Secret Dead Men

by Duane Swierczynski

  And then, as quickly as my spinning hell began, it ground to a halt.

  A sturdy, white porcelain halt.

  My God, I realized after a few moments. My name is Del Farmer, and my soul is trapped in a toilet.

  I knew I was a toilet just as you, sitting there, know you are a human being. There is an undeniable, irrefutable awareness of self.

  Frankly, I was amazed how fast my soul adapted to its new prison. And what is flesh-and-blood body but a prison? I was aware of my functional parts just as a human being is aware of his arms and legs. The core of my being was a wide, deep bowl, but I could feel extensions reaching deep into the floor, down into the great and ancient sewer system of Philadelphia itself. Somewhere along the way, my Self faded. What used to be my left arm was now the flushing mechanism. It made perfect sense; I’d always been left-handed. I didn’t seem to have a right arm or hand equivalent, but my sense of “face” sure had found a new home. It was the seat and lid. Those diabolical bastards.

  Sure, I’d always joked about sending uppity souls to a city trash can, or a public toilet. But that had been tough-guy hyperbole. I’d never considered doing something as downright evil as ejecting a unique, feeling life-force into something so dead and repellent. However, it seemed Brad Larsen had no such reservations. Because here I was. A toilet.

  As much as I hated to admit it, my current situation lent a great deal of credence to the Ghost of Fieldman’s spaced-out dialogues. Here I was, a living entity, contained in an artificial environment. At least it explained the “poltergeist” phenomena folks have been reporting for years. The most I could hope for was that this apartment would go un-rented for a few months, during which time I could possibly find a way to kill myself. Maybe, eventually, some compassionate soul would clog me full of toilet paper, and let me choke in peace.

  Don’t misunderstand. I wasn’t feeling suicidal. But this was the first time in my entire life—from womb to death to soul absorption to current status—I’d felt completely and irrevocably lost. And then a thought occurred to me.

  Was I completely powerless? Or did the abilities I’d been given transfer to my mind, and not the architecture of my physical reality? Could I still absorb—and transfer—a soul?

  If the Ghost of Fieldman were to be believed, the powers lay within my physical Brain. Which he called a computer of sorts. I refused to accept that model of my brain, of course. Anybody would. It reduced my core being to a machine.

  But if I were to be believed, my powers still remained within me. Which would mean I could still shuttle souls—including my own—back and forth between objects as easily as a four-year-old arranges alphabet blocks. My mind possessed those powers—not my physical brain.

  The only problem: I only knew one way to transfer a soul, and that way required direct eye contact. Nothing in my bathroom had eyes: not my toothbrush, razor, washrag, bar of Ivory soap … not a damn thing. Come to think of it, if you had to be any object in a modern bathroom, the toilet’s pretty much King Daddy. The bathtub is important, of course, but with public baths and YMCA pools, you could technically live without one. Let’s face it: the toilet was essential to 20th century life.

  God—what was I doing? Already rationalizing my new state of existence?

  At any rate, I realized I had to transfer into something alive. And having bumped into some of the sad-sack residents of this apartment complex in the past couple of weeks, finding a living being was not going to be easy.

  Then I remembered: Buddy.

  Sweet, lovable, adorable, fur-ridden Buddy. Gift from Amy, Eater of Shoelaces, Ripper of Couches, Fearful of Own Shadow, Savior from Heaven. But how could I call him? I couldn’t very well do that pss-wss-wss-wss thing as a toilet. No lips. No access to Cat Chow to temp him, either. I had to use a distracting noise, something to stir the bugger’s innate curiosity. Then, lure him close enough to look into the bowl itself, the core of my being, where I could summon the powers of vision and lock eyes with him.

  I realized what I could do. I started to shake my arm—now, the toilet handle. C’mon Buddy. Come out and be a cat.

  I jiggled the handle again. C’mon.

  Jiggled it again. And again.

  Finally, I could sense tiny pawsteps skittering across the bathroom tile. Right on! I felt padded, furry feet against my bowl. I saw the feline head peek over the water, up at the handle. Good boy, good boy! I wanted to shout.

  Then I heard a key fumble in the apartment door. Buddy turned his head, interested in the new sound. I was curious, too, but no matter now. I jiggled the handle more furiously. Buddy looked at it, then spun his head around again.

  I jiggled the handle that was my hand with all of my porcelain might. Look at it, you stupid fur-brained … The apartment door opened, full of ear-splitting, rusty squeaks and wood groans…. Look! Look!

  And then the handle came loose, dropped on to the rim, and flipped over into the bowl. Buddy followed it with his green feline eyes. Through rings of concentric, watery circles, I looked into them.

  “Del? You home?”

  Well, sort of. It was a terribly strange adjustment. And I thought the toilet was bad. At least it had been a porcelain constant; the brain of a cat was something wholly different. I locked onto its primitive brain structure easily, and established myself as the commander-in-chief, but I still had to surrender myself to cat logic.

  Cat logic: Whatever seemed to be the most reasonable course of action at any given moment, do the opposite.

  Whenever you absolutely, positively have to accomplish a task, run off and find something else to occupy your attention.

  I wanted to see Amy, but Buddy yanked the reins out of my hands and leapt into the bathtub. No, Buddy, I commanded. But he regarded the master’s voice inside his tiny cat brain as he did the master’s voice in real life: He completely ignored it. Buddy started scratching at the drain, apparently trying to kill tiny droplets of condensation.

  “Del?” Amy called from the room.

  Come on, Buddy. Go see Amy. Go see Amy.

  Did he know who Amy was? Did my thoughts translate into the cat language inside his skull? Didn’t really matter, it seemed. Buddy was still fascinated with the drain. I swore I’d keep the bugger out of the bathroom from now on, as punishment.

  Fortunately, Amy popped her head into the bathroom. “Hey, Buddy!” she squealed, and then started going pss-wss-wss-wsss.

  You should have heard the sirens go off in the cat’s Lilliputian brain. Suddenly, there was nothing more important in the entire world than to seek out and identify that alluring sound. I felt our furry, muscular body tense, spin around and hurtle out of the bathtub. It made my stomach—or at least, my own internal concept of “stomach”—flip. We bounded ahead until we encountered our target: the Woman’s Shins. Then he thrust our body forward, rubbing our entire length against the Woman.

  If I ever say I want to absorb the soul of a cat, talk me out of it. Fast. The only thing more uncontrollable than a cat is the weather.

  Amy picked us up, and started stroking our head absentmindedly. “Where’s your Daddy?” she cooed, but not looking at us. She still scanned the apartment, as if I would be hidden under my desk, or something.

  I’m here! I tried to yell, but it came out as a purr.

  She put us down, and Buddy tried to skitter away. But this time I was ready for him. I flexed every last bit of mental energy and clamped down on the scruff of his neck. Buddy jolted forward, then froze. He started to growl, but I cut it off. Then, slowly, I forced his head up to look at Amy.

  She was reading something on a piece of notepaper, twiddling an apartment key in her free hand. Then I realized: Hey. That’s probably my apartment key. What was going on? What day is this, anyway? Amy sighed, folded the note, put it in her jeans pocket and started for the door.

  If I was going to get any answers, I needed to jump into Amy’s body. Quick.

  Okay, fur lips. Let’s move it.

  I jerked one front l
eg forward, then the next. One back leg, the next. Buddy was fighting me the entire way. You know cats can make themselves heavier when they don’t want you to pick them up? Well, believe me, they can do the same thing mentally. I’m sure if Amy was paying any attention to Buddy, she would have immediately called a combination vet/exorcist.

  Amy was at the door.

  Leg, leg, leg, leg…

  Amy was unlocking and opening the door.

  We were a foot away. Time to go for broke. I summoned every ounce of mental control I thought I had over this cat and sent it to his back legs. It sprung up in the air like a jackrabbit who’s had a carrot rammed up his ass.

  We crashed into Amy’s moving legs and did an ungraceful flop to the floor. Apparently, my presence negated Buddy’s ability to land on all four feet.

  Amy let out a startled, “Oh!” then looked down at us. Pathetic. Which, apparently, worked wonders. Amy squealed with pity and snatched us up into her arms, stroked our head and ran her knuckles beneath our mouth. Tremors shot throughout our body; our tail flicked wildly, joyously. Oh, don’t stop, don’t stop. Then I remembered what I had been going for. I lifted our head so it bumped Amy’s jaw. “Buddy, slow down,” she said.

  I bumped her again, rubbed our head across her cheek, and bumped her again.

  “Buddy!”

  Amy nudged our head up with a finger. “What’s wrong with you, kit…”

  We looked into her eyes.

  Twenty-Two

  Electric Amy

  Whammo. The world did a backflip.

  By this point, I was feeling like a world traveler. From the Country of Porcelain, to the strange, exotic turf of Feline, right into the uncharted territory known as the Female Mind. Oddly, Amy’s mind felt closer to the toilet than the cat.

  This is not meant as an insult—honest. The foundations of her psyche were unlike anything I’d ever encountered, and I’d encountered many a psyche.

  I/Amy blinked, dimly aware that Buddy had wriggled free, leapt back down to the floor and scrambled away, probably looking for a place to hole up and bathe himself for a couple of hours.

  Where am I? I heard Amy ask.

  There was no Brain Hotel in here, to be sure. Just an ordinary human mind. Or was it?

  No matter the environment, I had to create a suitable meeting place for our two minds. Right now, no doubt, Amy’s consciousness was tumbling around in the void of her own brain, wondering how she’d lost her grip on reality so quickly.

  I started to slap up a large room with wood-paneled walls, a comfortable rug, a desk, a couch, a few paintings. Then I realized a strange room like that would probably disorient her even more. I needed something familiar. So, I recreated my own apartment the best I could. That way, when I summoned her soul here, she would think she’d momentarily passed out. I could explain it away, without fear of her losing her mind.

  When I’d finished, I called out to her. “Amy! Amy, wake up.”

  AMY IS AWAKE

  The voice didn’t come from any single location. The voice, for lack of a better description, came from all locations. I was in the voice, right here in the recreation my own apartment. I felt like a mere puff of breath within the voice.

  “Amy where are you?”

  AMY IS WITH YOU

  “Can I see Amy?”

  AMY IS ALL AROUND YOU

  This line of questioning was getting me nowhere. Where was her soul? According to the rules (at least, as I’d come to understand them), it had to be around here somewhere. I checked the kitchen area—in the fridge, in the stove, in the limited cupboard space. Nowhere. I checked the bathroom. Not there, either. The only place left was my closet. But there was a sign tacked to the front of it:

  WARNING! DO NOT ENTER

  Now that hadn’t been in my real apartment. And I sure as heck didn’t invent it for this reproduction. What was going on? The damned thing was sealed shut, too—some kind of gray caulk pasting up the crack between the door and its frame, and a dozen metal hinges locking it in place.

  Not that this was a problem. Hell, if I could recreate an entire apartment, I sure as hell could whip up something as simple as a brain-chainsaw.

  So I did, and the crazy thing came alive in my hands, its sudden weight straining my arms. I thrust it into the closet door, and the chips started to fly. And as I did, the words on the door sign changed right before my eyes:

  STOP! DO NOT CONTINUE

  “Oh yeah?” I shouted over the din of the saw. “Or what?” And I pushed the speeding blade deeper into the wood, cutting across toward the frame. Sparks popped as I hit a metal staple.

  The sign changed again:

  THIS DOOR LEADS TO HELL

  Interesting. “Well then,” I shouted, “tell the Devil to pull out his best china, ‘cause he’s gonna have a guest!” I sawed back through the groove I’d already cut and finished the job on the opposite side of the door. The last staple sparked, and the door immediately folded up into itself and was sucked back into the darkness.

  And that was what I found within my pseudo-apartment closet: utter and perfect darkness. Miner’s lamp, I thought, and one appeared on my head. Double-barrel shotgun, I thought too—just to be sure. Who knows what kind of heat Satan was packing?

  This had to be a trip for the record books. From the bowl of a Philadelphia toilet to the bowels of Hell. Yee-haw.

  I stepped into the closet. The air got thick fast. To take a step meant pushing my way through air thick as beach sand. I found that if I pushed hard enough to one side, the space would part easier for me, but only for a second or two before the pressure came crashing back.

  After what seemed like hours, I came up against a barrier. I reached out and touched it—smooth, like wood. I knocked on it. Sounded like wood. Was this a coffin I’d wormed myself into? That would teach me a Twilight Zone-esque lesson, I supposed. Dead Guy steps into a doorway to Hell, and ends up in a coffin, finally, where he belongs. Justice is served. Cue Rod Serling’s Monday morning wrap-up.

  But it wasn’t a coffin lid. It was a door. I found what felt like a long brass handle and turned it.

  Outside the door was a beautifully furnished bedroom.

  Welcome to Hell, here are your robe and slippers, make yourself at home?

  I had no idea where I was supposed to be. This certainly wasn’t a bedroom I’d encountered before. It must be one of Amy Langtree’s memories. I wondered if her consciousness extended this far. “Amy?” I called out. “Are you there?”

  Amy popped her head through the door. “What did you call me?”

  She’d startled me. I breathed heavily, then said: “Oh, God. There you are.”

  She came into the room, wearing nothing but a sheer white bra and low-cut panties. “Did you say, Amy?”

  “Uh … yes?”

  Amy frowned. “Brad, we’ve been married for almost a year now, and you still can’t remember my name?”

  Brad? I stole a glimpse of myself in a dresser mirror. Yep, I still had Brad Larsen’s face plastered to my skull, even in the weird brain world inside Amy’s head. But how did Amy Langtree know Brad Larsen?

  Then it hit me like a softball bat upside the head. Of course.

  “I’m sorry, Alison.”

  She walked up to me and put her arms around my chest, then gave me a squeeze. “You’d better remember, mister. So who’s this Amy tramp? Some ex-girlfriend? A secretary at work?”

  I faked a laugh and squeezed her in return. “Nothing like that. It was a fumble of the tongue.” I kissed her on top of her head. Her hair was damp and smelled like peach shampoo.

  Amy/Alison looked up at me. “You need help with your tongue?” She moved her mouth over mine, and flicked her tongue across my teeth.

  Not what I needed right now. Forget traveling from a toilet to the bowels of Hell—this was far weirder. Making out with a woman’s repressed memory inside her own head? I politely and quickly kissed her back, then broke the embrace. “Wait, wait. I wanted to ask you
something.” I was lying, of course. “Do you know where my day planner is?”

  Amy/Alison wrinkled her forehead. “You don’t have a day planner. We write everything on the calendar on the desk.”

  “Right,” I said. “That’s what I meant. The desk calendar.”

  “Then why did you ask me where it was? It’s been on the desk all year long.”

  “Of course,” I said, and kissed her again, strongly tempted to linger. But I couldn’t. There was too much to sort out. Already, the pieces were connecting in my mind. And those few connections were scaring the hell out of me. I needed time to think.

  I walked for the bedroom door. “Be back in a second,” I said, then walked through it. The layout of the house was completely unfamiliar. I wandered down a plushly-carpeted hallway and opened the door, which turned out to be the bathroom. (I gave the toilet a nod, out of professional courtesy.) I doubled back and checked out a few more doors, but they were closets. Finally, I went downstairs and poked around the living room—hardwood floors, curio cabinets, real art on the walls—and then I saw the sign.

  DO NOT ENTER UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH!

  It was attached to a door. Another gateway to another Hell? If this house was Hell, I could only assume the door led to the Taj Mahal, or something.

  I opened the door and stepped through. Suddenly, I was outside. And this outside was familiar. Dishearteningly familiar.

  It was the Witness Protection house in Woody Creek—the one that was supposed to have been razed to the ground, as per Special Agent Nevins’ orders. And no doubt, it had been. Only this one was the one from Amy/Alison’s memories, locked away where she couldn’t (or wouldn’t dare) find them.

  Alison Larsen’s life was stowed away in the back compartments of Amy Langtree’s mind. But where did that leave the real Amy? As a cover identity for the real soul, Alison, or a separate and distinct entity herself? And what was housing Amy/Alison—a Brain that could support a collection of souls, like my own Brain? (A Brain that, I remembered, had been hijacked a few hours ago by Brad Larsen.) Or was it an artificial repository?