Shadows of Tockland

by Jeffrey Aaron Miller

  Telly still had some water in his mouth—he had apparently been savoring it on his tongue—but he sputtered and spit it out.

  “Oh, sir, that will not be necessary,” he said. “We have no conflict with you. We are only here to entertain.”

  Mattock ignored him. He pointed the blade at David. “I am impressed with you, boy. Very impressed. The dance of death. Yes, I like it very much.”

  “We are all capable of similar feats,” Telly said. “Acrobatics is our forte. Let us show you. We can put on a show for you and your men. The dais there can serve as a stage.”

  Mattock continued to ignore him. He approached the contraption. David heard Annabelle whimper.

  “A Southwesterner,” Mattock said, pointing at Gooty. “An apostate.” He pointed at Belle. “A deformity.” He pointed at Telly. “A tattooed madman.” He pointed at Cakey. “And a great big ox of a man with a face like a tenderized steak.” He pointed at Karl and smiled. “That is what I see before me.”

  “Entertainers,” Telly said, daring to correct him. “Clowns.”

  Mattock held up the knife, turned it this way and that, and sheathed it. He drew a pistol instead.

  “I will kill one—just one—for now,” he said. “So that you will understand that our conflict—” He pointed at Telly, pointed at himself with the gun. “You and I—our conflict is not resolved.”

  “We understand full well,” Telly said. “Full well. Let’s discuss it, sir. Resolution must be possible, yes?”

  “But I will not kill arbitrarily,” Mattock said, walking around the contraption to stand behind them. “I am not that sort of man. Instead, I will select the one that I deem the greatest threat—excepting the boy, of course. The one I choose will shortly be laid out beside the duly elected Councilman Peavey in the next room, and only then will the severity of our conflict be truly understood.”

  “We are no threat to you,” Telly said. “I assure you, we are no threat.”

  Mattock stepped up behind Gooty, raised the pistol and pressed the barrel to the back of his head. “Is it this Southwestern man? Has he come into our midst to spy on us?”

  Gooty’s head was bowed, his eyes closed. His lips were moving, as if he was talking silently to himself.

  “No, not this one,” Mattock said and drew the gun back. “This is a man with no home. He does not belong to the Southwest anymore. He belongs to no one, not even himself, a shell with nothing inside.”

  He stepped back and moved down the line to Annabelle. As soon as he pointed the pistol at the back of her head, David felt the rush of poison, the breaking in his mind. If he could have, he would’ve chewed through the clip holding him to the contraption and flung himself at General Mattock, gnashing teeth and clawing flesh. He knew full well that doing so, he would die in a hail of bullets, but it wouldn’t have stopped him. The cuffs and the contraption saved his life. Because of them, he could only tremble with fury and grind his teeth.

  “The apostate,” Mattock said, tapping the barrel of the pistol against the back of her head. Annabelle closed her eyes and settled her face. No crying, no more whimpering, only the sound of her breathing, slow and deliberate. “You walked away from the one bastion of life to wander a world of sickness. That is unforgiveable. Your fate is decided.” He drew the pistol back. “But not yet.”

  He walked past David to Telly. Telly being so short, his hands were cuffed at eye level, and Mattock, rather than stooping down, pressed the barrel of the gun against the top of his head.

  “This is all so unnecessary,” Telly said. “We could provide such entertainment, if you’d only give us a chance.”

  “Deformed little man,” Mattock said. “Shaped like a bald, fat five year old. You appear to be the leader of this organization.”

  “I suppose…I…yes, I am,” Telly said. He tilted his head to look up at Mattock, and Mattock shifted the gun, pressing it against his eye.

  “And what is this organization called?”

  “The Klown Kroo, good sir,” Telly said. “Spelled with a K. Wait’ll you see the kind of show we put on. It really will astound.”

  “As boss of this Klown Kroo, you do bear responsibility for these people, these performers,” Mattock said with a sweep of his hand.

  “Uh…well, to a certain extent, sir, as you might understand, leadership being tricky and all,” Telly said and laughed uncomfortably. Still trying to win him over, even now, with his life one trigger pull from ending.

  “I do understand, all too well,” Mattock said. “The presence of a Southwestern man and an apostate in this Klown Kroo is ultimately your doing, is it not?”

  “Well…there…the…it…” Telly attempted another laugh, but it came out all wrong, a bad parody of laughter. “I was not fully aware of the controversy of hiring them, sir. I only saw two very talented people. Just wait until you see what they are both capable of.”

  “Your fate is sealed,” Mattock said. “But not yet. You are an offense, but not a threat.”

  Mattock moved on to Cakey, as Telly breathed a loud, shaky sigh of relief and rested his forehead against his hands. Cakey, staring straight ahead, had a smile on his face—a lunatic’s smile, not forced—and a distant look in his eyes.

  “Tattooed madman,” Mattock said, aiming the pistol at him. Notably, he did not touch Cakey with the gun but stayed a good six inches behind him.

  “I am the greatest threat to you,” Cakey said.

  “Are you? And why do you say that?”

  “Because...” Cakey turned and looked at him, smiling so broadly, he flashed teeth and gums. “I am the one who is going to kill you. My hands wrapped around your throat, squeezing the blood out of your eyes, that’s how it’ll go down.” And then the smile faded and he looked away.

  Mattock, surprisingly, took this well. He blinked and laughed softly. “An amusing display of boldness,” he said. “However, a truly great threat would never proclaim itself. A truly great threat would be like the boy here, secretive and unassuming, hiding the real danger beneath a cloak of humility.”

  “Yeah, well, we madmen don’t always play by the rules,” Cakey said.

  Mattock closed the gap between Cakey and himself, and now he touched him with the barrel of the pistol, grinding it back and forth against his skull. “Ah, but you’re not a madman, after all, are you? Not a real madman. Your insanity is an affectation, something you have draped over yourself, like the tattoos on your face. Are you a dangerous man? Perhaps, but you are not what you pretend to be.”

  “You will believe me, gentle tyrant, when my gloved hands are wrapped around your wrinkly old neck,” Cakey said.

  Captain Helt approached the contraption, glaring, one hand dropping to his pistol. “You will not address General Mattock in this fashion, prisoner.”

  “Get back, Captain,” Mattock said. “I didn’t ask for your participation. I have all things well in hand.”

  Captain Helt saluted and stepped back. “Sorry, sir.”

  “You are a threat, that is true,” Mattock said again. “And I will deal with you in due time but not now, I think.”

  “Due time it is,” Cakey said quietly.

  Mattock stepped to the end of the line, where Karl, too tall for the contraption, was unable to kneel comfortably and had to lie on his hip, his legs stretched out behind him. He looked up at Mattock, no discernible emotion on his face.

  “Big brutish animal,” Mattock said. “Big enough to tear a man in two, I imagine. Have you done it? Have you, in a fit of animal rage, ever torn a man in two?”

  “No, sir, I have not,” Karl said. “But I’m willing to try, if you’ll give me half a chance.”

  Mattock smiled. “And yet, under all that meat and steel, I’m guessing there is a soft little heart beating,” he said. “And inside that inch-thick bony skull, a soft little brain to match. Would that be a fair assessment?”

  “Fair enough,” Karl said and shook a lock of dirty hair out of his eyes.

  Mattock took
a step back, pointing the pistol at the ceiling and looked down the line of prisoners. “Truth be told,” he said. “I don’t feel particularly threatened by any of you.”

  “As you shouldn’t, sir,” Telly said.

  “But there is a point to be made, and I shall make it.”

  Mattock’s eyes flicked back and forth, his tongue working at his lips, as if puzzling out a difficult problem in his head. Then he cocked his head to one side and made a soft little sound, as if quietly agreeing with himself.

  “Sir, there—” Telly started to speak.

  Mattock stepped forward, lowered the gun and opened fire on Karl. One, two, three, sounds like a sledgehammer striking a steel plate, echoing in the room for a long time. David quickly averted his gaze, but not before he saw the first bullet hit Karl in the face. A little flap of skin peeled back just under his eye, a great burst of blood and bone and brains came out of the back of his head, and he slammed into the contraption.

  Telly screamed, and Gooty mumbled more fervently under his breath. Annabelle only flinched and then was silent. Clearly, she had expected this from the moment they’d surrendered. Cakey remained stoic, turning his head only to avoid the worst of the splatter. He still had a hint of a smile playing on his lips, twisted, as always, by the crooked tattoo over his mouth.

  Mattock holstered the pistol and strode back over to the dais.

  “There,” he said. “It’s done. Now they know the full weight of what is upon them.”

  Captain Helt handed him his gloves, and he pulled them on. Then, without looking at the prisoners again or speaking to them, he stepped up on the dais and approached the curtain.

  “Put them in a cell,” he said. “I will deal with the rest of them at my convenience.”

  “There was no need to kill him,” Telly shouted, his voice cracking with emotion. “No need! He never meant you any harm!”

  Mattock ignored the comment, swept through the curtain and was gone. Captain Helt and a couple of soldiers rushed over to detach Karl. Only then did David get a good look at the body, the face, red with gore, the mess of bone and brains on the floor. Sickness swept over him, mingled by a terrible sadness, and he closed his eyes. Gone, in a moment gone. He heard the soldiers dragging him across the room, heard the hidden door open, the soft splash of boots in blood.

  “He shot the wrong one,” Cakey said, to no one in particular.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Wormwood

  “Poor Karl,” Annabelle said, brushing away tears.

  The cell reeked of urine and the lingering curdle of the countless doomed men and women who had been there before. A single cot in one corner, a steel toilet in another, a crude sink in a third and four bare walls were all they had. Belle lay on the cot, Cakey sat near the door, Telly and Gooty sprawled out on the floor. David hunched over the sink, trying to scrub the remaining gunk from his face with the little trickle of water that poured ceaselessly out of the bare pipe.

  “I don’t understand what he wanted from us,” Telly said. He sounded haunted, a voice lost somewhere in the air. “Is there something we were supposed to do? Something we were supposed to say? Should I have groveled more?”

  “You groveled plenty, boss,” Cakey said.

  “He didn’t want anything from us,” Gooty said. “It was all just a big show for him, jefe. Just a display of his power. He’ll kill us all, eventually.”

  “But why?” Telly said. “Why kill us when we could serve him, we could put on shows, boost morale. Can’t he see the value in that?”

  “Apparently not,” Gooty said with a sigh.

  David observed the pool of makeup, blood and grime filling the sink. He flicked the excess water off his hands, backed away and found an open spot against the wall. He curled up on his side, tucked his hands beneath his cheek and closed his eyes.

  “How you doin’ over there, kid?” Telly asked.

  “Terrible,” David said.

  “Ole Mattock took a shine to you,” Telly said. “Too bad it wasn’t enough to save Karl.”

  “I should’ve stabbed Mattock instead of that woman,” David said.

  “Ah, the guards woulda just shot you,” Telly said.

  “So? At least Mattock would be stabbed.” He couldn’t drive the image of Officer Mayes out of his head, the bandage wrapped around her head, holding her broken jaw in place, swollen eye, grime-covered uniform and burned hair. No, he hadn’t wanted to kill her. He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone, really.

  Cakey chuckled. “I gotta say, I really like this kid.”

  “Yeah,” Telly agreed.

  That might’ve warmed David’s heart under different circumstances, but it barely touched him at all. He felt only endless waves of horror sweeping through him. The smell of this place, the cold feel of the concrete floor, the endless parade of blood and death, every detail burned into his brain forever.

  “Karl is better off, at least,” Gooty said. “He went to be with my Josefina. He’s out of Tockland forever. In a good place.”

  Telly grunted. “You think so?”

  “I think so,” Gooty replied. “Espero que sí. You don’t?”

  “I dunno,” Telly said. “Always sort of figured when this life is over, it’s over. We live, we die, and that’s it. So maybe Karl didn’t go to a better place, but he’s got no more pain. No more nothin’. What do you think, Cakey?”

  Cakey raised one hand, finger pointed skyward, and gestured dramatically. “This life is but the audition. The real show starts afterward.”

  “Now, do you really believe that?” Telly asked.

  “Certainly, and, let me tell you what, the ones that fulfill their destiny are the ones that pass the audition. All others—” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Cast out.”

  “Okay, I guess that's the kind of answer I should expect from you. Belle?”

  She had almost fallen asleep, but she stirred at the sound of her name and sat up, rubbing her face. She looked around, dark half-moons under her eyes, particularly striking on her pale face. David ached for her. And how he wanted to go to her, to wrap his arms around her, draw her close and protect her from this awful place. But he did nothing, wallowing in misery.

  “It doesn’t seem fair if there’s not something after this life,” she said. “All the awful things we go through, and that’s it? No, I can’t accept that. If poor Karl’s just gone? No, that’s…that’s too…” She shook her head.

  “What about you, kid?” Telly said. “What do you think?”

  David considered the question, though, in truth, it wasn’t a conversation he really wanted to have. He couldn’t understand why they were talking about it, as if it made them feel better dwelling on Karl’s death. There was something perverse in it, he thought. Better to bury dark thoughts and bad memories, bury them deep.

  “Well, what do you say, kiddo?” Telly said.

  On some level, David had always had a vague sense that dead people must go somewhere, that some part of a person must continue to exist, but he’d never worked it out in his head. It wasn’t the kind of thing Vern or Mama had ever talked about.

  “I guess it’s possible,” he said. “Maybe we go to a better place. Maybe we go to a worse place. I don’t know. How can you know what a place is like if you’ve never been there?”

  “Maybe it’s no place,” Telly said. “It’s like going to sleep forever and that’s it. So just think of ole Karl as being asleep. I don’t know about you guys, but that helps me a little bit.”

  “No, sir,” Cakey said. “We’re all backstage, the material world is the curtain, and when it draws back, the show begins, the real show. The light shines down, and there it is.”

  “Very poetic,” Telly said. “Not sure what it means.”

  “I know there will be a bullet for me,” Gooty said. “And when it is my turn, I will not regret it, because I will go to be with my beautiful Josefina.”

  “Josefina,” Cakey said, speaking the name softly and sadly.
<
br />   “Yes, amigo,” Gooty said. “And everything that is broken will be mended.”

  “It’s a lovely sentiment,” Telly said. “I’ll concede that. I sorta hope you're right.”

  And then, as if on some secret cue, the lights in the cell went dark. All that remained was a thin band of light seeping through the crack at the bottom of the door.

  “Guess that means sleepy time, folks,” Cakey said.

  “I’m not tired,” Telly said. “Might never sleep again.”

  Despite this, the conversation quieted down. David heard the others moving about in the darkness, looking in vain for some comfortable position on the hard floor. Annabelle offered to give up the cot, but nobody wanted to take it from her. The cot, a concrete slab with a half-centimeter-thick rubber mat on top, wasn’t much better than the floor anyway. David agreed wholeheartedly with Telly. He might never sleep again.

  Yet he did exactly that within minutes. And in dreams, a thousand ruined faces came at him, scab-covered heads and hollow eyes. He had knives in either hand, and he slashed his way through them, cutting through gaunt bodies, papery skin. Every face, when it got close, transformed into the one-eyed, haunted visage of Officer Mayes. Again and again, he cut them down, and always more of them came. He fought until his body ached, until sickness raged through his flesh, until his breath burned like acid in his mouth.

  And when he awoke in the stench and darkness of the cell, the aches had followed him out of the dream. He sat up, queasy, his head spinning. He pressed a hand to his stomach and realized it was a different kind of sickness he was feeling, not the burning poison he was so used to. Every muscle sore, his flesh tender, a sour taste in his mouth. He heard someone retching nearby and saw the vague outline of a small body bent over the toilet.

  “Telly?”

  Telly groaned. “Oh, God, kid, I’m sick. I want to puke, but I can’t get nothin’ out.”

  David heard other groans. He saw Annabelle sitting on the edge of her bed, her head in her hands, Gooty on his knees, arms wrapped around his torso.

  “Everyone’s sick?”