Savant c-4

by Rex Miller

  "Okay. But just for a minute." She sat on the edge of the sofa. "I'll stay to make sure you eat that." She laughed warmly.

  "Right." He got a spoon and tried some. "Umm. That's very good."

  "We Jews are great believers in the healing properties of some good hot chick' n soup!" She gave the word a comedic emphasis. Trask took a few more spoonfuls. Tried not to slurp, but it was difficult. "This stuff is delicious." The more soup he ate the better Barb Rose looked to him. "I gotta say something to you before you leave. And not just because you brought me chick' n soup. I've been a real asshole. Toward you."

  "You're right. What can I say?" She had a beautiful smile.

  "Don't cover up your feelings like that, Barb. You gotta learn to say what you really think." They both laughed. "But I know I have. I can't explain it. I…"

  "That's the past. Forget it. I wasn't always such an easy person to work with. We're a lot alike. Very competitive."

  "Yeah. That's for sure. I haven't been thinking clearly…about a lot of things, of which—of whom—you were one. Anyway—hope you'll accept my apology."

  "Not necessary. I thought you got a real bum deal at the station, by the way. Not that my opinion is worth anything. I suppose you know I'm leaving?"

  "No. Leaving KCM?"

  "Yep. Gave my notice a few days ago."

  "I hadn't heard. May I ask where you're going?"

  "New York."

  "New York?"

  "CNBC."

  "All right! Congratulations. That's great."

  "I'm pretty excited."

  "You should be." He was happy for her. "That's wonderful, Barb. I'm jealous. How the hell did you get that—not that you're not good at what you do—but wow! New York!"

  "It was weird. A guy we worked with in Memphis went out to the Coast. His specialty is business and entertainment news. And CNBC just hired him to create a new department and he called me."

  "That's terrific. I'll bet Babaloo is grief-stricken!"

  "Babaloo is Babaloo. He had the gig filled by the time I was out of his office. Ditto with yours. He knows a million young writers and broadcasters just crying to crack a market like Kansas City, so it's pretty easy. Even with the crappy money KCM pays." She gestured around the apartment. "I like your wallpaper. Who's your decorator—the Kansas City Star?"

  "Yeah." He laughed. "I'm still wound up on this story and I can't stop. I don't have anywhere to go with it but—what the hell. Gives me something to do besides worry about what to put on my résumés."

  She nodded. Got up from the sofa and eyed her watch. "Gotta run, kid. Let me know when you land somewhere. Okay?"

  "Sure. I don't—I haven't even begun to think about a gig. But I can always get a thing reading news at a little station somewhere. You know—just to put beans on the table. I may not be in too big a hurry to relocate. I've been wanting to write for a long time—and I might try that while I've got the free time."

  "Let's keep in touch," she said.

  "I'd like that. Really." He moved around the counter and reached out to give her a friendly pat. She leaned in to the side of his cheek, making him wish that he'd shaved.

  "I won't give you a real kiss because I don't want the flu," she said, smacking air. "But—bye, hon. Take care and get well."

  "Don't be surprised if you get a phone call from me one day. Okay?"

  "Okay," she said. He opened the door for her and she went out. "Have fun," she added, in the old-time radio lingo for goodbye.

  "Likewise." He'd never really let himself think about how well-built this woman was. Barbra Rozitsky was a looker. He felt better than he'd felt in a week. "Kill'em in the Big Apple," he said to her departing back, and she smiled and waved.

  He closed the door and finished his soup. Then he looked up a telephone number in the Rolodex on his desk, and pressed the buttons on his phone. After a few moments, a man's voice said hello.

  "Hello. May I speak to Kit please?"

  "May I tell her who's calling?"

  "Her father," he said.

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  26

  Death is alone. An impossible monster. A hybrid killer with a core as inhuman and beastly as can be conceived. Like an inexplicable strain of pathogenic bacteria, the core continues to evolve almost independent of the host being.

  Death's thoughts are of food—burritos at the moment. But on other levels, its dark, poisonous, ectogenous malignancy continues to feed on information and remembered pain and pleasure, changing, growing, spreading within the vast host body. As it feeds and evolves it strengthens.

  Death feels the changes and vibrates with the power. Hums with the virulent malignity that makes it stronger, more noxious and fatally toxic, more impervious to antidote.

  Beneath the part that hungers for beef and cheese burritos by the bagful, visceromotor-nerve response quickens, sensations heighten, systems accelerate as they electrify and zap the phrenic controls.

  Beneath the surface of the beast, there are the tiny paroxysms of microelemental transmutation that Dr. Norman would have given his eyeteeth to understand. With each quivering electrocharge there occurs down inside the core another subtle transformation.

  Beneath the skin of the monstrous anomaly that the doctor persists in calling a physical precognate, the godless and godforsaken macrogrossness mutates. Modifies. Powertrips. Nurtures.

  The mutating giant was born for the stalk. Its repulsive goals are abhorrently simple: vengeance and annihilation.

  On its back, inert, it thinks of burritos, and of death-dealing. Its pleasant daydreams are of those upon whom he'll feed. The other food—that is a mundane biological need that intrudes on his deeper motives.

  A massive mound of man sprawled on a filthy camouflage tarp, he turns the pages of Utility Escapes, seeing the name of the cruel stable owner, the daughter of a man who performs certain lab experiments, the father of the boys who killed the animals in the petting zoo, the man who joked of bleeding hearts, the buyer, the clown who keeps creatures in his trailer, the freaks he will ultimately find and dissect.

  Look inside the wrinkled obscenity that is his mind: you will see a landscape so alien that it will shock you. What do you recall from the age of seven? Think back. Memories of Daddy? Begrimed in oily dirt, toiling in the garage, as you watch from the safe haven of Mommy's lap? Remember your sixth year? Watching Aunt and beloved Granny planting hollyhocks, Grandmother amid the larkspur? Can you conjure up a vague remembrance of age five? Perhaps you were alone in your crib and you made a noise with your mouth. Mommy and Daddy rush in to confront the early whistler. "It's baby!" Mother says. "He whistled!"

  Look inside at the beast's first memory: darkness. Warm, soft, liquid darkness. Heat. Critical mass. Pain. An explosive force. Jarring shock. Sudden light. Dazzling, shattering, soul-rending brightness.

  What can you ever hope to understand about such a being? From his first memory there is only pain.

  He recalls the roar of madness and noise, the inundation of horror, the whiplash of overpowering reality, and he remembers being torn, thrust from his mother into the blazing world, ripped from a dark and warm womb of a screaming woman.

  He remembers soaring aloft in the inescapable clutches of a powerful giant who holds him like a dragon, in long slimy claws, soaring into the blinding sky in a sudden nightmare of birthing cataclysm. Pictures the red deluge. The violent, concussive beginning in bright light as he was wrenched from the hot current of his mother's blood.

  He can go back to the beginning but he chooses not to do so. Superior Court of Kansas…in the matter of setting aside the adoption of Daniel…vague fuzz of details blur. Mommy—dead at birth? An adoption that fails to take. A foster mother who says the baby must be disciplined The word inches across his mindscreen as he gazes, unseeing, at the pages of his Bible.

  Around the word disciplined the edges are seared, blackened, where the child was subjected to the intense heat of a stove burner, cigarettes, matches, lighters,
soldering iron—oh, the list is long and memorable. And those are his good memories. He has had enough of this. He has mutated to the power edge. Chaingang is up and moving to the Buick, which he has come to rather appreciate, now that he's made his peace with the seat controls. It is close enough to the hotsheets to make him continually wary, but when he first went back and moved his Olds from the parking lot of the mall, he affixed homemade plates to the Buick, which effectively protect it from the casual "wants and warrants" DMV check, or from the zealous officer or trooper who matches it to a recent sheet.

  The assembly of a fake tag is remarkably simple—child's play, in fact, so long as you have the regional prefix key codes, which are changed each license-renewal period. Once the codes are known, fabrication of a plate is a few minutes handiwork. The easiest way to buy a couple of days' time with a spurious tag is to find a matching model in the area in which you wish to operate, fake their tag, and replace their plates with the fakes, putting theirs on your vehicle. And Chaingang knew a hundred more sophisticated variations on that theme.

  But for all of that, he was sure that within twenty-four hours he'd be in another ride. The thing that watched over him kept him, in most instances, from taking imprudent chances.

  The Buick cruises on a jagged northeast course, the Missouri River to the north, the Kansas City Stockyards a distant stench to the northwest.

  Madison.

  Belleview. H 11.

  Tarkio. H 12.

  Holly

  Mersington. H 13.

  Overpass.

  Viaduct.

  Hard eyes scan the rooftop vantage points. He sees a complex of industrial buildings that tug at him. At such times he is wide open to the inner clockwork that ticks within the nervous system, and he stops the car. Pulls his poundage from behind the wheel with a grunt of effort and scans.

  The rooftops would be ideal for a sniper. A weapon with an effective range of two miles could smash down monkey men from Kansas to Missouri in an are of gunfire. His face beams at the pleasant contemplation of an unimpeded, wide swath of death cutting down the monkeys. He sees a beauty parlor—talk about bizarre misnomers, a dog kennel from the sound of the barking, an arts 'n' crafts store which appears to be closed. No sense of danger, but he is tugged forward and goes with it, moving closer.

  There must be fifty or sixty dogs barking. Yet he sees no kennel signs.

  Chaingang walks around the building. Sees what appears to be a private residential entrance to the building. It is a small, stale-smelling entranceway. There are wooden stairs. The loud barking of dogs is coming from behind the door to the right. He knocks—the gentle tap of a sledgehammer-size fist—more out of curiosity and irritation than anything else.

  "Whatever it is we don't wa—" The man, more effeminate than Tommy Norville could have ever hoped to be, yet oddly macho in his demeanor, was taken aback. He looked up at Bunkowski's size and regained his composure instantly. "What is it?" he snapped.

  "I was looking for a place to board my little pup. Is this a private kennel?"

  "It most certainly is not."

  "Oh, I'm sorry. I heard the barking and thought—" The man was starting to push the chipped wooden door closed and Chaingang slapped the door with the flat of his hand. It ricocheted off the man's chest, knocking him backward into the room.

  "You bastard!" the man shrieked, charging at his huge adversary.

  "Stop," Bunkowski commanded, giving him a firm backfist in the face, but pulling it so as not to hurt him badly. Had Chaingang known what he was about to find, he would have broken his spine in half instead of trying to be easy on the fellow. But at the moment he had gained entry, he was still thinking the occupant might be an individual who cared for animals. This was sufficient cause to spare a monkey's life, in Chaingang's twisted world.

  The hard fist only made the man mad, and he came at him again, scratching, kicking, a whirlwind of hands clawing and striking out, cursing the intruder: "Fat fucking shit ass bitch pig fucking cocksucker—" Chaingang simply pinioned him in a pair of arms that were meant to do only one thing: crush.

  He held the man immobile, one hand over his mouth and nose until it would kill him to continue to do so. He dropped the man, who weighed perhaps 225 pounds, in a limp pile, and as he fought to stay conscious, Chaingang bound his wrists with a cord from his pocket, did the ankles with a nearby extension cord, and—as soon as the fellow had stopped blowing like a whale—gagged him with a shirt found on a nearby chair.

  He was immediately aware of the stench, which had been overpowering the moment he burst in, but which was now so stingingly potent as to put him on guard as he moved toward the barking.

  There is no smell quite so overpowering as that of sewage, and on more than one occasion he had opted to live down below the streets in various sewers and catch basins. Second only to the raw poisonous odor of concentrated sewage, the stench in the next room was the worst in his experience, as was what he faced.

  It was true that perhaps sixty dogs were barking. But there were well over a hundred in the pen. The sight hammered his heart as badly as anything in his adult memory—even worse than the children he'd come upon in Hong Kong that time, or the animals the clown kept in the trailer. This was instantly worse and closed off a part of his mind.

  THEY

  WERE

  IN

  A

  BABY'S

  PLAY

  PEN.

  OVER

  100

  STARVING

  OR

  DEAD

  AND

  OR

  ABUSED

  ANIMALS

  SQUEEZED

  TOGETHER

  IN

  THEIR

  OWN FILTH.

  He did not know what to do could not think had ever had such an experience was not prepared could not force his mind back into operation did not know what he was seeing did not understand could not would not did not should not.

  Before he could think he was, back in kicking the bound faggot like a big football, 15EEEEE kicks low on the legs so as not to kill him, oofing noises escaping the gag, forcing himself to move back, rip the sides open, forcing his mind to deal with it. They were packed in slimy shit. Dead ones. Live ones. Collected from the streets, he supposed. Should he feed and water them first? He walked around through the barking puppies and dead bodies and newspaper—the fucking shit slime monkey dick-sucking faggot had fed them strips of newspaper.

  Newspaper.

  He realized he was spinning in circles. Mad as he'd ever known himself to be. He'd kill any human he saw this second—anyone. Went in and pulled the wrists and ankles into a severe hogtie, yanked the gag, pinching the throat in case he screamed.

  "Where's the dog food in this hovel, you piece of scum shitass queer aw fuck—" He got a handful of shit and newspaper scrap and shoved it into the bound man's mouth.

  "Newspaper! You son of a bitch, I want your skin, your slimy hide up on these fucking walls." He had to force it down and concentrate now. Fifty-seven alive. Opening food. Not enough food. Water in dishes, trays, cups, anything that would hold liquid. Clusters of small wiggling things all over the floor, underfoot. Barking—some of them still afraid or too hurt or ill to eat. Some not able to drink water. All of the animals still alive were badly dehydrated.

  He began looking for containers. More food that small puppies would find edible. He found a dead mother dog and starved litter. Wanted to go back and hurt the man but couldn't yet. Was afraid to. Not yet. He had to fight to remember to breathe. Chaingang Bunkowski—in over forty years—had never been so totally confused.

  He could speak, function, deal with it. He went out to the Buick and got his duffel and returned. Sorting for things he could use. Fifty-seven alive. Nine near death. Syringe. Lethal injections—as humane as any way to put them to sleep, he hoped. Forty-six dogs? Forty-eight? He'd lost count. He let them try to eat and drink as best they could, did a bit of sorting, put a few of the weaker
ones in the bathroom where the others wouldn't bother them. Walked around trying to decide what to do next. Ended up figuring out how he would handle the killing of the man. Decided to learn why he'd done this. Tried to find some clue to motivation before he interrogated him.

  He put together a picture of a man named John Esteban. Bisexual. Had an odd assortment of muscle mags and porn. Body-builder crap. Kid vid. Freak stuff with animals. There were homemade videos, too, but he could not bring himself to view them.

  The beast returned to the bound-and-gagged man and pulled him upright, carried him into the bedroom.

  Went back and gathered boxes of dogs up and sorted them according to category—apparently able to recover, in urgent need of a vet, and seemingly frisky. The Buick stunk like an exploded outhouse when he'd finished packing them into the car.

  "I'll just be a minute or two. We'll attend to you. Be good boys and girls," he told them in a cracked voice, all the doors of the car wide open. He was oblivious to passersby. In fact, at that second he gave a shit for little or nothing. Mercifully, he saw no one in the street. He walked back inside.

  He put the man on his stomach, tethered to the four corners of the bed with cords. Pulled the gag away for a moment with a hand which looked like a large human hand but which had the power of pliers or vise grips. Out of sight was a coiled length of wire and another object.

  "Hello," he said softly in his rumbling basso. "I fed your dogs. I gave them some stuff out of the fridge. I couldn't find any scraps of newspaper to feed, them."

  "You listen to me, you—"

  "Oh, my. Oh, my, Mr. Esteban. I don't suggest you speak again unless I ask you to do so," Chaingang said in the quietest voice with which he was capable of speaking.

  "Gravida—that's what I'm going to call you. Our pet name." He cooed. "Gravida, be a good girl and tell Daniel why you put all those dogs in the pen and gave them only pieces of paper to eat. Do that for me, Gravida, Why? Try to make me understand."