Weavers Book I: The Cutters

Tip #12: Dont Fall Asleep

I've never really been a heavy sleeper. I suffer from a glorious condition called insomnia. To be fair, I suffer from a lot of conditions. Insomnia is just the most obvious. So I don't sleep. I don't need to sleep. I run on sheer willpower.
But I guess every body has its limits, and mine is here. I'm probably concussed (thanks a lot, Ollie) and I haven't slept at all, aside from being knocked out, in two weeks. I'm paying for it now. The only thing keeping me awake is pinching my arms and a ghastly headache.
Trashy reached his limit. He conked out about an hour ago. How do I know the time? I've been counting seconds. There's nothing else to do. Count seconds, write some bullshit on a piece of paper, tear it up, write some more.
I should tear this up.
But paper is precious.
Just like staying awake.
I can't fall asleep, not with this feeling of pure dread in my stomach.
Another pinch. Stupid fucking Ollie didn't have the decency to let us keep my soda stash. I am on a caffeine crash right now, no kidding. When's the last time I ate? It's been a while, that's for sure. I'm about to start chewing my knuckles.
I had that nervous habit in elementary school, whenever I got nervous I would just start chewing away at my knuckles. By the end of the day they were always red and raw. Sometimes I would bleed, but not often. Mostly it was just gross. Like, my parents would always tell me that I looked disgusting and to stop acting like a two-year-old. This one time I started chewing on my knuckles while looking in the mirror, and I realized that I looked stupid as shit, so I stopped.
I never thought I'd have to resort to cannibalism. Chewing on my knuckles was a nervous habit, not a source of food. But even that sounds good right now. I'm not starving. I was starving last week. I'm way beyond starvation now.
And without the Coke, I don't even have a source of water. Time to drink my own piss, I guess.
A moan makes me jump all the way to my feet before I realize it's Trashy. He's thrashing back and forth like a worm on a hook.
"Gak!" He yells, or something like it, like a newborn trying to speak. He spits a few more meaningless syllables before returning to his bone-chilling, pathetic moans.
"Hey," I say, crossing the room to where Trashy is curled up on what used to be a couch. "Hey, Trashy. Wake up, man..." I lean over and grab his shoulders. He shrieks like a dying cat before his eyes burst open. His breath comes hot and fast, his eyes are wide open and bloodshot. In simple terms, he looks like a druggie that just got shot in the ass with pure heroin.
"Fucks ahoy, Mr. Tiddle."
"What the hell just happened? You looked like you were having a panic attack."
"Don't remember," Trashy says, but the shadows creeping into his eyes tell me he remembers.
"Bullshit."
"Don't want to talk about it."
"What was it about? At least tell me that."
"You're a dirty rat, Mr. Tiddle."
"Says the one who lives in tunnels. Tell me."
"I'll tell you if you tell me. We trade secrets, like."
"You first."
"Dirty rat, you are, Mr. Tiddle."
"I'm waiting."
"Well... you already know about my adoptive daddy-o. He was one scary sonofabitch. Scary on a normal day, even scarier on Saturday."
"Why?"
"The bottle had him in its throttle. He drank-ey his bank-ey and it make him cranky."
"So he was abusive?"
"No," Trashy says. "Yes. Maybe. It all depends on perspective. I tells you the facts, you decides how you acts."
"What did he... do to you?" I ask, thinking of his pathetic moans.
"Words fuck everything up. I think it'd be better if I just show you. Don't get too turned on."
"Wha—" Trashy yanks off his shirt, exposing a wiry body covered in red welts. In between cuts and bruises, his ribs poke out like sore thumbs.
"He did that to you?"
"He did it sure as sugarcane."
"Seems pretty abusive to me."
"Only on weekends. Weekdays he taught. Taught at school, then came to me and taught me. Weeks were good. Even if I wasn't allowed to leave."
"Wasn't allowed to leave— huh?"
"I told you, I don't have a birth certificate. I don't legally exist. Don't you listen, Mr. Tiddle?"
"Shut up."
"I wasn't allowed to leave the house. I snuck out, though."
"Did you get caught?"
"Never. I'm a sneaky bastard." He pulls his shirt back over his head, thankfully, because it was starting to make me feel awful, like abandoned roadkill. "Your turn."
"Huh?"
"I told you my shit, your turn. Tell me your secrets, Tiddle."
"I don't have any secrets. I'm an open book."
"Books are only open once someone opens them. If you're an open book, then I'm James Dean, Drag Queen."
"Pretty sure that's not what James Dean does, but okay."
"Tell me about the embarrassing crush you had in fifth grade."
"Never had a crush."
"Tell me about what goes on behind closed doors."
"My parents didn't let me close my door."
"See? Deep shit right there."
"Okay. Can I be done now?" My neck itches but I don't want to move my hand, scared any motion will incriminate me. An open book? Yeah, right. I just don't have any inclination to tell my secrets. Not now, not ever. And especially not to a crackhead with a gift from gab.
"I want fair trade, Mr. Tiddle. Spill your guts. Either talk now, or talk later. Eventually, you'll talk. Trashy has a way with finding out."
"That's not creepy at all."
"Creepy or no, it works. What's that one thing that you're ashamed of? What makes you itch at night? What haunts your dreams?"
Fuck it, I'll just tell him. If he's my twin, he'll probably read my mind anyway, so... here goes nothing.
"I killed my friends."
"See? There's always something. Spill, Mr. Quill, or somebody else will."
"Okay, I guess, but just... don't judge. And, don't tell anyone." I feel like a little kid again, sharing secrets in the dark. Except little kid secrets don't kill. Not like mine do. "In the beginning, when groups were all the rage and we thought things might blow over, I was in some rich snooty house. About thirteen kids were there..."
****
I'd expect Trashy, hyper as he is, to hop around and interrupt through my story, but he doesn't. He just sits and stares, not moving a muscle. Whether that is good or bad remains to be seen. I tell him everything, every painful, gut-wrenching detail, before I even realize what I'm saying. My secrets were behind a thick, steel dam, but the apocalypse, the water rusted away at it and now Trashy— fucking Trashy— broke it down the rest of the way. How unfair is that? What gives this hobo the right to lower my defenses like this?
"There are many things I think you need to imbibe into your ear-holes," Trashy says finally, with uncannily well thought out slowness. "But I don't think you'd give a spider's left tit about what I have to say, so I won't say nothing."
"Do spiders even have tits?"
"Everything has tits."
"Fair enough. So now what? Your turn again?"
"I think I've had enough blabbing and gabbing for one night. Maybe tomorrow. Besides, I don't think I have any more secrets. I'll have to think up another one."
"Ha, ha. I've never told anyone about that, before. Eiden's death and everything, I mean."
"My father is my best kept secret," Trashy says. "Well, not anymore. You don't have secrets once someone knows them."
"Thanks for that," I groan sarcastically. "Good to know I don't have to worry about you telling the entire world or anything."
"Girl, you worry too much. Ain't nobody to tell. Just me and my kazoo, Mr. Screw."
"I'm not a screw, you're a screw. Screwball."
"I'm a human bean, sure as you are, Mr. Tiddle."
"So... your dad..."
"I thought I said no more secrets."
"No,  no, this isn't about— I just mean— your dad knew you were adopted. So maybe he knows something about you. Like why they gave you up. Yeah?
"I hope he's dead," Trashy says. "That sounds cold and bitchy, but I don't care."
"Seems pretty normal to me. If someone did that to me, I'd want them dead."
"It's better if he's dead," Trashy says. "Because I don't think he could avoid the virus. And him as a Weeve... that's one thing I don't want to see. Don't think I can see. If I do, I might lose my last shreds of Can Man."
"What you mean?"
"I mean I might not know who I am. I might lose myself. Like a puff of smoke. And if he is a Weeve, well... well, then I might have to kill him. And killing him? Don't think I can do that. Not like I don't hate him— I do, but... he's human, you know? Like your friends. I just don't think I can."
"That's okay."
"No, it's not. I'm a damn pussy is what I am. You might as well call me Cat Can Man."
"Nah. You ain't no pussy. You one strong-ass bastard, Canny Manny."
"Bet."
"Bet you could beat me in a fight, even though you skinny as the devil."
"Looked in a mirror lately?"
"If there were any mirrors around, I'd break 'em."
"Do you ever wonder?" Trashy asks, staring off into space.
"Wonder what?"
"Wonder what it would have been like if you had a twin? Like, in the same house."
"I'd probably kill you, you annoying twat."
"Not if I killed you first, Lindhurst."
"Where do you even get all of these random names?"
"I spit out anything that rhymes, Kit."
"But don't you wonder? I mean, there are millions of names in the universe. One of them could belong to you. Don't you want to know?"
"A million names, a million heads and faces and humans, but there's only one Trashy. Only one Can Man."
"But don't you want to know?"
"Not really. I got my moniker, Monica. I don't need nothing but me hat and me harmonica."
"You're crazy."
"Am I? Or is everyone else?" His words push me into silence. What if everyone else is crazy? All the normal people, all of the military, all of the world leaders, all of the therapists, maybe they are the crazy ones. Maybe the ones like me and Trashy and Jeffrey Dahmer are the sane ones. Okay, maybe not Dahmer. But maybe all of the kids labeled as "sick" or "weird" or "psycho" are the sane ones?
It must be a symptom of my sleeplessness and hunger that makes me so prone to falling into deep thought holes. I'm usually good at staying on top of things. Think too much about anything, and it starts making no sense. Like math. If 13 plus 2 is fifteen, then why does it take three fingers? 13, 14, 15. Shouldn't it be plus three? You have to go through three numbers, even if you started on the first one. But if 2 is 3, that throws the whole number system off. Does that mean that 13 is actually 14, and on and on and on and on and—
I need to get some sleep. Or food. Or both. I'm a mess right now, in all of the above ways. Stay awake any longer and I might become even more loose lipped.
There are some secrets that I need to hold close.
Trashy broke one dam, I can't let him break any more.
If he finds out any more of my secrets, I might die.
It's like he says: secrets can't be secrets once you tell them.
I'm going to the grave with my secrets.
I won't even tell them to God. If he's God, he already knows.
If there even is a God. What kind of God lets his people descend into rubble and ruin? If there's a God, then why are we slowly being killed by space dust?
Has even God given up on humanity? His own creation? Did he realize that somewhere in the process he fucked up, made everyone into a mess? Did he accidentally put a flaw in our code, one that he needs to remove?
Or was he never there in the first place? Maybe we're the spawn of Satan, creatures made to hurt and kill and mate and die, like mosquitoes.
I don't want to be a mosquito. But it's too late. I'm worse than a mosquito. I'm a human, made to hurt and kill and mate and die, made to hate everyone and love no one, and my purpose is to roam the earth and take out as many other people as I can. I wonder what my tally is. How many Weeves have I killed? Hundreds? Thousands? Can't be that many. Can it?
I really need to sleep.