by Scott Hale
“We should call the police,” Fenton said.
Asher laughed. “And get her on what? Cyber bullying? She’ll just end up with more exposure, more groupies that’ll want to suck her dick, then.”
He pulled down the collar of his shirt and showed them the festering stretch of boils that’d wept across his neck.
“Fuck,” Ramona said, snapping out of her daze.
Fenton covered his mouth. “That smells infected.”
Asher covered himself up. “It was going to take my face off. That’s what it was going to do next. I’ve been keeping to myself but… fuck, it looked like a… fucking jellyfish… thing. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what I saw. It wasn’t her. But it was there for her. And… yeah… Lux has done a lot of good… and we have, too. I feel like… in some ways… we’ve brought Bitter Springs out of the stone age and shit… but… whether she knows what she’s doing or not… or even cares… if she doesn’t stop… I don’t think it will or can… or… I don’t know.
“But she was testing us, like Fenton said. I don’t know if we passed her dumbass… but Echo looked fucking smug, didn’t she?”
Ramona and Fenton nodded.
“She was testing us… and… and now she’s having a party? Getting everyone together? She’s got something planned.” He turned away from them, settled into his seat, and took the car out of park. “I want to be wrong. Lord baby Jesus, do I.” He looked at the passenger’s seat again. “We got to catch her. I don’t know what we’ll do when we do. Call the police? Fucking tackle her? I don’t know. But I love our community. Even the lesbians.”
Ramona huffed, kicked the back of his seat.
“If we don’t do anything, then we’re just as bad as her. As bad as all of them. All the fucking patriarchy and the misogynists and homophobes and the little bitches that package our image and sell it and… Can we do this?” He didn’t look back, but he asked it again. “Can we do this? Please? If we’re wrong, then we’re fucking crazy and wrong, and that’s fine. That’s fine with me. But that thing… or Lux… they’re going to come back for us, eventually.” He sniffed his nose and started to cry. “I’m so fucking sick and tired of not being enough of something. I’m so fucking sick and tired of giving a shit about it, too.”
Ramona slipped her hand through the gap in the headrest and pressed her hand to Asher’s cheek.
“I wish I wasn’t straight right now,” Fenton said, laughing and shaking his head.
Asher wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I wish it didn’t matter.” He started the car up and headed out of the warehouse. “Put a magnifying glass on anything long enough, and the light will always find something to burn.”
The Wharf was as much as of a wharf as it was also a restaurant. Since the foundation of Bitter Springs back in the 1800s (then known as Tranquil Springs), the wharf served an important point on the tri-county river where goods could be loaded and unloaded between Tranquil Springs, Brooksville, and Bedlam, and migrant workers would show up to shore up their failing farms and families in the counties and states north and south of here. As time went on, the wharf expanded, and multiple berths were built to accommodate the increased naval presence. Behind it, warehouses were erected, and they changed hands more times than those hands could count, until the great wars came in the 1900s, and they were transformed into munitions factories. With death on the other side of the world, life in Tranquil Springs couldn’t have been any better.
But then wars ended, and the soldiers were sent home. They came back haunted, possessed by the creatures they had to become to survive the battles they fought and still fought in the theaters of their minds. Many were kind, many were quiet, but those that were not sought violence and bred it when it wouldn’t bear. The munitions factories became bars and brothels, and criminal elements more reactionary than any on the periodic table settled in and set up shop. The Wharf fell into disrepair; its berths broke and turned in with a blanket of dirt on the riverbed. Prostitutes and contraband began to be loaded onto the ships. Brooksville and Bedlam were known as nice places to live, until the waters had turned bitter in Tranquil Springs and corrupted everything they’d touched.
Eventually, the warehouses and the Wharf itself were abandoned, and the pimps and self-proclaimed drug lords moved south. Migrant workers were replaced by the migrant poor, many of whom were the men who’d survived the wars. The upper class pretended this part of the riverfront didn’t exist, while middle class missionaries made frequent trips there, to silence their guilt and stuff bags of socks like presents under the homeless’ trash bag pillows. It wasn’t until the lower-class quarantine broke that Bitter Springs’ politicians turned their attentions to the riverfront. Outrage had made them swivel their chairs around to the issue, but it was the corporations that came calling that made the mayor and his council motivated to do something about the issue.
With gentrification, the Bitter Springs elect set off a bomb that sent the lower-class and homeless scurrying like rats across the river into Brooksville. The warehouses were converted into small, disposable, flavor-of-the-month shops with expensive apartments above them. And the wharf transitioned from a historical hellhole into the Wharf, a bar and grille that, as of two years ago, had dropped the grille part of its name, as the cooks hadn’t been able to keep up with the homegrown, cage-free, cruelty-free, microscopic portions of food that sounded more like a cafeteria dare a than full-course meal (grilled snail served on river rocks with a light coating of shredded seaweed and a side of paste). Expectedly, there was an outrage, as there always was, but in the end, the young, rich yuppies that’d moved in to or frequented the riverfront didn’t mind. The less money they spent on food meant more could be spent on drinks, which worked out for everyone, as most people hated one another, and it was only through alcohol, selfies, and the latest crowdfunded activity that they could find common ground.
In the Wharf, the minorities were the majority; or rather, the majority of the minority stayed the majority. The young and rich were the only ones who could afford, let alone stomach, the scene. The lower-class gays and lesbians had their own haunts on the edges of the riverfront, where the old warehouses met the new whorehouses. For a place that that was the antithesis of everything Lux supposedly believed in, it was surprisingly, but not all that surprisingly, her favorite place to spend her time. She was close with the owner, closer than Echo liked, and her business brought business. There was good money to be had from social justice. Anything could be bled if you squeezed it hard enough.
There was also something else about the Wharf Lux undoubtedly enjoyed. From its docks, one could see, down and across the river, the ruins of Brooksville Manor, the back half of the building jutting out of the water like a stone fin. It was even visible at night, because the construction crews left their lights burning through the dark hours, to scare away squatters and thrill-seekers. It didn’t matter what the time of the day was, because from the Wharf, everyone could see society’s failing. There was going to be a performance art piece about the collapse next weekend. The show was already sold out.
As Asher, Ramona, and Fenton pulled into the Wharf’s parking lot, it became obvious there were far more than eighty people at Lux’s party. One-hundred-and-fifty to two hundred, maybe, but not eighty. Every parking spot was taken, and every meter on the street working overtime. People had parked their cars in the grass and on the sidewalk, and some were even braving being towed from the heavily monitored lots of the shops and apartments. They had come out in skinny-jeaned and flannelled droves. They might not have all been there for Lux, but something told the augurs that wouldn’t last long.
Having decided he had more important shit to care about, Fenton cruised the parking lot until he spotted some hoopty held together by tape and prayers and parked directly behind it. Whoever owned it wouldn’t be moving it again until the sun came back up.
“Okay,” Asher said, getting out of the car, Ramona and Fenton quick to do the same. “Let’s just lie
low and keep an eye on things.”
“No new posts,” Ramona said. She’d had Lux’s blog pulled up. “Not even about the party.”
“I don’t think she’d be caught dead inviting anyone to a party,” Asher said, leading them through the lot to the Wharf.
“It might be hard to stay together,” Fenton said. “She always divides us up to cover more ground at these things.”
The closer they got to the Wharf, the more people they began to see lingering in the dark, chatting, taking pictures of themselves, or occasionally, digging for China in each other’s pants. Some smiled at the augurs, while others gave them anemic nods. Every letter from LGQTBIA appeared to be in attendance tonight, though none of the augurs would necessarily publicly admit that, as it was dangerous to assume someone asexual when they were actually quite sexually active, as long as someone could appreciate their appreciation of scantily clad video game characters. Everyone here and in the Wharf ahead wore their labels on their sleeves; the only problem was the words were often written in a language only they could understand.
The augurs passive-aggressively commented their way through the throngs of people clogging up the stairs to the dining area of the Wharf. Inside, people were so tightly packed they were spilling drinks down the backs of those in front and beside them. Over the speakers fixed to the supports, non-threatening pop music thumped out repetitive lyrics about the price of ass these days, like there was a stock market for that kind of thing.
Ramona got on her tippy-toes and, pushing down on Asher’s shoulder for support, searched their scene for signs of its leader.
“I don’t see…”
“Um, excuse me!” A woman said sharply.
Fenton turned around to find a twenty-something woman unironically wearing a United States flag shirt and shorts patterned with sickles and hammers standing behind him. Her arms were folded over her breasts, and she squeezed them tighter against herself when Fenton noticed this, as if she thought he was leering at her.
“Oh,” he said, “sorry. I didn’t see you standing there.”
The woman squinted and pushed past him, never lowering her arms from her chest.
Behind that woman, a second emerged. She wasn’t wearing anything special—just jeans and a band’s shirt. She appeared to be transitioning, most likely from male to female.
“Sorry,” the second woman said, her voice husky, “Zhe’s been terrible lately.”
The first woman spun around, the red, white, and blue of her shirt turning her into a patriotic tornado, and belted, “Don’t listen to zher. Rodney—” that must’ve been the second woman’s name, “—don’t embarrass us. I don’t need zhim—” she pointed to Fenton, “—or zher—” she pointed to some random redhead in the crowd, “or anybody else ruining my night tonight.”
She huffed, finally lowered her arms, revealing the outline of her bra behind her shirt. In the stars and stripes of the American flag, Fenton could see she’d stuffed her bra. And by the smell of it… it smelled like hamster shavings.
“Zhim? Zher? Zeriously?” Rodney dropped her jaw and rolled her eyes. “Zhem and zher have nothing to with any of this!”
Fenton looked at Ramona and started to laugh. It sounded like two vampires fighting about who’d get to drink the blood next. No wonder people never took them…
Echo came out of nowhere and ushered them into the Wharf and into a corner, behind where the busser stood.
“Hey, oh good, hey.” She smiled and let out an exasperated sigh. “Where were you guys? I thought you weren’t going to show. Lux was so worried.”
Asher’s boils began to throb. “We got stuck in—”
Echo cut him off. “Ramona and Fen, can you do some meet-and-greet?”
Ramona stammered.
Fenton said, “Sure,” without even really thinking about what he was agreeing to.
“Lux asked if you could be our DJ, Ash,” Echo said. “This music sucks.”
Asher snorted. “Of course, she did.”
Echo pointed at the stairs that led up the second floor. “Lux is over there somewhere. She’ll… tell you what she wants.”
A couple of meatheads meandered by and gestured for Asher to follow after them.
“Sorry, he’s mine tonight,” Echo said awkwardly, shooing them off.
Asher said, “I…”
But again, Echo interrupted. “I forgot all the stuff in my car. I got some lights, and my phone, I think, fell between the seats. Can’t find it. Can you help me?”
Ramona and Fenton shook their heads, but Asher mouthed “It’s fine,” and let Echo lead him back out of the restaurant.
Following Echo down the stairs and into mosquito-laced dark, Asher couldn’t recall the last time he’d actually been alone with her. They all had their relating Lux back to the sun thing going on, but there was some truth to the idea that people who orbited her the closest tended to burn up the fastest. Lux was covetous, and Echo loved to be coveted. These days, given how much Lux entrusted to her, Echo was less of a moon and more a star. Something to be stoked. And as Asher trailed after Echo through the parking lot, he realized how well Lux’d groomed her. Echo was the ideal the augurs had failed to achieve.
“How are you, Asher?”
“Alright,” he said, checking the parking lot for signs of the killer. His pocket was dry. That was a good sign. “Lux’s killing it lately.”
Echo looked over her shoulder. “With her get-togethers? Yeah. My car’s just over here.”
Echo started walking faster, towards the end of the lot, where a few feet from the cars, the wharf was sectioned off with guard rails, to prevent anyone from driving into the river below. She raised her keys and pressed the button on them. The car at the farthest end, right against the guard rail, blinked its brakes. She hit another button and the trunk clicked, and then rose up slowly. The brake lights went out. He heard something splash against the cement.
Thinking he had a text message, Asher reached into his pocket, but his phone wasn’t there. Cold sweats in the hot night. His boils breathed their rank perfume. He tried his other pocket and came back only with lint and a receipt for fast food. He spun around, glanced back the way they’d come. No one was nearby, and he couldn’t see his phone anywhere.
“Shit,” Asher patted himself, like the police officer he’d once wanted to be. “Shit.”
Echo, almost to her car, turned around, grinning. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t find… my fucking phone.”
“I bet you left it in the car. Here, help me drag this stuff out of the trunk and I’ll help you find it.”
Asher wandered towards her, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was focused on his peripherals, where he could’ve sworn he’d seen a refraction of light. He tried to sniff the air, but it wasn’t any good. The river always smelled like sulfur.
Lowering her voice, Echo said, “I think we need to have a talk with Lux.”
Asher’s attention snapped onto Echo. “Why?”
“She said some nasty things about all of us on her blog. I know she deleted it, but… that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I worry about her.” She leaned against her car. Something sloshed nearby. “All these murders have her all messed up.”
“She’s always been messed up,” Asher said, going to her.
“You know, when we have sex, she doesn’t do anything for me? I have to go down on her for hours. I know that’s probably too much information—”
Asher stepped up beside the car and looked into the trunk.
“—but I feel like I do so much for her—”
What the hell? Maybe it was because it was so dark that his depth perception was off, but what the hell was wrong with Echo’s trunk? It looked completely shallow, except there was a phone in there… and… how the hell was it floating?
“—and she takes it for granted.”
The phone’s screen turned on. The trunk wasn’t shallow, but filled completely with blood. On the screen was Lux’s
blog, and a new post. There wasn’t much to it. Just a picture of Asher, and below that, a poll with one word. It read: “Impostor?”
Yes and no were the only options. Over ten thousand had voted yes. A little less than thirty had voted no.
Shaking, Asher looked up at Echo.
She said, “How can you call yourself tolerant when you routinely insult lesbians and individuals with mass consumption issues?”
“I… I…”
“Exactly,” Echo said. “It was us or them. And you choose I.”
The blood exploded out of the trunk and crashed into Asher. It flooded his eyes and mouth, and filled up his ears. It smelled and tasted of sea salt and sulfur, and he could hear thousands of voices inside his skull, chanting. Spinning, he dug at his eyes and vomited blood and chunks of food all over his feet.
When he was able to see again, he saw it. The killer. In a blur, it sprung like a spider from the dripping trunk and latched onto him. Asher screamed, and the killer shoved several thick tentacles down his throat. Muffling his cries, they winded down his esophagus into his stomach, and everything they touched erupted with a horrible burning sensation. Asher heaved, choked by the limbs stirring inside him. He threw his fists into the killer, but its other tentacles took his arms and bent them back until they broke.
Asher bawled. He sank his teeth sank into the tentacles. Hot bolts of pain drove into his gums and sliced through his nerves. The killer drove its bell-shaped trunk against his face. In that gelatinous bulb, he saw not his face, but hundreds, thousands of other faces, laughing at him, sneering at him. He didn’t know any of them, and yet he recognized all of them.
The killer made itself heavier and heavier. Asher backpedaled; he hit the guard rail. Smaller, hooked limbs wound out of the creature’s torso and found Asher’s face. They pierced the skin around his eyes and mouth, and behind his ears.
Asher tried to speak, to beg for help, but the tentacles down his throat ballooned outwards, so that he couldn’t breathe.
“Once all the impostors are unmasked, they’ll never trick us ever again,” he heard Echo say.
