It took a few seconds for everyone in the room to get over being stunned, then a few more to leap forward and pull Harley’s hands away from around Bristol’s throat. When everything calmed down, and both Harley Cole and Rod Bristol had been properly restrained, Mel Gibson spoke first.
“You, you mean he … With our livestock?”
“I never touched a single cow!” bellowed Bristol. “I’m no pervert, whatever you people say!”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said the Mayor.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said George Daves, a firm hand on Oly’s collar.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Oly, still crouched in attack mode.
That shut everybody up.
O O O
He had no idea.
All the terrible things Bristol had done (and, of course, as he thought all of his actions to be perfectly ordinary, he had no hesitation whatsoever in relating them to everyone in earshot in excruciatingly disgusting detail), and the man didn’t have a clue. To his perspective, the fact that he’d been spending his days sorting and cataloguing books and his nights gaining a carnal knowledge of sheep was par for the course—as a matter of fact, he really couldn’t grasp why it wasn’t an activity endorsed by the town, or at the very least, a spectator sport.
That last remark got him a pretty severe beating; the Mayor even let Harley go fetch Nellie so she could kick him around a bit, too. While they were beating him, they grilled him about the animal mutilations, the missing people, and particularly about the missing children, all of which he denied knowing anything about. Of course they didn’t believe him, which only resulted in a worse beating; personally, Meredith didn’t think he had anything to do with the rest of that stuff, but considering what was going on with the sheep, she wouldn’t have put it past him.
They lynched Bristol at five minutes after noon. The Mayor gave a short speech, and (with the exception of the few members gone missing) the Jennings band came on the flatbed and played “Memories” from CATS. After, they all headed over to Soame’s for hot lemonade.
O O O
As everyone was sitting down at the coffee shop Meredith realized that Hjerald and Shingo hadn’t been with them since Oly led everyone to the library; then she remembered that she had seen Shingo pull Hjerald away from the men and lead him into the stacks. Meredith figured that Shingo had probably found something he wanted to get Hjerald’s opinion on. After all, so far the reporter’s instincts had been pretty accurate on some awfully farfetched topics. She kind of liked that Shingo went straight to Hjerald; being some twice Shingo’s age, they’d never been close friends, but Meredith wanted them to get along, since her interests in both of them, personally and otherwise, were long term.
June forwarded the notion that Rod Bristol was not an aberration; that perhaps, like the cars and the planes, people were being transformed into … Something. Something different than what they were. Not that they expected to see locals walking around having grown horns or anything, but two days ago Bristol wasn’t furry, either.
“Why don’t you ask the Beecrofts,” Meredith suggested. “Almost everyone in town has been coming through Soame’s, so if anything was amiss they’d be as likely as anyone else to have noticed.”
“Good idea, Meredith,” said June.
To keep things running at the coffee shop, Glen had stoked up the massive marble fireplace at the far end of the main hall, and Delna kept several kettles of water for the beverages constantly at a boil. When Meredith and June sat down, their hosts were crouched on top of the counter, checking each other’s scalps for fleas. June motioned to them, and they ambled cheerfully over to the tables, hairy arms dragging along the floor; Meredith had never really noticed it before, but it was kind of sweet to see a couple that was compatible physically as well as emotionally. They both had that reddish hair, and the jutting, fanged lower jaws. Delna’s claws were more pronounced than Glen’s, but Meredith supposed that was reasonable—a woman does have to keep herself presentable. Perched as they had been on the counter, they quite resembled a picture of those little dimestore trolls with sugary messages engraved into the base. Exactly, in fact—just like a pair of trolls.
June blinked at them for a moment, then shook off whatever he was thinking. “I was wondering, have either of you observed any … Unusual behavior in any of the customers, here? Anything that just doesn’t quite click?”
“Funny you should ask,” said Glen. “We had a fellow come in just a little while ago who was acting all sorts of weird.”
Delna bobbed her massive head in agreement. “Yes, he was acting strange, even before I served him his coffee.”
“What happened when you served the coffee?” asked the Mayor.
“Oh, he threw a terrible fit,” sighed Delna. “He was engrossed in something he was writing, some business deal gone bad, I think. Then I served the coffee, he looked up at me, screamed, and tried to bash me over the head with the pot.”
“What happened then?”
“Oh, well of course, Glen came over and tried to reason with the fellow, but he was just too excitable—and then he tried to leave without paying for the coffee.”
“Or the pot,” added Glen.
“Or the pot,” finished Delna.
“Where is he now?” asked June.
“Oh, after he left Glen followed him and asked for the money,” said Delna. “I don’t know where he went after that.”
“So he did pay you?”
“Well, we ended up bartering,” said Glen. “The only problem with that is I can’t actually get his whole arm into the cash register.”
“Can I see it?” asked June.
“Sure.”
Glen ambled over to the counter and retrieved a blue shirted arm, ripped free at the shoulder, and presented it to June.
“Hey,” said Lloyd Willis, “I recognize that arm. It belonged to that fella trying to sell pinball machines in Manila—you know, that guy we pulled out of the dead plane in Brendan’s Ferry.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Oly.
Everyone nodded in recognition. As weeks go, it had not been an altogether good one for Stephen Moore.
“Walking out on his bill,” said Vernal Solomon resignedly, “that’s a city slicker if I ever saw one.”
“Hey,” said Mel, “we forgot about Oly—I mean, a dog that talks, that’s pretty out of the ordinary.”
“Yeah,” said Vernal, “but he only seems to be able to say the one thing.”
As if on cue, Oly spoke up. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Mel. “I guess you’re right. Never mind.”
“That’s all right, Mel,” said Eddie. “You’re thinkin’, and we’re cooperating like neighbors should, tryin’ to figure things out, and that’s what matters.”
Everyone nodded in agreement and sipped their coffee and hot lemonade. Outside, the snow continued to fall.
O O O
Reflecting, Meredith guessed she had secretly hoped that they’d be able to get Rod Bristol to admit to all of the atrocities and vanishings; she still harbored a secret fear that it might have been her. She wasn’t having any blackouts or anything (not since the beginning of the week, anyway), but at times, it seemed as if her thoughts were a bit hazy, and perhaps not entirely her own. Which is not to say it wasn’t her thinking them, more that it felt as if she hadn’t originated them; sort of like the mental equivalent of an organ transplant, or a hand graft: the part is you, feels like you, but didn’t start with you. And if she was feeling like that about herself, then who’s to say that she wasn’t doing or thinking things that she couldn’t remember, either? What if she’d done something awful to those people? People who were her friends, and neighbors? What if she’d been the one killing cattle and livestock? At the very least, Meredith wasn’t growing fur like Bristol. She did wonder, though, what he’d have looked like if the transformation had been allowed to continue. Too late now.
Meredith resolved to
be around other people as much as she could; as unlikely as it was that she’d do some of those awful things, they’d be even more unlikely if June or Shingo were nearby. Besides, there was no reason to go anywhere else, since she wanted to spend what daylight there was working with Hjerald on the research, and her nights with Shingo. She’d be here most of the time, anyway, and when at home, there’ll be no need to go out, either—that Burton boy, Billy, had a lot of meat on him. She wouldn’t need to restock the fridge for days.
O O O
“Meredith, you are not going to believe what Shingo and I found!”
Hjerald came bounding into the main hall as Meredith was helping Delna fill more kettles with water, and it was obvious he’d discovered something grand—she hadn’t seen him this excited since the Mexican coup incident, but it wasn’t so much an excitement of joy as it was one of trepidation—and, perhaps, a little fear?
Shingo, true to the promise he made to Meredith to mend the metaphoric fences with Hjerald, had proposed that the Zen Journalist be given free rein in the Kawaminami’s library to better make progress on the group’s research; a good move, public-relations-wise: Hjerald couldn’t have been any happier if he’d just been told he was the new King of Prussia. Shingo also figured that the effort would pay off later in residual gratitude from Meredith.
Hjerald and Shingo had begun by digging around in the Kawaminami’s refuse pile, which was really anything but. Bristol had instituted an acquisitions system which culled duplicates or divestments from private and scholarly libraries all over the world, and because the Kawaminami’s paid a premium for items they liked, any source which had both a surplus of books and a constant need for funds—such as Universities—made attempts to gain their favor by constantly shipping entire cases of anything and everything which was on paper and not nailed down. Thus, at any given time there were several dozen boxes of literary bric-a-brac lining the walls of the reading rooms. On a hunch, Shingo checked the list of recent shipments, and had discovered that one had been received less than a month earlier from the University of Vienna—Michael Langbein’s University. Moreover, he also discovered that the divestment order had been authorized by one of the school’s Vice-Rectors—Mikaal Gunnar-Galen. Hagen himself.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Meredith said. “In that position, he wouldn’t be signing anything as trivial as a library divestment—that’s hardly even a professor’s job.”
“That’s the unusual part,” said Hjerald. “The department which got rid of the box was the Mathematics school.”
“Why is that unusual?”
“Because,” said Hjerald, “there are a few books in the box, but mostly it’s a collection of music—Schubert, actually.”
Meredith’s brow creased. “What would the Mathematics Department need with a box of Schubert?”
“Exactly why it’s weird. Anyway, there are a bunch of other things there which needed going through to accurately identify, and Shingo’s going to dig around in the archive for a while longer, to see if he can find any related material—he also wanted to wait to present what we have until we can get everyone together, so I thought now would be a good time to go over to …”
He stopped cold when he saw Delna.
“Umm, hey there, Mrs. Beecroft. Uh, how’re you doing?”
“Just fine, thanks, Hjerald,” she responded with her usual good cheer.
“And, uh, Mr. Beecroft? How’s …”
At that moment, Glen loped over and gave his wife a bite on her posterior, then, chortling, began to climb up the chimney until he was some twenty feet off of the ground. He leapt away from the wall, caught one of the antique chandeliers, and swung back and forth while he poured lamp oil into it from a pouch around his neck. When he finished, he dropped to the floor and looked at Hjerald.
“Beats having to get the ladder—it’s out under the snow, anyway.”
Meredith smiled. Hjerald blinked. Glen and Delna, arm in arm, went back over to the counter.
“Meredith? Do they look … I don’t know, hairier, to you?”
Meredith gave him a dirty look. “Hjerald! Shush—don’t be so loud.” She edged closer to him and whispered in his ear. “It’s been a long week—just because they don’t clean up well doesn’t give us the right to criticize. Just look at Eddie.”
Eddie Wallace was sitting dazed in front of an empty glass of lemonade; his head looked as if it had been dipped in lard, and he had a visible aura. Normally, he was a clean-cut, slicked-up, man-about-town. After three days of no showers, though, he looked like the Ugly Fairy had beaten the snot out of him.
“I guess you’re right,” said Hjerald. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right. Now, what were you saying?”
Hjerald scratched his head. “Mmm? Oh, yeah—I was wondering if you’d like to go over to Ottawa with me, to see if we can get anything useful out of the dungeon at the Sun. They may even have some working phones, or something over there that we can use to get in touch with Germany. What do you say?”
Meredith sighed. “It’s not like I have anything better to do,” she complained. Then it occurred to her—the boats they’d seen on the river were all either on fire, or too far away too determine if they’d changed like the cars and planes. She mentioned this to Hjerald.
“No sweat, Reedy,” he answered, a broad smile on his face. “I’ve got an Amazonian longboat, all wood, and two paddles.”
“Should I even ask, where you got …”
“Actually, it’s …”
“Never mind,” Meredith said, waving. “You can tell me while we row.”
On the way out to the docks, Meredith caught a glimpse of Fujiko coming back up Solomon. Her head was bowed, and she looked as if she’d been crying.
Meredith made a mental note to speak to June about it when she got back … something was wrong, and after the scene on her porch the other night, she was uneasy about approaching Fuji directly.
At the dock, Hjerald helped Meredith into the boat, which was narrower than she’d’ve thought, but surprisingly steady. Taking up the oars, they pushed off from the shores of Silvertown and paddled slowly into the mists.
O O O
The journey across the river was uneventful. The snow didn’t really hamper visibility, and it wasn’t yet cold enough for the river to freeze; but without a motor to fight the current, it took a lot longer than usual to cross. It was mid-afternoon before they finally pulled ashore at the docks near Morristown Landing. The normally bustling river was completely silent. No skiffs, or sailboats; no cargo ships or tugs. Nothing that would have normally been heading in one direction or the other.
Something Hjerald forgot was that they’d also be on foot to get into the city; fortunately, after only a few minutes of walking, they came across a horse wandering around in a field near some industrial buildings, searching for grass where the rise of the buildings had blocked the snow. Smaller than most horses Meredith had seen, it was an odd, mottled yellow color—it also had incredibly short legs—but a horse is a horse, and a long walk is a long walk. They approached the docile animal, and climbed on, Hjerald in front. He gave it a gentle kick to the flanks, then clicked his tongue. But the horse didn’t move. He kicked harder, then slapped the horse’s shoulders—nothing.
Meredith had resigned herself to foot blisters and was climbing off, when Hjerald snapped his fingers.
“I got it.”
He grabbed the horse’s ears and yanked them backwards, while simultaneously stretching his leg back to kick it in the genitals. Suddenly the horse gave out a snort and shot off down the road like it’d been fired from a cannon.
Barely hanging on, Meredith pulled herself up and hugged Hjerald more tightly, incredulous. “Hjerald,” she gasped, “what the hell did you do?”
“I figured it out, Reedy,” he explained, grinning.
“What did you figure out?”
“It’s not a horse,” said Hjerald, “it’s a Honda.”
Cruising e
asily at about forty miles per hour, Hjerald pointed the four-legged motorcycle towards the highway, and they headed into Ottawa.
O O O
It took about two hours to get into the city. After tying down Honda in a park (where he could eat some grass while they attended to business), Meredith, and Hjerald walked the rest of the way to the offices of The Daily Sun, not noticing until they were there that except for themselves, the streets were empty.
Completely empty.
Pausing outside the Sun’s lobby, they realized that they’d been deafened by Honda’s continuous farting (having only a 140 cc engine, which was terribly noisy and no fault of his), and so had not realized that the absence of life was mirrored by an absence of noise; even discounting the mechanical noises which had been rendered inactive (or transformed), there should have been some sound waves bouncing back and forth.
Meredith was about to remark on the odd silence, when Hjerald held up a hand, quieting her.
Straining, they listened.
Somewhere in the distance, among the streets of the city, was a faint, almost indiscernible sound. Meredith and Hjerald looked at each other quizzically, until, simultaneously, they realized that the noise …
… Sounded like wheezing.
The two journalists hit the doors in the Sun’s lobby like pile-drivers; they were still swinging when Meredith and Hjerald reached the third floor.
O O O
The offices of the most prominent newspaper in Eastern Canada were, to put it gently, a sodding mess.
Desks were stacked like cordwood; electronics of all kinds, adding machines, phones, computers—were broken and scattered. There were oil lamps, burning, casting a wan glow, and thick, billowy smoke which burned the skin and stung the eyes. The windows were broken, but had been covered over with sheets of metal—parts from filing cabinets, Meredith assumed. And there were bones.
Speechless, Hjerald looked around, face a twisted mass of emotions. It hadn’t taken but a few seconds for him to realize that he wasn’t going to find the working phone lines, or modems, or wire service terminals, or anything else he was expecting, or hoping, to find.
Mythworld: Invisible Moon Page 8
