Blaze of Glory

CHAPTER 10

Fifteen minutes after he punched the banger in the nose, Buckley found himself staring at the bottle in front of him. Unopened, it promised the redemption of forgetfulness. The clear liquid cajoled him, its promises of better times stretching through the glass. He felt like Alice — Drink Me all but written upon the vodka.

Rashad sat next to him sucking on a root beer, both of the boy’s large black eyes fixed upon him.

“What made you think to blow the horn?”

“I dunno. It just felt like the right thing to do, I guess.”

“Why that song?”

“What?”

“Why did you choose that song to play? Why not another one? You do know some other songs, right?”

The boy nodded.

“So why Rocky?”

“I dunno.”

“Is it your favorite?”

“No.”

Buckley was stumped. He knew there was something important going on. One of the ideas that’d been pinballing through in his mind was that if there was a God, maybe this wasn’t how he wanted the world to end. Either this was a modern day flood, a nastier way to cleanse the earth and start over, or this had nothing to do with God. Buckley chose to believe in the idea of intelligent design, opting for a supreme being over the Trekkie idea of alien forces, prime directives and intergalactic federations-as if the maggies were an earthly infestation of tribbles. And because of his belief, the single thing he kept wondering about was whether or not God would allow the devil to get the upper hand, for surely this was a thing of devilish doing.

All of a sudden an itch prickled his forearm, followed by tingling, burrowing, a searing pain and then a pop. A maggie squeezed free and began to wiggle, dancing in the air, reminding him of the governor singing The Thrill is Gone. Buckley quickly pinched the beastie with his thumb and forefinger to hold it in place and hid his hand in his lap. He glanced over to Rashad who was staring into space, maybe remembering his parents, maybe trying not to. Buckley glanced at the doorway. No one there, either.

Jesus fucking Maggie fuck!

All Buckley needed was for the others to see him sitting there with a maggie in his hand like he was some sort of maggot wrangler, then he wouldn’t have a choice. They’d shove him out the door with a shotgun up his ass as sure as Grandma had a crack addiction.

He felt a twinge of pain as the maggie in his hand tried to bore through the tough skin of his palm. Slowly, so as not to make a noise or any sudden moves, he reached under the table with his other hand and pulled the maggie out. He grimaced, the corners of his mouth dipping to his jaw-line as he felt it come free like a night crawler reluctantly leaving the sanctity of the cool dark earth that was his skin.

Rashad stared at him, his eyes wide with concern. What was it Grandma Riggs had said? Little Rashad can help you.

Buckley stood, trudged over to the counter and grabbed an empty glass jar. Blocking the view of anyone who suddenly came into the room with his back, he dropped the maggie inside and watched as the creature tried to slide through the container, microscopic teeth no match for glass. He brought the jar to eye level. This was the closest he’d ever been to one-ever dared be.

Just as he thought, they were eyeless. Unlike a worm, however, which seemed to absorb food, both ends of this little creature had mouths, small oval orifices with tiny teeth disappearing within the creatures’ interior. Buckley imagined that if it needed to, the maggie could use it’s feeding as propulsion, like a tiny jet, shooting through the soft tissue of a human.

He shuddered, thinking of how many others there were cruising within his body as yet undetected. As if in response, he itched. His left hand immediately shot to the spot, but it was a false alarm-a real itch.

Buckley smiled grimly. Yep. He was totally fucked. He grabbed the jar and took it to the table. He set it down in front of Little Rashad whose eyes opened wide, then wider as he realized what had been placed before him. The boy stared hard at the creature. He seemed to be trying to decide whether to run or to smash it or to play with it. But genetics took over, and as all boys do after encountering a strange looking insect, he smiled, rested his chin on his folded arms on the table and watched it through the glass.

“Is it one of them?” Rashad couldn’t keep the wonder from his voice.

“Yep.”

“Where’d it come from?”

Buckley merely stared. He didn’t want to lie to the boy.

Little Rashad turned and examined Buckley with one cocked eye. “You? You got them inside you crawling around and messing you up? Are you going to end up like Sally?” His voice broke slightly at the last.

“Me? Hell no. You see, we have a secret weapon now and we can beat these things.”

“A secret weapon?”

“Hell yes, boy. You and your horn. I’m figuring if you can drive the maggies away from this place, you might be able to drive them from a person’s body too. Kind of like a musical surgery.”

“But I don’t know how to-”

“Hush about that. That’s why I’m here to help. I figure with my brains and good looks and your skill at the horn, we can maybe even save the world.”

Buckley felt more than a little guilty pouring it on thick intentionally. If the boy was to lose faith in him and tell the others, then Buckley was as good as dead. But there was hope now and as long as there was even an inkling of it, he needed to gain the boy’s trust.

He felt a throbbing at his temple, then a pop, followed a spark of pain. A maggie fell to the table. He and the boy stared at it for a second, then grimly went about the task of catching it.