Everybody Scream!

by Jeffrey Thomas

  A photo of this cow showed her staring at the camera, her front legs under her and rear legs splayed, her white-lashed eyes half-closed, one of them swollen, blood welling from under it where a human had savagely kicked her. Savagely. Savages. Hector had once seen a vid of two scrawny black teenagers in some blighted colony throwing large stones at a dying, sickly cow. And their equally scrawny, nasty dogs snapping at it. The cowards darted in to club it once the stones had brought it on its side. The cow did not complain. Cows seemed to know their place. Hector could still hear the sickening distant thump as the stones smashed into the cow’s face, making the huge lazy head turn, but the head just returned resignedly to its former position, obligingly, as if this were just another process like being milked. Those cattle-prodders were just like these stone throwers, who were just prehistoric humans hurling crude spears at mammoths. The only evolution came in the weapons, or the clothing, or language. Not in the heart.

  What about those like Hector, though? He wasn’t poor, was well fed, basically healthy. But what if he had lived in that arid, blighted colony? What if he had been uneducated and had to take a job in a stockyard? Well, he’d never do that so long as there was a toilet to be scrubbed, but still, the point was: was it too easy to stand back smug and superior and point a finger from where he lived? Was it, sadly, that money and comfort gave one the luxury of mercy and compassion? Old women in silk gowns could gather, kittens in laps, and bemoan the slaughter of dogs by the dirty peoples who ate dogs, but they didn’t have to worry about feeding their families. They could afford the luxury of alternatives, were warm enough to stand back and notice the cold of animals. Okay, Hector could forgive those scrawny bastards their blood sport–their’s was a harsh, benighted life. But scientists uncapping kitten skulls were not loinclothed Neanderthals–outwardly. The swaggering, guffawing assholes who kicked crippled cows in the face could buy plenty of beer to sustain themselves; no threat of hunger or cold justified their ethical and spiritual underdevelopment.

  The cow stared at the camera both mindlessly and yet also as if, tired and agonized, it accused the human race, a splayed and bloodied martyr for its kind. It accused Hector. Hector, who loved steak. Whose wristwatch’s band was proudly inscribed, “Genuine Pigskin.” Hector felt guilty, unworthy to join those people sitting behind the display table, who were doubtlessly vegetarians. He was weak. A hypocrite. He had alternatives. He could seek them out. Synthetic meats, just as good. Cultured animal tissues without brains. But it was often cheaper to raise and kill animals than to build plants and pay workers to produce these alternatives. The local businesses jealously maintained their industry. Later, when animals were more depleted, outdated, as on Earth, would technology replace them. No act of mercy would decide this. Plastic might eventually fully replace leather. Cows might die out. Pigs. The like. Eventually become outmoded at every colony, become unnecessary and thus ultimately extinct species. But better that than slow torture, right? For now, here, it was cheap. I’m a slave to their morality, to my upbringing, to my community, Hector countered his conscience. He had tried quitting flesh a few times. He was addicted to his barbarism; not eating meat would be like celibacy. But he still loved animals, respected them, he did! He could not squash a spider–at his apartment he caught them in cups and put them outside. Would these two chatting people understand, forgive him? As a boy he had seen cows in books and imagined them grazing endless fields. He had had no realistic comprehension of the origins of his hamburgers. Why couldn’t cows graze contentedly, and then one day just be sneaked up on, shot in the head, if people had to eat animal flesh? Why did baby calves have to be penned, unable to even move, and fed only milk solutions so as to become veal? Was he evil if he still loved to eat meat and asked only for mercy and compassion instead of absolute liberation for these creatures?

  Still, looking into that photographed cow’s face, he’d decided to try becoming a vegetarian again. The alternatives were available. Laziness or frugality did not excuse his patronage of these animal concentration camps.

  Everything we do is evil, he thought. We can’t eat, can’t even dress without slaughtering other lives. The cruelty, the misery. What must it be like in a slaughterhouse, some pigs actually dying of fright before they were touched, he had heard–just as he had heard that pigs were more intelligent animals than dogs. What must that sound be like? Probably like that last world he had crossed over into…with its moans, groans, bellows of fear, screams of endless desperation.

  Life was hideous enough. Was there no escape beyond it? In some world beyond did the souls of cows and pigs rend and eat alive the souls of shrieking humans through all eternity while monkeys gleefully cavorted? There, the scientists would be caged in fortresses built of white rat skeletons while white rat souls gnawed on their spectral flesh. There, human heads were mounted on the walls of mazes which once-beautiful women stumbled through blindly, groping, wailing, their skins ripped raw from the bared muscles, their eyes eaten away by those rabbits once blinded to test cosmetics. It would be a hell. But it would only be this hell turned inside out.

  Hector drifted on, pamphlets in his inner jacket pocket.

  At the back of the mall building there was a mini shop selling only clocks with decorative photographs as their faces. Some were portraits of Lotti, the legendary Tikkihotto, the clock’s arms tucked down by his shoulder. Some showed cute little kittens or puppies on green grass. They were tacky, but they soothed Hector a little. The kittens should anger him after what he’d seen. These clocks were naïve things. It could be bad to be naïve. But it felt good now to be amongst these images; glorified oceans where no whales were harpooned, the placid farm scenes where no cows hopelessly moped inside those pretty blood red buildings.

  Next to the clock display was a taxidermy display, irony of ironies, within sight of the animal rights display. Before he had realized it Hector was standing at it, admiring a lamp which incorporated a pretty-colored, fascinating fish, even considered buying it. Then he looked up at the pelts hanging over his head, the antlered trophies, a few large fur rugs behind the counter on the wall. He was horrified that people at the animal rights booth might this instant be drilling their hot eyes into his back. He moved out of the mall through its rear opening. But he still would have liked that lamp.

  Though she had felt bad for the cows tied to their stalls all day by two feet of rope, shitting on their own tails, Noelle hadn’t reflected on the teriyaki sticks she had bought earlier, and she didn’t even consider stopping at the animal rights booth, avoided glancing at it a second time, flicked past it as one might embarrassedly flick channels past a VT commercial asking aid for skeletal, starving children. Too depressing. Earlier, alone in a tent which contained sheep in pens–their coats stained with shit, too many of them not covered in blankets against the growing chill of night, wearing bright ear punches–she had failed to detect the sad irony in the whimsical artwork hanging on the insides of the tent, a series of facts on sheep presented in questions and answers, showing cute cartoons of sheep acting like humans, which probably anthropomorphically inspired more delight than the dumb beasts themselves. “Can You Eat Them?” it was asked. “Oh Yes!” And the many ways were related. A smiling lamb was shown seated at a table wearing a bib, knife and fork in its hooves. Noelle had only absent-mindedly given one of the animals an obligatory pat on the neck, more to feel the scratchy shorn surface than anything. The sheep had been sheared in a contest earlier that day. The uses for animals were endless.

  Noelle was growing restless. Sorry. She had already grown restless. She had bags to bring back to the car; she hated carrying them around. She was bored. This had gone on too long. How could even Bonnie be so self-concerned? Noelle sighed. She’d wait a little longer only, and then…and then what? Drive home, in Bonnie’s car? This was ridiculous.

  Well, the least she could do for now was to go get her hand stamped so she could return through the gate, then go down to the parking lot and put her bags in the ca
r...except that she didn’t have a key. Fuck!

  Maybe Bonnie and Moussa-whatever had gone to her car. She could only hope. She had no idea what his would look like, or where amongst the desert of vehicles to look. The guys from school had apparently never shown up. Bonnie had dumped her for drugs and a fuck. And Kid was still standing in a dark corner of her mind, arms crossed, glaring at her. Such fun tonight.

  Noelle retraced her path through the long mall building, exited the way she had come in. Just out of the huge threshold she numbly, not yet comprehending, watched the snipe run at the teenage boy like a phantom greyhound. It leaped, and was on him. The screams of others inspired Noelle, finally, to scream. She couldn’t see much between the bodies of other people, through the rising dust–just frenzied movement as the weird bluish dog creature savaged the boy. It wasn’t even this boy who had noticed the creature lurking under an empty animal trailer nearby, and had pitched a few rocks at it, some others then joining it. He was simply the one the aggravated scavenger had focused its rage on. Maybe it was his bright white leather jacket. Now red. The screams…

  Noelle had dropped her bags, palms pressed to her ears, but watched–mesmerized. Of course it had only been a matter of seconds before someone with a gun took aim, a Choom man in a wide stance, pistol in both hands, but he roared in frustration because he was afraid to hit the boy. A black boy darted in with nunchakus and swung them. The chained club cracked across the snipe’s back, and in a flash it was on him instead. It had him by the throat, its jaws widely unhinged like those of a snake. The black boy stumbled backwards, remarkably staying on his feet, but his useless hands fluttered like electrified moths. Only when the snipe hurled its entire body back and forth like a fish hooked on a line did the boy go down–to die. The snipe didn’t let go.

  Now the Choom squatted on his haunches and chanced a shot. It struck the beast on the right side of the neck. It released the boy, its wide mouth open in an uncanny banshee howl. A twisty, billowing cloud of black smoke poured into the air from the wound like a squid’s ink unfolding under water. Two more shots. One missed, due to the smoke screen, one plunged into its ribs, out the other side. It furiously bolted away.

  The phantom greyhound tore down the midway, trailing smoke behind it from three holes like jet streams. It leaped over a child, not even touching her head. Finally, however, mad with pain, it crashed into the side of a target shooting game. It crawled agonizingly up and inside the booth, where it challenged the panicking man behind the counter for this shelter. He went down under the creature. Both sorts of blood were seen rising from behind the counter.

  Some teenage boys came to lean over the counter and lash its back with the heavy chains they wore around their waists. Whirling, it seized on boy by the wrist and yanked him over the counter. Others were rushing to help, all races and ages united in this battle. A man seized one of the machine guns mounted on the counter like a helicopter gun. These fired B-Bs at paper targets with red stars on them–if the star were totally obliterated you won a prize. He had just been ready to try for this when the snipe came along and now he returned to the loaded gun, swivelled and opened fire.

  The streams of tiny silver balls tore into the snipe’s clammy blue flesh, and from each a new puff of smoke escaped, then a thin stream. The snipe released the boy (whose arm was hit with some BBs, too) and flipped crazily into the air, twisted in mid-air, fell and flopped in circles as if to chase its tail. The smoke screen began to obscure it. The wounded boy clambered over the counter top, babbling.

  Dingo Rubydawn, Mitch Garnet’s Choom security man, stepped up to the counter and took patient aim into the stinking black whirlpool of cloud.

  Back at the mall, Noelle heard the detonations of the two explosive bullets. This was enough. She wanted to go home. Now.

  “Blast me,” breathed Bern Glandston, blindly inserting a dilky into his mouth, then chewing it unconsciously. He stared, mildly awed, at the leg.

  It was a free attraction; putting a tent around it and charging admission had been considered but would detract from the effect of the great spider-like appendage emerging out of empty air. Lights illuminated it and there was a sign nearby with information. Two years ago it had appeared, at first just the mechanical-looking claws at the end and a bit of leg, high in the air. Slowly, imperceptibly, more had emerged as the foot lowered toward the ground. After two years the foot was still two inches from touching ground. It was as black, glistening and reflective as obsidian, with cruel barbs, odd mechanical joints, tough bristles, and the words “Toby Fucks” sprayed on the upper part of the leg in the nearly impossible to remove paint favored by graffiti artists.

  Bern stepped around to the back of the leg. He craned his neck. He thought the cross-section where the leg emerged from thin air might show an actual cross-section; bones, nerves, veins, whatever. The surface was just a flat black disc. Bern moved around front to read the sign further. It had been suggested that this extra-dimensional creature had been drawn to the site by the color, noise, or activity. “By the smell of dilkies,” Bern muttered to himself, cramming one in his mouth. The sign went on that the leg was seven feet in length this year. Scientists had taken samples of this one, and in the air over a certain bank here in Punktown two hundred and forty-three of these legs had materialized. They had been fitted with lights to keep helicars from striking them at night, and a disintegrating unit had later been attached by brackets to two legs to catch a dribbling liquid which had started to rain out of the blue sky onto the bank, and which scientists later identified as a kind of waste product. The dribble had stopped after four months. It still remained to be seen whether or not those legs would have to be sliced away by the authorities in the future, pending further developments. The origin or nature of the creature was still unknown.

  “Two hundred forty-three,” muttered Bern, wagging his head, chewing. Staring. What kind of thing loomed above him now, cloaked in invisibility, standing in this same space but in some other dimension? What did it want here? It was enough to make even Bern Glandston ponder a few more moments, even if nobody else seemed interested, too busy rushing from ride to game to food stand.

  But he did sense a presence close behind him now, and he turned.

  Though he had never seen an alien of this type before he was more curious than startled. It was huge, almost as tall as the leg, and sturdy, muscular. The head was like a hornless cattle skull with intelligent human-like eyes set in the deep cups of the sockets, the teeth devoid of gums and covering lips. It was naked, its muscle definition thus clearly displayed, and this showed that while the helmet of a skull was entirely turquoise, around the jaw and neck there began a pebbly chainmail of tiny smooth scales, turquoise and black in various sizes and patterns which changed in accordance with the area of the large body. The scales and their patterns were beautiful. The towering being was staring down at the ground in front of Bern, not at the mysterious leg or the sign discussing it. Though not afraid, the proximity and size of the being made Bern want to say something to get on its good side. But then, it wasn’t looking at his face, and in another instant Bern might have walked past it if he didn’t notice something he hadn’t at first for the darkness the creature glistened in. There was a large area of dullness which did not glitter with lovely scales on the being’s chest, extending up over one shoulder and presumably down the back. This area was deeply indented. The scaled skin had been removed from the area.

  Those cow-sized but human eyes lifted from his shoes to stare directly into Bern’s eyes. Even without brows to lower or lids to squint, the eyes glared. And Bern felt a silent bomb of horror explode inside him, its cold tingling fallout spreading through his limbs, as he realized he was for the first time staring into the eyes of a Torgessi.

  It clearly didn’t matter to this particular Torgessi that Bern’s shoes were silver and black, and couldn’t have been made from the hide stolen from its own body. A low, ominous rattling rose from deep in its throat. Some of those distinc
t muscles shifted in its chest and shoulders like a restless sleeper under a blanket.

  “Hey!” said Bern, and he spun on the heel of his slipper, and bolted.

  It was after him. Bern wasn’t sure how speedy a cold-blooded Torgessi would be but he held nothing back. It had stopped rattling so he couldn’t judge its nearness by that and he didn’t dare look over his shoulder. The suspended leg had been a little removed from the thick of carnival activity, and it was toward this that Bern ran, hoping the monster would be afraid to pursue him in public.

  He plunged into a wave of people, bumping them, shouldering past some roughly, who glowered after him. He plunged between two game booths, jumped over a coiled drunk lying in the alley, and on into another corridor of the carnival labyrinth. Now, at last, he risked stopping to turn around and look for the creature. He panted, his heart somersaulting down the staircase of his ribs over and over.

  The Minotaur stepped into the alley he had ducked into, its smoldering eyes falling directly on his. “Dung!” Bern cried hoarsely, bolting again.

  Bern ran up to a group of apparent college kids who might prove sympathetic. “Hey,” he wheezed, holding onto a boy’s elbow, “you’ve gotta help me.” The boy jerked his arm away but Bern hardly noticed as he watched behind him for the monster. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing his black lipstick. “There’s an alien chasing me…a Torgessi…it wants to kill me.”

  “Well don’t lead it to us,” one of the girls in the group sneered.

  “Tell a security guard or something, will you? Call the police.” Bern made ready to flee again, seeing that this was no shelter. “Has anybody got a gun?”