by Edward Lee
Martin laughed. “You must be psychic. We were just wondering where we could get an ice cream cone.”
Maedeen opened a cooler and gave them each a vanilla scoop on sugar cones. “I make it myself,” she said.
“Thank you,” Ann said. “I’m—”
“Ann, and you must be Martin,” Maedeen told them. “And, no, I’m not psychic. Your mother told me you’d be in town.”
“Does Mr. Nale still work here?”
“No, he died several years ago. I run the store now.”
Martin looked the place over. “Quaint,” he remarked. “They sure don’t have stores like this in the city.”
“Everything in the shop is made by yours truly,” Maedeen informed him. “Ann’s mother said you’re a writer?”
“Yeah, or at least I try to be. I have four books out. Out, as in out of print.”
“It must be exciting, to be able to perpetuate yourself so creatively. I’ve always wanted to write but could never seem to get anything down.”
“Don’t let that stop you.” Martin laughed. “It hasn’t stopped me. But you’re right, it is exciting to actually have something you’ve written published and put out into the world.”
Ann felt faintly jealous of this short and rather spacey woman, but then Maedeen addressed Ann directly. “Melanie and my daughter, Wendlyn, seem to be hitting it off very well.”
This took Ann by surprise. “Oh, I didn’t even know—”
“They met yesterday, she and Rena—that’s Milly’s daughter.” Maedeen smiled. “I hope they all get to be good friends.”
«« — »»
“She seems nice,” Martin said when they drove back to the house.
“She seems weird,” Ann elaborated.
“Why do you say that?”
Ann finished her ice cream cone. “I don’t know. It’s just weird how she knew about us.”
“You’re right about that. It was the same way last night at the bar. I’d never met any of those guys before, but they all knew about me and you. It’s like your mother announced our coming to the whole town.”
Ann nodded. “And it’s strange that Melanie didn’t mention anything to me about meeting Maedeen’s and Milly’s daughters.”
“Well, at least it’s good that she’s found some kids her own age.”
“And I didn’t particularly care for the way she was looking at you.”
“Who? Maedeen?”
“Yeah, Maedeen.”
Martin let out a laugh. “It’s not easy being God’s gift to women, Ann. Women can’t resist me, which is understandable, considering my vast intellect, indisputable charm, and obvious good looks.”
“Martin, you’re so full of shit you need a toilet brush to clean your ears.”
“Hey, look.” Martin pointed. “Is that Melanie?”
“It better not be,” Ann said when she looked across. Three girls and a boy were going into a house. The boy wore jeans, combat boots, and a leather jacket with buttons on it. His black hair was very short on the back and sides but so long in front that some strands hung past his nose. And one of the girls looked like Melanie.
The four went into the house and closed the door.
“Jesus Christ,” Ann commented. “Is there no end to it?”
“Here we go—”
“Did you see that guy, Martin? I thought Sid Vicious was dead. Just once I’d like to see her hang out with someone normal.”
“Normal by your standards, you mean.”
“Don’t you start that shit again, Martin. I’m going to get her.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Martin told her.
“Well, pardon me. Need I remind you that she’s my daughter?”
“And need I remind you that she’s capable of choosing her friends herself—”
“That guy looks like a nut!”
“Why? Because he’s not wearing Brooks Brothers? Get with it, Ann. All her friends back in the city dress like that.”
“Yeah, and they’re all nuts too!”
“How do you know? You’ve never even made the effort to meet any of her friends. And did you stop to think that maybe the reason Melanie feels so alienated is because you alienate her?”
Ann sputtered. He’s starting to sound like my mother. Could she help if it she didn’t want her only child hanging around with a guy who looked like he just stepped off the drug train? At least the girls looked normal.
“Trust her, Ann,” Martin went on. “Just because the guy looks different doesn’t mean they’re going in there to smoke dope.”
«« — »»
Zack removed the joint from his jacket pocket. He passed it and a lighter to Wendlyn.
“So how long are you in town?” he asked Melanie.
“Just for the rest of the week, I think,” she said, but she felt so distracted she barely heard her own words. Zack was a dream. Cool blue eyes, great haircut, great body. Under the black leather jacket he wore a NIN T shirt which was tight enough to show off his washboard abdominals. Zack was the last kind of person she’d ever expect to find in a town like Lockwood.
“Rena and Wendlyn said you live at the church.”
“Yeah, I take care of the place. They give me a room in the basement. It’s not a bad deal.”
Wendlyn and Rena huddled together on the couch. They passed the joint back and forth a few times. Then Rena passed it to Melanie.
“You sure this stuff isn’t pot?”
“We told you, it’s leahroot,” Wendlyn said.
“Go ahead,” Rena said.
Melanie looked at the tiny joint. She remembered how it had affected her last night. What the hell, she thought.
One hit, and Melanie felt weightless, giddy. She lazily looked around. Rena’s house was cramped and old but it was neat. It felt lived in, more like a real home than Melanie’s antiseptic condo.
“I had a dream about you last night,” Rena said.
Melanie looked at her. I had a dream about you too, she was tempted to reply but didn’t dare.
Wendlyn, oddly, seemed to be grinning.
“We’ll let you two get better acquainted,” Rena feigned in a floozy accent. Then she and Wendlyn went toward the back of the house.
Melanie wondered why she didn’t feel nervous. Ordinarily, she would be, suddenly sitting here with a near perfect stranger. But there was something about Zack, though he hadn’t said much, that put her at ease.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Kind of all over,” Zack said. “I was on my own for a while, when I was younger. Your grandmother sort of took me in. I owe her a lot.”
She wanted to ask him something commonplace, like about school, but then it occurred to her that he probably hadn’t had much education. Some people were more fortunate than others.
His jacket sported several Goth buttons. One of them read “Killing Joke.”
“Killing Joke?” she enthused. “That’s my favorite group.”
“Yeah? I saw ’em a few years ago when I was passing through D.C., before they broke up. I met ’em after the show—pretty cool bunch of guys.”
This astonished Melanie. “You met Killing Joke?”
“Yeah, backstage after the show. They autographed one of my CD covers. I’ll show it to you sometime.”
Melanie didn’t know if she believed this. To her, meeting Killing Joke was the equivalent of a priest meeting the Apostles.
“Only bad thing about Lockwood is not many people are into good music,” he said. “Come on, I’ll show you my music collection.”
Melanie was taken aback. Should she go? She’d like to. But where to exactly? “Where did Wendlyn and Rena go?”
Zack shrugged. “Who cares? We’ll run into them later. Come on.”
“Okay,” she said. Zack stubbed out the joint and pocketed it. Mom would love this, she thought, amused. He led her outside across some yards. More houses like Rena’s could be seen, small but picturesque. Melanie walked along, still h
igh from the joint. Zack walked close behind her; he took off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder. God, she thought. The tight T shirt clung to a well developed back and shoulders. He was lean but well built. His biceps bulged.
“You’re probably bored here already,” he suggested.
“Why do you say that?”
“I mean, a girl like you—in Lockwood.”
“What do you mean, a girl like me?”
“You know. Classy. Educated.”
Melanie felt flattered. “I like Lockwood. It’s different.”
Zack seemed to snort a laugh. “You’re right about that.”
She wasn’t quite sure what he meant. Great ass too, she thought, taking a glance. “Did you really meet Killing Joke?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, I believe you, I just—”
“You’ll see,” he said.
She found his aloofness as attractive as his body. His slow casual gait somehow propelled him so quickly that Melanie nearly had to jog to keep up. She didn’t feel comfortable cutting between houses—someone might call the police; at least, in the city they would. In one window she saw several women sitting around a table; they seemed huddled. Then she saw the same thing in a window of the next house. Another room showed a man sitting alone. He was staring at the wall.
“That was quick,” she said.
The shortcut brought them to the town square in minutes. The sun was going down just over the peaked roof of the church.
That’s where he was taking her: the church.
What a strange place to live, she thought.
“Down here.”
In back, steps descended into a brick walled enclosure in the ground, and a door. A hinge keened.
“Home, sweet home,” Zack remarked. Light from a bare bulb lit a long cinder block walled room. One end was cramped with a small bed, a dresser, and a chair. But then she saw what most of the room was devoted to: rows of shelves which contained hundreds, if not thousands, of records and compact discs.
“Jesus,” she whispered.
“It ain’t Buckingham Palace, but it’s all I need.”
“No, I meant your collection.”
“Yeah, and check out my gear.”
Arranged at the back of the basement was a stereo system the likes of which Melanie could never imagine. Steel racks on floor points housed dual amplifiers the size of televisions, a Nakamichi DAT recorder, an ARCAM CD player, and a line conditioner. Another stand on points supported a turntable with a linear air bearing tone arm. A subwoofer separated two giant electrostatic speakers the size of doors.
“It’s my pride and joy,” Zack said. “Gotta leave the equipment on all the time or else it sounds edgy. A high end turntable blows compact discs away; most people don’t realize that. Of course, most people don’t spend twenty five grand on a stereo system.”
“Twenty five thousand?” Melanie whispered.
“Sure. Music’s my only pleasure. I don’t cut corners.”
“They must pay you pretty well to clean up the church.”
Zack laughed faintly. “They don’t pay me nothing, ’cept they give me the room for free.”
“Then how can you afford…all this?”
“Odd jobs,” Zack replied. He walked over to one of the shelves and removed something. “Check this out.”
Melanie held it as if it were an icon. The CD version of Killing Joke’s Nighttime. It had been autographed by all members of the band, and inside was a Polaroid of Zack standing next to the lead singer.
“Believe me now?”
Melanie nodded. All she could say was: “Wow.”
“You can have it,” he said.
Melanie was shocked. “Oh, no, I could never take—”
“If you want it, take it.” Abruptly, he turned away.
Melanie’s sense of cordiality lapsed. She knew she shouldn’t take it, but she did anyway. An autographed Killing Joke, she thought, awed. She would frame it, hang it in her room. “Thanks,” she said.
She perused his record shelves. He had everything. Everything by Killing Joke, PIL, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magazine, Monochrome Set, Section 25, Strange Boutique—the old stuff that actually predated Goth. Melanie couldn’t believe the coincidence: her and Zack’s musical tastes were identical. He had everything by anyone good.
He played some records and discs for her. The huge speakers threw a soundstage that overwhelmed her. Zack seemed to enjoy playing the music as much as she enjoyed listening to it. He mustn’t get much of a chance to show off his system, not in a town like Lockwood.
They listened for hours. She never got bored, but eventually she grew fidgety. She knew what it was. When her high wore off, it left something like a hot anguish in its place. She felt steamy, tingly.
She’d never done anything so overt before.
She took his hand and led him toward the bed.
“You’re very special,” he said, and turned off the lights.
—
Chapter 16
Providence, Erik thought.
He had to travel in snatches, at night. Several times police had passed him—he’d thought sure that was the end. How much longer would his luck last?
He’d lay low tonight, he couldn’t afford not to. He’d driven past Lockwood on Route 13, to the woodlands. An old trail he remembered took him deep into the forest belt. They’d never find him here. He covered the van with brush and mud, to mask its lacquered white paint.
He knew he still had a few days.
He felt buried in the dark woods, closed in. Buried, he thought. Brygor-wreccan.
I’m a peow, he thought.
The moon shone down. Its light pinkened the dense forest.
Doefolmon, he thought.
Wiffek.
Fulluht Loc.
In the moon’s bleary light, he saw it all again. He saw them. Bathing in glee, in blood. He saw their mad feasts, their supple bodies, and their longing eyes and lust which stripped him of his soul.
They weren’t people. They were monsters.
How many graves did I dig for them?
He’d watched their mad rituals many times. They’d held the hüsls down on the slab, slicing them open like fish and reeling out their entrails, oblivious to the mad, lurching screams. Erik knew that he would hear those screams forever. The more privileged wreccans tended to far worse matters, things which beggared description…
Dohtor, he thought.
Dother.
Dother fo Dother.
He’d seen it once, in the night mirror. That had been many years ago. They’d held his head by his hair and made him look, had pried his eyelids open with their fingers. It had been like being drowned in blood.
Afterward, they’d nearly fucked him to death.
«« — »»
Martin dreamed of Maedeen.
Even within the dream, he knew it was a dream. Because he would never do such things for real. Never.
He loved Ann more than he’d ever loved anyone in his life. Cheating on her would be like cutting her. It was unthinkable.
So what did the dream mean?
He was walking around in the darkness, in the woods. Tinder crunched—the moon’s pink light led him through a labyrinth of trees.
He’d been assigned a task. A cramped clearing formed, bright in moonlight. At his feet lay a pile of bags. They were regular plastic garbage bags, Hefty kitchen size. They’d been tied up and neatly stacked. Martin didn’t know what was in them, and he didn’t care. He only knew he was supposed to do something with them.
He was supposed to bury them.
It hadn’t taken long to dig the hole. Next, he was placing the bags, one at a time, into the hole. Though small, they felt heavy, weighted. He calmly filled the hole with the little bags, then covered them with earth. Plap, plap, plap! came the sound as the dirt landed on the plastic.
When he was done, he leaned against a tree and flinched. There was something wet and slick on
the tree trunk. In the moonlight, his palm looked black.
Faint giggling bubbled out of the dark.
Martin wended back into the woods. The giggling sounded a lot like girls, children perhaps. The moonlight was bright and pink.
He stopped, tried to focus.
A slender, naked girl was leaning over. Martin stared fixedly. He looked at her long, slender legs, the sparse cleft of fur where they joined. The fur protruded as she leaned over further, and he could see the bottoms of her beasts jiggling slightly as her arm moved in some arcane task. This sudden sight—this beautiful nude girl pristine in moonlight, her buttocks jutting—aroused Martin at once. But when she turned, he gasped.
It was Melanie.
“Hi, Martin,” she said. She was grinning.
Embarrassment flooded him. Her nakedness faced him without inhibition. This was a seventeen year old—his lover’s daughter. Yet she seemed to sense his unease, she seemed to delight in it.
“You want to fuck me, don’t you?” she queried.
“No,” Martin said, but the reply was roughened, dry.
“Don’t lie to me, you pig. When I was leaning over a minute ago, you wanted to take your cock out, didn’t you? You wanted to walk right up behind me and put it in me. Didn’t you?”
“No,” Martin croaked.
She grinned back at him. She looked just like Ann, the same breasts and nipples, the same legs—just younger. In one hand she held a pail, but it looked old, rusty. It looked like a relic. In her other hand she held a crude brush, like a paintbrush.
That’s what she’d been doing. She’d been painting something on the trees.
Then two more girls emerged from the darkness. They, too, were naked. Their matching grins seemed obscene, their bodies tinted pink. They each held a brush and a pail too.
What was this? Why were they painting trees?
One girl seemed younger, slimmer; she scarcely had any pubic hair at all. The third girl’s bosom jutted. She was more developed, more curvy and plush.
“Get that shit off,” said the youngest.
“What?”
