by Ray Garton
The reverend said, "He's using them to hold us off, us and the other parents."
"Don't the kids notice them?" J.R. asked.
"Some. Some of them are scared, but the others, his kids, the ones with Crucifaxes, are calming them down, telling them those things are harmless."
Erin felt dizzy with fear and looked for Mallory and Jeff, searched the crowd from wall to wall, but couldn't see them. The band was still on the same song. Mace was walking back and forth along the edge of the stage, his right arm stretched out, his hand flat, passing through the air from right to left, as if blessing his audience. Erin listened to him, tried to make out the words he was singing, but her mind was too full—
It's too late, you've waited too long and now it's too late, you've lost them both….
"What are we going to do?" she asked J.R.
"I don't know," he replied, still watching the teenagers, his face lined with worry. "Just wait, I guess. Other than that, I don't know…."
Jeff followed Mallory out the stage door and into the dark alley that ran along the northern side of the building. Water poured from the clogged rain gutters, and the alley smelled of wet garbage. He ducked his head and ran after her, shouting, "I didn't bring her, Mallory!"
"Then what's she doing here?"
"She's looking for me."
Mallory stopped at a manhole in the middle of the alley; water gurgled through its cover and fell below with echoing splashes.
"Why?" she asked, facing him.
He could feel the rain soaking through his clothes and pulled his jacket together in front. "Can we go inside?"
"Not while she's in there." Mallory seemed oblivious of the rain, although her hair was slick against her head and the usually loose dark red sweater she wore was clinging to her. She looked angry at first, standing with her arms folded and one foot forward, her hip cocked, but her arms slowly went to her sides, her face softened, and she said, "Come with me, Jeff."
"Where?"
She bent down and pulled the cover off the manhole. "Down here."
Jeff stared silently at the manhole, remembering his last trip into the sewer. Logically, he knew he should not go back down there. But he didn't feel any fear, only the pleasant buzz of beer and marijuana.
"C'mon, we're getting soaked. And she won't find you."
"We don't have a light."
She pulled up her sweater and took a small black flashlight from beneath the top of her jeans. Walking toward him, she flicked it on, and Jeff winced at the surprisingly bright beam. She stopped an inch in front of him, shining the light upward between them. She was smiling, but the shadows cast by the beam made her face look like a death mask. Only her eyes remained warm and familiar, although they were heavy, distant.
"Come with me," she whispered. "We can talk. We need to talk."
He hadn't told Brad or the others where he was going and they might worry—if they noticed he was gone—but he didn't want to face his mother. Mace was occupied with the band, so he wouldn't have to deal with him. And he would be with Mallory…
There's something wrong with me…
Jeff went to the manhole and gestured for her to go first, then followed her down, replacing the cover with a resounding clang. When he reached the bottom and, once again, smelled the familiar odor of filth, his mouth became cottony, and for a moment he was afraid to move.
Mallory took his hand and said, "C'mon, it's okay."
"It wasn't okay the last time I was down here."
"You weren't with me."
She led him by the hand along the wall, ducking pipes and valves. Rats squeaked and darted out of their path. She kept flashing the light over the wall to their left until it disappeared into a narrow black passageway. She turned to go through it, saying, "Shortcut," but a sharp blade of fear cut through Jeff's otherwise relaxed state, and he stopped, let go of her hand, and said, "Uh-uh, I'm not going in there."
He backed up a step, remembering the hand that had reached through a similar opening last week, and prepared to run if it happened again.
"It's okay," Mallory said impatiently.
"What's in there?"
"Just a bunch of pipes and gas lines, stuff like that. Maybe a few bums, but they won't hurt us. Mace feeds them, brings them all kinds of food. They leave us alone now. Even talk to us sometimes."
He still didn't move.
"Look, if I'm not scared, there's no reason for you to be."
Jeff followed her cautiously, watching for any sign of movement in the darkness beyond the flashlight beam. He saw nothing but thick sheets of cobwebs stretched between pipes and cables, a glimpse of filthy walls now and then, a scurrying rat. But he heard things.
Crunching footsteps…
A harsh, phlegmy cough…
Whispers…
His legs felt wobbly, and his heart was pounding so hard, he wondered if Mallory could hear it. He followed her across one of the metal footbridges and through another passageway.
The light passed over faces in the dark, long, bony, hollow faces with shadows for eyes…
By the time they reached the jagged hole that led into Mace's building, Jeff was winded from holding his breath in fear each time they passed through one of the cavelike rooms with its gutlike pipes and ghostly faces.
There was an empty, crumpled Doritos bag and an empty English muffin box outside the hole.
"See?" Mallory said, stepping through the hole. "He feeds 'em."
Upstairs, the lanterns glowed, but the room was nearly empty. A few shuffling figures lurked in the shadows, and the coals of cigarettes and marijuana joints glowed like red eyes.
"Over here," Mallory said, leading him to the pool.
Jeff stared for a moment at the spot where he'd seen Nikki lying the week before, but he could not find in himself the fear he knew he should feel. He was too tired, too stoned, and still too numb.
Taking his hand again, Mallory led him into the pool, flicking the flashlight off as they carefully went down the stepladder.
"Careful," she whispered, stepping over body-shaped lumps curled beneath blankets on the way to the deep end. She went to a corner and sat Indian-style on a cushion, patting the space beside her. "This is my spot."
"Your spot?" He hunkered down beside her, nervously eyeing the shapes in the pool. Then he saw Mallory's smile in the glow of a nearby lantern; she was perfectly comfortable, so he tried to relax.
"Yeah, we all have our own spots. Well… not so much anymore." She fumbled with a blanket heaped at her side and pulled out a small oblong box. "New people come every day. Now it's so crowded when everybody's here—most of 'em are at the club now—that some of them have moved upstairs." She opened the box and removed a plastic Ziplock bag, opened that, and took out two joints, handing one to Jeff. "One for each of us. Pretty rad, huh? Mace is real generous."
He decided he'd already had so much grass that evening that a little more wouldn't matter. She lit the joint for him, and he inhaled.
"Okay, tell me what happened," she said.
Jeff spat and wiped his mouth after his second drag; the marijuana tasted harsh, sort of… greasy. As he recounted his evening at the Playpen, taking another drag now and then, his speech began to slow down, his eyes grew heavy, and in a few minutes he heard his own words as if someone else were speaking them.
"I told you, Jeff. You can't trust her. I came home last Thursday, and she was on the phone talking filth with some guy. 'Wanna rub our nylons together, Lou?'" she mimicked in a breathy voice. " 'Grind our crotches?' Jesus. She was, like, fucking him over the phone. Now, Jeff, now do you see why Dad left?"
He'd heard everything she'd said but didn't answer because he felt very strange.
"What… what kind of pot is this?" he asked.
"Good shit, huh?"
"But… it's…"
Her hand was cool on the back of his neck; she lifted him away from the wall of the pool and put a pillow behind him.
"Lie back," she said,
putting her other hand on his chest.
"Here, lift your arms…." She helped him take off his jacket.
Jeff was starting to feel afraid. He knew the grass shouldn't have such an effect on him; his limbs felt leaden, his head cool and empty; his eyes seemed to float in their sockets. But none of the strange sensations was unpleasant.
"What's… happening, Mal? What was… that stuff?"
"Just some grass. With, oh, maybe a few goodies mixed in. Nothing much." She plucked the joint from his hand. "Thirsty?"
His tongue felt like a piece of beef jerky, and he nodded.
Mallory hurried away, leaving him to stare up at the yellow-tinted darkness above him. It seemed to swirl and shift, pull away, then press in on him, and he watched it with curiosity and amusement, smiling when he realized he was tempted to reach out and try to touch it. Something was peering down at him from the edge of the pool with golden eyes and black claws that scritched on the cement as it backed away.
When Mallory returned, she held two bottles of Miller in one hand and a lantern in the other. Her sweater was gone, and she wore a dry white T-shirt that clung to her still-wet breasts; her Crucifax rested between them. In the lantern light, Jeff could see the dark circles of her hard, wet nipples through the thin material. She put down the lantern, took the cap off a beer, and handed it to him.
After they'd each taken a good long drink, Mallory lay down beside him, smoking her joint again. She put her hand on his chest and began fingering a button on his shirt.
"It's just us now, Jeffy," she whispered. "Dad knew enough to cut out two years ago." She unfastened a button and ran her finger over his chest beneath the shirt. "Now that we know why…" Loosening another button, she slipped her hand under the shirt and stroked him in soft, slow circles. "… are we gonna stick around?"
Jeff closed his eyes and sighed as another button went and another, and her hand moved over his stomach, tugging his shirt out of his pants a bit at a time, nudging her fingers beneath his belt.
"You want to stay with her?"
Mallory's lips touched his ear, and he shuddered, feeling the touch through his whole body.
"Knowing what she does? How she lies?"
Jeff opened his eyes when she touched the joint to his lips; he shook his head.
"C'mon," she breathed. "A little more."
Jeff inhaled.
Her fingers slid through the hairs beneath his pants.
"What else has she lied to us about, Jeff?"
He shook his head, started to say, "She didn't really lie," but he couldn't say that because he didn't believe it, and because he couldn't quite catch his breath….
"How much do you think she cares," she went on, her voice velvety soft against his neck, "when her whole life— everything—has been a lie?"
He arched his back slightly when her fingers reached his erection; he tried to think, tried to put words together in his head….
Maybe… maybe she was… doing her… best…
But the thought came with no conviction, only with effort.
Mallory crooked one leg over his, pulled her hand out, and slid it over the top of the bulge in his jeans.
"Mace was right," she giggled, squeezing. "Wasn't he?" She playfully straddled his thighs and put her hands on his shoulders, leaning close to his face. The Crucifax swung above him like a pendulum. "Wasn't he?"
"How… could he know?"
With a throaty laugh, she reached for the joint, took a drag, put her mouth over his, and gently pried his lips apart with her tongue, then blew the smoke into his mouth.
"He isn't human," she whispered secretly. "I don't know what he is, but he's not one of us. He's… better. Something bigger and more powerful. He knows things… he can do things… and he's come for us, Jeff."
Even as he inhaled the smoke, a small, distant voice told him he shouldn't. As Mallory leaned forward her pelvis pressed against his, her breasts lightly brushed his chest, and the Crucifax fell, cool and heavy, against his throat.
"You don't want to stay with her, do you?" she whispered. "I sure don't. I'm going with him. You can come, Jeff. Come with me."
His head was a jumble of disconnected thoughts, and he could not remember exactly why that was a bad idea, why he shouldn't agree to go with her—
… someplace better… going someplace better…
—but it wouldn't come together. It had something to do with J.R. and Lily—
Where's Lily?
—and the Crucifax, but his thoughts were clouded with pleasure as Mallory unfastened his belt, unbuttoned his pants, and slowly pulled down the zipper, saying, "Please, Jeffy. We can be together as much as we want…."
She hooked a finger under the elastic band of his briefs and slowly moved it back and forth.
"Do whatever we want…"
Mallory put her other hand over his taut undershorts and gently cupped his erection; Jeff shivered, clenched his fists, and released a long, trembling moan as she pulled down his briefs, took his stiff penis in her hand, and stroked it lovingly.
Jeff sucked in a sharp breath and touched her hand, stroked her flesh for a moment, but—
There's something wrong with me…
—then pushed her arm aside, gasping, "No, we… we shouldn't, Mal, it's… it's not…"
"Not what?" she laughed. "It's not right? Not normal? Well, you know what, Jeffy?"
He felt her breath against his cock as her hand kept moving.
"Where Mace is taking us? There is no right, no wrong. There are no rules. No normal or abnormal."
She licked the underside of his cock, holding it at the base like a Popsicle.
"So it's okay," she said with a smack of her lips. "This, I mean. When we leave with Mace, we'll be free, Jeffy, we can do anything we want."
She plunged her mouth over him, and Jeff's back stiffened.
"Will you come?" she mumbled, lifting her head for a moment. "I'm not sure, but I think we're leaving tonight. Will you come?"
He was gasping for breath, eyes closed, hot tendrils of sensation shooting through his body from the spot where she touched him.
"We can be together like this, Jeff," she said, sliding her lips along the side of his cock. "Together like this all the time, and no one will find us or stop us or…"
Her voice faded away because now she was sitting up, removing the T-shirt, taking Jeff's hands and putting them on her breasts, pressing them over the mounds of flesh that he had wanted to touch for so long, and far away he could hear himself laugh, hear his voice say, "Yes, yes, yes," feel his head nod, smell her musky odor, and as he slipped inside of her he knew that wherever she was going, he would go with her….
The crowd in Fantazm continued to grow more and more restless. More than once, J.R. saw a chair lifted above the bobbing heads and tossed through the air. Screams and laughter mingled until it became impossible to distinguish the two.
More parents arrived, and some had gone into the mass of teenagers, searching, some of them shouting. One man, an executive type with black hair and gray tufts above his ears and wearing a dark suit, shouldered into the crowd, towering above the others. He cupped his hand to his mouth and shouted, waved a hand, trying to get someone's attention. Apparently he'd found who he was looking for.
The music never stopped. One song blended into another as Mace strutted and sneaked across the stage, passing his arms back and forth before him as if casting a spell over the audience. As far as J.R. could tell, a new song had just begun, and for the first time since the band had begun playing, he listened for the lyrics as he scanned the horde of teenagers below.
Take me deep inside you
Squeeze tight and don't let go
'They're gone," Erin said. "I don't see them, do you see them?"
Standing on tiptoe, shading her eyes from the stage lights, Lily shook her head.
J.R. watched the man in the suit reach for a girl in a shiny red jumpsuit a few feet ahead of him. She was backing through the crowd
to get away from him, screaming something at him, her face twisted into the expression of a cornered animal….
We'll leave this mess together
And no one will ever know
The stage lights and the dim lights in the entryway flickered for a moment, and J.R. thought they would go out, but the flickering stopped.
The man stopped, too, stopped reaching for the girl and looked down at his feet; his head began bobbing as he hopped this way and that, as if he were doing an odd sort of dance. He almost fell once—
They're holding him off, J.R. thought.
—but he grabbed someone's shoulder, regained his balance; and when he saw the girl getting away, being led toward the stage by a boy with long blond hair, he pushed two others aside and headed after her.
Say goodbye to Mom and Dad
Say goodbye to Sis
I'm goin' while I got the chance
I've had enough of this
The words made the skin on the back of J.R.'s neck shrivel; when his eyes met Lily's and saw the cold gray look of dread on her face, he knew she felt the same.
The man in the suit pushed a girl aside roughly, knocking her to the floor—
A slice of skin
A spurt of blood
—and leapt forward, grabbing the collar of the jumpsuit.
A scream, a cry A hisssss
The girl jerked backward, her arms flailed before her, and she spun around to face the man.
A crack of bone
An open skull
He clutched her shoulders and began shaking her violently as he shouted at her. The girl spat in his face.
Gonna say goodbye
To all of this
For a heartbeat, the club was plunged into darkness as the lights flickered again. More glass shattered in the crowd, and a boy stood on a table and dived into the mass with a loud scream. The thought of the power going off, leaving the club in total darkness, made J.R. shudder, and he put his arm around Erin, turning her toward the doors and saying, "I think you and Lily should get out of here."
