October

by Al Sarrantonio

  "Time for your beating, Putnam."

  Davey rose up to a sit, looked through the bars. The door at the corridor end opened, letting a tall, thin spill of light into the area.

  Officer Johnston entered the corridor, billy club in hand. He shook the key ring on his belt. "I'm losing you tomorrow, so I'll have to make this one good."

  Another figure, taller, filled the doorway behind Johnston.

  Johnston turned as the tall man's arm rose. Davey saw something bright, backlit, move in a flashing arc. Johnston's hands went to his throat . . .

  The tall man pushed Johnston down, moved the knife through his neck. Johnston fell, made a gasp, was silent. The tall man let the knife fall with him.

  Davey saw the tall man bend over the cop, remove the key ring from his belt.

  The tall man straightened.

  "No!" Davey shouted.

  James Weston came toward his cell. Shadow-light showed the twin lines of suspenders over the shoulders.

  "Someone help me!"

  Weston's hands lay on the bars, like flat, dead, calm white slabs of meat. The head was half shadowed. There was the sound of shallow, deep breathing.

  "Stay away," Davey said, retreating to the back of the cell.

  Weston lifted the hand holding the key ring from the bars, bent to the lock, tried one key and then another. The third made a snapping metal sound as the lock disengaged.

  "Jesus—help me!"

  Weston pulled the cell door back on its hinges.

  Kevin bolted forward, ducking under the arch of Weston's arm. A heavy hand landed on his back, knocked him to the floor.

  "Jesus!"

  Weston held him down, dragged him back into the cell. Davey writhed, trying to beat the tall man's arms off. Weston pushed him back, climbed on top of him, pinned him.

  Davey whipped his head from side to side. "No!"

  The tall man put the flats of his hands to Davey's head and squeezed, holding him.

  "No!"

  Davey closed his eyes, smelling Weston's putrid breath. "No!"

  Davey opened his eyes wide. Weston's face was inches from his own. The eyes were flat, like painted plastic. The white, unsmiling flesh looked unliving.

  "Help me!"

  Weston covered Davey's mouth with his own. Davey couldn't move his head or breathe. He screamed into the hollow, damp cave of Weston's mouth.

  Weston's tongue bridged his own. Something crawled into his mouth, dropped to the back of his throat, bored in—

  At the instant of transference, Davey looked into Weston's eyes and saw the flat lifelessness replaced by bright light. As the face crumbled away, life burst back into the eyes.

  Davey heard a shout of exhultation . . .

  Davey screamed. Something said, Fine. Then the scream was pushed into the back of his throat, up into his head, and in despair, he felt himself stolen.

  17

  October 31st

  Twilight, Halloween.

  It should have been beautiful. Leaf colors, as if on cue, had reached peak: a blinding cascade of orange, yellow, red; and the trees, as if knowing it was the last day of October, that winter was close by, shook their branches in the blustering wind, letting loose a rain of color on the town.

  Kevin's car window was down. The air was apple-chilled; the dropping night was blue-black and clear. The smell of burning leaves smoldering in a caged trash can coupled with the cold smell of stars.

  It should have been beautiful. Trick-or-treaters swarmed in packs, waved bags, kicked through leaves: witches, ghosts, spacemen, monsters. Houses were guarded by pumpkins, flickering triangle eyes, sickle-grin mouths with the waning heat of candle stumps. Pumpkin tops smoldered black, smelled like burned pumpkin pies.

  Pumpkin cutouts filled windows. Jointed skeletons hung from doors. On one house, white clapboard, deep-green shutters, a zombie cutout was taped to the picture window, stiff arms outstretched,' face powdered, eyes wide, empty as black wells

  A stray cat, appropriately black, froze in Kevin's headlights. He braked. The cat hissed, arched its back, glared at him with green eyes. It dashed over the curb, rattled between two trash cans . . .

  It should have been beautiful.

  But it wasn't. The portentous boom of the last movement of Brahms's Fourth Symphony filled the car's cassette deck.

  A push of cold wind splashed leaves on the road in front of Kevin.

  He shivered.

  He stopped for a light, heard a call of laughter. He watched a group of costumed children cross the street in front of him, bags rustling, capes moving. They entered a bar called the Swan, pushed like wraiths through the front door under the awning. He heard them call "Trick or treat!" as the tavern door swung shut behind them. A moment later they were herded out, laughing, a slim man holding a towel, scowling, telling them, "Go on. Play your tricks somewhere else."

  The light changed. The town thinned away behind Kevin. There were empty, rutted rows of stems, rotting pumpkins, a closed farm stand cloaked in shadow.

  He pulled to the curb, turned off the engine.

  Brahms, on a full, high note of doom, went silent. He got out of the car, headed into the field.

  Dry dirt puffed up. Dry stalks, green, dead, twisted pumpkin vines, cut clean at the ends or ripped away, reached at him, tried to trip him. A huge, fat, ripe pumpkin faced him; as he passed it, the back was visible, kicked in, a spill of pulp, clustered white seeds, ruin . . .

  The farm stand was behind him. He found the path into the hill.

  He climbed.

  At the top of the hill he stopped, spellbound. It should have been beautiful. New Polk lay out for him on a plate below. Leaves fell on perfectly paved streets. Stately oaks arched protectively. He saw the university, red brick and clock tower, a white, round face with black stick arms at six o'clock. He heard the distant bell. The leafy emptiness of the quadrangle, just glimpsed. Houses spread around the college like ranked gems, tar-shingle roofs, white clapboard, shutters like brows on their windows, reflecting orange night.

  Tears came into his eyes.

  It should have been beautiful.

  He stumbled on, cutting left toward the orchard, keeping the ridgeline until he entered the trees.

  Here, in the nightshade of these bare branches, autumn had already passed to winter. Dead apples. The ground was carpeted in unharvested fruit, saturated with the sharp, sick smell of rot. Insects moved into fruit corpses, drilled holes into paling red skins. Pulp turned from crisp white to soft mealiness. Brown, the color of decay.

  He moved through apples, stepped on apples, could not avoid apples.

  He stopped, listened.

  The silence of failing autumn. Wind clicked the branches. Dry limbs, like a cornfield. He turned his collar up. There was a dotting of bright stars overhead.

  Twilight gave in to night.

  Through the crooked, framing arms of trees, he watched New Polk blink its night eyes open. Halloween porches. Candles snugged and lit into sweet floors of pumpkins.

  Dripping wax. A blow of scent through the eyeholes, dancing flames . . .

  He listened for the dog.

  Colder, windy. His collar was not enough. He shivered. Fear rose into him. The unseen: a tall man in suspenders, a stiff white shirt. In the trees? He glanced up. A thousand hiding places.

  Again, he listened for the dog.

  He stopped.

  Ahead, a flitting presence in the dark. Watching him, wary. He could feel it.

  A star, bright Vega, winked between two low, wind-whipped branches, cradled the horizon.

  A crawling feeling up his back. He turned. In a clear lane between trees, the rising fatness of the moon, an orange presence, pumpkin in the sky, pulled itself above New Polk. A taffy-pull of clouds moved across its surface.

  Nearby, a dog sound, mournful, deep in the throat. Careful, mistrusting.

  He looked toward the sound.

  The dog moved out from behind the bole of a gray tree. It was hobbled.
The right front paw was damaged, collapsing at each step. The dog's eyes were bright; it showed its teeth, barked a warning.

  "I'm not going to hurt you," Kevin said. He knelt, held a hand out. "Davey told me to find you."

  The dog hobbled forward, stopped ten feet away, still wary.

  "Come on," Kevin said.

  The dog sniffed, moved forward, sniffed again.

  "That's it."

  Abruptly the dog made the last four steps, laid its head in Kevin's outstretched hand, sat heavily, sighing.

  "Good dog." Kevin ruffled the dog's deep coat behind the ears. "Good boy."

  The dog lifted its head, peered into the darkness, let its head fall again. It sighed, a huffing sound.

  "I need you."

  The dog made a deep, content sound. Kevin thought the dog had gone to sleep. He turned over the dog's right front paw, found a raw, skinned spot just above the pad, extending up the bone.

  The dog tried to rise.

  "Hold on," Kevin said.

  He made the dog sit, pulled out his shirttail from under his jacket, worked at it, tore a strip of cloth. "Let's see what we can do."

  The dog settled, closed its eyes, let Kevin work.

  Easy.

  That's what it would be. Already he enjoyed the new body, the young boy's relative strength, the endurance of pain, the fast legs. The boy's youth only added to his prowess, would make it easier to leap, to grasp, to choke, to kill. Perfect for tonight. And the boy would be blamed for everything.

  In sheer exhilaration, he retrieved the key ring next to the dusty clothes, the red-stained shirt, the suspenders, that had been James Weston's. He ran through the police station, unlocked the rifle case, removed a twelve-gauge shotgun, plenty of shells.

  Then—out into the night.

  My night!

  He made the boy's face smile widely, excitedly, because that was the way he felt. The moon rising up. Everything meshed like a perfect machine.

  It was almost like it had been.

  My night!

  He would make it as close as he could. A singing rushed through him, through the body. He jumped into the air, shouted, "Yes!" It felt good.

  A man approached. Medium height, balding, impatient walk. Alone. The man looked at him strangely. Darkness between buildings. The man saw the shotgun, stopped, tried to put a look of blankness on his face, which didn't mask his sudden fear.

  He made the young boy's body jump again. "Yes!" In midjump he realized the boy knew this man. Who? Foster father.

  The boy hated him—ole Jack.

  Fine.

  "Yes!" He completed the jump. As he touched ground directly in front of the man, he snugged the shotgun under the man's chin and pulled both triggers.

  Yes!

  The man flew back, a shower of blood, twitching to the ground.

  He ran on, reloaded the shotgun.

  My night!

  The corner of a building. A woman appeared, walked across his path, bundled against the chill. A grocery bag, plastic bag of candy topping it.

  "Yes!"

  He aimed for her face near the bag top, pulled one trigger, watched her hands fly out, drop the groceries.

  But he had only grazed the front of her face. The open bag of candy spilled on the pavement. He pointed the barrel down, carefully this time, pulled off the other shell.

  "Perfect!"

  A perfect night.

  My night.

  This was what he missed. When he had been content to be served, it had been like this. A god, they had called him. What better station than to be a god? To be held in godhood by an inferior race. The plague, human beings overrunning the earth. The dinosaurs. He should have stopped the human race, too.

  An old rage was filling him, drowning his exhilaration. Why did his own die? Godhood had been his consolation.

  He remembered that first time, the lonely boring up through the endless mother earth to the surface. The first contact, the first taking over. They were like babies to him, their pliant minds, accessible wills. Easy to own.

  Soon, they had feared, worshiped him.

  The birds, the fishes, he had been their god, too. And then, the humans had left him behind.

  What was left but rage?

  He found himself screaming. He filled the boy's mouth with raw hate. He stopped before a door. It opened almost immediately at his knock. A frightened face. A teenage girl; he saw the candy bowl on a nearby table. A staircase behind it led up. Hallway straight ahead, glimpse of a kitchen. The door closed, the wood pushed against him.

  "Open this now!" he shrieked. He kicked, the door burst back, meeting a chain. He jammed two shells into the shotgun, rammed the door.

  He heard a heavier voice, foot treads, coming toward him.

  He aimed at the chain, blew it off the door, kicked the door open. He faced a large man, shirtsleeves, receding hairline, glasses, dress pants, newspaper clutched in one hand.

  The man raised a finger to point as he fired the second barrel into the face. He cocked the shotgun open, fed shells to it. More shouts through the house. A loud television. A commercial ended, music out of a haunted house.

  He marched down the hallway.

  The teenage girl in the kitchen was sunk to her knees, phone receiver to her ear. He fired off one shot. More commotion; the stairs in the front, someone banging down them.

  A woman's scream; a weaker one. The mother turned to see him advance from the kitchen. She clutched a child to her, in costume, round plastic bear mask, smiling. One shot at the mother.

  The boy let her go, ran for the front door, arms outstretched.

  "Yes!"

  Some of his enthusiasm returned. One careful shot in the back. The boy went down, mask twisted off by the impact.

  He stepped over the bodies, reloaded, moved on.

  The dog could walk. Kevin didn't know what they would do if they had to run. But the dog was less hobbled now.

  The dog voiced its thanks by laying its head in Kevin's hand. It made a sound nearly like a purr.

  "Good boy," Kevin said.

  Kevin followed the dog out of the back of the orchard to a rock wall. The dog held back. Kevin climbed, lifted the dog over.

  "Okay."

  The dog huffed, went ahead of him, led down an unperceived trail. Kevin stumbled after in moonlight, holding his collar against the wind.

  The bus station loomed into view. A bus was just pulling out, windows dark as slate. Pity. They would escape. When did the next bus leave? A half hour?

  Never.

  He smiled.

  Perhaps, one day, he would tire of his game, his piecemeal destruction of a foolish race, and do them all in at once. Occasionally, he thought of it. A chain of command, a line of used bodies until he obtained one with a finger who could push the button. Even in their moment of holocaust, they would blame one another. After watching the beginning, the first tall radioactive clouds tearing up into the atmosphere, as the eyes of his inhabited body were burned out, he would drop out of the screaming mouth, burrow deep into mother earth, and await renewal. How long would it take? Years? Centuries? What would he find when he surfaced? A new race of mutations, swarming like insects over a ruined landscape? Nothing at all? What would he live on? Wouldn't that be the loneliest existence of all?

  Could he live in a world alone, without even these slug-like humans?

  The boy's body shivered.

  Wasn't it better to live like this, killing them slowly, using them, making them pay for all eternity for their abdication of his godhood?

  "Yes!" he said, holding the shotgun up like a trophy.

  He walked into the gas station next to the bus depot, crossed the median until he came to the nearest pump. He removed the pump head from its socket, flipped the switch, then locked the handle in an open position and began to pump gas out onto the tarmac.

  Someone shouted. A young man was running from the filling-station office, greased fatigues, cap pushed back on his head. The atte
ndant had a soda in one hand.

  Davey laid the pumping nozzle carefully on the ground, turned, aimed the shotgun, fired one barrel.

  The attendant clawed at his chest, collapsed.

  Davey turned. A woman stared at him, her own gassing complete, pocketbook open.

  He fired the other barrel.

  He opened and reloaded the shotgun, walked to where the woman lay on the tarmac. He found her car keys in her bag and pocketed them. Another car was just entering the island; the driver looked out at the woman on the ground.

  Davey aimed one barrel through the driver's window. The driver screamed, threw his hands to his face. The car swerved, banged one of the gas pumps hard enough to dislodge it from its base. A line of gas ran from the bottom, pooled, grew.

  Davey walked from pump to pump, turned them on, locked them. The island was awash in petrol.

  Davey went to the woman's car, got in, started it. Vehicles were stopping in the street, drivers straining to see.

  Davey pulled out to the street, stopped, rolled down his window. He pointed the shotgun back at the pool of gas, pulled the trigger.

  A rushing ball of fire shot up into the air, rolled around on itself, then fell to consume the gas station. Cars honked their horns, stopped in the middle of the road.

  The garage in the gas station caught fire. A tongue of flame shot next door to the bus depot. The pool of gas, still alive, ran into the street, beneath a bus. The bus's gas tank exploded, lifting the vehicle up off its rear wheels.

  Davey pulled away, drove until he found a darkened corner with another gas station on it. In a kiosk, a lone attendant sat reading a paper, pooled in neon light, leaning back in his chair.

  Davey pulled in, braked, got out of the car. He unhooked all the pump heads from their moorings, locked them into position, turned the levers on. Nothing happened. His eyes traveled across the gas pump, read, PLEASE PAY BEFORE PUMPING.

  He approached the kiosk, shot the attendant as he was rising, leaned over the body, switched on the pump register. Outside, gas spurted from all the open nozzles.