Everybody Scream!

by Jeffrey Thomas

  She was there behind the Screamer; she hadn’t changed her mind. She didn’t look any less confused, but smiled nervously. Del did also, relieved to have made his destination without obstacle. And no kids were back here smoking iodine joints or fucking on the ground. “Stay here one more minute,” Del instructed her, and gave her a light kiss on the lips.

  Here? Noelle thought after Del had gone around the Screamer. She didn’t see him go up to the elevated control booth with the shadowy figures inside behind its glass. Noelle glanced around at the trash on the ground, sensing sex that had taken place here previously as if she could still smell it. It was one of those places, like the back of a cemetery, where you could almost see the sperm wriggling all over the ground and onto your shoes.

  Del returned again, and moved straight past her to a metal panel at the base of the ride. Keys jingled. Noelle understood. Del slid the panel open. “Go on in,” he invited. He looked more than a little embarrassed, but still undauntedly hungry. His smiles were more shy, uncomfortable now than flirty and charming. It was dark in there and Noelle had to hunch down.

  Once inside she could stand easily; so could Del, who wasn’t tall anyway. He locked the panel behind him. It shut out the music a little, but it still poured in through some spaces above, as did the whirling lights, flickering across the vibrating walls, shadows of the train fluttering like the wings of huge birds. The inside of the Screamer rumbled. Del moved to two mechanic’s lamps hanging from the support frame, and now the interior was well lit.

  There was a plastic mattress in the center, of course. For a few moments she watched as Del removed a dark green plastic sheet from a cardboard dispenser and covered the bed, as a doctor will pull down new white paper on his examination table. Her eyes strayed to a number of empty beer cans, some tools spread out on a sheet of cardboard, a dog-eared skin magazine tossed almost out of the pool of stark light. The sperm she had felt crawling across her shoes must have actually come from in here.

  But hunger is honest, hunger isn’t proud. Far stronger than the kind of mild disgust she felt was a fresh surge of desire at the bald purpose of this chamber. Straightening, Del turned to face her. He had been avoiding her eyes and she his but now they held contact. He slowly approached her and his aura of lust almost pressed her back; she had to put one foot a step behind her.

  His hands sliding up under the bunched material of her lacy skirt, Del held Noelle’s ass inside the taut smooth skin of her tights while their mouths locked. She let her tongue into his mouth first. He seldom kissed or fucked with closed eyes because he liked to watch the bliss, but he didn’t always like to be looked back at unless it was that dazed grateful adoration when they (if they) reached their plateau of ecstasy. He ran his hands up and down her ass, cupped it, squeezed it. He unclamped his mouth to burrow into her neck, which she arched, her wide lips puffed wider as if swollen with lust, parted open. He kissed her throat, licked her neck just under her jaw line and she groaned shudderingly, holding on to him. Her hair was heavy with the smell of shampoo, her skin had the powdery aftertaste of perfume, chemical but clean. His hand whispered up the skin of her back under her sweater.

  More of her body had the scent and taste of applied perfume as it was revealed to his hands, eyes, nose and lips. Like most young people without a lover, Noelle prepared herself each day as if that day she would meet one, and go to bed with him. A person might wait for years but still conceivably make sure to be so prepared. Only in one place–at which he thirstily dwelt like a man in a desert lapping at mud in a hole he’s dug, dwelt until she squirmed as if to kick or buck him off, though she held his head there until he couldn’t breathe–was she not so perfumed, but he was used to this.

  He moved up to mount her after she’d finally pushed his head away, grimacing with eyes closed, and now she cried out and climaxed within moments of his furious pumping. She had been so primed that he had barely felt himself enter. Her slim legs greedily rose up to hook him like the jaws of a giant beetle, her toes curled from the intensity of her gripping. Del’s contrastingly white buttocks pumped like a bellows. He was panting, sucking down air greasy with the smell of machine lubrication, holding her head in both hands and staring fixedly at her face, her head thrown back, upper chest and throat and bared forehead filmed with sweat. She pursed her lips out at the air, eyebrows lifted and twisted over her capped lids as if in pain. Staring at her face now, more than anything else, would bring him to his zenith.

  She cracked her eyes open a little, smiled faintly at him. Though past the orgasm peak and below even the plateau, her smile looked grateful. But after a few moments Del looked away, twisting atop her body to draw a tiny brown-nippled breast into his mouth. So Noelle stared up at the dark ceiling as her body was rocked on the slick plastic sheet.

  The train had stopped earlier, started again, stopped, now started again. Above, the DJ or operator or whatever you’d call him drawled, “Okay, we’re just about ready to roll…rock and roll, that is. Keep your limbs inside the cars, please, and hold on tight…”

  Mm, it was good. She knew another train of orgasms was coming around slowly. He nuzzled her neck and she inclined her face away, hoping he wouldn’t kiss her, not liking her own smell on his breath. She stared beyond the pool of light into the dark where colored ghosts of light flitted around and around them. She could almost see all those people lined up out there, so close, for the next ride–staring at them, an audience.

  The storm of wild music raged outside, the ceiling above rattled, clattered, the walls rumbling as the train picked up speed. They were inside a volcano. The speed increased, perhaps inspiring her lover, who had been slacking off to catch his breath.

  Maybe she thought he was simply making it last, but Del was experiencing difficulty. He couldn’t coax his own orgasm toward release; it would climb but elude him, then snaking out of his grasp.

  “Just worry about what you do, pal,” Sophi had said this morning after he had gingerly approached the subject of her drinking.

  He lifted Noelle’s left leg under the knee, held it out and up away from them as he pumped, stared at it. He would do this to Sophi or to anyone, not so much to admire the lovely shape but for a stimulus when orgasm was distant, either because the body had been under him so long that he needed to see some of it to renew his drive, or when he was preoccupied, troubled, needed a focus other than an uncomfortably gazing face to arouse himself to release. It was also a way to fantasize that the leg belonged to another. This wasn’t as possible with Noelle, however; her flesh color was a little too distinctive, and the red ribbon he insisted she leave on, ever the aesthete, was even more distinctive. Still, he held her leg out by the calf now to straighten it, his eyes basting its length.

  This was curious to her but Noelle closed her eyes again, submissive. Above, the DJ called, “Okay…we’re gonna pick things up a little bit…I think she can handle the strain. Are you having a good time–let’s hear it!”

  Fuck–why did this have to happen now, now, with this gorgeous creature, after so many others who hadn’t roused him beyond casual hunger? Could that be it? Her extra appeal was actually blocking him?

  He slipped out softly. Gently rolled her over. She complied but was alert for trouble, relaxing when he merely reentered her vagina. He propped himself over her, staring down at her brown buttocks against his pale belly, the way her lower back dipped and swelled abruptly into their bisected mound. He would admire Sophi in this way. But her ass was fuller, and white, with that brown dot of a freckle or birthmark near the crease. Idly he wondered how many days it had been since he and his wife had made love. Not too many. But he was too distracted to remember.

  Del lowered his chest to Noelle’s back, held her hair, his eyes tangled in it, all that he saw. He had this exquisite brown child-like being below him, supple and compliant, eager clay, and here he was staring into a dark nest of hair that could have belonged to anybody. To Sophi. Like Sophi’s thick mass of hair. He visualized Sophi be
neath him...her bottom with its telltale brown freckle squashed tightly against him...

  The climax was finally mounting; he knew it. Just as it bubbled toward eruption he glanced at the girl’s wrist watch in alarm. Ohhh–Goddamn. He’d missed Pearl’s show. What the fucking hell next?

  Her next train of orgasms had never pulled into the station but Noelle wasn’t bitter and let the man atop her dig gravely for his. Far above the DJ went on with his ever sinister enthusiasm, “Okay, we’re about ready to call it quits. Hope you folks aren’t too shaken up, now. Thanks for your time. I think we can still squeeze in a little more speed before you leave us, though. Are you ready now? Let me get my hands on the controls here. Hey, what’s this red button? It says ‘light speed’, looks like. Let’s give it a try.” The rumbling increased to an earthquake. What if the ride collapsed, crushing them, grinding their skeletons into one tangled being? Noelle dug one hand under herself to finger her clitoris. Grunting, sobbing out, Del bounced crazily against her back in climax. That helped her. Yes, her train would come in again. The DJ said, “Has anybody got a beer for me? Oh–sorry–are we still on?” It was then, as she began to peak again, that distantly Noelle remembered the DJ having said all this so long ago earlier today–all of this–and it wasn’t a script. She realized it was a recording.

  “Okay, folks, looks like we’re right there. Are y’all ready now?”

  As she couldn’t see Del when he–and then she–climaxed, it could have been anyone other than the famous Del Kahn inside her. It was just a sensation now devoid of identity. It could have been Kid she had given in to again.

  “Oh-kay…everybody SCREEEAM!”

  “I don’t know, it looks a little green,” said the boy, a mutant, with a glossy black oval growth bulging from a bloodless rent in his white forehead, pushing his eyes too far apart.

  “It’s fresh, that’s why,” said Mortimer Ficklebottom, standing with the boy under the pavilion of his camp. In a lawn chair lazily watching was a sometime associate, Crosby Tenderknots, just arrived and mead in hand; smirking.

  “Yeah, well isn’t it better ripe?”

  “Are you telling me my business or what, kid? What do you want for the price? Hey, I can get you better weed, my friend, but it will cost.”

  The boy shrugged, pulled two crumpled bills from his front jeans pocket. The sandwich bag of seaweed was rolled in a tube he slid into the same pocket. The ungrateful punk didn’t even say thanks.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  The mutant kid bolted, dove roughly into the underbrush of people. Mitch barely glanced after him. He stood with hands on hips staring at Ficklebottom.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “What did I just see?”

  “I don’t know, what did you?” Mortimer wasn’t being facetious; he really wanted to know how long Garnet had been standing there–he hadn’t seen him until he spoke.

  “Don’t play games, pal. I saw you sell that kid some weed.”

  “Come on, what is this, man?”

  “I saw you sell that kid weed.”

  “Oh? He’s gone. So is the alleged weed. It wasn’t weed. Right? Where’s your proof?”

  “In my memory. ‘Hey, I can get you better weed, but it will cost.’”

  “Look, man, this isn’t Forma Street. Right? Don’t harass me. Go chase that kid; he’s got the weed, now.”

  “And you sold it to him. You’re the dealer. Right?”

  “What is this, huh? Is this a joke? Don’t you have better things to do, man? People have died tonight, you know?”

  “Yeah, and a girl died last night. From purple vortex.”

  “Look, I sold a kid a ten munit bag of shit weed!”

  “I’m sick of air-wasters like you thinking they can stand out in the open and sell drugs under our noses. I’m not harassing you, moron, I’m doing my job.”

  “What about everybody else? Go after everybody here, why don’t you? Everybody sells drugs.”

  “Not everybody. But I will go after everybody who does, when I see it. And I saw it. I’m sick of punks like you giving our carnival a bad name. I’m taking you in.”

  Mortimer had to laugh in disbelief. “Taking me in where?”

  “To the holding cells until I can have you taken to town after the fair closes up.”

  “What? To town? What the blast is this?”

  “Big boy,” smirked Crosby Tenderknots.

  “What did you say, fuck-face?” Garnet snapped, turning on him. Crosby went on smirking and held his gaze but didn’t repeat himself. “You keep your mouth shut.” Back to Ficklebottom. “I’m empowered to take you in and I’m taking you in, loser. You fucked up, not me–blame yourself.”

  “The forcers will laugh you right out of the station!”

  “What they do is their business. I’m just doing my job.” Mitch stepped forward, but stopped when Ficklebottom moved backwards.

  “Come on!” He was really agitated now, no vestige of a smirk.

  “Why are you so afraid, Fickle-anus? They’re just gonna laugh me out of the station, right? You act like you got something to hide.”

  Tenderknots, also no longer smirking, got out of his chair and moved toward the big camper. Mort tried to distract Mitch. “Look, man…”

  “Yeah, go tell the fat man, ass-wipe,” Mitch said after Crosby. Then he advanced on Ficklebottom again. Ficklebottom backed off. Crosby disappeared into the camper. Mitch lunged at Ficklebottom abruptly.

  The skinny man tried to dodge to the right but Garnet caught him at the elbow, spun him to his knees, pinning his arm high behind his back. The rumpled black top hat he was never without toppled from his long-haired head. Growing from the top of Ficklebottom’s lumpy head were stalks of pink celery, several over five inches long with others just emerging. At the end of each was a knot of flesh covered with dark hair. Some kind of infection or the aftereffect of some kind of drug? Mitch kicked the top hat away and pointed the muzzle of his pistol an inch from the nape of his prisoner’s neck as Eddy Walpole stepped down from the trailer–also, miraculously, not smirking–followed by the dour-faced Johnny Leng, with his somewhat oriental eyes darkly intense.

  “There’s no need for that kind of shit,” Leng purred ominously.

  “He’s resisting arrest.”

  “He sold a kid a bag of weed,” Walpole said.

  “Yeah. So I’m bringing him in.”

  “If there’s a fine to pay we’ll pay it to you now.”

  “You pay your fines downtown, pal, not to me.”

  “Uhh! Okay, okay!” Mortimer blubbered at the pain.

  Garnet eased up, re-holstered his gun. He was confident that the others wouldn’t attack him, not in front of a growing crowd, who munched their snacks as they looked on, momentarily interested as if they had drifted into another tent display of animals being manhandled. Garnet produced some handcuffs and secured Mortimer’s wrists behind his back with no more resistance. Ficklebottom did plead to Eddy, though, “Do something, man! Come on!”

  “Stand up.” Garnet lifted his prisoner by the upper arm.

  Walpole was more grim by the moment, and Leng could apparently no longer trust himself to enter into the conversation. Walpole said, “It won’t happen again, Garnet. This is the last night, right? Why get so excited over nothing?”

  “Why are all of you so excited over nothing?” And Mitch put his hand into a pocket of Mortimer’s long-fringed vest. Nothing. He moved to the opposite pocket.

  Down from the camper came Sneezy Tightrope. He tried to look inconspicuous as he stepped back beside a baseball bat leaning against the van, but Garnet wasn’t afraid he’d use it. Only the crumpled munits the mutant boy had given Mort in this pocket. Mitch pocketed them for evidence. He patted down Mort’s sides, started digging into his jeans pockets.

  Finally down from the van came Crosby Tenderknots and, puffing, Roland LaKarnafeaux. He looked befuddled, as if just awakened, polishing the lenses of his granny
glasses on the front of his black t-shirt, baring his hairy prodigious belly. Mitch worked between two attentive audiences now. Nothing of value in these pockets. Mitch shoved Ficklebottom around to face him and opened one side of his vest to its silken lining, where there was a slit.

  “I want to talk to Sophi Kahn,” Walpole said.

  “So go talk to her; don’t bother me, I’m busy.”

  “Johnny!” Mortimer whined, but Leng didn’t speak or move. Or blink those black eyes.

  From the inner vest pocket, Garnet’s fingers emerged pinching two small clear packets. Inside the packets was a fine-grained purple sand which seemed to glow softly. Gripping his prisoner’s elbow, Garnet turned to hold the packets up for Walpole and the others to see. “Boy, I’ll bet you guys are surprised, huh?”

  “Great,” mumbled Mort.

  “Of course,” Walpole said. “Okay, Garnet, you’ve had your fun. So take him.”

  “What are you gonna do?” Mort cried at them, ridiculous with his hairy celery.

  “Mortimer,” said Johnny Leng. Mort looked at him and stopped whining. Leng said nothing else, kept his mouth shut. The meaning was obvious; he was ordering Mort to do the same. That Mortimer Ficklebottom knew Johnny Leng well was evidenced by his sudden, if reluctant, silence.

  “I am going to talk to Sophi Kahn,” Walpole said.

  “Go ahead, man. It’s your right.” Garnet pulled at his prisoner’s arm. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “My hat!”

  “His hat.”

  Crosby covered the celery-like growths with the top hat, and without another look back Garnet walked his prisoner away. The crowd broke up. The last to linger was a human boy of eleven in a camouflage army uniform and cap, who stared hard at Eddy Walpole.

  “Don’t worry,” Eddy reassured the Martian. The boy said nothing, walked swiftly away to rejoin his unseen others. To Sneezy, Eddy sighed, “This smells like corpse pussy. Did the forcers set us up?”

  “It was Sophi Kahn,” Leng breathed.

  “Neither,” said Sneezy. “I think. Behind Garnet I saw Del Kahn standing. It’s not bright, but that’s what I saw.”