Brain Food (5 page)

11.

Squeak. Rattle. Squeak. Click!

The weathered box felt rickety, yet at the same time solid, and opening it was tricky. He had to press a hidden latch under the top edge to release the brass locking mechanism. Three layers of silken tissues concealed the dwindled contents within. He unraveled the tissues and searched for the remaining bit, now only the size of a marble. As he held it, a wave of anxious energy bubbled to the surface. He wanted so badly to take a little slice. Just a little. But no. He resisted, scared shitless by what Alejandro had said. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was. So he wrapped the brain food up again, stuffed it in the box, and slammed the lid closed. He’d go cold turkey, and tonight he’d write using his own creativity.

However, no matter how hard he tried, and no matter how hard he tried not to try, the words never came. The goddam cursor mocked him again. It soon became obvious the cursor was being smug, confident he wouldn’t be able to defeat it. That’s where it was mistaken.

“You think you got me beat, don’t you?” he screamed at his computer screen. “You think you’ve won because I can’t eat any more of that stuff, don’t you? Well you’re fucking wrong!”

He ran to the bedroom and tore into the box, digging through the fancy packing to the precious nugget deep inside. He was careful to crumble off only a little corner, ensuring there was at least something remaining.

The bitter taste became instantly overwhelmed by his soaring consciousness. One second he was devoid of a single idea, the next they came at him so fast he had a hard time containing them. The work became like breathing after that. He breezed through chapter after chapter, writing the first draft of the new novel in just under six hours. Then he started rewriting. He’d gotten to chapter twelve in that process when he heard a knock at the door.

“Go away!” he kept typing. “I don’t want anything!”

Knock! Knock! Knock!

“I don’t want anything right now! Leave me alone and let me work, Goddamit!”

Knock! Knock! Knock!

He stepped to the front entryway with caution, then looked through the peephole. Nothing. He turned to get back to work and another knock made him spin around again. He whipped open the door. Nothing. Nobody in either direction of the hallway. Then he turned and about jumped out of his skin when he saw a voluptuous, golden-brown, statuesque beauty. Her wavy, auburn hair swept over her face for a moment in the breeze, then it blustered up, revealing a seductive stare. Stan’s stomach tied in knots. He’d seen this woman before.

“It’s…it’s you,” he stammered. “Teya. Why are you here?”

She answered with an enticing grin and shimmied his direction. Her smooth movements brought it all back—the night they’d spent together, the passionate beginning of his new life. How could he forget? Eagerly, she locked her lips onto his. Then she lifted her peasant blouse and he went wild with lust, forsaking his writing, forgetting the logic of how and why. She’d seen him on TV. Maybe she lived in town, driving cab in the Big Apple and she’d decided to give her old friend another night of benefits. It didn’t matter. He wanted her and she wanted him.

Only one problem. He couldn’t get it up.

“Shit!” ran to the bedroom. “Hold on!”

He opened the ancient wood container, pushed through layer after layer after layer of silk wrapping, and found the tiny, pinkish-gray lump. Just a scrape was all he needed. Wincing at the unpleasantness on his taste buds, he felt an instant tingle, starting in his stomach and migrating all over his body until he was numb with raw energy. Promptly, he went back to the sitting room where, by a roaring white marble fireplace, Teya lay naked, caressing herself.

The first night they were together, it had become a feral mating ritual. Tonight was different, more meaningful, though no less acrobatic. Stan had started to wonder if he’d ever find someone, now that he was so successful. Someone who loved him for who he was, the real Stan Cox. That’s what he was looking for. Teya could have easily been that someone.

Their time together lasted longer than he’d expected, and, over the three years of using it, he’d built up a tolerance to brain food. For those reasons, he found himself taking two more trips to the box before the evening was over. He worried about eating it all, but each time he only took a little, not enough to finish it off. He swore it wasn’t.

Teya sighed and kissed his forehead, then his nose, then his lips, and rolled off of him. Almost like flipping a switch, she fell asleep.

He wanted to sleep, too, but a deadline loomed. His novel was due in a ridiculous two weeks, and he swore to himself he’d get the bulk of it done tonight. Before he cinched his bathrobe halfway, he became convinced the writing would go nowhere without at least a little nip of brain food.

“There you are,” he spoke to the box as he lifted the lid. “Let’s just open you up and get to your goodies, shall we? Just a little, now. Just a little…”

His bowels became a boiling cauldron. Inside the box, wrapped within three silk rags was—nothing. The brain food. It was gone. Despite his best intentions, he’d eaten it all.

Gone.

He heard giggling. Soft. Playful. Evil.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

His chest thumped with the same resonance as the beats against the door. Someone wanted in badly, and Stan had a petrified idea who.

The giggling grew into laughter, mocking and cruel. It was Teya, and when he made it back to the couch, she sat up and became silent, save for a slight growl. The malevolence in her face made him back off.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

He searched the suite for something, anything to defend himself. On the room service tray, he found a knife in the cheese assortment. It was small, but sharp. Just what he needed.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

He tiptoed to the door and peered through the hole. Instantly he recognized old man Gomez. Stan knew it was him. Long, stringy hair. Gray beard hanging down to his chest. Bushy brows and sun-parched skin. He squinted directly into the peephole with a milky eye, right back at Stan.

Stan jolted away, dropping the blade. “What do you want!”

“You’ve eaten it all…I’ve come for my payment.”

“No! Go away!”

“But you’ve eaten it all, Señor Cox. Payment is due. That was the bargain, remember?”

“I don’t care!” his heart fluttered. “Go away!”

“I won’t go until I have my payment. Now let me in.”

“No! I won’t let you in! I won’t!”

Gomez pounded harder. Stan rattled the lock, making doubly sure it was engaged. Then he strung the chain bolt and pushed his weight against the door. Suddenly a stinging, searing pain up the back of his calf forced him to his knees. He felt an abrupt recoiling sensation, a gigantic rubber band snapping and wadding at the base of his ass. He cried out and reached for his ankle, now hemorrhaging badly from a slit just above his heel. Slipping in his own blood, flailing like a stuck pig, he tried to get back on his feet. It was no use.

Another slicing wound, this time to his shoulder. Then to his chest, neck, chest. Over and over, Teya punctured him with the cheese knife—death by a thousand cuts. He heard his own flesh tearing, yet, curiously, felt no pain. His shocked nervous system had shut down. Inert, unable to move or defend himself, he could only watch as Teya stabbed and stabbed.

She wiped a spattering of red off of her lips and smiled, then giggled.

Click. Clack. Clatter.

She unlocked the door and Gomez hobbled into the penthouse suite. He knelt, took Teya’s hand, and kissed it.

“Princess Teyacapan, you’ve done a wonderful job,” he stood and unslung a rawhide sheath. Once he placed it on the table in the parlor, he unfolded it.

“I’m…I’m cold,” Stan shivered in a ruddy puddle. He managed to prop up and sit with his back against the door. His hands left smears on the marble.

“You are bleeding to death, Señor Cox,” Gomez brandished a thin, straight-handled saw. “The Princess and I have to work fast.”

“P-p-princess?” Stan shuddered, his senses dulled, his extremities freezing.

“Yes,” the old man’s eyes were especially translucent. He stepped behind Teya. She was stained with Stan’s blood. “Who you’ve known as Teya is actually the daughter of an ancient Aztec King. And when she died, he mummified her and had his magicians place a spell on her so that she would one day live again.”

“M-m-mumified?”

Gomez placed his hand on her shoulder and laughed heartily. “Yes, Señor Cox,” he gestured to the stunning young woman. “This is how you see her,” he waved his hand. “But this is how she really looks…”

Stan’s stomach turned and he winced in agony as Teya’s skin began to flake and crack and peel. Her lips receded, curling over blackened teeth and wilted gums. Her nose crusted up and fell to the marble floor with a
plup!
revealing a decomposed nasal cavity. The skin on her cheeks, then forehead, then scalp chapped and dried like rawhide. The transformation overtook her entire body, until she was nothing but an upright pile of bones and dried flesh.

She lifted the bloodstained knife and took one lumbering step in his direction, her skull showing, her collarbones protruding. Stan burst with anxious energy, giving him enough strength to kick his legs and thrash his arms. It wasn’t enough to get away, though, and he sagged back to the floor, helplessly watching the living corpse stumble toward him. He tried to scream. Maybe he did, he wasn’t sure. As the crumbling cadaver ambled closer, blocking the light, a shadow enveloped his vision, dulling the pain, releasing him from his misery once and for all.
Sweet death
, he thought.
Thank you
.

12.

Zizz! Zizz! Zizz! Zizz!

He awoke to the sound of cutting and the smell of burnt bone. He opened his eyes and closed them again, certain it was a nightmare. He looked one more time and screamed longer and louder than he’d ever screamed, yet nothing came out. His throat had been slashed so brutally, he no longer had vocal chords.

“Ah, you’re awake, Señor Cox! Perfecto! The brain must be alive before harvesting.”

In the mirror, Stan saw himself, strapped tight to a tall-back armchair in the parlor. Chest, shoulders, neck, wrists, ankles—all secured firmly. The snare was so complete, he couldn’t move a muscle. Wrapped like a fly in a spider’s web.

He saw Gomez, standing near him, smiling and bloodied. Teya was on the couch, her desiccated form like a charcoal silhouette against the white marble.

“Soon, Your Highness. Soon we will have your brain ready. Just a couple more cycles should do the trick. Señor Cox was so generous to act as host for us this time, weren’t you, Señor Cox?”

Stan flopped his jaw open and closed but made not a sound.

“That’s okay, Señor Cox. You don’t need to speak. All you have to do is sit still,” Gomez resumed his work, keeping the small saw near the top of Stan’s head.

Zizz! Zizz! Zizz! Zizz!

He felt the blade carving deep, its serrated edge sliding back and forth, ripping away bit by bit, digging into scalp and tissue and bone. He shrieked again and again in his mind, flapping his jowl and bulging his tongue. It only seemed to make Gomez cut faster, a cloud of bone dust stirring in his wake as he worked in a circle, exposing the cranial cavity.

The last thing International Number One Bestselling Author Stanley Cox saw, when only a few synapses were left firing in his optic nerves, was his brain being carefully wrapped in one, two, three silk handkerchiefs, then placed with care into the weathered, warped, wooden box.