Mr. Bottleman vs. The Spirit World

By: K.K.
September 9, 2008

Doctors came; doctors went. Psychiatrists came; psychiatrists went. Powerless, all the specialists left fifteen-year-old Kate Maccaferri to writhe on her bloody bed in a horrible limbo between agony and ecstasy.

Seventy-two hours ago Kate had been beautiful and blameless; the prototype American homecoming queen-in-training. She had Californian blonde hair, warm amber eyes, and a sweet, zitless face not wholly without innocence. It had only been a month ago when her father Michael had caught her sampling one of his beers, and had promised to open up a can of whup-ass if she did it again. She had obediently obeyed; not bad during an age when most kids thought gateway drugs were passe’.

But something had gone horribly wrong within the last three days. It began with a fight with her best friend, then venomous, guttural cursing, then vomiting and fever. Now…

This.

Thick streams of yellow pus ran freely from dozens of moon-crater sores on her tortured face. Her teeth were blackened stubs jutting from a pond of pink-green saliva. Huge warts crusted with cauliflower patterns peppered her flesh; the ones on her face were big enough to resemble miniature horns. Those warm amber eyes had become a murky, cat-like yellow, and they glowed with a mad, stupid, sin-loving evil.