Gregor Motel
Gregor Pneumsa sighed, his snap brim fedora not sitting so jauntily on his head, his stained tan trenchcoat less than stylish beneath the razor steel sky. So many times he had thought his luck would improve, only to find himself ceaselessly plunged once more into agonies. His nightmares were an orgy of mechanical insects, droid hives teeming with unquiet life like the ghosts of memory. The meat suit sat unquietly on his bones. He wanted out.
Once had been, now all was ashes. He lay curled up in the fetal position against the sewer grate, shaking and spasming with sobs. He wasn’t even excited about scoring the Nova, so depressed was he by the constant psychic battery and death threats that befell all disabled in Mercury City, a leaden sheet of sadness crushing his chest.
A Reality Cop in a black funeral mask came striding up to him and pressed a bug zapper to his chest. “Wakey wakey, drop your steaky,” came the mechanoid voice.
Pneumsa had dealt with their kind before. Also known as the Nightmare Squad and Agents of Brasilia, Inc., they were dedicated to the detection and persecution of all Gregors past, passing and to come. Their bead on Gregors was quite remarkable considering the fact that the Nightmare Squad harbored many of Pneumsa’s kind.
“Didn’t I see you at the Lodge meeting,” said Pneumsa, halfway asleep and in his dreams sunk into the hot pink sex of a Gregorina.
“This is a public sidewalk,” growled the cop. “Get a move on, and do it now or I’ll break out my Fucking Gun.”
“I suppose you will at that,” said Pneumsa. He grunted as he shakily rose to a standing position.
“You holding?” asked the cop.
“N-no man, I’m clean.”
“The fuck you are. Hey, isn’t that a book of New York Times crossword puzzles you’ve got in that carry bag of yours?”
“No, that’s not at all true.”
“You’re holding for sure. Wordle freak, Scrabble jones, the whole nine. Why don’t we take a little trip down to the station?”
“Why are you doing this to me?” said Pneumsa plaintively. “Aren’t you a Gregor yourself?”
“Not as such,” said the Gregor cop enigmatically. “I mean yes and no. We try to keep our side of the street clean. Unlike some.”
“I’m not sure exactly what you’re on about,” said Pneumsa.
“Neither am I,” said the cop. “Obscurity and enigma protocols must be followed to the letter. Thin grey line between…”
“Don’t you mean thin blue line?”
“It’s very grey inside the hive mind of Brasilia, Inc,” said the cop after some reflection. Then “you’re kind of a sad and poignant character, aren’t you? Honestly I’m less and less inclined to want to bust you. Of course a little favor from you might seal the deal.” The cop coughed and spat something evil into his handkerchief.
Without a word, Pneumsa unzipped the carry bag, feeling with the shaking fingers of a word virus junkie for the medicinal goods. They emerged clutching a tiny but potent vial of tangerine flake Strobe, which he slipped into the cop’s outstretched palm.
“Thank you kindly,” said the cop. “Well, I don’t see any further need to detain you. You might want to check out Motel Infernale.”
“What’s that?”
“Motel that sits in a pocket dimension of timespace. Good for recovering Word addicts such as yourself.”
A better mood began to slide through Pneumsa’s bloodstream like a rainbow shot. He thanked the cop and headed on down Demolition Boulevard, doing his best to ignore the lurking mutants.
***
“The Brazilian sent me,” Pneumsa told the slouched and glowering proprietor of Motel Infernale.
The proprietor wore an identical snap brim fedora and trenchcoat to Pneumsa. His eyes were hidden behind bug shades.
“The Brazilian, eh? Reality Cop or Todencorps?”
Pneumsa was beginning to feel the onset of word withdrawal. Desperate for a hit, he attempted a bit of witty banter.
“It was a she, actually. Just had a Brazilian.” He paused, unable to discern any reaction from the proprietor. He realized his non sequitur, felt foolish.
“Cronenbergian landing strip,” Pneumsa added with a leer.
The proprietor tossed Pneumsa a mangled key. “Just don’t OD on me,” he said. “Last time we had a shady character such as yourself in here, we had to scrape their steaming, luminous guts off the ceiling. Hot with the Word Virus.” He shuddered at the memory. “Also, no clown hookers.”
Now it was Pneumsa’s turn to shudder. He had no idea what he had been thinking when he hired Cotton Candy Omega, who was not only a clown whore but a Death Clown. She’d nearly devoured his heart as well as his cock.
“It’s down the hall, on the right,” said the proprietor.
***
Gregor Pneumsa placed the carry bag on the scuffed puke green carpet, unzipped, found a half pack of Lucky Strikes, flicked his Baphomet Zippo on a cig and inhaled greedily. He then placed the cigarette in a Houston Oilers ashtray which had obviously been left by a guest (who carries around ashtrays, he asked himself, they must be ghouls).
He pulled out the green balloon of Nova, a cotton swab, a spoon and a fresh works. He then placed a bump of the Nova on the spoon, flamed his Zippo beneath it until it sizzled. He tied off, crooked his arm and placed a cotton swab on top of the Nova. Finally, he drew the medication into the syringe, grunted, vein doused and finally sank the shot.
As soon as the Nova hit, Pneumsa knew he’d made a huge mistake. The words hit him so hard his skeleton shook. Entire encyclopedias uploaded themselves into his bloodstream. Intricate glosses, appendices, unabridged medical journal archives.
He stumbled, head swimming, as Sumerian alphabets danced in his mind. He was unable to resist the lure of the Hittites, Abyssiniand, Anthropods and Oregonites. He walked like an Egyptian sideways to the grimdark toilet with peeling wall paper from a pornographic funeral parlor. His entire body torqued. A thin line of green foam dripped down his jaw.
“Is this the end of Gregor Pneumsa?” he asked the very silent walls. But answer came there none.
He sank to his knees in the cramped porno toilet. Spasms wracked his body. Cellular ripples of pulp friction scraped nerve bundles together.
He began to vibrate, expanding and contracting. The Word had become Unflesh, as he saw with pain and wonder that his skin had taken on a neon pink complexion, fitzing and sparking as he grew bigger and smaller alternatively.
He saw once again the realm of the mechanoid insects to which he would never belong. His head became encased in stale, suffocating clouds all shaped like Easter Island statues. He flopped down on the floor, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Then Pneumsa simply exploded, spattering the walls and ceiling with luminous green, mostly Latinate words pureed from his organ meats.
***
One morning after unquiet dreams, Gregor Pneumsa found himself transformed on his battered, pee soaked mattress at the Motel L’Infernale into a mechanoid insect with aspirations towards law enforcement. He knew that he would never again inhabit his flesh body, which was splashed all over the porno toilet.
A hammering came to the door. Reality Police, or Nightmare Squad, or Agents of Brasilia, Inc. There, naturally, to renege on their corrupt promise and begin the process of flaying his metal form into strips that they could then boil down, his consciousness excruciatingly intact, for that next-level high they craved so desperately.
Pneumsa smiled one last time as he realized the utter horrors, the dark powers of language, the curses and imprecations that would swarm their brains forevermore, as his own ghost, the body as haunted, lived rent free in their heads.
Horror Sleaze Trash 