by Chuck Wendig
Skelly tries to parse it. A map. Of the underground of the city. Or at least, what’s just beneath it – what in the Underworld they’d call the “Shallows”. She can see the pocket where the town of Daisypusher sits. A lot of the tunnels are thin and small, noodles and tapeworms tied into one another. But along the far eastern side of the map runs a big fat line, like a pipe. And another thick line is carved at the top of the island and runs into it, and a third one comes in toward the bottom but doesn’t seem finished. Where this tunnel ends is a symbol like Skelly’s never seen before: a triangle with what looks to be a mouth in its center.
She points the thick lines out. Asks what they are.
“I was trying to figure out the same thing, but then I realized–”
A scream cuts the air like a hatchet. A woman’s scream. Walt reaches up, pulls her low to the pile, hisses, “Look.”
A young woman stands atop a pile of corpses. She’s far enough away Skelly can’t make out much about her face, but she sees the woman turn and shake and begin to flail, head cast back so far the scream rises out of her like smoke from the burn barrels.
The gobbos come fast. But not fast enough to catch what suddenly erupts out of her. Her body twitches like it’s being shot. Skelly hears the wet pops and sees the silhouettes of things wrenching free from her body. The scream is cut to a gagging sound. The shadows of grubs fall from her armpits. From between her legs. From up and out of her mouth. Plop, plop, plop.
A splashing sound. Then a chorus of high-pitched squealing, like someone trying to drown a litter of piglets in a washtub.
The gobbos come. Take away the grubs. It calls to mind ants carrying larvae.
As for the woman’s body? It collapses onto the pile. Utterly still.
Just one more for the mix.
Skelly bites her hand. Stifles her own cry. Can’t stop shaking.
“That happens,” Walt says. Then, sadder, more distant, “That’s what’s gonna happen to me.”
Not me, Skelly thinks.
“Don’t think about it. Here, look. Those pipes there on that map,” Walt says. “Those are water tunnels. The city’s water comes from upstate. Reservoirs. Two tunnels are done, but the third’s being dug. You can see the third ends at the funny-looking symbol there. Don’t know what that is.”
Her first thought: I need to tell Mookie.
Her second thought: And then he needs to come down here and burn this place to the ground.
But that means she has to leave. Has to find a way out – through the bones and bodies, through the dozens of goblins crawling all over this place.
She feels at her side. Her knife is gone. She feels a tiny stab of remorse at that – the knife was a custom job. Cost her a pretty penny. Though now she’s not so sure the skull fetish is one she wants to keep.
On her other hip is a surprise.
Her skates. They’re still there. Laced to her belt loop.
“I’m going to get out of here,” she says, untying her skates. As she does, the heel of one skate knocks loose the jawbone of what might be a deer skull. The bone bounces down the heap, rattling against every other bone as it falls.
Oh, no.
Gobbos – some just shadows, some lit against the flickering green fire – stop. And turn. They start jabbering, grunting. Picking up weapons.
Then they start moving toward the bone heap.
Candlefly tries to remain calm. But he knows his rankled irritation is showing. Even as he speaks he hears it bleed through.
“What was that, exactly? You reap what you sow?” He takes a few steps closer to the thug’s troublesome daughter. “Some kind of code phrase, perhaps? I have a great deal riding on this–”
Nora frowns. “Please. We don’t have code phrases. We’re not close.”
“Then what was it? Please. Do tell.”
“You wanted him to come,” she says. “If I got on the phone and sounded all weepy and needy and nerdy, he might not have bought it. But play it tough and he knows this is the real deal. Hello, I’m not very nice to him, if you haven’t noticed?” She squirms. “You going to untie me or what?”
Candlefly hesitates. Then he nods toward Sorago.
The Snakeface glides silently toward her, begins undoing her bonds.
“You didn’t need to keep me tied up in that chair,” she says.
“Yes. Well. I wanted to make sure you kept your end of our bargain.”
As she stands out of the chair, she stretches. “I did. He’s on his way.”
“A nice touch with the–” He points to her bruised face. “The makeup.”
“Good enough for a cameraphone.”
“You really don’t care for him at all, do you? Your father.”
The girl hesitates. As though she’s thinking about it, earnestly considering it. “No. I don’t know. He wasn’t a good dad.”
Candlefly chuckles. “Trust me from experience. Few fathers are good fathers. You should respect yours a little more.”
“Oh? You have kids?”
“Two. Adelina and Oscar. Twins.”
“You trying to convince me to grant my father clemency?”
“Clemency. Oh my. Such a big word for a little girl.”
She stiffens. “Not so little. And I like books. You got a problem with that?”
“Of course not.”
She looks at the floor. “Hey. I gave him chances. Chances when I was a kid. Chances when everything fell apart. Chances even now. Just a few days ago I offered to have him work for me. But once again, he refused.” She rolls her eyes.
“A missed opportunity.”
“I guess so.” She looks up now at him. She’s got fascinating eyes – pointed and gray, like the tip of a sharpened pencil. And it’s like they’re pleading with him. “You won’t kill him?”
“No,” he lies. “We won’t kill him.”
Another pause. Finally, she nods. “Good.”
“Let me ask you something else.”
“If you must.”
“It must have surprised you. To find Casimir like that on the floor. Having met a truly brutal death.”
Her gaze meets his. “I already told you, I killed him.”
“Did you?”
“I did.”
“Ah. Well! You’re lucky then that I consider his death no more than a speed bump in our relationship. Besides–” He can’t help but smile at this. “It’s nice to be working with someone so robust. So vigorous. What you did to the young man was…” He shudders, as though feigning excitement at the girl’s deception. “What a partnership this will be, Miss Pearl. A brand new day is here.”
She struggles to unlace the skates. Get them on her feet. The gobbos are coming. Clambering up the heap. Bones clatter. Goblins hiss.
One skate on.
And now they’re here.
A gobbo with sallow cheeks and bulbous blood-red eyes comes at her, jaw creaking open and a tubule tongue searching the air – a glistening egg already gleaming at its tip, pushing out like a cancerous tumor through bubblegum-pink lips.
Skelly cries out. Swings with her one free skate. The wheels are Zombie wheels with hard, anodized aluminum centers. She clocks the gobbo in the side of the head, makes a mushy dent. The tongue recoils, and the creature rolls down the bone-heap with a rattle.
She kicks out. Sends another one tumbling.
A third comes up on her left. No tongue, and it takes her a second to realize what’s in the thing’s hand. It’s a Christmas stocking – grimy, greasy, and it swings like it’s got something heavy in the foot. Then she hears the jingle of change–
The gobbo swings the Christmas stocking right at her head.
She’s too slow. She feels it. She brings the skate up and knows it’ll land too late–
The gobbo is suddenly bowled backward.
With Walt on top of it.
Skelly backpedals, the osseous heap shifting beneath her. It’s hard to get purchase, hard to find stability–
Th
e gobbos come at her.
But Walt is there again. He launches himself in front of her. Waves his arms–
“I’m all egged up!” he cries, a yawp of throaty rage. “You come at her, you might hurt your precious babies. That what you want?”
They hiss. Test him by swinging weapons – knives, broken bottles, boards with nails in them – at the air in front of his head. He whimpers with every swing.
It buys her time. She tries not to hurry, tries to focus and do it right. Skate on. Pulled tight. Laces taut.
The gobbos fan out. Walt’s just one man. They are legion.
He swipes at them. Throws bones that rebound off goblin heads.
But it doesn’t matter.
Because here they come.
Skelly doesn’t want to look. She closes her eyes and lurches forward. The skates work against her with the shifting pile beneath her, but it’s all she has.
She’s just lucky goblins aren’t tall.
Hands on hot, rubbery skin. A shriek beneath her. Her elbow connects with something–
When she opens her eyes, she sees no more goblins ahead of her.
All she sees is the downward slope of the heap.
She hits it with her head, and topples down the hill, head over feet, feet over head, end over end again and again – bones cracking her in the head, cutting her skin–
Something slashes her cheek–
Then a sting in her palm–
Green glow a swirl around her, everything a dizzying blur–
Until she lands at the bottom. Shoulder first, hard on stone. There’s a starburst of pain, but no time to think about that now. She scrabbles on hands and knees, more pain in her left hand–
The shattered ribcage of a small mammal has become embedded in her palm. Blood flows around dirty little bones.
It’s an absurd thought at a time like this but she thinks: I’m going to need some high-octane antibiotics to handle that.
She shakes her hand. The ribcage falls free, clatters on stone.
Ahead of her, goblins emerge from the shadows around the burn pile and into the light of a flickering green torch. It’s then she realizes many have faces reminiscent of human babies: fat cheeks and wet mouths, big eyes, wispy hair. But there the comparison ends. These are human infants by way of a demonic coupling, ashen skin and colored eyes, rotten teeth and egg-laying tongues. As they come closer, she gets her bearings, takes a deep breath…
Skelly screams.
And then she skates.
Werth sits upstairs in the foyer while Candlefly remains downstairs with the girl. The old goat drums his fingers on his lap. They’re really making friends with Nora Pearl, now? How will Mookie react to that? Werth isn’t sure how he feels about that. He’d just gotten used to thinking, OK, regime change, it’s sink or swim, fuck or walk, play or die. And now Candlefly is making eyes at the enemy? The little shit who killed Casimir Zoladski? How does that make a single fucking mote of sense?
“Don’t worry,” Candlefly had said. “I don’t trust her. One move and she’s done.”
“And Mookie?” Werth asked. “He gets to stay? We’ll give him a chance? Because I need him. He’s good people.” He neglected to add: and you don’t want him on your bad side, cause he’ll hit you like a goddamn cannonball.
“If Mookie wants in, he can have in,” Candlefly said. “Now make the call.” Then he handed Werth the phone and…
Now he’s upstairs. Waiting. Mookie will show. He has to.
Haversham paces nearby. “They’re going to give Pearl a chance?”
“That’s what Candlefly said. He’s gonna let him try to make nice. See if we can’t… all be a big family again.”
“We’ll never be a family again. We’re just a business.” Haversham stops. Stands and stares off at nothing. “Maybe that’s how it should’ve been all along.”
“Go to hell, Haversham. The Boss treated you like he was one of his own.”
“Yes, of course, I…”
“And…” Here Werth stands, hobbles over, keeps his voice low. “And Candlefly? He’s gonna treat us like resources. Like employees. And hey, speaking of the other ‘employees’, where are the other lieutenants in all of this? You try any of them?”
“I tried calling.”
“And?”
“I’m… not getting any answers.”
“Jesus. Not a one?”
“Not a one.”
“That isn’t good, Haversham.”
“I suspect…” Haversham’s voice trails.
“You suspect they’ve been put six feet under.”
“Liquidated is the word I was going to use.”
Werth rolls his eyes. “Of course it is. What about us? Are we going to be liquidated? Is that their plan for us? Jesus Christ, look what they did to Spall and Lutkevich. They’re not even… them anymore. Just Snakeface fuckfaces in disguise.”
“I don’t think so. It doesn’t make sense. We’re still here.”
“We are, at that.”
“Maybe we’re the new regime.”
Werth’s gut tightens. His body hurts. His mind hurts, too. “I hope so, Haversham. I really fucking hope so.”
Every part of her is electric with fear and aversion. Skelly’s brain has to work overtime to convince her body to cooperate, to barrel forward on a pair of roller skates through what may very well be the bowels of hell. This is the act of racing toward a cliff, of walking into a punch, of springing headlong into certain doom.
But she has no choice. Skate forward or die standing.
Only problem: she hasn’t skated in years. Skelly used to do derby. A lot of her girls still do. It’s part of their look. But that’s the thing. For her, these days it’s just aesthetic. The skates are hers, sure, but she’s been running a gang, not rollin’ around a flat track.
She’s out of practice.
And this ain’t no flat track. She doesn’t have her girl-pack with her. No jammers, no blockers, no pivot. She’s fresh meat here.
Soon as she starts to skate forward – toward the onrushing gobbos – the wheels bounce over a lip, a lip she realizes too late is part of the floor carvings, the massive stone etchings of monstrous worms and snakes winding around each mound of death. It jars her; she almost falls forward, but she twists her hips and leans into it, getting her skates beneath her–
And that’s when she realizes, those carvings are just what she needs.
They’re a smooth track.
Yes. Yes. As the goblins rush toward her, she reaches out her hand–
And catches the flickering green torch.
Soon as she meets the rushing goblins, she skates by them in an arc, swiping the torch across their faces and into their field of vision. They squeal and shriek. One launches himself at her with a rattling bike chain in hand but she ducks, feels the skate wheels hop the lip and land in the track of the carved floor–
Another twist and she stays in the track.
She rides the shape of the monster, winding around one heap and then another, the serpent tracks forming massive coils and knots around each–
There. There. The way out. An archway. Fire-lit. The arch a carving of eyeless worms whose flesh is marked with strange symbols.
Ahead, through the arch, the darkness shifts–
She thinks it’s just her eyes. Skate, goddamnit, just skate.
But then something emerges. A black shape, a reaper’s cloak without the reaper in it. It rushes toward her. She sees shiny eyes, like nickels catching light, hears the sound of blades scraping together–
In the derby, when you’re a blocker, you have to keep your center of gravity low so you don’t fall – and that gives you speed, too.
Skelly shrinks herself small, hunkering low as she blasts forward.
The reaper’s cloak flutters over her head.
Then through the archway.
Where the stone is no longer smooth.
The wheel hits rough-hewn stone. Clips on a crag. Skate-nose c
aught.
21
I have a dead man to lead the way. The undead of Daisypusher know this place better than most, almost like it’s intuition, or second nature – a nature born as they die. It suggests again to me that while the Underworld is a physical place, it resonates with the energies of death, creating a profound sympathetic bond between what we experience in our afterlife and the corporeal channels of this realm. Regardless, my guide is a dead man who has chosen the post-life name of Cerberus, not because he has three heads but rather, ironically, because he was killed by three dogs while trying to protect his daughter from their attack. She was mauled, sadly – lost fingers, needed some reconstruction of her jaw. But she lives while he dies. That is his mission, he said: to help after death to pay for the surgeries she yet needs and to make her life better even as his own is forfeit. We should all be so lucky to have so strong a mission in life or beyond it.
– from the Journals of John Atticus Oakes, Cartographer of the Great Below
He knows they see him. Mookie stands at the door. Knows now that there’s a camera pointed at him. This is it. This is his last moment to do differently. He tells himself, I could turn and run. Fuck the Organization. Fuck Werth. Hell with my daughter. She’s done me wrong too many times now, and I don’t owe her anything but the sight of my turned back.
But that’s not Mookie. What would he do on his own? Die on the vine like the last grape hanging, that’s what. His is a life defined by others. Whether it’s helping them, hurting them, or just plain doing what he’s told. He’s not the man running the machine. He’s just a rubber belt fed through hungry gears.
Before he does anything, he takes out his tin of Blue, presses a pad of cakey peacock powder between his fingers, and massages it into his temples. The horse-kick hits. A few chills after. Then it’s all melted butter and smooth jazz.
He opens the door and goes inside.
