Crazytimes Page 8

  During one conversation, my parents were told that if the three of us remained attached, it was likely we would all die in a matter of months. Maybe even weeks.

  So, in order for me to survive, my brothers had to die. And I’ve been holding onto the guilt associated with that choice—even though it wasn’t my choice—my entire life.

  And yet, they survived? Has my entire life been a lie? A joke?

  How was this kept from me for so many years? Who knew what I didn’t? Why didn’t someone find me and tell me and why is this happening now?

  My scars tingle. I reach up under the hair on the back of my head and rub one of them with the tips of my fingers.

  “You understand what’s happening, don’t you?” my brothers say. They speak from both mouths, in unison, using one voice. My voice.

  And I know the words before they’re spoken. I hear them inside my head before I hear them with my ears.

  “Choices are made based on circumstances,” we say. “But our choices pollute with their short-sightedness. Pollute everything. Our surroundings, our relationships, our families. So now, something has come in to clean up the mess. To course-correct. To fix it as best they can.”

  What do they mean, something? Like, some thing? Some force? An energy? Or a being?

  Oh. It hits me like a ton of bricks. Like a collapsing bell tower.

  “How foolish it is to think we’re all alone in the universe. How many foolish things we think, every day, just to get ourselves to tomorrow, without ever really preparing for the future.”

  A smile creeps across my face, slowly. Like a realization.

  We—humanity—can’t be trusted anymore. The slate is being wiped clean. We’re being driven insane, our minds scrambled, our bodies twisted. The mutations make us stronger, but it’s only temporary, to aid the buzzing in our brains so we can overpower the others in the short-term.

  We’re in the way. We’re a cancer that needs to be eradicated. The difficult decision has been made, and it’s beyond all our control.

  It makes me chuckle. It’s all so simple, really. A chaos plan. They make us crazy. They make us kill. It won’t take long, really. We’ll take ourselves out, and probably do it in twenty-four hours or so.

  “Is it starting to make a bit more sense?” my brothers and I say to each other.

  Did they intend to raise the dead too? That seems like an unintentional side effect. Unless it’s meant as a distraction. More chaos.

  I scratch the scar at the base of my skull, tracing it down the back of my neck. There are other scars, on my shoulders, down either side of my spine. Where my brothers and I all used to be attached. They itch too, but not as much.

  My brothers step toward me, their movements perfectly cooperative, as if they are of one mind. Which I suppose we are.

  “It would seem a few of us are immune to the plan, however. Immune to the gas, and to the madness that is unfolding around us. Perhaps that’s how we three have made it this long.”

  Could that be? Is someone, or something, going to come take us away? Is there somewhere else we can go? Somewhere habitable we can live, maybe even thrive, even if it’s with creatures completely unlike us, from somewhere else in the universe? The possibilities are mind-boggling. I scratch my chin like I’m thinking, but it’s really just the itch.

  Why are we—my brothers and I—the lucky ones? Why do we get to survive? What’s so special about us? What an absurd thought. It makes me laugh.

  My scars are agitated. On fire. They feel intensely warm to the touch now, radiating heat I can feel with my fingers and down past my wrists. They’re itchy. Swollen. I hack at the one behind my head with my hands, clawing away at it, breaking the skin and nearly pulling the nails off my fingertips.

  My brothers side-step around me, then place their backs against my own and it feels exactly like it did when we were kids.

  There’s a deep rumbling sound up above, and all around us, breaking through the quiet of the church’s sanctuary. Suddenly the stone walls begin to vibrate. Dust shakes free. I inhale the musty smell and the scent of my brothers and feel the rumble deep inside my bones. Our bones. It feels like an earthquake. Like a body quake. It’s coming from within and without.

  “I think it will be nice,” my brothers and I say, in a fit of hilarity that begins to take hold, all of us now approaching ecstatic laughter, our bodies quivering—our one-two-three-four-five-six hands scratching away at our one-two-three necks—the burning, itching, sizzling fire exploding in our one, one—ONE!—mind.

  Our backs bubble out, and burst, and fuse.

  Just like old times.

  We’re so happy to be with each other again, thrilled to be starting our new/old life together. I promise to be a better partner. I promise to nurture and not drain you/us. We will be the best we’ve ever been and grow better together than we ever could apart.

  I look up and feel my eyes rolling—our eyes rolling—spinning, as a circle of blue-white light forms directly above us, first outside from above and through the hazy sky, then shooting down through the vaulted ceiling of the church, a column of light penetrating the stone, and illuminating us like a brilliant spotlight. My knees—our knees—are no longer wobbling, nor are they supporting us. Suddenly we’re rising up into the air, weightless. Our scars itch fiercely, but it’s the only physical sensation we feel anymore.

  Then we remember the blade on our back and wonder if that will help soothe the itch. We pull the machete from the sheath and raise it high with all six of our hands around the handle, then drag it down across our necks.

  And as we pass through the ceiling of the stone church, like a ghost—one ghost—and float into the darkened haze above, we can’t see where we’re headed, except into a great void, and we don’t even care.

  It’s all a big joke, and whether we want to or not, we can’t stop laughing.

  Acknowledgments

  Immense gratitude to my wife, Gina Renzi, and my author-brothers, Adam Cesare, Matt Serafini, Patrick Lacey, and Aaron Dries. Huge thanks also to C.V. Hunt and Andersen Prunty for taking this story on, and helping to tweak and twist it into its final form, and to Shawn Macomber for the fantastic blurb which adorns the cover.

  Scott Cole is a writer, artist, and graphic designer living in

  Philadelphia.

  He likes old radio dramas, old horror comics, weird movies, cold weather, coffee, and a few other things too.

  Find him on social media, or at 13visions.com

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