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Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Cacodemon
Her hand wouldn't stop twitching. Not even when she put it under the C-Ch
volume of the World Book Encyclopedia, and whacked it with the largest bowl
she could easily lay hands (well, hand, at this point) on did it cease its
faint grotesque quiver.
"Oh, that's disgusting - that's disgusting," she murmured weakly, screwing
up her mouth and her courage and the tourniquet around her arm. The sudden
pressure sent her into a dizzy spell, and she collapsed onto a chair,
gasping for breath. The humor of the whole situation struck her and then
the gasps changed to faint breathy chuckles.
"If your right hand causes you to sin-"
It was starting again. Not even a tremor yet -- just an infinitesimal
ripple under the skin, but she could feel it gathering strength again. It
wouldn't lay still forever. Whacking it silly wasn't enough. It wasn't a
part of her anymore. And she knew it would only spread. She would have to
do it. It was... she struggled to find a word for what it had become. She
looked at it, lying there. Clammy. Stunned. Unclean. That was the word:
Unclean. The laughter burbled up again.
"One hand washes --"
She reached for her knife. Her hand, still lying limp on the table for now,
seemed to growl at her. She wondered if there was some way to restrain it
for now. If there was, at least, some way to keep it from spreading.
"Look now, you've been a good hand to me most of my life, and I'm quite
content to forget this whole sordid little affair if you'll just settle down
and behave yourself."
It gave a little jump.
"But I can see you're not going to do that." She swallowed. "Fine. Have it
your way." She brought the knife down, slowly, watched the fingers spread
and arch, forming a claw. She felt the cold metal of the blade on her wrist.
She clenched her teeth, pushed the blade a little harder, a moment away from
breaking the skin.
The hand did not call her bluff. It lost the aggressive stance, waved
around, signaling for her to stop. She sighed in relief. "Now are you going
to behave yourself?" she asked. The hand gave her an emphatic thumbs up.
"Good." She set the knife down and the hand relaxed.
She picked up the phone, held the receiver to her ear with her shoulder and
dialed, keeping a close eye on her other hand. Just in case.
It rang once, twice. On the third ring someone picked up and said hello.
"Hey, Tony? It's me. Yeah. It's happening again. How soon can you get here?"
She paced across the living room, clasping her errant hand by the wrist,
clutching it tightly. Tony would know what to do. He'd be here in ten
minutes. All she had to do was hang on til then. If only she had some way
to distract herself. Once she had loved to knit, but that had been out of
the question, lately, of course. She didn't trust her hand with a sharp
knitting needle anymore. It was a sneaky thing, and it would take any chance
she offered it, she knew. The television sat dark in the corner, but she
knew she wouldn't be able to focus on anything enough to watch it. So she
continued to pace. spine stiffening each time her hand gave a rebellious
jerk, each time her pinky twitched ominously. At long last, she heard the
crunch of tires in the driveway. Tony. Finally, he was here. She ran to the
door, unlocked it. Tony stepped in, a look of concern on his face and a live
chicken under his arm. He had come prepared. But before he could say a word,
her wicked hand leapt to Tony's neck, striking like an adder. Her fingers
wrapped around his throat and began to squeeze and squeeze.
"Oh!" she squealed. She tried to walk away but the grip of the hand was too
strong, they were stuck together. "You have to get it off!" Tony calmed a
bit at her words, grabbed the thumb and the fingers in each of his hands and
slowly pried it off. He was relieved by the air he was provided, and
immediately loosened his grip, and once more, relentlessly, The Right Hand
of Liza was once again on his neck, and the chicken was trying to run out
the door. "Tony!!" Liza shrieked. The shock was enough. He broke away from
the diabolical grip, realized the chicken was gone, and plunged after it out
the door.
He returned a moment later, once more with the bird. Liza was now sitting at
the kitchen table, talking in a low voice to her hand, scolding it,
threatening it with the knife.
Tony spoke. "I think I know exactly what's going on," he said.
"You do?" she said. "Oh good."
"Yes," he said, "I'm afraid I do."
Her brief sense of relief gave over to nervousness then. He wasn't making eye contact with her and his voice seemed
flat. Tony is a friend, she told herself, he doesn't want to hurt me. SHe wished she could belive it.
He sat down at the table, still avoiding eye contact. "I can't help you if you don't want to be helped, Liza. And you brought this upon yourself."
She looked at him, wide eyed. He looked so harmless in his black turtleneck and thick-rimmed glasses. He seemed to
sense this analysis and dismiss it without judgement. Silently, he held out the chicken.
"I... I only..." she bowed her head. She knew he was right. It was all her fault. She gritted her teeth, and took the chicken in her left hand
by its feathery neck. It fluffed itself up and made a whirring, brooding sort of noise. The encyclopedia was still next to her on the table. Tucking
the chicken into the crook of her elbow, she turned the pages, her pulse fluttering at her neck.
"Chicken -- Gallus domesticus. Any of several varieties of fowl originating in... plumage... flightless" ... her eyes scanned the page. Ah! There it was, near the end.
"...blood reputed to have purifying qualities, especially among practitioners of the voudoun religion of Haiti..." She looked up at Tony, and he nodded gravely.
Her right hand gave a sudden jump, and she almost screamed. The chicken startled and raced across the tabletop, leaving dirty feathers all over her woven placemats.
Tony caught it and grabbed the cleaver. "You know you have to do it, don't you? There's no other choice, unless you want to give up, and..." he looked into her eyes, and
she saw something almost like frenzy in his face. The hand leaped for him again. He brandished the cleaver, but it parried him and caught at his turtleneck.
"No, no!" she sobbed, but its grip was unshakable, no matter how she struggled to loosen it. There was a horrible ripping noise, and... then they both froze. The chicken
dropped from Tony's grip and fluttered noisily away upstairs. There was a horrible green-and-black tattoo over Tony's chest, starting at the root of his Adam's Apple, and
leading downwards toward his navel. The hand released its grip and fled to her pocket. She stared at him, unable to move or speak or tear her eyes away. She couldn't
take in what the image was, but she knew, she sensed, it was... evil. It was foul and smudgy, like a bruise. There were things like eyes, and other things like claws,
and some ornate pattern on his solar plexus that seemed to weave itself into knots and then untangle itself with each of his breaths.
The hand was creeping out of her pocket now, but she didn't think she had the strength to stop it. It crawled over the pages of the encyclopedia, began to flip them backwards.
Tony was still motionless, the cleaver poised, his eyes lit up and somehow rapturous. All at once she felt her finger tapping, tapping hysterically over and over again, at
a spot on the page. With all her willpower, she forced her eyes from the horrible sight to look down at the book.
CACODEMON, it said. Her fingers retreated quiveringly into her sleeve.
It's amazing what they can do with frozen, pre-prepared meals these days. Without them, my elegant upscale restaurant, Chimera, would never be able to keep up with the incredible customer demand. We did have real chefs once, back when we first opened, but they're such temperamental things, always wanting paid and so forth. Cuts into the profit margin. So we contracted out the cooking work to Insta-Meal, one of the larger providers of pre-prepared meals in the nation. Changes had to be made, of course. We couldn't very well serve our patrons airline-style food and expect them to keep coming back. Our sommeliers worked with their nutritionists, and after several months we had crafted a variety of meals, all of which could be popped into a microwave and served in mere minutes.
Business positively boomed! Not only did we cut out kitchen staff to a fifth of what it had been, but these peons need only be paid minimum wage to be kept happy, whereas our chefs once required thirty or forty dollars every hour, and sometimes even a real salary. Also, a party which once took an hour and a half to eat dinner could now be pushed through in as little as twenty-five minutes, though of course we're not so lucky that they all move through this quickly. But with shorter wait times, we can pack hundreds more
customers in an average night than ever before. The trouble began the following year, when certain individuals had noticed what we were doing.
I told Mr. Z. not to piss of Eddie LaVane. I mean, everyone knows he's the premiere food critic in the city. The power this man has is unbelievable. More than one restaurant has gone under because Eddie LaVane snapped his fingers. The problem with Mr. Z. though, is that he's proud. I said, "Look, we really don't want to piss of Eddie LaVane or he'll screw us over, all right?" and Mr. Z. just had to prove that he was invincible.
Everyone gets that way in the industry, I guess. In your snooty Culinary Institute chefs, with their Radish Seared Ahi Tuna Au Poivre Vert and their Avocat en Flambe, it's only to be expected, and in your headwaiters named Andre with their white tails and their wine lists, it's practically de rigeur. Pretending to be Continental for nine, ten hours a day
will do that to you. And even Mr. Z, short-short order, kitchen bitch, Chief Microwaver, wasn't immune.
It might have been the immaculate white apron and hat (of course they were immaculate, after all, there's not much you can do to soil your clothes while microwaving the Green Tea Crusted Sesame Tiger Prawns Instameal), or it might have just been the atmosphere
of the place. In any case, he picked up an accent that could best be described as French twice removed (learned from a guy who had learned it from a guy who had learned it from a guy who was actually French) and lorded it over his miniscule staff of kitchen peons. And that might have been why he got so angry when I came to instruct him about Eddie's meal.
"Just one sprig," I pleaded. "One tiny little sprig of fresh parsley -- look, I'll even buy it myself. Forty-nine cents a bunch at the store across the street. All you have to do is heat it up like normal, stick the sprig on top, and serve it up with that adorable obsequious grin of yours. Is that too much to ask?"
"Eez zat too much to ask?!" Z's weasely moustache wiggled unpleasantly. "You weesh to disembowel mon arteesteec antegreetay? You wish to smash mon reputation upon ze flagstones? You weesh to drive me to le suiceed?"
"Listen up, Gilbert," I said, pronouncing it like his mother back in Poughkeepsie did, and not "Jeel-bair", as he allowed the highborn few to call him on occasion, "You stick that greenery in the goddamn slop before LaVane ever sets his beady little eyes on it, or so help me I'll... I'll --"
"Non! Thees ees the vinal humiliatiohn! I weel no longer stand for eet! Eithair I must be allood to preepair mon food accordeeng to zee traditional mannair, or I must reseenay!"
"Pardon?"
"Reseenay! Reseenay! Leave off! Queet!"
"Ah yes, resign." I sighed. "Look, Mr. Z, you're a fine cook, really you are, with the unwrapping and the microwaving and everything, but you're no artist. Now howsabout I just run and get us a nice little sprig of parsley, and you go ahead and serve the food like your supposed to so I don't have to do anything drastic. I'll even put it on the plate myself, hey? How's that for fair?"
Z eyed me warily as he considered his next move. Just then, my cell phone rang: Eddie LaVane had been spotted leaving his hotel. He should be here in five minutes. I relayed this to Mr. Z, then held my breath as he stared at me, his eyes narrowed. After a moment his expression relaxed and he actually smiled at me.
"Yees," he said.
"Yes?"
"Yees. I weel do eet. Goh. Goh and get your parsully and I weel preepare Monsieur LaVane's meal as you request."
"Good. Okay, good," I said, my suspicions overshadowed by my relief at his agreement. "Alright, well, I'll just go to the Stop N Shop across the street and I'll be back, three minutes at most." I turned and rushed out the back door into the dark alley behind the restaurant.
"Shit," I muttered as I tread through a puddle. Cold, foul-smelling water splashed around the bottom of my pant leg and soaked the top of my socks. "Shit," I said again. I didn't have time to deal with this now. I walked quickly through out of the alley, looked both ways to make sure no cars were coming and –
"Shit!"
A black stretch limo was turning the corner, no doubt occupied by Eddie LaVane. I sprinted across the street and down the block to the Stop N Shop. The automatic doors parted and I ran inside. In the tiny fruit and vegetable section I found what I was looking for, a small bag of parsley, sixty-nine cents plus tax. I grabbed it and rushed to the register.
"Excuse me?" I said to the teenage girl behind the counter. She looked up at me from behind her copy of Cosmopolitan. She was chewing a large wad of gum with her mouth open. I looked down at my parsley expectantly and she slightly rolled her eyes and put the magazine down. She rang me up, all too slowly for my taste.
"Seventy-seven cents," she said, sounding bored.
I already had my wallet out and was handing her my Visa card.
"We don't accept plastic for any transactions under five dollars," she said.
Dammit. I rarely carried cash and at the moment I didn't have so much as a penny on my person. I didn't even have my checkbook on me.
"Dammit," I said out loud. "Okay, um… add these in." I scanned the racks of impulse buy items around the counter, grabbed six Milky Way bars and handed them to her. She scanned them, one at a time.
The total came to $5.23, and she swiped my credit card. I waited impatiently for it to go through. I looked at my watch. This was taking way too long.
"You know your pants are wet?" the girl said. She smacked her gum loudly.
"Yes, I'm aware, thank you," I said.
"Smells like pee."
I glared at her, snatched the credit card slip from the machine, signed it with a squiggle that barely resembled any name at all, much less mine, and dropped it on the counter.
"Do you need a bag for –"
"No," I said, grabbing my parsley, and ignoring the pile of candy bars.
"Hey, what about your – "
"Keep 'em!" I called back at her.
I ran at full speed across the street and down back to the restaurant. Surely, Mr. Z could have stalled this long, I told myself. Everything would be fine. I ran through the alley, barely missing the puddle this time. I fumbled with my keys, unlocked the back door and rushed in.
"Z! Mr. Z! I got it, I got the – " I looked around. Mr. Z didn't appear to be in the kitchen. There was only Philip, one of the bus boys.
"Philip! Philip, where's Mr. Z?" Philip looked confused.
"He's out there serving that food critic guy. He showed up just after you left."
"Serving him? But… he was supposed to… oh, no." I pushed through the kitchen's double doors and scanned the restaurant for Mr. Z and Eddie LaVane. I spotted them and nearly fell over.
Mr. Z had already served LaVane what looked like a Risotto Primavera Insta-Meal, still in its original black plastic container, with a huge piece of broccoli sticking up out of the whole thing.
And it was on fire.
My voice caught in my throat and without thinking I ran across to the table, where Mr. Z was setting the flaming meal in front of a wide-eyed Eddie LaVane.
"What are you doing?!" I screamed.
Mr. Z looked at me with triumph on his face. "You wanted garneesh!" he said. "I gave you garneesh! Bon appetit, Meester LaVane. Haha!" The entire restaurant had gone quiet and everyone was staring at our little group: Me, hyperventilating, with my pee-soaked pant leg. Mr. Z, laughing heartily. And Eddie LaVane, the city's top food critic, whose face had gone as crimson as our tablecloths.
Monday, February 02, 2004
"Are you the magic deliveryman, who only takes
buttons?"
For a second I stared at her in amazement. She was
slight and ragged, in that Gaiman-fan-punk-chick
sort of way. Those usually tip pretty well, since
most of them have been waitresses themselves, if they
aren't still. I didn't know what she wanted with
seven extra-large pineapple and anchovy pizzas, but I
wasn't here to ask questions. I was here to drop off
the pizza, take the money, take the tip, and drive
away. Besides, it wasn't as if I hadn't had strange
orders before.
"Are you the magic deliveryman, who only takes
buttons?" she asked me again, in a wide-eyed way with
her hands in her pockets.What the hell, I thought,
it's been a long night and she's sort of hot.
"Yes. Yes I am," I replied.
She seemed pleased, though her brow furrowed
slightly."The thing is," she said, "I'm not sure if I
have enough."
This again. Third time tonight. First it was those
blubber-fed frat boys (aren't frat boys supposed to
be lean and well-groomed, or have I been reading the
wrong clothing catalogues?) taking ten stinking
minutes to dig the last two bucks out of the couch
cushions. When that was finished, it was cool for an
hour or so -- nice neighborhoods, drunk guys showing
their girlfriends how thick their wallets are -- and
then this old grandma type who looks like she could
barely spell pizza, much less chew it, invites me in
while she spends eternity mumbling and looking tearful
and rummaging in her handbag before finally fessing
up that she didn't have the money for a pizza, had
meant to make an appointment at the hairdresser's
instead, but had dialed the wrong number, and she
didn't want to disappoint that nice young man at the
pther end, and couldn't I just leave it here now that
I'd gone through all this trouble... a real scam
artist, I tell you. It took til I was back in my car
and halfway across town before I realized that I'd
been suckered and would have to give up my own
hard-earned cabbage to make up the difference. So
the night was turning into pretty much of a loss. I
was gonna stand my ground on this one, though. The
anchovy smell was pretty staggering even out here in
the open air -- there's no way I'm putting these
things back in my car tonight, I thought to myself,
while I waited for her to come back with the cash.
A few minutes later, she worked her way back to the
front door with a large cloth bag. She appeared to
be digging around in it, and while I couldn't quite
tell what goodies she'd found so far, it sure didn't
look like there was any money in her hands. Oh
Jesus, I thought, she is actually going to try and
pay me in buttons. I'm going to cry.
This was not my lucky evening.
She set the bag on a small, round table next to the
door and continued to root through it. "Oh, there is
it," she said, pulling out what looked like a small
compass. She put it in her pocket, then went back to
the bag. "One, and two, and three. four, five, six,"
she counted to herself. A moment later she pulled her
hand out of the bag and extended her arm.
"Is this enough?" she asked, chewing her lip.
I looked at the contents of her open palm: twelve
buttons in various sizes and colors, one as large as
a quarter.
"Uh. I don't think so," I said. What the hell was I
supposed to say? Hot or not, this girl was an total
nut.
"Oh," she said, visibly disappointed. She put her
arm down and furrowed her brow, as if thinking.
"Well. what if I threw in this one?" She looked down
and my eyes followed hers. I was surprised to see her
fingering the top button of her black shirt. She was
still chewing her bottom lip, watching me, waiting
for me to respond. Was she getting at what I thought
she was getting at?
"Are you serious?" I asked. Maybe tonight would be
my lucky night.
She rolled the buttons around in her clenched fist,
still toying with her shirt's collar. I took a step
forward. What was I supposed to do? I'd seen this
situation unfold in a thousand bad pornos, but in the
eight months I'd had this job, this had never
happened to me. I set the reeking stack of pizzas
down, and walked all the way inside. She eyed me
rather warily, and I wondered if I had completely
misread the situation.
Then she yanked off the button with one sharp tug,
carefully unthreaded it with her teeth, and added it
to the collection in her hand.
Apparently, I had indeed misread the situation
"So is it enough?" she asked anxiously, extending
her upturned palm. "One of these is real
mother-of-pearl, and these two are brass."
I cursed under my breath, my face turning red. A
look of panic flashed over her face, and she ripped
off a second button, hastily adding it to the others.
The soft curve of her breasts was revealed, now, but
she didn't seem to notice. Her hand leapt to the
third button, fingers pulling at it nervously,
questioningly. "How many do you need?" she wailed.
A strange noise, the scraping of metal on metal, came
from somewhere inside her dimly-lit home. Her eyes
widened in alarm. "Just tell me how many you need.
Please. Now."
I didn't know how many buttons I needed. I was not
ready for her to start yelling at me. What was I
supposed to do? I snapped at her, "What's the
matter?!"
"I just have to get the pizzas," she said, still
panicked. The scraping noise was growing louder, so
was she. "How many buttons do you need?"
"I don't know!" I shouted.
"Well just tell me and get out!" She was ripping off
the third button, helping me not at all to focus. I
was so off-balanced I nearly fell over when she
opened her mouth again. "If Simpson comes in and
you're still here it's going to eat you instead of
the pizza! You Have To Get Out!"
I tried to talk. "Wait, what, but, um..." and the
door behind her started to open. The scraping was
slow, and steady, and so loud it filled the room.
"It's too late!" She said, "Just come on!" Over her
shoulder I saw something like the end of a very long
spike, black and shiny. She shoved the buttons into
the purse and thrust it at me, and stuck her hand into
her pocket and mumbled something and opened the front
door and shoved me through and it all happened so
fast I didn't notice that I wasn't standing on the
sidewalk of Maple St. next to my idling car until she
came flying out the door behind me and shut it behind
her, and it disappeared.
It took a minute for the reality of the situation to
sink in. At first I thought it must be a trick of the
light, that the air looked lavender because it was
just past sunset, but then I came to my senses. It was
10:14 according to my black plastic "sports fashions
playmatch" watch from the Korean swapmeet. The sun
had been down for a good three hours.
I began to look more closely at my surroundings. It
wasn't just the air that seemed lavender, it was
ewverything. The ground beneath my feet, the Gaiman
fangirl, even my own arm. Stranger still, was the
fact that upon closer examination, there didn't
appear to actually be any ground beneath my feet. I
was standing on something solid, to be sure, and yet,
there wasn't anything there but lavender space. Then
I realized the spaces was finite. I could see a a
curved wall eaxtending all around us, and though I
couldn't see what was on the other side of it, light
was filtering in through it. We were apparently
enclosed in some sort of fleshy globe. I had the
unpleasant notion that some little kids had blown a
bubble with his chewing gum and somehow I'd managed
to get trapped inside. All of these thoughts raced
through me in no more than ten seconds before I
shouted, "Where the hell are we?"
"There's no need to yell," said the fangirl. She
seemed calmer now and was more interested in finding
a way to keep her shirt closed than in paying
attention to me.
I was tired and confused and more than a little out
of sorts about the way this evening was going, but
there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it,
so I just huffed and sat down. The girl turned away,
absorbed in her clothing predicament and acting as
though being stuck in a purple vacuum was perfectly
normal. I tapped my right foot against the side of the
wall. It didn't exactly bounce, but there was
definite elasticity there. It didn't seem likely to
break either. I crossed my arms and frowned. A moment
later I stood up and began to pace three steps in
either direction. I was on my fifth pass when the
girl spoke.
"Kindly stop fidgeting," she said.
"Why should I?" I asked, allowing belligerence to
take over in favor of fear.
"You'll upset the grimple," she said. "Now stop
asking questions."
"What? Questions? Why?"
The girl gave me a long disapproving look, the sort
that would have "Now, now" attached to it if she were
a grandmother instead of a punk.
"It was asking questions that got me into this. And
you too. Grimples are funny that way. They feed on
innocence, human flesh, and interrogative sentences,
although I've found that pineapple-anchovy pizza makes
a good substitute."
"Did you-"
There was a hungry rumble all around me. The girl
winced, and I clapped a hand over my mouth. Of course,
this was the hand that all the buttons were in, and
they spilled, all over the pink squashy substance.
Automatically I bent to pick them up, and then I
noticed something.
Where the buttons touched the grimple - its stomach?
Its colon? its projected thought-goo? I didn't know
and I wasn't going to ask - buttonholes were appearing
around them. Hardly believing my luck, I pulled at
the button, slipped it through the buttonhole. The
pink substance parted just like a shirtfront, and
underneath I felt grass, I felt night, I felt
ten-o-clock. Quickly I unbuttoned the other buttons,
and had soon made a gap wide enough for a person - two
people, if one of them was a skinny fangirl - to
squeeze through. And we did.
The girl's eyes were wide with wonder. Well, okay
they were already pretty wide, but give me a little
sympathy here. "That's amazing!" she breathed.
I grinned proudly. Finally, something had gone right
tonight. "Just call me the magic deliveryman who only
takes buttons.
"The left side's still a bit too high," said Dan.
"I've got half a mind to just give up now."
"Half a mind's all you've got, love," Lily said and
pecked him on the cheek.
"Besides, you promised me a spice rack. Deliver, or
it's your ass." She pointed an X-acto knife at him and
grinned.
Dan smiled and picked up the leveler. He had never
seen Lily use so much as a pinch of paprika in the
entire time he'd known her, but the promise of exotic
and tasty dishes with names he couldn't pronounce
filled her brand new cookbooks.
Lily crossed the kitchen and Dan watched her out of
the corner of his eye as she set to the task of lining
the kitchen drawers with lilac-patterned paper. It
delighted him to see her in this new, domestic light.
She bustled away, smoothing out tiny bubbles in the
adhesive paper. As she worked, she hummed softly to
herself, contentedly. She had a wonderful new husband,
a beautiful new home, and the whole of her life ahead
of her. It was just the way she had dreamed it would
be. And soon... soon she would murder Dan.
She had to. There was no way around it. All her life
she had known that she would find a rich man to marry,
and all her life she knew that he would have to die a
few months later. It was a simple plan, too: She and
Dan enjoyed sky diving, hang gliding, rock climbing,
all sorts of dangerous hobbies.
They certainly did live lives full of adventure and
amusement. He had been happy to show her just how to
survive when you're skiing on a nearly vertical
incline, when you're plunging off a forty foot drop
into mid-air and a field of rocky snow. He trusted her
so completely, and it was a simple matter to
accidentally drop one the rope as he was about to
achieve the peak of some glorious climb. She planned
never to settle down, never to live a quiet life, and
all he wanted was a quiet life and a good family. He
would have been a perfect husband for millions of
women, but for Lily he was only to be a perfect
husband for another month, at the most.
Lily looked up from sorting heirloom silver into one
of the drawers. "Dan, I love you," she said, and they
retreated into the bedroom.
Lily looked at sex with Dan as a routine duty. She had
pretended to be really into it at first, moaning and
moving under him, but as time went on, she stopped
trying. She just spent the time thinking about what
she would do when she'd gotten rid of him. Dan never
seemed to notice one way or another. He spent twenty
minutes kissing her and and alternating grunts with I
love yous until he finished, which he always did with
his eyes closed and the most ridiculous expression on
his face. Sometimes Lily fatasized about taking a
series of pictures of him with that expression. She
wasn't exactly sure how she could do it without him
noticing she'd brought a camera into bed, though. On
this particular day she glanced around the homey
bedroom in gisugst and thought she might just suggest
it.
Dan had insisted on the Amish quilts and the handmade
wooden furniture. The room looked like it belonged in
someone's country cabin, not in a sleek mansion. The
man was hopeles. Lily knew that she would die of
boredom if she actually had to spend her whole life
with this man, even if he did know everything there
was to know about extreme sports. The thing was he
approached them just like he approached everything
else, as a boring academic subject. Lily prided
herself on offering him the gift of spontanaiety in
these last months of his life. It was about time she
tried it again.
"Danny," she said. She only called him that when she
was trying to be overly sweet and wanted something. It
*always* worked.
"What is it, Lily?" he asked. He was all care and
concern.
"Go get the digital camera," she ordered.
"Mmm?" he said. "That's in the cabinet with the
film?"
"It's in the drawer with the receipts," she answered
impatiently, but he was already out the door, and
before she even had time to assume a sultry
expression, he was back with the camera, happy as only
a newlywed husband with a cool gadget can be. He
turned it on, contemplated it lovingly, pressed some
buttons, looked through the viewfinder at his wife on
his bed.
"You know what we should do, Lily?" he said
thoughtfully. "We should try taking pictures, the
next time we do it."
Caught off balance, Lily only said "Ummm-"
"It might," he announced as one who has been pondering
the subject, "inject some spice into our sex life."
"Well, well," Lily thought to herself. "Perhaps I'm rubbing off on him."
"Oh, honey!" she said, her eyes wide. "Do you really think so? I mean...
isn't it kind of... dirty?"
"Well," he blushed. "Maybe a little. But don't you think it might be fun?"
"Oh, you know I'd do anything for you, sweetness."
She smiled and slipped the X-Acto knife into her pocket as he bounded into
the bedroom with the camera. He had already stripped down to his socks by
the time she got there. And the socks would stay on, as always, through
the whole repugnant act. It would have to be soon. She couldn't take
much more of this.
As she approached, Dan sensed the knife in her pocket, and let out
a grumble which grew into a mighty roar. Though the earth's yellow
sun seemed to concentrate his powers, his abilities had severely
taxed ever since he had first taken up with this confounded woman.
He had been prepared for the constant effort of concealing from her
his true form; of course no human could be expected to marry a seven
foot tall tripedal lizard-thing. But the ingenuity and persistence
of her efforts to take his life! She had kept trying to kill him
far longer than any woman of his native T'groff'k'zl would have done,
and while at first he had been charmed by her youthful exuberance,
he was starting to resent the trouble of having to constantly
rearrange her mind to make every little plan slip up. He'd half a
mind to abandon the whole project. But no, if he went home now,
without having prepared this world for the Feeding, the rest of his
tribe would never forgive him. He sighed, teleported Lily's knife
back into the kitchen, checked that his footguards were secure, and
prepared for another night of bizarre, uninspiring humanoid sex.
In the heat of the night, the moon's light pressed against his shoulders as he walked, deserted.....his girl of the evening had left him, citing a drunken friend in need as she scurried up the gravelly trail. Their concourse had been awkward and punfunctory, mostly trying to find a good angle in the lumpy dirt, away from damp leaves and earthworms. At the crucial moment, she had called him Susan and bit him on the shoulder, hard. The tender spot above his collarbone throbbed unpleasantly as he walked, illuminated by the slow-motion strobelights of moonlight between trees. It was uncomfortably warm, and the girl's spit seemed to cling to him and chafe uncomfortably. He longed for a shower and a change of clothes. But such a thing was not to be had for miles. All he had was his grandparent's RV, borrowed for the summer and parked in a balding state forest.
He usually didn't mind being alone -- sought it out by preference, in fact -- but tonight it irritated him. It wasn't just that he had been walked away from first, was it? He certainly hadn't been planning to take her with him down to the town and sit in the local bar....he scratched again at the bite, annoyed. He was pretty certain she had raked her nails -- which had looked grimy even before their grappling in the dirt -- down his back too, and felt a slight stinging there as well. His shirt seemed to be sticking to that place, and he plucked it away impatiently, halting with a gasp as i ripped away with a sharp pain. "....the *hell?*" he said, popping a button off his shirt in his haste to find some relief from his own flushed blood and to see if that bitch -- and he usually never used that word, either -- had actually broken the skin. What had she done? He held his neck awkwardly to the side, trying several different angles, impatient to see.
There was just the slightest hint of mottled skin -- but it was bad light. He scowled, disappointed. These things always feel worse than they look. "Kneel down, Susan!" the memory of the voice rang in his ear. He brushed the dirt from his knees and resisted the urge to play with his collarbone anymore. "You've got something for me, don't you?" she had demanded, not quite playfully. "Maybe," he had sneered. "Shut up, Susan. Your slip is showing." She had tugged at his briefs until they had caught in his groin and made him wince. He'd wished he could say something witty, something revealing. But he couldn't quite get the thread of her game. At first he thought he was supposed to play the blushing schoolgirl, but she got more and more annoyed with him, the more he forced his giggles and flipped his hands at his balding forehead. Finally she had strongarmed him backwards, holding him down by his chest in the prickly scrubgrass. "You can't pull this bullshit on me," she'd spat. "I know more than you think"
"You don't know anything!" he had replied, a bit shocked but willing to see just how far she would go with this. He seemed to have gotten it right that time, because that was when she started threatening torture to make him tell her what he knew, and her version of torture started with pulling his pants down and exploring with an open mouth. And now he couldn't remember whether she'd bitten him as part of the torture or just for fun, or maybe he'd never known, and he had no idea what the scratch was for, but they were both stinging something awful, and he wondered if he was going to get some sort of weird backwoodsfolk disease for backwoodsland, and he decided to go back up to the RV to check himself out, and maybe change his clothes, before he hiked down to the bar.
The shower was lukewarm, intersperced with occasional blasts of icy cold water that smelled sour. The soap wouldn't lather, so he settled from for rubbing himself briskly with a rough cloth until his skin was pink and raw. He stepped out of the small show cubicle and looked in the mirror, craning his neck to examine his injuries. For thr most part, they were long purple welts, but blood had congealed in a few spots like a crust of rubies. He reached a hand around and traced a finger along the raised welt. The resulting sensation was both painful and intensely arousing. He touched it again, poked until he was lightheaded from the combination of pleasure and agony. He donned clothes haphazardly and stepped out of the trailer.
"You little cunt." The words came softly in the darkness, and in an instant she was on him. She raked her nails down his back again, ripping off the scabs so the blood flowed freely and soaked his shirt. He hissed through his teeth at this, and she bit his lower lip. "I brought some panties for you, Susan," she drawled. "They're real pretty. All lacy. And you're going to wear them tonight, just for me."
Stunned into silence by the feel of her fingers, he could only groan and nod as the blood began to seep from a dozen new wounds.
I lifted up the edge of the plastic and held my breath. I could feel the cold, damp air seeping out from under it. I lifted the black plastic covering a little higher, till I could start to see the corner of the car. Just then, the largest, nastiest centipede I'd ever seen wriggled its way across my hand, and I dropped everything again.
I stepped back and reconsidered. It had been a good thirty years since Jim had thrown the tarp over his old broken down Cadillac and left it for dead, out by the barn where we hardly went anymore. I didn't expect it to be in great condition. Hell, I was surprised it hadn't collapsed from the rust by now. But the air that had seeped out from under that tarp smelled like something rotting. I shuddered, pulled on my gloves, and prepared to get back to work.
Like a band-aid, I thought. Quick and painless. I gripped the edge of the tarp and gave it a good yank. I winced as cold, foul-smelling water splashed onto me from the tiny little puddles that had gathered in the wrinkles and valleys of the plastic. I pulled again, destroying a dozen more of the foul little ecosystems. I dropped the tarp and stared at the hulk of a car.
It was once a proud red beauty, but the paint had begun to chip and fade even before Jim had put it out to pasture. All four tires were flat and bits of upholstery stuck out between the cracks in the black leather seats. I tried to imagine the car as it had looked brand new and wondered whether it would even be possible to restore it. I pictured myself driving the classic, cherry-red Caddy, chrome sparkling, the exterior washed and waxed, the hood so shiny you could check your hair in the reflection. And a pair of fuzzy, black dice swinging from the rearview mirror. Of course.
I sighed and walked around to the back of the car. Dreams of restoring the beast would have to wait, as I had more important things to do. I slipped the key into the lock, took a deep breath and opened the trunk.
The lid of the trunk opened smoothly, which surprised me. Peering into the dark depths of the trunk, however, I was surprised further.It was gone. I gripped the lip of the trunk, my knuckles turning white. Who could have been here? Who knew? Moreover, how had anyone managed to open the trunk? I was holding the only key in my hand. I swung down the lid, inspecting the lock for signs of forced entry. There were none. I shook my head in disbelief. Jim had been dead of a heart attack these past thirty years. It had hit him right after we'd pulled the job. I hadn't known that at the time, of course. I hadn't known that until this past week, when I'd finally come back from Tangier. I'd been drifting out there all this time, waiting for things to cool off, waiting for the statute of limitations to expire. Who knew what had happened after all this time?
Someone must have found out, must have gotten here before me. I'd gotten the key from Jim's ex-wife, but someone could have stolen it from her, replaced it to prevent suspicion. Hell, knowing Jim's taste in women, she could have gotten into the trunk herself. I opened the trunk again, peering inside. Suddenly, a slip of yellowed paper caught my eye.It was a note.
I glanced around me; the sun was beginning to set, and the clouds were coming back. I picked up the note. The envelope was cream-coloured, and thin, and had my name on the front. Inside was a pink piece of paper, perfumed. I removed it from the envelope, and unfolded it.
Dear Kenton,
I have been waiting for you for a very long time. I
was unable to follow when you left the country, but I
have not forgotten, and I know that not even you
could forget. And you have paid with your gold, and
you will pay with your life.
love,
Carlene.
I blinked after reading it, remembering very clearly what she was talking about. In my mind it was only a simple mistake, the same as any man might make. The note had a postscript: Turn around.
"Oh, Carly," I sighed. "It doesn't have to be like this." I heard the click of a gun being cocked behind me.
"Turn around, you bastard." Her voice sounded deeper after so many years, but it was unmistakeable. I couldn't get a handle on all the emotions spinning inside me at that moment. This was the only woman I'd ever loved, who'd made my life resemble Heaven and Hell in turn. I knew if I turned to face her, it would be my undoing.
"Why don't you just shoot me now, and get it over with?" I asked. My throat was dry and tight, and I knew the words didn't sound as cool as I meant them to.
"I have a reason," she said, "and I'm not going to tell it to you. You always were a clever man, Kenton- narrow, but so clever. See if you can figure it out as we go along. Turn around."
My mind obediently began racing, though I held my ground. She needs to find something. She needs something I know. That doesn't make sense; she could have got it all from Jim. She needs- wait, this is Carlene I'm talking about here. God, I never could figure this woman out, and long absence had only made her worse. She's angry. There's something else. That nasty little sadistic streak she had shown near the end, to poor Mark?
"You didn't get my letter?" I asked, playing for time.
"I got it. All three lines. And a half. Counting the date." Her voice was sounding cooler than mine. Deeper, too. "Turn around."
"If you want the combination to the locks, I've got them, if that's what you're wondering." Another stab, looking at the empty trunk.
"You're still cold, stone cold, Kenton, and if you don't want to add 'dead' to that description, you'll turn around."
There was nothing else for it. I had come to my wits' end, as I always did around her, so quickly. There was nothing for it. I turned around.
It wasn't her. I gaped. Unbelievably, it wasn't her. I couldn't understand it. The voice was the same. And she knew. She knew everything. She had been waiting for me all this time, or she had caught onto my trail somehow and tracked me down. Thirty years is a long time -- God, if I don't know the truth of that, no one does -- and I'd watched as my hair condensed around my ears, my face sagged, my muscles shriveled up, but none of that could account for the change in the woman standing before me. It simply wasn't the same one. The shape of her shoulders, the width of her eyes, the sharpness of her knees -- these are things surgery can't change. And yet... she had something of Carlene in her. The voice, like I said, was exactly the same. And the mouth was like hers, and the neck, and the chin. She was... well, it's insulting to use words like "well-preserved" with women, but she must have been a real looker when she was young, because she wasn't half bad even now. Or maybe it was just the gun.
She took a step towards me, her body weaving smoothly but the gun staying perfectly level. I stayed perfectly still as she reached out a hand. Carlene had always had ragged shards of fingernails, the result of vicious nibbling. These fingernails were smooth, even, and they all tapered to a fine point. Hands pressed around my throat and pricked delicately against my arteries. I began to get lightheaded, and from the woman's pleased expression, she knew perfectly well that I found this arousing. She began to rub against me, moving her hips in a slow abstract dance. The pressure lightened slightly. "Carlene..." I breathed.
Her face hardened and the fingernails dug aruptly into my skin.
"You think you can play me like you did, her?" she asked. I felt the sting of her palm slapping across my face. "It doesn't work like that. Not anymore. You are going to give me what I want, and then I am going to kill you. Understood?"
"I never meant to hurt you," I said. I could tell she wasn't buying it. It was the truth though, I really hadn't meant to hurt her.
"I suppose you expect me to believe that you left the country in an attempt not to hurt me?" Her eyes glinted with something fierce, dangerous. I swallowed, or at least tried to. My mouth was as dry as if I had just awakened from a night of hard drinking. I knew I had to tread carefully. Very carefully.
"I was trying to protect you," I said. I heard the words leave my lips. I realized that, though it may have been part of the truth, it wasn't what I was meant to say. It was the same thing that everyone says, and it is not a strong argument.
"Bullshit," she said. She did nothing. I thought she was going to shoot me. But there was something she wanted, first. "Try again."
This time I did a bit better, I thought. "I wanted you to come with me. I had to make the arrangements in such a rush, on the run really, and if I'd caught up with you I would have swept you in my arms and taken you along but as it was I just couldn't get a message." I stopped at a look in her eyes. "But you figured out what happened," I added hopefully.
She took a step back and lifted the gun to eye level. "And?"
"And I wish it could have happened differently."
"And?"
"And..." I glanced down at my feet, then back up to her, and the cold steel, and I must have been starting to cry. "Carly, I'm sorry."
And she was satisfied.
We tried todo this through e-mail, an experiment which failed miserably. Well, you learn from mistakes right? Theoretically at least.
The Circus
The circus was coming back to town, and that could
only mean trouble. Marianne didn't even have time to dwell on what had happened last time, between the strange mix of acrobats, lion tamers, vagabonds and ragtags, and what they had done to her beloved home. She simply walked as fast as she could to the house
of the friend Heddy, a few minutes away, to warn her, and come up with a plan. She had no idea how effective a couple old women could be, but she knew that this was her home, and the circus was nothing like she remembered it being when she was growing up.
The walk to Heddy's wasn't far, but by the time Marianne got there she had worked herself up into such a state that she pounded on the door with both fists and stormed in before Heddy came to open it. "Heddy, we have to arm ourselves," she said. "We need
axes!" Heddy coughed and hemmed for a second, but no real words came out. "Well, Heddy," Marianne set, stamping her foot on the entrance hall floor, "what are you waiting for? We have to act now! Can't let those circus freaks take advantage of hapless old
women, now can we?"
Heddy looked really ill by this point. Marianne naturally assumed that she was remembering some circus horros of her own. "There there," Marianne said, waving her wooden cane in the best, most reassuring manner she could muster. "We'll put a stop to it this time, Heddy. I won't let 'em cause you harm. But you have to help me. We need to get some protection, and I'm counting on you to drive since my eyesight's not what it used to be." Marianne took another tottering step into the house and put her hand on Heddy's shoulder. "It'll be all right. We've just got to take action."
Heddy cleared her throat and spoke at last. "Marianne, I don't think this is the time..."
"Well whyever not?" Marianne asked. Before the sentence was out, a younger man appeared behind Heddy. He wasn't bad looking either, Marianne thought. Even blurry, she could see that he was a prime specimen. So this was how things were. She'd have Heddy's hide later for not telling her about her new interest (hadn't they ALWAYS shared all the details of their love lives with each other?), but now wasn't the time. "I see that you are entertaining a male friend," said Marianne primly. "I wouldn't dream of interrupting of course. Just call me when your guest has gone home, Heddy dear."
Marianne turned to leave, but heddy stopped her. "Marianne, darling," she said in a strained tone, "I'd like you to meet my son, Richard." She paused for a second before adding, "He is the Director of the circus."
"Oh," said Marianne, and "Oh," again. "Richard.Marianne Sturgid. I'm pleased to meet you."
"The pleasure is mine, I assure you," replied the circus director softly. Weren't circus directors supposed to have big barking voices, like that man in her yard the last time? She could hardly hear this young person. She leaned closer. "Ah. Yes. Um. How - how *long* have you worked for the circus, Richard?"
"Not long at all," he replied, smiling. "In fact- well, I suppose you ought to be the one to tell her, Mother..."
Heddy summoned up an uncertain smile. "Oh, it's so exciting, I hardly know where to begin! You see, Marianne. The circus..."
Marianne's lips tightened. She didn't like the sound of what was coming.
"Part of the circus has decided to settle in town. As a sort of... home base, I guess you should say. And we've all been offered jobs. You too! The envelopes went out yesterday. And because my Richard got himself the director's job -- it's really something very new, you know. Never been tried before. A whole town turned into a circus! And you've always been my dearest friend, you know, so I was able to convince him to get you one of the best jobs left, after... you get your own cage, with running water and electricity, and cable television, of course, and you're far away from the elephants and those noisy teenagers on their dirtbikes, and you'll only have to be on duty six hours out of every --"
Richard cut her off with a gentle smile. "Well, it's a lifetime contract, and the pay is up to ninety thousand dollars a year, plus a bit more on commission if you do real nice work for us. What do you think?" Marianne may have been thrown off guard, but she was not such a one as to let such a matter settle in such an intolerable manner. She opened up her mouth, wits held tight in one hand with her wooden cane, and said, "My dear Richard, I can call you Richard right, since you're practically my nephew...?" She paused, but not to wait for an answer. She was actually starting to get confused. Just when did Heddy have another son, and would not she, Marianne, her best friend for life, remember such a thing? "Richard, when, exactly, did you get this job for the circus?" she asked.
"Two weeks ago today!" He said proudly. "Before that, I'd been just a pencil pusher, a drudge, wasting my life away in some stupid office in Haverford. But now -- the circus! Can't you just smell the sawdust?" He chucked her playfully under the chin. She jumped back, and almost fellinto Heddy's antique porcelain tea service.
"Young man!" she squeaked, outraged. "I don't know what's gotten into you people today. With your suits and your slick talk and your ninety thousand dollars a year... what did you say it was all about? My... my own cage? My own CAGE?" She stumbled back in terror.
Heddy put her hand out, but couldn't reach her. "Marianne, calm down. You shouldn't get so excited."
"It's an incredible opportunity," Richard said. "You'll be able to entertain thousands of peopl and bring joy into their hearts."
"By watching tv in a cage? I don't think so, sonny."
Richard laid a hand on her arm, "Come now, don't be so negative. Mother wants you to be happy and do this with her."
"I won't," said Marianne. "I won't do it, and I will do my best to make sure everyone else doesn't either."
Richards hand tightened on her arm. "I'm afraid you don't have a choice," he said.
"Oh no you don't," Marianne said. She swung her cane out in a low sweep that knocked Richard to the floor. "C'mon, Heddy," she said, tugging at her friend's arm. "I knew I didn't take those martial arts classes for nothing."
What happened next seemed to defy the rules of gravity. Marianne used her cane to vault herself and Heddy through the door, while managing to score a nice hard kick to Richard's head in the middle of her acrobatics. Neither of the women looked back, so they didn't see the way that his head caved in and leaked a greenish blue substance all over the entrance hall tiles.
Once they were out of the house, Heddy seemed confused. "Where are we going? Marianne, when did you get here?" she asked.
"Do you have a son named Richard?" Marianne asked.
Heddy rubbed at her eyes and blinked in the sunlight. "Marianne, you know I don't have any other son than Sam."
"Uh huh, I knew it." Marianne used her cane again to vault the two of them into Heddy's convertible.
"Where did you learn to do that?" Heddy asked. She seemed more bewildered by the second.
"Martial arts class, I already told you. Now fasten your seatbelt and drive."
"You took martial arts? When? Why?" Marianne waved her hand at the ignition and waited until Heddy started the car to answer.
"Three years ago. I thought it was a marital arts class, and that I might find a new husband. Then I figured I might as well stay instead of admitting my mistake. Good thing I did, too."
Heddy backed out of the driveway, peering left and right and tapping the breaks every couple of inches. "Marianne, where are we going?"
"City hall, I should think." Marianne sat back and let the wind blow through her hair. "We've got a tough job ahead of us, Heddy, but never let 'em say we aren't equal to the task."
"Okay, Marianne, if you say so. Martial arts, huh? Pretty fancy."
"Comes in handy," said Marianne.
"Yeah, I guess," said Heddy. "Say, have you ever thought about trying out for the circus with that?"
