Infection

Written and performed by Mack Nesky

Standing in a dark and shadowy woods… above a village named Grace.

The asylum… was an old square building with a bent and broken face.

I have found with institutions like this, well… their names seldom ring true.

Above the gate, at the edge of the grounds, the sign read Pleasant View.

I know not which of the two came first, the wicked town, or the vile keep.

Both however were bound to one another and both kept their secrets deep.

The town of Grace was poor and without Pleasant View it would surely wither away.

So, hand in hand both the town and tenant chose to ignore the cries of their prey.

The View brought forth a fountain of funding in grants from an indifferent state.

The town hid all the clinical horrors and fed off that old government plate.

For long… and long… did The View and the town enjoy this wicked and wanton affair.

With their bellies filled and pockets padded, they were numb to the scent in the air.

The odd or unruly were brought to the View and treated for a variety of simple sins.

The Town, and their tenant on high, both felt justified in their hard-earned dividends.

Who knows the true number of souls that were lost in that slow and measured care.

I do know however… that those taken to The View… lived lives of darkest despair.

As is often true in these terrible tales of woe, a new arrival must change the scene.

In this case… it was a nameless boy; whose very nature was wicked and mean.

He was found near a burnt-out wasteland, covered with foul, and bloody from toe to chin.

He never once spoke… but he heard every word… and his reply was a maniacal grin.

He was tricky and fast… and always on the verge of some sort of nasty deed.

A constant threat to the overworked folks who might wish to garden that weed.

Dreadful, as the staff came to call him, was more than just a troubled child.

He got loose far too often, and he was violent and strong and wickedly wild.

In the tired old city… the tired old staff wanted nothing to do with such muck and mire.

“Let’s send the child out to a country facility where the fresh air might quench his fire.”

A meeting was held, and decisions were made, the doc’s argued the unusual case.

We must contain him, we will send him away… pass the buck… with all due haste.

An old white ambulance van was The Asylums transport of choice.

That van cruised through the town of Grace with a raw and raspy voice.

As it passed the residents saw the wagons slow and careful course.

Yet they failed to heed the shade of color worn by that rolling horse.

It was just another day in a place called Grace, where no one knows what’s what.

The pale old van was bound for The View, bound to feed the towns pitiless glut.

This Devils deal was good for the folks of the loyal and devoted little town.

Those sent to be healed at Pleasant View would be lost and never found.

That institutional chariot kept rolling along and now the town folks all looked away.

The nameless boy within… saw the callous cowards and marked each for a later day.

Behind the mesh and in restraints, the young offender beamed with that wicked smile.

He watched the town creeping past and thought… “this place could be super wild.”

The facility waited in tense anticipation, every patient’s face pressed to a window.

Scowling attendants hurried out to play their part in the bullshit medicine show.

Deep In the old guts of the building whilst poor young Dreadful was bound and then dragged inside.

The white coats reviewed his deeds, they planned his care, some torturous techniques were implied.

The doctors talked away the day as Dreadful boy was beaten and twisted and bent.

In hushed tones they marveled at his crimes and guessed at his psychotic intent.

Why would he do these things they wondered… this child… this Dreadful boy?

We will punish him quickly, break him down, we must cease his wicked joy.

Curse him and all he does, take away that headstrong will.

Fix him right up, straight away… just give him a magic pill.

They shove his food through a slot, after it had grown stale and cold.

They leave him in isolation as well just to sit there and slowly grow old.

Someday I’ll do much he imagined, I will rise high above to avenge the meek.

The worm within grows strong… and in time perhaps I… or it, will eat the weak.

Doctors one and two and three visited and wrote on a chart.

Nurse and orderly came with pills and needles on their cart.

A careless orderly failed to be on guard and left himself exposed.

Dreadful boy moved fast and hard, when the iron door was closed.

The white coats who made the plans, had finally had enough.

We will punch a hole in his head and drain off all that evil stuff.

The best laid plans… of the heavy-handed surgeon… of course all came to not.

That evil mass… hid from the spike… there by spoiling the doctors plot.

Lobotomy might seem like a viable choice in a case such as this.

However, if your surgeons aim is poor… things can remain amiss.

That steely spear found his brain and twirled around that brilliant meat.

Dreadful boy calmed down a bit as the infection now chose to retreat.

In his room he drooled and twitched slowly healing from the correction.

Deep in his skull the thing that was wild was working on new connections.

Dreadful became a model patient, or so the white coats now believed.

The boy did not move, the child did not scream, stillness was achieved.

Time went slowly by, as time mostly does and to the coats all seemed well.

Dreadful boy was calm and content… full of visions of home sweet hell.

Sometime later a pyromaniac lit the place on fire and laughed as the flames spread.

Those in white coats were saved of course but most the patients were left for dead.

The hungry fire licked the sky, and danced across the sanitarium.

The so called sane left the rest to burn, and see the kingdom come.

It was unavoidable, an act of god, bad luck, the investigators later said.

They did not know or understand what the wind and smoke would spread.

The fire crept nearer and nearer to that dreaming and Dreadful man.

His skin blistered and burst until the fire released him as only fire can.

That dark thing that made him what he was, departed with the blaze.

It drifted up into the world and found all the watchers out in the haze.

The white coats felt nothing as they deeply inhaled bits of the dreadful man.

They would never understand their part to play in his wonderfully wicked plan.

What had been concentrated in just one, was now a darkly drifting blight.

The infection bloomed as an airborne mist in the smoky air on that night.

Doctor number one felt sick the next day, when he killed a loving pet.

The little dog he had given his son, had soiled an expensive carpet.

“Stupid little thing” he screamed as he raised a foot above the sweet boy.

Electric rage rushed through the doctor as he crushed the pup like a toy.

Doctor number two suddenly noticed how his daughter had recently grown.

He saw curves and skin and a sassy strut she had previously never shown.

He gave his happy girl a glass of wine… after mommy had gone to bed.

She was scared when he touched her in that way… “now keep our secret” he said.

Doctor number three had no life or love, but he often would enjoy a drink.

On the second night, after escaping the fire, his mood really began to sink.

At the local bar he sat until he was sweating from beer and rum.

They cut him off and sent him home, and in the alley, he killed a bum.

The poor old sod had asked for a token because the streets were so mean.

That drunken doctor chewed off the bum’s face and licked his hot skull clean.

Riots and fires and bloody carnage could be found from place to place.

Madness and evil had curled around the squirming little town of Grace.

A girl named Danielle was walking home from a party when she stopped to watch the fire.

She coughed and staggered through the front door and then slit mommies throat with a wire.

Poor and sad… pretty boy Ted… his hidden sexuality was his constant… lifelong regret.

That night in a fit of self-loathing he carved off his manhood with his pops vintage bayonet.

Angel truly loved the world and she fed the hungry folks that slept in the streets.

After the fire… she saw a new truth… and could see what was needed the least.

With their hats in their hands they came to her home seeking shelter, food, and aid for their sick.

The needy that night had a marvelous meal… seasoned with love and a huge dose of arsenic.

Meanwhile… back at the home of doc number one… things were still dark indeed.

The loving wife of the wicked doctor had designs… born of her own desperate need.

Seeing the face of her sad little boy when he learned his dear pet was deceased.

Misses doctor number one planned the ugly demise of the fat old dog killing beast.

She dressed in her most alluring outfit… a silky nighty that was sheer and reveling.

She purred to the man she once had loved “come to bed and I’ll give you that feeling”

He rushed to the room where they had lain together… and jumped on the bed… face down.

The evil doc giggled softly as he lifted his butt in the air and begged her to go to town.

The broken hearted and vengeful wife… moved into a position of authority.

Her pistol pushed into a tender spot… mostly shunned by the moral majority.

The doctor yelped and laughed a bit and said… “oh baby that’s a very cold toy.”

He never imagined how this might end… he was fixated on his own… selfish joy.

The shot was loud but not what she expected as it was muffled by his meaty back round.

The slug tumbled around his guts and ripped out his chest with a wet and thwacking sound.

The lovely wife of doc number one tilted her head… like the pup when he heard “want a treat?”

Very, very softly… and with a laugh she said… “that shit will never come out of that sheet.

I suppose all this gory and bloody fun couldn’t be allowed to continue unchecked.

By early morning on day three of the infection most all poor Grace was wrecked.

In the dawns early light up in the smoking piles of the now burnt Pleasant View.

The fire forged bones of that wild and Dreadful man began to stir anew.

Like a poorly strung marionette Dreadful rose from the ash with lurching trips and falls and flops.

He stood on swaying bones and looked at the gutted village full of burning cars and homes and shops.

With dark empty eyeholes he saw here and there a Graceintonian run screaming for their lives. 

They fell in short order when found by a neighbor who carried a gun or an axe or long knives.

“Tisk… Tisk… Tisk…” whispered the reanimated bones of the last patient of Pleasant View.

“You try to get a little rest…” he shrugged and said, “Oh well… what is a poor boy to do?”

Dreadful lifted his long and meatless arms up to a sky fresh with morning light.

Were any of the guest or staff still alive… they’d have surely been shocked by the sight.

“Come to me children” he called out in a voice loud and clear though he had no tongue or lip.

“Return now… my dear pieces of me… for far too long have you been free of my loving grip.

Down below… in the hell scape of town… the infected folks all turned to look up the hill.

They hissed with rage and began to convulse as their souls felt the pull of his will.

Dreadful twirled his boney hands in the air and commanded “come on now… come back to me.”

The altered humans of the town below screamed in unison as their dark companions broke free.

A thin and pinkish red mist burst forth from the pores of both the living and the dead.

This crimson cloud rolled up the hill and formed a vortex above Dreadful’s head.

He stood below this spinning pool of power and turned his skeletal face up to that bliss.

“Come on you little punks” he laughed and screamed at the cloud “let’s just freaking do this!”

The roaring vortex dropped around him and the change to his form began to show.

Bits of the mist clung to the bones of the man and thusly his meat suit did grow.

Inside the empty husk of the man… organs and connective tissue now returned.

Greasy black blood… filled new veins and his heart slowly chugged and churned.

His eyes and his hair and his skin and his teeth… suddenly they all popped back into place.

Now he was whole as every piece and part of himself abandoned the forsaken town of Grace.

Dreadful looked down at the valley below where the innocents were still fleeing by any means at hand.

However, there were some who relished the change and were now seeking their masters command.

These empty creatures gathered before him… each one a twitching and vile pariah.

They fell at his feet and groveled and begged for the wise words of their new messiah.

“Please” they begged… “Please tell us what we do next… how can we serve you in this place?”

Dreadful walked amongst his flock and touched each one in turn on their pleading and upturned face.

After each disciple had felt his power he mounted the steps that once were the entry to The View.

The undead man raised his hands and smiled at the true believers who had come for their cue.

Dreadful started to chuckle and it turned to a laugh… then he lost it and bellowed out loud.

He winked at the kneeling folks at his feet and still laughing a bit he pointed out at the crowd.

“Oh my… my, my, my, my, my… you pathetic… worthless… and stupid little trolls.”

“Your service to me is already done… I have no need of your spent and waisted souls.”

The gathered folks looked in horror as their supposed lord cursed them all.

He spun on his heels and snapped his fingers and shouted, “hey…let’s have a ball!”

On each… and… every one of the faithful the spot he had touched now began to glow.

They screamed in pain and writhed and twisted in a glorious blood-soaked show.

The foolish monsters turned inside out… I know what you’re thinking… but it’s true.

They split open and burst apart soaking Dreadful with their blood and foul and goo.

He took a moment to enjoy the scene and to rub in the hot shower of human remains.

Dreadful was pleased by these raw results and his collection of the way past due claims.

The woods that grew behind the ruins of the View were dark and quiet and old.

The man who had arrived there as a boy walked slowly into that dark and quiet cold.

It was time to start his cycle once more… time to begin his journey anew.

You see Grace was not nearly the only dark place that housed a Pleasant View.

He faded into those dark shadows and again he became that lost child of horror and unholy deeds.

Soon… very soon… he would find another town or asylum full of weak souls begging to be freed.

The end…