Head Like a Hole

by Andrew Van Wey

A flash of Adam’s words: “A zero-sum game.” The two of them kissing. Headlights cutting the dark night as her tires left the road.

Her walk turned into a jog as she saw the truck tilting to the left side, rims touching the asphalt. Three of the tires were slashed.

The first was to an old liaison at the state department. He wanted to run the name Oksana Samarina by him and see if anything came up in their systems. Nothing did, just another student on an overstayed visa.

A blue butterfly flew beside him for a moment and then followed the breeze east. He used the walk to review his thoughts.

Fact one: There was some connection between Louis and Chunhee still waiting to be uncovered. Was Oksana that link? Perhaps.

Fact two: Chunhee, Megan, and Oksana all attended the same school. Had Louis been obsessing over them for years and building a k...

Fact three: Megan hadn’t necessarily lied but she’d kept something hidden. When he’d asked about Oksana, ...

Here it was, the final facts of Louis Harding’s life. His height and weight, his sex and race, the culmination of fifty-some years reduced to lines and checked boxes.

“Below. He was missing a finger when I last saw him.”

“Well, he’s missing more than one now.”

Yep, this was Louis all right. Graham checked the box and signed, verifying that he had witnessed the body. His part in this mess was over. Then something shifted.

There was something moving now, a shadow rustling in the dark plastic of the body bag by Louis’s shoulder.

Something small and wet and—Jesus Christ—it was crawling.

Not a good thing to hear from a doctor. It was a dimpled pink puddle at first. Then it stretched and frayed to webbing, sending little roots to the edge of the body bag. Tendrils straddled the open zipper, glistening in the sterile light. Graham was both disgusted and transfixed.

Transfixed, because it was changing before them. Its surface rippled, stiffened, and darkened. It was mimicking the PVC vinyl and zipper.

Then it did something that drove the men back even farther. It mewled. It fucking cried like a baby.

the way thats worded made me giggle

The mass oozed and undulated in ways that no liquid possibly could. It stretched and it crawled and it shivered. All the while, that cry echoed out, wet agony and madness.

He felt the resistance, as if somehow this was more than just liquid. It had the density of blackstrap molasses and a strength like the jaws of a pit bull.

Hissing and sputtering, it squirmed away from the flames.

Then it was over. The mound of ash collapsed, smearing the tiles beside the smoldering clipboard and papers. There was nothing left that could burn.

As Graham wiped his eyes, the medical examiner whispered, “What in good God’s name just happened?”

Except, of course, when he was playing his Game Boy. He was further along into Donkey Kong Land 2 than ever, all the way to Mudhole Marsh.

A dark fear murmured in Willy’s nine-year-old mind: the AA batteries, had he remembered to bring them? He had taken them from the drawer, yes. He’d put them in the plastic baggie along with his cartridges for The Lion King and Mega Man V. But now his fingers touched the bottom of his backpack. There was no plastic bag, no click of cartridges, no spare batteries.

“So, it’s not my fault?” “No, it is your fault.”

He didn’t like frustrating Mother because sometimes that made her sad, and S-A-D was B-A-D. He preferred Mother when she was H-A-P-P-Y.

Diddy Kong and those bananas…

why does that sound so sensual???

“William, off the floor,” his mom said. “Big boy time. Here, I brought one of your favorites.”

Kids needed real entertainment, not stupid pages with stupid words he didn’t always understand. She might as well give him homework.

He’d make a save point back at his house. He’d restart so he could get those stupid batteries.

He could see one of her eyes was open, watching the landscape of rivers and covered bridges drifting by. Her other eye was covered in a bandage.

But he wasn’t a threat to the woman; he found her quite pretty. Actually, she was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.

There were sentences that stretched down the whole page and words running across it that were little more than three letters. There were strange letters too. Not the real alphabet but maybe something foreign and curved, like markings found in a wizard’s book of spells.

“So, why are you making preserves?” “Why are you breathing?”

“Hey, kid,” the woman said, leaning a little bit closer. She was no longer concentrating and her eye had returned to normal. “You’ll remember me, won’t you?”

How had he gotten down into the aisle? And why were his arms and legs dancing? “It’s okay,” Mother said, assuring the other passengers. “This happens sometimes when he has a seizure. Don’t worry, he’ll be okay.”

And she was right. This sometimes did happen. As for today, he couldn’t say why.

Yet he never thought of her again; he never remembered her face. And he never had another seizure.

Why had Adam slashed her tires? And why was she seeing the name of some random city in New York? Because something is on the way.

Thirty minutes later, she had a cold bottle of Josta cola between her knees, the Isuzu and its fresh tires merging onto the freeway, driving east as fast as she could.

“I made a mistake. There was a family we knew at our apartment in Kyiv. Their daughter was a dancer who was going abroad. Zorianna became… obsessed. She started imitating her, listening to the same music, speaking in her voice. At first she didn’t want her friend to leave. Then she begged to go with her.”

“They found fingerprints at Desiree and Tom’s apartment that matched the sorority,” he said. “They were Chunhee Chang’s.”

Like the groundskeeper’s jaw. Like Chunhee’s body. Like Tom’s eye and Desi’s— No, it was all too confusing, too bizarre, too fucking weird.

“She killed sweet Chunhee and Desi and Tom. I say we catch this bitch and burn her alive.”

No. No, her mind refused to go there. Sweat bloomed down her back and her gut twisted. Rust coated her mouth and… And then something else.

Her tongue circled a sandy lump near her molar that wiggled and twisted. Wincing, she spat into her hand. A black snail squirmed and fell from her fingers.

The sharp, jagged shell, the crumbling sand, and the brine on the back of her tongue. It hit her, floored her, knocked the words right out of her for several moments.

Because it wasn’t Megan that was talking. Nor was it Chunhee. Nor Tom or Desi. It was Oksana.

“Everything okay?” No, everything’s not okay, she thought. And it hasn’t been for some time. But she said, “She’s getting close.”

Adam kept flat in the bushes as it drove past. What the hell was that doing out here? Unless…

The world held its breath, and so did Adam.