Acquaro

by Trevor R. Fairbanks

  Outside the cock fight was over. The night was silent except for the crackling of the flames.

  The silver children held hands, smiled, and looked down upon the old man. “We are Omnithax,” the male said.

  “And Orjure.”

  “We have come to you ...”

  “Because you believe.”

  Leonard shook his head. This could not be happening. “Then you are ...”

  “Gods ...”

  “Gods.”

  “You have dreamed ...”

  “Of us.”

  “You have dreamed ...”

  “Of those likes us.”

  “And you ...”

  “You are special.”

  “Leonard Samson ...”

  “We are big fans of your work.”

  “You are?” he asked. “But no one reads my work. Only perverts in the flesh magazines. I don’t ...”

  But they did. He could tell. They were fans, these Gods. Leonard managed to get off his knees and stand up. “We were inspired ...”

  “By your words.”

  “We decided to come and see ...”

  “For ourselves.”

  “You are ...

  “Special.”

  “I am special?” he asked. Then he smiled. The voice had retreated. Deep down he knew, it was gone for good. He did not need it anymore. He had heard the words he always wanted to hear. He was special. “But why are you here? Why tonight? Why now?” and why didn’t you come to me sooner? He wondered.

  “We are here because we wish to be ...”

  “Mortal.”

  And he could hear it in their voice, he could see it in their eyes. They wanted to fuck. But how could Gods fuck? They did not even really have bodies! Leonard shook his head. The stories he could write about these two. Imagine, silver Gods, making love in space. Using the stars for a bed. It literally wrote itself.

  “No more writing ...”

  “It is time to live.”

  “We will give to you ...”

  “What we have always had.”

  “Live?” he asked. Yes. Live. It was what he always wanted. “Give it to me,” he said, falling to his knees again in worship. “I want it. More than anything!”

  The two looked at one another and nodded. They smiled. Then they reached out with silver fingers. Before Leonard’s eyes they flowed, elongating until they were like snakes. A single tendril split in two and fell on either one of his shoulders. Now Leonard Samson could feel it. The power was within him, flowing through him, as if it had always been there. Now it was growing. The universe was opening. His eyes could see things very far away.

  The body was no longer his. He took a final look at it, this disgusting thing that he always hated so. He watched it slump to the ground, as if every bone had been pulled out. There was a sickening sound, like a dead chicken being dropped to the ground. But he did not care. He cared about the body as much as he might about a tacky old suit that had been sitting in his closet since childhood.

  He saw the silver beings enter through the eyes and the body started to breathe again. The heart started to beat again. The eyelids blinked, opening and shutting as if they were seeing the world for the first time. His tongue came out of his mouth, licking his lips. He smiled. The transformation began.

  The limbs quivered and shook, as if electricity had been sent through them. He watched as the body split open. Blood poured, getting all over the tacky linoleum floor of the trailer. He saw things shift and break. Flesh tore like cheap silk. It began to crawl on its own with a life like nothing he had ever known. The skin melted before his eyes, only to gather in pools of life stuff.

  Unseen hands reshaped the human pulp, molding it into something new. Something brand new.

  Leonard watched and bid himself goodbye. The old man was gone. In his place stood a God.

  Underneath him were two children, a boy and a girl. This was what they had wanted all along. A life for themselves, and an ending.

  “But beware, Leonard Samson ...”

  “With great power comes great loneliness.”

  Only he was not listening. He was beyond listening. Whatever they said he did not hear. He was a God now. He didn’t have to listen to shit.

  The Dreaming Ship

  The beer in his hand was slowly getting warmer as the can came to room temperature. Or van temperature, as Hector was beginning to think of it. His palms were sweating but it did not matter. He was so drunk even a warm beer sounded delectable, although he knew from experience that warm beer was easily thrown up. It disagreed with the stomach in violent fashion. How the English did it he had no idea. Maybe for the same reason he did. He wanted to get drunk, so he drank. There were windows in his mind that needed to be shut. There were emotions that had to be tied off. He no longer wanted to think.

  Another can was dead. He threw it against the wall in true punk fashion but the chupacabra didn’t even stir. It had its dinner of blood and guts and was sleeping it off.

  Hector looked at his drum set in the corner. It looked back at him with a woman’s eyes, begging to be hit. There were rhythms flowing through his head, but he did not want to hear them. Music was nothing but an infection.

  He slid open the door and got out. He was drunk enough to go for a walk. Sure. And the unfamiliar territory was promising.

  Night enshrouded the trailer park as he wandered about, watching his shadow take long strides as he passed underneath the lanterns that dotted the landscape. He had left the chupacabra in the van, letting the poor thing sleep. But he had taken a can of beer with him. He wanted to enjoy it outdoors, like a real camper.

  He sipped, then looked up, eyes desperately searching for the stars. But they were not here, not tonight. Only thick clouds rolling across a bleak black sky, smeared in smog from the Lost City that had managed to roll over into the desert. But Hector could pretend that there were stars. He could imagine the faces of angels, looking down on him, trying to protect his drunken soul from all the things that hurt so badly.

  Casually he reached into his shirt pocket. Trembling fingers found the pack of cigarettes and a small lighter. He snapped the box open. Empty.

  “Fuck,” he cursed, slamming the small cardboard box onto the ground. No fucking smokes. And it was late. The liquor store had to be closed. What was he going to do?

  A sudden movement caught his eye. Hector looked over, hoping to see someone with a cigarette to spare. He swigged from his beer can and stared at a wall. This was the wall that surrounded The Copacabana, capped with barbed wire that spiraled about in sharp waves of iron like serpent teeth. Cigarettes danced across the top of the wall, spinning through the barbed wire on little legs made of paper. They waltzed and strolled, moving in a tight single file line to a country western song that only they could hear, then leaping and twirled like insane ballerinas. Cigarettes, he thought, pirouetting on those pointed little shoes. And he could see his brand stenciled on the side in sharp red letters. His brand. His cigarettes. He needed a smoke so badly.

  Like a child moving towards the hypnotic flame his legs took control and Hector could not stop himself. He moved closer and started to reach for the little nicotine fairies. But before he could touch that sweet smoke relief, tiny laughter bubbled in the night. Those giggles cut into his ears with a distraught and annoying sense of humor. A mean sense of humor. It was the laugh of a gnome, or an elf. He had heard laughter like that before.

  “No,” and the cigarettes were already gone, leaping away on spindly legs like grasshoppers. As they vanished into the night Hector caught a glimpse of his tormentor.

  The squat face peeked over the top of the wall and peered at him. Long ears stretched away from a smooth round head of hair. Its skin was pale green in color, burning like an emerald in the dim of the night. Hector recognized it. A gremlin. A fucking gremlin.

  They had followed him here, he realized. Then he drank his beer and got ready to fight.

  “Can I help you?” a voice asked.r />
  Hector whirled, spinning so hard he dropped his beer. The can hit the ground and fuzzed out brew flooded the tarmac in amber waves. It was a man, the one named Joseph Opus, the pharmacist. He was standing there with his shadow long underneath a bright porch light. A scowl was etched all over his face and his eyes burned daggers at the boy. They threatened to tear Hector apart. One wrong word, those eyes said, and he would rip Hector to pieces.

  Only he said nothing. He was too drunk and ashamed.

  “I asked if I could help you,” Joseph Opus sneered, taking a step closer, into the light. Hector looked at his eyes. He recognized them. The pupils were narrow with drug abuse. The fucker was high.

  “No, I ...”

  “We don’t need your kind here, white trash.” Opus took another step towards him. The man had his fists clenched, as if he was about to hit him. His jaw was straight. There was menace in his every movement.

  Who the fuck was he? And “Why don’t you mind your own fucking business?” Hector found the strength to spit back. This old asshole wasn’t going to intimidate him, not him. Not the mighty Dyerwolf, drummer from Sodomite. Damn it, didn’t he know?

  Joseph looked at him, wondering if the battle was worth it. With a shrug he finally turned and went back into his trailer. The door slammed shut behind him. The porch light snapped off. All was dark. A gloomy, gleaming dark.

  “Told him, that cocksucker.” Hector smiled and grumbled. He was proud of himself but that did not ease the fact that he was out of cigarettes and he had spilled his beer. He would need to find something else to take his mind away from all this. He found it quickly.

  The phone booth sat in the corner of the trailer park. With a cold smile, Hector ambled towards that. The sprinkler systems switched on and a mist stroked his bare cheeks. Hector hardly noticed. Sounds of water haze falling on thirsty leaves filled the night air. It was warm, and the cool spray did nothing to calm his drunken unease.

  He made it over to the phone booth. It was an old fashion job, completely unique in a world of Internet and cellular technology, all made of gray metal with thin and pale plastic windows. The door bent in half as he walked in. He drew it shut behind with a loud snap. The phone itself was black and proud, like a smutty elephant trunk against the face of a pound of snout. He picked it up and saw the numbers, engraved into the bakelite so that the blind could call their friends. The blind liked to talk.

  Gang members had carved their names into the plastic. Vandals had scrawled bad poetry chapter and verse, punctuated by the phone numbers of all the loose girls in town. Everywhere scratches. An entire language written in scrawls as if chickens had learned how to write.

  In a little shelf underneath was an old jar of petroleum jelly, half empty. Pubic hairs hovered around the rim and beside that was a spent box of Kleenex. Hector looked at those, wondering what they were doing here. Then he saw the pale salt stains on the lower glass panes and knew this was no ordinary phone booth. This phone booth served a purpose in the community.

  Curious now, he picked up the phone book, hanging off a chain. Inside was no book at all, but a series of pornographic magazines saddle-stapled into the plastic binding. The pages were crumbled and damp, some of them stuck together, but there were advertisements and phone numbers. Lots of phone numbers, and they all promised an endless world of delights. Judging from this, there was a whole universe of eroticism that he had yet to explore.

  Perfect, Hector thought as he reached for his wallet and his father’s old credit card. This was the ideal way to end the night. When was the last time he had phone sex? Back when he was a teen-ager. This was going to be great. He could not wait.

  Hector selected the American Express because it somehow seemed more Patriotic but dropped his wallet instead. Cards and money scattered all over the ground.

  “Holy shit! Fuck,” he mumbled as he bent down to pick them up, only to find that his fingers were too big. They were too sweaty. They were too clumsy. They looked like hot dogs reaching for mustard.

  Outside a figure shimmered in the dim moonlight. Hector looked up, too drunk to be embarrassed. “Didn’t expect to find you here,” a girl said. It was Lila, holding her camera. She opened the door to the booth. “Here, let me help you.” She bent down and

  Hector looked into her green eyes. They were glowing in the darkness. He watched her slim fingers pick up the scattered cards and wished that they were wrapped around his cock.

  “I was just ... I was ... you know,” he tried to come up with a lie but his mind fumbled. Hector went with the truth instead. “Drunk as a fucking skunk.”

  “I figured as much. A lot of people around here are like that. Don’t worry,” she smiled carefully. “You’ll fit right in.”

  “It was that stupid ...” he grumbled, folding the cards back into his wallet. “That cocksucking drug dealer doesn’t think so.”

  “Mr. Opus? But doesn’t he have a right to be mad at you?”

  “Why? What the fuck did I do?” Hector demanded. “The fucker judged me, and I haven’t been here long enough to make enemies.”

  “Didn’t you see the graffiti all over his trailer? In fact, I was just taking pictures of it. He thinks you wrote it.”

  “Me? No way.”

  “Then Ringworm isn’t your tag?”

  Hector looked at her. “I’m too white to have a tag.”

  “Hmm,” she shrugged, suddenly deep in thought. “We all figured it was you.”

  “Listen,” Hector proclaimed, suddenly anxious to protect his innocence. “I ain’t done nothing. I just got here!”

  Lila looked into his eyes, seeing beyond the broken cells that shaded them with a reddish haze. Yes, there was honesty there, even in his drunken delirium. “I believe you. So, do you really want to be here?”

  “Where?”

  “In this stupid phone booth, spending money you don’t fucking have on stupid phone sex?”

  Hector shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “I was just bored.”

  “Well, if you’re bored, we could always go back to your van. I can show you some of my pictures. I got some good ones.”

  A sly smile crossed his face. “I think I’d like that.”

  Lila took his hand. He leaned against her like a drunken crutch and together they stumbled out into the night. When they finally got to his van she pushed him off.

  “Let me go get my album. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “‘Kay,” he said, reaching for the keys. He opened the door and the chupacabra ran out, disappearing into the night. Let him go, Hector thought. He needed the place to himself. He switched on the overhead light.

  There was a smell about the trailer he had not noticed earlier. Blood and semen. Stale nicotine and flop sweat. All the horrible scents that came with human depravity were all right here in the van. Things were crawling through the shag carpet that would infect bare skin, and his porno collection was everywhere.

  Hector rushed around, quickly hiding the stroke books in the overhead compartments. Luckily the van was small, so he was able to clean up quick. Then he sprayed everything down with some old air freshener left over from when his father was still alive. Air freshener was a necessary item when your toilet sat in the middle of the living room. The label promised it killed germs.

  When Lila returned he was already sitting on the bed, casually holding two cans of beer fresh from the broken refrigerator. Under one arm she had a thick black book.

  “Smells good in here,” she smirked, knowing that he had just sprayed it down. “You like to keep things clean.”

  “Got to. That’s life on the road. Learned that when I was still in the band,” he said and popped open a beer. “Want one?”

  “Sure,” she said, reaching out to take it.

  ***

  The God formerly known as Leonard Samson drifted outside of the van, his ghostly body filled with malevolence. He had been following her. And he followed her inside. He peeked through the walls to see them on the be
d, drinking beer from the can and laughing.

  No, his unholy mind spit. No. She was to be his. He was a God. He commanded it!

  And he was going to destroy this van and them along with it. He was going to crumple it like an old beer can and watch their blood pour out onto the concrete. The power was his. The power was inside him. All he had to do was let it out.

  Nothing happened.

  The trailer did not move. It did not even twitch. The sky was silent, even though he had called for storm. Only the power was there. He could feel it inside of him. He could feel it coursing through him like a living thing, ready to be unleashed. He could ...