Skullcrack City

by Jeremy Robert Johnson

  “I don’t want to stand here anymore.”

  “Me either. You want to risk leaving before it’s all ash?”

  “Nope.”

  “Me either.”

  “You notice the smoke, too?”

  “The spiral? Yeah. Trying to ignore it, though.”

  “But you can’t ignore it, and they know that.”

  “Right?”

  “Right. Those fuckers.”

  “They ruin everything.”

  “BP and respiration are borderline normal. Pulse is way lower. He’s definitely hanging in there.”

  “I guess next thing we have to address is that smell.”

  “Ladies love my natural musk.”

  “Yeah, yeah, cute. But you know what I mean. Ms. A.’s going to want him clean for the sacraments anyway.”

  “I’ll help you rotate and lift him, but I’m not doing the sponge part.”

  “Tell you what—you wash his hair and I’ll cover the rest.”

  “I don’t know. His head smells like a fucking slaughterhouse mop, and I’ll probably have to clean it three or four times to get that crust out. How about you do the whole guy and I’ll take care of his turtle?”

  “What?”

  “Turtle needs some fresh water and I have to figure out how to get it to eat those weird little food flakes. And then I can take a look at what’s on his hard drive.”

  “That seems comparable to a Hex coma sponge bath to you?”

  “Are you forgetting I cleaned up the last rescue? And that she was a repeat voider?”

  “Okay. No. That’s true.”

  “Plus, when I clean the guys, sometimes they pop a flagpole.”

  “Must be your natural musk.”

  “Haha. I mean, I know it’s autonomic or whatever, but it just makes me feel like I’m up to something with their body.”

  “But you’re not. You’re helping them. It’s a loving act.”

  “Turtle needs a loving act, too, and I won’t feel like a creepy orderly.”

  “This is your issue, much more than it is anyone else’s. Unless, you know, you’re secretly sitting on those flagpoles, wearing an adult diaper on your head, and posting pictures of that to the internet.”

  “That’s a negative, and fuck you, asshole.”

  “What?”

  “…”

  “That was really abrupt.”

  “Yeah. I…uh…sorry. I feel off. I don’t think those gas masks are quite equipped to deal with Hex smoke.”

  “Okay, let’s chill out, then. I’ll make some tea. We’ll say nothing for the next hour, just in case we inhaled something.”

  “Tea it is. And we feed the turtle.”

  “Alright, I’m done reading it.”

  “And? He’s crazy, right?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard for me to discount anything as crazy anymore…”

  “But?”

  “But this guy seems fucking bonkers. The state we found him in, I’m seeing this more as mental illness. Too much Hex for too long. Some of their chaos slipped right through.”

  “What about the bruising on his chest? That’s starting to look like a handprint to me.”

  “Really? And exactly who would have a hand that size? You think this guy found some bank secrets and they decided to have a Kodiak bear take him out? Come on.”

  “All I’m saying is, it could be the bruising is deepest where his ribs were compressed. Could be the bank has a couple of giant motherfuckers on staff.”

  “What about all the medical stuff in there?”

  “There’s never been any link between Delta and the Hex trade. MyGenix, sure. Abett, probably. But they’re both Canadian. Delta’s Canadian arm doesn’t have any tie to them.”

  “Yeah, but Hungarian Minor was a 5th Shelter Vakhtang. And he was on the Delta payroll.”

  “Only according to Captain Overdose over there.”

  “Sure, the source is questionable, but those transfer records are pretty clear, and Hungo was about as squirrely as any Vakhtang out there. If they needed bodies…”

  “True. He might have done it for kicks.”

  “Plus, the missing brain thing never sat right with me. If Hungo violated Vakhtang code they would have spilled his guts and read his secrets. And they left his tongue. It didn’t match up.”

  “Shit.”

  “Exactly—something is off here. Then there’s the weird bruising at the base of this guy’s skull, and the fact that he appears to have his possessions with him, including all that money.”

  “Yeah, the money kind of kills the roaming homeless madman theory. He was so close to 45th when I found him, it was a miracle he had anything.”

  “So maybe he’s not crazy.”

  “Oh, I’m not saying that. I mean, the Robbie Dawn stuff…come fucking on.”

  “Late-stage Hex dementia?”

  “You add up the mess of a man, his turtle, and the massive quantities of Hex and money and there’s only one thing you’ve got for sure—deep fucking trouble.”

  “Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Christ…I don’t know. I’m exhausted. Let’s get a couple of hours’ sleep before Ms. A. arrives.”

  “Should we put sleeping beauty in restraints?”

  “Yeah. Post-haste.”

  “Sister. Brother. We must begin immediately. His connection to their realm is so strong I could see its haze above your building. And if I could see it…”

  “Yes, Ms. A. We understand.”

  “Thank you for cleaning the body. I see the first sacrament has been applied.”

  “Speaking of which, Ms. A., we’re running fucking scary low on perphenado—OW!”

  “What he means to say is that this man required most of our supply of the first sacrament, and we will need more if we are to continue our rescues.”

  “Thank you, sister—I will see to it that your outpost receives a package.”

  “Thank you. And I’m sorry to interrupt the proceedings, but we also had another concern. Since this man arrived, and since we destroyed his supply of the dark signal, we’ve noticed certain urges and feelings, and we’re concerned that our own lights have suffered some corruption.”

  “Hold still for a moment and I will put hands to each of you.”

  “…”

  “…”

  “Sister and Brother, I am afraid that particular darkness is your own. Now, we must begin. Please remove your robes and stand at the head of the table.”

  “Yes, Ms. A.”

  “Now, each of you open your boxes, breathe light into your scarabs, and set them upon our brother’s eyes.”

  “BY SMOKE FROM LIPS BY LIGHT FROM BLOOD BY THOUGHT FROM THOUGHT ALONE WE CALL YOU BACK. BY SMOKE FROM LIPS BY LIGHT FROM BLOOD BY THOUGHT FROM THOUGHT ALONE WE CLOSE THIS GATE AS STONE. BY SMOKE FROM LIPS BY LIGHT FROM BLOOD BY THOUGHT FROM THOUGHT ALONE WE CALL YOU BACK.”

  “Do you believe he’ll return to his body, Ms. A.?”

  “What I believe makes no difference. We’ve done what can be done. Their signal was as strong as I’ve seen it since the camp collapse ten years back.”

  “There’s something else?”

  “You can see it in my face, I suppose. You’ve always been the most attuned at this outpost.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’d thank me for your burden? Haven’t you found that your perceptiveness makes all suffering seem more awful?”

  “Well…I…yes, I suppose you’re right. I just want to do well by our mission.”

  “You have, sister. You have.”

  “Will you tell me what is troubling you?”

  “Yes. I think I recognize that man on the table, that he is a thief and a junkie and a murderer with close ties to the Vakhtang, that his name is S.P. Doyle, and that his presence here may bring great danger.”

  “You saw all this in his connection to their realm?”

  “No—I saw this on last night’s news. Based on that report,
I would recommend that you keep him in those restraints until we know the rites were successful. Beyond that, if you confirm that this is indeed Mr. Doyle, you may want to ask him how he managed to crush the heads of four men, and what he might have done with their brains.”

  “You should be more formal with Ms. A.”

  “Like wear a tux and speak only in high elvish or something?”

  “You know what I’m saying. We’re supposed to speak to her with reverence, not act casual and drop f-bombs.”

  “Why? So she can have power over us? I thought power was off the worship list. Aren’t we all light here?”

  “No, it’s not for power. She says language is a reflection of order from the chaos of thought.”

  “Hey, I was super tired. And you’ll notice I had no trouble stripping naked and blowing on beetles and chanting and doing all the rites. I believe, you know. I’ve seen enough. Sometimes I just get weary of all the mystic jibber jabber.”

  “You want to join the Vakhtang, then? You can dodge the ‘jibber jabber’ while they feed you to the grinder.”

  “Come on, you know that’s not what I’m saying. But I think we could, within reason, be a little more modern. Seems like everything we do has some kind of scientific analog and…wait a minute…did you hear that?”

  “Is it him?”

  “This soon after the rites? No way. Probably noise from the pipes. You finish putting away the ceremony bundle and I’ll go check it out.”

  “Dearest, most formal sister of the light, I requesteth thine olde tymey presence over here right now!”

  “He’s back?”

  “Yeah, bring some water. He can barely talk. Hold on…what…hold on, my partner here is bringing you something to drink.”

  “Here you go. I put a straw in it.”

  “Okay, pal, here’s some water. Don’t drink too fast or you’ll end up horking it back up.”

  “There you go.”

  “…”

  “What’s that? You’re too croaky, pal. I’m going to lean in so you can whisper. First, you gotta promise no biting or spitting or anything. You promise? Shake your head ‘yes.’ Okay, I’m listening.”

  “What’s he saying?”

  “Be quiet. I can barely hear him.”

  “…”

  “Shit, he passed out. We pushed him too fast. What did he say?”

  “I couldn’t quite tell. Something about ‘black wolf ate me,’ which, you know, we could have expected. After that, I swear he said, ‘I love you, angels.’ So maybe that’s about us. And then after that he said something about ‘Deckert’ or ‘deck hard’ or something.”

  “Maybe he was saying ‘Deckard’ like the name in those poems we found on his hard drive.”

  “A boyfriend?”

  “I don’t know. I got a weird feeling that the poems were about his turtle.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Who knows? This fucking guy, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I’m cooked. Let’s let him sleep and then we can find out if this guy still thinks we’re angels in the morning.”

  “That sounds perfect. Can you look up that article Ms. A. told me about? I’ll be with you in a sec.”

  “I don’t know if you can hear me, Mr. Doyle, or if you really are Mr. Doyle at all, but I know one thing for sure: you have been to a terrible and hopeless place, far, far from the light. That place will never leave you. I wish I could tell you it would, but…it won’t. And for that, I’m sorry. But at least you’re here now, you’re home, and that’s mostly a good thing, I hope. We’ll see. But I guess I just really wanted to be the first person to hold your hand and say, ‘Welcome back.’ So there it is, Mr. Doyle…welcome back.”

  At first I’d believed the sound I heard was a new cruelty, a trick in the darkness to remind me of the world from which I’d been torn. The noise was barely human, a contorted, warbling static phantom which made me feel all the more alone in my suffering. I wished, as I had so many times before, that I could simply die and be free of that place.

  But then, through the empty space, I heard a man’s voice, distinct and clear. Angry.

  “Listen, buddy. You’ve got to give me a vein to work with or I’m going to have to pump this shit up your ass. You don’t want that. I don’t want that. C’mon, motherfucker.”

  After that, I felt my body again, my real body for a wisp of a moment, as something sharp slid into my neck and sent a sweet sensation through my nerves, what I used to call pain before I fell into the throat of the black wolf.

  Beyond that moment, I existed in two spaces: one which allowed me nothing, and another which allowed me the sound of two voices. One male, one female, both an almost unbearable kindness in contrast to the crushing abyss.

  I was never religious, but given my new reality, I was converting. So as I was torn between the two worlds, as I understood that they were talking about some real, half-remembered version of myself, I came to believe that they were angels.

  It was only after I woke in our world, naked and cold and strapped to a stretcher inside a dimly lit warehouse, that I began to have my doubts.

  It was only after I looked down and saw two dead obsidian-black beetles on my broken chest—their mandibles latched into the thin skin above my heart—that I started to scream.

  “Hey, sleeping beauty, hey, hey. You’ve got to calm down. Okay? We don’t have an x-ray machine here but your chest is looking pretty roughed up. You keep hollering like that, it’s only gonna get worse.” It was the man who’d saved me. He wore khaki pants and a frayed blue t-shirt which barely concealed a paunch. The text on his shirt read “I HAD A BLAST AT COCONUTS!” Beneath the slogan was a cartoon drawing of an unconscious goat next to an empty beer mug. The man’s fingers were dusted with bright orange Snak-Ums cheese.

  I was not in any kind of sanctioned medical facility.

  “He’s up?” The woman’s voice came from behind a curtain partition across the warehouse.

  “Oh, yeah. He’s wide awake now. We might need some codeine for his chest. I think his ribs are killing him.”

  “Not…my ribs…it’s those bugs…they…”

  “I know. It’s kind of nasty. But those guys are why you’re here now—they’re the ones who clipped the signal. If you want I can pull off the thorax and abdomen, but Ms. A. says we have to leave the jaws in until they naturally unlock.”

  It seemed like madness. But then I thought of where I’d been, and I realized that they could coat my whole body in bullet ants if it kept me from going back to that place.

  “It’s okay,” I said, “You can leave them. You…they saved me…I was in the throat…”

  “Save it, buddy. You’re here right now because we know all about that place. Trust me. Don’t try to describe it—you’ll just sound like you’re spouting bad heavy metal lyrics, and the feeling might come back to you. It’s best not to give it any energy at all.”

  “The Hex…”

  “Is gone, buddy. It’s all gone.”

  I was surprised to find, for the first time in months, that the absence of Hex was no longer terrifying. What had they done to me?

  Her voice again. “I checked. We don’t have any codeine. Tons of acetaminophen, but I’m guessing his liver is maxed out. Ask him if he can take a full breath.”

  “You heard her, buddy. Can you give us a big inhale?”

  I tried. My right side set fire. The jaws of the beetles tore deeper. I cried out, which only made it worse. I tried to calm down before this turned into some new pain loop.

  “He’s pretty rough, Dara.”

  “Maybe put a topical by the scarabs, ice his ribs, and ask him to calm the fuck down? His body is still processing the perphenadol. I don’t think more drugs is what this guy needs right now.”

  Amen. I thought of where I’d been, gave perspective to this pain, and took a few slow, measured breaths short of what shifted my busted chest.

  The man leaned in close and studied my face. He had Snak-Um breat
h slightly underscored by the smell of sour lager.

  “He sure looks like the picture in the article.”

  Article? Shit. The roasted bankers. The massacre on 45th. Who knew what the media was saying about me? Between the bank and Delta, there were billions of dollars available to make sure people heard the approved message. And mom. What about mom?

  Panic again. Straining not to hyperventilate.

  “Listen. Whatever they’re saying about me, they’re lying. You’ve got…”

  “First things first, buddy. My name is Tim. My pal over in the kitchen is Dara. Now who exactly are you?”

  They’d saved me. They had my things. They might already know the truth. The pain in my ribs and the restraints stripped me of my will to create any more fake realities.

  “My name is S.P. Doyle. And I didn’t…”

  “Sorry to interrupt again, but do you have, um, any proof of that? We couldn’t find identification in your bags.”

  “It’s in my pants.”

  “Nope. We checked there too.”

  “There’s a secret pocket near the crotch. Thin Velcro seam. It’s hard to see but you can feel the cards.”

  “Okay…aaaand…got it.”

  He had the whole batch of I.D.’s: the Unsustainable Fraud Scheme Card Series. Collect ’em all, kids, and you too can live a lie.

  “Dara, you’ve got to come see this.”

  She rounded the partition with a frustrated sigh. What kind of life was she living, that she could feel weary about paying attention to a suddenly conscious man she’d strapped to a table and saved from oblivion.

  You’re here right now because we know all about that place.

  She had a large mug of steaming tea in her hands. I can’t quite remember what she was wearing, probably just blue jeans and a white tee, pure utility. Short black hair against olive skin, both oily from staying awake for days saving my ass. I mainly remember the way she walked. It wasn’t a show, some calculated sway of the hips, but rather a kind of gentleness that made me think it would be beautiful to watch her swim in a still pond, to see the way the water would move around her. It was grace.