Carrion

by Gary Brandner

  “But why should they want to hurt me?” Fain said.

  “Revenge,” said the woman.

  “For what? I only wanted to help them and those who loved them.”

  “That is not important. The souls of those people no longer inhabit the bodies. The things that now walk the earth — the things you brought back — are soulless, mindless creatures that know only that you are the one responsible for their agony. As their physical bodies continue to decay, they have only one mission — to destroy you.”

  The woman was silent for a moment. Fain was not sure how seriously to take all this. She might be completely wacko. But in his heart he knew better. This woman spoke the truth. Finally, he said, “Suppose I just took off? How could they find me?”

  “I found you,” she said. “You can run; you can keep running. You may stay ahead of them for a day or a month or a year. But you cannot run forever, and when you stop, they will find you. You are tied to them forever, and as long as they exist and you exist, you will not escape.”

  “Sounds pretty grim,” he said.

  “There is more,” said Darcia. “The danger is not only to you. Your friends will suffer, too.”

  “I have no friends,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  “Yes, you have. There are those who care for you, those who have helped you, wittingly or not. The living dead ones will strike at you through them if they must. It is up to you to warn them.”

  Fain leaned forward, bringing his face closer to the woman’s. “Who … are … you?” he said.

  “You know,” she said. “Look at my eyes.”

  He did. The woman’s eyes were the same shade of pale gray, silver-flecked, as his. Deep within those eyes he sensed a reflection of the same fire that smoldered in his own.

  “I am your mother,” she said.

  For a moment he could not speak. He knew instinctively that what the woman said was true. Finally, he managed, “And my father?”

  “He is the man you have always believed him to be.”

  “You and he …”

  “Yes.”

  “And my … my father’s wife — What about her?”

  “She was a very kind woman. Because of my illness I was unable to raise a child. She adopted you and brought you up as her own.”

  “Did she know about you and my father?”

  “She never spoke of it. None of us did. But she was a perceptive woman. I think in her heart she knew.”

  “And you stayed with us.”

  “I did. Until your father was widowed. Then it was time for me to go. I promised myself I would never interfere in your life. Not unless it was necessary. Now it is. I tried to see you when you were in the big house in the hills, but I was turned away.”

  “You told them you were my mother.”

  “Yes.”

  Fain closed his eyes and massaged them. “God, this is all happening so fast.” He looked at the woman again. “This … power — where does it come from?”

  “From my family, my blood. There is a Shawnee word for it, but it would mean nothing to you. We all have a little of it. Some of us can read thoughts; others foresee the future or find lost objects. But the power to make the dead walk is given blessedly to only a few. One male child in every other generation. My father had the power. His grandfather. Now you, my son. I pray that you will be the last.”

  “Darcia, what can I do?”

  “You must protect your friends. Through no fault of their own, they are menaced by your acts.”

  “I’ll do what I can. But isn’t there some way to end this horror?”

  “You must send them back. All those you called from beyond the shadows, you must return there.”

  “But how? How can I do that?”

  “I cannot tell you, my son. The man who gave you the terrible key to your power must show you how to reverse it. There is no other way.”

  The tall Indian woman rose from the chair. “I must go now.”

  He stood up and faced her. “When will I see you again?”

  “You will not. There is no time left for me.”

  “But — ”

  She reached out and gently placed two fingers on his lips, silencing him.

  “Good-bye, my son.”

  She turned from him and floated out the door, closing it soundlessly behind her. Fain stared after her but made no move to follow. He knew she would be gone.

  As he stood there, trying to assimilate the things Darcia had told him, he became slowly aware that it was growing dark in the room.

  They will come at night and they will come soon.

  Well, if his walking corpses were coming after him, he was sure as hell not going to make it easy for them. He shrugged into his jacket and left the room, heading for the lobby.

  The clerk sat behind his Plexiglas shield, reading the Herald sports page. A heavily made-up woman in a miniskirt and white vinyl boots was on the telephone, arguing with somebody. Fain waited impatiently for her to finish.

  Finally, he tapped her on the shoulder. “I have to make a very important call. Would you mind …?”

  “Fuck you,” she said, withering him with a look.

  He seethed impotently while she talked for another two minutes. Just as he was ready to bolt out and find another phone, she hung up and sashayed past him with a sneer.

  Fain dug out a fistful of silver and dropped coins into the machine. He dialed Jillian’s number, the black receiver slippery in his sweating palm.

  “Hi. This is Jillian Pappas. I’m sorry I can’t take your call personally right now …”

  “Shit!” The clerk did not bother to look up from his sports page at Fain’s expletive.

  Friends. Was there another friend besides Jillian? No one he had met during the past couple of months, for sure. And before that? It was scary to realize how few real friends he had ever had.

  He dug through his wallet, looking for another number, and found it scribbled on the back of some forgotten realtor’s business card. He fed more coins into the pay phone and dialed again.

  The receiver buzzed ten times in his ear. Fain ground his teeth and tried to will an answer on the other end.

  “So hello.” Ivy Hurlbut’s voice was tight with irritation, but Fain sagged with relief at hearing her.

  “Ivy, it’s Mac.”

  “Wow, the modern Messiah calling poor plain little me. I’m thrilled beyond words.”

  He ignored the sarcasm. “Listen, this is important. I’ve got to see you right away.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Stone sober.”

  “Then what the hell is the idea? You dropped me like a hot potato when you went big time with your Hollywood agency and six-figure-a-year writers. Now you call out of the blue and want to see me. Right away, no less. Well, I’m working, hotshot. I’ve got a deadline day after tomorrow, and I’ve got five thousand words to go on a ten-thousand-word story. I should have left the phone off the hook.”

  “Wait a minute, Ivy,” he shouted into the mouthpiece. “Don’t hang up. You can call me all the names you want to later. I deserve it. But I have to see you tonight.”

  “You don’t sound so good,” she said.

  “I’m not. Tell me the quickest way to get to your place and I’ll be right there.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Sunset and Western.”

  “You’re calling me from a massage parlor?”

  “I’ll explain later. Just give me your address.”

  “Come all the way out the Santa Monica Freeway, hang a left on Main. Drive a couple of miles, past the Auditorium, then hang another left on Violet. It’s a little-bitty street right where Santa Monica turns into Venice. I’m half a block up on the right. You can’t miss it, I’m the only house on the street.”

  “Stay put,” Fain said. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  “Mac?” All the anger was gone from her voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s going on?”
>
  “I’ll explain as best I can when I get there,” he said. “It would sound too crazy over the phone.”

  He hung up the receiver gently.

  • • •

  Ivy Hurlbut sat for a minute with the phone in her hand after Mac had broken the connection. She had been prepared to really chew him out, dumping her the way he did, then calling when she was trying like hell to squeeze words out of an idea that wasn’t working. But the tone of his voice had drained her indignation. Chilled her.

  She replaced the instrument and shivered. She was not close enough to the ocean to hear the surf, but the nightly mist curled in around her little house shortly after dusk. She crossed the living room to close the front window and went back to the desk she had set up in a corner of the bedroom.

  The frame cottage where Ivy lived was the last survivor on a street where similar little houses had lined both sides. A shopping center was going in there — as if the city needed another one — and her cottage was the last survivor. It was scheduled for bulldozing next month.

  She tried to concentrate on the sheet in her typewriter, but the words would not make sense. It was an article on the changing beach scene that she had sold to Los Angeles magazine on the basis of a two-page outline. Now the whole thing seemed trite and overdone to her. She reread the sheaf of finished pages, trying to pick up the flow of ideas.

  She raised her head at a soft sound at the front door.

  Ivy cocked her head and listened. Sometimes the wind created odd noises here. The doorbell had never worked during her residence, and visitors had to knock.

  It came again. Not exactly a knock, but more of a spongy thump. It was too soon for Mac to have made it all the way from Hollywood, but somebody was out there. She got up and went to look.

  There were no close neighbors to hear Ivy Hurlbut scream.

  Chapter 27

  The beach town of Venice was striving to hold on to its reputation for funkiness — a laid-back community where nobody got hassled and everybody did his own thing. It was a losing battle. With Santa Monica in the grip of rent-control laws, developers and builders focused their attention on Venice, just to the south. High-rise, high-priced apartments and condos were rapidly pushing out the beach cottages and boardwalk hustlers.

  Mac Fain drove past Violet Street the first time, missing the street sign in the lowering fog and under the old-fashioned incandescent streetlight. He found it on the way back and drove slowly up to the lone cottage.

  He parked out in front, and his flesh tightened as he saw the lights on and the front door standing open. Not a good omen. He got out and looked around carefully. Nothing stirred in the misty night. Moving cautiously, he walked up the path to the front door and looked in.

  Ivy Hurlbut, what was left of her, lay against the far wall. Her head was turned toward the door, giving Fain a look he would never forget. Her throat and the upper part of her body had been torn away. The tiny living room was awash with her blood.

  Fain backed away from the scene, fighting down an impulse to be sick. He stumbled back to his car, got in, slammed and locked the door.

  It could have been some doped-up crazies. They were not unknown in the new Venice. Or a robbery. Sure. And it could have been a band of maurading nuns. Quit kidding, Fain told himself. He knew who had destroyed Ivy Hurlbut. He had been warned. It was his people. The terrible walking-dead ones he had brought back. Unable to reach him, they had struck out at someone they saw as his friend. Ivy had written about him; she had been present when he revived Miguel Ledo. Darcia’s words — his mother’s words — echoed in his head. “Your friends will suffer too.”

  He had to bring this to an end before someone else was struck down. Jillian. If they found Ivy, they could find Jillian. Maybe she had escaped tonight only because she was not home. Or was she lying there now, ripped apart like Ivy Hurlbut, her answering machine giving out its bland reassuring message? Fain got into his car and headed for Studio City, ignoring all speed limits.

  • • •

  It was after eleven when he pulled up in front of the building where Jillian had her studio apartment. He went in through the nonsecure entrance and thumped up the stairs. Jillian’s door was locked. He banged on it until a woman came out of an apartment across the hall, wearing a chenille robe and a scowl.

  “What the hell’s the idea? You want to wake the whole building?”

  “I’ve got to see Jillian Pappas. Family emergency.”

  The woman’s scowl lightened up. “Oh. Well, she’s out to rehearsal. Goes every night.”

  “Do you know where she’s rehearsing?”

  “No, I don’t pay any attention. She’ll prob’ly be home pretty soon, though.”

  “Thanks.” At least she wasn’t in there like Ivy.

  Fain checked his watch. Eleven-thirty. He sat in his car out in front of the building and waited.

  The shadows of the night seemed filled with moving shapes as Fain sat watching. He lit one cigarette after another and, coughing, snapped them though the window, sending little spinning red arcs to the asphalt.

  He tried to make some sense out of what was happening and figure out a plan. So many questions. What were the chances that the dead ones were nearby? How quickly could they have got here from Ivy Hurlbut’s cottage in Venice? They certainly couldn’t have beaten him. But why couldn’t they have split up?

  He ticked them off on his fingers, beginning with Leanne Kruger and ending up with tragic Ada Dempsey, the hit-and-run victim. Nine. Nine dead people brought back to life. More accurately, brought part of the way back. Now existing in what Darcia called a “living hell.” They might have split up. Some to Venice for Ivy, some here to Studio City. And the rest out in the night, looking for him.

  He renewed his scrutiny of the block where Jillian lived. Apartment buildings. Quiet, innocent. Ordinary, comfortable lives going on behind their curtained windows. Would he, Fain wondered, ever live such a life again?

  There were few cars and fewer pedestrians. Fain studied each of the passersby carefully. They appeared normal enough, but would he recognize the dead ones in the dark?

  And what if they had already found Jillian, wherever she was? The vision of poor torn Ivy Hurlbut swam before him, with Jillian’s face superimposed. The waiting became agony.

  At a quarter to one a familiar little Mustang rounded the corner and parked across the street. When he saw Jillian get out, Fain all but collapsed with relief. He leaped from the car and sprinted across to reach her as she was locking the door. He swept her into his arms.

  She gasped in surprise. “Mac? What are you doing here? What’s wrong?”

  He held her tight, and she yielded to the urgency of his embrace. All the things they had not said to each other for months were spoken through their bodies.

  “Thank God you’re all right.”

  “Sure I’m all right.” She drew back enough to look up into his face. “But you’re not, are you.”

  “Do you trust me, Jill?”

  “Well …”

  “I mean, if it were something really important.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Would you do something crazy if I told you it was a matter of life and death?”

  “Is this a big joke of some kind?”

  “Believe me, it is no joke.”

  “What crazy thing do you want me to do?”

  “Come away with me right now.”

  “Come away with you? Wait a minute; you’re not proposing marriage, are you?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. What difference does that make?”

  “Quite a lot of difference, mister. I have a life of my own going, you know, and if you think I’m going to chuck everything and go bucketing off with you on a moment’s notice, you can just fleeping forget it.”

  She turned and started toward the apartment building. He followed.

  “Wait, Jill. I’ll marry you in a minute if you’ll have me. I love you, damn it.”

  She kept
going. “Oh, sure, when all else fails, they offer marriage.”

  “Listen to me, Jill. Ivy Hurlbut’s dead. You’re in danger.”

  She whirled and faced him. “Ivy’s dead? When?”

  “Tonight. In a way it’s my fault. I don’t want it to happen to you.”

  Jillian looked up at him. Her tears glittered in the street lamps. “Darn it, Mac, I didn’t want to have anything more to do with you. I don’t know what you’ve got yourself into, but the things I’ve been reading are just terrible. I wish I knew what to do. I … I … oh, shoot!”

  She pushed open the door to her building and walked in. Fain caught it before it closed and ran after her. She climbed quickly up the steps to her apartment, turning there to face him.

  “You’d better leave now. I don’t think I want to talk anymore.”

  “Jill, don’t — ”

  She opened the door and reached in to flip the wall switch. As Fain put out a hand to stop her, she was jerked away from him and pulled into the darkened room.

  Fain stumbled in after her. He groped for something to hang on to, found only air, staggered and barely kept his balance.

  The door slammed shut behind him.

  “Jill!” he called.

  “Something grabbed me,” she said out of the darkness.

  He banged into the wall and scrabbled along it, looking for a light switch. He stumbled over an electric cord, followed it until he found a lamp, and switched it on.

  Jillian was crouched against the far wall next to where the little kitchen alcove was. Standing in front of her was a tall figure, long arms outstretched to seize her. Its head turned to look at Fain.

  “Holy Christ!”

  Kevin Jackson was still recognizable, although the gleaming ebony skin was turned a mottled gray, with oozing cracks beginning to open. The eyes had a milky film, but there was a fire within. He took a step toward Fain.

  “Stop!”

  Kevin, or the thing he was now, shook his head. “Look what you done to me, man. Look what I am. This what you did to all of us. Now you gon’ die.”

  He lunged forward and reached for Fain. Fain ducked and chopped at one of the outstretched arms. It was like slamming his hand into a tree branch. He staggered back; Kevin swiped at him with one hand and hit him a glancing blow. Fain went to his hands and knees on the floor. Fireflies buzzed around the darkness in his eyes. He wanted to go to sleep.