by Sean Platt
“That was Lucky Scream, E. I was going to talk it up, but I guess you were already convinced to give it a try.”
Ephraim could feel a new buzz, augmenting the alcohol.
There was a moment of fear, but it went away quickly. Altruance wouldn’t have brought the drug if he hadn’t thought Ephraim could handle it, and Ephraim knew his susceptibility to peer pressure enough that he had to admit he’d have taken it eventually anyway.
The drug did its work. Ephraim’s vision doubled. Then, like Gus Harmon, he laughed too hard. Only, what he felt wasn’t funny at all.
“Can I have the other one too?” Ephraim asked.
But Altruance had already picked up the second vial and tipped it to his lips.
“Just one. Nobody knows just how Scream is going to hit them the first time.”
Ephraim laughed.
The horrors came.
CHAPTER 13
WORKING EARLY
When Ephraim woke at dawn he was mostly upright in a chair at the outdoor bar, so lucid that it was hard to believe he’d drunk anything — let alone consumed an illicit substance.
But he was fully awake, his mind razor-sharp. His focus and clarity felt borne from attention-deficit medication, not a party drug. He’d seen things, then emerged ready to buckle down and solve the world’s problems.
“Altruance.”
Altruance was right beside him. He’d fallen into an undignified lump that mainland tabloids would have loved to photograph. Their clothes had grown permanent wrinkles — loud and clear statements of a night spent where people weren’t supposed to sleep.
Altruance blinked as he woke. But it was clear that neither of them had planned to so much as snooze, let alone sleep until morning. They were mostly alone, save a few early morning walkers. Nobody had woken or bothered them. Apparently, Eden did let its guests do as they pleased, and didn’t clean up drunken messes.
“Oh, hell. Tell me I didn’t sleep here all night.”
“We. The correct pronoun is ‘we.’”
“What time is it?”
Ephraim consulted his Doodad. The freaked-out afternoon he’d spent worrying about his call to Fiona felt like a decade ago.
“5:50 AM.”
“Shit, man. Are you telling me there really is a five-fifty in the morning? I’d only heard rumors. Terrible, terrible rumors.” Altruance tried to stretch, but something had apparently kinked in his sleep, and he winced against the pain. He rubbed his neck, then opened and closed his eyes as if doing so took tremendous effort.
Ephraim took in his surroundings. Everything was covered in dew. The grass was wet, as were the plants; the other tables in the bar-slash-cafe were wet. Even Ephraim and Altruance were wet. His shirt was a used gym sock. It was like waking in a sack of damp laundry. The air was cool, but refreshingly so. The sun was smearing the horizon with crimson. The half-light gave the entire area a strange, barely-there glow. He could see across the lawns but farther out was only shadow. He could see the buildings and walks in the distance enough to tell they were empty. It was a peaceful face for Eden. The world was waking, same as Ephraim and Altruance.
Except for the machine. The big lawnmower kept operating, planting flowers and using new appendages to weed beds, edge walkways, and smooth wood chips. It was whisper quiet, its robotic movements now eerie in the morning stillness. And they weren’t alone in the near distance, as Ephraim had first thought. There were ghosts on top of the machine, going about their work with their unseen faces.
“I need coffee,” Altruance mumbled.
Ephraim turned from watching the lawn machine and its complement of workers. He looked at the counter where they’d ordered Flamingos the night before and noted again that it was closed. He was about to say so when Altruance slipped a Doodad from his pocket and started tapping. He looked up and saw Ephraim staring.
“What? I said I need coffee.” He held up the Doodad. “You can order anything you want here, you know.”
Two minutes later a short man with a mustache appeared, dressed in the more formal of Eden’s staff uniforms. He introduced himself as Raoul and said he’d be happy to be of service. Probably one of the concierges Elle and Nolon had mentioned yesterday.
Raoul unlocked the bar’s door and opened the counter window from the inside. Several minutes later he returned and set fresh cups of coffee onto the damp metal table.
“Cheers,” Altruance said, raising his cup, blond with cream. Ephraim’s appeared black, but he could see a dusting of artificial sweetener that must have been added. Exactly as he always took his coffee. Just as Altruance’s cup was probably exactly as he always took his coffee. Eden treated guest preferences seriously. They knew what they wanted and how they wanted it without the guests ever having to ask.
Ephraim raised his cup, clinked it against Altruance’s, and drank. The hot liquid needed only to touch his lips before he felt more awake. Conditioning in action, his body responding to what it had always taken as its morning drink.
The big landscaping machine moved beside them, barely making a sound. It had been working for hours, probably through the night. Ephraim looked at the lawn and finally saw what it must have spent all that time doing. Sometime between his last inspection and now, the entire hillside had been reshaped in tiers. It was shaved down, earth removed in some places and other spots backfilled, ties and stone bunkered into place. It was a week’s work, done by a single machine in the moonlight, silently enough that Ephraim had slept beside it. Wonders in paradise never ceased.
“They’re working early,” Altruance said as Raoul vanished back into the shop.
The big machine’s front edge hit one of its recently placed stones, a tire rising into view as the whole thing jumped, finally making noise as the metal edges cleared the obstruction.
At the machine's top, one of the ghost workers who’d been at a rail, watching the progress of edging, tipped over and fell to the grass.
The machine rounded what must have been a programmed turn in its routine.
And rolled its blades right over his body.
CHAPTER 14
THE MONSTROSITIES BEHIND HIM
That didn’t just happen.
Ephraim’s mind was defiant. He stared at the horrible scene in shock, the serene morning calm shattered by the cacophonous shake of metal against metal, rattling shocks as the wheels stalled against a torso then effortlessly climbed past legs and arms. The machine’s whisper was now a rending scream. Its deck rammed against the white-clad man’s (or woman’s?) body at one edge, its wider body, driving off-center, making a tight buttonhook before stalling with its heavy blades churning as they tried to spin down.
Someone killed the machine’s engine. Or its safeties, too late, finally engaged. After agonizing seconds — seconds in which Altruance rose and Ephraim stayed rooted in his seat — the temporarily loud engine sputtered and died. As the blades slowed, Ephraim could hear a hitch in each revolution, the knife’s edge brushing something, be it clothing or flesh or stubborn bone.
“They—”
Ephraim was talking to nobody. Altruance planted a hand to leap the low wrought-iron fence surrounding the bar’s deck. He rushed across the lawn. It would be impossible to miss his target. Its bullseye, at the white machine’s base, had stained dark red. Droplets had licked up the smooth metal, all the way to what must have been the cockpit.
Above, the other ghosts were motionless. Like clockwork someone forgot to wind.
“Call help!” Altruance shouted. “Call someone; hurry!”
The ghosts stared. Even if their visors blinded them, were they oblivious to their fellow workers? They must have seen the other fall. They must know that where he’d ended up, below the giant cutting machine, wasn’t the way things were supposed to be.
None so much as twitched to comply.
None moved to remove their helmets, if that’s what they were, to properly see.
They must have heard what happened.
But
that might only be partially true. Because although Ephraim could see the trapped, bloodied ghost moving, it made no noise.
No shouts of pain.
No screaming.
Nothing.
Ephraim ran to catch up to Altruance, and knelt to his right with the fallen man (or woman, though its chest was flat) between them. He searched the scene, waiting for helpers to arrive. But the area remained as quiet as dawn. The huge thunk of the machine had roused no one, nor broken the morning slumber.
“Can’t you hear me? CALL FOR HELP!”
The ghosts didn’t move from their stations. It was hard to be sure with their covered faces, but they seemed to be looking vaguely toward the trio at the machine’s base, more curious than bothered. The one at the helm still had its hands on the steering bars, moving them just a little as if confused by the unplanned pause.
“Is he alive?” Ephraim asked. It was so hard to tell. Blood had spread. It covered everything.
“I think so.”
“Did it run over his chest?”
“Just the arm. Arm and leg. But maybe.”
The ghost winced, flinching away from him. It hadn’t made a sound. At first, Ephraim thought it was in shock, flinching from its rescuers, believing them enemies. But then he saw where the ghost’s arm remained pinned. Where each time it moved, the mower’s blade peeled it further, like a knife to an apple.
“Pull him out.”
Altruance shook his head. “You’re not supposed to move people when they’re hurt.”
“He didn’t fall far. He didn’t break his back or neck. The mower did the damage. And still is.” Ephraim pointed beneath the deck.
It was dark underneath and the morning light was scant, but even as he pointed, Ephraim fought a lurch in his gut. The pristine white landscaper looked like a meat grinder. A slaughterhouse.
“Help me, Altruance.”
Ephraim tried to move the ghost's arm, found it limp and bent wrong, white bone protruding. Again, he stifled his nausea, feeling dizzy, knowing he wouldn’t last long without focus.
Help him. Don’t think of the blood.
But the thought was like saying, don’t look down. Suddenly blood was all Ephraim saw. That along with the sinew and cut muscle, the throb draining in concert with the man’s beating heart.
They got the arm out. The leg was crooked and limp, run-over, broken more than once and equally lacerated. Both limbs looked like they’d raked through a forest of razors before being chewed by an inconceivable beast.
No help had come.
“Raoul!” Ephraim called.
“He can’t hear you.”
“How the fuck did he not hear THIS?” Indicating the carnage. Failing to understand. The concierge wasn’t far; the rattle of the machine over body had been loud.
“Maybe he left. Maybe he’s not in the bar any—”
“RAOUL!”
“Message him,” Altruance said, wiping his bloodied hands on the lawn. “Message him on your Doodad.”
Shaking, Ephraim did. He dictated his commands, not trusting his jittering fingers to type true. He didn’t command the concierge to come to the lawn. He just told him to summon whoever needed to be called in a medical emergency and gave their location.
“Let him breathe,” Altruance said. “Take the visor off so he can breathe.”
But the hood of the worker’s pajama-like uniform was sewn into place. There were no obvious zippers, or buttons, or flaps. The only openings, as far as Ephraim could see, were caused by the mower.
How do they change their clothes? How do they shower? How the hell do they go to the bathroom?
Altruance, either unmoved by the puzzling singlet uniform or uncaring, gripped a fistful of fabric beneath the ghost’s chin and pulled. Hard. The singlet wasn’t thick; it parted with a purr that was easily audible over the victim’s lack of screams. Ephraim heard every beat as the visor and hood came off in Altruance’s hand.
He moved to toss it aside but then uttered a low sound and scuttled backward like a crab. Ephraim watched his eyes widen to the whites.
“What?”
He looked at the ghost, its face exposed.
Its lack of face exposed.
Where the man — the thing — should have had a mouth and nose, it had only fleshy whorls like scar tissue. There only were two eyes, blue, in approximately the right place; the rest was nothing. The eyes darted back and forth as if panicked, as if trapped. The thing’s face was hairless, down to brows and lashes. It looked like well-used Silly Putty with poorly drawn eyes. A Mr. Potato Head made by an incompetent child.
The eyes found Ephraim’s — the eyes of an animal. Intelligent, but only barely. Uncomprehending. The thing looked frightened, but seemed to have no idea why.
“Jesus Fucking—!”
“Step away, please.”
A hand took Ephraim by the shoulder, more insistent than polite. He looked back to see a man with a goatee in an Eden staff uniform. He turned toward Altruance and saw a woman pulling Altruance away, too. He couldn’t see her face. Ephraim only knew she was blonde with straight hair and a thin build, and that Altruance — titan of the basketball court, king of the baseball diamond, arguably the best all-around athlete the world had ever seen — was screaming.
“Mr. Todd? Let us handle it, sir.”
The meat of the monster’s flayed arm and leg.
All the blood.
The smell of blood, like copper after rain.
And the ghost’s wrecked face, its distorted and bloodied flesh, its pleading alien eyes, flitting like darting flies, trying to escape.
“Mr. Todd? Are you all right?”
Ephraim wrestled away just in time.
He ran, rounding a corner into a short path through the brush, desperate to put the monstrosities behind him out of sight.
Then he collapsed, fighting unconsciousness, his stomach lurching, vomiting until all the poison was out and it was all over.
CHAPTER 15
NOBODY HOME
No more than ten minutes passed. Or so Ephraim guessed; he didn’t want to fish out his Doodad with bloodied hands to check the time. His MyLife’s heads-up display, unlike many people’s, wasn’t set to show a clock in the corner. But he was sure it had only been ten minutes.
He’d thrown up two or three times — though honestly, it might be fairer to count it as one long barf, broken by intermissions. Afterward, he rested on bent knees and hands like a sitting dog. Then he rose to kneeling, spitting to clear the bile from his mouth. Finally, he stood.
Each step took intense effort. He wanted to curl up and go to sleep. He hadn’t slept well last night, considering the proprietor of the bar had closed shop without bothering to wake his dozing guests. But he couldn’t sleep or sit for long. And he couldn’t rest for more than the bare minimum it took to find his will. Once he could stand without wavering, and look toward the path without swooning at the thought of what he’d find, Ephraim forced his feet to move.
He couldn’t be the guy who hid when tragedy struck. He’d risen to one challenge by not being the guy who stood idle and did nothing. But if he could do more for that poor, injured, deformed man, he’d do it.
Or at the very least, he’d find out just what the hell he’d seen.
But when Ephraim reached the end of the path, the lawn was clear.
The bar was closed, its patio quiet. The sliding window, which Raoul had opened to serve them coffee, was shut. The lawnmower machine was gone, as was the injured man — if it had been a man. Altruance was gone, and whoever had come to help (although had they helped? Ephraim only knew that they’d pulled he and Altruance away) were gone. Even the chairs they’d slept in, which Ephraim knew they’d kicked aside when they’d vaulted the black fence, were neatly tucked back into place beneath the table.
It was as if he was in the wrong place.
Ephraim walked forward. He kept waiting for someone to jump out and announce that it had all been a (not really) hilari
ous joke. He kept waiting for anything. But nothing came.
The world was quiet.
Ephraim could see early walkers on some of the paths, but they were far down, barely visible, far out of range of whatever this had been.
The ground was hard, but Ephraim saw no ruts. There was no dew on most of the lawn. No tracks through the misty grass. The entire area had been raked clean.
He walked to the spot where he thought the machine had come to rest, but there were no tracks there, either.
No bits of cut-away flesh.
And no blood.
But blood had been gushing. The grass and dirt had been soaked. Yet Ephraim saw none, crawling now, his eyes low to the lawn. Had the grass been this short when he’d left? Or had the death-dealing machine, before leaving the scene of its crime, used the blood-soaked blades to clean its mess?
Blood should still be on the shorter stubs, but Ephraim found none. It should have stained the ground, but Ephraim saw no spots. Three times he had a feeling of realization, deciding that he had to be wrong; they’d done their gory business somewhere else. But each time there was nothing.
He looked down at his hands. His sleeves. His pants. He looked like he’d just made sausage, or wrestled in red ink. So, he hadn’t imagined the accident, as if that was an honest possibility.
They just clean up well. They didn’t want to upset any guests.
He jerked up, certain that someone was watching him. He expected to see the machine’s other ghosts by the lawn’s edge, accusing stares from faceless faces, only eyes and barely there.
But there were no ghosts.
No man with a black beard in a flannel shirt, watching him blandly.
There was nobody, anywhere, at all.
Ephraim patted his pocket, wishing he’d gone for his Doodad after all, certain all of a sudden that it had to be gone.
But no, the Doodad was right where it should be.
Fiona.
Ephraim walked, forcing himself to keep from running. It had been an accident; that was all. And the worker? Deformed. Good for Eden, hiring the disabled. It was all cleaned up because Eden’s staff was efficient. This was supposed to be a place of serenity. The worker would be treated, the situation handled.
