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Suko saw the blond man's face upside down, the lilac eyes like little slices of moon, the mouth a reverse smile or grimace. A whining buzz filled his skull, seemed to jar the very plates of his skull, as if hornets had built a nest inside his brain. A dull ache spread spiderlike over the top of his head.
He smelled roses, though he had seen none in the room. He smelled wood shavings, the sharp stink of shit, the perfume of ripe oranges. Each of these scents was gone as quickly as it had come. Lingering was a burnt metallic flavor, a little like the taste that had lingered in his mouth the time he'd had a tooth filled in Bangkok.
Shavings. Roses. Cut grass. Sour milk. And underneath it all, the smell of rotting flesh.
Suko's field of vision went solid screaming chartreuse, then danger red. Now Justin was back, a negative of himself, hair green, face inky purple, eyes white circles with pinhole sat their centers like tiny imploding suns. And suddenly something else was in the frame as well. Something all black, with holes where no holes should be. A face swollen and torn, a face that could not be alive, but whose jaw was moving.
A hand missing most of its fingers closed on the back of Justin's hair and yanked. A drooling purple mouth closed on Justin's pale throat and tore away a chunk.
Suko managed to sit up. His vision spun and yawed. The reek of rot was dizzying, and overlying it was a new stinging smell, a chemical smell he couldn't identify. Something salty ran into his eyes. He touched his face, and his fingers came away slicked with a thin clear substance.
The thing wrapped skeletal arms around Justin and pulled him off the bed. They rolled on the floor together, Justin's blood fountaining out of his throat, the thing grunting and lapping at it. Ragged flesh trailed from its mouth.
Justin wasn't screaming, Suko realized.
He was smiling.
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