken two Tylenol but it wasn’t helping with the pain.
“There are other bitches, better bitches, you can go after, fuck, and then drop if you want, ones without psycho witches for mothers. The first time, I mean, I can understand but why go back? Why?”
“You going to keep telling me what a fuck up I am or are you going to give me some advice?”
Paul snorted. “Advice? We tried that, wreck the bitch’s place—you fucked that up.”
“I don’t know. If she’s really pregnant …”
“You’re fucked.”
“Thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
Tyler laughed because it was better than getting more and more anxious or pissed off or even start crying. How had all of this happened? A week ago things had been, if not normal, then at least palatable, but since then he had raped and impregnated a girl who had a witch for a mother, Delaney had been killed, and Mom and Dad had checked out. And Brendan had been talking strange, too, since some religious freaks brain-washed him or something, so who knew where that would lead.
Back to the funeral home.
Paul started eating something, possibly cereal from the crunching sound. “You know what you should do,” he said.
“No, I don’t.”
Paul made him wait. Even with a hangover, Paul still appreciated a good dramatic pause. His idea better not be to burn Sasha’s house down, though with Paul that was always a possibility. An honors student, a jokester, and sometimes a violent guy, Paul had once lit a book of matches on fire in the cafeteria because Ed Greene said he didn’t have the balls. Paul got one day out of school—everyone else got a two-hour fire drill.
“You should get that ol‘ family doc to give you some meds to help remedy your situation.”
Tyler was struck silent by the simplicity and, yes, the brilliance of this idea.