The Ticket That Exploded (Burroughs, William S.) Read Online Free Page B

metal taste in his mouth — His lips and tongue swelled perforated by erogenous silver sores — The skin glowed phosphorescent pink purple suffused by a cold menthol burn so sensitive he went into orgasm at a current of air while uncontrolled diarrhea exploded down his thighs — The guard collected all his sperm in a pulsing neon cylinder — Through transparent walls he could see hundreds of other prisoners in cubicles of a vast hive milked for semen by the white-coated guards —The sperm collected was passed to central bank — Sometimes the prisoners were allowed contact and stuck together melting and welding in sex positions of soft rubber — At the center of this pulsing translucent hive was a gallows where the prisoners were hanged after being milked for three weeks — He could see the terminal cases carried to the gallows, bodies wasted to transparent mummy flesh over soft phosphorescent bones — Necks broken by the weight of suspension and the soft bones spurted out in orgasm leaving a deflated skin collected by the guards to be used onthe next shift of prisoners — Mind and body blurred with pleasure some part of his being was still talking to the switchblade concealed under his mattress, feeling for it with numb erogenous fingers — One night he slipped into a forgotten nightmare of his childhood — A large black poodle was standing by his bed — The dog dissolved in smoke and out of the smoke arose a dummy being five feet tall — The dummy had a thin delicate face of green wax and long yellow fingernails —
    “Poo Poo,” he screamed in terror trying desperately to reach his knife — but his motor centers were paralyzed — This had happened before — “i told you i would come back” — Poo Poo put a long yellow corpse fingernail on his forehead vaulted over his body and lay down beside him — He could move now and began clawing at the dummy — Poo Poo snickered and traced three long scratches on Bradly’s neck —
    “You’re dead, Poo Poo! dead! dead! dead!” Bradly screamed trying to pull the dummy head off —
    “Perhaps i am — And you are too unless you get out of here — i’ve come to warn you — Out of present time past the crab guards on dirty pictures? — There’s a Chinese boy in the next cubicle and lam is just down the hall — He’s very technical you know — And use this — i’m going now” —
    He faded out leaving a faint impression on the green mattress cover — The room was full of milky light — (Departed have left mixture of dawn and dream) — There was a little bamboo flute on the bed beside Bradly — He put it to his lips and heard Poo Poo speak from an old rag in one corner — “Not now — Later” —
    He contacted the Chinese boy who had smuggled in a transistor radio — They made plans quickly and when the guard came with the heavy liquid turned on the metal static and stabbed the switchblade deep into insect nerve centers — The guard fell twisting and flipping white juice from his ruptured abdomen — Bradly picked up the guard’s gun and released the other prisoners — Most of them were too far gone to move but others they revived with static and formed a division of combat troops — Bradly showed the guard’s weapon to lam —
    “How do you work this fucker?” —
    lam examined the mechanism with long fingers precise as tooled metal — explained it was camera gun with telescopic lens equipped to take and project a moving picture vibrating the image at supersonic speed — He attached the radio to the camera gun so that the static synchronized with the vibrations — Bradly had the gun ready in his hand as they zigzagged out of the hive rushing the metal points of the ovens — Guard towers opened up with magnetic spirals and Bradly lost half his men before he could hit the central control tower and deactivate the mechanical gun turrets — (His troops had one advantage — All the guards and weapons of the enemy were operated by