“What is it that you want from me?” Chris asked.
“I want to know everything there is to know about your friend Duncan,” he said. “I’ve had my eye on him for quite some time now.”
Chris started moving again. “Like, why don’t you just leaf through my mind, tear out the pages on Duncan yourself? Being all-knowing and all, I’m surprised you even have to ask.”
He laughed. “Oh, I’m not omniscient, either, Mr. Kaddison. Where would be the fun in that? No, I’m not even comfortably close.”
“Still, this is Wonderland, dude. In here, you don’t have to be a deity to read minds. This is the mind.”
“Right again. And since I’ve already gleaned from you the knowledge that you have no idea who this Duncan McNeil is, I’ll skip right to the point which you just made. Get the fucker in here!”
“Bring Duncan into Wonderland? Go blow yourself.”
Gamble grabbed one of Chris’s earrings, pulled him down to his knees. “I have to know, and you’re the only one who can float him in.”
On all fours now, inebriated with dolor, Chris looked like a teenager ready to heave up the six-pack he had for supper. He chuckled. “You couldn’t get into his head either, huh? Well, join the crowd! I’ve tried. It’s...impenetrable—”
“Again, that’s why I need him in here! And since I’m being forced to redundantly make that point, I’m going to share with you a secret. As incentive for you, I’ll hold off from turning Patricia Bently into my own personal sex kitten, and you into a fly on the wall.” He leaned in. “Oh yes, lover boy, you’ve got the hots for that sweet piece. You’ve even taken quite a shine to her daughter. A guy doesn’t have to invade your mind to see those affections.” He let go of Chris’s earring.
Slipping, trying to get to his feet, Chris cried, “You motherfucker! You touch them and I’ll kill you!”
“Of course you will.” Gamble reached down and clamped Chris’s head between his hands, then pulled him up. “I’ll do things to Patricia that will make your very pores bleed with envy. And pity. And I’ll triple the debaucheries I intend to perform upon Katherine Bently, once I’ve gathered my second daughter from that fleshsack. And not only will I make you watch, J.R.—I’ll make you participate, and turn that weenie of yours into a painfully long and gluttonous gash grinder. So don’t fuck with me, dude. Just bring Duncan in!”
“Your second daughter?”
Gambles fingers pressed upon Chris’s head, and the vagina expanded, now assuming the enormousness and personality of Carlsbad Caverns. Glistening, mucous-formed stalactites were pulling down from the shadowy upper reaches, where black, throbbing ulcers spread like bat swarms, restless as the twilight of another reality began peeking through the rifts and crevices.
Then, Wonderland imploded, forcing Chris to the forefront of consciousness.
6.
He bolted upright, his own palms pressed vice-like against the sides of his head.
Satisfied that Gamble’s fingers were no longer there, he turned to the Swiss clock ticking on the south wall.
Only seven minutes had passed.
He swallowed dryly, wondering if time would stop altogether once morning found them.
Eyes wide and dazed, he began to focus on one thought: Gamble’s second daughter is inside Kathy?
“Bullshit,” he finally mumbled. “It’s a lie. Has to be.”
7.
Eli stood naked before the montage of wings. Although the seventh window was there, he held himself back from walking through. Oh no, he wanted to fly into those new and promising environs…
With his own wings.
To feel the exhilaration he had for so long awaited.
To glide and soar with his own feathered appendages.
To whip up crashing tides of air and desquamate the paper walls of what had been for so long a fragile existence.
The moment was one where time stood still. He might have been a father staring into the bright liquid eyes of his brand new baby girl.
Finally, Eli backed himself to the Wall of Faces, against the delineated space reserved for his own body.
He closed his eyes and waited.
Tense moments passed. Then…
A snap and flash of pain—what could only be described as two steel bear traps springing into his shoulder blades.
He roared in agony.
In wide-eyed, pain-generated, air-steeling dementia, he could only mouth idiocies at the windows staring back at him from the opposite wall.
Laughing at him.
He staggered forward and fell.
“Gabriel blew, and a clean thin sound of perfect pitch and crystalline delicacy filled all the universe to the farthest star...as thin as the line separating past from future...”
—Isaac Asimov, The Last Trump
Part Five
Transgressions
1.
Dawn was grooming the Atlantic’s mane; its gusts of breath shearing off the hoary tufts, its inhalations then combing them back down into youthful blackness.
Farther inland, a shuttle bus pulled to the sidewalk in front of Joan Pendleton’s house. Pillsbury was the first to notice the vehicle. She was howling incessantly at the front door with more than a hint of doggy emphysema. Every fifteen seconds or so she would stop and gag, then resume her baying with earnest.
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted from the kitchen.
Joan was the second. “What on earth,” she complained, cinching the sash of her threadbare housecoat as she ambled frumpishly across the dining room’s wood floor. Her bedroom was on the main level, on the other side of the kitchen; an arrangement that was intended to keep her off the stairs as much as possible.
She stopped three feet from the dog. Hands on her hips, she asked, “My lord, Pillsy, what has gotten into you?”
The third was Chris. Already showered and dressed, he stepped out of the second-level bathroom, leaned his scrawny frame over the banister and began imitating the howling dachshund. He maintained a praiseworthy rhythm and even went so far as to emulate the strangling noises, all the while appearing very confused, if not frightened.
“Young man,” Joan chided, “is that really necessary?”
Chris shook his head that it wasn’t, but continued to howl nonetheless as spasms rippled through his body.
Duncan peeked out from his bedroom doorway with a weary, yielding aspect, as if nothing this early could be worth fighting for. Moments later, Rachel appeared beside him, pulling a brush through her hair, her expression firm, determined. Still damp from their showers, both were dressed in Levis pants and sweatshirts. After all, only the most beguiled wore evening gowns and Armani suits to the Apocalypse.
“Knock it off, the both of you,” Patricia demanded, coming down the stairs. “For crying out loud! Enough is enough!” Also in rough-and-tumble attire, she shook her finger angrily. “Bad dog!”
Not sharing her opinion one bit, the dog continued to bay. As did Chris.
Kathy and Juanita were the last. Kathy stepped out of her old room (also on the main level and adjacent to grandma’s), with Juanita following, still in the same smock, now considerably wrinkled, that she’d been wearing the day before.
Walking over to the dog, Kathy silenced her with just one gentle touch. Then she opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch, returning almost immediately with the morning paper in hand. “Our ride is here,” she said cheerily.
“What ride?” Duncan said, descending the stairs in Patricia’s fragrant wake.
“The one to get us out of here,” Kathy replied.
Now down the stairs himself, looking out the window and still jittery from his doggy fixation, Chris cried, “Dead Man! Dead Man! Dead Man! Dead Man!”
Patricia, fists clenched, turned to Chris. “Would you please shut the hell up?!”
Surprisingly, he did.
Kathy smiled at everyone. “Don’t worry, Dead Man’s okay. He’s just the driver.”
D
uncan reached the door, Chris now beside him, both watching the driver make his way toward the porch. Every other step the cloaked figure would stop and lean his head toward the lawn. It was obvious to Duncan that the driver was being enticed by the very same something that had yesterday lured Chris to do likewise.
“Everybody stay back,” Duncan ordered. He opened the front door, just a crack.
Duncan decided that whoever was hidden within the long black robe was, at best, emaciated. He could not see the person’s face as the hood was pulled tightly, leaving nothing but a thin slit up the middle.
The driver reached the steps of the porch, his prowess on the unsteady planks a tribute to felines everywhere.
Duncan winced as the smell of chemicals and decay leached through the crack.
Whimpering now, Pillsbury scurried out of sight.
With a mummified hand, the corpse reached inside the door and grabbed Duncan’s wrist. “Get everyone out of the house immediately.”
Duncan jerked his hand away. “Jesus Christ! Who the hell are you?”
“Your driver,” said the corpse “Now listen very carefully. It has begun. Everyone in this house needs to get on my shuttle, and fast.”
“It’s gone!” Juanita shouted suddenly, staring at the stained glass window above the stairs. “The face—it’s gone!”
It was indeed.
Then, somewhere in the recesses of the house, a window shattered; a dog screamed.
“Pillsbury!” Kathy cried, then started running down the hallway, toward the commotion.
Juanita reached out and grabbed Kathy as she ran by. “No you don’t!”
As if handed the torch, Joan took up where Kathy had stumbled, and started for her shrieking dog.
“Mother, stay here!” Patricia cried, going after her. “Goddammit, Mother!”
Rachel rushed over and grabbed Joan’s arm, and was nearly yanked off her feet, the woman continuing to drive forward like a yoked ox. “You don’t want to go down there!” she insisted.
“Pillsy’s in trouble!” Joan cried. “I have to save her!” Hands waving above her head, she broke Rachel’s grip and started down the hallway, informing her squalling dog that she was on her way.
“Dude’s right,” Chris said, now pointing at something beyond the window. “We’ve got company.”
“Get everyone on the bus now,” ordered the driver. “If you don’t—” he pulled the hood from his decaying face “—then this reality’s going on a long vacation.”
It was already packing its bags, Duncan thought to say, as he now saw what Chris was pointing at. They were coming out of the ground; the same kind of creature he and Amy had encountered back at the hospital. He counted two, the duo squeezing themselves up from the dry lawn, near the big elm tree.
“Harpies,” the driver offered. “Nasty little bastards.”
Just then, Joan wobbled out of the far bedroom with Pillsbury’s remains in her outstretched hands. One of the creatures had hitched a ride on her back, and was pulling out tufts of silver-white hair from her scalp. She appeared more grievous over the dog than she did for herself.
Blood poured down her face, into her eyes.
“Here, take this,” Dead Man said, shoving Duncan a Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol. “It’s special, so don’t lose it.”
Patricia momentarily broke free of Rachel’s clutch, lunging toward her mother. Rachel caught her, this time with both hands.
“We can’t help her!” Rachel insisted. “And if we don’t get out of here, then we’re as dead as she is!”
Patricia wheeled on Rachel, staring, shocked that she could be so cold-hearted.
Duncan turned, bringing the sights of the .45 to eye level.
“Warfare!” Chris said. “Epic, dude!”
“I want everyone on the bus now!” Duncan roared.
Joan continued blindly down the hallway, toward Rachel and Kathy, knocking down various pictures of her granddaughter and other relatives once presumed dead, ramming against the walls, trying desperately to dislodge the creature from her back. Her head and whole upper body was now drenched in blood, and her screams had all but turned into feeble cooing.
With a lonely howl, she dropped Pillsbury’s remains, then stumbled over them.
Her legs finally gave out as she entered the living room. As her knees struck the floor, the creature clamped her head between its jaws. Her eyes rolled, and a blood bubble formed between her parted lips.
Duncan aimed the gun, but didn’t have a clear shot.
With a lightning quick turn and pull of its jaws, the creature snapped Joan’s neck.
Behind Duncan, Patricia fell to the floor in a faint.
Rachel knelt by her side and began shaking her. “No, no!” she cried. “You can’t do this now!”
Chris rushed over to Rachel and, with each taking an arm, they pulled Patricia to the front door.
The risk of accidentally hitting Patricia’s mother no longer a concern, Duncan fired one shot into the harpy. The .45 caliber slug struck the creature in the head, hurling it from the woman’s back. As if controlled by a deranged puppeteer, the harpy began to dance upon frenzied strings. Its wings fluttered in paroxysms as its head wound ejaculated blood.
Duncan let go another round.
Its strings finally cut, the creature collapsed into a silent, motionless heap.
Juanita and Kathy were themselves already at the front door, and Juanita shielded the girl’s eyes with one hand while stroking her blonde hair with the other. “It is not good to see.”
From the doorway, awake though zombie-like, Patricia stared silently at her dead mother.
As Rachel and Chris steadied Patricia, another harpy waddled like a goose down the blood-splashed hallway, hissing at them.
Duncan pulled the trigger and sent the beast tumbling backward.
Another creature now, squawking as it gashed its way through the kitchen window screen.
“I’m not going to say it again!” Duncan demanded. “Everybody out!”
At the kitchen sink, the creature had turned on the faucet and was lapping noisily from the stream of water.
As he raised the gun, bolts of pain shot through his right lower leg. He looked down. “Shit!” A harpy was clamped upon his calf. Point-blank, he fired. The creature spun away, leaving a very nasty bite.
Duncan fell to his knees. Growling, the harpy in the kitchen was threatening to leap from the Formica counter top. Duncan wiped the sweat from his eyes. Aimed. Fired.
Missed.
Wings outstretched, the harpy pounced.
He fired again, sending the creature crashing into the cupboard doors.
Duncan looked around. No one was left in the house except him. And poor Mrs. Pendleton, upon whose twitching body now perched another creature, tugging on a cord of intestine.
Without aiming, he blasted the harpy.
He raised himself unsteadily to his feet, prayed to whoever might be listening for a miracle, then headed for the front door.
2.
Eli awoke to an unbelievable, unthinkable perversion.
Wet and pleated, his new wings glistened pink like the newborn skin of a rat.
He pushed himself up from the cold cement. Maladroit on his feet, he was unskilled with the new, encumbering appendages on his back. The combined weight of both wings easily exceeded his own, and he was certain they would each surpass twelve feet in length when dry.
They were massive.
They were hideous.
They were not what he’d ordered.
Gamble had betrayed him.
He directed his voice to the ceiling, hoping his mentor was in earshot. “GAMBLE, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!”
Then, taken aback, he wondered if Gamble might take that as a compliment. There was so much he still didn’t know.
His head hung low, he began to weep, clenching and unclenching his fists.
So unfair.
His back, his sides, his entire body, it seemed, ached wi
th his new burden.
Exhausted, he hunkered below the nearest window well, one of the basement’s two, both fortified on the outside with metal mesh welded across their openings. In a few hours, the morning sun would be dropping through and, since the central heater wasn’t presently an option (at least not a wise one, as any forced artificial heat might cause shrinkage, he thought), maybe he could get his wings to dry in a quicker and more natural way.
3.
Like frantic prairie dogs from their flooded homes, the harpies exited the ground.
Dead Man hurried everyone into the vehicle.
Patricia stopped. “Mr. and Mrs. Kensington!” she hollered to her neighbors, who were clutching the chain link fence on the south side of her lawn. Fascination had transfixed their eyes just as firmly as fear had gripped their legs.
“Please, get back in your house—no, wait!” Considering what just happened in her home, she turned desperately to Dead Man and said, “Can they come with us?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “This is a chartered vehicle.”
Duncan raised the gun toward the lawn and shot one harpy as it lifted from its hole. Squealing, its wings whipped up plumes of parched earth. Then it fell silent, jaws gnawing the brittle blades of dead grass.
Everyone was inside the shuttle now except Patricia and Duncan. They were both at the gate. Dead Man held the shuttle’s doors open and shouted, “Goddammit, hurry!”
“What about my neighbors?” Patricia cried.
Duncan grabbed her arm. “You heard the driver. No other fares.”
“But that’s bullshit!”
Seraphim Page 35
