Part 1 (2/2)

No, they aren't dolls or action figures.

They move around.

They live in the little buildings.

They're alive.

After a while, I started watching them instead of Gary. I hooked up a camera which looked over their city so I could watch what happened while I was at work. Eight hours of video zipped by in about twenty minutes on high speed. They work, too. The little people cook, create art, wors.h.i.+p. They rearranged some of Gary's buildings, made one of them into a kind of church. I don't know if he ever noticed.

Gary goes to work at eight in the morning, returns at five-thirty, and turns off his television at ten. He's an accountant or something. Dullsville. On Sat.u.r.days he comes down here, has a cup of coffee, and reads the paper. Not a lot of variation.

I've seen him in his bedroom, sobbing like a baby. One time I saw him look at the label on a bottle of pills-an orange one. Maybe Gary was pondering the undiscovered country.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he goes outside, tilts a house on its side, s.n.a.t.c.hes a few of the people, and squeezes their heads until they swell and burst. Poof-little red cloud. After killing two or three this way, he slumps onto his porch steps and sobs, kind of like that night in his bedroom. He tosses the stained bodies into the city. After a while, he goes inside, slamming the door.

They hold funerals. They dig holes and plant the headless in a section of dirt near Gary's begonias. Kind of creepy, really-they have this whole funeral procession thing and play sappy music. I've watched these people do everything: Work, play, swim in the lake, even have s.e.x in their fenced-in backyards, but I only feel like a sleazebag when I watch one of their funerals.

Yet mostly, I feel sorry for Gary. The guy made a whole city and still isn't happy.

Chapter 5: Enough.

Barry Garner craved positive feedback like a fire l.u.s.ted for oxygen. That's why he walked to the post office with the tiny package. He was ready to keep going, bit by bit, until the feedback loop switched back to green. That's why he made a trip to the post office almost every day for a year, rain or s.h.i.+ne, dropping one person's garage sale junk into the mail for another person who found it as treasure on eBay. All the positive feedback a guy could want, even if he took a hit on s.h.i.+pping or the occasional refund for a dissatisfied curmudgeon. The record had been clean, 100% positive, until the camera. Until that b.i.t.c.h in South Carolina.

His teachers did it too him, really. Back in school. They were the ones who started with the gold foil stickers and the ”nice job” scribbled in the upper margin of his Big Chief Tablet papers. They were the ones with the pats on the back or the high fives when he cranked out a double during recess kickball. A drug. That's what it was for Barry. Pure and simple. One smiley face in red pen and he was hooked.

Heh. Red pen. Not really irony-Barry understood that much-but still funny.

The world of online auctions became his paradise on Earth. His Valhalla. His Nirvana. His Heaven. A dingy back room filled with the opium haze of positive promises and a bright, digital star next to his screen name. BG_Luv1975. Barry felt a twitch crawl across his neck thinking of the old handle. BG_Luv1975. He glanced at the tiny box in his hands. Her name was on it again. The third package he'd s.h.i.+pped to her. He rubbed one thumb across the series of stamps on the corner. Enough. Hopefully enough. He flinched to imagine the box returning with a mark of insufficient postage. Negative feedback. But his Paypal account had been suspended, too, and he couldn't buy postage online anymore. He had no choice but to use the stamps.

He should have checked the G.o.d-d.a.m.ned camera better.

It was the battery door. Corroded shut, she wrote. He promised a full refund. She didn't want a refund. She wanted to ruin Barry's perfect score. Crush his 100% positive into less than perfect. Tear the gold foil stars from his eyes and stomp on them with her digital boot. What did she want? What would make her satisfied? She stopped responding to the messages. He found her real name: Cheryl. Cheryl Santus. What did Cheryl want, his blood?

Well, he sent some for her in a tiny little vial. But even that wasn't enough. Court orders. Investigations. Suspension of his account online. The psychiatrist.

Barry shoved his left hand in the coat pocket as he entered the post office. No need for anyone to see his hand. Not yet. Later maybe. After they know. After he shows them how far he would go for positive feedback. Barry flinched, his eyes darting around the post office lobby. The blood was his, after all. They'd shown that much at least. It's not that he hurt anyone, really. He was making a point. An object lesson in red. Like ink. Heh. But now, now he'd given her a little more. Maybe eBay would reinstate his account. Maybe he could wash BG_Luv1975's slate clean.

”Can I help you?” The postal clerk wouldn't smile.

Barry pushed his package onto the counter. ”I-is it enough?” His eyes wouldn't leave the box.

The clerk dropped the small, brown wrapped box onto the scales. ”Yes. Actually you've put a little extra...sir?”

Barry couldn't stifle the giggle. ”I did good?”

”No additional postage needed. Thank you.” The clerk's eyes moved toward the end of the line. ”Next.”

Barry felt the rush. He'd done well. More than enough postage. As he walked toward the post office door, he imagined the look of surprise on Cheryl's face. Would it be enough? Maybe. Another spasm shot through his back. He remembered the pain-it wasn't much. Not as much as he'd expected when he slipped his left pinkie finger into the kitchen shears and closed the blades until the bone snapped. Plenty of blood, red like ink. Cheryl would have a really nice surprise indeed.

Chapter 6: Faith.

She doesn't flinch as the counterfeits in white ap.r.o.ns-her co-conspirators-arrange the raw seafood on her skin. Pink and white, tuna and squid, their hands drop the squares in circles, sweeping the meat in spirals over her stomach, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, extending down her legs. The men's hands shake slightly, but they continue the work. She doesn't squirm even though the meat is icy on her skin.

Nyotaimori is an art, but the counterfeits have been trained. Like other expensive dishes, this one is best served cold. Five years she has waited.

Her eyes lock on the ceiling as they wheel her across a tiled hallway and through the aluminum doors. In the club room, the voices are brash, too loud, already drunk. When the cart comes to a stop, one of the men mutters something and laugher crawls up the walls. She doesn't close her eyes, but waits for the probing violation, the jabs and explorations with chopsticks as they begin to eat. Layers peel away, and her skin chills.

She becomes a puzzle broken into pieces with nothing beneath. Naked, but motionless. Hiding. These men cannot know. Her faith keeps her still.

Blood pounds inside her head, and after a few minutes she can no longer hear their voices. She remembers though-she remembers the cold eyes of these men, puppets of the regime wearing the masks of the national guard. She remembers when they took her mother-their voices locked behind stupid, empty grins. Her jaw locks as chopsticks poke and prod bare patches of flesh. Her fingers curl when one set of utensils snap tight on an uncovered nipple. There is laughter, but she doesn't hear. The men are just shapes moving in the periphery. Shadows. Memories.

Her breath comes in small, measured amounts. In and out. Calm. Even naked, lying on the stainless tray beneath the banquet lights, she will not break. She broke before, five years ago, after they found her mother and the others face down in the sewer ditch near the woods.

She thinks of the chefs bound with tight knots and hidden in the scullery. She knows her co-conspirators have shed their ap.r.o.ns and wait behind the hotel. She knows the poison cannot be adsorbed through her skin, only the stomach lining of those giggling pigs, and it will work quickly and quietly. She has faith that her mother's ghost will be sated and her thirst for revenge, quenched.

Chapter 7: Manning Up.

Evan started coming apart because of the dare. Because of Ben, the kid with a weasel nose and surly eyes. Because he said he could do real magic, and Ben said it was bulls.h.i.+t. Caleb told him it was a bad idea-a stupid idea, but Ben stoked the fire.

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