RARE LANSDALE
CONTENTS:
BAR TALK
ALONE
THE BIG BLOW
BIG MAN: A FABLE
COAT
THE COMPANION
DEADMAN’S ROAD
DRAGON CHILLI
THE FULL COUNT
HANG IN THERE
HIDE AND HORNS
THE HONEYMOON
HUITZILOPOCHTLI
ISLAND
IT WASHED UP
THE LAST OF THE HOPEFUL
LISTEN
MR. BEAR
LONG DEAD DAY
MASTER OF MISERY
THE MUMMY BUYER
NIGHT DRIVE
OLD CHARLIE
ONCE UPON A TIME
ONE DEATH, TWO EPISODES
THE PASTURE
QUACK
THE SHADOWS, KITH AND KIN
SOLDIERIN’
SURVEILLANCE
THE STARS ARE FALLING
THE WHITE RABBIT
BAR TALK
Hey, what’s happening?
Not much, eh?
No, no, we haven’t met. But I’m here to brighten your day. I got a story you aren’t going to believe ... No, no, I’m not looking for money, and I’m not drunk. This is my first beer. I just seen you come in, and I was sitting over there by my lonesome, and I says to myself, self, there’s a guy that could use some company.
Sure you can. Everyone needs some company. And you look like a guy that likes to hear a first-class story, and that’s just the kind of story I got: first class.
Naw, this isn’t going to take too long. I’ll keep it short.
You see, I’m a spy.
No, no, no. Not that kind of spy. No double-ought stuff. I’m not working for the CIA or the KGB. I work for Mudziplickt.
Yeah, I know you never heard of it. Few have.
Just us Martians.
Oh yeah, that’s right. I said Martians. I’m from Mars
No, I tell you, I’m not drunk.
Well, it doesn’t matter what the scientists or the space probes say. I’m from Mars.
You see, we Martians have been monitoring this planet of your for years, and now with you guys landing up there, saying there’s no life and all, we figure things are getting too close for comfort, so we’ve decided to beat you to it and come down here. I’m what you might call part of the advance landing force. A spy, so to speak. You see, we Martians aren’t visible to your satellite cameras. Has to do with light waves, and an ability we have to make ourselves blend with the landscape. Chameleon-like, you might say. And we’d just scare you anyway if you saw us. We’d look pretty strange to you Earthlings.
Oh this. This isn’t the real me. Just a body I made up out of protoplasmic energy.
The way I talk? Oh, I know your culture well. I’ve studied it for years. I’ve even got a job.
Huh?
Oh. Well, I’m telling you all this for one simple reason. We Martians can adapt to almost everything on this world-even all this oxygen. But the food, that’s a problem. We find alcohol agrees pretty well with us, but the food makes us sick. Sort of like you going down to Mexico and eating something off a street vendor’s cart and getting ill ... only it’s a lot worse for us.
Blood is the ticket.
Yeah, human blood.
Find that funny, huh? Vampires from Mars? Yeah, does sound like a cheap science-fiction flick, doesn’t it?
You see-ho, hold it. Almost fell off your stool there. No, I don’t think the beer here is that strong. There, just put your head on the bar. Yeah, weak, I understand. I know why you’re feeling that way. It’s this little tube that comes out of my side, through the slit in my clothing. I stuck it in you when I sat down here. Doesn’t hurt. Has a special coating on it, a natural anesthesia, you might say. That’s why you didn’t notice. Actually, if you could see me without this human shell, you’d find I’m covered with the things. Sort of like a big jellyfish, only cuter.
Just rest.
No use trying to call out. Nothing will work now. The muscles in your throat just won’t have enough strength to make your voice work. They’re paralyzed. The fluid that keeps the tube from hurting you also deadens the nerves and muscles in your body, while allowing me to draw your blood.
There’s some folks looking over here right now, but they aren’t thinking a thing about it. They can’t see the tube from this angle; just me smiling, and you looking like a passed-out drunk. They think it’s kind of funny, actually. They’ve seen drunks before.
Yeah, that’s it. Just relax. Go with the flow, as you people say. Can’t really do anything else but that anyway. Won’t be a drop of blood left in you in a few seconds anyway. I’ll have it all and I’ll feel great. Only food here that really agrees with us. That and a spot of alcohol now and then.
But I’ve told you all that. There, I’m finished. I feel like a million dollars.
Don’t know if you can still hear me or not, but I’m taking the tube out now. Thanks for the nourishment. Nothing personal. And don’t worry about the beer you ordered. I’ll pay for it on the way out. It’s the least I can do.
© 1990 Joe R. Lansdale.
"Bar Talk" was originally published in 1990 in New Blood #7. It later appeared in A Fist Full of Stories (and Articles), a collection of Lansdale’s short stories (and articles) published by CD Publications.
ALONE
with Melissa Mia Hall
The smooth silver rockets stood against the sky, silent sentinels piercing the night. Waiting for something or someone, those spaceships reminded him of those big, old stone faces down on the ridge outside of Mud Creek. He never knew rightly how they got there but their open mouths and wide eyes turned ever skyward seemed connected somehow, since the rockets never rusted and the moss never grew over the expectant stone features. They were always bright with the morning light or copper red with the dying sun. He liked them best when they glowed silver in the moonlight or burned like white gold when the moon vanished blindly behind clouds.
And though the rockets seemed ready for takeoff at any time of day or night, there was no one to ride in them. And no one had anything to do with them except him, James Leroy Carver, the self-appointed guardian of the town and the rockets—although what he did wouldn't pass for much and there was never anyone to pat him on the back and say, "Good job, Jim, good job!"
For that matter, there was hardly anyone left at all. There was Sleepy Sam who worked the fields with the help of his son, Cranky Dan'l, and Issy, a big spotted hound dog, two cows, a goat, two hogs and some chickens. They lived in a farmhouse that used to be white but was now faded into mottled gray. They also had a barn with a tin roof and some pitiful outbuildings they took care of just about as good as they took care of the vegetable garden that was surrounded by barbed wire—fair-to-middling. There used to be a horse but it died of old age. They gave Jim eggs, carrots, onions and potatoes when he helped out. He had to barter for anything else.
Behind and beyond the spaceships, the trees had started to come back, and Jim realized he had lived practically his entire life (how long that was he had no expert opinion) watching them return. First, they'd just been scorched sprouts, but somehow their roots had survived and given bloom to new life. Gradually, they inched up until they were almost taller than Jim. Lately, they'd grown as big as one of the sheds at Sleepy Sam's. It amazed him. Didn't seem quite right. Were trees supposed to grow that fast?
The world was coming back green, and he felt like there was nothing much left but the green. His parents were long dead now. The Revolution had taken them.
Back in the before time, the bad times when he was really small, he hid more than anything. The people who survived the fighting didn't seem much interested in him. Someti
mes someone would take him in and feed him. Sometimes he'd just steal food. He stole so little, no one much minded. One time an ugly man—an outsider who talked funny—tried to take him outside of town on his bike but Jim cut him with his knife and bit him for good measure and escaped. And then Sleepy Sam had killed him after a poker game went wrong and the man refused to hand over his bike. Jim never knew the drifter's name. He hadn't been a regular in Mud Creek and certainly not on his street.
Part of the street sign had broken off so he couldn't quite remember the whole name of the street. Something Heights. His mom had had a book called WutheringHeights that she liked a lot. "Nobody ever wrote a book as good as WutheringHeights." Funny how things stuck in a person's head. Jim took to calling his place "WutheringHeights," although most of the house had burned down during the Revolution when his parents ran off and left him or were killed.
He couldn't remember anything. Seemed his life began one day when he woke up in the back seat of the SUV, head on his plaid backpack, sucking his thumb and holding on to his old brown teddy and his blue blankie and his crackers. He loved his warm sleeping space in the family's unworkable SUV that was parked in what was left of the garage. He had been old enough then to survive.
And, in time, there was no one really hunting boy meat anymore, or anybody doing much of anything. Sleepy Sam said the cannibals focused on the still-crowded cities, not on the dead little towns or out here on the fringe—that's what Sleepy Sam said. Jim thought that suited him just fine out here by the rockets. And as far as it went, he was okay. Cannibals didn't like rockets, he guessed. Can't eat rockets. And they didn't seem to like any meat but human meat. Animal meat must seem too tame.
"Stay here and keep your nose clean," Sleepy Sam said. He had a generator so he had electricity when the lights went out and stayed out a few years ago.
Most people left the little town during the Revolution or were killed by the monsters and the cannibals. Some stayed and some came back, then left again. They were primarily teens with no parents and no place to go, but the intense jungle that had suddenly surrounded and engulfed the town freaked them out and most left. They liked concrete and danger better. It put him in mind of The Jungle Book he kept in his ragged backpack. His parents were long dead now but they used to read from that book sometimes, together at night when he was little and dreaming about living in a jungle someday and here he was. The Revolution had taken his parents but given him the jungle. He kept a picture of another jungle at his sleeping space. He'd stolen it from the library. The picture also showed some terrible animals attacking each other. What if this jungle would summon such creatures? He began considering the possibility such wild beasts might arrive and decided he would always be ready. He kept his pocketknife, a sharp stick and a hammer always handy.
Not long ago there was a group that rode into town that seemed nice at first and then turned deadly. He had had little to no interaction with those just passing through Mud Creek, but these people laughed and danced and sang a lot. They built a big bonfire and ate rabbit and squirrel they shared with him. They made a game out of chasing a big beach ball one of them blew up and threw around like it was something special. Then one of the women got angry, the red-headed leader, and her man who had a long black beard. They fought like feral cats and it scared him. He crawled back home when they started killing each other.
The next day, when he went to see if their camp in the parking lot of the abandoned police station was still there, he found it wasn't. Gone from Mud Creek. He was relieved and sad at the same time.
––
"Good riddance to bad rubbish," Sleepy Sam had said when Jim told him and his son. Cranky Dan'l, who rarely spoke, nodded his head.
"Dey kilt my hog, Billy. I hate dem," Dan'l said.
"They be lost wanderers, those gypsy kind. They don't care about nothing but getting high and eatin' all they can, stealin' all they can and fightin' about what they didn't eat and didn't steal," Sleepy Sam said.
"But they danced. They sang songs. They seemed real happy and they just went crazy."
"I know. But the whole world be crazy now, son. Just keep clear of weirdos."
Jim took the advice and a hat full of eggs and left.
––
Mud Creek was just a little town near the rockets now. Weeds and grass grew in the cracks of the streets, curbs and sidewalks. The windows of most buildings no longer were glass. Most of the stores had been looted and truthfully, Jim had done his share of looting before going away to hide, but after most of the people left, he found it just wasn't as much fun doing it alone.
Jim knew there was still much to be had for one man and he shouldn't act like a kid, afraid of the ghosts in the stores. If he needed something now, he just took it like a man. Jim knew he had to act like a man, not a little boy. The encounter with the ugly man had taught him that, as much as his own jungle dreams which sometimes included a sad-faced girl with big eyes and soft pink lips.
He wondered where everyone had gone to after they left Mud Creek and what in the Sam Hill could be better out there? He envisioned only the worst: all of them gone crazy and eating one another like sharks with blood in the water.
The town provided most of his needs and the library had provided books that taught him about things like sharks that he had never seen except in pictures, and about bears and such, the monkey, the lion, the birds. From Sleepy Sam and Cranky Dan'l, he also learned about how to plant the seeds from the stores, and because he planted them behind the garage, he survived because he didn't have to depend on Sleepy Sam or on anyone. He even bartered with his extras, sometimes with an old lady who made beeswax candles. She sold them in the center of town along with some moonshine her old man made, but she frightened him. She always made awful cannibal jokes.
"I got me a hankering for boy today. My stomach aches to eat me some boy. You know some boy I can eat? What's pink and white and et' all over?" she'd laugh.
"Raw boy," Jim would have to say or she wouldn't exchange her candle for what scavenged item he was proffering, usually some stolen book, unbroken crockery or beans. The old man's moonshine wasn't too bad and it was cheap. A book of matches and Jim was set with a jar full of amber fire. He didn't drink it, though. He used it to clean stuff.
––
Their set-up was in an old gasoline station that smelled funny. He avoided Mr. and Mrs. (They had no other names that Jim knew of.) He preferred the rockets.
He had even come to like the quiet, the sky and the moon, the stars at night. The sun in the daytime. The rain. He had a good shelter not far from the SUV where he hid things and sometimes slept when he wasn't too scared. It was inside one of the old rockets and it was roomy in there and the power that ran the lights never went down. It was not bad at all. He felt safe there, protected.
Being alone was not bad until he saw the girl. Saw her one day in town while he was hunting for things to barter with to go with what he grew. Saw her scrounging through an old Wal-Mart store, dressed only in a pink tee-shirt, flip-flops and boy's underwear. He saw her. She saw him. And she ran. And in that moment he knew he did not truly like being alone or with farts like Sleepy Sam and his dumb son.
After that, he thought of her often. Her long blonde hair and the way she looked in that underwear.
He knew about girls—and women like Mrs. and the insane warrior woman and her maniac man who fought till they died. Girls were better. There had been girls when there was a school, but after the Revolution there were few more girls to see, just some guys. The girls often fled to the cities. He assumed some girls lived nearby, he'd just never seen any. He thought most went into hiding because of the monsters who enjoyed taking women to their masters, so he thought they were all gone and he figured cannibals liked girl meat even more than boy meat. He liked to watch the old movies Sleepy Sam had on videos and DVDs. Sleepy Sam had quite a stash and Jim had loved watching the Star Wars series over and over but Sam always demanded payment. Jim had swiped the first Sta
r Wars movie and watched it several times on a small battery-powered DVD player he had found in some rich person's house, but the battery went dead and he hadn't found another one that would work. After awhile, though, he just got tired of the movies, especially the porno films Sleepy Sam adored. Too many pretty women in the movies.
It was better to know you were alone, and just be alone, and learn to like it. If you didn't, you thought too much, and if you thought too much, you hurt too much, and that led to wondering too much about imagined things that could not be. Then, if you held yourself in your hand at night and made pleasure come, it became a mean, hollow pleasure that only made you want the other and that made you feel just how lonely and alone you truly were.
If you didn't watch the DVDs and the jerky videos, then you didn't think about it so much.
Not so much.
Not as much.
But, once he knew the girl existed, he could not rest. He could no longer be alone and like it.
––
Alone was no longer the absence of others. It was a hollow ache, a hole that couldn't be plugged and had no bottom. Then he asked Sleepy Sam what he did to get over being lonesome.
Rare Lansdale Page 1
