Miri watched the fans until they came to a halt. "What are you gonna do?"
"What I have to."
"Cut the bullshit! Do you know what this guy is capable of? Do you?"
Joe remained impassive, his eyes searching her face.
"I found a man with his dick ripped off last night, his guts thrown around his car!" she raged, "I followed a trail of Rhonda's blood, her blood for fuck's sake, to that fucking god-forsaken alley. I saw her, all cut up, being dragged away. Being ..." Sobs wracked her as she slumped and buried her face in the crook of her arm.
Others in the restaurant looked on with concern or surprise. A pair of teenagers two tables over dragged their trays away a safer distance. An old man clutching a bulging paper bag shook his head as he shambled out of the restaurant.
"Miri, I'm sorry." Joe embraced her and pulled her into his chest. Her sobs shook them both as he fought to calm her. "It's the only way. The only way."
#
III - The City's Dark Heart
Night swirled across the city, a blanket offering refuge from the ugliness uncovered during the day. The Strip returned to life—a hive of gaudy lights casting long shadows into the Fringe. The garbage thrown into the gutter was hidden, forgotten in the darkness as more pressing questions of flesh and pleasure, of pain and power, threw themselves into the faces of the parasites thronging in the Strip.
Like every other night, Johnny Caballero stood by the door of the Aphrodite, selling heroin by tenths of a gram, wrapped in little origami shapes to make it more appealing to glaze-eyed teenagers. Two doors down, Tiny and Mal, both walls of flesh dressed in black, accepted twenty dollar donations for VIP access to peepshows starring double D cup platinum blondes.
Their line of patrons always snaked past The Tower Bar, where Eugene, the greasy-haired owner, spun a web of deals with local 'businessman' Lou Matheris while joking about the perverts lining up outside to wank themselves in a pastel 2x3 booth.
Life had persisted like this in the Strip for generations. The clubs and shows would change name, the personnel would turn over, some moving on to better things, others overdosing or disappearing, but the meanness, the spirit of the Strip, remained much the same. A spirit that had strengthened over the years, building like a blocked sewer—an amalgamated shit-pile of bad karma.
The murders, committed by the psychotic and mysterious Mr X, were bringing this festering heap to a critical mass.
#
"Miri, I'm right here with you." Joe entwined his arm through hers.
Miri still wore Joe's leather jacket. It smelled faintly of him: a confusing mix of fresh earth, aftershave, and copper. While it provided valuable warmth, nothing could be done about the chill that settled inside her bones.
The taint of pollution normally so rife in the alleys of the Fringe was dampened by the cold air.
Miri found nothing in the bleakness on which to focus her attention, choosing instead to study Joe as he walked beside her. He was dressed in simple black jeans and a long-sleeve t-shirt. The cold didn't affect him like everyone else. She supposed his store of warmth must go much deeper than his hands.
As they marched on, she struggled between comfort and unease as she looked upon his face, so sharp and so determined. His aura of calm still enveloped her, yet that terrible rage she'd sensed earlier roiled just beneath the surface. His grey eyes, cold like steel, stone-like, masked his inner thoughts.
"Everything has a spirit, Miri." Joe broke the silence. "Just as your flesh has a soul, so do places like the Strip. Have you felt it?"
"I think I have," she answered, remembering hazy fragments from the alley last night. "There are alleys here, you know, bad places, where it feels almost alive."
"Just be careful, the older the place, the stronger the spirit," Joe warned. "The Strip has had a long time to fester. Long ago, this area used to be much bigger. The Strip and the Fringe were all one district back then. While there was sex and crime even then, it was small time. Over the years, this area has become more of a blight on the whole city. The corruption is now concentrated."
Miri nodded and gripped his arm tighter. History seemed to press in on her from all sides.
Her heart sank deep within her chest when they passed the spot where she'd found the abandoned car—the murder site. The car was gone now, removed by the cops but marked by yellow police tape. Yet, that dejá-vu sensation returned. She closed her eyes, listening to the footfall of heels on asphalt. She saw without seeing as the dream/memory returned to her mind's eye.
In blurred snippets, the scenes replayed themselves: the car; the bloody window; the mutilated body; the departing trail of blood. Caught in the surreal dream-state, supported by Joe's arm, she followed Rhonda's blood trail, leading them to the white post marking her descent into this madness.
"This is it," she breathed.
In her mind's eye, the hand-shaped smears of blood were still on the post, although the police had scrubbed it clean.
"Take me through." Joe's voice was echoed and distant.
She opened her eyes, for an instant believing the blood trail was still there glistening like an oil slick in the moonlight. Her superimposed dream vision vanished, replaced by brooding, empty darkness. A burnt tar smell wafted on the breeze.
Joe still held her arm as she stepped into the walkway. Her shivering intensified, robbing her limbs of vitality. As she lurched forward into the palpable darkness, Joe lagged.
"Miri, you have to want me to be in there." Joe's voice sounded is if it were underwater.
Miri pulled his arm, and with each laborious step, it was as though she were dragging him though quicksand. The walkway was as suffocating as she remembered. The walls crowded in on both sides. She could have stretched her arms wide and not touched either wall, but every time she turned her head and lost concentration, bricks brushed her shoulder. They were cold, rough, and sapping.
Slowly, insanely slowly, she hauled Joe through the heavy air to emerge into the alley on the far side. Joe fell to the ground like a dead weight. Miri stumbled forward when his hand let go, the air returning to its normal consistency, albeit cold, so very cold. Her stumble propelled her into the very centre of the alley.
The alley stretched on into darkness at the far end. It was tight, barely more than a car's width, and fenced in by the stone walls of abandoned factories. Stunted, naked shrubs thrust up from cracks in the footpath, pathetic parodies of living trees. The waning moonlight found no home in this alley—its recesses were beyond the redemption of even the most persistent light.
Nothing living had set foot in this alley for a very long time yet paraphernalia from the Strip and surrounds was strewn about. Belts and clothing were interspersed with bottles and mirror shards glittering in the shadows, and with used needles and plastic fit packs, the all-in-one drug kits Miri had seen used every night. Rusted chains sprawled uncoiled in the alley like segmented serpents. Darker shapes were also scattered about. Knives. Cogs and gears—the guts of machinery whose purpose was lost to antiquity. Spent handgun shells. An axe. The alley was ajumble with decades' worth of the Strip's bric-a-brac. The refuse of refuse, cast-offs from cast-offs.
Figures distinguished themselves from the darkness. From a rusted roller door set into one of the high brick walls, three forms emerged. More coalesced nearby, taking shape before her eyes.
Miri stifled a scream and looked to Joe for help, but he was still unconscious.
More than a dozen figures soon lined the alley. Wisps of darkness transformed into solid matter as they assumed their true forms: murdered whores.
Rhonda was nearby, running a hand suggestively down her blood-soaked thigh. She wore the clothes of her death: stockings, skirt, and a frilly red barmaid top. These clothes were slashed to pieces, revealing blood-slicked breasts and slivers of loose skin and gore beneath. Slices of her face were missing, torn away by Mr X's rampage.
The women lining the alley, some she once knew, writhed and posed, flaunting th
eir undead flesh in a grotesque parody of their working routines. All were slashed to pieces, some with hands or arms missing. One of the more decomposed prostitutes was decapitated but gestured at her nonetheless.
Another shadow wavered near the recessed roller door. Shimmering like a mirage, it remained insubstantial, a formless ghost watching the parade of dead women gyrating at Miri.
"Oh, fuck." Miri stepped back toward the pathway.
The shadow convulsed.
A heavy weight struck Miri's lower abdomen, a bundle of warmth that surged and tingled. She faltered, her eyes darted from side to side, and she clutched at her abdomen in an attempt to contain the sensation. The overwhelming tingle, the heat, the throbbing, intensified and seeped into her thighs and stomach. Her skin prickled and she broke out in a sweat. The pungent smell of her sex was sudden and sharp in her nose.
Unable to fight the urges mounting inside her, she unwittingly joined the parade of whores in their writhing. Her nails dug into the softness of her belly as she rubbed her thighs together and exulted in her growing wetness.
Rhonda and some of the other corpses stepped closer, gyrating in sympathy.
The duality struggled in Miri's mind once more. As Rhonda approached within arm's length, Miri's mind recoiled, sickened by the disgusting thing that was once her friend. Yet, her traitorous body oozed sex. The nova of heat welling in her abdomen, spilling into her limbs and breasts, consumed even her loathing and fear.
An orgasmic shudder wracked her body as Rhonda's cold fingers pinched her nipple and tugged.
"No," Miri stuttered, but the word ended in a moan.
The undead face filled hers. A cold, wet mass of tongue forced its way between her lips—disloyal lips that parted to allow entry. Rhonda's skin was like ice pressed on Miri's face as she lapped at the bloated tongue inside her mouth. Smears of moisture—blood from the slashes gouged across Rhonda's face—covered her cheeks as she relented to the violation.
The shadow solidified into a vague humanoid shape. The debris scattered about the alley was drawn into it as though it were a magnet. Rusted gears trundled towards it, shards of steel and glass scraped stone as they were drawn to the shadow, needles, bottle caps, wires, and bullets flew through the air, sucked into the vortex of trash. In moments, the shadow became a golem of refuse.
The creature moved with surprising agility, swinging an axe for an arm; asphalt, a crow bar, twisted metal, and part of a trash can formed the bulk of its legs.
As it closed on Miri and Rhonda, still firmly and sickeningly entwined, it smiled with a row of needles for teeth, sputtering white-grey powder and blood as its syringes simultaneously expelled. It reached toward Miri with a hand of glass, knives, scissors, and razorblades.
"That's enough!" Joe shouted. "Miriel, step away."
Oblivious to the creature, Miri sucked at the icy slug of Rhonda's tongue inside her mouth, rejoicing in the saturation as her face was smudged with Rhonda's blood. Joe's words were confusing, without meaning.
A hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her free. The spell vanished as she stumbled and scraped her knee on the asphalt. Her hand landed perilously close to a needle crusted with dark liquid.
The warmth inside her had disappeared, replaced by disgust and the pain flaring from her knee. She collapsed and heaved the contents of her stomach, what little there was, into a puddle before her. She kept vomiting but the gnawing sensation in her gut wouldn't subside.
"Enough of these perversions." Joe stepped in front of Miri, facing off against the trash creature, his concrete-coloured eyes filled with contempt.
Rhonda and the rest of the dead whores backed away.
The creature swung its axe arm at Joe with sudden force, catching him off guard. The swing passed within a whisker of Joe's throat.
Joe ducked back and dodged a second swing from the creature's other arm. The amalgam of glass and steel would have shredded Joe's chest if it had connected.
The creature lunged forward, swinging its axe a second time, but Joe foresaw the move, catching the axe handle and wrenching it free with a grunt. A tin can lid and bronze tokens spilled free from the creature's shoulder socket, accompanied by the shrill crescendo of a poker machine win. Its torso shuddered and flashed three dim yellow lights.
Using his momentum, Joe spun low and hard, swinging the axe in a 360 degree arc. It slammed into the creature's chest. Debris flew across the alley as the creature's bric-a-brac body came apart under the blow.
Joe allowed the axe to clatter to the ground and turned to Miri, who was absent-mindedly wiping her mouth and gaping at the pile of debris. "You okay, Miri?"
"Never better." She rubbed at something wet on her forehead and found it to be Rhonda's blood.
Joe offered a hand to Miri. She rubbed the blood off on her leather jacket but winced when she remembered the jacket was Joe's.
"It'll come out," Joe smiled.
As Joe pulled Miri to her feet, she heard the clatter of metal on metal. The pile of debris began forming the trash body of Mr X once more. Pistons, hubcaps, and other auto parts, along with a broken rake, a rusted saw blade, bottles, cans, and strips of cloth were all drawn into the pile from the furthest reaches of the alley.
Joe shoved Miri back towards the walkway. "Get out of here, Miri!"
"Joe!" Miri screamed.
Joe turned but too late.
Miri gasped. Mr X had flung a barrage of projectiles—knives, a scissor blade, a broken bottle neck, and mirror shards—at Joe and all had stuck him in the chest and stomach with deadly accuracy. Joe groaned from the impact, the force of which threw him to the ground.
Mr X turned its attention to Miri. It shambled forward, reaching for her with a jagged embrace. Miri shrank back from its advance, glancing from Joe's body back to the creature.
The clatter of metal and shattering glass snatched her attention. The deadly projectiles had fallen free of Joe, and his entire body was transforming into a deep grey, as dark as the alley itself.
"You don't know who I am, do you?" Joe rumbled. His voice was gravelly, as though it were emanating from the very depths of the earth.
Mr X turned from Miri and fell upon Joe, bludgeoning and slashing, hacking and smashing. Joe shrugged the blows off, his grey body seemingly impervious to the creature's attacks. As Mr X continued to pound away with greater ferocity, swinging its axe and blades, pummelling with the weight of its metal appendages, Joe began to merge with and sink into the alley. In moments, Mr X was clawing at the asphalt of the alley and nothing more. Sparks flew as its blades bit into the hard ground.
The creature pounded both appendages into the alley in frustration and keened. Miri covered her ears at the sound, which was like a car horn, the friction-whine of a dancer sliding down a pole, and to some deeper part of her subconscious, Rhonda's dying scream.
The undead whores wavered with the sound and became insubstantial once more before vanishing altogether.
Movement from a darker corner of the too-dark alley caught both Miri's and Mr X's attention.
"I had tried to deny you," Joe rumbled from the shadows. "But now I have come to reclaim you."
Mr X charged toward Joe's voice but was brought to a sudden halt by something that shot from the shadows and slammed into its chest. To Miri's eyes, the concrete-grey appendage had the same lines and patterns as the North Street Bridge, which her Aunt Julie had taken her across in happier times. It forced Mr X back against the alley wall.
Something stepped forward that resembled Joe but not, something that still bore his essence. Perhaps Miri's eyes had adjusted to the dim light, but the longer she watched the spectacle unfold, little details about Joe-but-not-Joe, impossible details, became clear.
He was larger, more powerful. That sense of history pressing in on her returned but was much more intense. She was a witness to something old, something ancient, with which she felt a kinship, a connection.
The arm that pinned Mr X against the wall no longer reminded
Miri of a bridge. Just a human arm, albeit grey. As Joe shifted closer to Mr X, the arm reminded her of the stretch the Western Highway she travelled by bus each day to school. Joe's back appeared square and indomitable like the proud old Hanworth's factory or the neo-gothic Doolan Brothers Building. He stood on legs tall and strong like the ancient gums in Memorial Park or the pylons at Ascot Pier.
His brow a cathedral spire, squared off like a downtown apartment block, crowned with skyscrapers. A corona of brown-grey haze circled his head. The impossible scent of pine, sand and brine, of newly mixed tar, rubber, and the cloying mix of perfume and sweat all filled the alley.
Mr X flailed but couldn't escape Joe's grip. The poker machine lights in its torso blinked, and bolts, bottle tops, and pieces of glass fell free as it struggled.
"I reclaim you," Joe rumbled. He knifed his free hand forward. It disappeared into Mr X's chest.
A thin screech punctured the alley. It was the shriek of a raped teenager, the shattering glass of a bar fight, the electrical hum of a neon sign, and the final, stuttering breath before an overdose.
The ground shook as an earthquake took hold.
Miri braced herself against the wall on far side of the alley.
More pieces of Mr X fell to the ground. At first, only small items like nails and syringes, but soon, substantial chunks were shaken loose.
"You've been out of control for too long." Joe's voice sounded more human.
The creature in his grasp bucked and thrashed as more and more pieces of its body fell free. Joe's arm had darkened as though he were drawing the shadowy essence of Mr X into himself.
Joe buckled to one knee from the effort but strained a smile at Miri when she gasped with concern. Miri felt warmth and safety in that smile, as though she were back home in the suburbs, back in the house at Wyndham Crescent when her dad was still alive and Rex the Labrador hadn't been hit by a delivery van. She closed her eyes to preserve the fleeting memory.
Apocrypha Sequence: Deviance Page 5
