999

by Al Sarrantonio

  Following the telephone call, the Director was in excellent spirits. He told the skull a breakthrough was at hand and insisted to Lyubashevski that he could hear a faint twang from the Jew’s harp. Grigory Yefimovich was trying to communicate, the Director claimed. He asked if he remembered eating the poisoned chocolates. After the jaw first moved, Kozintsev had constructed rudimentary clay ears, exaggerated cartoon curls which stuck out ridiculously. Having abandoned any attempt to simulate the appearance in life of the monk, he was attempting instead to provide working features. Since Rasputin’s brains must have rotted or burned years before, it was hard to imagine what the Director aspired to communicate with. Then, over the loudspeaker, Dr. Dudnikov reported that there were soldiers outside the Spa setting up explosives and declaring an intention to dynamite the building. Grigory Yefimovich’s glass eyes rolled again.

  Engineers were packing charges around the foyer. Entering the Spa through the kitchens, they had avoided the Amerikan-infested steps. It appeared a second queue was forming, stretching off in a different direction, still leading to the front doors. The officer in command, a fat man with a facial birthmark that made him look like a spaniel, introduced himself as Major Andrei Kobylinksi. He strode about, inspecting the work, expressing pride in his unit’s ability to demolish a building with the minimum of explosive matter. As he surveyed, Kobylinksi noted points at which surplus charges should be placed. To Chirkov’s unschooled eye, the Major appeared to contradict himself: his men were plastering the walls with semtex. Kozintsev and Captain Zharov were absorbed in a reading of a twelve-page document which authorized the demolition of the Spa. Dr. Dudnikov protested that the First Secretary himself had, within the last minute, commended the Spa and that important work to do with the Amerikan invasion was being carried out in the Pool, but Kobylinksi was far more interested in which pillars should be knocked out to bring down the decadent painted roof. As they worked, the engineers whistled “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

  Satisfied that the charges were laid correctly, Major Kobylinksi could not resist the temptation to lecture the assembled company on the progress and achievements of his campaign. A three-yard-square map of Moscow was unfolded on the floor. It was marked with patches of red as if it were a chessboard pulled out of shape. The red areas signified buildings and constructions Kobylinksi had blown up. Chirkov understood the Major would not be happy until the entire map was shaded in red; then, Kobylinski believed the crisis would be at an end. He declaimed that this should have been done immediately when the crisis began and that the Amerikans were to be thanked for prompting such a visionary enterprise. As the Major lectured, Chirkov noticed Toulbeyev at the main desk with Lyubashevski, apparently trying to find a pen that worked. They sorted through a pot of pencils and chalks and markers, drawing streaks on a piece of blotting paper. Under the desk were packages wired to detonators. Kobylinksi checked his watch and mused that he was ahead of his schedule; the demolition would take place in one half hour. Lyubashevski raised a hand and ventured the opinion that the explosives placed under the main staircase were insufficient to the task of bringing down such a solidly constructed structure. Barking disagreement, Kobylinksi strutted over and examined the charges in question, finally agreeing that safe was better than sorry and ordering the application of more explosives.

  While Kobylinksi was distracted, Toulbeyev crept to the map and knelt over Red Square, scribbling furiously with a precious red felt-tip. He blotched over the Spa, extending an area of devastation to cover half the Square. When Kobylinksi revisited his map, Toulbeyev was unsuspiciously on the other side of the room. One of the engineers, a new set of headphones slung around his neck, piped up with an observation of a cartographical anomaly. Kobylinksi applied his concentration to the map and gurgled to himself. According to this chart, the Spa had already been dealt with by his unit: it was not a building but a raked-over patch of rubble. Another engineer, a baseball cap in his back pocket, volunteered a convincing memory of the destruction, three days before, of the Spa. Kobylinksi looked again at the map, getting down on his hands and knees and crawling along the most famous thoroughfares of the city. He scratched his head and blinked in his birthmark. Director Kozintsev, arms folded and head high, said that so far as he was concerned the matter was at an end; he requested the engineers remove their infernal devices from the premises. Kobylinksi had authorization to destroy the Spa but once and had demonstrably already acted on that authorization. The operation could not be repeated without further orders, and if further orders were requested, questions would be asked as to whether the engineers were as efficient as Kobylinksi would like to claim: most units only need to destroy a building once for it to remain destroyed. Almost in tears, the bewildered Major finally commanded the removal of the explosives and, with parental tenderness, folded up his map into its case. With no apologies, the engineers withdrew.

  That night, Valentina’s Amerikans got out of the steam bath and everyone spent a merry three hours hunting them down. Chirkov and Toulbeyev drew the Pool. The power had failed again, and they had to fall back on oil lamps, which made the business all the more unnerving. Irregular and active shadows were all around, whispering in Moldavian of hungry, unquiet creatures. Their progress was a slow spiral; first, they circled the Pool from above, casting light over the complex, but that left too many darks unprobed; then, they went in at the Deep End and moved methodically through the labyrinth, weaving between the partitions, stumbling against dissected bodies, ready to shoot hat stands in the brain. Under his breath, Toulbeyev recited a litany he claimed was a Japanese prayer against the dead: “Sanyo, sony, seiko, mitsubishi, panasonic, toshiba …”

  They had to penetrate the dead center of the pool. The Amerikans were in Kozintsev’s cubicle staring at the bone-and-clay head as if it were a color television set. Rasputin was on his stand under a black protective cloth which hung like long hair. Chirkov found the combination of the Amerikans and Rasputin unnerving and, almost as a reflex, shot the skeleton in the skull. The report was loud and echoing. The skeleton came apart on the floor and, before Chirkov’s ears stopped hurting, others had come to investigate. Director Kozintsev was concerned for his precious monk and probed urgently under the cloth for damage. Valentina was annoyed by the loss of her specimen but kept her tongue still, especially when her surviving Amerikan turned nasty. The dead man barged out of the cubicle, shouldering partitions apart, wading through gurneys and tables, roaring and slavering. Tarkhanov, incongruous in a silk dressing gown, got in the way and sustained a nasty bite. Toulbeyev dealt with the Amerikan, tripping him with an ax handle, then straddling his chest and pounding a chisel into the bridge of his nose. He had not done anything to prove Valentina’s theories; for its spell in captivity, he simply seemed more decayed, not evolved. Valentina claimed the thing Chirkov had finished was a model of biological efficiency, stripped down to essentials, potentially immortal. Now, it looked like a stack of bones.

  Even Kozintsev, occupied in the construction of a set of wooden arms for his reanimated favorite, was alarmed by the size of the queue. There were four distinct lines. The Amerikans shuffled constantly, stamping nerveless feet as if to keep warm. Captain Zharov set up a machine gun emplacement in the foyer, covering the now-barred front doors, although it was strictly for show until he could be supplied with ammunition belts of the same gauge as the gun. Chirkov and Toulbeyev watched the Amerikans from the balcony. The queue was orderly; when, as occasionally happened, a too-far-gone Amerikan collapsed, it was trampled under by the great moving-up as those behind advanced. Toulbeyev sighted on individual dead with binoculars and listed the treasures he could distinguish. Mobile telephones, digital watches, blue jeans, leather jackets, gold bracelets, gold teeth, ballpoint pens. The Square was a purgatory for pickpockets. As night fell, it was notable that no lights burned even in the Kremlin.

  When the power came back, the emergency radio frequencies broadcast only soothing music. The meeting was more sparsely attend
ed than usual, and Chirkov realized faces had been disappearing steadily, lost to desertion or wastage. Dr. Dudnikov announced that he had been unable to reach anyone on the telephone. Lyubashevski reported that the threat of demolition had been lifted from the Spa and was unlikely to recur, though there might now prove to be unfortunate official side effects if the institution was formally believed to be a stretch of warm rubble. The kitchens had received a delivery of fresh fish, which was cause for celebration, though the head cook noted as strange the fact that many of the shipment were still flapping and even decapitation seemed not to still them. Valentina, for the hundredth time, requested specimens be secured for study and, after a vote—closer than usual, but still decisive—was disappointed. Tarkhanov’s suicide was entered into the record, and the scientists paid tribute to the colleague they fervently believed had repeatedly informed on them, reciting his achievements and honors. Toulbeyev suggested a raiding party to relieve the queuing Amerikans of those goods which could be used for barter, but no one was willing to second the proposal, which sent the corporal into a notable sulk. Finally, as was expected, Kozintsev gave an account of his day’s progress with Grigory Yefimovich. He had achieved a certain success with the arms: constructing elementary shoulder joints and nailing them to Rasputin’s stand, then layering rope-and-clay muscles which interleaved with the neck he had fashioned. The head was able to control its arms to the extent of stretching out and bunching up muscle strands in the wrists as if clenching fists which did not, as yet, exist. The Director was also pleased to report that the head almost constantly made sounds with the Jew’s harp, approximating either speech or music. As if to demonstrate the monk’s healing powers, Kozintsev’s sinus trouble had cleared up almost entirely.

  Two days later, Toulbeyev let the Amerikans in. Chirkov did not know where the Corporal got the idea; he just got up from the gun emplacement, walked across the foyer, and unbarred the doors. Chirkov did not try to stop him, distracted by efforts to jam the wrong type of belt into the machine gun. When all the bolts were loose, Toulbeyev flung the doors back and stood aside. At the front of the queue, ever since the night they had brought in Valentina’s specimens, was the officer. As he waited, his face had run, flesh slipping from his cheeks to form jowly bags around his jaw. He stepped forward smartly, entering the foyer. Lyubashevski woke up from his cot behind the desk and wondered aloud what was going on. Toulbeyev took a fistful of medals from the officer and tossed them to the floor after a shrewd assessment. The officer walked purposefully, with a broken-ankled limp, towards the lifts. Next in was the woman in the pin-striped suit. Toulbeyev took her hat and perched it on his head. From the next few, the Corporal harvested a silver chain identity bracelet, a woven leather belt, a pocket calculator, an old brooch. He piled the tokens behind him. Amerikans filled the foyer, wedging through the doorway in a triangle behind the officer.

  Chirkov assumed the dead would eat him and wished he had seriously tried to go to bed with Technician Sverdlova. He still had two rounds left in his revolver, which meant he could deal with an Amerikan before ensuring his own everlasting peace. There were so many to choose from and none seemed interested in him. The lift was descending and those who couldn’t get into it discovered the stairs. They were all drawn to the basement, to the Pool. Toulbeyev chortled and gasped at each new treasure, sometimes clapping the dead on the shoulders as they yielded their riches, hugging one or two of the more harmless creatures. Lyubashevski was appalled, but did nothing. Finally, the administrator got together the gumption to issue an order: he told Chirkov to inform the Director of this development. Chirkov assumed that since Kozintsev was, as ever, working in the Pool, he would very soon be extremely aware of this development, but he snapped to and barged through the crowd anyway, choking back the instinct to apologize. The Amerikans mainly got out of his way, and he pushed to the front of the wave shuffling down the basement steps. He broke out of the pack and clattered into the Pool, yelling that the Amerikans were coming. Researchers looked up—he saw Valentina’s eyes flashing annoyance and wondered if it were not too late to ask her for sex—and the crowd edged behind Chirkov, approaching the lip of the Pool.

  He vaulted in and sloshed through the mess towards Kozintsev’s cubicle. Many partitions were down already, and there was a clear path to the Director’s workspace. Valentina pouted at him, then her eyes widened as she saw the assembled legs surrounding the Pool. The Amerikans began to topple in, crushing furniture and corpses beneath them, many unable to stand once they had fallen. The hardiest of them kept on walking, swarming around and overwhelming the technicians. Cries were strangled and blood ran on the bed of the Pool. Chirkov fired wildly, winging an ear off a bearded dead man in a shabby suit, and pushed on towards Kozintsev. When he reached the center, his first thought was that the cubicle was empty, then he saw what the Director had managed. Combining himself with his work, V. A. Kozintsev had constructed a wooden half skeleton which fit over his shoulders, making his own head the heart of the new body he had fashioned for Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin. The head, built out to giant size with exaggerated clay and rubber muscles, wore its black wig and beard, and even had lips and patches of sprayed-on skin. The upper body was wooden and intricate, the torso of a giant with arms to match, but sticking out at the bottom were the Director’s stick-insect legs. Chirkov thought the body would not be able to support itself but, as he looked, the assemblage stood. He looked up at the caricature of Rasputin’s face. Blue eyes shone, not glass but living.

  Valentina was by his side, gasping. He put an arm around her and vowed to himself that if it were necessary she would have the bullet he had saved for himself. He smelled her perfumed hair. Together, they looked up at the holy maniac who had controlled a woman and, through her, an Empire, ultimately destroying both. Rasputin looked down on them, then turned away to look at the Amerikans. They crowded around in an orderly fashion, limping pilgrims approaching a shrine. A terrible smile disfigured the crude face. An arm extended, the paddle-sized hand stretching out fingers constructed from surgical implements. The hand fell onto the forehead of the first of the Amerikans, the officer. It covered the dead face completely, fingers curling around the head. Grigory Yefimovich seemed powerful enough to crush the Amerikan’s skull, but instead he just held firm. His eyes rolled up to the chandelier, and a twanging came from inside the wood-and-clay neck, a vibrating monotone that might have been a hymn. As the noise resounded, the gripped Amerikan shook, slabs of putrid meat falling away like layers of onionskin. At last, Rasputin pushed the creature away. The uniform gone with its flesh, it was like Valentina’s skeleton, but leaner, moister, stronger. It stood up and stretched, its infirmities gone, its ankle whole. It clenched and unclenched teeth in a joke-shop grin and leaped away, eager for meat. The next Amerikan took its place under Rasputin’s hand, and was healed too. And the next.

  Joyce carol Oates

  THE RUINS OF CONTRACOEUR

  Joyce Carol Oates is a publishing phenomenon. Her list of credits is way too long to list here; on any given week you re likely to see a piece in The New Yorker, a penned review in the New York Times, or, perhaps, a new novel, a collection of short stories, an edited anthology, a book on boxing a play. Even if we restrict ourselves to the horror field the task becomes little easier, though we would do well to mention her collection Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque, the anthology American Gothic Tales, and the novel Zombie, which won the Bram Stoker Award.

  Other recent work outside the horror field includes the family sagas Bellefleur and We Were the Mulvaneys.

  “The Ruins of Contracocur” is atmospheric, dense with poetic gloom, touching and unnerving; it was the very first story I received for this book, and even after all this time it continues to haunt me.

  I. First Sighting: The Thing-Without-a-Face

  It was in June, early in our time of exile in Contracoeur. In the death-stillness of a stonily moonlit night. Not ten days following the upheaval of our lives when Father, disgraced
and defeated, uprooted his family from the state capital to live in the ruin of Cross Hill, his grandfather’s estate in the foothills of the Chautauqua Mountains. Bear with me, children. Believe in me! J will be redeemed. I will redeem myself. My brother Graeme, thirteen years old, restless, insomniac and unhappy prowling the downstairs of the darkened old house like a trapped feral cat. In his pajamas, barefoot, not caring if he stubbed his toes against the shadowy legs of chairs, tables; not caring if, upstairs in the bedroom they shared, his younger brother Neale who whimpered and ground his teeth in his sleep might wake suddenly to see Graeme’s bed empty and be frightened. Not caring how our parents, convalescing from the trauma of the move to Cross Hill and the ignominy of their new life, would be upset by his defiant behavior. For by day as by night Graeme signaled his displeasure in words both spoken and unspoken. I hate it here! Why are we here? I want to go home. Graeme was a sallow-skinned, spoiled, petulant child, immature even for his young age: tears of rage and self-pity stung his eyes. He was small-boned, slight; back home, he’d spent much of his time in cyberspace, and had only a few friends from the private school he attended, skilled at computers like himself; he’d never been physically outgoing, or brash, or brave like his older brother Stephen. Now shivering in his thin cotton pajamas prowling the rooms of the vast unfamiliar house that was our father’s inheritance; prowling this drafty, high-ceilinged and neglected old house as if it were a tomb in which, his father’s son, the child of a man in exile, he was unjustly confined. That evening our mother had come to us in our rooms to kiss us good-night, Mother in a pale silk dressing gown that fitted her loosely, for she’d lost weight, and her beautiful hair that had been so lustrous an ashy-blond now threaded with gray, untidy on her shoulders, touching our faces with her thin fingers and murmuring Children, please don’t be unhappy, remember that we love you, your father and mother love you, try to be happy here at Cross Hill, try to sleep in these strange, new beds for our sake. Graeme accepted Mother’s kiss but lay awake for hours. His thoughts in a turmoil of resentment and fear for Father’s safety. At last slipping agitated from his bed which was not (as he told himself bitterly) his bed but one borrowed, uncomfortable and smelling of damp bedclothes and mildew. I can’t sleep! I won’t sleep! Never again!