by S. T. Joshi
Away from them both, crouching under a tree with the whimpering ice dogs, Rabbit wept through swollen eyes. He dug deep in his plastic coat and produced a crucifix. I almost laughed out loud.
And in a tent, wrapped in sweat-damp wool and expensive eiderdown that couldn’t keep him warm anymore, still clinging to life, was the dead man, who didn’t matter.
But maybe I could make him matter.
And then there would only be two.
When the clouds came, when they suffocated the unblinking moon and brought sleep to the camp, I swept down to the dying fire and rolled comfortably in the crab-colored coals. The hush of the river crept over me as I decided what to do.
To make three into two.
Three men, and the dead man. Two tents: Grizzly and Redbeard in one, Rabbit and the dead man in the other. Easy. No worries, except for the dogs. (For ice dogs are wise. Their beast hearts hide simple secrets . . . )
The packed snow sizzled beneath my feet as I crept toward Rabbit’s tent. The dead man’s face pressed against one corner of the tent, molding his swollen features in yellow plastic. Each rattling breath gently puffed the thin material away from his face, and each weak gasp slowly drew it back. It was a steady, pleasant sound. I concentrated on it until it was mine.
No time for metal rings. No time for naked muscle and feast. Slowly, I reached out and took hold of Rabbit’s mind, digging deep until I found his darkest nightmare. I pulled it loose and let it breathe. At first it frightened him, but I tugged its midnight corners straight and banished its monsters, and soon Rabbit was full of bliss, awake without even knowing it.
I circled the tent and pushed against the other side. The dead man rolled across, cold against the warmth of Rabbit’s unbridled nightmare.
“Jesus, you’re freezin’, Charlie,” whispered Rabbit as he moved closer. “But don’t worry. I’ll keep you warm, buddy. I’ve gotta keep you warm.”
But in the safety of his nightmare, that wasn’t what Rabbit wanted at all.
I waited in the tree until Grizzly found them the next morning, wrapped together in the dead man’s bag. He shot Rabbit in the head and left him for the ice dogs.
Redbeard buried the dead man in a silky snowdrift.
That day was nothing. Grizzly and Redbeard sat at the edge of the clearing and wasted their only chance. Grizzly stared hungrily at the cabin, seeing only what I wanted him to see. Thick, safe walls. A puffing chimney. A home. But Redbeard, damned Redbeard, wise with fear and full of caution, sensed other things. The dead man’s fevered rattle whispering through the trees. An ice dog gnawing a fresh, gristly bone. And bear traps, rusty with blood.
Redbeard rose and walked away. Soon Grizzly followed.
And then there was only the hollow man, rocking gently in his chair. The soles of his boots buffed the splintery floor and his legs swung back and forth, back and forth.
Two. Now two, as the second night was born, a silent twin to the first. Only two, as again I twisted rings and plucked muscles and put the hollow man to sleep. Just two, as my wings beat the night and I flew once more from the sooty chimney to the ravine that stabbed a river.
There they sat, as before, grizzly and fox. And there I watched, waiting, with nothing left to do but listen for the sweet arrival of the leaden hour.
Grizzly chopped wood and fed the fire. Redbeard positioned blackened pots and watched them boil. Both planned silently while they ate, and afterwards their mute desperation grew, knotting their minds into coils of anger. Grizzly charged the dying embers with whole branches and did not smile until the flames leaped wildly. The heat slapped at Redbeard in waves, harsh against the pleasant brandy-warmth that swam in his gut and slowed his racing thoughts.
“Tomorrow mornin’,” blurted Redbeard, “we’re gettin’ away from here. I’m not dealin’ with no crazy hermit.”
Grizzly stared at his ax-blade reflection and smiled. “We’re gonna kill us a crazy hermit,” he said. “Tomorrow morning’.”
Soon the old words came, taut and cold, and then Grizzly sprang through the leaping flames, his black coat billowing, and Redbeard’s fox-head cap flew from his head as he whirled around. Ax rang against knife. A white fist tore open a black lip, and the teeth below ripped into a pale knuckle. Knife split ebony cheek. Blood hissed through the flames and sizzled against burning embers. A sharp crack as the ax sank home in a tangle of ribs. Redbeard coughed a misty breath past Grizzly’s ear, and the bigger man spun the smaller around, freed his ax, and watched his opponent stumble into the fire.
I laughed above the crackling roar. The ice dogs scattered into the forest, barking, wild with fear and the sour smell of death.
So Grizzly had survived. He stood still, his singed coat smoking, his cut cheek oozing blood. His mind was empty—there was no remorse, only a feeling that he was the strongest, he was the best.
Knowing that, I flew home happy.
There was not much in the cabin that I could use. I found only a single whalebone needle, yellow with age, and no thread at all. I watched the veined window as I searched impatiently for a substitute, and at last I discovered a spool of fishing line in a rusty metal box. Humming, I went about my work. First I drew strips of the hollow man’s pallid skin over his shrunken shoulder muscles, fastening them along his backbone with a cross stitch. Then I bunched the flabby tissue at the base of his skull and made the final secret passes with my needle.
Now he was nothing. I tore the metal rings out of his neck and the hollow man twitched as if shocked.
A bullet ripped through the cabin door. “I’m gonna get you, you bastard,” cried Grizzly, his voice loud but worn. “You hear me? I’m gonna get you!”
The hollow man sprang from the rocker; his withered legs betrayed him and he fell to the floor. I balanced on the back of the chair and hissed at him, spreading my wings in mock menace. With a laughable scream, he flung himself at the door.
Grizzly must have been confused by the hollow man’s ravings, for he didn’t fire again until the fool was nearly upon him. An instant of pain, another of relief, and the hollow man crumpled, finished.
And then Grizzly just sat in the snow, his eyes fixed on the open cabin door. I watched him from a corner of the veined window, afraid to move. He took out his ax and stared at his reflection in the glistening blade. After a time Grizzly pocketed the ax, and then he pulled his great coat around him, disappearing into its bristling black folds.
In the afternoon I grew fearful. While the redwoods stretched their heavy shadows over the cabin, Grizzly rose and followed the waning sun up a slight ridge. He cleaned his gun. He even slept for a few moments. Then he slapped his numb face awake and rubbed snow over his sliced cheek.
Grizzly came home.
I hid above the doorway. Grizzly sighed as he crossed the threshold, and I bit back my laughter. The door swung shut. Grizzly stooped and tossed a thick log onto the dying embers. He grinned as it crackled aflame.
I pushed off hard and dove from the ceiling. My claws ripped through grizzly hide and then into human hide. Grizzly bucked awfully, even tried to smash me against the hearth, but the heat only gave me power and as my legs burned into his stomach Grizzly screamed. I drove my claws into a shivering bulge of muscle and brought him to his knees.
The metal rings came next. I pinned them into his neck: one, two, three, four.
After I had supped, I sat the hollow man in the rocker and whispered to him as we looked through the veined window. A storm was rising in the west. We watched it come for a long time. Soon, a fresh dusting of snow covered the husk of man lying out on the ridge.
I told Grizzly that he had been my favorite. I told him that he would last a long time.
DAVID J. SCHOW
David J. Schow was born in Marburg, West Germany, in 1955, a German orphan who was adopted by American parents and brought to the United States at an early age. Settling in Los Angeles, Schow began writing in the late 1970s. He was the reputed coiner of the term splatterpunk, dev
ised to denote a no-holds-barred approach to horror fiction, utilizing elements from popular culture (especially rock-and-roll music and slasher films) to underscore the violence and sterility of modern life. Although many avowed splatterpunk writers rendered themselves absurd by over-the-top grisliness with little aesthetic justification, Schow distinguished himself by his vivid, metaphor-laden prose and an underlying seriousness in his depictions of gruesome physical horror.
Schow’s first novel, The Kill Riff (1988), is a nonsupernatural account of a psychotic man who seeks revenge upon a rock band for the death of his daughter during a rock concert. In 1990, Schow published three scintillating volumes: the short story collections Seeing Red and Lost Angels and the novel The Shaft. Seeing Red contains some of his best supernatural work (notably the story “Red Light,” an account of “psychic vampirism” similar to Fritz Leiber’s “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes”); Lost Angels is a collection of loosely linked novellas; The Shaft, set in Chicago, is perhaps one of the finest modern examples of the haunted house motif, as a dreary tenement is the setting for a hideous creature dwelling in a ventilation shaft. Schow’s later stories appear in the collections Black Leather Required (1994), Crypt Orchids (1998), and Eye (2001). He has written several screenplays for film and television and several novelizations of television scripts under the pseudonym Stephen Grave. He has also written The Outer Limits Companion (1999) and edited the anthology Silver Scream (1988), a volume of horror tales about movies.
“Last Call for the Sons of Shock” (first published in Black Leather Required) is typical of Schow’s scintillating mix of supernaturalism, B-movie references, and low farce.
LAST CALL FOR THE SONS OF SHOCK
Blank Frank notches down the Cramps, keeping an eye on the blue LED bars of the equalizer. He likes the light.
“Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon” calms.
The club is called Un/Dead. The sound system is from the guts of the old Tropicana, LA’s altar of mud wrestling, foxy boxing, and the cocktease unto physical pain. It specs are for metal, loud, lots of it. The punch of the subwoofers is a lot like getting jabbed in the sternum by a big velvet piston.
Blank Frank likes the power. Whenever he thinks of getting physical, he thinks of the Vise Grip.
He perches a case of Stoli on one big shoulder and tucks another of Beam under his arm. After this he is done replenishing the bar. To survive the weekend crush, you’ve gotta arm. Blank Frank can lug a five-case stack without using a dolly. He has to duck to clear the lintel. The passage back to the phones and bathrooms is tricked out to resemble a bank vault door, with tumblers and cranks. It is up past six-six. Not enough for Blank Frank, who still has to stoop.
Two hours till doors open.
Blank Frank enjoys his quiet time. He has not forgotten the date. He grins at the movie poster framed next to the backbar register. He scored it at a Hollywood memorabilia shop for an obscene price even though he got a professional discount. He had it mounted on foamcore to flatten the creases. He does not permit dust to accrete on the glass. The poster is duotone, with lurid lettering. His first feature film. Every so often some Un/Dead patron with cash to burn will make an exorbitant offer to buy it. Blank Frank always says no with a smile . . . and usually sports a drink on the house for those who ask.
He nudges the volume back up for Bauhaus, doing “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” extended mix.
The staff sticks to coffee and iced tea. Blank Frank prefers a nonalcoholic concoction of his own device, which he has christened a Blind Hermit. He rustles up one, now, in a chromium blender, one hand idly on his plasma globe. Michelle gave it to him about four years back, when they first became affordably popular. Touch the exterior and the purple veins of electricity follow your fingertips. Knobs permit you to fiddle with density and amplitude, letting you master the power, feel like Tesla showing off.
Blank Frank likes the writhing electricity.
By now he carries many tattoos. But the one on the back of his left hand—the hand toying with the globe—is his favorite: a stylized planet Earth, with a tiny propellered aircraft circling it. It is old enough that the cobalt-colored dermal ink has begun to blur.
Blank Frank has been utterly bald for three decades. A tiny wisp of hair issues from his occipital. He keeps it in a neat braid, clipped to six inches. It is dead white. Sometimes, when he drinks, the braid darkens briefly. He doesn’t know why.
Michelle used to be a stripper, before management got busted, the club got sold, and Un/Dead was born of the ashes. She likes being a waitress and she likes Blank Frank. She calls him “big guy.” Half the regulars think Blank Frank and Michelle have something steamy going. They don’t. But the fantasy detours them around a lot of potential problems, especially on weekend nights. Blank Frank has learned that people often need fantasies to seem superficially true, whether they really are or not.
Blank Frank dusts. If only the bikers could see him now, being dainty and attentive. Puttering.
Blank Frank rarely has to play bouncer whenever some booze-fueled trouble sets to brewing inside Un/Dead. Mostly, he just strolls up behind the perp and waits for him or her to turn around and apologize. Blank Frank’s muscle duties generally consist of just looming.
If not, he thinks with a smile, there’s always the Vise Grip.
The video monitor shows a Red Top taxicab parking outside the employee entrance. Blank Frank is pleased. This arrival coincides exactly with his finish-up on the bartop, which now gleams like onyx. He taps up the slide pot controlling the mike volume on the door’s security system. There will come three knocks.
Blank Frank likes all this gadgetry. Cameras and shotgun mikes, amps and strobes and strong, clean alternating current to web it all in concert with maestro surety. Blank Frank loves the switches and toggles and running lights. But most of all, he loves the power.
Tap-tap-tap. Precisely. Always three knocks.
“Good,” he says to himself, drawing out the vowel. As he hastens to the door, the song ends and the club fills with the empowered hiss of electrified dead air.
Out by limo. In by cab. One of those eternally bedamned scheduling glitches.
The Count overtips the cabbie because his habit is to deal only in round sums. He never takes . . . change. The Count has never paid taxes. He has cleared forty-three million large in the past year, most of it safely banked in boullion, out-of-country, after overhead and laundering.
The Count raps smartly with his umbrella on the service door of Un/Dead. Blank Frank never makes him knock twice.
It is a pleasure to see Blank Frank’s face overloading the tiny security window; his huge form filling the threshold. The Count enjoys Blank Frank despite his limitations when it comes to social intercourse. It is relaxing to appreciate Blank Frank’s condition-less loyalty, the innate tidal pull of honor and raw justice that seems programmed into the big fellow. Soothing, it is, to sit and drink and chat lightweight chat with him, in the autopilot way normals told their normal acquaintances where they’d gone and what they’d done since their last visit. Venomless niceties.
None of the buildings in Los Angeles have been standing as long as the Count and Blank Frank have been alive.
Alive. Now there’s a word that begs a few new comprehensive, enumerated definitions in the dictionary. Scholars could quibble, but the Count and Blank Frank and Larry were definitely alive. As in “living”—especially Larry. Robots, zombis and the walking dead in general could never get misty about such traditions as this threesome’s annual conclaves at Un/Dead.
The Count’s face is mappy, the wrinkles in his flesh, rice-paper fine. Not creases of age, but tributaries of usage, like the creeks and streams of palmistry. His pallor, as always, tends toward blue. He wears dark shades with faceted, lozenge-shaped lenses of apache tear; mineral crystal stained bloody-black. Behind then, his eyes, bright blue like a husky’s. He forever maintains his hair wet and backswept, what Larry has called his “renegade opera conductor coif.”
Dramatic threads of pure cobalt-black streak backward from the snow-white crown and temples. His lips are as thin and bloodless as two slices of smoked liver. His diet does not render him robustly sanguine; it merely sustains him, these days. It bores him.
Before Blank Frank can get the door open, the Count fires up a handrolled cigarette of coca paste and drags the milky smoke deep. It mingles with the dope already loitering in his metabolism and perks him to.
The cab hisses away into the wet night. Rain on the way.
Blank Frank is holding the door for him, grandly, playing butler.
The Count’s brow is overcast. “Have you forgotten so soon, my friend?” Only a ghost of his old, marble-mouthed, middle-Euro accent lingers. It is a trait that the Count has fought for long years to master, and he is justly proud that his English is intelligible. Occasionally, someone asks if he is from Canada.
Blank Frank pulls the exaggerated face of a child committing a big boo-boo. “Oops, sorry.” He clears his throat. “Will you come in?”
Equally theatrically, the Count nods and walks several thousand worth of Armani double-breasted into the cool, dim retreat of the bar. It is nicer when you’re invited, anyway.
“Larry?” says the Count.
“Not yet,” says Blank Frank. “You know Larry—tardy is his twin. There’s real-time and Larry time. Celebrities expect you to expect them to be late.” He points toward the backbar clock, as if that explains everything.
The Count can see perfectly in the dark, even with his murky glasses. As he strips them, Blank Frank notices the silver crucifix dangling from his left earlobe, upside-down.
“You into metal?”
“I like the ornamentation,” says the Count. “I was never too big on jewelry; greedy people try to dig you up and steal it if they know you’re wearing it; just ask Larry. The sort of people who would come to thieve from the dead in the middle of the night are not the class one would choose for friendly diversion.”
