Waiting for Mister Cool

by Gerard Houarner

  The air had a sharp, astringent bite which reminded him of hospitals and disinfectant. It was the final fragrance from the bouquet that had teased him from the highway.

  Keitz snickered. Max flicked blood from his fingertip in the man’s direction, and he jerked aside.

  Morris grabbed his light back. “That crap cuts through the work gloves, too,” he said. “Burning it makes the guys sick. So the best way in is still the old-fashioned hack and slash. Score one for old-timers. Though you might need a new pair of shoes after tonight.” He flicked the light over black walking Max’s shoes.

  Max could suddenly feel leaves and thorns working their way through the rubber soles to mutilate his feet.

  “What kind of jungle did all of this come from?” Max asked, having been to most without ever encountering anything like what he was passing through.

  No one answered. Morris stared at a cluster of thorns as he approached a thick, low-hanging branch, then put his hand over them and squeezed. Max slowed as Morris gasped, shuddered, quickly pulled his hand away. Keitz sucked in breath, and the other man, closer to Morris, leaned away from him. The men further back slowed, as if to distance themselves from their leader. Max wished he’d held on to the light to catch their expressions. His gut, and the Beast, told him they were afraid.

  “That’s the shit,” Morris whispered, so hoarse he didn’t sound like himself.

  Over the Beast’s protestations, Max pressed his palm against a thorn, taking the sharp point deep into his flesh. After the initial pinch, a burst of fiery pain threaded through his body in just a few moments, then gave way to a glowing warmth that seemed to lift him off the ground while wrapping his head in a fuzzy blanket. The nausea quickly passed, and this time Max found himself standing on a bare rock outcrop as wind whipped up funnels of red dust from a plain below him stretching out to the horizon. A thick, round tube flexed and coiled in and out of roiling clouds above, moving like a freight train through a high pass. A shower of small, pointy-ended seeds fell over the countryside. The seeds got into his hair and made his skin itch, his eyes tear. Breathing became a struggle as the world reeled off to one side, falling over the edge of a precipice.

  And then Max was back, with the Beast enraged inside him. Max couldn’t blame it. They’d never reacted well to hallucinogenics. He couldn’t figure out if the plants were a result of the government’s experiments in the area, or had been developed by dealers and growers to sell to kids like the one who’d attacked them. Neither option quite fit the pattern of information he’d been struggling to piece together.

  Cal broke out to the other side of the hedge wall, breathing hard. Morris stepped out, alert, even cheerful, moving lightly on his feet and ready to fire while his men covered the flanks. He spoke incessantly, but in a low voice, into the mike by his lips, ordering everyone to turn off their flashlights while he probed the darkness with his own a little too frenetically for Max’s taste. Bringing up the rear, Max wondered how fast he could take all four out from his advantage. Not with the M16, not even the hunting knife. Just hands. The knife he’d save for later.

  The night bore down on them, heavier than the rain that had left water puddled on the ground. The rural dark swallowed Morris’s thin beam light, leaving them in a deep gloom that was only faintly illuminated by the fires from the other side of the hedge wall. Human sounds filled that night: whispers, curses, heavy breathing, the clatter of weaponry, the rustle of clothing. If their enemies were near, all they had to do was lay still and listen for their moment of ambush to come. He heard someone say the bags with the night optics had been left behind at the motel.

  Morris, using a green beam to illuminate his fist, signaled for everyone to stop with his disembodied hand. Max would have just yelled out for everyone to halt. Morris went down on one knee, speaking harshly into his headset mike. The wait for information and orders to flow back and forth felt like hours, though Max knew only a few minutes passed. Like the Beast, he strained against the leash of circumstance that had left him waiting for Morris to make a move. The Beast, surprising Max, seemed to laugh at the irony. Max decided it was only anticipating the slaughter to come.

  The rustling of clothes told Max some of Morris’s men were donning the light jackets they’d tied around their hips, against the suddenly chill air inside the wall of vegetation. The cicadas hadn’t picked up their song. The air was clear of moths and mosquitoes. The storm continued to reverberate in the air for Max, who could taste the trails its electric arcs from sky to earth. Other scents wafted on the breeze, other tastes, all unfamiliar. He expected more death spore: the reek of spilled guts from all the dead they’d left behind, for a start. But it seemed like the hedge rebuffed any trace of life and death, its thick jungle of stinging plants creating a sacred circle that would not be contaminated by common blood.

  Max accepted the strange purity as a challenge.

  The lamps along the paths suddenly came back on, as did the Ferris wheel lights. Morris’s men were suddenly exposed, strung out in a ragged line out in the open, and Max expected an organ accompaniment and a round of applause to start up while the hedgerow parted to reveal the stacked rows of a circus audience. A breeze ruffled the branches, making it seem as if the vegetation really was making way for something else, and Max felt his hold on reality slipping, as if he’d been stung again by a thorn.

  But Morris broke the spell, quickly motioning them forward, directing them to a path that would take them through the center of whatever the area had become after going through its progression of absurd functions.

  The Beast paced within him, uneasy, its appetite still unsatisfied by all the bloodshed. Max watched the hedge circle for any sign of attack, scanned the moss- and fungi-covered earth for traces of men buried in ambush. But Morris’s fumbling squad was all he could detect.

  He ducked, unconsciously, and glanced at the sky. Keitz laughed.

  Though the night’s violence blended seamlessly with the rest of Max’s life, its mysteries and aberrations continued to haunt him. So far from the simple truths of his everyday life – flesh and blood, life and death, pleasure and pain – he felt momentarily lost in a mad carnival of illusions and tricks, a medicine show designed to fleece him of reason, of who he was. It was easy, even pleasurable, to imagine prisoners being dragged through brambles and briars, tortured by clowns, chased by elephants, even fed an endless supply of cotton candy until their guts busted and their organs withered from sugary poison. Perhaps people like him might have been the ideal audience for the type of entertainment produced in this place, or perhaps even members of the circus. In Morris’s company, he was in fact just another clown, making a fool of himself with men who, at best, had forgotten how to be warriors and wouldn’t last seconds with his seasoned comrades, much less the twins. But at the same time, belonging to the clown troupe was safe, because no one would bother to kill them.

  Gathered in the comforting logic of the fantasy, Max saw himself working in such a company of colleagues and familiars, at least for a little while. As long as he wasn’t caged, or humiliated by being relegated to a sideshow freak, he might have found a measure of content, as long as his and the Beast’s appetites were fulfilled.

  Max hesitated in the rhythm of his steps, tripping over the fantasy in his head and the surrounding unreality, causing Keitz and the other man to bump into him. He shook his head, trying to clear away traces of hallucinogenic that surely had to be still affecting his mind.

  The Beast growled in warning, gathered blood and pain from its stores, and shared its harvest with Max, guiding him back to himself. Finding the pace, tuning into the threat of immediate danger, Max pushed the madness from his mind and gave it to the Beast to digest.

  He was glad he wouldn’t have to debrief anyone on what he’d seen and experienced, or what was surely more madness waiting for him. But he was satisfied that he’d found the true nature of the place in which he hunted. Despite its various incarnations, it remained a carnival for h
im, a circus of pain and wonder.

  “Shit creeps up on you,” Keitz whispered. “You should see what pops into your head during the seminars.”

  Max added cult enclave to the evolutionary list of uses the carnival grounds served.

  They found firm footing on the narrow path, and Cal took point as Morris led them to the first structure, a shed surrounded by wagons, carts, and cages in various stages of ruin. Chains lay half-buried in the earth, as if trying to restrain the world. A few mounds rose a foot or two into the air on either side of the path, as long and wide as a truck. The weathered slabs of leaning tombstones dotted the ground at irregular intervals.

  From one mound, the white of bone gleamed in the faint light, like an uncommitted ghost.

  What Max had taken for a curved sapling lay revealed in Morris’s quick survey with his light as a tusk.

  “Elephants,” Morris said, his beam finding partial excavations into the mound with the protruding bones. “They buried the fuckers standing up. These idiots wanted to dig them up for the ivory, like we’re in a Tarzan picture.”

  “I didn’t do nothing,” said the other man with them. Keitz remained silent.

  With the Ferris wheel looming over them, its sparse and fragile lights a constellation hovering beneath still-threatening sky, Cal entered the shed and opened a trap door on quiet hinges in the floor. Morris spoke into the headset, waved his flashlight, receiving answering signals from the wheel, the church, and another shed on the other side of the wheel, closer to their target. Max was not reassured by the display of security. He wanted to know who else was watching, who was waiting for them to stumble into a trap.

  Cal descended a set of new wooden stairs, followed by Keitz. Morris signaled for the second man to stand guard above, then pointed to Max and the steps. Like the others, he slung his weapon over the shoulder as he went down, alert, but still not sensing immediate danger. He kept a hand near the .45 stuck into his pants.

  The concrete pit into which they’d descended would have made a convenient morgue.

  When Morris was down, Cal opened one of metal hatches set into three of the four surrounding walls. The older hinges creaked. A gust of musty air made dust dance and Max blink. He tried to ignore the flashlight beams bending, like the balloons clowns liked to bend to make dogs and other creatures for children.

  “Generator’s out,” Cal said, looking over panels on a wall of readouts and controls in the next room, which reminded Max of a small submarine control room. After working over a series of switches and buttons, overhead lamps came on and the air vents let out a sigh of stale air. “Batteries are good for about six hours.”

  Recognizing the equipment as Cold War government issue gave Max enough reassurance in reality to push on through the room to the hallway beyond, and fresh hunting grounds promised by the faint scent of fresh flesh almost lost in the odors of machinery and earth.

  “We haven’t swept this place lately,” Morris said, suddenly beside him, his M16 at the ready. His face, when they passed under one of the infrequent bulbs still working in the hall, was tight with anticipation.

  His caution reminded Max to slip his own gun off of his shoulder.

  “The tech boys don’t like it much down here,” Morris said, lowering his voice. “Haunted bullshit. Of course, the place hasn’t been operational in ten years. I keep telling them it’s just the air cycling system, dirt settling in the old tunnels outside the secure areas, or maybe just the dope and alcohol –”

  “Having second thoughts about rushing an assault?” Max asked.

  “Just hate an exposed flank. Could be the opposition broke in. Won’t take long to check out.”

  Max thought of Morris’s techs stumbling through the night on the other side of the hedgerow, but didn’t bother asking if Morris thought there was such a thing as a sacrificial flank.

  Cal and Keitz brushed past them and turned right at the junction ahead. Morris directed Max to the left, where he was going anyway. The smell of flesh, strong and intoxicating, unfiltered by the air system, drew him like a hyena to a new kill. The freshness of the scent made him envision an entire nursery of newborns abandoned somewhere in the tunnels.

  “Exactly what kind of research did they do down here?” Max asked.

  Morris didn’t answer. His gaze flitted from one wall to another. He didn’t seem to be paying attention to Max.

  Max focused on keeping himself, and the Beast, calm. He was used to information being withheld from him, and knew how to get it if he really needed to know. But not with questions. He tried again: “How big is the tunnel system, outside the secure area?”

  Morris gestured at one of the doors, let Max open it while he covered the opening. They entered a small, circular room, its walls steel instead of concrete. The floor and ceiling ended abruptly at a circular opening at their centers, wide enough for a missile. Max staggered in, choking on the smell of raw, bloodless meat, lacking the weary taint of ever having lived.

  Morris went down on his knees by the lip of the opening, dipped a hand into the darkness. Water splashed, dribbled from between his fingers as he raised his hand. Max looked up. The opening in the ceiling gave way to a dome. There was no place for a missile to pass through, or water to trickle in.

  Nor were there any newborns, no life whatsoever, in the chamber. But in the rich aroma of new flesh, his body screamed a promise of resurrection.

  The Beast wailed with the certainty of its destruction.

  A desperate thirst overcame Max. He took a step forward, preparing to launch himself into the pool’s depths. Drown.

  The Beast gnawed at the overwhelming desire, dragged him back into its realm of blood and prey.

  And made him realize there was no prey. Nothing to consume, to punish and hurt. What he was being driven to desire was nothing like any living thing he or the Beast had ever consumed. If he jumped at the lure, he’d devour his fill, and more, greedily, without even survival’s inhibition, until his stomach and lungs filled, and then he’d die, and the water would transform him and he’d rise, born again, out of the pool.

  Not as Max, but as something else. Hollow. Alone.

  The Beast recognized the danger. It had no words, but it resurrected the fury of its feasting on the youths he’d killed, so oddly empty. The warning gave Max reason to heed something other than his appetites.

  Water brought life to a body. Water also cleansed. But this pool was different. Like an animal sniffing poisoned bait, he took a step back. This water, his growing unease told him, washed away death’s corruption, and life’s pollution, as well. It made flesh whole and new and fresh. Empty. And it filled the husk of what it had purified with new life. But at the cost of everything the flesh had once contained.

  Max retreated through the doorway, out of the room. He sank to his knees, dry heaving from the smell that was still thick enough for him to gag on, not sure if he’d hallucinated again.

  “They’ve been at the pool,” Morris said, his voice echoing in the chamber. “The level’s down.” He appeared in the doorway. “The first guy who went in there with me jumped in and drowned. Me and Cal, we’re believers, so that keeps us from temptation. The rest wear protective gear when they’re in here. I don’t know if I’m more worried by what kept you from going in, or by how the opposition survived this place and what they’re doing with that stuff.”

  “Maybe they have strong beliefs, too,” Max said. “Would you have let me go in?”

  “Hell, no,” Morris said. “We still have business to take care of.”

  The Beast didn’t believe him, wanted to drown him in the pool and feel the man fight for breath, convulse with desperation, and finally surrender to death with eyes and mouth wide open. Max understood Morris’s needs at the moment, and was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Cal and Keitz jogged down the hallway, Keitz stopping at the junction while Cal came to them. “The generator’s been damaged, but it looks like corrosion,” he said. He gl
anced at Max and gave him a quick grin. “Leakage through the ceiling.”

  “There weren’t any cracks the last time we came through,” Morris said.

  “Things change,” said Max. He got up, turned his back on the entry to the pool and headed for Keitz.

  Morris and Cal came up behind him, whispering. Max caught enough to know they were worried about what was getting into the earth, and what their ragged competitors for the carnival grounds were really doing on their side of the woods. Max picked out that they’d hoped the pool, and the facility’s other artifacts, would have lured their adversaries to take dangerous chances as Morris applied pressure on them topside. They hadn’t counted on the pervs’ ability to exploit what lay hidden in the facility.

  Max sensed a new streak of caution in Morris’s hushed voice.

  Heading back to the first room, Morris clapped Max on the shoulder. “Good job back there,” he said. “You’ve really got the stuff to be with us, Max. Santos sees it, too. We’ve lost a few good people in these tunnels. Smart guys, guys who used to work down here. Shit creeps up on you. But you can’t be weak, you’ve got to push on. Or else you lose everything.” A note of frenzy threatened to overrun Morris’s cautious tone.

  The scream came down to them from the shed just as they reached the control room. Something knocked against the wooden stairs, clanked against the concrete floor. Keitz yelled wordlessly, pushing the hatch to the entry chamber closed, but Max burst through before they were sealed into the underground facility. He’d tracked the grenade by sound as soon as it hit the step, and had an idea of the direction of its bounce. If their attacker had thrown it as soon as the pin was pulled, he knew how long he had, as well. The grenade was one of his.

  The Beast was with him, pumping blood and adrenaline through his arteries, sharpening every sense until he could see the grenade in his mind before he actually saw it with his eyes. In an instant, it was in his hand. He was spinning, moving for the stairs, watching the upper hatch close, pitching the grenade back with the accuracy of an assassin’s blade. He’d thrown fast and precisely, before. And he knew as soon as the grenade left his hand that he’d have the chance to throw just as sure and quick, again.