Wetbones

by John Shirley

  Reaching out to Prentice – it must be Prentice – who was running open mouthed and glaze-eyed to pull the girl from the fire; stretching out to the boy Lonny who'd nearly shot Teitelbaum and Garner two minutes earlier. Lonny now reflexively shooting at the More Man who had one hand in his own guts and another on his purplish, exposed dick, as a worm grew arm-thick from his mouth, the worm reaching for Lonny…

  As the thing over the pool reached for them all. Reached for Garner.

  Three seconds were up. The cable on the spool unfeeling behind it, the truck roared up to the pool. The crazy old hippie in the driver's seat, screaming triumphantly at the top of his lungs, drove the truck deliberately head-on into the water. The exposed strip of wire on the spool-attached end of the cable struck the water with all the voltage that could be stolen from a high power line as the truck broke through the waxy protective skin over the pool and nosed down, crackling with sparks. It sank into the surging, boiling, green-black waters. Watching, Garner understood. He could see the colony of tens of thousands of tiny astral worms outlined in violet fire, deep-frying in the pool, as electricity arced and crackled in small lightning bolts across its tortured surface. Like randomly aimed particle accelerators, the seething electrons shattered the plasmic; Astral skeins of the Akishra – and travelled along the circuits of etheric relationship, conducting up through the tendrils of the Lord of Akishra hovering over the pool, passing into the Magnus and through it into the others on the terrace and in the house.

  Violent streams of electricity roared down from the Akishra Magnus and into the More Man; into the wreckage of Jeff and his murderer by the doorway to the back house; into the weave of rose bushes up the outer walls of the guest house. The rose bushes writhed like a nest of neon snakes, wailing in despair. The vast currents of electricity crackled into the eight Followers and Feasters standing back of the fireplace, and into two worm-driven corpses – the ragged remains of Lissa and Arthwright – crawling along the stone flags. Fingers of electricity dabbed like the fingers of a blind man at Garner, and seemed to find him not to their taste; they moved on to Constance, pausing over her so that she went momentarily rigid, and glowed faintly in his arms as a starburst of worms fled from her, disintegrating in the air. The charge left her, and passed over Lonny and Prentice and the black girl; and went on.

  The electricity crackled more powerfully yet into the More Man, into the worm-haunted hamburger that had taken Jeff Teitelbaum, into the More Man's followers – and they shook and screamed, electrocuting physically and spiritually, each surrounded by a spark-spitting corona of brilliant blue-white discharge, human fireworks displays; they ran spasmodically to one another and, as if galvanized to act out the archetypes of their compulsions, they lunged at whoever was nearest. The Handy Man tearing into the body of the More Man with his bare hand – the rest crowding together, doing the same to each other, a crowd of about ten of them closely clumped, tearing one another to pieces with teeth and bare hands, so that rags and gobbets of flesh flew through the halos of sparks, each flying handful of bloody flesh itself flaring with electrical discharge and exploding in sparks; the More Man and companions bodily burrowing into one another, a woman thrusting her head into her partner's guts and emerging beside the shattered spine as someone else, electrified into superhuman strength, ripped her leg out of its socket and then thrust his hand into the wound to yank out her intestines, and someone else sank teeth into the side of the face of the one who'd torn the leg away and someone else popped out the eyes and then the brains of the one who bit the woman who…

  It took five seconds, as the old red truck boiled like a lobster in the pool. The human hosts of the Akishra tore one another to pieces, faster and faster till it was too fast for the eye to follow and then they – and the worms that motivated them – were lost in a seething cloud of exploding flesh -

  Garner turned away to see a raging ball of electricity double back from this hand-made Wetbones and up the connective tendrils into the Akishra Magnus, which detonated like a sobbing and suffering roman candle, expelling a hundred thousand trapped spirits that spiral-led away into void and…

  The Akishra burned in the air, ten thousand thousand worms fluttered up and burned out. Or burned out of this world, Garner supposed. There was no exterminating them, not completely.

  And then the fog dispersed. Sunlight expanded around the pool. The apparitions vanished from the sky. The Magnus was no more. The More Man and compan ions were steaming heaps of burnt flesh, without the Akishra to animate them. Lonny was helping Prentice carry the poor, charred, black girl away.

  Garner was abruptly aware that he was dizzy, in danger of falling over with Constance in his arms. His heart was playing a drum roll, his mouth as dry and foul as a road kill. But he had to see one more thing. He turned to glance into the pool…

  In the pool, Drax was, of course, quite dead. The pool had lost its colour, was now crystal clear, illuminated with an inner glow. The truck was glowing with violet fire; and inside it, like a filament in a bulb, Drax glowed with a psychedelic coruscation all his own, his shining corpse grinning in triumph.

  14

  Berkeley, California… One Year Later

  Garner was glad he'd thought to bring flowers. There were none in Constance's room. She was wearing shorts and a rather old The Simpsons t-shirt and no shoes. She'd put on weight, a little too much. Earlier in the year, in the months after the Ranch, she'd barely eaten at all. Now she was eating too much. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

  She sat by the window, at her desk, with a copy of Cosmopolitan open in front of her. She was looking at the pictures. Next to her was a broad window looking out on the hospital's Activities Lawn, a sort of commons where sports were played and picnics held and catatonics wheeled about. The sky was overcast; the light that came in through the window was muted. The trees sheltering the sanitarium from the world were beginning to streak with russet and yellow.

  He stood looking at her a moment, readying himself. She was better, he told himself. She'd really gotten better. The months of withdrawal symptoms were over. She had stopped trying to slash her arms up; she'd long since stopped attacking people.

  "Hey dudette," he said, putting the flowers on the table across from her bed. He put the sack of cookies down next to them. "Smell anything good? Not me and not the food around here. Not even the cookies. I mean the flowers. You like carnations?"

  "Sure." She looked out the window. "You gonna watch TV with us again tonight?"

  Something about the question hinted a gray continuum of hopelessness. It dug a hole through him. But he said, "That's the plan. I brought cookies for the whole floor."

  "Next time bring candy for Marcia. She doesn't like cookies. She's weird about cookies. Somebody choked her by forcing 'em down her once. Her mom said she was over-eating so she tried to teach her a lesson and she almost died. From cookies."

  Her voice was a monotone.

  He wanted to hug her. He knew better.

  She turned a page of the magazine. He carefully didn't stare at the stump where she'd lost a finger. After a moment, she asked, "You been going to meetings?"

  "Sure. I got a year clean and sober next week. I didn't tell you, I was elected secretary of a Narcotics Anonymous meeting over in the city."

  "That's good." Her voice was as flat as the line on Aleutia's EKG.

  "So -" He was afraid to ask it. It might push her into one of her screaming fits, and he found those hard to bear up under. But it was September and her therapist said he was supposed to ask her around the beginning of every month. He took a deep breath and plunged in. "How about it? You want to come home for a weekend? Get you back here bright and early on Monday. I was thinking this Friday -''

  "No."

  "We could talk about it."

  "No."

  Floundering, he blurted, "Constance – why not?"

  "I lived in that house." She was still looking out the window. Her voice was still a monotone but now it s
eemed an octave lower.

  He waited. She didn't say anything else. He prompted, "Go on – please."

  She shook her head. He wanted to go to her, to put his arms around her, at least touch her on the shoulder. But he knew she didn't like that.

  Still – he had told him something. I lived in that house.

  She'd lived in that house, their house when she'd met Ephram Pixie.

  "Why didn't you tell me before, it was the house? The reason you didn't want to do home visits… I thought it was me…"

  She shrugged.

  He said, "Want to come and stay with me someplace else? Um… How about we visit your aunt in Portland?"

  He waited on tenterhooks for twenty seconds. Then she nodded. Relief flooded through him. He remembered a Barbie doll. He wondered how her therapy was going, but didn't want to ask her. "Sooner or later," he said, "you have to look at what you went through. I know it's hard here, because they don't believe a lot of it. But I know what happened. And I'm willing to listen as much as you need."

  She covered up her maimed hand with the intact one. He knew that as a warning.

  He thought about confronting her. Talking her through it. He made you murder people. Only you and I know it wasn't you who did it – that he had the power to make you do that. Only I believe you. But God knows and you know and I know and the police don't know and it's okay now to feel the pain and sadness that you couldn't feel then. You have to just feel it and let it go, just feel it and tell yourself yes my body was a murderer, my hands helped torture people to death, but it wasn't really me, that wasn't me, it was him. You know it rationally and you know it emotionally and now you've got to say it, you've got to -

  But he was afraid of it, himself. It might shatter her completely…

  "I liked it," she said. "He made me like it."

  Something took off and soared inside him. She was taking about it!

  "It wasn't you, Constance! He pushed a button that made you feel pleasure. He punished you when you didn't play along. He paralyzed you when you tried to run. Sometimes he manipulated your limbs. He raped you a dozen ways." He was trying not to cry. It was hard; it was really hard not to cry. "Anyone would have done what you did because -"

  "But I did. It wasn't 'anyone'. It was me."

  "No! It wasn't really you. You were trapped in the body he was using. You were trapped inside. He was moving you around like a puppet."

  She shook her head. She opened her mouth and shut it again. Her shoulders shook and for a long moment he prayed she would cry.

  She didn't. She pushed it back down, again.

  But Garner wanted to dance around the room. She had talked about it! For the first time in a year. She'd talked – just a little bit. It wasn't even the light at the end of the tunnel. But it was a little gray patch hinting that the far-away light was closer.

  "I got three kinds of cookies," he said. "Better tell me what kind you want before we go down and put on the Disney channel. I'll put some aside for you. You know how Alice is. She'll eat a whole box by herself."

  "Then she goes in the bathroom and throws it up," Constance said matter of factly. But she got up and went to look in the cookie bag…

  The Hills near Malibu

  Lonny drove the old Datsun off the highway, and up onto the dirt road. The road led through the horse pasturage, over the hill, down into the brushland, and up another hill to Drax's shack. Eurydice grabbed onto the dashboard to steady herself as the car bounced from rut to rut.

  It was about ten in the morning. Lonny came early, so there was no chance they could be caught out here after dark. It was safe after dark, it wasn't that. But Eurydice couldn't handle it here at night. And neither could he.

  Lonny glanced at her, checking out the work the surgeon had done on the side of her face. The burn scars weren't so bad, but she still looked patchy. He wondered if he should tell her she looked better, since she'd just come out of the second round of plastic surgery. Might make her feel better. But it might just make her think about the scars that were still there.

  Better keep his mouth shut about the scars. The idea in bringing her out here was to heal a few wounds, not open old ones.

  He stopped at the wooden gate to the horse pasture and got out, opened the gate, swung it to one side for the car. Hurriedly got back in the car and moved it through. Have to close the gate before the horses decided to check out the big world.

  But the horses were more interested in the car. Eurydice smiled when he pulled the car up, and the three apaloosas trotted up to the Datsun. "They hoping for a treat," she said reaching out a window to pat a soft muzzle.

  "Next time we'll bring an apple or something," he said. He got out again and closed the gate before the horses could get out. This is stupid, he thought, I should have asked her to get out and close the gate after I drove through.

  But you felt like never asking her to do anything. That's the way it was with her now.

  They drove on along the tracks that passed for a road, then down the other hillside. From here they could just make out, about a half mile away, the hilltop where the burnt-out ruins of the Doublekey ranch stood. Lonny had come back and torched it, in the wet season when it wouldn't start a big wild fire. It was probably unnecessary, but it made him feel better. It had been funny to watch the cops scurry around there, after the fire: The second time they'd been out there in droves and had gone away completely confused.

  Lonny glanced at Eurydice to see if she were staring at the Doublekey. She was looking somewhere else.

  They drove down and over the hills, and then up to Drax's place. He wasn't there anymore, of course. Not exactly.

  They pulled up out front, near the ring of posts and the fetish dolls, which had been carefully maintained.

  Lonny cut the engine and waited, the metal under the Datsun's hood ticking as it cooled. Eury looked at him and he made a "wait a minute" gesture. She shrugged and settled back in her seat to wait.

  Lonny could feel him watching them from inside the house. After a full ten minutes, the door of the shack opened and Prentice came out.

  "Okay," Lonny told Eurydice. "We can get out now."

  They climbed out of the Datsun. Lonny shook Prentice's hand. Prentice smiled at Eury and patted her arm. His hair and beard was almost as long as Drax's had been, after only a year. His face was haggard; his eyes hidden in sunglasses. He wore a pair of Drax's old overalls and boots, an Iggy Pop t-shirt. Jerry, Drax's dog, snuffled up from behind Prentice, looking them over. Jerry looked around as if hoping they'd brought Drax with them.

  "How you doin', dude?" Lonny asked.

  Prentice nodded. "Good, good. Real good. Good. You bring my stuff?"

  "Sure."

  They went to the trunk and pulled out the crate of coffee, another with some groceries. Lonny carried them to warping planks that passed for a porch. He knew that Prentice didn't like anyone to come inside. They stood in the shade of the perilous porch roof for a few minutes. Prentice glanced nervously at Eury, then looked quickly away; looked at her again.

  Lonny took an envelope from the pocket of his Levi jacket. Passed it and a pen to Prentice. Eury watched with a frown as Prentice opened the unsealed envelope, took out the cheque, signed the back, and gave it all back to Lonny. Prentice hadn't even looked at the amount. Lonny put the cheque and pen back in his pocket.

  "You need anything else?" Lonny asked.

  "No, no, not right now, no. I'm good. Good."

  Prentice glanced at Eury. She hadn't been out to the shack before and he seemed to think she wanted something of him.

  Lonny prodded her gently, "Anything you want to ask, Eury?"

  She licked the scarred flap that was the remains of her lower lip. "I…" She looked at the hilltop, some distance away but always looming over them, where the blackened bones of the Doublekey stood.

  "Nothing," Prentice said. Nodding reassurance to her. "Nothing there. Nothing's come out, and nothing's there."

  She smiled
with relief, then went to sit in the car.

  "You sure you don't want anything else?" Lonny asked.

  Prentice shook his head. "I got electricity here now. I'm good. Great." He looked at the car. "Listen. Half that money – she gets it."

  Lonny smiled. "Okay" He took his car keys out of his pocket. "Well…"

  "Sure." Prentice smiled back at him. "See you next time."

  He waved once, shyly, at Eurydice, and went back into the shack, the dog trotting behind him.

  Lonny got back in the car and drove back the way he'd come. Eury closed the car windows against the dust.

  After they'd got to the highway, Eurydice asked, "What that cheque about?"

  "Money from the movie. They started shooting it, so he gets more money. He doesn't want to mess with postmen."

  'But how come he signed it for you?"

  "He doesn't like banks any more either. And he trusts me. I never take anything except what we agreed on to do his errands and shit."

  "He sold a movie, huh?"

  "A horror movie. I guess he got some inspiration somewhere. I don't know where."

  She laughed, as she was supposed to, and that was good. But then she said, "They should put me in the movie. A horror movie. I wouldn't need no makeup."

  "Hey! Come on. No way."

  Her mouth buckled and he thought she'd cry, but she didn't, not quite. Instead she changed the subject. "He going to build a house out there, now he got money?"

  "I don't know. Seems to like it the way Drax had it. He got a lot of money for that horror movie. They seemed to be sure it was gonna hit big I guess. He bought the land the shack is on, you know. And the Ranch land too. He owns it."

  "No shit? He – how come you do this job, Lonny? Just to be nice?"

  He was a little embarrassed that she'd figured him out. "No. I like to help him out, but – I need to go out there, too. I don't sleep too good, if I don't see him out there now and then." He thought he'd take her someplace to eat. It was good to have someone to go to dinner with. He liked being with Eury because she knew the things he knew, and because she didn't expect him to touch her, the way some other girls did. Like him, she didn't like to be touched any more.