Master of Plagues, D. B. Reynolds [best books to read fiction .txt] 📗

he reached over and palmed the large squeezeable soft breasts with perky nipples on the centerfold fantasy doll.
“Like them?” the enticing voice asked.
“Love them!” Stuart favored, moments away from fulfilling his dream. So he thought.
“Rumor has it, you’re still a virgin.”
Stuart grinned from ear-to-ear. “Well, it’s kinda true.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, honey. That’s why your NYU classmates set this whole thing up.”
Stuart placed both hands down by the doll’s hips and legs. “Wow, you’ve got some soft legs.”
“They’re not the only things that’re soft.”
“Really!”
“What exactly are your measurements?”
“My bust is 36c, my waist is 24, and my hips are 36.”
“A perfect 36-24-36?”
“Yes, the perfect hourglass body.”
Anthony continued working the controls to the centerfold fantasy love doll like a mechanic working on a partially-tuned car. Abdullah continued flicking the lights on and off at perfect intervals. Neighboring motel residents would’ve thought they were celebrating Christmas in the dead of Spring. Megan continued disguising her voice better than any celebrated actress. David softened the music with each passing love song.
Stuart rolled the covers away from the mechanical doll. The face was easy on the eyes, yet the features seemed artificial. He glided his fingers across the face and the surface felt like that of soft plastic. Out of nowhere, little white insects crawled from under the covers. Hundreds, maybe thousands, crawled from every inch of the bed. Stuart jerked the covers to the end of the bed. How degenerate of him to discover how he’d been talking to a mechanical sex doll with thousands of disgusting maggots buried under the sheets.
Stuart jumped away from the bed. He brushed many maggots off his clothes. “What the hell!”
Anthony’s voice rung out from inside the closet. “Go ahead and do it now!”
Taylor hit the light switch. The whole room lit up with extra lighting provided by Anthony. With about one-third of the bag of maggots left, Dana popped up out of nowhere and dumped the remaining contents on top of Stuart’s head. The nasty white insects crawled into his mouth and nose and ears. Prudence didn’t make her move until Stuart decided to run towards the door. She emptied the bucket of the slippery and slimy compound onto the floor. He fell flat to the floor harder than an NFL star being tackled by the opposing team.
Anthony moved to the middle of the room and looked down at Stuart. “Stu, congratulations, baby! You’re no longer a virgin, buddy boy.”
This jerkoff laughed harder than an audience at The Laugh Factory. The coldhearted bastard had no remorse for what he’d just done.
Megan eased out of the closet and stood right next to Anthony. “Look at it like this, Stuart, your date that we set you up with, she wasn’t bad to be made out of a buncha plastic and mechanical controls.”
She laughed so hard until a deep redness camouflaged her glowing olive complexion. How much colder could an individual get?
Abdullah came out of the closet giggling himself into a coma. “My man, Stu, I hope you enjoyed this as much as we did.”
Abdullah laughed until a sharp pain hit him at the middle of his back.
David emerged from the dark closet snickering his windpipe into a knot. “Well, Stu, you’re the first guy that I’ve ever met who broke his virginity to a mechanical sex doll.”
Dana stepped closer to Stuart. She shook the remaining maggots out of the bag and down onto his chest. “Stuart, your date has holes that vibrate, giving you a feeling that’ll send you over the edge.”
More maggots crawled up his nostrils and into his mouth and ears.
Like the others, Dana nearly laughed herself into a blackout.
Prudence positioned herself next to Dana. She shook the remaining contents of the slimy compound onto the top of Stuart’s head. “My friend, Stuart, we only hope that your fantasy girl is everything that you’ve ever wanted in a woman.”
Prudence laughed hard enough to cough up gooey mucous.
Taylor and John stood over by the door barely able to stand up straight. The pair used one another as leverage to keep from falling to the floor. The laughter was intense.
“Stu, my man, I’d love to trade places with you,” Taylor mocked, stumbling over his words.
“Tonight, Stu, you’re the luckiest man in the world,” John ridiculed, holding onto the doorknob to keep from falling down. “You have pure fantasy and fulfillment right at your disposal.”
Between being set up with a woman who was nothing but plastic and electrical wiring, having maggots and a slimy compound poured on top of his head, and being made a complete fool out of, Stuart couldn’t help but lay sprawled across the floor and cry his eyeballs out of the socket. He cried and cried until tears shot from the very core of his mouth.
“You bastards set me up!” Stuart yelled, his cries being heard from nearby motel rooms.
A queasy turbulence occurred like a knot inside his stomach. Vomit shot from his mouth. A mixture of the maggots and the toxic compound caused a sickness to come over him. The group of NYU students laughed in unsion. Mockery of such magnitude was unforgettable. A prank of such caliber would be unforgiveable.
The humongous rat spotted earlier re-appeared. The seemingly intelligent rodent looked Stuart square in the face with glowing eyes. The brightest cosmic glow radiated from its body. The dark skies above the Bronx opened up. The motel room shook with great force. The Universe knew one of it’s favorite sons had been violated. The two locked eye contact as though they’d been old buddies. A brief exchange of telepathy indicated they might’ve had something in common. Stuart heard big laughter around the room. The torment intensified the longer they laughed.
“There’s that big rat again!” Anthony squalled, pointing down at the gigantic rodent.
“Looked like it’s eyes were glowing,” Megan warranted, holding tight onto Anthony.
“Why did the room shake?” Dana asked, herself holding on to Megan.
“There’s some supernatural mumbo jumbo stuff going on in here,” said Abdullah, keeping a tight grip onto the closet door.
“The giant rat was glowing like an alien from outer space,” said David, using Abdullah for leverage.
Concentrated tears blurred Stuart’s vision. He looked all of his eight NYU classmates dead in the eyes and said, “You bastards are going to pay for this! I swear, I’m going to even with all of you guys.”
“Why’re you so mad at us, Stu,” Anthony concluded. “We’re the ones who helped you break your virginity, buddy old pal.”
The other seven jokesters broke out into a wilder laughter. The big rat discharged a haunting squeal and almost disappeared into thin air. Stuart felt they’d see one another in the very near future. More gunshots erupted from the motel room several doors down. Since the motel housed homeless drug addicts, the ones who’d become slaves to the heartless drug dealers, violence occurred every hour of the day.
A middle-aged Hispanic man slumped into the street with bullet holes blasted into his chest. He fell to the ground holding the middle of his stomach. Blood gushed out in quantities heavy enough to end his life. Looking out the window, Megan and Dana cupped their mouths in utter disbelief.
“C’mon guys, let’s get the hell out’a here!” Anthony ordered his seven conspirators. “If that glowing, monster-sized rat don’t eat us first, then these crack animals here in the Bronx are going to fill us up with bullet holes like they did the guy laying out in the street.”
Stuart reciprocated fierce eye contact with the egomaniacal eight as they exited the room. “What you have done to me, I’m going to do ten times worse to you. What has happened in this motel room will come back to bite all of you in the backside. Literally, I mean that. In the very end, you will come crawling on your hands and knees to beg for my forgiveness.”
Stuart meant what he said. Every word he said, he meant it.


CHAPTER—4

RAW REPERCUSSIONS

Once again, the violence in the Bronx calmed down long enough for the NYPD to perform their investigation. Deputy Inspector Nicholas Orlando from the 48th Precinct arrived with a team of his boys in blue. They shot across the 450 Cross Bronx Expressway fifteen minutes after they’d been dispatched. The precinct Deputy Orlando represented was described as economically depressed. The residents were in the middle-to-lower income strata with a multi-farious ethnic make-up.
Orlando wore many years of serving on the NYPD force across his depressed face. The sixty-three year old deputy accumulated thirty-six years on the force. The puffy eyes, coffee-stained teeth, and darkened lips from smoking, proved what he’d experienced over the years. The creepiest feeling seemed to have come up from behind and gripped him across the shoulders. Something about being at the motel made him feel uneasy.
Orlando looked down at the murdered Hispanic victim. “Any positive identification on our vic?”
A veteran homicide detective also from the 48th Precinct shook his head. “Deputy Orlando, our vic’s been described as Hector Juan Escobar, a Colombian immigrant, thirty-two years of age.”
“Any prior convictions?” Orlando queried the detective, emergency vehicle lights from outside coloring his aged faced.
“Several back in Barranquilla, Colombia, while some were here in New York. Convictions were for assault, burglary, immigration fraud, and narcotics trafficking.”
“A naturalized U.S. citizen?”
“Here in the United States on a fiancée visa.”
“So, someone was being paid to help keep him here in the states.”
“It appears that way.”
“Sure would be nice to find that someone.”
Orlando took a closer observation at the gunshot wounds near the victim’s abdomen. “Whoever wanted Hector dead, they certainly went beyond the call of duty. His enemies pumped enough lead into him to build an army tank.”
“This homicide is definitely drug-related.”
“Deputy, I remember the days when no sane person would dare