The Holy Land
A novelette

Chapter 4

By Dan McClenaghan

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

Angelina dished out a good natured ass-chewing, along with a "Progressive Correction Chit" for my transgression of provoking the two maids. I'd be in Holly's office answering for that when I returned from my vacation. I'd probably end up with a "Letter of Correction" for balling the two maids. It could have been worse. Angelina could have issued me a "Reprimand Chit," in which case I'd be looking at a second suspension and possible excommunication from my employment at The Holy Land. It was a good thing Angelina an I were on friendly terms.

Banished, I drove off the lot and into a sludge of traffic on The Strip, crawled along with ten thousand gambling mecca pilgrims until I made it to Tropicana Boulevard, where I turned east and headed home, to the Paradise Apartments.

My roommate's car was in its spot under the parking canopy. Good, I thought, the air conditioning with be going. I climbed the outside stairway, trudged down the walkway and pushed open my door to number 217.

Cold air huffed out and caressed me, and Tony said, "Check this out, bro'."

I gazed inside and said: "How can I help but check it out, man?"

She was doing what you think she was doing. Her naked body, I saw, was strikingly similar to that of a skinny twelve-year-old human girl, with the exception of the extra pair of breasts that budded out of her torso, beneath her more normally positioned – for a human – superior pair. I'd never seen this type of thing before; not with the Tyn. I'd heard the rumors, though.

The The fat man groaned. The Tyn girl utter a muffled squeak, and Tony watched, grinning all over his face, big and sloppy.

I need to get a place of my own, I thought.

"Oh, man," Tony said, as the hairy holo guy approached a climax. "This is brand new, man; I ain't never seen one like this before."

I turned away, slipped into the kitchen, thinking about sharp silver teeth. I grabbed a cold beer from the refrigerator. A sea lion grunt (Tony or the fat guy?) sent a concussive wave by me, rattling the remaining bottles in the refrigerator door.

"Why don't you turn that Goddamned thing down, Tony," I called out, twisting the cap off my beer.

"Oh man!" he called back, a split second before the scream cut the air.

And such a scream it was, unlike any I'd heard before, even Julianne's. Pain, horror, helpless outrage burned in that one explosive exclamation; an utterance followed almost immediately by wailing, a deep, high-pitched distress crying over the soft rhythmic thuds of splattering, like a fluid falling to the floor from a modest height, slapping down on an unyielding surface.

The scream had made me drop my beer. I stood and watched it dumbly, white froth erupting from the horizontal bottle. Tony drew my attention away from it as he staggered into the kitchen, his hand clasped over his mouth, his eyes squinched shut.

"Tony!" I cried out. "What ...?"

He threw up, a hot lava flow combo of freshly eaten pizza and Coke that splashed into my beer spill.

The screams began rise toward a second crescendo. It was the holo show, I knew. She'd bitten him. The Tyn Girl had bitten his ...

Oh Christ.

I darted into the living room to turn the Goddamned thing off. I didn't want to look, but I did – that "passing the car crash" thing. I didn't want to listen. Listen to those scissor teeth scraping together as she chewed it up; I didn't want to see the blood that shot like a fountain from the stump, or the raw clean cut a half inch from his body.

The remote lay on the floor, at the feet of the masticating Tyn girl. She worked over her mouthful with relish, glazed eyes vacant in a contemplative stare, blood smearing her cheeks and chin. I groaned and stumbled at her and snatched up the remote and killed her image with a press of the OFF button, cleaning up the bloody hologram mess she'd caused in our living room in a blink.

Published October 2007