by Laird Barron
The phone’s beam flickered, perhaps in response to her fear. She assumed the battery must be dying despite the fact she’d charged it prior to the evening’s events. It oozed crimson, spattering the stone steps as if she were swinging a censor of phosphorescent dye. She barged through the front door without a how-do-you-do. Warm, at least. In fact, humid as the breath of a panting dog. Her thoughts flashed to dear sweet Fido at the apartment. God, please don’t let J do anything to him. Oh yeah, and good luck to my housemate too.
She hesitated in the foyer beneath the dead chandelier and put her shoes on. Her sight adjusted enough to discern the contours of her environment. No one spoke, which seemed ominous. Most definitely ominous. A gaggle of drunks trapped in a sudden blackout could be expected to utter any number of exclamatory comments. Girls would shriek in mock terror and some bluff hero would surely announce he’d be checking the fuse box straight away. There’d be a bit of obligatory ass-grabbing, right? Where were all the cell phones and keychain penlights? A faucet dripped; heating ducts creaked in the walls. This was hardcore Bermuda Triangle-Mary Celeste shit.
Snagging a landline was the first order of business. Her heels clicked ominously as she moved around the grand staircase and deeper into the house to its spacious, partially sunken living room.
Everyone awaited her there. Wine glasses and champagne flutes partially raised in toast; heads thrown back, bared teeth glinting here and there; others half-turned, frozen mid-glance, mid-step, mid-gesticulation. Only mannikins could be frozen in such exaggerated positions of faux life. The acid reek of disgorged bowels and viscera filled Delia’s nostrils. She smelled blood soaked into dresses and blood dripping from cuffs and hosiery; she smelled blood as it pooled upon the carpet and coagulated in the vents.
Her dying cell phone chose that moment to give up the ghost entirely. She was thankful. Starlight permitted her the merest impressions of the presumed massacre, its contours and topography, nothing granular. Her nose and imagination supplied the rest. Which is to say, bile rose in her throat and her mind fogged over. Questions of why and how did not register. The nauseating intimacy of this abominable scene overwhelmed such trivial considerations.
A closet door opened like an eyeless socket near the baby grand piano. Atticus trotted forth. Delia recognized his general shape and the jingle of his vaccination tags and because for the love of everything holy, who else? The dog stopped near a throng of mutilated party-goers and lapped the carpet between shoes and sandals with increasing eagerness. A human silhouette emerged next and sat on the piano bench. The shape could’ve been almost anybody. The figure’s thin hand passed through a shaft of starlight and plinked a key several times.
B-flat? Delia retained a vague notion of chords—a high school crush showed her the rudiments as a maneuver to purloin her virtue. Yes, B flat, over and over. Heavily, then softly, softly, nigh invisibly, and heavily again, discordant, jarring, threatening.
I’m sorry you had to bear witness. These words weren’t uttered by the figure. They originated at a distance of light years, uncoiling within her consciousness. Her father’s voice. The human animal is driven by primal emotions and urges. How great is your fear, Delia? Does it fit inside a breadbox? Does it fit inside your clutch? This house?
The shape at the piano gestured with a magician’s casual flourish and the faint radiance of the stars flickered to a reddish hue. The red light intensified and seeped into the room.
The voice in her head again: Looking for Mr. Goodbar stuck with you. Diane Keaton’s fate frightened you as a girl and terrifies you as a woman. In J, you suspect you finally drew the short straw. The man with a knife in his pocket, a strangling cord, a snub-nose revolver, the ticket stub with your expiration date. The man to take you camping and return alone. And sweetie, the bastard resembles me, wouldn’t you say?
Ice tinkled in glasses—spinning and slopping. Glasses toppled and fell from nerveless fingers. Shadow-Atticus ceased slurping and made himself scarce behind a couch. He trailed inky pawprints. Timbers groaned; the heart of the living room was released from the laws of physics—it bent at bizarre, corkscrew angles, simultaneously existing on a plane above and below the rest of the interior. Puffs of dust erupted as cracks shot through plaster. The floor tilted and the guests were pulled together, packed cheek to jowl.
There followed a long, dreadful pause. Delia had sprawled to her hands and knees during the abrupt gravitational shift. Forces dragged against her, but she counterbalanced as one might to avoid plummeting off a cliff. She finally got a clean, soul-scarring gander at her erstwhile party companions.
Each had died instantaneously via some force that inflicted terrible bruises, suppurating wounds, and ruptures. The corpses were largely intact and rigidly positioned as a gallery of wax models. Strands of metal wire perforated flesh at various junctures, drew the bodies upright, and connected them into a mass. The individual strands gleamed and converged overhead as a thick spindle that ascended toward the dome of ceiling, and infinitely farther.
The shape at the piano struck a key and its note was reciprocated by an omnidirectional chime that began at the nosebleed apex of the scale and descended precipitously, boring into plaster, concrete, and bone. The house trembled. Delia pushed herself backward into a wall where normal gravity resumed. She huddled, tempted to make a break for it, and also too petrified to move.
There are two kinds of final girls. The kind who escape and the kind who die. You’re the second kind. I am very, very proud, kiddo. You’ll do big things.
Cracks split the roof, revealing a viscid abyss with a mouthful of half-swallowed nebulae. It chimed and howled, eternally famished. Bits of tile plummeted into the expanse, joining dead stars. Shoe tips scraped as the guests lifted en mass, lazily revolving like a bleeding mobile carved for an infant god. The mobile jerkily ascended, tugged into oblivion at the barbed terminus of a fisherman’s line.
Delia glanced down to behold a lone strand of the (god?) wire burrowing into her wrist, seeking a vein or a bone to anchor itself. She wrenched free and pitched backward against a wall.
The chiming receded, so too the red glow, and the void contentedly suckled its morsel. Meanwhile, the shadow pianist hunched into a fetal position and dissolved. Run along, her father said. Run along, dear. Don’t worry your pretty head about any of this.
Delia ran along.
~
Alaska winter didn’t kill her. Not that this was necessarily Alaska. The land turned gray and waterways froze. Snow swirled over empty streets and empty highways and buried inert vehicles. Powerlines collapsed and copses of black spruce and paper birch stood vigil as the sun paled every day until it became a white speck.
Delia travelled west, then south, snagging necessities from deserted homes and shops. Her appearance transformed—she wore layers of wool and flannel, high-dollar pro ski goggles, an all-weather parka, snow pants, and thick boots. Her tent, boxes of food, water, and medical supplies went loaded into a banana sled courtesy of a military surplus store. She acquired a light hunting rifle and taught herself to use it, in case worse came to worst. She didn’t have a plan other than to travel until she found her way back to a more familiar version of reality. Or to walk until she keeled over; whichever came first.
In the beginning, she hated it. That changed over the weeks and months as the suburban softness gave way to a metallic finish. Survival can transition into a lifestyle. She sheltered inside houses and slept on beds. She burned furniture for warmth. However, the bloodstains disquieted her as did eerie noises that wafted from basements and attics during the bleak A.M. hours. She eventually camped outdoors among the woodland creatures who shunned abandoned habitations of humankind as though city limits demarcated entry to an invisible zone of death. The animals had a point, no doubt.
Speaking of animals. Wild beasts haunted the land in decent numbers. Domestic creatures were extinct, seemingly departed to wherever their human masters currently dwelled. With the exception of the othe
r Atticus. The dog lurked on the periphery of her vision; a blur in the undergrowth, a rusty patch upon the snow. At night he dropped mangled ptarmigans and rabbits at the edge of her campfire light. He kept his distance, watching over her as she slept. The musk of his gore-crusted fur, the rawness of his breath, infiltrated her dreams.
In other dreams, her mother coalesced for a visit. Now it can be said. Your father murdered eight prostitutes before lung cancer cut him down. The police never suspected that sweet baby-faced sonofabitch. You were onto him, somehow. She woke with a start and the other Atticus’s eyes reflected firelight a few yards to her left in the gauze of darkness that enfolded the world.
“Thanks for the talk, Mom.”
Delia continued to walk and pull the sled. Sometimes on a road, or with some frequency, on a more direct route through woods and over water. She didn’t encounter any human survivors, nor any tracks or other sign. However, she occasionally glimpsed crystallized hands and feet jutting from a brush pile, or an indistinct form suspended in the translucent depths of a lake. She declined to investigate, lowered her head and marched onward.
One late afternoon, near spring, but not quite, J (dressed in black camo and Army-issue snowshoes) leaped from cover with a merry shriek and knocked her flat. He lay atop her and squeezed her throat inexorably, his eyes sleepy with satisfaction.
“If it were my decision, I’d make you a pet. You don’t belong here, sugar pie.” He well and truly applied his brutish strength. Brutish strength proved worthless. His expression changed as terror flooded in and his grip slackened. “Oh, my god. I didn’t know. They didn’t warn me…”
Her eyes teared and she regarded him as if through a pane of water. Her eyes teared because she was laughing so hard. “Too late, asshole. Years and years too late.” She brushed his hands aside. “I’m the second kind.”
He scrambled to his feet and ran across fresh powder toward the woods as fast as his snowshoes could carry him, which wasn’t very. She retrieved the rifle, chambered a round, and tracked him with the scope. A moving target proved more challenging than plinking at soda bottles and pie tins. Her first two shots missed by a mile.
Delia made camp; then she hiked over to J and dragged him back. He gazed at her adoringly, arms trailing in the snow. He smiled an impossibly broad, empty smile. That night, the fire crackled and sent small stars homeward. J grinned and grinned, his body limp as a mannikin caught in the snarled boughs of a tree where she’d strung him as an afterthought. The breeze kicked up into a chinook that tasted of green sap and thawing earth.
“Everything will be different tomorrow,” she said to the flames, the changing stars. Limbs creaked to and fro and J nodded, nodded; slavishly agreeable. His shadow and the shadow of the tree limbs spread grotesquely across the frozen ground.
The wind carried to her faint sounds of the dog gnawing and slurping at a blood-drenched snowbank. The wind whispered that Atticus would slake himself and then creep into the receding darkness, gone forever. Where she was headed, he couldn’t follow.
“So, while there’s time, let’s have a talk,” Delia said to Grinning J. “When we make it home, tell me where I can find more boys just like you.”
DR. 999
By Matthew M. Bartlett
Malumense Dr. 999’s NL-id Blends Micellar Moisturizing Milk (DISCONTINUED)
Bad hair can inhibit or even obstruct your spiritual growth. Industrial detergents, enervating dyes, chemicals with unpronounceable names. They weaken your powers, sap your energy, leave you dry and desolate. Isn’t it finally time to be rid of the lank, lifeless hair that’s been holding you back? Inspire your hair, and make clear your path, with the essential nutrients and life-giving cultures infused in Malumense Dr. 999’s NL-id Blends Micellar Moisturizing Milk. Malumense’s water-rich complexes gently nourish, cleanse, and purify to restore balance to every filament, every follicle. Formulated without harsh parahydroxybenzoates, free of their troubling estrogenic effects, this non-toxic, dye-free, all-natural, organic, environmentally safe moisturizing milk will enrich and enliven, reconstituting and rebuilding the very structure of your hair, resulting in impossibly soft and radiantly lustrous hair. Heal and calm your hair with Malumense Dr. 999’s NL-id Blends Micellar Moisturizing Milk. Your hair will thank you.
About the Product
Conditions, rejuvenates, and hydrates with Dr. 999’s Super Secret Formula
Manufactured with high-grade materials
Balances natural scalp moisture
Gentle enough for everyday use
With added Orisha Obatala and Abra Melin Annointing Oils
Not tested on animals
Product details
Size: 12.6 oz.
Product Dimensions: 3 x 2.4 x 6.1 inches ; 10.4 ounces
Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces
Domestic Shipping: Item can be shipped within U.S.
International Shipping: This item is not eligible for international shipping. Learn More
ASIN: B0108MRORI
UPC: 894382738 822142170089 885310346846 820909809803 6336871897230 633911651278 6333218104015980740415287 633911605264 885353857293 8835098087003885453
Item model number: 76505201
Product reviews
CarrieFurbush1966 (one star)
Bought this conditioner from a seller called "ConditionLife" located in Leeds, Massachusetts. Shipping to upstate New York was next-day. The item arrived without any protective packaging—I found the bottle on its side on my front step, with no mailing label nor postage that I could see. I examined the bottle and found a number of oddities. The ingredient list was smeared and illegible, except for “galega officinalis infusion” and sodium laureth sulfate, which actually dries hair out. There was no UPC code or registered trademark symbols. Bottles of conditioner usually have a website or a phone number. Not this bottle. There were numerous misspellings as well. “Botianical.” “Frargrance.” “Lusterous.” Opening the bottle was extremely difficult. .The cap’s hinge had an extraneous ridge of plastic that required careful work with a penknife to undo, and ultimately I had to disconnect the cap from the bottle entirely. The odors released when I peeled off the safety seal were earthy and unpleasant in a hard to define way, with an undertone of an astringent-like pungency that assailed my nostrils and actually made me a little dizzy.
Upon first using the product, I found it overly watery and bubbly. It stung my hands and scalp, not in the kind of pleasant, cold-feeling way that dandruff shampoo does, either. There was slight blistering on my palms afterward, and my scalp felt rubbed raw. I found that using colder water lessened that effect slightly. Trying to towel-dry my hair caused a terrible burning sensation, and the hair-dryer was even worse. I had to settle for combing my hair very gently and then letting it air-dry.
My hair looked AWFUL, all day. Co-workers commented on it. Clients were unusually reticent. I think this conditioner actually cost me sales! Moreover, my hair hurt. It hurt to touch. It hurt when the wind hit it. I began to think strange thoughts. I felt overheated and feverish. Shadows loomed high and wavering on the walls and at times the very desk at which I was sitting seemed miles away. When I reached out to grasp the edge of the desk, my arms elongated until they were thin white threads sailing off into a blurry distance. I left early, and took an Uber home right after work. The driver, in dark sunglasses and some kind of greenish jumpsuit, seemed to be staring at my hair in the rearview mirror, his lip curled in disgust. I went immediately inside and shaved my head. Then I ran it under ice-cold water until everything resumed some semblance of normalcy.
I poured the remainder of the conditioner down the shower drain, and ran the hot water on full blast in order to get it as far from the house as possible. After about thirty seconds, the water and conditioner began to bubble back up, filling the tub. As I was turning the knob, I heard a terrible squelching noise behind me, and I turned to see bubbly black water pouring from the toilet and the sink. I immediately contacted a plumber, who informed me
that the clog was not in the pipes inside my house, but in the sewer line for the whole street. His crew had to access the street’s sewer main through a basement pipe using an industrial toilet snake the size of a bazooka, and after seventeen hours of work, the man they’d sent informed me that the pipes were destroyed, corroded, and unsalvageable. They had crumbled like chalk, he said, his eyes wide, his hands shaking slightly. Their toilet snake, too, had been broken beyond repair during the process. I was informed the cost to replace it would be added to the charge.
No one on my short dead-end street can flush their toilets or run water in their showers or sinks. I’ve been contacted by the city and by local environmental agencies about contaminated groundwater and corrupted soil. They’re accusing me of deliberately sabotaging the sewer line. The letters are hostile and threaten monetary damages and even jail time. Jail time!
Needless to say, I do NOT recommend buying this product. I Googled the company, and got no results at all. After numerous unanswered emails, I telephoned this site’s administrators to find contact information, and kept being put on hold, only to have the connection drop. This happened more than forty-one times in a three-hour period. Now I’m getting phone calls that show No Caller ID, and when I pick up I hear high winds and in the background a woman weeping or faraway voices chanting.
As an alternative I recommend buying a high-priced conditioner at any local salon. I see no value in this product, only heartache, prodigious expense, and legal entanglements that will sap your time and money and keep you up nights in terror of the indifferently cruel and punitive machinations of city bureaucracy.
RapScallion_Green0110 (two stars)