by Jason Beymer
Garrick shrugged. “There’s no other way. I can’t go. Can you imagine what they’d do if I walked into that chamber? They’ve been waiting two years to dismember me for breaking the golden rule.”
Burklin coughed and tried to sit upright. “I’m not going anywhere. Your trinity is done. Lorraine will keep Max from passing through, and you’ll have nobody to protect. I’ll be free.”
“Interesting,” Garrick said in a casual tone.
“Don’t try to manipulate me.” He stuck his fingers in his ears. “La, la, la, I can’t hear you anymore.”
“I find it fascinating, is all. I thought you loved Lorraine. Wait, no. Thought isn’t the correct word. I know you love her.”
Burklin removed his fingers. “Yes, but we can’t be together. She’s sacrificing herself.”
“No,” Garrick said, almost singing it. “She’s not sacrificing herself. You’re sacrificing her. You need to die.” He opened the glove compartment and pulled out a knife. “Here. Slit those wrists. Hang your arms out the window while you do it. With all the blood, it’ll cost me at least a grand to reupholster the seats.”
Burklin closed his eyes.
“It won’t be so bad,” Garrick said. “Hell, you’ve already done it once. Use your imagination. Be creative. Make a game of it. How many people get to die and come back to life, eh?”
Garrick steered into the parking lot of the Steadman Arms. Burklin saw the Eiffel near the entrance. Steam rose from under its hood and the driver’s side door hung open.
“Damn,” Garrick said. “She beat us here.”
He parked, killed the engine, and spun around in his seat. “Son, I’d apologize for putting you through this again, but you’d realize my insincerity. Return to the Nether. You’re the only one who can make this work. Keep Max from coming through, and tell Lorraine to get her fat ass into the portal instead. Your body will be right here waiting for you. I’ll heal your wounds once I’m finished with Senator McPhee.”
Garrick handed Burklin the knife. “I have to go into the hotel now,” he said. “Hurry and slit your wrists. You have to trust me.”
“Trust you?”
“Sure, why not?”
“For starters you’ve never told me the truth about anything.”
Garrick withdrew a second knife from under the seat. As Burklin came up with five quick examples of why he would never trust him again, Garrick thrust the knife at Burklin’s chest and missed. The blade slipped from his grasp and fell to the seat, illustrating example number six.
“Hey!” Burklin shouted.
“I hoped to surprise you. You won’t do it fast enough.” Garrick picked up the knife and lunged at him again.
“Stop it.”
He looked back at the hotel. Two policemen rushed into the lobby.
“I have to go,” Garrick said. “I can’t keep fighting you.”
“Then don’t. I’ll kill myself. Just make sure Pearl is okay.”
Garrick relented and dropped the knife on the seat. “Hurry.” He stepped out of the car and adjusted his fedora, pulling it snug, then waddled toward the hotel lobby.
Alone in the car, Burklin set his face against the window. He watched Garrick’s round body bull through the crowd, then looked down at the knife in his hand.
Only one way to save Lorraine.
Chapter 28
Doggy Heaven
Wanda stumbled into the hotel lobby, a miniature dachshund tucked beneath her arm. Rivulets of Netherite poured over her torn snow pants. She had thought a zombie in Napa might draw gasps, or at least some measure of attention, but all eyes locked on the ladies’ room door. She didn’t look like a zombie anyway in her hunting jacket, NRA Forever baseball cap and yellow snow pants. She was more of a fashion-challenged leper.
She’d found the clothing in an SUV parked near the entrance. The debate had drawn political protestors from both parties, and the vehicle she’d pillaged leaned heavily to one side. With the windows rolled down and the driver nowhere in sight, Wanda took what she needed. “Jacket. Clothes,” she’d whispered. Protestors clashed in front of the lobby, too angry to notice her.
“You’ll need more than that,” Pearl had said. “You look like you won a wet t-shirt contest at the morgue.”
She’d spotted an enormous hunting jacket sitting on the passenger seat, the letters XXL on the tag. Wanda had reached through the open window and grabbed it. As she’d slipped the jacket on, her clavicle had burst. It made her smell like dead elk, but at least it covered her petite frame down to her knees. The sun-faded hat bore the logo of a hunter standing above a dead deer. She’d completed the ensemble with a pair of dark sunglasses.
“Did I mention that’s a nice gimmick?” Pearl said as they worked their way through the crowd. “The emaciated hunter. I get it. But your ankles and feet still look, you know … rotten?”
She couldn’t care about that now. She needed to find the demon carrier.
“Better hope I find her,” Wanda said to the dog. “Otherwise … I snap your head off.” She grabbed the scruff of Pearl’s neck.
Pearl yipped. “I’ll behave. Just leave my head where it is, please.”
Wanda looked out the window. Cars filled the parking lot, along with the protestors. The police mingled with the crowd, trying to keep things under control. They hadn’t yet entered the bathroom. Nobody thought the senator was in any real danger, what with someone named Potankin, McPhee’s intern, and a security guard keeping her company. Still, this event had gone beyond mere spectacle. Time grew short.
Tucked beneath Wanda’s arm, the dog barked at the security and media folk around them. “Excuse me, pardon me.”
They approached the door to the restroom, and a security guard held up his hand. “You can’t go inside,” he said.
“Really now,” Pearl said. “Haven’t you ever seen a zombie movie before? If she touches you, your brains will fall out.”
“Are you a ventriloquist, ma’am?”
Pearl looked up at Wanda. “Why are you having such a hard time with this? Tell him you’re a zombie and you’ll eat his brains if he doesn’t let you pass. Jeez.”
Wanda squeezed the dog tighter.
“Ow!” Pearl cried. “I’m trying to help.”
How did Burklin ever put up with this canine? For the umpteenth time since taking Pearl hostage, Wanda struggled with the urge to strangle her. Oh, how she wanted to snap the little dog’s neck, hijacked soul or not. But she still needed it for leverage.
The security guard looked down at Wanda’s feet. “Holy God. What’s wrong with your skin? Are you a zombie?”
Wanda wagged her index finger, beckoning him closer.
He leaned in.
In a hypnotic voice, Wanda said, “You’ve seen nothing. Let me pass.”
A long pause, then, “What are you talking about? Oh, are you trying to hypnotize me? Can zombies hypnotize people? Christians, even?”
“That zombie told you to let us through,” Pearl said. “You should listen to the zombie. I mean, come on, she’s a zombie.”
The other security guards gathered in, along with more of the crowd. Cameras got a little too close.
“She’ll rot your thingy,” the dog said, motioning her nose at his crotch. “Clean off.”
One of the hotel security guards said, “Off?”
“Yep. Like a black banana.”
“Shit, I make five bucks an hour. I’m not losing my dick for that. I love my dick.”
“She’s not a zombie,” another hotel security man said. “She’s just a homeless ventriloquist.”
Wanda lowered her oversized sunglasses and allowed them to see her eyes.
That did the trick. They stepped aside with a chorus of “oh shit.”
Wanda moved through the door and into the foulness of the ladies’ room. The security guards closed the door behind her. As she surveyed the carnage, her legs grew sturdier. No more prickles in her remaining toes, no more knee buckling.
Pearl tongued Wa
nda’s neck like it was made of jerky, but when she beheld the mess on the bathroom floor, she stopped. “Oh, my Christ,” Pearl said. “This is way better than the Burger Clog. Put me down! Put me down!”
The dog leaped from Wanda’s arms and dashed away. “This floor is freezing,” Pearl whined. “Except the bloody parts. Then again, it’s pretty much all bloody parts. God, I’m so fucking excited.”
“Ungh.”
Senator McPhee sprawled out beneath the sink, lapping the floor with her tongue. She looked up at Wanda as she drank, and paused long enough to ask, “Who are you?”
“Garrick’s replacement.”
“So hungry,” the senator said. “My stomach hurts. One more middle-aged white man should do the trick. Just one, and I can return to the debate.”
“How many have you eaten?”
“Middle-aged white men?”
“People.”
The senator pointed to the stalls. Each one contained assorted parts of her victims. “The last time I was pregnant, Garrick told me not to give into the cravings. He said it would jeopardize my political career.”
Wanda almost laughed, but choked instead. “Political career least of worries. Baby is important now. Eating people bad.”
“But I’m still hungry.”
“Stop eating. Need to prepare …” She realigned her jaw. “Prepare for birth. Need to examine you.”
Pearl poked her head out of the stall. “You can leave me in here. This place rocks. I’m going to tweet like a mo-fo when I get home.”
“Do you have a room?” Wanda asked the senator.
McPhee’s stomach made a low growl. “Yes, a suite on the third floor.”
“Elevator then. Privacy. First, though …”
Wanda grabbed the senator’s cellphone with one decayed hand. She looked at the screen. It displayed Recent Calls: Garrick.
Wanda pressed the redial button.
The phone rang twice, then someone answered. “Hello?”
“Burklin?” Wanda said. Not who she’d expected. “Are you there too, Garrick? Answer!”
“Wanda?” Burklin said. “Garrick’s gone. He went inside the hotel. I can’t talk. I’m trying to return to the Nether. Dying now.”
“Stop dying. Come into hotel.”
“Can’t.”
“If you die—” Something clicked in her throat. “I’ll snap Pearl’s neck.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Will. Come to ladies’ room. Help me deliver … baby. Keep Garrick away.”
“Okay. Just don’t kill Pearl.”
Wanda tossed the phone into the sink basin.
“There,” she said. “Burklin meets us, helps you to room. You have baby. New trinity is born. I become a desirable, sexy, Asian female.”
Pearl drank water from the toilet. She stopped and scampered out of the stall. “That was a joke right? You wouldn’t kill me. We’re pals now.”
“Abomination.” She turned to McPhee. “Hotel room.”
Kamilla McPhee stood, then doubled over again and clutched at her stomach. “I can’t,” she said. “Hurts too much. I can’t make it.”
“Have to try.”
“I’m so hungry.”
“Control yourself.”
The senator’s palms slapped against the floor. Her fingernails elongated six inches. She crawled forward, hair matted against her bloodied cheeks. Her teeth played over her bottom lip, and lines of drool fell from the protruding tongue.
“Stop,” Wanda demanded.
Pearl wagged her tail. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I recognize that look.”
Wanda backed away. She tried to use her rekindled powers to calm the woman, but didn’t have the strength yet. “Control your cravings.”
“Try giving her the drop-the-meatloaf stare,” Pearl said. “That sometimes works on me.”
The senator quivered and rocked back and forth. Then the thing that had once been Kamilla McPhee lunged at Wanda, teeth bared and knife at her side.
* * * *
Garrick squeezed his girth through the revolving doors and entered the hotel lobby. Men in red windbreakers stood in front of the restroom, alongside a few police officers. As Garrick worked his way through the crowd, he picked up pieces of conversation. He heard something about a polite dachshund and a zombie, both of whom had entered the ladies’ room not ten minutes ago.
Was the senator close to delivery? It depended on how quickly those assholes in the Nether could create the portal. By now, her belly might be engorged and ready for them to slip Max into it. But if she had partaken in the human flesh diet as he suspected, this delivery would be interesting.
Something struck him hard in the back and pushed him into a group of reporters. Before he could regain his footing, the same something smashed against his right ear.
“Ow!” Garrick said, turning to face Burklin. “That was my ear, jackass!” Warm blood trickled down his cheek. “What the fuck are you doing?”
His son stood over him, his left hand drenched in crimson, his head a wide-open mess. He held a camera tripod like a weapon.
“You’re supposed to kill yourself, idiot,” Garrick said. “Not me.”
“Wanda has Pearl.”
Garrick attempted to stand, still holding his bloody ear. “You ungrateful, spineless—”
Burklin swung the tripod again. It clanged against Garrick’s jaw. He hit the carpet howling.
“Get up!” Burklin yelled.
“How hard did your mother hit you?” Garrick spat out several teeth. “Did she dislodge your brain? Kill yourself already. Do your job!”
“I have to save Pearl first. Wanda told me she’d kill Pearl if I returned to the Nether.”
Garrick tried to sit back up. “You listened? Whose side are you on?”
“Whose side?” Burklin kicked him in the ribs, then reared back and kicked him again, yelling, “Whose side?”
As the circle of people grew around them, Burklin dove on top of Garrick. The old man tried to push him away, but his son pinned him to the carpet. Burklin pummeled him with both fists, then wrapped his hands around Garrick’s throat and squeezed.
Through his constricting throat, Garrick asked, “Where are you getting this rage?”
Burklin squeezed even tighter. “I guess my one-gallon jug just overflowed.”
Two policemen rushed toward them. “You! Get off that old man!”
Burklin squeezed and squeezed. Garrick’s vision blurred.
The ladies’ room door exploded.
It blasted off its hinges and collapsed upon the bodyguard. Senator McPhee tumbled out, arms wrapped around the zombie. Her claws hooked into Wanda’s neck. Her teeth sank deep into the woman’s shoulder. Wanda tried to push the senator away, but McPhee latched on tighter. She tore through the zombie’s hunting jacket, scattering its stuffing around the pair like windblown snow.
The dachshund ran along the floor behind them. She skidded onto the carpet, then bounded through the broken door.
Burklin let go of Garrick’s throat and cried, “Pearl!”
The dog rushed at him like a lover on a sandy beach. She leaped into Burklin’s waiting arms, scrambled to his face, and licked him hard.
“I’m glad to see you, too,” Burklin said. “Never thought I’d say that.”
“You’re delicious,” Pearl said, “Did you crack your head open just for me?”
The crowd retreated en masse through the revolving doors, as if a fire had broken out in the lobby. This left Garrick, Burklin, a talking dog, two crazy monsters, some curious policemen, and a few brave camera jockeys to fend for themselves.
Pearl sniffed the air.
“What are you—”
“I smell something weird inside the senator,” the dog said.
“Irish Gleam?”
“Worse. More vinegary. The smell is coming from the senator’s girl-parts.”
Senator McPhee’s balloon belly jiggled as she tore into Wanda’s flesh.
Ga
rrick’s eyes widened. “The portal is open.”
Chapter 29
The Entirety of the Nether
Lorraine stood naked in the cavernous depths, amongst little men in festive shirts. The air grew cold, even colder than before. She no longer saw her breath. Her insides had frozen to match the tunnel’s temperature. The demon sat next to her, whimpering.
Lorraine hid an object in her right hand. She’d pilfered it from the white-floored room and tucked it behind her bare ass.
Please don’t let them fucking see it, she thought.
The portal, once a small opening, expanded as if a potent acid had spilled upon it. Smoke rose around the edges and burned the granite with loud crackles.
The three-story-tall slug monster swayed its mass left and right. Its antennae swiveled faster in a nervous dance. “Why is the portal so large?”
A little man looked up from an electronic panel and saluted. “We can’t control it anymore, sir.” Nearly every worker stood by the portal, turning dials, pressing buttons. Still the circle widened. Five of them lifted Max off the floor and carried him toward the portal like a sacrificial virgin.
“I asked why the doorway is enlarging,” the slug said.
“Sir,” one answered. “The host has consumed the blood of innocents.”
Lorraine sank quietly into the shadows, still concealing the object in her right hand.
“You!” the thing said. Its antennae uncoiled and extended in Lorraine’s direction. “Go to the slave pens now, or you will be transported by force.”
Lorraine planted her feet in the goop. From behind the slug, six little people emerged carrying clubs.
The thing motioned to Lorraine with an antenna. “I told you to go willingly. None of you ever listen.”
“What are they going to do?” she said. “Why are they carrying weapons?”
“They have orders to transport you to the slave pens.”
A growl erupted from the portal and the slug’s globular eyeballs turned toward it. The opening widened, moving like fire upon parchment. The purple along the edges engulfed the computer terminals. A shower of sparks blew over the little men.
“It’s too big!” the slug cried. “Shrink it before the slaves become aware of your ineptitude.”
