by David Coy
Bailey grinned again. “I’m the first of the manys and the mother of the thousand,” she said, absently adjusting her hat.
“Huh?” Phil said.
She looked like such a ditz to Phil that he knit his brow in amazement. All that was missing was a mouthful of snapping gum to complete the picture.
Gilbert gave her a dark look.
“I said . . . ” she started.
Gilbert cut her off. “Be quiet.”
“You doing her thinking, Gilbert?”
“Do you know the road to salvation?” Gilbert came back quickly. Phil found the ham-handed diversion amusing.
“What do you mean by salvation?” Phil baited.
Phil knew the conversation was inches away from the pretzel logic such men relied on for mental sustenance. There was no way to reason with an irrational mind. A rational mind needs, seeks confirmation like the returned kiss from a lover. The irrational mind masturbates constantly and needs no such affirmation. But that’s just what a purveyor of bullshit wants — meaningless communication; meaningless like an empty fuck.
“Look, I don’t want to play this game,” Phil said. “It’s childish.”
“The Lord’s plan is not a game.” The sphinx said.
“No, I guess not.”
There was no reasoning with him; perhaps a low insult would drive him away. It was worth a shot. “Go away,” Phil said. “Your breath stinks.”
Bailey puffed a brief laugh that brought another dark look.
Gilbert raised his hand and brought it down on Phil’s face. Phil saw it coming and stiffened his head and neck for the blow, but he refused to block it. It jarred him and stung, but he managed to keep his eyes glued right to Gilbert’s. He was pretty sure he didn’t even blink.
“That didn’t hurt,” Phil said in a mocking tone. It was childish, but seemed just the thing to say. Phil almost laughed. It was funny to him.
There was a peal of sudden laughter and all eyes turned toward it. Mary was standing just outside her hole in the middle of the tube. When she waved enthusiastically at Bailey, Bailey waved back and smiled.
“What are you doing?” Mary yelled down and started toward them.
Bailey opened her mouth to answer. Gilbert grabbed her arm. “You are not to speak to these people,” he said. “They are an abomination.” He spun back on Phil. “Do you know I could have you killed?”
“Is that right? But you couldn’t do it yourself. Me, on the other hand, I could kill you without batting an eye. Scram.”
Bailey drew her mouth into an exaggerated O of alarm.
“Both of you, you make me sick,” Phil said. “If your buddy Bruce, there, is gonna’ kill me, turn him loose. I don’t give a shit.”
“How many friends and relatives do you have on Earth?” the sphinx asked.
“Why?”
“I wonder how high and mighty you’ll feel when you see them eaten alive by the wrath of God.”
“The wrath of God?”
“That’s right. God’s . . . worms.” When he said worms the word came out just slightly sibilant.
He knows, Phil thought. The jackass knows.
“What are you talking about?”
They’d shared little or nothing with Gilbert about the mode of the attack, so Bailey must have told him. She’d told him, and together they’d formed some kind of doomsday club and donned the clothes and crown of thorns as some kind of weird-assed reaction to Earth’s destruction.
“I mean that within days an attack will begin on the Earth that will destroy all evil.”
“Now that’s original,” Mary laughed.
“All evil, huh?” Phil said, staring at Bailey. “How do you know that?”
“And you can’t wait for it to happen,” Mary said to Gilbert.
“Because God has planned it so,” Gilbert said, ignoring
her.
“But not us,” Bailey piped in. “We’re the thousand.”
“The thousand what?” Phil said.
“Whores, that’s what . . . ” Mary said with a steely look at Bailey.
“The thousand that will be left,” Gilbert said, cutting her off. “Your seed and the seed of all evil will be purged from God’s kingdom.”
“But not us, right my king?” Bailey piped in.
It was funny. Sick but funny. Phil wanted to walk away from these deluded fuckers. It was written that a thousand would survive the apocalypse. All you had to do was believe you were one to be one. Well, here were two of them.
Phil couldn’t resist. “So what makes you so sure you’re the saved ones.”
“I have a guarantee,” Gilbert said, almost smiling.
“A guarantee?”
“That’s right.”
“The word of God, right? It’s written right there in the good book, is it?” Phil said, pointing at it.
“No.”
“No? Well then how do you know?”
“I believe.”
“Okay ”
“I believe our captors are honorable.”
“What the hell . . . ?” Mary said.
“Pardon?” Phil said.
“I said, our captors are . . . ” swallow, “ . . . honorable people.”
“Oh. They told you you’d be spared,” Phil said nodding his head. “Why would they do that? And by the way, they’re not people—they’re monsters.”
“I’ve made it all possible. It’s God’s will.”
“What?”
“As the . . . ” Gilbert swallowed with his mouth open, ”. . . agent of God, I’ve made it possible,” Gilbert said.
A flush of concern rose up in Phil’s guts, but he pushed it back down with a cautious finger.
“How did you do that might I ask?” Mary wanted to know.
Bailey couldn’t be stopped. “Oh, please king, let me tell it. Please let me . . . please!”
“King? What the fuck is this king shit?” Mary asked. Gilbert closed his eyes slowly then turned his back on Phil, then took a step away and lowered his head. The phony drama was almost more than Phil could stomach.
Bailey stepped up very close to Phil and put her hands together under her chin. Phil stood up. When he did, he heard a deep grunt from the big bastard like a warning.
Bailey’s voice was even and modulated, not the excited voice he’d expected. She had a weird, frozen smile on her face that didn’t change.
She cleared her throat before she began.
“Okay, here’s the deal. Gilbert—my king that is—told the aliens what the weather patterns are like so that when they dump the bugs, they’ll be in just the right locations so they don’t freeze to death. That’s the only way to make the attack totally successful. If they didn’t do that, the attack would kill millions of people, but it wouldn’t exterminate us completely and that’s what they want. Get it?”
Phil was listening intently. He knew Bailey enough to know she was telling the truth, and he felt a tightening in his guts. He looked at the big, stupid coat on Gilbert and knew from his posture he was holding the Bible with both hands in front of him. He looked like he might be in prayer, but Phil knew he was listening closely.
“They had to know what the weather patterns were before they’d even do it,” she continued, smiling. “The wasps are their only weapon. If they don’t get enough on the ground in the right places, they believe they could get attacked from the Earth. Secrecy and the timing of the release is everything. And they don’t have that much time. See?”
Phil heard her words through a fog of hatred.
“How does Gilbert know the weather patterns?”
“He’s a . . . a . . . whatchamacallit . . . what are you again my king?” she asked over her shoulder.
“A prick. A traitor,” Mary jabbed in, shaking her head in disbelief.
“A meteorologist,” Gilbert said, not looking up.
“Right. A meteorologist,” Bailey said with a sudden strained look on her face.
Phil looked into her eyes an
d saw the truth there, and the sinking feeling seemed to pull him right to the floor.
The big bastard grunted again. It was obvious now that the thing was Gilbert’s bodyguard. They wouldn’t do that for him unless he had some special value.
“Nuts, huh?” Bailey said crazily.
“You sorry bitch . . . ” Mary said to her.
Bailey flashed a strained smiled.
Phil’s mind raced.
It was nuts, all right. Skinny, sick-minded Gilbert Keefer could have foiled the whole invasion by doing absolutely nothing.
Phil was certain he was looking at a first in the history of mankind. Never before had a single entity traded so little for the death of so many. It was quite a deal; Gilbert would have his own little colony of whatevers and his seed—his fucked-up seed—would persist in the universe to the exclusion of all others. He’d have his pick, Phil was sure, of whatever human resources he was able to preserve from the holocaust. Phil wondered what the human race would be like in a thousand years with Gilbert Keefer’s genes as the primary stock.
Phil wanted to jump up and wring Gilbert’s neck before he was able to spread his fucked-up seed. If he could have done it before the big bastard killed him, he would have done just that.
“You fucked up sonofabitch,” Phil said slowly.
Gilbert turned around with a self-satisfied look. He’d let Bailey tell it—the whole battle plan—without censoring it.
Phil’s mind raced on. He’d wanted her to tell it—then to stand there knowing they couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
Bailey—sweet not-so-innocent Bailey. What a disappointment.
When he looked closer at the crown of thorns he wanted to slap it off her head—not for some show of resentment about her change of allegiance—but because the “thorns” were waving and squirming like worms. The crown was alive, another fabrication.
“I want that . . . thing . . . you have,” Gilbert said.
“What thing?” Phil asked. “My dick?”
“That thing you can call Earth with.”
“He knows it’s a godamned phone,” Mary said to Bailey. “Why the hell didn’t he just say it?”
“You do mean the phone thing?” Phil asked.
“Yes, that.”
It hadn’t done them much good so far, but he hated to give it up just the same. The phone was the connection that linked them to the rest of their species.
“Go get the phone,” Phil said to Mary.
Mary looked at him as if he were nuts.
“Screw that,” Mary said.
“Go on,” Phil said. “Go get it.”
Reluctantly, she went to get it. No one spoke until Mary returned with it.
“I wouldn’t go traipsing around, either,” Gilbert said. “It could go very badly for you if you get caught. It’s best if you stay here and take your medicine. It really is.”
“Sure,” Phil said. “Whatever you say.”
Mary started to hand the phone to Phil. Phil pointed absently to Gilbert as the recipient of it, not he. Gilbert, not to be out-done by nonchalance, pointed in turn to Bailey. Mary handed the phone to her.
“The lengths some whores will go to save their asses,” Mary said.
Bailey smiled. Phil was sure he heard popping gum.
13
T he basket was the one his cousin used. He recognized the pattern in the reeds. As soon as Seseidi saw the hoppers in the bottom of it, he knew what the white man wanted to do. The white man looked friendly and didn’t smell too bad. This was a warrior, Seseidi was sure. He looked strong, and his teeth were good. The white man wanted to make war with the spirits.
The hoppers were still fresh. He could tell by the bright color of their skin and because they were still happy and active. Much poison could be taken from the backs of such happy, active hoppers, but Seseidi knew the hopper’s poison would not hurt the spirits. He shook his head.
“What’s he saying?” Mary asked.
“He’s saying no,” Phil said bluntly.
“You haven’t asked him anything yet.”
“I think I did.”
Mary tried her hand at pantomime and made like a blow- gun with her hands and puffed through them. She followed through with an arc of her finger forward a couple of times to indicate the flight of a dart. She made a ffft sound each time.
Seseidi shook his head.
“Ask him, Why not,” Mary said.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
Phil knew how dangerous the poison from a poison dart frog was. Gram for gram, it had no equivalent in the natural world. In fact, just a part of a gram—say, as much as an aspirin— if you could get that much together in one place, would kill thousands of people. He also knew it was a neuroblocker and that if you got it in your system, even by absorption through the skin, it could easily kill you in minutes by stopping your heart. The Indians coated the tips of their arrows, and darts with it, and it was stable enough to last for years. It went on as a liquid, he thought, and was allowed to dry. It was a remarkable little compound, perfect for dispatching prey as large as a tapir with a single dart. There were several varieties of South American poison dart frogs. Each was remarkable by its bright color.
Phil knew a lot about them.
Just about the only thing Phil didn’t know about South American poison dart frogs was which part of the frog the poison came from. He seemed to remember that it was taken from a gland, but wasn’t sure. He was equally unsure that it came from the frog’s tongue or from its urine.
The little Indian seemed to hold all the cards.
“Ask him to show you how to do it,” Mary added, as if Phil just hadn’t asked the question yet.
Phil looked askance at her.
“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” he said.
He took the Bic pen out of his pocket, removed the cap and dabbed it at the frogs, then pretended to spear the air—and Mary—with long jabs of the pen.
“Poison. Poison,” Mary said plainly. “Make poison arrows.”
Seseidi shook his head.
“You cannot kill the spirits with the hopper’s sweat,” Seseidi said in his native tongue. “It will not hurt them, and you will insult the hopper.”
“He’s talking,” Mary said.
Phil sighed. “No shit.”
“What did he say?”
“He said for you to shut up.”
»
Fine.
Phil looked directly at Seseidi and smiled openly. Sitting with his legs crossed and his arms folded, Seseidi smiled back. Imploringly, Phil extended the basket and the pen to him.
Seseidi considered it.
Phil jiggled the basket and smiled. A frog hopped inside it.
Seseidi stared at him.
“Threaten him,” Mary suggested.
“Be quiet,” Phil seethed under his breath.
Phil tried again. When he reached out and tapped Seseidi’s arm, Seseidi felt the power and forcefulness in the touch as if it could pierce him. The white man was smiling, but his hands were not.
Seseidi considered it, then reached out and took the basket from Phil’s hand.
“Yes!” Mary barked.
“He hasn’t done anything yet.”
Seseidi shook his head quickly, nervously. He swung around and sat on his knees, then shook a frog out of the basket. It landed on its back, flipped over and sat there like a red jewel against the dark rubbery floor. Phil had the urge to move away from it.
“This is not good,” the Indian said. “This is not good. You are crazy. The spirits are strong.”
“What’s he saying?”
“I’d say from his tone that he’s grumbling about it.”
“Make poison. Make poison arrows,” she said.
“Let him work, Goddamn it!” Phil implored.
Seseidi looked at the tip of his index finger and made a big point of examining it carefully. He held it out to Phil for him to look at, too, tapping it with his other fi
nger.
“If you have a cut on your finger, the hopper’s sweat can kill you,” he said solemnly.
“What’s he saying?”
“I’m not sure. Will you please shut up?”
Seseidi reached out and pinned the frog’s foot to the floor with the index finger. The frog tried to hop away, then stopped
in a stretched-out position.
“He’s touching it. Won’t it kill him?”
“I said shut up . . . ”
Seseidi reached out and took the pen from Phil, and still holding the frog captive by its foot, he wiped the side of the tip of the pen across the frog’s back a few times, twirling it as he did.
He handed the pen carefully back to Phil.
“This will now kill you, but it will not kill spirits,” he said.
“What’d he say?”
“I think he said to be careful with this.”
Phil handed the pen to Mary. She held it daintily with her fingertips. “That’s it?” she asked.
“That’s it,” Phil said. “It’s in the frog’s skin.”
Seseidi put the open basket up close to the frog and tapped its butt with a finger. The frog made a single hop right back in.
“Thank you,” Phil said and bowed his head to the little Indian. Seseidi had no idea he’d come within inches of dying at the white man’s hands.
Seseidi wiped his finger on his nylon shorts to clean it. He wiped and wiped to stress the point.
Phil put the cap back on the pen and slipped it in his pocket. It wasn’t a firearm, or even a knife, but he got the sense of being armed as if he’d strapped on a pistol.
“Now what?”
“Now we test it.”
“On what?”
“I’ll see if I can find something,” he said. “Get the frogs. Let’s go.”
* * *
Bailey thought it was a small animal crawling on her at first. She was on the very brink of flailing around to get it out of there when she realized it was Gilbert’s bony hand groping around under her shirt.
She’d been groped before, but never more poorly. She’d been groped by drunks and groped by kids. She’d been groped by her uncle and groped by the cable man. She’d been groped by her teacher and groped by the butcher. She’d even been groped by her sister, once. But this, this stiff-fingered, limp-wristed, pawing, all wrapped up in the stench of the nasty bastard’s breath was more than she could stomach. She went into her grope-defense mode. “Cut it out,” she said firmly.
