The Secret of Ventriloquism

by Jon Padgett

  “Touch me again, and you’ll be gargling your own balls.”

  “I see you’ve been to the paper mill in spite of my warnings,” he replied, shaking the test tube. “Please come in, detective.”

  “You look blue, Kroth,” I said, following him into a small foyer and then into a living room decorated as if by a Southern Baptist octogenarian. Smelled like it too in spite of the fog-stench.

  “Yes, your skin is also cyanotic, a symptom of oxygen deprivation,” he replied, gesturing for me to sit on a Victorian style, high-back couch. The couch, the two chairs (also of the high-backed, Victorian variety), and in fact, every piece of the uncomfortable looking furniture in the room was swathed in transparent, plastic sheeting. And, upon closer inspection, the walls right to the ceiling were covered as well.

  “You planning to kill someone today or are you just that obsessive?”

  Kroth ignored my question and pulled out a twin of the oxygen tank I had seen a couple of days before in the library.

  “Please sit and put this mask over your face before you fall down.” he said, and I did. Soon I was sucking oxygen and feeling sweet relief. I de-masked, and Kroth wheeled the tank away.

  “What happened to you, detective?” he asked. “Tell me all.”

  So I told Kroth what happened yesterday in the mill.

  “Okay,” I said after I finished. ”Question: any idea who ‘they’ are? The ones Guidry mentioned?”

  Kroth sighed, rubbing his puffy eyes and slumping in an ornate chair next to a miniature organ. There wasn’t a hint of the jumpy, stuttering librarian from a couple of days back. In fact, this guy looked like he was about to eat the barrel of a pistol at any second.

  “Do you really want to know?” he asked.

  “Yeah, and I’d also like to know what your interest is in all this, Kroth. Why the stuttering, nutty, bouncy act the other day when I asked about Treasure Forest and the mill?”

  “That was no act, detective. I am the victim of an unfortunate nervous condition. My ailment, exacerbated by these wretched paper mill days, often drives me to highs of a narcissistic nature. As evidenced by my behavior at work two days ago. It’s beyond my control—as is my current depressive state, also brought on by this week’s weather. The paper mill days have gone on too long this year. Too long.”

  “Look, Sol, I’m not your shrink. I’d just like to know what’s going on in Treasure goddamn Forest.”

  “Which part of what’s going on, detective?” Kroth asked, expressionless. “The constant, controlled burning in Treasure Forest or the ashes floating outside and inside of the abandoned mill? The mystery of Joseph Snavely, and the horror his ventriloquism wrought on Dunnstown? Or the reason why its denizens are disappearing one by one, more every year, only to reappear as deformed skeletons buried in Treasure Forest. Or perhaps you would like to know about the skeleton-dummy you found hanging over a ceiling pipe in the old factory.”

  My right hand moved under my jacket, and I unholstered my gun.

  “Now now, before you arrest me for a crime I did not commit, Detective Tosto, I will relay just what you likely think you most want to know.”

  “I was right,” I said, “You’re the letter writer.”

  “Yes, yes, of course I wrote those letters, every year for the past ten. In my manic state, I still imagined such efforts would make a difference, and I was correct. Those letters of mine made things far worse, and things will get worse still for all of us. Would you like to know the genesis of Dunnstown’s problems and my nervous condition, detective? Read the manual I gave you. Ask your police chief. Ask the Brotherhood of the Black Fog. Ask what it is they serve.”

  I had pulled my firearm out but held it, barrel-down, against my hip. Kroth remained blasé upon the crinkling, covered chair across from me.

  “Oh, I’ve read your little book, Solomon. You think there’s a fucking cult in town that worships, what, pollution?”

  “You already know the truth, detective. It was, as they say, an inside job headed by members of your own second district police department. It began after Flight 389 went down and Snavely shared his ancient, miserable wisdom with this city. Those first responders saw something, detective. Their eyes—haven’t you ever noticed how odd, how incurious, they look? And what about what your friend, Guidry? Well, every kingdom needs its fool. The Dunnstown population at large knows nothing about what goes on in Treasure Forest, of course, until they start dying off, suffocated by the paper mill days. Then the good folks in your police department pay them a little visit, and take them on a trip to Treasure Forest. Tell me, how many truly elderly people have you seen in town, detective?”

  “Not many,” I replied. “Expect they either stay inside, they move or the air kills them.”

  “Partially correct, detective. Many of the suffering, non-killed elderly and young do indeed remain indoors, convalescing with oxygen tanks like mine. Many unable to take more than three steps before needing respiratory aid. The Brotherhood takes these non-killed to Treasure Forest once they exhibit all the signs. These paper mill days are getting worse and longer every year, as that which inhabits the air we breathe grows more palpable, more potent. And the non-killed population of Dunnstown gets sicker. Like me. Like me.”

  “Quite a conspiracy theory. The corpses. This... you’re expecting me to believe that the second district PD skeletonized them?”

  “Not the Brotherhood but that which they... well, worship isn’t the right word for it. You see, your organization—the cult, if you will—believes in this pollution peculiar to Dunnstown as the ultimate manifestation of the Eternal. Connecting everything together. A hollow tree that has nothing to do with the living but everything to do with growth.”

  “But then what do the skeletons do to...?”

  “To the suffering non-killed—the elderly and the young who fall early victim to the paper mill days? Do you know anything about infusoria, detective—the tiny organisms that are cultivated to feed fish fry? A biological process creates them—a little rot here, a little bacteria there. A similar process is occurring in Dunnstown. Human infusoria—these altered, appendaged skeletons—produce the vapor or smoke or fog effect we see, especially in Treasure Forest. Ultimately, all the skeletons are rendered hollow shells, which break apart. These pieces of ash in the air,” and here he produced the test tube from earlier. “These are the remains of the transmuted dead. The tainted air feeds the infusoria, transforming vulnerable Dunnstowners into living skeletons. But the fog itself, it has so many names: the Origami, Daddy Longlegs, Snavely's Ultimate Ventriloquist. It turns the skeletons into more of itself. That’s the punchline. It’s exponential. Every year more of the non-killed transition, every year blacker fog, and one day all the residents will change. And when that final transformation comes, the whole town—everything in it and below it—will awaken from this borrowed reality into another one.”

  I’d heard enough. I finally raised my firearm.

  “Okay, Kroth. Put your hands on top of your head, stand up slowly, and get down on the floor. On your belly.”

  Kroth didn’t move. “You want to know the extent of what the Black Fog can do, detective? I’m no Greater Ventriloquist, but I’ve learned a few things from Joseph Snavely’s book. Let me show you.”

  “Shut up and get your ass on the floor!” I yelled. “Hands on the top of your head, motherfucker! Now!”

  But Kroth remained impassive, sitting with his legs crossed upon the high-back, Victorian-style chair.

  “I think not, detective. Ha. But you’re always thinking, aren’t you, Raphaella? Mulling over the abuse you endured as a child, your misanthropic nature, the notable instances of brutality you committed both before and after you took up your occupation. Oh, I’ve done quite a bit of research on you over the past two days. I know all about those offenses, all about your so-called life to date. Your generally unsocial behavior. The ten instances of insubordination throughout your law enforcement career. Your rather laudabl
e lack of interest in spawning a child and spewing it out into this dung heap of a world. The fact that your one and only friend in the world is also the man you very well may murder tomorrow. Clear that away, detective. It is nothing. Static. Now, close your eyes.”

  “The fuck are you doing to me? Stop or I’ll...”

  “Shoot? No, not yet you won’t. You’re closing your eyes now, little dummy. There. Now continue to listen to the sound of my voice as you relax your arms. Don’t bury me. You know what to do next, don’t you? Bend those elbows and stick the barrel of that now upside down firearm right there against the bridge of your own nose. That’s it. Don’t bury me. You can feel the wide, cool mouth of the pistol forming a perfect O—the perfect O of nothingness you will soon realize you always were. Don’t buh-bury me. All this nonsense, the nonsense of a life badly lived, comes to an end, little dummy. Now. Burn me. Pull that trigger.”

  And—eyes clenched closed as instructed—I did pull it. There was a gun report, much quieter than I ever had imagined it would be. But then I opened my eyes and witnessed the extent of the fucking magic trick the old librarian had pulled off.

  Because my arms had remained extended in front of me after all, pointing at a Victorian-style, high back chair, its once clear sheeting now colored with a spray of blood and brain matter. Kroth’s body lay sprawled on the crinkly, plastic covered carpet. One side of his face was meat and his remaining eye stared up at nothing, his mouth ajar.

  Then I started to hear something other than the ringing in my ears. Ever been in a car with a failing AC compressor? There’s a kind of high-pitched whine that slowly turns into a distorted shriek. A sound no kind of animal, human or otherwise, could make. That's the closest I can come to what I was hearing in Kroth's living room.

  The blood pulsating out of the librarian’s body was odd looking, too thick, and it was far too dark. I began to cough, unable to quite catch my breath. The air, like Kroth’s blood, had thickened imperceptibly at first, especially around his corpse, which was expelling dark snow. And now Kroth’s corpse began convulsing and screeching, shedding and splitting its skin in violent convulsions. Growing... longer.

  At first I couldn’t get the fucking skull to stop screaming no matter what I did. Then I realized what I needed to do.

  Burn me, Kroth had said.

  I started tearing down the heavy plastic sheeting from the walls, the furniture the floor, wrapping the flopping corpse in it until the thing could barely move. The screaming had become impossibly loud, and I was sure my ears would soon be bleeding from it. Something black and jagged was starting to cut through all those layers of sheeting. I dragged the bucking, growing skeleton-thing through the dining room to the den’s fireplace. And that’s where I thrust it, right up the chimney. Now the shrieking wasn’t quite as loud but echoed in a way that made me want to vomit and shit myself simultaneously.

  My hands shaking, I struggled to light the fireplace’s long electric lighter, clicking it over and over to no avail.

  Those convulsive, growing limbs were tearing the body free of the plastic sheeting. I pulled out my Glock and emptied the clip into the thing. That slowed its movement down but didn’t do much to quell the shrieking or my panic.

  Now I was back to trying to light the goddamn fire. And then it hit me. Not enough oxygen in the house.

  Oxygen. I found four green, mottled tanks tucked in a kitchen nook beside the oven. I pulled the hoses out of three of the tanks, turned the valves up and stuck a couple of them up the chimney with the jerking skeleton-thing. Black, bony appendages like too skinny, too sharp finger bones were ripping through the sheeting as the unholy shriek rose in volume. Cracks were appearing in the bricks of the fireplace. I rolled another hissing tank towards the jerking body and took the other one for myself.

  At a safe distance, I finally lit the lighter and approached the fireplace. The little flame grew longer and longer the further into the oxygen-infused den I got. I grabbed a newspaper from a stack of them, lit it and tossed it at the fireplace.

  I didn’t wait to see if my aim was true but hauled ass out the front door and towards the cruiser. Coughing like hell, I jumped in, turned the engine over (three times before it would start) and floored it. About a minute later I heard and felt the detonation.

  You didn’t know that was my doing, did you? I heard something about a neighborhood gas line explosion on the cop radio the next day, but I cut it off before I got details. You bet I feel like shit about it, but what the fuck would you have done in my place?

  I woke up in my kitchen wrapped around the spare oxygen tank, its dial indicating that I had huffed from it liberally before I passed out. Don’t remember much about getting back home at all.

  I do remember the dream I had though. Tiny, black skeletons floating in the dirty water of a small, red aquarium. Me looking at them through one of the circular, built-in magnifying glasses. As the tiny bodies grew larger to my eye, I realized that they were replicas of the Treasure Forest skeletons. Jet black corpses, appendaged— growing longer, their extremities taking on strange, new forms as I watched. Then the water in the tank became a kind of semitransparent fog, then soil, and I was in Treasure Forest again. No old paper mill or trees or vegetation of any kind were visible. All that remained were skeletal faces just above the brown, toxic soil, as far as I could see, blowing black air and ashes out of their open mouths and hollow eyes. And I could hear and feel their squirming skeletons growing beneath me.

  - 6 -

  When I awoke, the paper mill days were over. It had rained while I had slept. The ground was wet, the sky was clear, the air dry and cool and fresh. But I felt the paper mill days lingering beneath my skin, within my bones.

  I headed out with Kroth’s oxygen tank in my backseat. Didn’t bother much with the radio, again full of activity after another deadly paper mill day.

  I went straight to the empty police station. Took a military-grade gas mask, a protective suit and gloves from Forensics without checking them out (had to pound off a couple of locks—no one there to stop me). Grabbed a chainsaw, ten gallons of gasoline and drove out to Treasure Forest. I huffed oxygen and albuterol for a couple of minutes, donned my mask and other protective gear, and hiked up the steep hill. The ground was still covered in smoke up there, and the flakes were suspended in the air around the mill in spite of the clear sky beyond it.

  My Glock was in hand with extra clips to spare.

  Entering the structure felt like falling into the depths of outer space. I had thought of everything but lighting. When I turned around to go back to the cruiser, though, I saw something glowing near the base of the old digester. It appeared to be a flashlight lying maybe twenty feet in front of me, like a comet in the void—black, ash-like dust motes floating like tiny corpses in its trail.

  I was walking towards that beam a long time. Then the light failed and went out. I heard a hollow click and a slow, grating wheeze, followed by Guidry’s voice, bubbling as if underwater.

  “So... So sorry, Raph,” Guidry said. He sounded like he was about to cry—or giggle. “The boys, they told me only the old folks would need to be changed. But I guess now it’s going to be everyone.”

  I cocked my gun.

  “The skeletons—the bodies we found around Treasure Forest? They were prepared—prepared. By the 2nd District and... and something in this mill or maybe... maybe below it. It makes em ready. But they’re not alive afterwards. They’re real. Oh, Raphie, This factory—it’s adding something to Treasure Forest and—something is adding it to the air. The whole town. Never knew much about it myself, but I figure the boys don’t really know either. But I’m kind of gettin’ it now, Raphie. By becoming one with dead stuff—the Fog, it wants us to become... like it. Something real. Can you hear its voice, Raphie? There it is. I can hear the Black Fog.”

  Guidry fell silent, and I had arrived maybe five feet (or five light years) from him. Then my foot came in contact with his flashlight in the dark. I picked it up a
nd pounded it with the butt of my gun, and it sputtered to life. I pointed the beam towards where I had heard Guidry’s voice. But the thing on the littered pulp mill floor was not my partner.

  The diminutive skeleton—head half broken open, exposing a pulley and some kind of wooden mechanism within—sprawled on the ground, staring into the flashlight’s beam. Segmented limbs were folded into themselves like a dead spider’s.

  Snap. The open mouth shut and opened again. And it spoke with the voice of my partner, bubbling, thin and reedy. Its black eyes were rolling.

  “Don’t... Don’t let it put me together.”

  Then I heard a familiar shriek rising in the darkness along with a heavy flailing crash across the void. I flipped the flashlight towards the sounds and watched as the fat body of my partner, Michael Thomas Guidry, pushed itself into a corroded paper machine. Already bloody and growing bloodier, it thrashed against splintered beams and corroded pipes. Guidry’s body was transforming—limbs elongating to twice their length, black digits clawing out of misshapen hands and twisting feet. Skin peeling off. Guidry's distorted face with the rolling, impossible button eyes of an idiot doll or a shark.

  I put six bullets into my partner’s body—into what my partner’s body was becoming. Yet the thing continued shrieking. I shot again—first to the neck, then three times to the torso. It fell to the floor, twitching, but it still screamed. And it was still growing.

  Meanwhile, the shattered, child-dummy-spider-thing’s mouth was clicking. Open, closed. Open, closed. I marched it to the mill’s great digester, dumped it in and emptied out my gas cans in there as well. Lit the digester up and the dummy with it.

  Then I began working on Guidry’s body.

  Though the thing could do no more than jerk every now and then, as its bones grew longer and weirder, the skull was still shrieking like a failing air compressor. But I had planned for that. Industrial strength earplugs. They almost made the sound bearable as I cut Guidry’s body to pieces with my chainsaw in the digester’s firelight.