Carniepunk

by Rachel Caine

  “Or something could jump out, yes. And it would drain a lot of power from the earth while it was open. We can destroy it pretty easily, though.”

  Binding like to like using the energy of the earth, I bound all the salt crystals together so that they lifted from the ground and met above the iron cover, forming a ball. I let it go and it dropped onto the cover. The salt had rested in shallow troughs traced by a finger, so I erased those as well by smoothing out the ground. I checked the circle in the magical spectrum to make sure it was safe before moving the cover. There was no telltale glow of magic anywhere around it, and the cover could be broken down and reabsorbed into the earth.

  “Kick the cover a bit for me?” I asked. I doubted I could make it budge in my condition. Binding spells, by comparison, were simple, since they used Amber’s energy, not my own. Granuaile pushed the iron disc a few inches with her foot and the ground underneath remained satisfyingly solid. The ball of bound salt on top rolled off. Satisfied that the situation couldn’t get any worse, I informed Amber that the portal was destroyed and asked her to create a path to the surface for us. As we watched, the earth itself created a stairway leading up from the base of the nearest wall.

  I cast camouflage on all three of us, since appearing in the midst of a carnival dressed in blood might excite some comment. We emerged behind a row of gaming booths and the stairway closed behind us. We took a moment to reacquaint ourselves with what fresh air smelled like. The voice of the carnie running the milk bottle booth was taunting new marks.

  “Be right back,” I said, and left them to check on the tent, though I couldn’t muster much of a pace. Still, I saw that the hulk at the entrance was gone and someone had called the police. The exit was manned by officers, too, and there was no trace of the little imp girl or the people inside who’d served as the bearded lady, the three-armed man, and so on. The police clearly hadn’t found any bodies yet or they would have been doing more than simply closing the exhibit. Any report the police received would have been for the imp whose neck I’d snapped—a mundane affair as far as they knew. No one who had seen the supernatural had survived except for us. The imps who’d escaped would have to be hunted down as a matter of principle, but they didn’t have the power to reopen a portal by themselves. We could afford time to recuperate and think of how best to proceed.

  I returned to Granuaile and Oberon behind the game booths and dissolved our camouflage, since we were alone, and if someone spied us, they wouldn’t see the blood right away in the dark. Granuaile was squatting down and staring at the ground, arms resting on her thighs and hands clasped between her knees. All around us, oblivious carnival goers continued to seek entertainment. The lights and sounds of the midway, bright and alluring before, now grated on my nerves. We couldn’t be amused by those rides anymore. I squatted next to her in the same position.

  “I told you once what choosing this life could mean for you personally, but those were just words,” I said. “Now you know.”

  Granuaile nodded jerkily. “Yes, I do.” She was trembling all over, coming down from the adrenaline and perhaps entering shock now that the enormity of what had happened was settling in.

  “But you did well in there,” I said. “Thanks for the assist.”

  “Same to you.” Granuaile’s lip shook and a tear leaked out of her eye. “I didn’t have time to think. My mom could have been in that room.”

  “Yes. I’m relieved she wasn’t. Great time to go on a cruise.”

  She wiped at her cheek and sniffed. “But somebody’s mom is in there. Probably some people I know too.”

  “That’s most likely true. But we couldn’t have saved any more than we did. You do realize that we definitely saved some people tonight?”

  “Yeah. But I can’t feel good about that now.”

  “Understood.”

  Oberon moved closer to Granuaile, dipped his head under her hand, and flipped it up, inviting her to pet him. She hugged him around the neck and cried on him a little bit, and he bore it in silence—or at least silent as far as my apprentice was concerned.

 

  I don’t think so. Probably best not to bring it up. You can see that she loves you. And so do I.

 

  You know it is. But to erase any doubts, I’m going to see if we can arrange a liaison. An amorous rendezvous.

  Oberon’s tail began to wag.

  We will call her Noche. There will be sausage and occasion to frolic.

  Oberon got so excited about this news that he barked, startling Granuaile. She reared back and he turned his head, licking her face.

  “What! Oberon!” She toppled backward and hit her head on the back of the gaming booth. “Ow!” Then she laughed as Oberon swooped in and slobbered on her some more.

  Dogs make everything better.

  Except my fear of Kansas. I still have that.

  “The Sweeter the Juice”

  Mark Henry

  The fruit cart vendor on the curb is persistent if not articulate. He alternates shouting “All da lovely ladies love da frew-its” into his PA system with slapping his palm against his Plexiglas surround.

  “You!” he pleads, his voice echoing. “You take. You try!”

  He’s annoying me, and I’m already edgy from three days dry off the Jimmy. This can only end in bloodshed.

  The drawer embedded in the side of the cart’s guard glass slams out toward me, a slice of mango glistening inside. The dark fruit rests not on a polite napkin but directly on the greasy metal bottom. A red smear of juice sets it off like a gory still life, makes it pop . . . and makes my stomach turn.

  I wave my hand, shake my head as apologetically as I can fake.

  As I pass, I notice the body in the gutter. A woman’s, perhaps. The pink bouclé Chanel knockoff suit appears part of its flesh, the body’s rot seeping through the weave of the fabric, turning it a murky green in spots, sludgy. There’s a hole in its dimpled forehead, and a sliver of mango dangles between its still-twitching fingers.

  I hear a sharp tapping and look up to see the vendor rap a Glock against the Plexi. “Samples for customer who pay-ay!” he says into his mic, and gives me a big gummy grin.

  He’s clearly known for his comic banter. Or at least he thinks so.

  Zombies don’t pay for fruit any more than they do for dry cleaning. A shame. The suit was actually cute at one time. But worse than a fashion tragedy, the thing’s thin hips and sturdy legs belie a truth I’d rather deny.

  The dead woman was a Sister of Perpetual Disappointment.

  And by sister . . . I mean the kind with a penis.

  The order is strictly my terminology. Don’t get me wrong, at times I feel like a nun, but there’s no convent, unless you consider all the transgendered gathering around Dr. Bloom’s office cloistering.

  When death became passé, none of the Sisters expected the harsh toll the epidemic would exact on our small community. The hospitals were hard hit by the infected; doctors and nurses and worse—plastic surgeons specializing in gender reassignment surgeries—were some of the first casualties of the plague. It’s hard to maintain a practice from the inside of a zombie’s intestinal tract.

  Go figure.

  Needless to say, a heavy blow to transsexuals everywhere. It’s no wonder I took up the Jimmy. A few puffs and I almost didn’t care that I might be stuck with these disgusting crotch accessories forever.

  A few of the sisters simply gave up, running windmill-armed into a nest of the undead just to get it over with, leaving behind a crimson concrete smear and an empty pair of stilettos—licked clean, naturally. Sure, suicide by zombie is a tad dramatic, considering handguns sell out of hot dog carts like condiments, but it’s undeniably effective.

  It’s easy to go from dead to undead—a cinch, in fact: get bitten—but a bitch to go from man to woman . . . or vice versa.

  As the virus began to weaken and
some of the newly deceased started to stay dead, you’d think it would have become easier to find a doc somewhere in Manhattan. That they’d ship some in from Buffalo or Amish country, somewhere less affected. But no, for the longest time, it was damn near impossible to find any sort of medical care, let alone a pharmacy with some damn hormones to take care of my hot flashes.

  That is, until we found Dr. Bloom, the last sex-change surgeon in New York City.

  —

  I PRESS THE buzzer of her building on the Upper East Side—too far east to be a decent address, and not far enough for a river view. No doorman, so that tells you something—in this case, that he’s probably dead.

  “Yes?” the receptionist’s voice crackles from the circle of black mesh.

  “Jade Reynolds for Dr. Bloom,” I say. “I have a two-thirty appointment?”

  A quick note about the name. Jade. Exotic, right?

  My given name is James Dean Reynolds. But my mother, God rest her soul, took to calling me J.D. when I was in single digits. The sound of those two letters together was the one thing I wasn’t willing to give up about my life as Gloria Reynolds’s son.

  So I didn’t.

  The door buzzes and I push inside. Three floors up in the coffin-sized elevator and I’m dumped into a cramped waiting room full of ugly men in makeup and hard women in stenciled sideburns.

  Don’t get me wrong, I love my people; just don’t expect me to be attracted to them.

  Speaking of unattractive . . .

  “Jade!” Gretta Graves waves a gloved hand from a love seat nearest the receptionist’s window and then lets it flutter dramatically to her distended abdomen.

  “Oh, hello” is all I manage.

  Gretta pats the seat next to her. “Come on over, doll. Let’s chat.”

  I wince, glancing at her belly, but decide to humor her. She could get pretty testy on fake-pregnancy days.

  You might want to sit down for this next part.

  Gretta is what’s called a maternally fixated transsexual. She goes through cycles of believing she’s pregnant, complete with terribly detailed prosthetics and a delivery routine that’s not a hit at parties. The amniotic fluid is a shoe killer—Gretta uses at least three times as much of that shit as is even necessary to emulate water breaking. When she blows, it’s The Poseidon Adventure. I’m told the “baby” is a disturbingly lifelike infant doll called an Exactie—the breast-feeding is apparently nightmare inducing.

  It’s this specific delusion that prevents the doctor from moving forward with Gretta’s surgery.

  That’s rule number one: Crazy people have to cut off their own dicks.

  It doesn’t stop Gretta from haunting Dr. Bloom’s office, though. Not a bit.

  As I scoot in beside her, she leans in close and whispers, “She’s really active today.”

  I glance at her swollen belly and before I can shove my hand under my thigh, Gretta locks her fist around my wrist like a handcuff. “Wanna feel?”

  Snatching my hand away, I hiss, “No, I don’t want to feel your fake baby! I need to get smoked. I need some Jimmy.”

  Gretta nods and leans in close, eyes narrowing shrewdly. “I’ve got a line on something new.”

  “You said that last time.”

  “Something newer.” Gretta pulls away and nods at me, eyebrows raised lasciviously; then, when I don’t respond, she scrunches up her lips testily and leans back in.

  “I’m talking about drugs,” she says, so loud that everyone in the room hears.

  The receptionist raises her overly penciled eyebrow in judgment.

  “Absolutely not!” I say, loud enough for the judgers amongst us. I have to think on my feet. Scramble. I hate that. “They don’t know what Pitocin will do to the baby! She’ll come out when she’s good and ready, that’s what I say.”

  The rest of the waiting room looks away, satisfied Gretta and I are having the kind of regular conversation you might have with a schizophrenic, and not a heated argument between junkies. My gaze settles on the pinched face behind the front desk. The woman’s expression weakens into disinterest, and though she keeps an eye on me, she doesn’t reach for the phone or call Dr. Bloom for a know-it-all report.

  Rule number two: Drug addicts are in the same dick-severing boat as crazies.

  You have to be of sound mind to mutilate your body—never mind that the predicament itself is enough to drive a person crazy. Imagine spending your day trapped inside someone else’s body.

  And not someone awesome.

  “When I get done with this appointment, I’ll get you a hot dog and you can fill me in on all your maternity issues. Okay?” I pat Gretta’s belly.

  She covers my hand with her meaty mitt, pressing it tight against the arc of the prosthetic. I try to pull away, but she’s persistent and stronger than I am, bullish. A moment goes by before I feel it, a sharp thud in my palm. A cold shiver snakes through me. There’s something in there. Something not a doll.

  “What have you got in there, Gretta?”

  Her only response is a smile.

  “A cat?” I ask. “You’d tell me if it was a cat, right?”

  She lets go and turns away, ignoring my questions. But I can’t shake the feeling.

  —

  DR. BLOOM’S EXAM room doesn’t have windows; it’s lined, floor to ceiling, with library cabinets, and above them a domed fresco of clouds floods the room in a pink hue that seems almost natural. It’s serene, and I realize I like it so much because the buffered room affords a reprieve from the periodic gunshots and screams we’ve all gotten used to.

  The doctor sits across from me with her clipboard. My physical exam was routine; the counseling portion, while brief, is where my anxiety kicks up.

  “How have you been managing, Jade?” Dr. Bloom crosses her legs and watches me intently.

  “Fine, of course. I’ve been working a lot lately,” I say, hoping it’s enough to indicate a lack of free time. Free time in which I might get myself into trouble.

  She jots down a note. “In the same place?”

  “Yes. City Restructuring Office. Nothing exciting.”

  “And you’ve been going to work as Jade, correct? I know you’ve had some backsliding.”

  My jaw tenses. “Of course. It’s been fine.”

  “How about socially?”

  I think of my lover, H.G., probably passed out on dirty linoleum in some public restroom, a needle pegging his arm like a mosquito. He was nearly eaten the last time it happened. Lucky. But he doesn’t have any luck left. Once he’s gone, there won’t be any social life for a while.

  “Fine.” I nod, producing a faint smile. Noncommittal. If she didn’t want lies, she shouldn’t make the process so damn difficult.

  Dr. Bloom taps her pen against the board and waits a moment. “Have you got something you need to share, Jade?”

  “Um”—I feign searching for a memory, when I already have one lined up for this moment—“I’m a little concerned about my weight, Dr. Bloom. I’ve been exercising, but I’m getting a bit of a pudge.”

  The statement is enough to send the doctor on an exposition about hormones and the natural progression of the transition. I know all about it, but there’s nothing like acting stupid to distract Dr. Bloom. She loves to be helpful, and the truth is, despite my habit, I follow all the rules.

  I am Jade. Everywhere.

  I haven’t been J.D. since about six months before the plague hit.

  I stand, straighten my skirt, and slip my purse under my arm.

  “You’re doing just fine, lady,” Dr. Bloom says. “You keep it up. And don’t worry about a little weight. It’s called curves. Enjoy them.”

  I’m about to close her office door behind me when I hear those jarring words: “Please see Annick on your way out.”

  —

  ANNICK IS A Hun—as in Attila the Hun—both brutish and brooding. She hunches behind an aging computer that’s been hollowed out and turned into a stash box for the bartered item
s she accepts for Dr. Bloom.

  Her lip curls back from clenched teeth. “You’re late with your bill, Mr. Reynolds.”

  She’s also decidedly unambiguous about her disdain for transsexuals, which is always pleasant.

  “I’m sorry. I couldn’t get the ham. My source is out of stock.”

  She takes off her glasses, letting them dangle from a knot of twine around her neck. “From the looks of it, no corn, either.”

  “Sorry. Next time, I promise.”

  “There won’t be a next time, Mr. Reynolds. This is the third time, and you know what they say—”

  “Third time’s a charm?” I venture with a crooked smile.

  She responds with a smirk and a quick shake of the head. “Three strikes and you’re out.”

  “But, Annick, my progress. I can’t backtrack. My chest will start to fur. You know how terrible my cleavage looks with hair!”

  Annick sucks at her teeth, her cold stare is unblinking, and I’m certain I’m sunk.

  “I’m afraid I have some rather bad news, Mr. Reynolds.”

  “Ms. It shouldn’t be that difficult to refer to me as Ms. I am wearing women’s clothes.”

  “Yes, well, it’s bad news regardless of gender. You see, it’s come to our attention that your trades have been consistently irregular. A barter system only works if the patient keeps up their end. That hasn’t been happening. We pride ourselves on flexibility, but your doctor can only bend so far before your lack of payment breaks her back. We don’t want that to happen, do we, Mr. Reynolds?” Annick shrugs. “I’m afraid we’re discontinuing your treatment.”

  “What? When?”

  “Now. Right this very minute.”

  “But what am I supposed to do?” I lurch forward, gripping the edge of Annick’s desk for support. “How can I make this right?”

  “You should have considered that before you started taking drugs.”

  “I—I haven’t.”

  “Of course, not. I’m certainly mistaken.” Her crinkled lips form a crooked, empathetic circle. “But not about this bill. You’ve made promises you haven’t kept. And there are others who don’t seem to have any problem making appropriate trades.” She pouts and puts her hand over both of mine. Pats them gently. “I’m sure you’ll find other . . . arrangements.”