The Dark Country

by Dennis Etchison

  "He won't feel a thing, if that's what you're asking. He doesn't now, and he never will. Not ever again."

  "Then it's all right?"

  I wait.

  "She's at peace, isn't she, despite everything? It all seems so ghastly, somehow. I don't know what to do. Help me, please. ..."

  "Emily," I say with great difficulty. But it must be done. "Do you understand what will happen to your husband if you authorize the Maintenance?''

  She does not answer.

  "Only this. Listen: this is how it begins. First he will be connected to an IBM cell separator, to keep track of leucocytes, platelets, red cells, antigens that can't be stored. He will

  be used around the clock to manufacture an endless red tide for transfusions—"

  "But transfusions save lives!"

  "Not just transfusions, Emily. His veins will be a batde-ground for viruses, for pneumonia, hepatitis, leukemia, live cancers. And then his body will be drained off, like a stuck pig's, and a new supply of experimental toxins pumped in, so that he can go on producing antitoxins for them. Listen to me. He will begin to decay inside, Emily. He will be riddled with disease, tumors, parasites. He will stink with fever. His heart will deform, his brain fester with tubercules, his body cavities run with infection. His hair will fall, his skin yellow, his teeth splinter and rot. In the name of science, Emily, in the name of their beloved research."

  I pause.

  "That is, if he's one of the lucky ones." "But the transplants ..."

  "Yes, that's right! You are so right, Emily. If not the blood, then the transplants. They will take him organ by organ, cell by cell. And it will take years. As long as the machines can keep the lungs and heart moving. And finally, after they've taken his eyes, his kidneys and the rest, it will be time for his nerve tissue, his lymph nodes, his testes. They will drill out his bone marrow, and when there is no more of that left it will be time to remove his stomach and intestines, as soon as they learn how to transplant those parts, too. And they will. Believe me, they will."

  "No, please ..."

  "And when he's been thoroughly, efficiently gutted—or when his body has eaten itself from the inside out—when there is nothing left but a respirated sac bathed from within by its own excrement, do you know what they will do then? Do you? Then they will begin to strip the skin from his limbs, from his skull, a few millimeters at a time, for grafting and re-grafting, until—"

  "Stop!"

  "Take him, Emily! Take your William out of there now, tonight, before the technicians can get their bloody hands on him! Sign nothing! Take him home. Take him away and bury him forever. Do that much for him. And for yourself. Let him rest. Give him that one last, most precious gift. Grant him his final peace. You can do that much, can't you? Can't you?"

  From far away, across miles of the city, I hear the phone drop and then clack dully into place. But only after I have heard another sound, one that I pray I will never hear again.

  Godspeed, Emily, I think, weeping. Godspeed.

  I resume my vigil.

  I try to awaken, and cannot.

  3.

  There is a machine outside my door. It eats people, chews them up and spits out only what it can't use. It wants to get me, I know it does, but I'm not going to let it.

  The call I have been waiting for will never come.

  I'm sure of it now. The doctor, or his nurse or secretary or dialing machine, will never announce that they are done at last, that the procedure is no longer cost-effective, that her remains will be released for burial or cremation. Not yesterday, not today, not ever.

  I have cut her arteries with stolen scalpels. I have dug with an ice pick deep into her brain, hoping to sever her motor centers. I have probed for her ganglia and nerve cords. I have pierced her eardrums. I have inserted needles, trying to puncture her heart and lungs. I have hidden caustics in the folds of her throat. I have ruined her eyes. But it's no use. It will never be enough.

  They will never be done with her.

  When I go to the hospital today she will not be there. She will already have been given to the interns for their spinal taps and arteriograms, for surgical practice on a cadaver that is neither alive nor dead. She will belong to the meat cutters, to the first-year med students with their dull knives and stained cross sections. . . .

  But I know what I will do.

  I will search the floors and labs and secret doors of the wing, and when I find her I will steal her silently away; I will give her safe passage. I can do that much, can't I? I will take her to a place where even they can't reach, beyond the boundaries that separate the living from the dead. I will carry her over the threshold and into that realm, wherever it may be.

  And there I will stay with her, to be there with her, to take refuge with her among the dead. I will tear at my body and my corruption until we are one in soft asylum. And there I will remain, living with death for whatever may be left of eternity.

  Wish me Godspeed.

  THE LATE SHIFT

  They were driving back from a midnight screening of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ("Who will survive and what will be left of them?") when one of them decided they should make the Stop 'N Start Market on the way home. Macklin couldn't be sure later who said it first, and it didn't really matter, for there was the all-night logo, its bright colors cutting through the fog before they had reached 26th Street, and as soon as he saw it Macklin moved over close to the curb and began coasting toward the only sign of life anywhere in town at a quarter to two in the morning.

  They passed through the electric eye at the door, rubbing their faces in the sudden cold light. Macklin peeled off toward the news rack, feeling like a newborn before the LeBoyer Method. He reached into a row of well-thumbed magazines, but they were all chopper, custom car, detective and stroke books, as far as he could see.

  "Please, please, sorry, thank you," the night clerk was saying.

  "No, no," said a woman's voice, "can't you hear? I want that box, that one."

  "Please, please," said the night man again. Macklin glanced up.

  A couple of guys were waiting in line behind her, next to the

  styrofoam ice. chests. One of them cleared his throat and moved his feet.

  The woman was trying to give back a small, oblong carton, but the clerk didn't seem to understand. He picked up the box, turned to the shelf, back to her again.

  Then Macklin saw what it was: a package of one dozen prophylactics from behind the counter, back where they kept the cough syrup and airplane glue and film. That was all she wanted—a pack of Polaroid SX-70 Land Film.

  Macklin wandered to the back of the store.

  "How's it coming, Whitey?"

  "I got the Beer Nuts," said Whitey, "and the Jiffy Pop, but I can't find any Olde English 800." He rummaged through the refrigerated case.

  "Then get Schlitz Malt Liquor," said Macklin. "That ought to do the job." He jerked his head at the counter. "Hey, did you catch that action up there?"

  "What's that?"

  Two more guys hurried in, heading for the wine display. ' 'Never mind. Look, why don't you just take this stuff up there and get a place in line? I'll find us some Schlitz or something. Go on, they won't sell it to us after two o'clock."

  He finally found a six-pack hidden behind some bottles, then picked up a quart of milk and a half-dozen eggs. When he got to the counter, the woman had already given up and gone home. The next man in line asked for cigarettes and beef jerky. Somehow the clerk managed to ring it up; the electronic register and UPC Code lines helped him a lot.

  "Did you get a load of that one?" said Whitey. "Well, I'll be gonged. Old Juano's sure hit the skids, huh? The pits. They should have stood him in an aquarium."

  "Who?"

  "Juano. It is him, right? Take another look." Whitey pretended to study the ceiling.

  Macklin stared at the clerk. Slicked-back hair, dyed and greasy and parted in the middle, a phony Hitler moustache, thrift shop clothes that didn't fit. And h
is skin didn't look right somehow, like he was wearing makeup over a face that hadn't seen the light of day in ages. But Whitey was right. It was Juano. He had waited on Macklin too many times at that little Mexican restaurant over in East L.A., Mama Something's.

  Yes, that was it, Mama Carnita's on Whittier Boulevard. Macklin and his friends, including Whitey, had eaten there maybe fifty or a hundred times, back when they were taking classes at Cal State. It was Juano for sure.

  Whitey set his things on the counter. "How's it going, man?" he said.

  "Thank you," said Juano.

  Macklin laid out the rest and reached for his money. The milk make a lumpy sound when he let go of it. He gave the carton a shake. "Forget this," he said. "It's gone sour." Then, "Haven't seen you around, old buddy. Juano, wasn't it?"

  "Sorry. Sorry," said Juano. He sounded dazed, like a sleepwalker.

  Whitey wouldn't give up. "Hey, they still make that good menudo over there?" He dug in his jeans for change. "God, I could eat about a gallon of it right now, I bet."

  They were both waiting. The seconds ticked by. A radio in the store was playing an old '60's song. Light My Fire, Macklin thought. The Doors. "You remember me, don't you? Jim Macklin." He held out his hand. "And my trusted Indian companion, Whitey? He used to come in there with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

  The clerk dragged his feet to the register, then turned back, turned again. His eyes were half-closed. "Sorry," he said. "Sorry. Please."

  Macklin tossed down the bills, and Whitey counted his coins and slapped them onto the counter top. "Thanks," said Whitey, his upper lip curling back. He hooked a thumb in the direction of the door. "Come on. This place gives me the creeps."

  As he left, Macklin caught a whiff of Juano or whoever he was. The scent was sickeningly sweet, like a gilded lily. His hair? Macklin felt a cold draft blow through his chest, and shuddered; the air conditioning, he thought.

  At the door, Whitey spun around and glared.

  "So what," said Macklin. "Let's go."

  "What time does Tube City here close?"

  "Never. Forget it." He touched his friend's arm.

  "The hell I will," said Whitey. "I'm coming back when they change fucking shifts. About six o'clock, right? I'm going

  to be standing right there in the parking lot when he walks out. That son of a bitch still owes me twenty bucks."

  "Please," muttered the man behind the counter, his eyes fixed on nothing. "Please. Sorry. Thank you."

  The call came around ten. At first he thought it was a gag; he propped his eyelids up and peeked around the apartment, half-expecting to find Whitey still there, curled up asleep among the loaded ashtrays and pinched beer cans. But it was no joke.

  "Okay, okay, I'll be right there," he grumbled, not yet comprehending, and hung up the phone.

  St. John's Hospital on 14th. In the lobby, families milled about, dressed as if on their way to church, watching the elevators and waiting obediently for the clock to signal the start of visiting hours. Business hours, thought Macklin. He got the room number from the desk and went on up.

  A police officer stood stiffly in the hall, taking notes on an accident report form. Macklin got the story from him and from an irritatingly healthy-looking doctor—the official story—and found himself, against his will, believing in it. In some of it.

  His friend had been in an accident, sometime after dawn. His friend's car, the old VW, had gone over an embankment, not far from the Arroyo Seco. His friend had been found near the wreckage, covered with blood and reeking of alcohol. His friend had been drunk.

  "Let's see here now. Any living relatives?" asked the officer. "All we could get out of him was your name. He was in a pretty bad state of shock, they tell me."

  "No relatives," said Macklin. "Maybe back on the reservation. I don't know. I'm not even sure where the—"

  A long, angry rumble of thunder sounded outside the windows. A steely light reflected off the clouds and filtered into the corridor. It mixed with the fluorescents in the ceiling, rendering the hospital interior a hard-edged, silvery gray. The faces of the policeman and the passing nurses took on a shaded, unnatural cast.

  It made no sense. Whitey couldn't have been that drunk when he left Macklin's apartment. Of course he did not actually remember his friend leaving. But Whitey was going to the Stop 'N Start if he was going anywhere, not halfway across the county to—where? Arroyo Seco? It was crazy.

  "Did you say there was liquor in the car?"

  "Afraid so. We found an empty fifth of Jack Daniels wedged between the seats."

  But Macklin knew he didn't keep anything hard at his place, and neither did Whitey, he was sure. Where was he supposed to have gotten it, with every liquor counter in the state shut down for the night?

  And then it hit him. Whitey never, but never drank sour mash whiskey. In fact, Whitey never drank anything stronger than beer, anytime, anyplace. Because he couldn't. It was supposed to have something to do with his liver, as it did with other Amerinds. He just didn't have the right enzymes.

  Macklin waited for the uniforms and coats to move away, then ducked inside.

  "Whitey," he said slowly.

  For there he was, set up against firm pillows, the upper torso and most of the hand bandaged. The arms were bare, except for an ID bracelet and an odd pattern of zigzag lines from wrist to shoulder. The lines seemed to have been painted by an unsteady hand, using a pale gray dye of some kind.

  "Call me by my name," said Whitey groggily. "It's White Feather."

  He was probably shot full of painkillers. But at least he was okay. Wasn't he? "So what's with the war paint, old buddy?"

  "I saw the Death Angel last night."

  Macklin faltered. "I—I hear you're getting out of here real soon," he tried. "You know, you almost had me worried there. But I reckon you're just not ready for the bone orchard yet."

  "Did you hear what I said?"

  "What? Uh, yeah. Yes." What had they shot him up with? Macklin cleared his throat and met his friend's eyes, which were focused beyond him. "What was it, a dream?"

  "A dream," said Whitey. The eyes were glazed, burned out.

  What happened? Whitey, he thought. Whitey. "You put that war paint on yourself?" he said gently.

  "It's pHisoHex," said Whitey, "mixed with lead pencil. I put it on, the nurse washes it off, I put it on again."

  "I see." He didn't, but went on. "So tell me what happened, partner. I couldn't get much out of the doctor."

  The mouth smiled humorlessly, the lips cracking back from the teeth. "It was Juano," said Whitey. He started to laugh bitterly. He touched his ribs and stopped himself.

  Macklin nodded, trying to get the drift. "Did you tell that to the cop out there?"

  "Sure. Cops always believe a drunken Indian. Didn't you know that?"

  "Look. I'll take care of Juano. Don't worry."

  Whitey laughed suddenly in a high voice that Macklin had never heard before. "He-he-he! What are you going to do, kill him?"

  "I don't know," he said, trying to think in spite of the clattering in the hall.

  "They make a living from death, you know," said Whitey.

  Just then a nurse swept into the room, pulling a cart behind her.

  "How did you get in here?" she demanded. "I'm just having a conversation with my friend here." "Well, you'll have to leave. He's scheduled for surgery this afternoon."

  "Do you know about the Trial of the Dead?" asked Whitey.

  "Shh, now," said the nurse. "You can talk to your friend as long as you want to, later."

  "I want to know," said Whitey, as she prepared a syringe.

  "What is it we want to know, now?" she said, preoccupied. "What dead? Where?"

  "Where?" repeated Whitey. "Why, here, of course. The dead are here. Aren't they." It was a statement. "Tell me something. What do you do with them?"

  "Now what nonsense. . . ?" The nurse swabbed his arm, clucking at the ritual lines on the skin.

  "I'm askin
g you a question," said Whitey.

  "Look, I'll be outside," said Macklin, "okay?"

  "This is for you, too," said Whitey. "I want you to hear. Now if you'll just tell us, Miss Nurse. What do you do with the people who die in here?"

  "Would you please—"

  "I can't hear you." Whitey drew his arm away from her. She sighed. "We take them downstairs. Really, this is most . . ."

  But Whitey kept looking at her, nailing her with those expressionless eyes.

  "Oh, the remains are tagged and kept in cold storage," she said, humoring him. "Until arrangements can be made with the family for services. There now, can we—?"

  "But what happens? Between the time they become 'remains' and the services? How long is that? A couple of days? Three?"

  She lost patience and plunged the needle into the arm.

  "Listen," said Macklin, "I'll be around if you need me. And hey, buddy," he added, "we're going to have everything all set up for you when this is over. You'll see. A party, I swear. I can go and get them to send up a TV right now, at least."

  "Like a bicycle for a fish," said Whitey. Macklin attempted a laugh. "You take it easy, now." And then he heard it again, that high, strange voice. "He-he-he! tamunka sni lain." Macklin needed suddenly to be out of there. "Jim?" "What?"

  "I was wrong about something last night." "Yeah?"

  "Sure was. That place wasn't Tube City. This is. He-he-he!"

  That's funny, thought Macklin, like an open grave. He walked out. The last thing he saw was the nurse bending over Whitey, drawing her syringe of blood like an old-fashioned phlebotomist.

  All he could find out that afternoon was that the operation wasn't critical, and that there would be additional X-rays, tests and a period of "observation," though when pressed for details the hospital remained predictably vague no matter how he put the questions.

  Instead of killing time, he made for the Stop 'N Start.

  He stood around until the store was more or less empty, then approached the counter. The manager, whom Macklin knew slightly, was working the register himself.