Everybody Scream!

by Jeffrey Thomas

  “Mm,” agreed Zebo.

  “Well.” Del took a few steps toward the door. But his eyes were drawn once more to the vegetable-like hulk sitting at the counter. Zebo was watching Del’s hesitance expectantly, it seemed…waiting for him to say something. He did. “Just how strong is that thing, telepathically? I mean, can it focus on one person far away from it…among many other people?”

  “Perhaps. Why?”

  “Will you ask it to try and do that for me?”

  Zebo turned, stared wordlessly at the Mo-mo-mo-mo. The single whale-like eye lazily rotated to gaze back at the tiny being. Del returned to the counter. He leaned away, however, as the Mo-mo-mo-mo’s drooping branch-like antenna suddenly began to lash and flick and spin crazily. He batted his lids in a protective reflex reaction.

  Zebo faced Del. “It says it can try. Who do you have in mind?”

  “My wife.”

  “Sophi Kahn. What was her unmarried last name? Her sense of self and identity will be very tied up in her name awareness. It can track her through her name.”

  “I have a picture.” Del reached behind for his wallet.

  “No, no, just the name.”

  “Her maiden name was Redshell.”

  Zebo turned once again to the Mo-mo-mo-mo…once again the antenna twirled like copter blades, snapped like a whip. Zebo and Del waited. Del felt nauseous. The baby shit smell was definitely not helping.

  Zebo looked to Del. “It has her. What is it you require?”

  It had her. Sophi’s thoughts at this being’s disposal, a buffet spread before it. She would never suspect, like a woman undressing under the gaze of binoculars. Del swallowed. “Can it dig…can it find the name Johnny Leng in my wife? Can it tell me if she ever went to bed with him? Had sex with him?”

  Zebo looked at the Mo-mo-mo-mo. Then the tentacle spasms. Del’s left hand pinched at the inside of his jacket’s pocket, rubbed the silk material. Zebo turned to Del, his alien face expressionless, and Del’s stomach rolled upside-down. Zebo said, “Yes, Johnny Leng is there…very strongly. There is much bitterness, much anger in your wife toward Johnny Leng. And fear, also. Yes…your wife did sleep with Johnny Leng.”

  Then the bottom dropped out of Del’s chest. An insidious trapdoor. His heart fell end over end over end down a bottomless well, with a chilly vacant area left in its place, the whooshing tug of his plummeting heart sucking his spirit down after it. “How many times? More than once?”

  “Yes.”

  “Willingly?”

  “Yes.”

  “My God. My fucking, fucking God…”

  “But not tonight. Not willingly tonight…”

  “Tonight?” He wanted to cry. Her wanted to punch her. Punch her. She had confronted him about his cheating, made him promise to fight it, and now this. Words from their marriage ceremony hovered at the back of his mind, mockingly. I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. Song of songs. He both liked those words for the circle of harmony they made and disliked them for the implication of one possessing another. Now they were a total joke to him. A joke. Johnny Leng. That stinking monster. It was true. Willingly. Johnny Leng…

  “Why did she do it?” he breathed. “Why did she cheat on me?”

  “No rational reason. Emotions of hurt, resentment, confusion. And the typical hunger of the flesh. But tonight was different.”

  “Why?” he was shaking. He would kill him. Kill that Johnny Leng…

  “He forced her into a sexual act tonight. She didn’t want to. She is guilty about her actions, Del…she’s sorry. She resents herself. She wants to tell you about tonight but she’s afraid that he will hurt her and you. He has said he would.” Zebo’s voice was grim. The Mo-mo-mo-mo’s antenna was still spinning, flopping, relaying information. “He held her at gunpoint tonight.”

  Del was nodding. “Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Okay.” His nostrils could be heard dragging in long, stench-filled breaths of air, letting them out long and slow. He slipped his hand phone out of his jacket. “I see now. Thank you, Zebo. Tell it I said thank you.”

  Zebo observed Del closely as he thumbed keys on the phone, and reached a robot tech on the other end. “Let me speak to Dingo,” Del told it tremulously.

  Moments. The Choom security man came on. “Del?”

  “Dingo, meet me at Zebo’s right away, understand? Right now. I want you to arrest somebody.”

  “Who?”

  “Johnny Leng. He raped my wife tonight. She isn’t there, is she?”

  “No…she isn’t…dung, are you sure?”

  “Yes. Don’t say anything about it to her if you see her. Just get over here quick before I go and do it alone.” He signed off, pocketed the device.

  “Del,” said Zebo. Del looked. “She’s sorry, Del. With all due respect, you had a young lady in here tonight.”

  “I know. I forgive her, Zebo. It’s my fault, probably. But I don’t forgive him. Thanks for caring.”

  While Del waited, the Mo-mo-mo-mo “spoke” some more to Zebo. “Foolish humans, so morbidly obsessed with their reproductive process. They should be asexual, like my people,” it concluded proudly.

  “Ooh, look at that, huh?” said Venus Bovino, spooning some ice cream into her mouth from a little cup. Her daughters Claire and Mallory stood by her doing likewise.

  “What is it?” Claire asked, sneering.

  “Read the sign, why don’t you–what are you, blind? Nicky. Nick.”

  “What?” Venus’s burly husband sauntered over with a sigh of disgust. Up ahead inside a tent men were arm wrestling on a raised platform, a crowd encircling it. Right now a human was up against a simianoid. The little ape-featured being seemed to be winning. Nick was sure he could take the creature.

  “Look at this thing.”

  Nick joined his wife. “So what?”

  “Do we have one of these in our back yard?”

  “No–and I don’t have a dead whale in my back yard either. Like I said, so what? Come on, huh?”

  “I guess you have no interest in things.”

  “I guess you’re interested in stupid dung. Now come on.”

  “I’m reading.”

  “Yeah? Fine. So read. I’m going on ahead.”

  “So go.”

  “I am. I’ll be at the arm wrestling tent.”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re lucky the girls have ears.” Nicky swaggered on ahead.

  Venus licked her plastic spoon, tossed her trash aside onto the ground, wiping her sticky lips and fingers with a balled up napkin which she jettisoned also. Two hundred and forty-three legs over a bank in town, huh? Wow. And here there was one touching the ground, two curling down toward it and the end claw of a fourth emerging from the air. There was a dark wet area below as if a liquid had spilled from that space but no longer came. Venus thought that if she stared hard enough at the two curled legs she could see their infinitesimal movement, as when one watches the mercury of a thermometer rise when their warm thumb is on it, or the minute hand of a watch move.

  Venus wondered if one day a full two hundred and forty-three of these huge black insect legs would appear here, also.

  Seventeen-year-old Cod had been getting rather drunk, rather foggy, and Johnny Leng had snapped at him, given him some detox pills. He was now sharp and alert. Two other boys lounging in the lawn chairs had been ordered away by Eddy Walpole. When Del Kahn, Dingo Rubydawn and Mendez of the Fog security outfit marched toward the camp they saw only Cod outside it…and two Martians. One was peering stonily into the showcase of key chains, buttons, eye pins, switchblade knives. The other leaned against one of the pavilion’s support rods, rolling a cigar in his mouth…or the remnant of a licorice ice whip–Del couldn’t tell yet. Both had holstered pistols, but none of the bandoliers, grenades, or huge rifles (called assault engines) associated with them. The one leaning against the support rod, a boy of about eleven, had a camouflage-painted face to match his uniform and cap, however…and a necklace strung with a half dozen dri
ed and shriveled ears. He was squinting as he watched the three men stride determinedly toward the camp.

  Dingo was a little ahead of his companions, and ignoring the two loiterers addressed Cod sharply. “Where’s Johnny Leng?”

  Cod glanced from one man to the other to the other, then back. “Why?”

  “That doesn’t concern you, loser–which is he in? Van or camper? I want ya to get him out here.”

  “Why?”

  “That doesn’t concern you, I said, and I won’t say it again. Just do it.”

  “I don’t know if he’s here.”

  “You lying worthless punk. Leng!” Dingo took a few steps under the wide canopy stretching out from the body of the bus-like hovercamper. “Johnny Leng!” he shouted. “Get out here now!”

  The van door slid open and a door in the camper opened simultaneously. Mendez put his hand on his gun handle. Del’s hands twitched, wanting to do the same but his gun was at home. His heartbeat was the steady rhythmic background of this composition, upon which all other tracks were being laid, these varied participants all constructing their own parts to the piece. An improvised jam session. It could go anywhere.

  A few passing spectators had washed up on the shore of the living river, attracted instinctively by the tension on this island. Another. Another. In a few minutes it would almost be an audience.

  Out of the hovercamper came Mortimer Ficklebottom, shirtless but still with his top hat, and a groggy, blinking teenage girl, her curly black hair in her face, pudgy but slovenly sensuous and large-breasted, wearing only black bikini panties cutting into her fungus-white flesh. Out of the van came Johnny Leng, then Eddy Walpole, and finally the slow-moving bulk of Roland LaKarnafeaux. Leng now wore an open, scratched and worn brown leather Dozer bike jacket over his muscular torso. The night was getting ever cooler…brisk. Del felt the bite of it through his silk suit, which seemed ever thinner, and he had to force himself not to shiver. He wasn’t entirely successful.

  “Is there a problem, guys?” asked Eddy Walpole.

  “Johnny Leng,” said Dingo, “you’re under arrest.”

  “What for?” muttered Johnny Leng in a low, menacing tone.

  “The sexual assault of a woman, under the threat of death.”

  “What woman?”

  “You goddamn well know what woman, you slimy piece of dung,” blurted Del Kahn, stepping up beside Dingo. Shivering had become shaking.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Kahn, and you can refer all questions to my lawyer tomorrow. I deny everything.”

  “You deny what you told me? You admitted to that…you admitted what you did!” Del was remotely mindful of the gathering audience.

  “I never admitted to raping anyone or threatening to kill someone.”

  “We’re going to take you in and let the court decide that, Leng,” said Dingo. He came forward, but slowly…wary.

  “Now wait a minute, here, boys,” chuckled jolly Roland LaKarnafeaux, moving forward also, unhurriedly, as if this were all some silly misunderstanding. “Let’s not get all worked up until we get our stories straight…”

  “I told you, Del…he was only teasing you!” Walpole exclaimed.

  “You lied to me…I have proof.”

  “What proof?” sneered Leng. He had taken a step back from Dingo but stopped when Dingo stopped.

  “A telepathic being. We’ll have it testify in court, under a truth scan to prove it’s not lying,” said Del.

  “Come on, now.” Uniformed Mendez started moving toward the accused man. Right hand on his pistol’s butt, left hand fumbling out a pair of red plastic handcuffs. “We’re not asking you, we’re telling you…”

  “I won’t go in,” muttered Johnny Leng sideways.

  “Johnny,” said Eddy Walpole. Then helplessly he watched as Johnny Leng’s right hand plunged inside his scuffed leather jacket. “Johnny!”

  “Hey!” Mendez yanked his pistol out of its sheath.

  “Dung!” Cod hurled himself under a table spread with folded t-shirts.

  “Come on–no!” wheezed Roland LaKarnafeaux, holding up two palms, as if such a gesture might stop two trains from colliding.

  “Look out!” Del shouted to Mendez too late, and ducked, folding one arm across his face.

  The Martian leaning against the pole didn’t chance the possibility that Mendez’s uniform might have a lining of bullet and ray-proof mesh, or mesh woven directly into the uniform material; he went for the head. His pistol was a ray blaster. The red bolt streaked the air like a flashing comet, briefly glimpsed. The full three foot length of it vanished into a new hole just above Mendez’s right ear. His left eye burst.

  Crouching, Dingo jerked out his semiautomatic loaded with explosive rounds. Leng also crouched as he fired. His gun made no sound. Leng squeezed the trigger so rapidly that it might have been a fully automatic weapon. One bullet drilled into Dingo’s face just below his nose, one crashed straight on like a hot rod into the wall of his gritted Choom teeth. One struck his powerful jaw, one slipped into his throat and two missed altogether.

  Dingo only got one shot off before he fell dead. The projectile impacted on the shoulder of Eddy Walpole and detonated. There was a wet explosion, and the whoop that leaped from Eddy’s mouth might have been his soul startled into flight. His arm was torn completely off, with much of his shoulder and a little of his neck. The bullet had been meant for Leng and its nearby concussion, the splash of red paint across his face and body, sent him to the ground with a heavy grunt.

  Del snapped his gaze from Mendez to Dingo. Mendez had fallen on top of his clenched gun. Dingo was sprawled with his arm cast out, his pistol loosely in hand, trigger guard hooked on one finger…as if in death he proffered it to Del.

  Del snapped his gaze to the two Martians, pointing their blasters at his face. The one who had killed Mendez still chomped down on his cigar-or-licorice whip. Del held up his hands.”I’m unarmed!” he babbled. He could feel the molten arrows from their guns piercing his body even before they pulled their triggers. Del Kahn knew he was going to die now.

  They didn’t pull their triggers. One looked uncertainly to the other. The other, the one who had killed Mendez, still stony, lowered his blaster. It was the code of the Martians. They could not shoot an unarmed man.

  Del snapped his gaze to Johnny Leng. Leng’s dark eyes blazed recognizable through a mask of blood and a plastered confetti of flesh and cloth. He was pulling himself to his feet, unsteady, his gun hanging limply, heavy. Only his gaze was steady. The strength of his gaze hoisted the rest of him up, a marionette. One string started lifting up the blood-speckled gun.

  Del ran at Johnny Leng. The audience was yelling, screaming.

  Mortimer shoved his girlfriend out of his way, broke from the camp in a sprint, his top hat toppling, left behind in the dust. His girlfriend staggered, hugging herself, blinking, head tucked into her shoulders. Roland LaKarnafeaux had slid along the outside of the van, fell to his side, floundered, came up on hands and knees to crawl…

  Del tackled Leng, driving the air out of him. As one they crashed back into the open door of the van, Leng underneath. Del brought a fist down. It mostly glanced off a broad, well-defined cheekbone. Del caught the gun as it came up in Leng’s left hand. The gun went off. The silent bullet zipped past his ear. He seized Leng’s wrist in his right hand. With both hands he pounded Leng’s forearm against the edge of the van’s sliding door…again…again. Now the gun flipped over Leng’s hand to dangle just by its trigger guard. One last bash and the pistol was dislodged, disappearing into the van.

  Leng’s free hand lunged, caught Del by the hair. Del cried out. He twisted his head to follow the twisting. Letting go abruptly, Leng cocked his arm back close to his body…then drove his elbow out into Del Kahn’s cheekbone below his left eye. Del stumbled backwards away from Leng, unpinning him. Leng pushed himself out of the van’s threshold.

  The kick came up into Del’s crotch. As Del folded the punch
arced into his temple. His lapels were seized, he was hoisted up and his whole body was swung. Let go. He crashed limply against the side of the camper and slipped down it into a puddle of half-consciousness.

  Taking a deep breath, Leng looked around him, and his searching gaze came to rest on the pistol proffered in Dingo’s hand. He didn’t take his time in going to it, but he didn’t hurry either. Despite his fog and the pain pulsing within it, he felt in control again. He stooped (God, his back) and curled his fist around the gun. Explosive bullets. Loud, messy, but now there was no time or need for stealth or subtlety. Straightening up, Leng turned…

  Del swung Roland LaKarnafeaux’s blue metal baseball bat with both fists gripping the black plastic sheath of the handle, swung it from way back behind his shoulder, swung it with the twist of his entire body, swung it with his teeth gritted and his eyes insane with hunger. Leng’s eyes had held only cold, determined intent. That wasn’t quite enough at this moment.

  The bat slammed against the side of Johnny Leng’s head, and either Del felt something within crack or crunch, or else it was the vibration that gong-like traveled along the bat into his arms. Leng was thrown to the ground. His legs curled spider-like under him, his hair gray in the dust. A moan. Still the gun in his hand. Del stood over him. The bat with which Roland LaKarnafeaux had killed his first man–a boy, really…a child–killed his first person at the age of twelve, still rang with its vibration in Del’s fists, his body ringing with its own vibration. LaKarnafeaux’s Excalibur. Del had seized it from its resting place against the camper, had yanked the sword from the stone although he was not the king. Anyone could wield this Excalibur because it was only an old baseball bat, nicked and gouged, not mystical, not mythical.

  Dingo’s gun left a groove in the dirt as Leng dragged it toward him, his back arching. His arms pushed. His head left the ground. He was slow and patient; he moaned almost calmly. Del got closer by one more step. Executioner’s sword or child’s toy or vibrating extension of human rage, the bat lifted high and came down hard.