El Horgas

El Horgas has spent three long, dark, torturous weeks waiting patiently in a ruined apartment. There he remains, menacing, crouched like a hungry cat. He lies in wait on the empty, decrepit, dilapidated eleventh floor of an old building known as Destiny Building. An architectural relic more than a century old, it is slated for imminent demolition under city plans. The lot has already been sold, the buyer a multimillion-dollar hotel chain. Meanwhile, Destiny Building remains an architectural ghost of the past, a nest of murderers, thieves, and drug traffickers, a home for the marginalized, the homeless, and sick people deprived of social assistance.

Its dark façade is grayish, moldy, cracked, filthy, displaying ghostly shapes wholly at odds with Baybeach’s luxurious, glittering landscape. Around it rise luminous mirrored buildings twice its size, true palaces of glass, colorful, steel-framed and lit by multicolored spotlights. To those who walk that street’s pedestrian promenade, the gloomy building is discordant, disturbing, out of place—a cavity ruining perfect teeth. Its shabby presence draws far too much attention amid so much light, joy, music, and celebration.

Neither locals nor outsiders imagine the warm effluvia, repulsive smells, dampness, grime, disorder, and absolute chaos beyond the old lobby. The most perceptive may avoid even looking at it. Some neighbors shudder to think what might emerge, whether common thieves or dangerous criminals. No one wants to be hurt, least of all on vacation. Area merchants are furious at the courts’ delay. They demand enforcement of Destiny’s inevitable demolition permit, arguing the building drives tourists away. They are right.

Baybeach boasts countless restaurants, pubs, casinos, nightclubs, hotels, and entertainment venues. Every week thousands arrive from other Stormport districts, Harrington City, and neighboring cities, feverish and eager to surrender to the night’s many pleasures. This immense splendor, a jewel set where once there was nothing of consequence, raises Stormport to a stature past generations never knew. Yet within such radiant magnificence sits a fly in the milk, a solitary cancerous mole embedded in healthy skin: Destiny Building, a gray silhouette irreparably lodged amid all that luxury.

Inside, meanwhile, a lethal, frail life barely breathes, the final gasps before imminent death. This is the Friday night El Horgas has awaited. So much time has passed before it finally arrived. Each night he feared falling asleep and never waking, begged fate to grant him one more day, then another. He jolts awake as disgusting hot, corrosive effluvia surge from his bowels. He lets them spill onto the damp floor, forming another pool of vomit containing half-digested matter. He rises from the soaked mattress, where the building’s moldy damp merges with feverish sweat. He peers through a window whose dirty polygonal panes were shattered decades ago.

The sky, as always, is clouded; night has fallen. It is the first time in a week that it is not raining. He studies the scene below and finds that nothing—not rain, not any manifestation of nature—can dim Baybeach’s revelry. He tries to suppress the pain of the enormous blisters covering him from head to toe. Some hurt worse than others, especially those on his face, armpits, and tongue. Each tortures him, bursting with pus and blood and leaving areas of raw flesh. Those on the soles of his feet make walking difficult.

When he tries to cover his bare torso, the pain becomes too unbearable to continue, so he remains in his underwear. Despite his condition he smiles, full of excitement and nerves. He does not show the tangible suffering and stupor engulfing him, nor the dizziness or nausea. He is terribly hungry, yet eating would destroy his digestive system. He settles for dirty water from a rusted faucet; it keeps him alive. Something terrible devours him inside and out, invading every organ, molecule, and atom, traveling through his bloodstream like a contaminated runaway train.

He endures as best he can, knowing little time remains. Smiling in the darkness, he reveals loose, rotten teeth. He mutters inaudibly to himself. His voice is hoarse, nasal, cavernous. His pestilent tongue is nothing but an uncontrollable sponge of blood.

"Who? Who is she? Who is Brittany Condon?"

He repeats it again and again through clenched teeth, almost inaudible even to himself.

"Today the injustice ends. Yes, today it ends."

He shakes his head, broods over it, hurts intensely, broods, snorts, paces in circles. He hurries somewhat to the window and looks outside.

"Splendor, luxury, lights, injustice—pfft. A disgusting farce."

He steps away, crouches, rummages through rubbish piled in a corner, and pulls from the filth a large, thick syringe with an unusually long needle.

"Intrigue, crime, corruption—pfft. All lies. They’ll pay for all of it. Today it ends."

With his blistered left hand he buries the needle in his right arm. He fills the syringe with his own viscous, purplish, dark blood, letting the liquid slowly collect in the chamber. He feels exhausted. Once it is full, he pulls the needle free. A thread of thick blood shoots forward; red drops fall gelatinously onto the damp floor amid the vastness of night. He rummages through the revolting rubbish in the corner and extracts an unused water balloon. With a swollen, nailless hand he stretches its latex neck; with the other he inserts the needle and empties the syringe into it. The syringe’s blood passes into the balloon.

Three times he repeats the same action. When finished, he tosses the empty syringe behind him into the filthy corner. He ties two firm knots in the balloon’s neck. The latex sphere, filled with his blood, stretched nearly to bursting, is the size of a fist. He smiles again, regarding it with sinister eyes in the darkness. He rises with the balloon in one hand, fever-hot to the touch. He takes two steps toward the window, each more sharply painful than the last. The blisters on his feet burst against the floor, opening foul-smelling sores. The pain reverberates through his body.

The cockroaches nesting there sense his movement and flee, avoiding him, scattering with crawling sounds in every direction. He is anxious. Each breath hurts his nostrils and chest. He peers out again; rain is pouring outside. Resting a blistered hand on the lower frame, he hoists himself onto the outer ledge. His open sores stain the surface with pus and plasma. Fine rain drenches his nearly bald head, cooling and pleasing him. Light climbs from Baybeach onto his swollen, misshapen, unrecognizable face.

Flies land on his amorphous flesh. Baybeach’s nighttime streets below are crowded; no one seems to mind getting wet. Friday night bursts with endless amusement as people move from place to place. He turns left and sees a huge stage erected at the head of the street, blazing beneath powerful spotlights. El Horgas sighs. He is exhausted and excited, aroused and nervous. Feverish sweat runs cold down his back; his body seems to boil with incandescent flame even as he shivers. No passerby suspects his presence.

People throng everywhere around the stage. El Horgas can barely remain standing. The pain of his blisters against the floor tears tears from his red, diseased eyes. The street directly beneath his window overflows with people, whom he sees through clouded eyes behind a yellowish veil. Young people dance, drink, jump, laugh, shout, sing, kiss, touch, throw drinks and ice, strip off clothing and fling it away. They grope one another shamelessly, climb over one another, fuse their lips, moving as if possessed by the uncontrolled rhythm of an exasperating song.

His rage spills over. What kind of orgy is this? His mind burns like Greek fire. He questions whether he should do what he intends. He does not want weakness now; he hates it. Huge speakers arranged throughout the promenade blare songs stridently, their echoes rebounding from nearby façades. His illness has sensitized his ears, and the sound hurts.

Onstage, a young woman dances and writhes, mimicking sexual games with virtual male and female dancers.

"We are your slum-born nightmares, we’re far more than shameless, marginalized and investigated, marginalized and investigated," Brittany sings with tremendous energy.

El Horgas releases shrill cries of dismay that further tear his throat, vocal cords, and inner muscles. His voice abruptly dies amid muffled screams. Blood tastes warm in his mouth, flowing from newly ruptured internal blisters. He spits it toward the street, unable to avoid swallowing some. Below, the revelry periodically becomes applause.

"Britu! Is that you? I loooove you!" El Horgas shouts, but despite his effort no one hears.

A new viral hit merges into the previous one while the girl moves from side to side across the stage.

"Don’t tease me, don’t let it ring; your touch and kiss have made me hot. Take off those panties now, baby. Give it, give it, give it to me without a condom, without a condom." The girl singing those songs also blends one into the next.

The crowd hums the chorus forcefully. The songs send the young people into raptures, exciting them until they lose control. Shaken by violent fever chills, El Horgas curses unheard. Unable to bear it any longer, he cradles the balloon like a baby.

"Let’s do it in prison, baby, make me feel wonderful. Though your size tickles me, let’s do it wherever you may be."

Some weep with emotion; their star is right there, so close she seems almost tangible, as though they might reach up and touch her. The girl draws sighs from them.

El Horgas cannot decide. He contorts his face, bursting blisters near the corners of his eyes and lips. Holding the ball in both hands, he extends his arms beyond the window. Despite pain and fury, he smiles in the darkness, drunk on adrenaline. The crowd raves in delight. He remains undecided so long that one song follows another. His eyes itch, but he fears rubbing them will blind him. His outstretched arms tire. The downpour over Baybeach does not abate. Yellowish tears emerge from reddish eyes. A wet, resonant cough erupts from his bowels. He retches three times and barely avoids vomiting, then spits toward the crowd again.

El Horgas steadies himself and carefully grips the heavy, gelatinous balloon. He stretches aching arms forward again, palms upward. The rubber sphere rests on his flayed hands as he studies it, considers, tries to decide. Pure adrenaline rushes to his head. He draws back slightly, bends his elbows, opens and parts his hands, and hurls the rubber ball toward the singing, dancing crowd below. It falls without pause, accelerating meter by meter, plunging floor after floor past windows. The music onstage stops abruptly.

"I want to dedicate this new song to a love I had long ago, someone I have never forgotten. To you, if you can hear me, my love from earliest childhood: you know who you are, and you know who I am. Only you know who Brittany Condon is. This is for you. It goes like this," Brittany tells the suddenly hypnotized crowd.

She begins a ballad utterly unlike the music heard so far. The balloon keeps falling, passing the halfway point to the promenade. El Horgas freezes. He turns for a quick glance at the stage, so sharply the blisters on his neck crack and burst. More tears fall.

"What did she say? Who is she talking about?" El Horgas exclaims to himself.

The balloon continues its descent while the crowd sings the ballad with the artist.

"Britu? Are you…? Are you my Britu? Is that song for me? What have I done? No, my love," El Horgas murmurs aloud in a nasal voice. "No, Britu, no. What have I done? No, my love."

The balloon finishes falling, strikes a girl’s bare shoulder full-on, and bursts across her.

"Britu, Britu, Britu! I love you! I still loooove you!" El Horgas shouts, unleashing a powerful cry that reaches the stage.

His hoarse, nasal voice exploits the gap left by the strident music. She seems to hear him; he senses she has and smiles like a foolish, lovestruck adolescent. Brittany reacts for only an instant, a second that seems like nothing, less than a blink. Yet it is enough for El Horgas to believe she still feels something for him. He erupts in joy and backs away from the window. His heels catch on something, and he falls backward into darkness onto abandoned filth. Still on the floor, aching but happy, he smiles again.

In the street, the girl struck by El Horgas’s balloon is smeared with warm blood across her neck and part of her face. Those nearby have also been splashed. The boy beside her is horrified and disgusted. His mouth open from singing, he tastes drops of blood that fell inside. He spits, drops to his knees, retches in revulsion. The young woman struck by the balloon releases a helpless, sustained scream while using both hands to wipe the repugnant, viscous blood from her eyes. Those around her retreat in panic.

The crowd notices the disturbance amid the mass’s movement. The girl’s screams are as relentless as the retching of the boy near her. People quickly perceive that something is happening; they do not know what, but deduce it is nothing good. They draw farther away despite the victim’s constant, desperate screams of horror and pleas for help. No one responds. A child beside his mother sobs inconsolably; apparently, a drop of blood has splashed his cheek. Desperate, his mother immediately cleans it with thumb and saliva.

The entire human mass before the stage is alerted and suddenly becomes a savage, blind stampede heedless of consequences. The blood-soaked girl’s screams exceed the decibels of fools who still think the concert continues. Seeing what is happening, Brittany uses holographic virtual levers projected to her right, and the stage music stops abruptly. The music dies, the holographic dancers vanish, and the chaos on the promenade becomes more evident. Confusion spreads.

A boiling crisis takes hold among the infected. The first victim falls, clutches her abdomen, twists in pain, and vomits in frantic spasms. Her friends do not help. Soon they too, splashed with blood, begin suffering the same symptoms. Those fleeing trample, strike, and shove one another uncontrollably. Some even hit, bite, and scratch anyone preventing a quick escape. One woman tears the outer ear from a large man who seemed unwilling to move.

Onstage, transfixed, Brittany watches in incredulous panic, wishing someone would wake her from the nightmare at once. She looks toward Destiny Building, unable to forget that someone shouted from it—someone who knows her very well called her Britu. She knows only one person in the world who would. She hears patrol cars, ambulances, helicopters, and electric aircraft approaching. Crouched onstage, tears falling, the overwhelming figure is stunned and uncertain. Brittany rises in bewilderment, approaches the edge, and looks out.

She fears and grieves for her beloved fans. Her emerald eyes fill with tears. She backs across the stage—one step, two, three, four—and grips her head with both hands. Her fingers sink into her color-streaked hair as the uproar overwhelms and confuses her. Suddenly two men seize her firmly from behind. Terrified, she struggles, resists, and kicks until she realizes they are her own bodyguards, come to evacuate her in haste. She then allows them to drag her toward an exclusive ambulance waiting for her.