Prelude to Space Rape! & Other Stories

by Jordan Krall

  “Thanks for coming with me,” Casey said.

  “No problem,” I said.

  We walked into my bedroom and I had a seat in front of my bookshelf. I randomly grabbed a book and set it down in front of me. Casey also grabbed a book but threw his on my bed.

  “Your books smell old,” he said.

  “That’s a weird thing to say.”

  “But it’s true.”

  I nodded, opened my book, and started reading something about licorice and conspiracies. Some man named Smith had come up with some crazy ideas about hooded men in helicopters.

  Casey sat on the edge of my bed. “You tired?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’m going to use the bathroom,” Casey said, getting up from the bed. He walked out the door and slammed it shut.

  My eyes blinked through the book on my lap. Then the sounds came.

  The toilet flushed and spheres spiraled down the staircase and onto the wood floors. I heard them roll into the furniture, into the walls, into the silence like manic round vacuums.

  Casey slammed the bathroom door, opened it, and slammed it harder. It opened once again. His footsteps echoed in my bathtub. The faucet turned on. Water splashed on his shoes. I heard his shoelaces become limp with moisture.

  “What are you doing in there?” I shouted. No answer. “Don’t make a mess!”

  The bathroom door slammed shut. The sound of it combined with the clunking of the spheres as they made their way back up the stairs.

  There was a time when the stairs were covered in toys so much my father tripped and broke his neck. He died instantly. But now the spheres are the only toys haunting the steps.

  A scream broke through my bedroom door. It took me longer to get up off the floor than I would have expected. I felt old and rusted out like an unused bicycle. I threw open the door and looked into the hallway. At the bottom of the steps Casey was sprawled out like an octopus.

  He had fallen down the stairs.

  I knew at that moment my gloom would become legendary.

  All around me the wallpaper fell down in strips: tongues with stale glue and unwanted paint calling me into the bathroom where I’d find the black sun deep within the drain.

  I turned the water on to flush it out while behind me the spheres shuffled into an obscure formation I’d never seen before.

  The water refused to go down the drain and stayed on the outskirts of the sink, refusing to be burned beneath my sink. The water’s flesh crawled around the faucet and onto my hand.

  I spat fire, burning my fingers into loops. They fell down the drain, unwilling to bow to the sun in fear.

  Then I thought of Casey.

  My gloom turned to soft babbling hope.

  I ran out of the bathroom and down the stairs, dodging imaginary toys and hysterical strips of fatherly wallpaper. Casey’s body had turned more grotesque. It resembled chewing gum stretched over a bundle of broken sticks.

  “Get up,” I said. “Get up.”

  He twitched but did not get up.

  I walked back upstairs and into my room. I took the elevator back to the first floor and walked outside back to the library. The stairs to the third floor were covered in hollow trinkets that tripped me up at every opportunity. I made it to the top, though.

  It took me only a minute to find the book: A Brief History of Industrial Parks by Julie Antler.

  I sat down on the floor between the stacks of books, adjusting my pants so I’d be most comfortable. The florescent lights above me flickered and buzzed in code.

  I started to read. The pages smelled like old age and doom. Words upon words slipped through the haze of my most recent memories. Antler briefly explained the history of the pallet.

  Paper cuts spread across my hands like rivers on maps. My knuckles broken apart like five-and-dime toys. I pinched the skin between my thumb and index finger.

  It didn’t take me long to fall asleep to the sound of gloomy spheres and soft babbling of unread books.

  THE PISTOL BURPS

  A prelude to Fistful of Feet

  The man named Calamaro walked across the plains of the Dakota Territory, dragging a wooden donkey behind him. He pulled the donkey using leather reins that he had found on an abandoned stagecoach thirty miles back near one of the defunct army forts. The stagecoach had been knocked over, its riders lost, either to bandits or to the elements; Calamaro did not know which and did not care. Their luggage was strewn across the landscape. Calamaro had searched but there was nothing of value left. Nothing, that is, except the leather reins.

  It had been three days since he had seen a single person and Calamaro was beginning to think that he was perhaps walking in circles. There usually was some trace of civilization be it a group of desperate settlers or hostile Indians. He was about to stop and make camp when he saw a dozen Indian tipis on the horizon. Calamaro was hungry and so took the risk of walking towards the camp.

  When he was a hundred yards away from the tipis, a group of young male Indians walked out to meet him. Their faces held no smiles, no cordial expression. Each of their fists was held tightly closed; the men seemed ready to strike at any moment.

  Calamaro stopped walking and dropped the leather reins. He took off his hat and put it to his chest. He nodded his head in greeting. He did not know any Indian languages so he relied on body language to show them that he meant no harm.

  The young Indian men relaxed just a bit but their eyes moved to the gun at Calamaro’s hip.

  Calamaro saw this and so raised his hands above his head, showing them that he had no intention of going for his pistol. That relaxed them a little more but not completely. One of the Indian braves approached Calamaro and grabbed the gun from its holster. The fact that Calamaro did not make any move to prevent this from happening convinced the Indians that the stranger did not have any ill intentions and so they motioned for him to follow them into their camp. The one who took his gun slipped it back into its holster. Calamaro noticed that each tipi was painted a different color. One was white. The one next to it was dark green. Another was purple. The whole Indian camp looked like a rainbow of animal skins. There was a orange tipi that was bigger than the rest and that is where the men led Calamaro. There they stopped and waited until a wizened Indian walked out of it.

  His hunger was getting to him so Calamaro moved his hand to his mouth, hoping that one of them would understand that he wanted food.

  The old Indian said, “Can you speak?”

  This shocked Calamaro. He wasn’t expecting the Indian to speak English. The braves who had met him outside the camp had not made any attempt to communicate that way.

  “Yes but I did not think you would.”

  The old man smiled with his mouth but not with his eyes. “White men do not think much of us, do they? Your language is not difficult to learn.”

  Calamaro expected there to be some animosity against him, being a white man, but he was not prepared to defend his race against the injustices that have been committed nor was he prepared to try to make amends. He preferred to stay out of it.

  “Would you be able to spare food, water?” he asked.

  At this point the younger Indians walked away but did not seem to lose interest in the stranger. They still kept their eyes on him and their ears were picking up every word.

  “Yes, we could do that,” the old Indian said. He looked over Calamaro’s shoulder and made several motions with his hands. Within seconds, a pair of Indian children brought over a steaming piece of meat, an ear of corn, and a buffalo bladder full of water.

  Calamaro nodded to the children and took the food from their hands. Without even sitting down he devoured the meat and the corn. Then he drank most of the water in two gulps, leaving only a small amount in the bladder. While he did this, the old Indian just stood and watched the stranger eat like a pig.

  “Is good?” he asked.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  The old Indian smirked. This was the man from his visio
ns; he was sure about it. The stranger who came from the sea and traveled across the landscape dragging an animal made of wood. Yes, this was the man.

  He said, “What is your name?”

  “Calamaro.”

  “You should sit down, Calamaro,” the old man said. He felt a tinge of remorse for having to do this to the stranger but if his visions were correct, it had to be done.

  Calamaro wasn’t sure what the Indian meant but then he looked at the bladder full of water. Through the stretched-out skin he saw pieces of something floating in the water. He squeezed the water into his palm and saw what they were: dozens of tiny crabs swimming in his hand. That’s when he felt dizzy and leaned over. He was unconscious before he even hit the ground.

  For the next twelve hours the Indians watched over the stranger, waiting for the concoction to move through his system. Finally Calamaro was awoken by the sensation of pissing. He looked down to see a skinny Indian draining his urine into a bowl made out of tree bark.

  Calamaro wasn’t sure what was happening. Why were these Indians having him piss into a bowl? What had they given him to drink? He turned his head and saw the waste that they had collected. It was full of the tiny crabs, now dead.

  The Indians used a stick to stir the urine and then the old man walked over. He put his hand on Calamaro’s shoulder. “I am sorry but this had to be done.”

  “What had to be done?”

  “This, this.Your water and the tiny bodies in there. Tonight we will use it. Drink it. It will bring more visions. It will tell us where to go next.”

  Calamaro squinted in disgust. Drink it? They were going to drink his piss? He shoved an Indian hand away that was still holding his pants down and he stood up.

  Ten feet away, his wooden donkey was tied to a post; Calamaro walked over and untied it. He started dragging it out of the camp. He was not interested in watching the Indians and their strange ritual but instead would prefer to find a stream or pond to wash in.

  Calamaro got only a few dozen feet away from the village when he saw the three figures on the horizon, coming from the southeast. He could see they weren’t Indians.

  Immediately he felt a tinge of apprehension. There was going to be trouble; he knew it.

  He walked back into the village.

  The old Indian did not look surprised when he saw Calamaro approach him.

  “You would be back. I knew that.”

  Calamaro said, “Three men.” He pointed to the southeast. “Out there.”

  “Yes, we knew they would be back.”

  “Back? They were here before?”

  The old Indian looked tired. “They came. Took four girls, young girls.”

  “Your men didn’t fight them?”

  “We don’t have many guns like the white man.”

  Calamaro knew that was right. He did not recall seeing any firearms when he was in the Indian camp. “Who are they?”

  “Soldiers.”

  They were probably ex-soldiers, Calamaro thought. They were plenty of men who had fought in the war and had neither the means nor the desire to settle down to live a civilian life. Instead they drifted, using their military experience to survive mostly by robbing and killing.

  The three figures walked closer and Calamaro was able to see who they were.

  One of the men was unusually tall, with only one arm and wearing a woman’s bonnet. The second was old, fat and had a face covered in red tattoos. Calamaro was surprised when he saw the third. It was a boy, no older than thirteen or fourteen, he figured. Whatever the age, he looked too young to be keeping company with the other two men.

  Leaving his wooden donkey with the old man, Calamaro walked slowly towards the three strangers. He did not make any gesture of greeting but only stared. His eyes were on the fat one since he took him to be the leader. Calamaro was shocked when the boy spoke first.

  “Who the hell’re you?”

  Calamaro saw that the boy had no teeth and one of his eyes was made of grey glass. “Calamaro. You?”

  The boy turned to the old, fat man.

  “You hear this, Coyle? This asshole wants to know who I am. Wanna tell him?”

  Coyle gave a subservient smirk and said, “This here’s the Clementine Kid.”

  “That’s mighty impressive,” Calamaro said. He had never heard the name before.

  The tall one in the bonnet nodded his head but did not say a word. Calamaro looked at him and said, “And you?”

  A gurgling sound came form the tall man’s throat. “Bocka, bocka..”

  The Clementine Kid said, “That’s Smitty. He don’t talk right. Never did. Not since I known him.” He walked behind Smitty. Calamaro could not see what was happening. He only saw the Kid’s arm wiggling behind Smitty’s back. The Kid pulled his hand and wrist out; they were covered in yellowish goo.

  Smitty gargled again but this time he said, “Caca, caca…”

  “Sometimes Smitty just needs fixin, is all,” the Kid said. “But now that we all know each other,” he said, putting a hand on the gun in his holster, “I think you need to throw your pistol this way and give us what you got. I’m sure you don’t want no trouble. But we can give it if that’s what you want.”

  Calamaro laughed. The chuckle escaped his throat before he had the chance to stop it. Normally he did not let his emotions out so quickly. He stared at the boy’s glass eye as it twinkled in the sunlight. “That so?”

  “Do what he says,” Coyle said, pulling his own gun out and pointing it at Calamaro.

  “You don’t want to know what the Kid could do to you.”

  “From what I hear, he can only do things to little girls. Or is that your hobby?”

  The boy looked at Coyle and shook his head. “You let this stranger talk to you like that, you best take care of it.” He motioned towards Calamaro.

  Coyle took two steps forward and pulled his gun.

  The fat man was fast, faster than Calamaro had expected. The bullet whizzed by his head and then each of the four men dispersed, spreading out in all directions.

  Calamaro had his gun out but was not willing to risk bullets until he had a clear shot. He sprinted back to the Indian camp and dodged behind his donkey.

  “Come out, you bastard!” the boy yelled. Coyle repeated the same thing but

  Smitty said nothing but instead pointed his own gun towards the Indian camp. Then he pulled his bonnet off. His scalp was hairless and covered in the same red tattoos as Coyle had on his face.

  Calamaro saw a group of young Indians slowly approaching him, hunched over. Some carried hatchets while others carried heavy sticks.

  One of the Indians said, “We will help.”

  “They got guns.” Calamaro was in no mood for their honorable attempts at chivalry. Those three strangers had already kidnapped a few young girls without any trouble at all so what did those Indian braves thing they were going to do now?

  He motioned for them to get back and then stood up, leaning on the wooden donkey while bringing up his pistol. His eyes quickly caught sight of one of the men: the fat one, Coyle. That tattooed face was grinning. Calamaro wanted to blow it to pieces.

  He pulled the trigger and the pistol burped.

  A bullet went flying into Coyle’s cheek, smashing bone and splitting skin. The back of his head exploded and pieces of skull fell to the ground like misshapen dice.

  Smitty jumped into the air yelling “Caca! Caca!” and ran towards Calamaro. Before he could get to him, a hatchet flew from behind the donkey and struck him in his forehead. A flap of tattooed flesh flipped up like the brim of a hat. Smitty stopped. He had been holding his bonnet in one hand and his gun in the other. He dropped the weapon and brought his hand up to his head, feeling the skin flap. Tears welled up in his eyes. He brought the bonnet up to his head and put it on. Then he dropped to his knees, adjusting the bonnet, and then fell face first into the grass, dead.

  The Clementine Kid screamed. It was a high-pitched yell, a childish roar of frustration
as if a parent took away his toy. He pulled out a gun, a huge pistol that looked silly in the hand of a small boy. Calamaro had seen dozens of firearms in his life and had never seen one like that. It was pure white and looked like it was carved out of ivory.

  Calamaro looked at the group of young Indians. He saw the one who had thrown the hatchet at Smitty and nodded. Then he turned to the Kid and pointed his pistol.

  “Stay there, kid.”

  The boy did stop but was pointing his gun at the donkey. “What the hell is that? You keep things in there, don’t you? What’s in there? I want what’s in there.”

  “No, you don’t,” Calamaro said. “I’ll let you go now. Maybe you can go home back to your ma and pa. You shouldn’t have been keeping company with those two anyhow.”

  “That’s real funny,” the Clementine Kid said. He brought his empty hand to his face and dug a finger into his eye socket, plucking out his glass eye. He pulled his hand back and then sent it flying towards the donkey. The eye exploded in a flash of smoke and blue flame.

  Calamaro rolled to the side and got on his stomach. He fired again, his pistol burping another bullet which grazed the boy’s head. He hadn’t missed. Calamaro would rather let the boy run away scared and perhaps a little bit smarter than to kill him.

  The Clementine Kid dug in his pocket and pulled out another glass eye. He stuck it into his empty socket. Calamaro had seen something like that before, during the war. There had been one man who used a snail shell instead of a glass eye. It was strange how some men fiddled with their wounds like it was nothing at all.

  It was evident that the bullet that had whizzed by the Kid had not deterred his intentions of getting the contents of the wooden donkey. He lifted his gun so he was aiming at Calamaro. The firearm glistened in the sunlight as the boy pulled the trigger.

  There was no sound from the gun; the only sound was the cry of the Indian that the bullet hit. Calamaro saw that it was the one who had thrown the hatchet at Smitty.