The Lot

by Snyder, Clayton

  Sirens blared in the near distance, and I cringed behind the dumpster. Another pot shot nailed it, making it ring like a bell. I plugged my ears for a second to drown out the noise of burning building and a dumpster that had been turned into the world's smelliest musical instrument. I peeked around the corner, hoping to catch a glimpse of the shooter, but the sirens were closer, and he was already gone. I swore under my breath, and thought seriously about taking out insurance.

  The building in flames behind me, and fire trucks and police rounding the corner, I took a leisurely walk to my car. The place was a total loss, and I would most likely have to wait for the fire department and insurance adjustors to finish their investigations before I would know anything.

  I wondered for a moment if anyone else had been in the building, and if they were okay, and felt a twinge of guilt for not checking. It was a small building though, and still just before the end of the lunch hour so I was fairly confident that aside from myself and a few rats, the place was nearly empty. I guessed the others had caught the fire early on, and left through the ground-floor doors before it got bad.

  A thought stopped me in my tracks. Why hadn't I smelled the smoke? I realized then that I hadn't smelled the waffles and the bacon that morning until they were nearly on the table, or Vlad's cologne. I shook it off as a lingering side effect of whatever Hyde had injected me with. The other possibility was that I was losing my edge - a fear I'd entertained since locking the Beast away. I shrugged that thought off as well, and resumed walking.

  I passed the corner where the man with the pamphlets had been; noting the milk crate that sat beside him had been tipped on its side. I guess I didn't blame him. It would be hard to convince me to stick around in the middle of a four alarm fire and gunfight. On impulse, I tipped the crate over, and a pamphlet fluttered out. Printed on it were the words:

  Lost? Tired? Confused?

  Come see us.

  CoM

  A simple map was printed on the inside. I looked at it for a minute, and it hit me. It was a map to the Lot. It was a leaflet for the Church, which meant the man outside my building had been one of the Brothers. I didn't like where this was pointing. If they had tracked my office, they could be anywhere. If it was the same breed someone had used to do their dirty work so far, someone had just painted a big arrow with the words 'BAD GUYS HERE' pointing at them.

  The problem was, I didn't have any proof. The Church worshipped us, thinking we were superheroes. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility that they would station Brothers close to any of us in order to worship or observe or even protect. There was only one real way to find out what was going on - it meant finding Brother Timothy.

  I folded the pamphlet, and finished the walk to my car. The wind had picked up a bit, pushing clouds of smoke at the parking lot, and making it easier for me to slip out unnoticed. On the highway, I flipped on the radio, and as James Brown started to shout about feeling good, I worked on a plan.

  Chapter Twelve

  Three hours later, and I still didn't have a plan. I don't know if it was almost being barbequed and then assassinated, or if the strain from keeping the Beast locked down since those events was getting to me, but at the moment, I wasn't the brightest bulb in the socket. A voice in the back of my head reminded me I had friends, though I didn't want to listen. I'd already asked a lot of them.

  I sat in my chair until the clock read almost five, a finger of whiskey in the glass in my hand, and tried to think of how I'd find Brother Timothy. I knew I could always just go back to the Church and ask - they were an overly helpful people when it came to us - but for two reasons. One, someone from the Church had presumably tried to off me, and two, - I hated to admit it to myself - the place gave me the creeps a little bit.

  Don't get me wrong. I don't fault them for being homeless. Sometimes the world shits on you, and the only thing you can do is keep your head down and your face covered until the storm passes. What bothered me was the fanaticism. The all encompassing idea they'd gotten into their heads that we were somehow their saviors, or their prophets. Sometimes I wished one of them would spend a day with me so they could be disabused of that notion.

  Which led me to the problem with Brother Timothy. I had a growing suspicion he was somehow involved on the attacks I'd been subjected to, either on his own, or with help. It was a detail that, if true, was making my blood boil. I suppose when you get used to being worshipped and looked up to, when someone betrays that relationship, it hurts. It means you've been knocked off your pedestal, and though we protest the adoration, I suspected several of us, myself included, relished the thought on occasion.

  That led to problem number two. I couldn't confront the man head-on with the Beast so close to the surface. I'd need time to cool down, or I'd need someone else to do the talking. If I was wrong about my instinct, I could very well end up blowing a fuse and hurting a man that in no way deserved it.

  That thought made me groan a little inside. It meant I'd still need Vlad or Adam, maybe both. I hated to ask for help when I knew I could do a thing on my own in the long run. The thing was, the way the attacks were coming, I didn't know that I had all that much time. One lucky shot from a bullet, one crazed bastard with a silver blade, and urk, no more Peck.

  I sighed, and reached for the phone. It rang with my hand still hovering an inch from the receiver. I picked it up, wondering if Vlad was calling me over for dinner again.

  "Hello?"

  "Mr. Peckinpah?"

  "Yes?" I hadn't meant that to come out as a question. It was the oddity of someone I obviously didn't know calling me.

  "This is Detective Sheling. Did you keep an office at 755 Los Robles?"

  That explained it. They must've pulled my information from the city records. Probably verifying I hadn't been there when the place went up.

  "Yes. Why?" I knew why.

  "Well, sir, it's burned down. Total loss. We're contacting you as a courtesy, checking on you - have to make sure all hands are accounted for, and of course, in case you'd like to contact your insurance adjustor."

  I didn't have insurance. Getting the place was a pain in the ass to begin with - the Lot wasn't a known address, so I had to pick a random one in the Valley. I only gave them this number in case they actually called it. In addition, I'd been lucky enough to have a landlord who was more interested in the green of my cash over the validity of my references. I had the feeling I would need to find a new way to come up with cash for a while. I was just glad living in the Lot was cheap, and I had some resources socked away in the wall safe.

  "Shit, thanks." It occurred to me to act normal. I almost chuckled at the thought. Me, normal. "Any idea what caused it?"

  "No sir, not yet. They've got it out, but it'll be another day before it's cool or stable enough for the inspectors to look over."

  "Oh, okay then. Well, thanks."

  "You're welcome, sir." He hung up, and I set my phone down as well. This might be bad. If the cops had any idea I was the target here, it would complicate matters immensely. It wasn't like I was afraid of them - I worked with them when I needed to - but I wasn't exactly comfortable around them. They had a way of digging up details, something my life and the Lot lacked when you got beyond paper.

  For a minute, I worried about the fire and bullets situation following me to the Lot, but I had the feeling it was a non-starter here. Whoever was behind this was careful, and a four-alarm blaze in the middle of nowhere might not attract police and firefighters, but it would motivate the residents. I figured the last thing this person wanted was to be the subject of a witch hunt headed by a vampire, a werewolf, and Frankenstein's monster.

  As it was, they were officially on my radar, and I was going to do my best to find them. After that, I'd do my best not to rip their arms from their sockets and beat them over the head with them. Their one saving grace was that so far they'd left my friends out of it, so it was me against them. I was comfortable with that.

  I finished off m
y whiskey and thought about my next move. If I wanted to figure out how the Church thought, I'd need an inside voice. It seemed obvious. I'd have to talk to Henry. I grabbed my keys and the revolver I'd stashed in the safe. I checked the cylinder to make sure it was loaded, spinning it once to check the action. Satisfied, I slipped it into its holster, threw a jacket on, and left for the museum.

  *

  Henry was in residence, as usual, though today he was standing in an alcove that had been decorated with spider webs, and talking in a low voice that carried despite the Hank Williams playing in the room. He turned when I came in, smiling as best as he could with his shriveled jaw.

  "The prodigal son returns."

  I raised a hand in greeting. "Hey, Henry."

  He turned back to the alcove with the webs. I watched his hands move, and saw black spots crawl across them. Gooseflesh broke out across my arms. I'd almost forgotten Henry raised spiders. For what reason, I couldn't fathom, but it seemed to keep him happy.

  "I've been thinking of what could've hurt Vlad." He said. "I have my doubts about it being holy, you know. It's not like that stuff is in vast supply around here, and like I said, I don't think you could pump it into someone and make them a weapon that way."

  "I have a theory, though. I think it might be something Primal."

  He said the word in a way that made me hear the capital P. "Okay. What's that mean?"

  "Well, all of us, in a way, are Primal. Questions of what, who and why we are aside, we're all amalgamations of archetypical ideas." He waved a hand. "Which leads into the other questions. It's quite circular."

  "Anyways, it's possible that because whatever it was that Vlad came into contact with was Primal, it was able to hurt him."

  He turned so he could see me. I watched a spider climb his arm and disappear into the bandages on his shoulder. "Make sense?"

  I thought about it for a minute. Unfortunately, I wasn't a philosophy major. "Kind of?"

  He nodded. "It means that out there somewhere is something like us. And it appears to be malevolent."

  He let that sink in. A true monster, in other words. Most of the people I lived with, the other residents of the Lot, were only monsters in appearance, at most. Sure, Vlad still needed blood to live, and Adam was a seven-foot tall patchwork man with bolts in his neck and superhuman strength, and Henry and Manny were even more diverse, but they were all, at their cores, good people. This meant something else was out there, and it was bent on hurting people.

  "Any idea who or what it could be?" I asked.

  Henry shook his head. "Nope, sorry." He walked back to his card table and sat down, picking up his deck. In the background, Hank began to sing about whippoorwills. I sat in the chair opposite him.

  "I have another question."

  Henry was laying out the spread for solitaire. Seven down, one up. Six down, one up. I watched him do this for a minute, until he was ready, with the remainder of the deck in his hand.

  "You're an eager learner today. Go ahead."

  "I need to know how cults work." I said.

  "Is that all?" He took a breath, and started to play, laying down cards as he found them, riffling through the deck when he didn't. "In short, they're organizations empowered by the fact that their followers are missing something in their life. It might be something ephemeral, like joy or fulfillment; it might be something concrete like family or a stable home. The people who lead these cults are wasakh - dirt - they have no interest in helping others, only themselves."

  "Makes sense, then. The Church members are all homeless. I even think it's a requirement. So, how would I get to a leader, maybe even hurt the cult?"

  Henry shrugged, and laid down another card. "Hard to tell. The leaders usually insulate themselves pretty well. You could join..." He looked up, one yellowed eye glittering through the layers of bandage. "...but that's unlikely, considering they know you." He shrugged again. "You could probably just ask, since you're one of us."

  "What happens if I were to harm one of them?"

  "A leader? The cult would probably turn on you. These people are chosen for their fanaticism, not the strength of their belief. No matter what the cult espouses, it'll be cult over belief every time if they're indoctrinated enough. My advice is to work one of the new guys. You might be able to make an inroad that way." He looked up from the cards once more. "Assuming you're planning what I think you're planning."

  I nodded. "Probably." I stood, and patted Henry on the shoulder. "Thanks, again Henry."

  "No problem. Watch the threads though." I watched a spider pop out from under a bandage, skitter across his shoulder, and back under another. "Kids."

  I left, shaking my head. Henry was a wealth of information, but damned if he wasn't weird.

  *

  I had a plan, of sorts. The problem was I'm not long on patience. Maybe it's the nature of the Beast in my head - short fuse. Maybe it's the fact that before the 1950's, I can't recall much of a damn thing. No childhood, no formative years in which to learn the virtues.

  For those of us who can remember even the little bits, it was like we were learning the ropes as toddlers in men's bodies. It's not like we had fathers or mothers or grandparents to look up to, or siblings to rival with. Everything we knew and did before we came to the Lot was a learning experience, and when we finally made it here, it was a new start, a chance to break from the roles we'd been pushed around in our whole lives.

  Not that I think we sprang whole from the earth. Every now and then, in a dream, or a foggy flash of nostalgia, I would get a glimpse of life before the Lot. It was a life illuminated in stark flashes of sheer terror or rage or confusion, but it seemed to be a life, told in vignettes spun whole from the stuff of dreams.

  I did know that we were old. Memory, when it worked, and time spent in the Lot told me that much. We didn't seem to age like men and women, though we could get sick, could still be hurt and probably killed just like them. Jekyll and Henry both had their theories; I just thought maybe we were cursed.

  None of this really explained my lack of patience though, other than maybe I was just wired differently from the immortals and the rational. Which led into my plan. I thought I might get close to one of the Brothers, given enough resources and time. I thought it more likely that should I put the fear of God into them, I might get the same results in less time.

  I walked back to my house, to plan out the next day, and get a little sleep before I went full bastard on some poor schmuck.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I got up early, before the sun and the birds, and walked downtown. The alley leading to the Church of the Monstrum was well-lit, a single bulb in an iron cage standing above the iron door, and casting white light up the stairs. I found a doorway across from it and settled in.

  Overhead, the clouds that had been gathering all night started to release their cargo. Rain fell in fat droplets that spattered the buildings and the ground, and before long, lifted a haze in the street that made the light in the alley waver and sparkle. I watched, my hands deep in my jacket pockets, and listened to the Beast rattle his cage.

  He was closer to the surface today, his bars just a little weaker. The full moon was coming up, though I wasn't worried. What did worry me was the plan I had in my mind, where he got to come out to play for a bit. I only hoped I'd be able to cage him again. It was a thought that troubled me every time I let him loose, though it didn't stop me. I suppose you'd think confidence breeds foolishness. I prefer to think necessity breeds it just as well.

  I waited until the sky turned that dirty steel color of rainy mornings, the light turning the world into a washed-out watercolor. I was about to give up and go home, maybe come back later that night. The light in the alley flickered as a shadow crawled its way up the walls, and I paused, waiting. Finally, a shape stepped to the entrance of the alley.

  My stomach dropped a bit. I had anticipated that person being one of the others, one of the men who shaved their heads and threw their weight
around in their community with all the confidence that came with shelter and family. I was hoping for one of the men whose fear had grown small in the shadow of the perceived strength of the cult, someone whose foundation I could undermine.

  Instead, what I got was all of 5'5, and about 125 lbs. She looked up into the rain for a moment, the grey light framing delicate features, then pulled out a cigarette, and lit it in the relative shelter of the alley. I cursed under my breath, and shifted from foot to foot. I wasn't keen on the idea of bullying a woman. I looked over, deciding what to do next, and saw she was half-turned to look down the street. Good. She hadn't seen me yet.

  I watched her for another minute. She had thick dark hair that curled to ringlets at the ends in the humidity. It framed a face with a small straight nose, slightly upturned eyes, and full lips that were pink even in half-light and without makeup. She took a drag from her cigarette, and blew it out in a plume. Across the street, I could smell tobacco and some perfume that was light and citrusy - probably a shampoo, or soap. I doubted it was actual perfume, considering the state of the Church.

  I counted my options. One - go home. I could always come back tomorrow. I didn't have to go over there, smelling like, well, myself, and end up talking like an idiot. Two - I could still go over there, and hopefully not make an ass of myself. Three - I could follow her for a while, and hope it led to something useful. Considering the amount of time the first and the last options would take, I opted for two. I swallowed my fear, and my pride, and stepped out of the doorway.

  She turned when I moved, though she didn't register surprise, or fear. I suppose living on the streets inures you to certain amounts of shock. I raised my hand in what I hoped was a friendly greeting, and walked over to her. She stubbed her cigarette on the wall, and tossed it into the street, where a small rivulet of water in the gutter swept it away. I watched it go from the corner of my eye, and joined her in the alley.