by Laird Barron
"I was there."
"Right, right. Still, things look a lot different from space. It's kinda weird, though, that you were taken from the isolated Roache property. I mean, the remote offices were an ideal setup for a prolonged torturemurder gig."
Lancaster thought of the disc of blackened earth he and the rest had been dragged to, a clearing the diameter of a small baseball diamond in the heart of the farmland, thought of what lay some yards beneath the topsoil, the subsoil, and the bedrock; an ossified ridge that curled in a grand arc, the spine of a baby Ouroboros, a gap between jaws and tail. He still smelled the blood and piss, the electric tang of pitiless starlight, the nauseating stench of his own terror. He said, "That dead ground, nothing has ever grown there. I imagine the Indians avoided it during their hunts, that the white farmers tilled around it and called it cursed. It's older than old, agent. A ground for bloodletting. Places like it are everywhere."
"I don't give a shit about Stone Age crop circles. Who was behind the kidnapping. What was the motive. I'll let you in on a secret-we got nothing, man. No claims or demands from terrorist groups, no chatter, nada. That isn't how this goes. We always hear something."
"Motive? There's no motive. The ineffable simply is."
"The ineffable," Agent Clack said.
"The Cooks are in league with…"
"With who?" Agent Clack raised a brow.
"Evil."
"Get outta here."
"Abominations that creep along the byways of the world."
"The big E, huh? Er, yeah, sure thing. I'm more into the concept lowercase e, the kind that lurks in the hearts of men. Anyhow, it wasn't the Cooks you were entertaining. The real Cooks were murdered in their home several days before the incident in Kansas. But you knew that."
"Yes. I was shown."
Agent Clack blew a smoke ring. "And these other individuals. Gregor Blaylock and his entourage. The grad students…"
"Let me guess. Victims of a gruesome demise, identities stolen to perpetrate an elaborate charade." Lancaster smiled; a brittle twitch.
"Not quite that dramatic. Guy's nonexistent. So are his assistants. Our records show he, someone, corresponded with Christou over the years, but it's a sham. There's a real live prof named Greg Blaylock and my guess is whoever this other guy is, he simply assumed that identity as needed. It's a popular con, black market brokers fixing illegals up with American citizens' social security cards. Could be a dozen people using the same serial number, sharing parallel identities. Not too hard. Blaylock and Christou hadn't actually met in person before that night. So."
"Blaylock's a cultist, a servitor. He was on the killing ground as a master of ceremonies. He… Blaylock coupled with Mrs. Cook while the nightmares fed on my companions, one by one." Lancaster poured again, swallowed it quickly. Poured another, contemplated the glass as if it were a crystal ball. "Everybody was after Christou. The monsters liked his books. What about you and your cronies? Was he a revolutionary? Bomb an embassy back in the '60s?"
"That's eyes only spy stuff, grandpa. I'll tell you this: the geezer mixed with politically active people during his career. The kind of dudes on no fly lists. He was once a consultant for the intelligence services of our competitors. Quid pro quo. Those bodies we examined…That was beyond, man. Way, way beyond. All the blood and organs removed. Mutilation. Looked like the victims were burned, but the autopsies said, no. A brutal, sadistic, and apparently well-plotted crime. Yet the hostiles let you walk. There's a mystery my superiors are eager to get solved. Help me, man. Would ya, could ya shed some light on the subject?"
A sort of hysterical joy bubbled into Lancaster's throat. Yes, yes! To solve the ineffable mystery would be quite the trick. Certainly, Agent Clack despite his innocent face and schoolboy charm was cold and brutal, had surely seen and done the worst. Yet Lancaster easily imagined the younger man's horrified comprehension as the most vile and forbidden knowledge entered his bloodstream, began to corrode his shrieking brain with its acid. His lips curled. "Mrs. Cook called, a horrible sound unlike anything I'd ever heard, and three of the… things that attacked Ms. Diamond in the road shambled from the darkness and dragged us away, far from the limo and into the fields. Mr. Rawat, Kara, and their bodyguard were alive when they were dumped into the center of the clearing. The bodyguard, Dedrick…despite his horrible wounds. All of them were alive, Agent Clack. Very much alive. Dr. Christou too, although I could hardly recognize him beneath the mask of blood he wore. The blood was caked an inch thick and the fresh stuff oozed around the edges."
"I'm sorry you had to go through that. I still don't understand how we missed you out there. The wheat is only four feet tall." Agent Clack sounded more fascinated than sorry.
"I don't know how it was done. But it was. Black magic, worse."
"So, what happened? Exactly."
Lancaster hesitated for a long moment. "Eyes only, agent. My eyes only."
"Now, now, codger. You don't wanna fuck with the man with the shiny laminated picture I.D."
"The others were drained. Drained, Agent Clack."
Agent Clack dropped his cigarette butt on the carpet and ground it to bits under his heel. He lighted another and smoked it, expression obscured by the blue haze. Finally, he said, "Alrighty, then. The investigation is ongoing. You'll talk, sooner or later. I've got time to kill."
"There are unspeakable truths." Lancaster closed his eyes for a long moment. "It pleased them to spare me in the name of a venerable cliche. Cliche's contain all truth, of course. The purpose of my survival was to bear witness, to carry the tale. The thrill of spreading terror, of lurking in the night as bogeymen of legend, titillates them. They are beasts, horrid undreamt of marvels."
"Gotta love those undreamt of marvels."
"You couldn't understand. After their masters fed, Blaylock and Mrs. Cook made Christou and the others join bloody hands and dance. The corpses danced. In a circle, jostling like marionettes. And Blaylock and Mrs. Cook laughed and plucked the strings."
Agent Clack nodded and dragged on his cigarette then rose and regarded Lancaster with a kindly expression. "Sure. You take care. My people will be in touch with your people and all that jazz."
"Oh, we won't meet again, Agent Clack. Christou is dead, ending that particular game. Gregor Blaylock and the rest are vanished into the woodwork. I've told the story and am thus expendable. Very soon. Very soon I'll be reclaimed."
"Don't worry, we're watching you. Anybody comes sniffing around, we'll nab 'em."
"I suppose I'm comforted."
"By the way," Agent Clack said. "Is anyone else staying here with you? When I came in to wait, swore someone was in the bedroom, watching from the door. Thought it was you…Couldn't find anybody. Maybe they slipped away through the window, eh? Call me paranoid. We spooks are always worried about the baddies getting the drop on us."
"It wasn't me," Lancaster said. He turned and glanced at the bedroom doorway, the dimness within.
"Hah, didn't really think so. More oddness at the end of an odd day."
"Well, agent, whatever it was, I hope you don't see it again. Especially one of these nights when you're alone."
Agent Clack continued to gaze at the older man for several beats. He slipped the memory stick into his pocket and walked out. He didn't bother to close the door. The gap filled with white light that slowly downshifted to black.
***
He finished his vacation and returned to the States and cashed in his chips at Roache. No hassle, not even an exit interview. Despite the suddenness of Lancaster's departure, some of his colleagues scrambled to throw together an impromptu retirement party. He almost escaped before one of the secretaries lassoed him as he was sneaking out the back door.
He was ushered into a Digital Age conference room with a huge table and comfortable chairs and a bay window overlooking downtown. The room shone in the streaming sunlight, every surface glowed and bloomed. His co-workers bore cheap gifts and there was a white layer cake and a bowl
of punch. The dozen or so of them sang For He's a Jolly Good Fellow off-key. What dominated Lancaster's mind was the burble and boil of the water cooler, the drone of the inset lights. How the white frosting gleamed like an incisor. He caught his reflection in the shiny brass of a wall plate and beheld himself shrunken, emaciated, a leering devil. He averted his gaze, stared instead into the glare of the lowering sun. After the punch went dry and the songs were sung and the hand-shakes and empty pleasantries done with, he fled without looking back.
***
No one called, no one rang, and eventually Lancaster grew content in his final isolation. He allowed his apartment lease to lapse and went into the country and rented a room in a chintzy motel on the side of a lesstraveled road. He stocked his closet with crates of liquor and cartons of cigarettes, and by day drank more or less continually in the yard of the motel beneath the gloomy shade of a big tree. By night he drank alone in the tavern and listened to an endless loop of rock-a-billy from the jukebox, the mutter and hum of provincial conversation among the locals. Cigarette smoke lay as heavy as that belched from a crematory stack. The bathroom reeked of piss. He always wore one of the seven nicer suits he'd kept from his collection. A suit for each day of the week. He thought of the lacquered black box stashed beneath his flimsy motel bed. His killing jar of the mind. So far he'd resisted the pleasure, the comfort, of handling its contents. Cold turkey was best, he thought.
He waited. Waited, lulled by the buzz of the neon advertisement in the taproom glass. Waited, idly observing barflies-gin-blossom noses, broken teeth, haggard and wasted flesh. A few women patronized the tavern, mostly soft, mostly ruined. Soft bellies, breasts, necks, bad mascara. Soft and sliding. Their soft necks stirred ancient feelings, but these subsided as he, in all meaningful ways, subsided.
Inevitably, one of the more vital female denizens joined him at his table in the murkiest corner of the room. They talked of inconsequentialities and danced the verbal dance. Her makeup could've been worse. Despite his weeks of self-imposed silence the old charm came readily. The deepseated switch clicked on and sprang the lock of the cage of the sleeping beast.
Lancaster allowed her to lead him into the cool evening and toward the rear of the building. He pressed her against the wall, empty parking lot at his back, empty fields, empty sky, and he took her, breathed in the tint of her frazzled peroxide-brittle hair, her boozy sweat, listened to the faint chime of her jewelry as he fucked her. She didn't make much noise, seemed to lose interest in him as their coupling progressed. He placed his hand on her throat, thumb lightly slotted between the joints of her windpipe. Her pulse beat, beat. Her face was pale, washed in the buzzing glow of a single security light at the corner of the eaves a moth battened against the mesh and cast raccoon shadows around the woman's eyes, masked her, dehumanized her, which suited his purpose. Except as his grip tightened his stomach rolled over, his insides realigning with the lateral pull of an intensifying gravitational force, as if he'd swallowed a hook and someone were reeling it in, toying with him.
They separated and Lancaster hesitated, slack and spent, pants unzipped. The woman smoothed her skirt, lighted a cigarette. She walked away as he stood hand to mouth, guts straining against their belt of muscle and suet. The pull receded, faded. He shook himself and retreated to the motel, his squalid burrow. The thermostat was damaged, its needle stuck too far to the right, and the room was sauna-hot, dim as a pit. He sat naked but for his briefs.
He picked up the phone on the second ring. Mr. Blaylock spoke through miles and miles of static. "You are a wild, strange fellow, Mr. Lancaster. Leave the world as a perfect mystery. Confound your watchdogs, your friends, the lovers who never knew you. All that's left is to disappear." Mr. Blaylock broke the connection.
The muted television drifted in and out of focus. Ice cracked as it melted in Lancaster's glass. The cherry glow of his cigarette flickered against the ceiling like firelight upon the ceiling of a cave. His cigarette slipped from his fingers and burned yet another hole in the carpet. He slept.
A single knock woke him. He waited for another until it became apparent none was forthcoming. He retrieved the box and placed it on the table, arrayed each item with a final reverent caress. Photographs, newspaper clippings, an earring, a charm bracelet. Something for those investigators to marvel at, to be amazed and horrified by what they'd never known regarding his secret nature. Then he went to door, passed through and stood on the concrete steps. The tavern across the way was closed and black and the night's own blackness was interrupted by a scatter of stars, a veil of muddy light streaming from the manager's office.
The universe dilated within him, above him. Something like joy stirred in Lancaster's being, a sublime ecstasy born of terror. His heart felt as if it might burst, might leap from his chest. His cheeks were wet. Drops of blood glittered on his bare arms, the backs of his hands, his thighs, his feet. Black as the blackest pearls come undone from a string, the droplets lifted from him, drifted from him like a slow motion comet tail, and floated toward the road, the fields. For the first time in an age he heard nothing but the night sounds of crickets, his own breath. His skull was quiet.
First at a trot, then an ungainly lope, Lancaster followed his blood into the great, hungry darkness.
JAWS OF SATURN
1
"The other night I dreamt about this lowlife I used to screw," Carol said. She and Franco were sitting in the lounge of the Broadsword Hotel, a monument to the Roaring Twenties situated on the west side of Olympia. Most of its tenants were economically strapped or on the downhill slide toward decrepitude, not unlike the once grand dame herself. Carol lived on the sixth floor in a single bedroom flat with cracks running through the plaster and a rusty radiator that groaned and ticked like it might explode and turn the apartment into a flaming wreck. "I mean, yeah, I hooked up with plenty of losers before I met you. Marvin was scary. And ugly as three kinds of sin. He busted kneecaps for a living. Some living."
Franco flipped open his lighter and set fire to a cigarette. He dropped the lighter into the pocket of his blazer. He took a drag and exhaled. Franco did not live in The Broadsword. Happily, he lived across town in a smaller, modern apartment building where the elevators worked and the central heating didn't rely on a coal-fed furnace. He decided not to remind her that he too damaged people on occasion, albeit only in defense of his employer. Franco didn't look like muscle-short and trim, his hair was professionally styled and his clothes were tailored. His face was soft and unscarred. He didn't have scars because he'd always been better with his guns and knives than his enemies were with theirs. Franco said, "Marvin Cortez? Oh, yeah. My boss was friends with him. If this goon scared you so much, why'd you stick around?"
"I dunno, Frankie. 'Cause it turned me on for a while, I guess. Who the hell knows why I do anything?" She pushed around her glass of slushed ice cubes and vodka so it caught the light coming through the window and multiplied it on the tablecloth. This was late afternoon. The light was heavy and reddish orange.
"Okay. What happened in the dream?"
"Nothing, really."
"Huh."
"Huh, what?"
"Dreams are messages from the subconscious. They're full of symbols."
"You get a shrink degree I don't know about?"
"No, my sister worked as a research assistant in a clinic. Where were you?"
"In bed. The whole bed was on a mountain, or something. Marvin stood at the foot of the bed and there was a drop off. The wind blew his hair around, but it didn't touch me. I was pretty scared of the cliff, though."
"Why?"
"My bed was practically teetering on the edge, dumbbell."
"This Marvin, guy. Did he do anything?"
"He stared at me-and he was too big. Granted, Marvo really was a hulking dude, Ron Perlman big and ugly, but this was extreme, and I got the impression he would've turned into a giant if the dream had lasted longer. His expression weirded me out. I realized it wasn't really him. Looke
d like him, except not. More like a mask and it changed as I watched. He was turning into someone else entirely and I woke up before it completely happened."
Franco nodded and tapped his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. "Clearly you've got feelings for this palooka."
"Don't be so jealous. He skipped on me. Haven't heard from the jerk in years. Weirdest part about the dream is when I opened my eyes the bedroom was pitch black. Except…the closet door opened a bit and this creepy red light came through the crack. Damndest thing. I'm still half zonked, so it's all unreal at first. Then I started to freak. I mean, there's nothing in the closet to make a red glow, and the light itself made my hairs prickle. Something was really, really wrong. Then the door clicked shut and the room went dark again. I'd drunk waaay too many margaritas earlier, so I fell asleep."
"You never woke up in the first place," he said. "Dream within a dream. The red light was your alarm clock. Nothing mysterious or creepy about that."
Carol gave him a look. She wore oversized sunglasses that hid her eyes, but the point was clear. She snapped her fingers until a waiter came over. She ordered a rum and coke and made him take the vodka away. "Thing is, this got me thinking. I realize I've been having these dreams all week. I just keep forgetting."
"Your boyfriend in all of them?" Franco tried not to sound petulant. His vodka was down to the rocks and he hadn't asked the waiter for another.
"Not only him. Lots of other people. My mom and dad. A girlfriend from high school that got killed in a crash. My grandparents. Everybody guest starring in my dreams is dead. Except for Marvo-and hell, for all I know he bit the dust. He who lives by the sword and all that."
"This is true," Franco said, thinking of the time a guy swung a machete at his head and missed.
Carol glanced at her watch. She picked up her prim little handbag. "Let's go fuck. Karla's doing my hair later."
