Corey slipped his hand into the puppet’s back, like he had done many times with the doctor who made him talk about Michael and bathtubs and redness. His breath and stomach squeezed whenever he reached into dark, invisible places.
After the full-body suspension is over—has it been months, a few years?—we are still in casings. They’re thin and brittle. Like garlic exteriors or dried-out electrical tape that’s lost its sticky.
Remember your surroundings and protect your organs. Grab on to the edges of the universe and try to stay, to avoid further damage, to breathe. Not panicked breaths; slow ones, the kind you need when the world is rushing towards you, piling up.
“Full ahead, Mister Sal,” says Moore. I grit my teeth and force the Anastasis forward. The engines, the strongest of any ship I’ve ever steered, screech and whine like dying things. The nightgaunts are ten deep around us and it’s like flying through tar.
Two in the morning in the booth of an all-night diner a block off Santa Monica Boulevard, and I was trying to convince the Great Mandini to tell me his secrets.
