The Lot

by Snyder, Clayton

  I shed my clothes at the edge of the wood, the itch turns into a burn. Overhead, the moon is full, and I feel the change come over me. Pain and euphoria, scent and heat, and I run, first on two, then on four legs. Underbrush and cattails, and in the distance, shouting. I can smell the water, stagnant and thick, and the deep greens and browns of the foliage.

  The men will not give up, and I turn to confront them. I know every tree, every inch of ground, every deadfall and hillock, and I use it.

  The first of the men goes down in a spray of crimson, screaming. I take his throat, and he stops. Another enters the clearing when I am finishing my kill, and he goes down as well, red in a fountain from his leg as I tear his femoral. Then another, and another, and I am lost for a time. Before too long though, they are too many, and fear begins to taint my rage.

  I turn to run, but I can smell their fire - pitch and oil and smoke - and their steel - cold and sharp. I hesitate, and pain rips into my flank. Another hot bead of fire scratches across my back, and I howl. Then the red comes on, and I see nothing more, just taste and scent and rage.

  A part of me, the still-man part is crying out inside, weeping. I can hear him wail as I take man after man. I hear him scream and thrash and beg to stop, but the red is all I know, all I feel, and before I am done, they will all know, all regret the red.

  *

  I woke in the early hours, when light was still creeping into the window panes. I reached for the bedside table, where I used to keep the cigarettes, before I realized I had quit. I settled for rubbing my hands across my face and through my hair. Poor substitute, if you ask me.

  I got up and did the necessaries, then made some coffee, and sat in my overstuffed chair. I watched the trees through the sliding glass door that led to the patio, and tired to straighten my thoughts out.

  It was only 6. I figured I'd wait until at least nine before I called and ruined the father's day. That left a quick checkin with Jekyll, and maybe an update from Vlad and Adam. The thought that I only knew a fraction of what was going on kept nagging at me. I did my best to ignore it, and tried to figure out how to turn the boy over to the cops.

  The best solution from where I was standing was to leave the body in one of the empty buildings, and call in a tip. Moving him much farther seemed like a bad idea, and though just dumping him in a cold box seemed harsh, it wouldn't be much different than what would happen after all was said and done. I hated that thought, too, and felt bad about it as soon as I'd had it. Sometimes the Beast in my head runs a bit far.

  I made up my mind, finished the coffee and got dressed. That done, I left the house behind. I began the walk to the Victorian section of town, and as I went, I daydreamed about all of the jobs that didn't involve murdered kids or psychotic bums.

  *

  Jekyll's house was one of the oldest Victorian homes on an entire street of them. It rose two and a half stories, with cedar shingles and beautiful woodwork around the windows. A cupola topped the small tower at one corner of the home, all red shingle, with a brass lightning rod rising from its peak. A balcony on the second floor of the tower overlooked a small garden, and a wide porch with carved columns led to the front door.

  I stepped onto the porch, my shoes making hollow sounds on the boards. The doorbell rang with a deep double-bell that echoed through the big home. I stepped back, and waited. For a minute, nothing happened, and I was left alone with the flowers in the small garden nodding in time to the breeze, and the tick tick of a loose shingle on the roof.

  I was about to turn and leave, and make that phone call earlier than I had planned, when the curtain in the window beside the door twitched to the side. A pair of dark eyes appeared, topping a long narrow nose that rose above thin lips. It was all set in a pale face that peered through the glass for a minute, and then disappeared again. After another moment, the lock clicked free, and the door swung inward. I pushed it open, and stepped inside.

  Jekyll was already disappearing down the hall, his back receding. He waved over his shoulder.

  "Come along, Mr. Peckinpah."

  I followed. The house was in a perpetual state of disarray - distressed, as though it had been through hardship. The furniture looked worn and tired, papers covered most surfaces, and here and there the occasional rack of test tubes filled with colored liquids or powders stood in a bare spot.

  We walked down a long hallway with hardwood floorboards, past several closed doors. From behind one, I could smell old pasta and hot dogs and whiskey. At the end of the hall, a set of stairs led down to another door, made of steel and aluminum, with a glass porthole in it. We went in, and down another hall, this one tiled in white, with similar steel doors here and there.

  As we passed them, I could smell chemicals and other scents, some of which were so acrid they burned my nose, others as pleasant as roses. At the end of the hall again, we came to one more door that Jekyll had pushed open, and propped with a wooden wedge. Immediately, I smelled blood and formaldehyde. The little man disappeared through the doorway, and I followed.

  I stopped in my tracks, the sight of the boy, naked and raw from the incision down his chest, making my stomach do a little flip-flop. A cold pit crept into my stomach, and I fought down the rising panic and anger.

  "What. The. Fuck."

  Jekyll looked up. He had donned his lab coat, and was weighing an organ, pink and grey, on what looked like a produce scale. He frowned, as though I had offended his sensibilities.

  "What is the problem, Mr. Peckinpah?"

  I gestured at the body on the stainless steel table. "This. You were supposed to keep the kid on ice, not make cold cuts out of him."

  He stopped weighing the organ - it looked like a liver - and pulled off his gloves. The frown stayed. "I see." He said. "Manuel did not leave instructions. Besides, necessity dictated I do what the police could not."

  He said the word 'police' as though it tasted bad. I ran a hand over my face, took a deep breath, and let it out. I pushed the anger and the panic down. I was doing a lot of that lately. Nothing to be done about it now, and calling the police or the kid's father was going to be more delicate than before, if even doable now.

  "Fine." I spat the word out. Nobody's perfect. "What did you find?"

  He turned his back, and gestured for me to follow, toward a set of stainless steel tables pushed against one wall. Medical instruments and Petri dishes littered them, along with an old microscope and what I guessed to be a centrifuge (I've seen CSI), though it looked a bit makeshift. Test tubes took up one corner of a table, liquids of various colors resting inside.

  We reached the table, and Jekyll picked up a Petri dish and handed it to me. A liquid, pink and foamy and semi-thick, coated the bottom of the dish.

  "What's this?" I asked, in my scientific way.

  "I'm not sure, Mr. Peckinpah, but it was in copious amounts in the boy's cranial cavity. I thought you might find it interesting."

  I opened the dish, and dipped the tip of my pinky finger in. The tip went numb, and I hurriedly wiped my hand on my jeans.

  "Same stuff from the bum." I said.

  "Indeed? There was another person with this condition, living? Where are they now?"

  I shrugged. "Somewhere where they can't hurt anyone, I'd guess."

  He made a small frustrated noise. I suppressed the urge to flick his ear. "Anything else?" I asked.

  "Nothing physical, no. I have the suspicion the substance -" he gestured at the dish in my hand "was being used to manipulate others, from its location in the grey matter, but nothing else. It seems to have the unfortunate side effect of being hungry."

  "Hungry?" I wiped my fingers a bit more.

  "It works like an organic acid, and then seems to replace certain nervous system pathways."

  I sighed, put the dish down, and turned to the boy on the table. "Alright, thanks, Doc. Keep the kid in your cooler. I'll need to figure out how to hand him over eventually."

  "Shame, that. I hoped he could stay longer. F
ascinating."

  I made for the door, trying not to visibly shake my head. I didn't notice the man standing in the doorway until I was almost on him. He was short, and bald, wearing ragged clothing. A beard stood out around a grin that looked forced. Without a word, he kicked the prop from under the door, slammed it in my face, and threw the bolt. Through the window, I could see him running down the hall, and up the stairs. I cursed under my breath.

  *

  I turned back to Jekyll, who was holding up a key. Another sigh escaped me.

  He passed me, and unlocked the door. "I'm not a complete idiot, Mr. Peckinpah."

  I stepped out, and stopped, something occurring to me. "Why does this door lock from the outside, doc?"

  He shrugged. "Eventualities. Unforeseen problems." He turned, and locked the door behind him. "I trust you can find your way out?"

  "Yeah, thanks."

  I walked the long hall, and back up the stairs, through the house, and out the front door again. Outside, the sun had dipped to late afternoon. There was no sign of our visitor, and less of his motive.

  What had he hoped to accomplish, trapping me in that room with Jekyll? The man was prickly, but harmless. Hyde was a bigger concern - it occurred to me that Jekyll was snider than usual. I wondered how often the change was coming to him lately. Enough, and having a raving psychopath just below the surface could make anyone grumpy. I'd have to keep an eye out for that. Maybe avoid enclosed spaces with the man for the foreseeable future.

  I stood on the walk, and weighed my options. Calling the father was out for a bit, until I sorted out the mess Jekyll had made. That left the cops out of it, too. I could check in with Vlad and Adam, but I had the feeling they knew as much as I did. In addition, it seemed everywhere I went, the bums showed up, with attitude. It left one more choice, one I wasn't thrilled about.

  I began to walk downtown.

  Chapter Eight

  There are places, cracks in the world, where the dispossessed, the fragile, and the poor slip down and disappear. The Lot is the bottom of one of those places for some people, a safe place in the relative warm of the west coast, free from police roustabouts and judgment. Sure, they still needed to get by, but here there is shelter, and for the ones that stay, a sense of family. For the really dedicated and not-so-stable ones, there was also religion.

  Not religion in the sense that they believe in a higher power that guides the world, per se, but in the sense that they think the Lot is Midian, the city of monsters mentioned by Clive Barker in Cabal. Maybe they're not far off, but they are really weird. I say they're nuts, they prefer dedicated. Tomato, tomato.

  The entrance to the Church of the Monstrum is an alley that runs between the old theater and a dress shop that only sports cobwebs and headless manikins now. I stepped in, following the stone walk for about thirty feet before it gave way to a set of stairs leading down that ended in an old steel door.

  I stood in front of the door for a minute, wishing for a cigarette, and realizing I had forgotten the pistol. I wasn't too worried about them hurting me here - being worshipped has its perks - but after the couple of days I'd had, I would have been happier with a bit of backup that wasn't my own tooth and claw.

  Above, the sky was darkening, clouds grouping in, dark and thick. If it wasn't raining yet, it would be soon. I quit wasting time, and went in.

  *

  The door opened on oiled hinges, and closed with a smooth click behind me. Inside, rows of pipes were bundled and bolted to the upper corners of the walls. Lights from the mid-60s clung to the ceiling in a neat row, throwing bright spots of white on the smooth concrete floor. Vents circulated air from high spots on the wall, and the hall was dotted with the occasional steel door labeled with things like 'Electrical', 'Generator', and 'Phone'.

  The tunnels were a relic of the Kennedy era and the dying days of the monster films, half bomb-shelter, half power grid for the Lot, they now served as the headquarters for the Church as well. Years ago, when the Lot was built, they had been hooked up to the main grid in LA, but with the studio's passing, had lain unused for some time.

  Until the church moved in, that is. They cleaned up, hooked it back up, and kept the place running. They claimed they'd routed it to look like simple overflow from the system. As for our part, we tried to use as little as possible, so as not to blip LADWP's radar. It was a nice arrangement. Like I said, being worshipped has its perks.

  The door to the Church proper was at the end of the hall, steel like the others, though etched in a sigil consisting of a lightning bolt over a full moon. I opened the door, and stepped inside.

  Inside, the room had been reworked. What had once been prop and equipment storage had been cleaned out, making room for reclaimed and mismatched furniture - an easy chair, an old flower-print couch, and a few wooden chairs - lined up in rows like pews. At the back of the room, a curtain covered the wall, in front of which pallets and an old podium made for a dais. Lining the walls were candles of all shapes and colors and sizes.

  As I entered, an old man in red robes (cut from curtains, most likely), looked up from lighting a candle. He smiled, and then bowed deep.

  "Welcome, Wolf."

  I waved it away, and he straightened. "Did you hear our prayers? Is that why you've come today?"

  I shook my head. I know the adage - 'If someone asks if you're a God, you say yes', but I couldn't lead these people on. I was just old, and cursed.

  "Sorry, no. But I do need to talk to you."

  He looked disappointed for a moment, and then brightened again at the prospect of talking to one of the monsters.

  "How can I help you, Wolf?"

  "You could start by calling me Peck. I really prefer it."

  He shrugged. "We are what we are. To deny your gifts and what you've been made would be unnatural."

  I sighed. "Okay. Fine. Can we talk?"

  He gestured at the easy chair and the couch, and began to walk that way. I followed. I waited while he eased himself onto the couch, and he waited until I had seated myself.

  "How can I help you, Wolf?" He asked again. His eyes shone a little brighter than I'd expect for a seventy year old. I worried where this conversation might go.

  "I've been attacked twice this week. By two of the, uh, dispossessed."

  A small frown creased his brow. "I see. You suspect the brothers of this."

  I thought about it. "Not really. I think it's someone maybe connected, but not a member."

  "One of the aspirants, then?"

  I shrugged. "I honestly don't know. Have you had any incidents lately, anyone who was a bit more aggressive than usual?"

  He shook his head. "No one I am aware of. Though you may want to speak to Brother Timothy. He's in charge of the destitute and the aspirants."

  "Okay. Where is the Brother now?"

  "He is in the city, ministering. He should be back by tomorrow night."

  I stood to go. "Okay, I'll come back tomorrow, then. One more thing." I fished out the picture of the boy, and showed it to the old man. "Do you know this kid?"

  He squinted at the picture, and after a moment, shook his head. "No, sorry. Is he family? One of the Blessed?"

  "I wouldn't say that."

  "Would you like us to keep an eye out for him?"

  "No, but thank you." I reached out to shake his hand, and he stared at it, then looked up and smiled, small and quiet.

  "No, I cannot. It is not allowed. But may you remain Blessed."

  "Thanks, buddy. You too."

  I left the way I'd come in, no more answers than before. I was getting nowhere fast. Outside, the rain had started to come down in drips and drabs, leaving fat spatters on the pavement. I made for home.

  Chapter Nine

  I sat in my chair looking out the sliding glass doors of my patio, and sipped at a whiskey. Outside, the rain pattered against the glass, making the trees ripple and dance. I thought about what the old man in the Church had told me, about Brother Timothy being responsible
for the destitute and aspirants. It made me wonder what went on under the streets of the Lot, and how much responsibility the Brother shouldered.

  When it comes down to it, I'm not all that comfortable with the set-up they've got going down there. No one ever thinks of themselves as a monster. Teeth and fur and a thirst for blood are things that belong in the movies and in books, not on the streets, or in our hearts. Their veneration of those traits worried me.

  I thought I would go and see Vlad and Adam again tomorrow, maybe Henry as well, before I paid a visit to the Brother. Maybe I missed something; maybe they would have better insight into the cult beneath our feet.

  I finished off the whiskey, flipped off the lights, and went to bed.

  *

  My dreams that night were filled with the wolf and men. They stalked me through the streets of the Lot, dressed in their shabby clothes, armed with knives and pistols and truncheons. They came on like a tide, and I found myself running to the dark places of the lot - the trees and the ravine, the shadow of the rocks by the coast, and the empty houses and sets.

  In the end, they cornered me, one larger than the others coming forward, his hands like slabs of stone, empty but for his fists. I tried for his hamstring, for his throat, and found his hands wrapped around my neck. I fought, clawed at his chest, but the dream was growing black.

  I shouted, and the sound came out a pained wheeze, my chest starting to heave. In a moment, I realized reality was creeping onto the back of the dream, and I opened my eyes to a man dressed in flannel, his huge hands choking the life from me. Through a narrow tunnel of black, I saw his eyes were red, the whites washed out in crimson.

  I heaved upward, snapping my arms inside his, and then out, breaking his hold. In my head, the thing in its cage snarled, and I echoed it. For a moment, the man paused and seemed unsure. Fear flickered in his eyes, and then was quieted by a stronger will. He moved again, ready to resume.