Chapter 20 Chapter 19 Fester

one Wake up does not look like wake up. Seriously, he doesn't think he's ever really woken up or fallen asleep, at least not like normal people.In a sense he seemed to be asleep all the time, just passing from dream to dream.His life was like boxes nestled together, one inside the other, endlessly, or peering into a gallery of mirrors. It's a nightmare. He slowly woke up, knowing that he hadn't fallen asleep at all.Somehow, Ted Beaumont held him for a moment, and for a moment seized his will.Did he say anything while Ted was controlling him?Has something been revealed?He felt like he was giving away...but he was also sure Tad didn't know what the words meant, or tell what was important and what wasn't.

He was still in pain when he woke up. He rented a two-room apartment in the East Village off B Street.When he opened his eyes, he was sitting at a sloping dining table with a notebook open in front of him. A stream of blood ran across the faded oilcloth on the table. ballpoint pen. Now the dream is back. That was his way of getting Tad out of his mind, that cowardly shit that made a bond between them, and that was the only way to break it.Ted is timid?right.But he's still cunning, and it would be bad, very, very bad to forget that. Stark vaguely remembered dreaming of Tad in bed with him—they were talking together in low tones, and it seemed very pleasant and comfortable at first—like you talk to your brother after lights out.

It's just that they're not just talking, right? They were exchanging secrets—or, more accurately, Tad was asking him questions and Stark was answering.Answering questions is enjoyable, and answering questions is comfortable, but it's also unsettling.At first his unease centered on the bird—why did Tad keep asking him about the bird?No birds, maybe...a long, long time ago...but not now.It's just a mind game, just an effort to drive him insane.Then little by little, his sense of unease became closely intertwined with his survival instinct - it became stronger and clearer, he struggled to wake up, he felt he was being pushed under the water, and he was about to drown died. ...

So, half asleep, he went into the kitchen, opened his notebook, and picked up his ballpoint pen.Ted didn't know anything about it, so why would he?Isn't he also writing five hundred miles away?Of course, the pen wasn't right—even he was holding it—but at least it was good enough for now. "Fester," he wrote as he watched himself.At this point, he was very close to the magic mirror that separated Who and Awake, and he was struggling to control the ballpoint pen, decide what to write and what not to write, but it was very difficult, God, God, this fucking It's so difficult.

He bought ballpoint pens and half a dozen notebooks at a stationery store when he arrived in New York, before he rented the dingy apartment.There were Belore pencils in the store, and he wanted to buy them too, but he didn't buy them.Because, whoever's mind was driving these pencils, it was always Ted's hand that was holding them, and he wondered if he could break the bond with Ted, so instead of pencils he bought ballpoint pens. If he could write it, if he could write it himself, that would be great, he wouldn't need that Maine thing at all.But the ballpoint pen was useless to him, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he concentrated, the only thing he could write was his name.He wrote it again and again: George Stark, George Stark, George Stark.Written all the way to the bottom of the paper, the words were unreadable, reduced to a preschooler's scribbles.

Yesterday, he went to a branch of the New York Public Library and rented an electric typewriter in the writing room for an hour.That one hour seemed as long as a thousand years.He sat in a seat that was closed on three sides, tapped the keyboard with trembling fingers, and typed his name, capitalized this time, George Stark, George Stark, George Stark. Don't write these!he shouted to himself.Type anything else, anything, just don't write these! So he tried again, leaning over the keyboard with sweat dripping down his face, and typed: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. When he looked up at the paper, he saw that he had written: George George Stark George Stark Stark.

He had an urge to tear off the typewriter, to smash it to pieces like a primitive man brandishing a spear: if he cannot create, let him destroy! However, he restrained himself, walked out of the library, crumpled up the useless paper with one strong hand, and threw it into the waste paper bin on the side of the road.Now, with the ballpoint pen in his hand, he remembered the rage he felt when he discovered that without Ted he would only be writing his own name. And fear. panic. But he still has Ted, doesn't he?Ted might not think so, but maybe... just maybe Ted would be taken aback. "Lost," he wrote.Hell, he can't tell Ted anything anymore - what he's written is bad enough.He struggled to control his disobedient hand. "wake up."

"Necessary cohesion," he writes, as if to elaborate on a previous thought, when suddenly Stark sees himself stabbing Tad with his pen.He thought, "I can do that too, I don't think you can, Ted, because you're very weak at this point. Can't you? Because when it comes to stabbing, that's my specialty, you bastard, I think you should know by now." While it's a lot like a dream within a dream, and though he's terrified of losing control, his primal self-confidence is back and he's able to pierce the sleep shield.In the split second before Ted can drown him, he takes control of the ballpoint pen... finally able to write with it.

For a moment—just a moment—he felt two hands grabbing the ballpoint pen.The feeling was too clear, too real, to be anything but real. "No birds," he wrote—the first real sentence he wrote.Writing is very difficult, and only a man of extraordinary perseverance can make such an endeavor.But once the words were written, he felt more in control.The other hand loosened, and Stark immediately tightened his grip on the pen without hesitation. "Flood you for a while," he thought, "and see how you are." He wrote quickly and triumphantly: "No fucking bird bastard out of my head!"

Then, without thinking, he raised his hand and stabbed it, the steel point piercing his right hand... He could feel the ground hundreds of miles away, and Ted raised a Belore pencil and stabbed it into his left hand. That's when they both woke up. two The pain is intense, but it's also liberating.Stark yelled, hastily pressing his sweaty head against his arms to muffle the sound, but the sound was both pain and pleasure. He could feel Tad trying not to cry out in his Maine study.The telepathy Ted had created between them was still alive, like a hastily tied knot being jerked.Stark could almost see the bastard put a probe into his head while he slept and snooped.

Stark reached out in his brain and grabbed Tad's disappearing psychic probe by the tail.It looked to Stark like a fat white maggot, stuffed with garbage and waste. He considered letting Tad grab a pencil from the porcelain vase and stab himself again—in the eye this time, and maybe he could have him stick the tip of the pen into his ear, pierce the eardrum, and goug out the soft flesh inside his head, he Ted can almost be heard screaming, and this time Ted must not be able to hold back the screams. That's when he stopped, he didn't want Tad dead. At least not now. Didn't want him dead until Ted taught him to live independently. Stark let go of his fist slowly, and as he did so, he felt the mental fist loosen as well, in which he held the essence of Tad.He felt Tad, the fat, white maggot, slip away moaning. "Only temporarily," he whispered, and moved on to other things he needed to do.He held the ballpoint pen in his right hand with his left hand, pulled it out neatly, and threw it into the wastebasket. three A bottle of spirits sits on a stainless steel shelf by the sink.Stark picked it up and walked into the bathroom, swinging his right hand by his side as he walked, dripping blood onto the twisted and faded linoleum.The hole on his hand was half an inch above the base of the finger, near the middle finger. The hole was very round, the edges were stained with black ink, and there was blood in the middle, which looked like a gunshot wound.He tried to bend his hand, and the fingers moved... but the pain that followed was so unbearable that he dared not try again. He pulled the switch cord dangling from the medicine cabinet mirror, and the bare sixty-watt bulb flickered on.He clamped the wine bottle with his right arm, unscrewed the cap with his left hand, then opened his injured hand and placed it over the basin.Is Ted doing the same thing in Maine?He was skeptical, he doubted Tad would have the guts to do it, he was probably on his way to the hospital by now. Stark poured whiskey into the wound, and a sharp pain spread from his arm to his shoulder. He saw the whiskey foaming from the wound, saw the blood in the amber wine, and had to bury his face in his sweaty clothes again. on the arm of the shirt. He thought the pain would never go away, but it was finally starting to subside. He tried to put the whiskey bottle on the shelf under the mirror, but his hands were shaking too much to do it, so he put it on the rusted tin floor under the shower head.He might have to take a sip soon. He raised his hand to the lamp and peered into the hole.He could see the bulb through the hole, but it was blurry—like looking out through a smudged red filter.He didn't pierce the palm, but he almost did, and maybe Ted did a better job. But hopefully Ted hurts worse. He put his hand under the faucet, stretched the back of his hand to make the wound as wide as possible, and gritted his teeth to endure the pain.It was very painful at first, he gritted his teeth, and his lips were drawn into a white line, so he didn't cry out. Later, his hands became numb, and it was much better.He forced himself to run under the tap for three full minutes, then turned off the tap, and put his hand under the lamp again. The light from the bulb could still be seen through the hole, but it was blurred and distant now, the wound closed, and his body seemed to have an amazing ability to regenerate, and it was ridiculous to think he was festering at the same time.Loss of cohesion, he once wrote, is what it is. There was a mirror with bumps and spots on the medicine cabinet. He stared blankly at his face in the mirror for about thirty seconds, and then woke up with a shock all over his body.His face was both familiar and strange, and every time he saw it, he felt like he was falling into a hypnotic state.He thought he would really fall asleep if he stared at it for a long time. Stark opened the medicine cabinet so that the mirror and his charming, hideous face were out of view.The medicine cabinet contained all sorts of odd odds and ends: two disposable razors, one of which was used; several bottles of cosmetics; a small compact with a mirror; A bit grey; a regular bottle of aspirin, no Band-Aids.Band-Aids, he thought, are like the police, you can't find them when you really need them.But that was all right, he could sterilize the wound with whiskey again and wrap it in a handkerchief.He didn't think it would fester, he seemed to have a kind of immunity to the infection, which he thought was funny. He bit the cap off the aspirin bottle with his teeth, spat the cap into the basin, then erected the bottle and poured half a dozen pills into his mouth.He picked up the bottle of whiskey from the floor and flushed the pills down with it.The wine rushed into his stomach, and there was a comfortable warmth.Then he poured more wine over the wound on his hand. Stark went into the bedroom and opened the top drawer of the chest of drawers, which was very worn out. It and another old sofa bed were the only furniture in the room. The top drawer was the only one containing anything: three pairs of men's underpants, two pairs of socks, a handkerchief, all wrapped and unopened.He tore the cellophane with his teeth and tied the handkerchief around his hand. Amber whiskey seeped through the thin handkerchief, followed by a trace of blood.Stark waited to see if there would be more blood, and it didn't.good, very good. Can Ted pick up any sensory messages?He doesn't know.Did he know that George Stark lived in the seedy East Village?He didn't think Ted would know, but there was no point in taking risks.He had promised Ted to give him a week to make a decision, and though he was now almost certain that Ted didn't want to start writing again under the Stark pseudonym, he was going to give him that week anyway. After all, he is a man who keeps his word. Ted might need a little stimulation.A few seconds of burning his kids' toes with a propane blowtorch you can get at a hardware store would do, Stark thought, but that's for later.Now he was playing the waiting game... and while he was waiting, it wouldn't hurt to start heading north.Get into position, you might say.After all, his car was there—a black Toronado.It's in the garage, but that doesn't mean it has to stop in the garage.He could leave New York tomorrow morning... now he should be using the cosmetics in the bathroom cupboard. Four He took out the liquid cosmetic bottle, face powder and sponge.He took another swig of wine before starting.His hands were no longer shaking, but his right hand was jumping violently.It didn't frustrate him much, and if his hands were jumping, Tad's hands must be making him cry out in pain. He looked at himself in the mirror, touched a piece of skin under his left eye with his big fingers, and then touched from his cheek to the corner of his mouth. "Loss of cohesion," he murmured, and oh man, that's true. When Stark had just climbed out of the Home Cemetery, he had stared at a small puddle lit by a moon-shaped street lamp, seeing his face for the first time, and was satisfied.It was exactly like the dreams he had dreamed when he was imprisoned in the prison of Ted's imagination.He saw a very handsome face, only a little too broad to attract attention.If the forehead were not so high and the eyes were not so set apart, it would be a face that would make a woman turn her head for a second look.A face which is wholly indescribable attracts the mind, since there is nothing in it which attracts the eye, and the eye dwells on it for a long time, and its blandness confuses the eye, causing it to turn back for a second glance.The face Stark saw for the first time at the puddle was not so bland; it delighted him, thinking it was a perfect face no one could describe afterward.Blue eyes...a very tanned skin, which is kind of weird in a blonde...that's all!only these!Witnesses are compelled to turn to the broad shoulders that make him unique...but there are plenty of broad-shouldered men in the world. Now everything has changed, now his face is very strange... If he doesn't start writing soon, it will get weirder, it will get ugly. "Loss of cohesion," he thought again. "But you're going to stop it, Ted. When you start writing your book on armored vehicles, everything that happens to me turns upside down. I don't know how I know, but I do." Two weeks had passed since he first saw himself in that puddle, and his face had been slowly degrading.Very slight at first.So much so that he had convinced himself that it was only his imagination...but, as the changes intensified, it became undeniable that he was forced to change his mind.Comparing photographs of him then with photographs now would suggest that he had been exposed to some strange radiation or chemical attack, and George Stark's soft tissues seemed to be in the process of festering of their own accord. Crow's feet, a sign of middle age, are now deep enough.His eyelids drooped and became rough as crocodile skin, his cheeks were similarly cracked, and the rims of his eyes became a little red, giving him a sad look, like that of a drunkard.There are several deep lines from the corner of his mouth to his jaw, making his mouth look like a puppet's mouth, which seems to come down at any moment.Beautiful blond hair fell out at the temples, revealing a pink scalp.Reddish-brown spots appear on the backs of his hands. He can live with all of this without makeup.After all, he just looked a little old, and being old was nothing.His powers don't appear to be compromised.Besides, he was sure that once he and Ted started writing again—under the name George Stark—the process would be reversed. But now his teeth are loose.Plus, there are some wounds. Three days ago, the first wound was found on the inside of his right elbow - a red spot surrounded by a ring of white dead skin.The spots reminded him of corn measles, a disease that had hit the South in the sixties.The day before yesterday, he saw another one, this time on his neck, below the lobe of his left ear.Found two more yesterday, one between the nipples and one under the navel. Today, the first red spot appeared on his face, just on the right temple. They don't hurt, just a little itchy, that's all... at least for now.But they expand quickly.His right arm was now red and swollen from elbow to shoulder. He scratched it a few times. Come out, the wound emits an unpleasant smell.But it wasn't infection, he was sure of that, it was more like... rot. Looking at him now, even a person with medical training would think he had radiation-induced melanoma. However, these wounds did not worry him very much.He thought they would multiply, expand here and there, join together, and eventually eat him alive... if he ignored them.Since he won't ignore them, there's no need to worry about them.However, if his face becomes an erupting volcano, it will be noticeable, so, he will wear makeup. He carefully blotted the liquid foundation from cheekbones to temples with a sponge, completely covering the redness on the right forehead and the new sores that had just begun to show under the skin of the left cheekbones.Stark found that men with gouache makeup looked very strange.That is, he was either an actor on a TV soap opera or a guest at a show.But anything can conceal the wound, and his brown skin softens the traces of make-up.If he stayed in the dark or appeared in the light, it was almost impossible to see that he was wearing makeup, or so he hoped to be.There were other reasons for avoiding direct sunlight, which he suspected accelerated catastrophic chemical reactions in his body.He seemed to be becoming a vampire, but that was okay, in a sense, he had always been a vampire.And—"I'm a night person, always have been, that's my nature." He grinned, showing his sharp teeth. He screwed on the cap of the liquid makeup bottle and began to apply powder. "I can smell myself, he thought, and soon others will be able to smell me, a strong, unpleasant smell, like a can of meat left out in the sun for days. It smells very, very, very bad." "You'll write, Ted," he said, looking at himself in the mirror, "but luckily, you won't have to write very long." He laughed even wider, showing his front teeth, which had turned black to death. "I'm a person with a great memory." Fives At ten-thirty the next day a stationer on Houston Street sold three boxes of Belore pencils to a tall, broad-shouldered man in a plaid shirt, blue jeans, and a large sunglasses.The stationer noticed that the man was also wearing make-up—probably the result of a night in the pub last night.Judging from his smell, the stationer thought he was not only a little perfumed, but that he had literally bathed in it.But the perfume still didn't mask the stench of the broad-shouldered dandy.For a moment the stationer wanted to make a joke, but held back.This dude is stinky, but strong.Besides, the trading time is very short.After all, the guy was just buying a pencil, not a Rolls-Royce. Better leave this sick guy alone. six Back at his East Village apartment, Stark stuffed his few belongings into the canvas bag he'd bought at a navy store on his first day in New York.If it wasn't for that bottle of wine, he might not even bother to come back. As he walked up the creaking front steps, he passed the carcasses of three dead sparrows without noticing them. He walks off Avenue B...but he won't be walking very far.He found that a man of strong will, if he really wanted a ride, could always get one.