by Rudy Rucker
With two swift snaps of his mandibles, the shiny beetle snipped off Durkle’s hand at the wrist. The boy howled with pain and surprise. Monin and Yerba appeared at the house’s main door, crying out in alarm. Durkle staggered over to them, carrying his severed hand.
The fierce beetle swept through an arc and closed in on Ginnie and me. The lights of the house reflected off his body in shades of amber and maroon. He was herding us towards the border snail. Not hesitating to think it over, Ginnie and I scrambled into the willing snail’s large mouth. I let Ginnie go first.
The tunnel was quite different this time through. It was tight and slimy, as if we were being born. Lacking jivas, neither Ginnie nor I had the ability to reach out and widen the spatial width of the aperture. We wormed forward through the narrow passage as rapidly as we could. At this point I couldn’t tell if the menacing beetle was following us or not.
Soon we came to the two-meter wall of living water that crossed the tunnel. With the tunnel so narrow, we became more tangled in the snail’s feeder tendrils than before. I was afraid of mistakenly pushing through the snail’s body wall and ending up in some savagely inconceivable limbo. Cautiously Ginnie and I wriggled onward, like spelunkers traversing an underground stream.
The sprinkles nibbled off a bit of our kessence—but my larger concern was that I felt something nipping at my heels.
I teeped to Ginnie, urging her to hurry. We struggled a little further until, quite suddenly, her thrashing form was gone. But then, thank heavens, I too slid from of the snail’s Earth-side mouth. I was wet and slimy all over, lying in the back yard of the Whipped Vic. It was morning here, morning in July. The sky was hazy and bright.
My faithful dog Droog stood over me, licking my kessence face. Quickly I felt down into myself, fearing a rush of jiva eggs. But everything was calm. Burning my old body in the Graf’s fireplace must have done the job.
“Surf zombie!” said Ira, staring down at me. “Up from the crypt!” He looked tattered and worn.
Already on her feet, Ginnie stretched her arms straight ahead and gamely mimed a few zombie steps. “Eat, eat, eat! Kill, kill, kill!” The wispy Ira chortled at her clowning. He was glad to have us back.
But now the fun stopped. The sinister beetle was crawling from the border snail’s mouth.
“Look out!” I yelled.
Blessedly, the beetle was interested in something other than attacking us. Chittering softly, he scuttled across the body of the snail and in through the door to the basement.
“What the fuck was that thing?” said the wispy Ira. “New friend of yours?”
“He showed up at the last minute,” I said. “He followed us through.”
“Beetle...” said Ginnie, thoughtfully. “Scarab! Maybe he’s an Egyptian ghost?”
“I’m the bull-goose E-gyptologist around here,” came a voice from inside of the basement. The voice of Skeeves.
Ginnie’s hands jerked up in alarm. And now she set herself, gathering her strength. Her pretty features tightened into a battle-mask. “All right,” she said. “All frikkin’ right.” She took a first step towards the basement door.
“You’re going after him?” said Ira, a catch in his voice. “He’s really out of control. And I don’t guess I love him anymore. But I wonder if—”
“He killed both of us,” said Ginnie. “And never mind about any frikkin’ voices in his head. It’s time to settle the score.”
“Okay,” said Ira with a sigh. “If you can. If you’re strong enough.”
The snail was already withdrawing her head, and it was easy to get through the door into the basement. Ginnie led the way, with me behind her, and Ira in the rear with the dog. My senses were strained to the max. Initially I was more concerned about spotting the sarcophagus than with finding Skeeves. I was relieved to see the golden casket still in place, presumably with my flesh body safe within. As for the beetle—did I see some odd movement in the patterns of the sarcophagus’s golden frieze?
At this point Skeeves took over my attention. He was at the far end of the basement, standing by a weird little staircase that I’d noticed last week. Presumably it led into the core of the house’s shrunken, twisted passageways. Up where Skeeves lived.
Skeeves was naked and very stoned. He had Egyptian hieroglyphs painted all over his skin in ocher and red.
“I lost my spirit familiar,” he muttered. “Sexy Weena. Her body turned to mush. That scuttlebug thing that crawled under the sarcophagus just now—is that Skeevey’s new pet?”
“You’re done now,” said Ginnie, striding towards him. She’d grown accustomed to having a certain amount of power in Flimsy. She grabbed Skeeves by the throat. But she was, after all, only a kessence ghost. And with no jivas in us, we had very little material force.
“Do I feel a draft? said Skeeves with a bully’s sarcasm. “Did you leak a reek?” He caught Ginnie’s wrists in one hand, and threw her across his shoulders like a stole. Reveling in his dominance, he strode over to the gold sarcophagus and thumped a rhythm on the lid with his free hand. “Ankh salaam Amenhotep,” chanted Skeeves. “Ruh nuh port mu hurra!”
I definitely didn’t like seeing him mess with the sarcophagus. And I was concerned about what he might do to Ginnie. It occurred to me that if I were to get back into my flesh body, I’d have a better ability to deal with Skeeves. But I didn’t want to lose focus on all the other things that—
Suddenly my deliberations became moot. Moving faster than the eye could follow, the dark scarab darted out from patterns on the sarcophagus and pounced onto Skeeves’s face. Skeeves screamed luridly. Ginnie twisted free of his grip and darted over to my side. The beetle was some kind of spirit. I had the feeling he was male—and that his powers were of a far higher order than mine.
The beetle was even larger than before—he covered Skeeves’s face and neck entirely. I could hear a horrible, pulpy, chewing sound. Blood streamed down Skeeves’s neck, pouring from his ruined tissues. His bare skull teeth were visible; his voice had become a husky croak.
“Do it,” said Ginnie softly. And now she, Ira, and Droog backed away and left the basement.
I alone stayed rooted to the spot, unwilling to leave the scene. I had an intense personal interest in the sarcophagus and its contents, and I was loath to leave them with this nightmare scarab.
The beetle’s insufferable munching continued—and in minutes, Skeeves’s body was completely gone. I could see the tiny glowing spark of Skeeves’s naked sprinkle. It flew in a dwindling gyre, as if preparing to drill down to the land of Flimsy that lies within each of our world’s electrons.
But now, with a rapid twist, the hovering beetle caught and ate the sprinkle too. Skeeves, like Weena, had been fully annihilated.
The beetle executed a stuttering, folding motion that was too intricate to follow. It seemed as if it merged back into the cryptic symbols decorating Amenhotep’s sarcophagus. But it was hard to be sure. I stood stock still for another full minute, waiting to see what came next.
“Are you okay?” called Ginnie through the door.
“I’m fine,” I said. “And Skeeves is gone.”
“Right on.”
Moving slowly and cautiously, I walked over to the sarcophagus and tipped back the lid.
The golden interior glistened, alive with blank reflections. The sarcophagus was completely empty.
26: Missing Me
Out in the back yard, Ira was in tears. “You never knew Skeeves like he was back in the day,” he was telling Ginnie. And now Ira turned to me. “You remember Skeeves out on Four Mile
Beach, right, Jim? He was so hard, so outlaw, so gnarly.” “All of that,” I said. In some respects I’d been in awe of Skeeves myself. But I was very glad that he was gone. “What about that beetle?” asked Ginnie, peering into the basement past the snail.
“Fuck the beetle,” I said. “My body’s missing.”
“I was meaning to tell you about that,” said Ira, rubbing his insubstantial e
yes. “Those other bodies in the casket with you—Weena and that dude with the beard? They turned to stinky mush all of a sudden. I guess that was yesterday. It was super foul, you could smell it all through the Whipped Vic. Skeeves was mad about it. He got me to help him carry the casket out of the maze and dump all the crap into the street. And then we hosed it off and brought it back inside.”
“All the crap,” I echoed. “And that included me?”
“Well—you know,” said Ira. “Skeeves didn’t really like you anymore. He said that when you were talking to him at the party, you called him an asshole.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize he was so sensitive. What happened to my body after you guys threw it into the street?”
“The pigs showed up,” said Ira. “I think they took you to the Santa Cruz hospital. You were still breathing. I heard them talking about it through the maze. I figured you’d be fine.”
“This is bad,” I said, thinking it over. “That sarcophagus has a vibe on it, you know? I’m only out of my body because of some Egyptian magic spell that Weena knew. I bet my body’s not doing very well on its own. And those doctors might start in with their so-called heroic measures. Shock treatment. Surgical interventions. We’ve gotta get my body back, dude. It was much safer in that sarcophagus.”
“But what about the beetle?” reiterated Ginnie.
“He merged into those hammered golden patterns on the side of the casket, okay? I’ll take my chances with that beetle over any frikkin’ gang of doctors. Anyway, the beetle was only after Skeeves.”
“He might turn on you next,” said Ginnie. “In case you hadn’t thought of that.”
“Relax, would you?”
“I’m thinking the beetle is the angry soul of Amenhotep,” said Ira. “Do you guys know the story about Skeeves burning Amenhotep’s mummy in a fireplace? He said the mummy-smoke got him higher than he’d ever been.”
“And he said the smoke killed Crocker—the guy he got the sarcophagus from,” I added. “Skeeves said that made Crocker a lightweight.”
“Skeeves was no lightweight,” said Ira, smiling and shaking his head. The conversation came to a pause.
I could see the old van sitting in the Whipped Vic’s driveway. “Do you have the keys for Skeeves’s beater?” I asked Ira. “I want to move my body before it’s too late.”
“Okay, but you drive,” said Ira, fluttering his insubstantial hands. “I’m too ghostly.”
“Take some of this, poor Ira,” said Ginnie, digging a handful of kessence out of her side and handing it to him. I gave him some of my substance as well.
“That’s so kind of you,” said Ira, his voice flooding with emotion. “I’m fading away here. There’s not much reason for me to stay any longer, now that, now that—”
“World’s smallest violin,” said Ginnie, making that rubbing gesture with her thumb and finger once again. “Crack!”
“Keep it together, Ira,” I said. “With any luck, we’ll all be going to Flimsy really soon. But first I’d like you to help Ginnie and me load the sarcophagus into the back of Skeeves’s van.”
“What for?” said Ira. “I don’t want to touch it now.”
“The Whipped Vic is gonna disappear,” I said patiently. “When we go back through the tunnel to Flimsy, I’m pulling the snail and her shell after us. So I have to park the sarcophagus and my body somewhere else.”
“Like where?” challenged Ira.
“We’ll talk about that later. I’ve got a plan.”
Ginnie, too, was reluctant to touch the sarcophagus, now that the scary beetle was hiding in its bas-reliefs. But I gave them a pep talk, and finally we three specters managed to lug the sarcophagus out to the van. I did most of the heavy lifting—my new yuel-built kessence body was pretty solid.
There was an odd kind of interface between my kessence body and the physical world. Although my body barely cast a shadow, if I focused on my hands or my feet, I could firm them up. And, if I paid close attention, I could move physical objects around.
In particular, I was able to manipulate the van’s steering wheel and pedals well enough to drive. As I cruised towards the hospital with Droog and my two friends, I noticed a remarkably vivid balloon bobbing above a car dealership that lay a couple of blocks to one side of our route. I could see that the balloon was in the shape of a huge green beet, with a wriggly band of gold around its waist and a floppy purple cap on top—
“That’s Sukie,” I said softly. The sight of the big jiva made me feel agitated and quavery.
“I know,” said Ira from the back seat. “She’s been there all week. I guess it’s, like, a kind of camouflage? Like in that mystery story where the guy tacks a stolen letter to his wall and nobody sees it?”
“Swing over there and nail her with a yuelball right now, Jim,” said Ginnie. “I hate those frikkin’ jivas.”
“Let me focus on saving my body first,” I insisted. I felt like too many things were happening too fast. And just then the guy behind us started honking and pointing at our van. Maybe he thought the van was empty and that it was randomly rolling along. I accelerated and ditched him. Frikkin’ busybody.
I parked in the lot of the Santa Cruz Hospital. I left Droog in the van with a window half open. Ira and Ginnie came into the hospital with me. Although a few of the more zonked patients could see us, most of the employees couldn’t, and it was pretty easy for us three to breeze past the checkpoints and through the corridors.
On a hunch, I led us to same floor where I’d gone with my brain attack. Just like before, nurse Alice was sitting behind the counter. Her short hair was blonde with black roots. She wore a trim white uniform with a wide skirt. Right now there weren’t any other nurses around. Alice was busy with her computer.
“Hey,” I said, leaning close to her.
She looked up and, blessedly, managed to see me. “Can I help you?” Her face was plain but, in its kindness, beautiful.
“I’m Jim Oster?”
Alice cocked her head, studying me. “I don’t think so. Mr. Oster’s in a coma. And you’re—” She groped for the word.
“Not flesh,” I said. “I’m Jim Oster’s spirit in an astral body. And these are my ghost friends Ginnie and Ira. Most people can’t see us. We want to move my body to a safer place.”
“Delusions,” said nurse Alice, as if speaking to herself. “Lack of sleep. Way, way too much coffee.”
“You’re sensitive and empathetic,” I said. “A wonderful person. That’s why you can see me. I’m a spirit, but I’m real.”
“Go away,” said Alice, making a shooing motion. “Begone. I don’t need this.” She leaned her face into her hands and stayed like that, as if taking a time out.
So, what the hell, we started down the hall, looking in the rooms. Soon I found my poor, abandoned bod, lying alone under a sheet—a melancholy and pathetic sight.
“Wait in the hall,” I told Ginnie and Ira. “I want to do this alone.” I went into the room.
My body was pale and somewhat emaciated. They’d shaved my chin and my head, and a few dozen wires were taped to my bare scalp. A feeding tube snaked into my forearm, and a catheter drain ran from my crotch. Next to the bed was a quietly beeping machine with a monitor drawing wiggly green graphs. Breath and pulse were regular, my brain waves were flat-lined. I was stupid to have left my dear flesh for this long.
“I’ll unplug you from the heart-attack machine,” I said softly. I began peeling the wires off my forlorn, bald head. It was terrible to see my face from this perspective; it was like looking into some mad, crooked mirror. My body twitched and fluttered, as if reacting to my spirit’s presence.
I was seized by a sudden fear that I’d been in the hospital continuously for weeks, and that my elaborate recent adventures were the hallucinations of a dying man. I was tempted to dive down into my clammy, long-suffering flesh—and never mind my pipe-dreams of saving the Earth and resurrecting Val.
“You’re absolutely right to move your bo
dy,” said nurse Alice, cutting off my despairing thoughts. She was in the room’s doorway with a wheelchair. Ginnie and Ira stood beside her. “The hospital’s gotten court approval to remove your life support tomorrow. I’ve decided that I’ll help you get your body out of here. I’ll write up a release form later on. The admin will be glad to have you gone.”
“How long have I been in here?” I asked.
“The police brought you in yesterday,” said nurse Alice. “I recognized you right away. You’re a nice man. That high-strung woman who picked you up before—she’s gone?”
“Gone,” said Ginnie, speaking up. “And now Jim’s on a big quest to save Earth from these evil aliens called jivas.”
“A jiva killed my wife,” I told nurse Alice. “Do you still remember her? Val?”
“I do,” said Alice, her voice low and thoughtful. “I saw what was inside her that day. And that’s why I want to believe you now. It kind of fits that you showed up here now. It’s as if everything’s coming together. As if it’s the end of the world.”
“You never told me what you saw that day,” I said tensely.
“It wasn’t an embryo at all,” said Alice, stepping into the room. “It was more like a kind of root, only rounded in the middle, and with nasty, slick colors. Orange and green. I still dream about it sometimes. And here’s the crazy part. This week, on my way to work, I’ve been seeing a shape like that in the sky. Supposedly it’s only a car lot’s advertising balloon. But I’m scared.”
“It’s not a balloon,” I said. “It’s a jiva. And I’m going to kill it.”
Nurse Alice laughed uneasily. “If only you can. I haven’t been able to sleep this week at all.” A ping sounded in the hall. “Hurry up and wrestle that body into this wheel chair,” she said. “Your clothes are in the drawer. I’ll find someone to watch the desk. I’ll take you and your friends out through the staff elevator.”
We got the hospital gown off my body and dragged my jeans, red T-shirt and blue-checked flannel shirt onto it. Onto me. It was wildly unpleasant to be seeing myself this way.
