by Shock Totem
He touched his forehead and wiped his hands on the front of his flannel shirt. He could not stop trembling. That thing was real, he thought. I’ll admit that I’m full-bore, shithouse loony, but that big bastard was real as those goddamned Maytags.
He looked at the flashlight in his hand. He laughed. It looked even smaller and more useless in the light.
Water rushed through the pipes. His family was upstairs. His sons were getting ready for bed, wearing their train pajamas. Molly would spread a hand towel over their pillows so their damp hair wouldn’t wet the cases. They’d argue about which book she should read them. Cody liked monster stories, but Fenton liked the ones about towns bringing disaster on themselves but putting things right by working together, like that one about the giant jam sandwich and the cloud of wasps. Then Molly would be getting ready for bed. She made faces in the vanity mirror each night when she applied her face cream. She rubbed the excess on the backs of her hands and threaded her fingers to spread it to the webbing.
She did this same hand motion every single night.
Curt walked from the room and switched out the light behind him. He felt a twinge in his gut with the dark at his back, but he tamped it down and walked out under the bright bare bulb in the main room. He clomped up those flimsy stairs, peeking once, yes, at the dark doorway before looking up at the kitchen cast in silvery light from the street. He saw the blinking green numerals on the microwave.
When would this end, this fear of the dark? Had it left him now? He knew better, knew how he wanted to look over his shoulder even now and see if something lurched after him from the shadow. But he didn’t turn.
He stood in the kitchen and looked out again at the neighbors’ houses. Did things live in their basements, too? Were there dark places there? He turned and looked down at that which had been so forbidding in the dark now lit with pale light. He reached over and flipped off the light. All was black again.
He stood at the head of the stairs and breathed, smelling the lingering aroma of their chili dinner and the onion odor Molly had not washed from the cutting board in the draining rack. He savored being this close to darkness, the light switch within arm’s reach. The freezer whirred and the dishwasher ticked and exhaled steam.
There was a scraping at the bottom of the stair.
A harrumph.
Then a tentative clump on the lowest step. Another. That coughing snort.
The children laughed upstairs. One squealed. Curt heard Molly bark at them, but it was playful.
How could those flimsy steps bear that terrible weight? But they did.
The awfulness drew near. It filled the stairway. Its smell. Its rank hide. Its sharp lengths of glistening bone. Its hunger.
Curt wanted to reach for the light but the thing was so close. Another step would bring it into the kitchen, into their house.
He must be still. So still.
Hubert Dade has lived and worked all over the country. His heart lies in the west. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where he was a teaching-writing fellow. His fiction, poetry, and journalism have appeared in publications across the country, including Prairie Schooner, Damnation Books, and Boston’s Weekly Dig. He is at work on a novel about a series of child murders in a small Vermont town.
THE COCKTAIL PARTY
by Addison Clift
My eyes. Where are my eyes?
Vincent probes the numb cavities where his eyes used to be, as shards of conversation jangle in his still-functioning ears.
“It’s a slam dunk. We’ll be in Tehran by Christmas.”
“The American people will support this a hundred percent, once they understand what’s at stake.”
“My daughter’s trying to decide between Chicago and UVA. Of course, I’m pushing her toward the old alma mater...”
Where am I?
Vincent isn’t sure of the exact moment he woke. He thinks he’s awake now. He gropes his hand along the itchy carpet. He wiggles his body. Except for his eyes, he seems to be all there. But...
I’m naked.
He lifts his foggy head, then drags himself up on his elbows. There’s something around his neck. He feels it out. Leather, then a chain. Jesus, is this a leash?
Soft music. Idle chatter. Clinking glasses. The smell of cigarettes and perfume. A female voice: “Look, it’s waking up. Hey, everyone! Zombie Number Three is waking up.”
Vincent reflexively turns his head. An excited murmur ripples through the darkness.
Zombie Number Three is waking up.
A watery, bewildered moan bubbles from his lips. It doesn’t even sound human, much less like himself.
“Well, I guess the party can begin,” says a male voice, somewhere off to Vincent’s right.
He reaches for it, but grabs only air. On his other side, he hears people passing close by. He turns and thrusts his arm out, briefly grasping a calf. “Its hands are so cold!” says a woman, laughing, as her footsteps patter quickly away.
It dawns on Vincent that his entire universe is now just the reach of his arms, and she has gone beyond it.
He sits up. “Hey!” he shouts into the void. No one answers. “Hey! Where am I?”
Nothing.
Yet the darkness is not total. Flashes of light and color tickle his perception, like a phantom itch on a departed arm. His mind throws out random images, perhaps to compensate: Fiona in a red dress, smiling slyly at him as she unlocks her room at the St. Regis. Jerry drinking too much beer and shouting himself hoarse at the Redskins game.
Slamming on his brakes, to avoid hitting that Subaru...
Subaru.
Is that it? Is he dead? He smacks the carpet with his palm. A dull, unsatisfying thud, but a real one. He does it again. “Hey!” he yells. “Hey!”
“Hey yourself,” returns a caustic voice from somewhere out in the ether, and several people laugh.
No, he’s not dead. He’d missed the Subaru, dropped Jerry off in Bethesda, and Jerry took a whiz on his own front lawn while the neighbor’s dog barked. That was last weekend.
Think. Last night. Got home late. Fiona called from Monaco, said she was with “friends.” (He told himself he didn’t mind. He knew he wasn’t her only lover.) Was headed to Rome on Monday. Couldn’t wait to see him next time she was in DC.
He ate leftover Chinese and fell right asleep. Middle of the night—couldn’t breathe. Middle of the night—opened his eyes.
Three men in his room.
“Who are you?” Vincent isn’t sure if he’s asking this here and now or last night in his bed. Maybe someone will answer him, either way. No one does.
Voices, not too far. He gets up on his hands and knees and feels his way toward them.
“Ahmadinejad is totally isolated,” a deep voice is saying. “He’s lost the support of his own people.”
“There are conflicting reports as to whether that’s true.” Higher, nasal.
“Oh, it’s true all right,” replies the deep voice. “They’ll rise up against him, and this thing will be over in ninety days.”
“Ninety days. Can I quote you on that? Anonymously, of course.”
“We’re all anonymous here.”
The men laugh. Vincent reaches toward the laughter and grabs hold of a trouser leg. “Jesus Christ,” snarls Deep Voice, and Vincent is shaken off. He feels the gritty sole of a leather shoe on his face, pushing him away.
“I don’t know what the fascination is with those goddamn things. Now I’ve spilled my drink.”
“Those things give me the willies,” says Nasal Voice.
Their words trail off as the men walk away to parts unknown. Vincent keeps crawling, sweeping the carpet in front of him with his hand. He finds a woman’s skirt. He has to get someone’s attention; he has to find out why he’s here, naked, blind, it makes no goddamn sense. So he pulls.
He immediately realizes his mistake as dishes clang loudly to the floor all around him. Something—Christ in chaps, is that Jell-O?—hits his naked
back so cold and so sudden it takes his breath away. He yelps and recoils, springing sidewise and landing on his stomach in a thick, chunky substance. Potato salad, from the smell.
Laughter, everywhere, from all sides. “Zombie malfunction,” someone says.
Suddenly Vincent’s leash snaps tight and he can’t breathe. Someone is pulling him. He grabs the chain and tries to pull back, but his adversary is so strong he has no choice but to be dragged along, the carpet searing his knees. As soon as he is let go he tries to crawl away, but a heavy foot stomps on his back and knocks him flat.
“I’m gonna put a party hat on him,” says a perky female voice. Vincent feels a rubber band snap around his chin.
“And here’s a blower for you.” Something is shoved roughly up his ass, to delirious laughter. Vincent yanks out the paper tube and crawls quickly away, heedless of whatever might be in his path.
He’s unsure what these cold metal bars are—then they tip over and land on him. A stool. He feels his way around the bar to a corner, then along the wall. This wall has to lead to a door...
But his hand finds a bare foot. Then a naked leg, quivering slightly. It says: “Are you the one who’s been making all the racket?”
“I...”
“Well shut up, it won’t do you any good.”
“Who are you?”
“Marsha. Or Zombie Number Two, in this place.”
“Your eyes...did they...?”
“Yes. What’s your name?”
“Vincent.”
“Do you work at State, Vincent?”
“How did you know?”
“What do you do there?”
“I’m a courier. Just got back from the Middle East. What is this place?”
“Can’t you tell? Feel how the floor rocks. We’re on a yacht.”
Vincent lies still. Sure enough, the room is swaying slightly. He had thought it was just him.
“What about you, are you at State?”
“Yes. Well, technically. I’m a hallwalker.”
Vincent knows just what she means. Hallwalkers are whistleblowers. Firing them would leave the government vulnerable to legal challenges, so instead they’re stripped of their office, their duties, and their security clearance. Shunned by everyone. Many just walk the halls of the State Department all day long, like ghosts. Or zombies. The new march to war with Iran has created a lot of zombies at State.
“Ben—Zombie Number One—I knew him years ago at Georgetown,” Marsha continues. “He used to be in the Foreign Service in Russia. They canned him for some political reason.”
“Well why am I here? I’m in good standing. I’m not a whistleblower.”
“Are you against the war?”
“Yeah, but I never made a big thing of it. I’ve talked about it with people, but I mean, Christ, everybody’s against the war.”
“I don’t know, then.”
Vincent realizes his hand is still on her leg. He withdraws it, then says, “Marsha?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think they’re going to do with us?”
• • •
“Faster, horsey, faster!”
Dumb hands slap against his back. Vincent is feeling his way across the floor, mounted by a drunken woman. He doesn’t know how long he’s been at it, or how long he’s been on this boat. Time has slipped out of his reach, along with everything else.
His nose smushes against what might be a leg. His rider laughs. “Two-horse collision!” she calls.
Another voice, high and cheerful like Marilyn Monroe’s, says, “Laurie, did you see Mike and Paula’s vacation pictures?”
“Vincent.”
It’s Marsha. Marsha is the other horse. Vincent answers her as their riders talk about Bali.
“Vincent, I know where we are. I heard some people talking.”
“Where?”
“We’re in the middle of the Chesapeake. This boat left from Cape St. Claire.”
Cape St. Claire. Vincent lets the words lift him away, back to wide-eyed summer days spent at Sandy Point, chasing seagulls and digging with his little red shovel, as the Bay Bridge shimmered across the water.
But then hands pull his hair, and a voice commands him to fuck the other horsey.
• • •
Vincent is standing. Someone left him here, standing, so what else can he do? People seem to be gathering around.
“Two weeks on the Mediterranean,” says a southern accent somewhere off to his right. “Appledorn’s picking up the bill, provided we land this thing.” Vincent figures he means Davis Appledorn, of Appledorn Aerospace & Defense. He’s starting to piece together who these people are. Pentagon bigwigs, contractors, lobbyists. He doesn’t know if there’s anyone here from State, but from listening in, he thinks there may be a Congressman or two.
As to why he’s here among them, he still has no idea.
“Come on, zombie,” says a stern female voice, and Vincent’s leash gets a hard tug. He follows along, trying not to fall.
Suddenly the floor changes. It becomes cold and yielding. Vincent pauses and shifts his weight, testing it.
He’s standing on thin plastic. A tarp, maybe.
“I didn’t say you could stop.” The leash gets another yank, and Vincent stumbles forward again.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” says a wired-up squeak that makes Vincent think of Jay Leno. “Tonight’s contest features two promising young contenders from State.” Hisses from the crowd. “Now, now, everybody deserves a fair trial.” Laughter. Leno continues: “In this corner—paunchy, balding, but with a strategically low center of gravity—Zombie Number One!” Cheers and catcalls. “And in this corner—taller and thinner, but man, talk about a cashew and a couple of raisins—” they roar with laughter “—Zombie Number Three!”
Hoots, whistles. “The odds are even, folks. Place your bets.”
The assembled mass breaks into shouting. Vincent uselessly tries to look around. What do they want me to do?
He feels the chain being unbuckled from his collar, and the same woman speaks into his right ear. She sounds pitiless and calculating, like a lawyer. “Loser goes to the rape room,” she says.
“The...”
“Rape is just part of it,” Lawyer Bitch continues. “They’ll probably cut things off of you. There’s a guy here from KBR who likes to force-feed people contaminated food until they puke. I think it’s gross, but he gets off on it.”
“What is...I don’t...I...”
“Hold out your hand. You’ll be fighting with this.”
Vincent apprehensively puts out his right hand, and a heavy wooden rod is placed in it. Wait, not a rod. He feels it out.
It’s a hammer.
Lawyer Bitch: “I have five thousand on you, zombie. If you lose, I’ll take that hammer and rape you myself.”
A bell rings. The crowd cheers. Vincent is pushed from behind. How far are they supposed to take this?
He listens for where the other man might be, but the crowd is too noisy. He holds out his left arm in defense, gripping the hammer indecisively with his right.
He walks into sweaty hands. Raising his weapon, he hears startled gasps.
“Not that way, cowboy,” says Jay Leno, and Vincent feels himself pulled back and spun around.
The crowd starts to chant: “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Vincent, unsure where his opponent is, tries a peace offering: “Are you Ben? From the Foreign Service?”
Instead of an answer, he feels the brutish smack of flattened steel against his shoulder. The audience howls with enraptured glee.
The pain is breathtaking. Vincent stumbles backward, feeling the wind of the weapon as it swings past his ear.
He regains his balance and holds out his arm to try to block the next one, but to his surprise finds that he’s palming his adversary’s face.
Like a reflex, he swings his hammer. At the exact same time that he makes contact with what he thinks is a neck, he feels another c
runching blow, this time to his rib cage. He staggers away in the other direction.
The crowd goes berserk. Hands push Vincent back into the makeshift ring. Then, floundering helplessly in the swirling darkness, something basic and instinctive takes hold of him. With his left hand, he turns the hammer in his right, so that when he raises it, it’s no longer the flat head poised to strike, but the claw.
“Game just went up a notch,” says an excited Jay Leno. The audience grows hushed in expectation.
Protecting his face with his left forearm, Vincent takes a cautious step forward. He raises the hammer above his head, intending to strike from above. He hears the tarp crinkle in front of him, and brings down the claw.
He makes contact. Was that an arm? Vincent thinks he hears his foe screaming in pain, but the audience is barking so loud he isn’t sure. He has to be sure. He brings the hammer down again. Shoulder? And again. Head.
“Number Three! Number Three!” they chant. But Vincent doesn’t need the encouragement. For the first time in his life he is inflicting serious harm on another human being, and he is enjoying every second of it.
His blind head buzzing, he lurches forward, swings, and misses. But his left arm becomes entangled with his enemy’s, and the two of them tumble to the plastic. Vincent lands on top. He brings his hammer down once more, as hard as he can muster.
Face.
The sound of breaking bone, then hot blood spurts gently onto his hands. All the thrill and sweet hatred drain out of him along with it. He is a naked, shamed animal. And he’s been duped.
“The winner is Zombie Number Three!” shouts Jay Leno. Vincent is lifted to his feet.
The crowd is lustful, in heat. They want another fight. Vincent can almost see them: ugly, bug-eyed, snaggle-toothed freaks with their mouths full of drool and their puds in their hands. “Oops, I think you killed him,” he hears someone say, and the laughter that follows is the laughter of untrammeled delight. Vincent bends over and retches, but nothing comes. His body goes limp and they drag him across the floor. He wants to hurt these people. He wants to blind them and humiliate them and laugh at their inconsequential deaths. Mostly he wants to know why he was plucked from his bed and brought to this awful place, where he has to kill to avoid being raped.
