Viper

38

Campeggio Castellani, Pompeii Franco wondered whether anyone would come. He hung back in the bushes. Cradled his grandfather's Glock. Wait. Part of him wanted to run. Part wanted to be with Rosa. Dead Rosa. Naked Rosa.

It was cold and he was shivering. Rain fell noisily through the trees and bushes. Spiky hawthorn branches dug into his face and neck as he hid among them.

Naked Rosa. The pull was too strong.

He opened the car door, barely looking at Filippo's corpse. The harsh interior light made Rosa's flesh look bleached white. Or was it death? Did death take your colour so quickly?

Franco didn't notice her blood and brains sprayed all around the interior. His eyes focused only on her nakedness. Her vagina was shaved, like ones he'd seen on the websites he'd visited. Fascinating. Exciting. He reached over Filippo, careful not to get his blood on his clothes, and touched her thighs.

Cold.

Cold, but also smooth. And beautiful.

He leaned further into the car so he could run his hand between her legs.

Warm. Still warm.

The intimacy exhilarated him. He stood mesmerized, his hand glued between her thighs. Afraid to let go. Afraid to end the experience.

Reluctantly, he withdrew. Tried not to touch anything as he left. He knew the dangers of doing that.

Poor Rosa.

Poor dead Rosa.

He stopped at the door of the car and looked back inside. A thought struck him. A way of keeping her with him alive forever. Paolo was asleep in his bunk when Franco got to the van. He was still excited by what he'd just done. Rosa had changed everything. Things were going to be different. He just knew it. His body was filled with mutant genes and he could feel them now, moving around inside him, distorting his DNA, making him do things he shouldn't. 'Paolo,' he called lightly, squinting into the darkness.

Unless he was mistaken his eyesight was going too. His doctors had warned him that would happen. Cataracts, they'd said.

'Paolo!' he called again, this time in a pitch somewhere between normal and shouting. His cousin was out for the count. That was good. Franco didn't want him to wake. He just wanted to be really sure that he was asleep.

He knelt down by his own bed. Not so he could pray, but so he could go to heaven. Tucked into the springs of the mattress he found what he was looking for. He unwrapped an old cotton flannel. Inside was a small sachet of heroin, the bottom of an old Coke can and a syringe that he'd found in a waste bin at the hospital where he went for his check-ups. He looked at the slightly bent and dirty needle and smiled. He knew the risks that went with second-hand spikes, but hell, compared to all the other shit in his life, why should he care?

He used the spike to suck fifty units of water from a bottle he had. He squirted it in the can and fired up his lighter to dissolve the heroin. He paused and checked that Paolo was still sleeping. Better than that. He was now snoring. He stabbed the spike into one of the blue veins in his left forearm. As he squeezed in the heroin he realized that he'd also pumped in about a quarter of an inch – ten units – of air. Others might have been worried. Franco didn't give a fuck. He thumbed in the rest of the H. Rolled back on to the bed. Waited for it to kick in.

It did.

First a little dizziness. Then nausea. Finally a warm mellowness. A gentle calm. A soft summer breeze flowing through his body.

His beautiful young body. The way it should be.

The way Rosa would have liked it.