Billy and the Cloneasaurus by Stephen Kozeniewski

Author:Stephen Kozeniewski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: French Press
Published: 2018-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

13.

Seven axlotl tanks littered the room. The word “littered” jumped into 790’s mind because the only other time he had ever seen axlotl tanks (during his decanting) they had been lined up in perfect rows. William after William, decade after decade, all forming perfect right angles and seemingly endless parallel rows. These seven (he counted them almost instantaneously in his head) were juxtaposed with one another, some facing in, some out, some facing towards the door, others to the wall, others diagonal to nothing in particular. Some were propped against the wall, some lay in the middle of the floor.

It should have been, he realized as he peered in at the contents of each, a row of progressively higher numerical values. There was a clear sense of development between the tanks, but the second did not follow the first and the fourth did not follow the fifth. They were randomly arrayed, disordered really, and it offended his innate sense that the world moved and worked in a certain way and everything had its place, and it was most likely that he was presently in the place he was supposed to be.

Of course, he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, and the world did not work like that, etc., etc. and all of that seemed to come down on him at once. But the offense to his sense of order was nothing compared to the actual offense to his senses that the contents of the tanks inflicted upon him.

“Should I even ask?”

Wilson remained silent. The cloneasaurus refused to enter this room, lurking instead in the hallway. 790 tried to figure out the best way to go about making sense of it all. Thankfully, there were no Williams. He might not have been able to handle that. Eventually, he made a guesstimate about what order the tanks went in.

The first appeared not unlike a hunk of roast beef he might put on a sandwich, which was probably almost worse than any of the ones that looked more like the properly completed cloneasaurus. What made it horrible was that the chunk of meat was peering out at him with clearly defined eyes, and was mouthing horrible screams with a slit that could’ve one day become a vestigial mouth. It obviously had a soul, and yet was an abomination against nature and all that Williams held dear.

Interestingly, the first one was the worst. Wilson passed no judgment as 790 puked his guts up in a corner. He tried his best to limit it to the corner, but he knew there would be some splashback all around. From the doorjamb, the cloneasaurus stared hungrily at the steaming pile of puke, but it still refused to enter the chamber of horrors. When 790 started to recover, he wiped away his mouth and turned his back on the other tanks.

“I’ve seen enough,” 790 said.

“Not nearly,” Wilson said, “Take a good look. I want you to know the good and the bad, the sound and the fury.”

“What

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.