City of New York Jack Kerby had no idea that the people in New York didn’t have any mouths. He was expecting to see normal human beings when he arrived at the bus station on 179th Street, the same type of people who were at the bus station in Miami, but these people were all wrong: they didn’t have any mouths. No tongues, no lips, no teeth, no opening at all, just smooth skin from the nostrils down. He was taking gentle steps outside the station, a key poking him in his pocket, stirring up anticipation, walking calm-dead among the mouthless New York citizens who moved like liquid. The city was loud, blaring lights and cars, but the people were quiet. They sounded like shadows. The only noise they made was a piercing shriek that entered Jack’s mind from their eyes, slicing into him like miniature demon-worms eating his brainflesh and the sensitive needle-nerves behind the eyeballs. He had never been to New York before. People told him it was a wonderful place, but that was all. They failed to mention anything about the piercing-eyed citizens without mouths. Putting his hand into his pocket, Jack began fondling the key, rubbing it until sweat coated his fingers with a strong metallic smell, raising it to his nostrils and inhaling passionately. His eyes closed, sighing for a few moments, a carnal vision. There was supposed to be a cab waiting out front for him, but there were no cabs in sight. Not at the bus station, not driving in the street. “Doesn’t New York have cabs?” he said to himself. Jack Kerby didn’t know what to do. He sat down on the grippe sidewalk, knees at chin, squirm- watching the cars driving by. All of them were skeleton white, edged with hissing noises. Some of the mouthless drivers would be staring at him as they passed. Not paying attention to the road, just staring with razorblade eyes. Then something hit him: The cold. The street was so icy-stabbing, against both his skin layers and psyche, so dark and slick-bladed. The sky didn’t contain any stars, just a blank pitch like it was black construction paper. It seemed to be creeping downward and spying, slithering. Some insects were crawling on the sidewalk next to him, crawling over the ring on his finger. He coughed down to them. They were millepede-like insects, large as rats, making crispy red noises as they tickled his fingers. And Jack winced as he noticed their backs. They had grotesque designs on their upper spines, each design similar to that of a dead infant human face. The faces all had the same look: cold gray skin, stiff open mouths, crusty holes for eyes. Jack ripped his hand away, staring down at them with a rough ogre face. He took the ring off of his finger and put it into his coat pocket. Then he smacked the pests away from him, slap-brushing them off the sidewalk as they made crinkle-squeals, antennas wiring. A car pulled up to him, filling his entire view with yellow, and then the cab door opened. Darkness was scurrying within, a murky haze. Jack stood, the pale street lights swarming, reflecting off the slick winter on the street. And he let the cab’s darkness embrace him. Inside, on the hard plastic seats, he watched the driver’s eyes piercing into him through the rearview mirror, a silent scream that jerked Jack’s vision to the outside. The driver said nothing other than that. He eased into traffic and accelerated to a decent speed. Jack sat quiet for awhile, watching the ghostly New Yorkers walk like smoke down the icy sidewalks. He didn’t know how to respond. They were so foreign to him. He never would have guessed that New York was so outlandish. “It’s pretty cold for September,” Jack told the cab driver, breaking the silence with his tic- shivering voice. The cab driver pierced his eyes through the rearview mirror again but said nothing. Jack retreated to the window. He continued to the silent man, “It doesn’t bother me though. I’ve always had an attraction to the cold.” He turned to see the driver’s eyes no longer in the mirror, switching his vision back to the funereal street. “That pretty much explains why I married my wife.” Jack’s neck tightened, a whistling in his nose that he didn’t regard. “Jami is as cold as they come. I knew she wouldn’t stay faithful to me the day I married her, everyone knew. Her touch sent a chill up my spine that day, her kiss was like a goldfish swimming into my mouth. But still, I had to marry her. I’ve always been attracted to cold, cold women who treat me like shit.” Jack paused to take the key out of his pocket, examining it, rubbing it tightly with his thumb sweat. “It’s not wrong for me to do it, you know? I’m just getting even with her.” The cab stopped in front of a large inn and the driver’s eyes reappeared within the mirror. Jack looked into his eyes, shaking his head, “I’m just getting her back.” Jack dug within his wallet and held some bills to the driver. But the driver wasn’t moving, his eyes still within the mirror. “Take it,” Jack said, but nothing. So Jack sat there for a few minutes before dropping the money on the seat. Gray icy emotions were still in the air as he exited the vehicle. The cab remained parked there with the engine buzzing, the driver still gawking within the mirror even though his passenger was missing. He didn’t leave until Jack reached the entrance, roaring the gas pedal and then screeching away. The lobby of the inn was bright and deserted. No one was at the front desk, no one walking about, no furniture even. An empty vastness. Jack could hear his feet crunching the stale carpeting as he went to the staircase and climbed toothpaste steps to the third floor. The key was in his hand, still rubbing metal scent into his fingers. He found the hall of the third floor deserted as well and without carpeting or much light, sandy corners and webby electrical snakes inside the wall holes. At door 313, paint-splashed stains and splinters across its surface, Jack took a deep breath. He knocked quietly as if scared to disturb the musty atmosphere. No answer. So he put the greasy key into the door and walked within. A wrinkled small room with concrete instead of carpet. All barren besides a bed in the center holding piles of blankets and towels and underwear, and a woman sitting within a long sweaty shirt, nipple-pumps poking through the fabric. They stared into each other. Like the others, she had blank skin where the mouth should have been, sitting there piercing-eyed in his direction. “I got the key,” Jack told her, shutting the door crookedly behind him. “Jami didn’t see the envelope. She thinks I’m on a business trip.” He didn’t come any closer, nervous-skinned. “You should’ve told me you were going to send it. I’m glad you did, but it was a surprise.” The woman didn’t move her body at all, just watching him. “So you’re in New York for the month?” Jack asked. He tapped the key in his palm. “Well, how’s work?” No response. “How’s your husband?” Nothing. Jack began to pace. He glanced into the crumbling bathroom to see a millepede insect climbing a crack where the mirror should have been. Its infant face droop-staring at him as it wire-crawled. Jack went to the window with disgust, attempting to look out at the big city but the glass was painted over with charcoal, blinding him. He sighed, didn’t know what to do. Then an arm crash-wrapped around his waist from behind that made him jerk, nails digging into his chest, crawling up his shirt into his skin. He turned to her embrace, arms gripping him tight. He didn’t hear her get off the bed and creep up to him. She was smooth against his skin, the texture of plastic, no wrinkles or pores. Sliding his body. When she kissed him, he felt nothing. No wetness. Only a feeling like putting a hand on a shoulder. She was rubbing her mouthless skin against his neck as if to suck, but he felt no sensation. She pulled off her wet shirt, beads of moisture running between her breasts. “You’re beautiful,” Jack said, concentrating on her perfect parts rather than her missing mouth. “I didn’t think I could meet anyone this beautiful on my computer.” She stole his coat and went for the shirt, ripping at it, but Jack grabbed her rubber hands tight. Her eyes piercing him with anger and frustration, still straining to break the buttons away, touch his skin and make it sweaty like hers. But he got away from her and unbuttoned his shirt carefully. Before finishing, the woman wormed her arms up into his armpits and encircled his gooseflesh, tickle-crawling and pulling him against her slippery chest. He unzipped his fly while the woman removed his belt. Then Jack looked up at her and jumped. Jerked her hands away, retreating to the bed. Her nose was gone. It was missing just like her mouth, a flat featureless face from the eyes down. Her stare was dazed at him, stepping forward to gorge into him. He wondered how she could breathe without nostrils or mouth, she was not suffocating. Jack shivered as she rubbed her smooth hand through his hair, tension lifting the skin on his eyebrows. But he let her plastic hand explore, let her take down his pants and fondle him, the millepede insect twitching in the bathroom behind her. He put the woman’s face in his hand. Looking in her eyes, he noticed a purple haze within them, drowning his mirror image. She closed her eyelids and nuzzled her cheek against his palm. Jack caressed the woman’s pale head and flattening ears. Then her hair began to fall out. Locks dropped into his hand, onto the floor. Jack’s heart was pounding, fighting him. Then she opened her eyes. Her smooth bald head shiny in the dim light. Without breaking eye contact, she slid her underwear off and tossed it to the side, curly hairs exploding as it hit the bed. “What are you?” Jack asked her, examining the changing woman. Then she attacked him, took his boxers down, pulled his face into her breasts, tore into his back. Jack closed his eyes and let her fierce-finger him with rubber parts, digging into him, pulling his shoulders apart. When he opened his eyes, he saw the millepede insect was as big as a dog now, twitching on the cracky bathroom wall. Jack closed his eyes again and kissed the woman’s bald mouth. He pushed her away before reopening them. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” She stared deeply, tilting her head from side to side. “I still love her.” The woman rubbed her index finger down Jack’s face and pressed herself against him. He shook his head, glancing back at the insect. It had grown again. BIG. It was the size of a horse now, twisting antennas, grease dripping from the dead infant’s face. Jack broke from the woman’s grip and pulled the bathroom door shut before the giant insect had a chance to squeeze into the room. Muscles on the doorknob, Jack heard the creature attacking the door, wiry limbs emerging from underneath to scrape his ankles. The woman attacked again from behind, wrapped around him, breaking his grip on the doorknob. And she threw him onto the bed, pinning him down as the insect scream-hissed at the wood barrier. Jack gasped as he saw the woman’s face peering down on him. Her eyes were missing now, melted into her flesh. She was faceless, an egg of skin attached to a neck. But she moved as if she could see, mock-licking him with her smooth head. Jack tried getting her off, but was feeling too blur-heady and couldn’t overpower her. The atmosphere was getting to him, making him weak and fuzzy. It also aroused him, made him cease the resistance, let her have her way. The woman lifted her plasticky hips so he could enter her. But as she lowered to encompass him, Jack’s penis poked a crotch of smooth skin and slid away. She had no holes. The woman didn’t realize this and smeared her blank crotch against him as if he was within, pulsating as the bathroom door squeal-banged and cracked. Jack was too shocked to move, tears hitting his neck. He watched as the girl’s hands were being eaten by her wrists, and breasts swallowed by her ribcage. She orgasmed as her head sunk into her neck, her arms folding up into her back. Jack closed his eyes, screaming. The insect’s wood-chewing trickled in his ears as his eyes opened to what had become of the woman. She lay heavy on his stomach, a large oval-egg of meat. No limbs or features. A smooth jittering ball of human being. His body screamed, rolling the woman-thing off of him and jumping from the bed. He eyed it carefully as he put on his clothes over sticky wetness. New Yorkers are insane, he thought to himself. The insect creature was halfway through the bathroom door by the time Jack left. He watched it breaking away the wood to get at him, but didn’t wait around to see what would happen. There was only one thing Jack had left to do. He had to get out of New York. He rushed down the stairs and into the street, with his vision flickering, charging through the iciness. He realized his mind was not working right. It had not been right ever since he arrived at the bus station, like he was in a memory. Logic was not at all apart of his thought process and did not know how to react to that. His body froze once it hit a major road. The sidewalks were cluttered with dozens of balls of meat similar to what the woman had become, in all different sizes and shades. They were scattered along the street and in broken cars beside the road. Jack looked up to the nearby buildings, picturing everyone in New York as ovals of flesh, lying in their beds, on their couches in front of televisions, submerged in bathtub water. Then he noticed the insects in the distance, large millepede-creatures coming out of manholes like ants, collecting the balls of meat with large pincher jaws and carrying them down into the sewers one by one, to their nests. Jack ran. He didn’t know where to go, but he ran. Straight for the closest building which happened to be a pool hall, charging at it with stumbling sloppiness. But before reaching it, a manhole opened up to a hissing millepede in his path, a dead baby mouth moaning at him. Jack fell backwards as it turned and screamed in his face. The scream sprayed a numbing gas, and he felt something slide down his throat. The gas hit his nerves so hard that he jerked his legs in response, kicking the insect in a large jelly eye. It shrieked and ducked into the sewers, giving Jack some time for escape. The door of the pool hall burst open and Jack plowed within, his nerves scrambled and heavy. Within, there was a crowd of flesh balls, on bar stools and benches. He felt his body draining and making him fuzz-drunk. “Poison,” he said to himself, wiping the insect venom from his lips. He staggered around pool tables to the bathroom in the corner, crashing through the door and sliding down a wall to bitter cold tiles, tears burning in his eyes, muscles relaxing. Before his heart had a chance to calm, it was jerked to tension as he heard some squeaking within one of the stalls. He pulled himself up, drug-dizzy spins as he stepped to the door. It was locked. The shrill tightened his eardrum, creating acid-swirlings within his reeling thoughts. His eyes faded closed, then reopened. He drifted to his hands and knees, and looked underneath the stall door. As he peered up, he saw another human ball of flesh on top of the toilet seat. But it was discolored, greenish-gray and sand-textured, much older than the others. A strong scent like burned liver crept up Jack’s nostrils as he crawled into the stall and stood, peering down at the ball to see the top missing with a little squeaking millepede within. Jack squirmed uncomfortably as it chewed on the flesh and devoured the egg from the inside out. He reclined against the stall door and watched it feed for awhile, watched it clean the meat off the thin half-melted bones with sharp perfection. His head rolled back and forth at it, shifting the hazy sensations from one side of his brain to the other, blinking. Eventually, Jack unlocked the stall door and left the pool hall. He picked up a paper at a nearby newsstand and strolled down the lonely sidewalk towards the bus station, passing a meteor crater the size of a football field and rubbing his eyes languidly as he tried to read the blurry newsprint. His lips were melting together, but he didn’t seem to notice.