Carrion

by Gary Brandner

  The crash of breaking glass brought him out of it. Jillian stood holding the handle of a heavy glass pitcher. The rest of it was on the floor in fragments. There was a dent in the side of Kevin’s head, but he seemed otherwise unaffected by the blow. He came toward Fain.

  Fain scrambled to his feet and backed toward the wall. He raised one hand above his head, looked up at it, and seemed to snatch something out of the air. For a second Kevin followed the misdirection. Fain opened the hand and a shower of coins spilled to the floor.

  Using the distraction, he lowered his head and charged. The top of Fain’s head hit Kevin Jackson just below the breastbone. The impact carried both of them across the room. A window shattered, and Fain clutched the sill for support as a cool wind blew in his face. Below him outside there was a soft thump, a grunt, and the scrape of feet on concrete.

  Fain pushed himself back from the window and spoke to Jillian, still holding the glass pitcher handle. “What’s down there?”

  “Courtyard,” she said. “He’ll have to go out through the alley.”

  “Come on; we can get to the car.”

  He took Jillian’s hand, and they ran together across the room to the door. Fain yanked it open and they took one step into the hallway. Then stopped. Standing between them and the stairway was what looked like a badly made female dummy. The shoulders were uneven, a hand was mashed into hamburger, and one leg hung useless. The face was a mass of old bruises and congealed blood. One eyes was closed, and the other blinked incessantly. From the mouth came a soft whimpering sound.

  “Mac, what is it?” Jillian said.

  He did not answer, but he recognized this ruin of a woman as Ada Dempsey.

  “Go for the car,” he said to Jillian, and used both his hands in an attempt to sweep the woman aside.

  The broken body offered little resistance, but her one good hand fastened onto his forearm like a steel clamp. He tried to pry the fingers loose, but they would not give a millimeter. Death grip floated in and out of his mind as he clawed to free himself.

  In desperation he reached into his pocket and pulled out the cheap butane lighter he had bought when he started smoking again. He flicked up the flame and held it under the wrist of the ruined woman. He smelled the flesh burning and heard the sizzle, but the twisted face of the woman showed nothing.

  There was a sudden pop as a tendon in the wrist gave way. One of the clutching fingers went dead. Fain dropped the lighter, and using all the strength terror could summon, clawed free of the wounded hand.

  He sprang for the stairway and went down it, barely touching the treads. He could hear the woman bumping and flopping down behind him. Out in the street he bolted across to his car where, thank God, Jillian was waiting for him. Someone else was running for it in long, loping strides from the end of the street. Kevin Jackson.

  Jillian pushed open the door, and he jammed himself in behind the wheel. He fired the engine, and they peeled away. Fain did not slow down until many miles separated them from the ghoulish things back at Jillian’s apartment.

  • • •

  The rest of the night they drove the freeways. It was said you could drive for weeks on the Los Angeles freeway system without ever driving over the same patch of pavement twice. Fain was ready to believe it.

  Jillian dozed fitfully with her head on his shoulder while he worked out a plan. His overpowering instinct was to point the car in one direction, away from Los Angeles, and drive like hell. But you can’t run forever, Darcia had said. And when he stopped, they would be there. These walking-dead things were his responsibility, and he had to deal with them here and now.

  By the time the eastern sky faded from black to charcoal, he knew what he was going to do.

  Jillian awoke and made little mewing sounds as the charcoal sky turned pearl gray.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m going to drop you somwhere where you’ll be safe today; then I’m going to go and finish this business. Is there a friend you can stay with?”

  “I don’t want to stay with a friend. I’m with you.”

  “Come on, honey; you saw what we’re fighting.”

  “You said ‘we.’”

  “Slip of the tongue.”

  “Phooey. Besides, I’m reponsible for you now.”

  He glanced over at her. “How do you figure that?”

  “When I hit that mother with the pitcher, it might have slowed him down just enough to let you get out of the way. Saved your life. Now I’m responsible.”

  “Seems I heard that somewhere else not long ago. You can’t fight Oriental philosophy.”

  “By the way, what was that business with the coins? I never saw you do that one.”

  “An improvised variation of the Miser’s Dream. Old trick but effective.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “And amen.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “We’ve got several stops to make, and I want to have everything ready by nightfall. First, how would you like to go to a motel?”

  “At a time like this?”

  “That later,” he said. “I’ve got some things in a place on Sunset I’m going to need.”

  He swung off the Hollywood Freeway on Sunset and turned toward Western. The sun was up now. Another beautiful California day.

  Chapter 28

  “‘Mid pleasures and palaces,” Fain said, steering into the parking lot of the Horizon Motel, “there’s no place like home.”

  “Golly, Toto,” said Jillian, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

  As they walked past the office, the desk man tapped on the window with a quarter and beckoned Fain inside.

  “With you in a minute,” he told Jillian, and entered the office.

  Through the grill in the Plexiglas shield the clerk said, “You didn’t sleep here last night.”

  “So?”

  “So that don’t mean it was free. If you’re stayin’ another day, it’s another thirty dollars.”

  Fain peeled the money off his thin sheaf of bills and paid.

  The clerk rolled his eyes toward Jillian, who waited just outside. “You didn’t like the local stuff?”

  “Nothing personal,” Fain said, “but I haven’t had all my shots.”

  In the room Fain tested the window to be sure it could not be opened, then pointed out the bolt lock and chain to Jillian. “As soon as I’m out, lock everything. Don’t open the door until you’re sure it’s me.”

  “How long will you be, Mac?” The artificial banter of the parking lot was gone now. “I’m scared.”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He kissed her. “And if you want to know the truth, I’m scared, too. But I’ll get us out of this. You watch.”

  “By magic?”

  “A little magic,” he told her, “couldn’t hurt.”

  • • •

  The People’s Sunshine Clinic looked exactly as it had on Fain’s last visit. Fain did not bother with his disguise. No one here would be looking for him. The leftover hippies in the waiting room wore the same outdated sixties clothes and spaced-out expressions. Giving them a casual once-over, Fain diagnosed two drug overdoses, a probable herpes, and one case of what looked like terminal acne. He felt like an old-timer here as he walked on through the NO ADMITTANCE door to where the young woman with the enormous eyes worked at a makeshift desk.

  “You’re not supposed to come back here,” she said.

  “I’m not a patient,” Fain told her. “I have business with Le Docteur.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She started to rise.

  Fain held up his hands, palms out. “Please don’t call the two goons this time. I’ve been all through it with them. Just tell Le Docteur that McAllister Fain is here.”

  The young woman looked him over carefully and apparently decided he was no immediate threat. She said, “I’ll tell him, but he won’t like it.”

  “Thank you,” Fain said. “I’ll risk it.”

  Th
e woman went out the back way. Fain stood impatiently around the desk and listened to the howling of one of the ODs in the waiting room.

  In a few minutes she came back, wearing a surprised look. “Le Docteur remembers you,” she said. “He’s out in the back. You know where that is?”

  “I know,” Fain told her. “Thanks.”

  He went out and picked his way through the weed-grown patch of dirt to the corrugated metal shed. The door was closed, but the padlock was hanging open. Fain knocked, bruising his knuckles.

  “Come,” said the high, clear voice he remembered.

  • • •

  Fain pulled open the door and stepped into the shed. The air was hot and humid. The enormous black man sat in the same chair he had taken before. He wore a tentlike caftan into which were woven geometric patterns. His body seemed to fill the cramped little building.

  “Close the door,” Le Docteur ordered.

  Fain obeyed. A flickering illumination came from two sputtering candles on the rickety folding table. There was no visible opening for ventilation.

  “Sit,” the black man said.

  Fain eased himself into the second chair across the table from Le Docteur.

  “I was expecting you before this.”

  “Then you know why I’m here?” Fain said.

  “It is not difficult to guess, but I would like you to tell me.”

  “I want to know how to send back the people I called up from the dead.”

  “Of course you do. The ceremony is very simple, but I told you the last time it would be costly.”

  “I haven’t much money, but I can get more.”

  Le Docteur made a wheezing sound that might have been a laugh or a growl. “Keep your money. I told you it is of no use to me. Your cost for this secret will be something much dearer than money.”

  Fain waited. The huge black man sat motionless, watching him. Waiting for him to ask. So he did. “What is the cost?”

  “Your life’s blood,” said Le Docteur.

  The stale air in the shed seemed to thicken as they sat in silence for several seconds. As before, Fain had the sense of things mystical and forbidden writhing on the walls.

  To break the spell, he said, “You don’t mean that literally?”

  “I do not speak in metaphors. Your blood is the essential ingredient in the formula I will give you.” He reached into the folds of the caftan and brought out two crumpled slips of paper. “This,” he said, handing Fain the first, “is the formula. And these are the words.”

  Fain squinted, trying to make out the smudged handwriting.

  “The formula is not difficult. The ingredients are easily purchased except for the most essential one, which you must supply. The mixture is to be splashed on the dead ones as you say the words. In this way, and only in this way, will you send them back.”

  Fain looked up from the formula sheet. “Am I misreading this, or does it say here three liters of blood?”

  “You read it correctly.”

  “If I remember my basic anatomy, a man my size has about twelve pints, or five-and-a-half liters, of blood in his body. You drain more than half of that away and the man dies.”

  “I told you the cost was high.”

  Fain’s mind spun, searching for a way out. “What if I had the blood taken a little at a time and stored it?”

  “Not acceptable. In combination with the formula and the words, the dead ones you would send back must see the blood flow from your body.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Then return my papers and go.”

  “No,” Fain said quickly, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I guess I didn’t expect the cost would be so … so final.”

  “No one ever does.”

  Fain peered at the two slips of paper again. “These words are French?”

  “Mostly. You must say them exactly as written when you perform the ceremony.”

  “I see a flaw here,” Fain said. “How am I supposed to be able to splash this mess around if I’m in a coma from blood loss?”

  “That is a problem I cannot solve for you.”

  “And what’s to keep these people from ripping me apart while I’m doing the mixing? I’ve met a couple of them recently, and they are not patient.”

  “That I can help you with.” Le Docteur shifted his bulk and plucked something from a hook on the wall behind him. He handed it to Fain.

  It was a coil of finely braided rope, silky soft to the touch.

  “It feels like human hair,” said Fain.

  “Yes,” said Le Docteur. “It is plucked from … special heads. Place it full length on the ground between you and the dead ones. They will be unable to cross it while you prepare the formula. But do not delay. The power of the rope is limited.”

  “Like my blood supply,” said Fain, shivering despite the stifling heat.

  “Just so.” Le Docteur reached out with a sausage thumb and forefinger to snuff out one of the candles. “Now go. Because you carry the power of the gangan I have given you secrets beyond a man’s rightful knowledge. My business with you is finished. Do not come back to me. Ever.”

  “No,” said Fain, still reading the formula. “I don’t suppose I will.”

  He stood up, feeling suddenly giddy in the airless shed. As he opened the door and went out, the last candle died.

  Fain sat in his car out in front of the clinic, oblivious to the hostile stares from the patrons of Big Mary’s and the motorcycle shop. He read and reread the two slips of paper Le Docteur had given him. He refigured the amount of his fresh blood called for in the formula against the quantity of his body and came out with the same deadly result.

  What the hell good would it do him to dispatch the dead souls if it left him a dry, dead man? But was there another choice? Run. But there had to be an end to running. And there was Jillian to consider. Come on, magic man, he told himself. It’s time to pull off your greatest escape ever.

  He looked at his watch and was surprised to see it was already past noon. As on his first visit, the time he spent with Le Docteur was squeezed out of proportion. If he was to be ready by the time night came again, he had to move. He made his decision and drove away.

  Before returning to Jillian at the motel, Fain made four stops: a big chain drugstore, a medical-supply house, a meat packer in Vernon, and the Bekins warehouse in downtown Los Angeles. At the warehouse he spent twenty more of his dwindling dollars to reclaim part of his property.

  When he returned to the Horizon Motel, Jillian was in a high state of nerves, and the sun was low in the west.

  Chapter 29

  “Where did you get the neat coat?” Jillian asked.

  Fain ran a hand over the down-padded jacket. “Thrift shop. You like it?”

  “I guess it goes with the funky baseball cap and the cheap shades.

  “Thank you. I figured it would come in handy.”

  “I saw your picture on television,” she said.

  He made a last sweep of the motel room to be sure they had left nothing. “How did I look?” he said.

  “You looked like somebody in trouble. Do you know there are a lot of people after you?”

  Fain lowered the drugstore sunglasses and peered at her over the lenses. “Tell me about it.”

  “Did you really try to rob a bank this morning?”

  “That’s an exaggeration. All I wanted to do was cash a check.”

  “Do you think you ought to explain that before the police blow you away?”

  Fain put both his hands on her shoulders. “Honey, if you were somebody in authority and I walked in and gave you my explanation of what’s been going on, would you believe me?”

  She shook her head. “I’d lock you up.”

  “The defense rests.” He pulled off the shades and got serious. “Jill, are you sure you want to be a part of this?”

  “Are we always going to be fugitives?”

  He shrugged. “For a while, anyway. But after ton
ight we won’t have to worry about the walking dead anymore.”

  “Can you guarantee that?”

  “No, but I’m going to give it my best shot.”

  “Call me crazy, but that’s good enough for me, Mac Fain. I’m in.”

  “I’m relieved to hear that,” he said, “because what I have worked out couldn’t be done without you.”

  “Are you saying you need me?”

  “I need you.”

  “I’ve waited a long time to hear that. Lead on, O Master of the Occult.”

  • • •

  He needed the headlights for the drive up into the Hollywood Hills. The sky was still light in the west, but the shadows were deepening. He pulled to a stop at the gate before the private road leading to Eagle’s Roost.

  “It looks locked,” Jillian said.

  “Did locks stop Houdini?”

  Fain got out of the car and worked over the padlock with a slim, saw-toothed pick. In less than a minute the shackle popped free. He opened the gate and returned to the car with a triumphant grin.

  They drove slowly up the narrow, twisting road. An errant wind rustled the tree branches above them.

  Jillian said. “How can you be sure they’ll come tonight? The dead ones?”

  “Some things a man just knows,” he said. “My mother could probably explain it.”

  She looked at him curiously but said nothing more.

  Fain parked in front of the big stone house and had the front door open in a few seconds. He was relieved to find that Federated Artists had not turned off the electricity. The night’s work would be unpleasant enough without having to do it in the dark.

  He walked through the house, turning on lights in all the rooms that were unsealed. He made sure the floodlights in front illuminated the approach up the road through the trees.

  “I’m cold,” Jillian said.

  “All the rooms have fireplaces,” he said. “Pick one where you want to wait and I’ll start a blaze.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “They all look like something from a Christopher Lee movie.”