by K. W. Jeter
***
The old man walked in the hills, slow and surefooted in the night spaces. Other things walked about as well, beyond the reach of his hand, or down into the black ravines. Their red gaze seemed like the sparks of a dying fire, drifting parallel near the ground.
Nelder climbed to the top of the ridge and looked down. The building was tinged blue under the moon and stars. He could feel the living things inside it, eased into sleep or murmuring dreams. The ones who slept, who had been left there… they didn't know.
The other, the one of blood and darkness… Nelder lifted his face, breathing in the thin air. He could tell, taste, that the other one was gone.
But he'd return.
The silent animals crept down the hillside. Nelder watched them as they moved from one shadow to the next.
***
His clothes all smelled like cigarette smoke now, and that pissed Aitch off. That was the one thing that annoyed him about going out to hear music-you go out, you come back smelling like an ashtray. And if some place set aside a couple of tables as a no-smoking area-as if that did much good, with the air inside turned blue and hanging down from the ceiling in cumulus reefs-and some little asshole lit up right at your elbow, and you asked him-nicely, trying to be cool about it-to put it out, the little shit would goggle at you and act as if you'd just asked him to saw his whole fucking head off and hand it to you on a plate.
A couple of times he'd taken some little dickbreath outside to discuss the matter, but the bartenders had finally asked him to ease up; the ABC could yank the liquor license for running a rowdy establishment, plus it didn't look good for business to have blue ambulance lights flashing outside while the paramedics scraped somebody up from the parking lot asphalt. So nowadays he just endured, and tried to sit close to an open door, where some fresh air might straggle in.
The sun was coming up, washing across his back, as Aitch got his key out and unlocked the apartment's front door. He stepped inside and pushed the door shut behind him. When he hit the light switch and looked down and saw what was spread out on the carpet, his head snapped back.
"Shit." He scanned across the apartment, listening. Nothing.
In silence, he cautiously stepped around the yard-wide pool of blood and the thing with the ruined face at the center. He picked up the wrought-iron poker from the side of the fireplace and used it to push open the door of the bedroom.
No one. The whole apartment felt empty, empty even of that poor bastard Charlie now. But he still hauled the Diamondback out of the dresser drawer, and kept it raised as he checked out the closets and the bathroom.
In the living room, he switched on the stereo, loaded a tape into the cassette deck. Howlin' Wolfs raspy, moaning voice filled the space, a heavy human presence crawling up the walls. Aitch stood in the center of the carpet, listening. He couldn't recognize the track; the words somehow didn't make any sense, as if they weren't even in English anymore, but just keening and shouting, an animal's angry grief.
His own anger broke. He slammed the deck's eject button with the butt of his hand and grabbed the cassette inside. Something caught on an edge of machinery; a shiny brown streamer of tape fell as he threw the cassette across the room. Silence pressed against his ears.
He flopped down on the sofa, his arm with the gun dangling over the side. The flash of rage had already started to cool. He could just see the legs of Charlie's corpse from this angle. That wasn't so bad.
After a couple of minutes, he got up again and went over to look at it. The first sight, the shock of it, had made his stomach flip. Standing at the edge of the blood-soaked section of carpet, he craned his neck to see better.
It looked as if somebody had taken a hammer and chisel and had excavated the whole front of the sonuvabitch's skull. Broken pieces of bone stuck up from the red mess.
Something-it looked like a rag-had been draped over Charlie's stomach. Aitch leaned over and used the Diamondback's barrel to pick up the cloth.
A shirt, the fabric torn; there was just enough left unstained to see that it had been green. He dangled it in front of himself, studying it. Collarless, short-sleeved; a hospital scrub shirt. And with a name tag sewn over the breast pocket. Whoever had fucked Charlie up might as well have signed his work with a spray can.
He didn't even need to read the name on the tag. He dropped the shirt and went back to the bedroom. From the same drawer where he kept the Diamondback, he took out an envelope of Polaroid snapshots. Underneath the top one, which showed a black kid, punctured head lolling back against a car seat, he found the one he was looking for.
It showed dry, brown dirt and a tangle of yellow weeds in the corner. Right at the center was Mike's face, bruised and battered. The snap had been taken just far enough back to get the upper third of the scrub shirt in; the name tag showed, and the rips in the green cloth.
Aitch nodded to himself, standing by the open drawer and looking at the Polaroid. He didn't know how the fucker had done it-how he was still alive-but he had to hand it to him. He admired shit like that.
He glanced over his shoulder, through the bedroom doorway. One of Charlie's outstretched arms was visible. Aitch flipped the Polaroid back and forth across the fingers of his other hand.
He shook his head. Mike shouldn't have done that, though. There just wasn't any call for that.
***
It was morning, the first edge of it coming over the hills, by the time he got back to the old clinic. From the road, Mike spotted Doot's motorbike sitting out in front of the building. He switched off the 'Vette's engine as soon as he'd made the turn and let the car's silent momentum roll it on down the lane.
They didn't hear him. They were both still asleep, wrapped up in the blankets and each other's arms. He stood in the doorway, watching them. Then he stepped back and eased the boards into place without making a sound.
He was smiling as he stepped carefully down from the verandah.
It was nice to be right about things. To have known just what was going to happen. To be right about her-she didn't have any brains above her navel. And the kid… Stupid little shit. It was all he could do to keep from laughing as he walked along the front of the building, toward the burned-out wing.
Inside again, as he knelt by the stone basin, he turned his head and listened. Lindy and the kid were still lost in sleep-he knew it. He could tell, his hearing sharpened to every faint stirring in the air.
They didn't know. They had each other now. That was good enough… for them.
He turned the spigot handle and a thread of the black water trickled out. Then more, splashing on the stone beneath. He cupped his palms under the flow. In the tiled room's sparse light, the water glinted and danced over his wrists.
It slid down his throat, a living thing without form, as he tilted his head back and drank from his hands.
He closed his eyes, and rocked back and forth on his knees. A small crooning sound came from his trembling lips.
This was communion. This was love now.
TWENTY-TWO
He held her hands so she wouldn't pull away from him.
"Come on," said Doot. They knelt, facing each other, on the rumpled blankets. "We can just split. We don't have to hang around here." He brought his face down, trying to see into her eyes. "You don't have to stay… with him."
With a toss of her head, Lindy shook the hair from her eyes. She glared at him, a sullen anger welling up inside her.
"Oh, yeah? It's that easy, huh?" She gave a quick, scornful laugh. "I suppose you're going to take care of me. You're going to get me the things I need-"
She jerked her hands out of his grasp. She lunged to one side, then straightened up again, dragging the suitcase across the floor. The lid flipped back, and she held up a double handful of the orange plastic containers and the small glass vials.
"You're going to get me this? Huh?" She held them up to Doot's face. "The way Mike can-"
He slapped the bright things out of her hands, and t
hey scattered across the floor. One vial broke against the wall, oozing a wet stain into the corner.
"You don't need that shit."
Lindy regarded him in silence. Her face looked old now, the skin dulled and drawn closer to the bone beneath. "What do you know," she said finally. "What the fuck do you know about it? You're just some stupid kid. You don't know what it's like."
She turned away from him. She pawed through the blankets and found her purse, dug out some money and shoved it into his hand.
"Here. Go get some food and shit. Something to drink…" She sank back down on the blankets, laying her head on her arm.
He looked at her for a moment, then crumpled the money into his fist. He got to his feet and stomped away, feeling his own face taut with anger.
Outside the building, the anger fell away, replaced by surprise. Doot hadn't expected to see the 'Vette sitting out there. The car was empty; he touched its hood and found it cold. It had been parked there for a while.
So Mike must be around someplace. The skin along Doot's arms tightened as he stepped around the front of the 'Vette and into the open. Maybe he saw us… Doot turned slowly on his heel, scanning in all directions. The morning sun dazzled in his eyes. The weed-choked fields and the hills were bare of any sign of the other's presence.
Maybe Mike had gone bouncing off, with his big speed-freak grin, up into the hills to talk with the old caretaker Nelder. Or-Doot tilted his head, listening for any sound-maybe he was out back of the building, taking an early morning swim and doing double gainers into the debris-clogged pool he'd filled up with the inky water.
He heard nothing. Still gazing around, he climbed onto the bike and kicked its engine to life. He headed down the lane toward the road.
***
She lifted her face from the spread-open book. Blinking, swallowing a sour taste in her mouth, Anne looked around her bedroom. The morning light slanted in through the curtains. She rubbed her eyes with both hands, then reached up and switched off the desk lamp.
The fog of sleep was still heavy inside her brain. She shook her head, drawing in a deep breath. Stretching her arms above her head, she felt her spine slowly unkink. Falling asleep like that, crashed out on the desk-it wasn't the first time she'd done it-always left her stiff. Maybe a long hot shower-if the bathroom wasn't clogged with the littler kids or her mother getting ready for work-with her back curled against the spray as hard as she could get it; that might work.
Something was wrong. She turned her head, slowly, a cold finger touching her heart. Thinking about the shower, and the bathroom… she had listened to hear, through the trailer's thin walls, if somebody was in there already. The sound of running water, of splashing. But there wasn't any-only silence.
She looked over toward the bed and the table beside it. There was enough daylight in the room now for her to see the glass bowl sitting there. The dark-colored water was perfectly still. Nothing moved inside it.
She walked over to the bowl and bent down to peer into it. The water had become murkier, tinged with red. The oval shape of the fish hung suspended in it, drifting slowly.
The water clung to her fingers as she reached in and took the fish out. It lay on her palm, not moving. The shiny pink had turned ashen; a thick black substance oozed from underneath its gills.
With her free hand, she switched the desk lamp on again, and held the fish underneath to see it better. Her throat clenched, gagging; the sulfur smell rose from the creature, the odor worse now, as if mixed with something rotten. The dark water, mixed with red, trickled down her arm to her elbow.
The fish moved, suddenly jerking and bending double in her palm. Fright pulled her muscles back, and the fish dropped upon the desk, landing on her yellow notepad.
Blood, thinned by the water, seeped out in a widening circle on the paper.
It trembled. Anne reached down with her forefinger and touched the fish.
The grey skin swelled upward, like a balloon expanding. It split and broke open, the red stuff inside pulsing up, a blister bursting under pressure.
She snatched her finger back, a spot of red wet upon the tip. She couldn't breathe, the smell filling her mouth and throat, as she watched the creature break apart. The tiny mouth split open to vomit up more red things. The skin disintegrated, the tiny organs inside pulsing, the spine curling in a final spasm.
When it stopped moving, there was nothing but a red, uneven stain on the desk, flecked with a few bright scales. A thread of blood ran to the edge and trickled down the side.
***
There was some old guy out in front of the apartments, watering the lawns. Aitch figured it was the building manager. The old guy watched him as he walked past and knocked on Lindy's door.
No answer. He knocked again, louder.
"She ain't there."
Aitch turned, looking around at the old man. "You know where she went?"
The manager shrugged, watching the stream from the hose nozzle splash against the sidewalk. "Beats me," he said. He didn't seem too happy about it. "I came out the other day, found her door wide open, everything inside a mess. Ain't seen her car around here, either."
"Okay." He nodded, digging out his car keys. "Thanks." He'd expected as much. Somehow Mike had gotten hold of her. She was probably out there with him right now.
The manager called after him as he walked away. "If you find her, tell her she ain't getting her damn cleaning deposit back."
Aitch smiled to himself. He figured that'd be the least of her worries.
***
He spent nearly the whole day lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. The money Lindy had shoved in his hand was crumpled up on top of his dresser.
The phone rang, a couple of different times, and somebody had knocked on the door, but Doot hadn't answered. Whoever it was could go fuck themselves. Right now, his gut felt hollowed out. It just went on feeling that way.
Only when the light coming through the bedroom had started to dim had he swung his legs over the side and sat up. He looked at the money, the wadded bills. He supposed he should just go ahead and buy some stuff with it, and take it on out to them. Let them sort out their own fucking personal difficulties.
You got laid out of it-so what's your problem, dweeb? He should just be grateful for that much, he figured. Instead of getting all bent out of shape because she hadn't gone running off with him into the sunset. What'd he think they were going to do, head down to Reno and get married, or some shit like that? He shook his head as he stood up. What a jerk. He stuffed the money into his jeans and headed for the door.
Ten minutes later, he went down the aisle of the Seven-Eleven, loading things up in his arms. Cans of soup and more chili, plastic bottles of mineral water-Doot couldn't think of what else to get. Maybe some more Pepsi. He headed to the cooler at the back of the store and picked up a couple of bottles, carrying them under his arm.
"Hey, Doot." Garza and a couple others from the stoner crowd, the same ones who'd been left lounging around after the party, had come in and were hanging around the magazine rack, cruising for tit shots. Garza's big sloppy smile spread across his face. "How's your girlfriend?"
Doot stopped at the head of the aisle and looked at him. "What're you talking about?"
All three of the teenagers were grinning now. "You know," said Garza, lowering the copy of Penthouse in his hands. "That wild piece of ass you got hidden away. I bet she gives head like a Hoover-"
The other two snorted laughter. The notion of somebody like Doot getting it on with a waxed-and-pol-ished number like the one that had shown up at the door and asked for him had finally struck them as hilarious. It hadn't really happened-at least not the asking for him part. They must've been really fucked up to have imagined it.
"Hey…"
Garza smirked at him. "What?"
"Hold on a second," said Doot. "I'll be right back."
He walked over to the cash register and laid the cans and plastic bottles down on the counter. The
guy behind the counter was picking his teeth with a fingernail. He didn't care what went on; it wasn't his store.
Doot stopped alongside the magazine rack. "Hey, Stevie."
The other's smile faded. Something, the look in Doot's eye, made him take a step backward. But not before Doot could grab him by the back of the neck.
"I got something for you." Doot planted his other fist in Garza's stomach. Garza doubled over, right into the arc of the fist coming up into his chin. He fell backwards, arms flailing spastically; his hand caught and dragged a row of magazines off the rack.
"Fuh-uck." Goggle-eyed, Garza's buddies stared at him laid out on the linoleum floor, a split-beaver centerfold of the Pet of the Month fluttering open on his chest. They looked up at Doot, then backed away toward the door. They finally broke and scrambled outside, running across the asphalt parking lot.
The cash register guy had already rung everything up and bagged it. Doot walked back over to the counter, pulling the money from his jeans pocket.
***
He was strapping the bag onto the motorbike's carrier rack when he heard more running steps, coming toward him this time. He looked up and saw Anne, breathless, coming to a stop.
"Doot-where have you been?" She grabbed his arm. She panted for a couple of seconds, pushing her hair away from her brow with her other hand. "I've been looking all over for you! I've got to talk to you-"
He finished tightening the bungee cord over the top of the bag, snapping the hooks together. "I don't have time to talk." He pulled his arm out of her grasp.
