Wetbones

by John Shirley

  Sam Denver pushed the gate open and, smiling, stepped into the back yard.

  "Hello, Ephram."

  Ephram took a deep breath and put on his courtliest persona. "Why Sam. This is an unexpected pleasure."

  Constance was just sitting up, blinking sleepily at Denver. Shading her eyes against the glare of the sagging sun. Ephram could feel the fear rise in her, as she looked at Denver.

  "Constance dear, why don't you go into the house and get a chair for Mr. Denver."

  "All right." She got up and hurried into the house.

  He hoped she wouldn't take this opportunity to run anywhere. It would be most embarrassing to have to drag her back here by the brains in front of Denver.

  "You seem to have her well trained," the More Man said. "It's kind of sweet, really."

  "How did you… find your way here?" Ephram asked, glancing at the back fence. There were several large men back there; difficult to see them clearly in the glare of the westering sun. There would be one or two others around the front. He wondered if they were Denver's followers from the Ranch, or if they were hired muscle. He could paralyze one or two, of course, but the Akishra protected Denver from him, at least up to a point, and Denver would surely be armed…

  "How did we find you?" Denver raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment. "You advertised for us, of course! The Wetbones killings. That could only have been you. You left your calling card all over town, Ephram. It made things a bit hot for us. But I assume you wanted us to find you. The Akishra led us straight here, of course."

  Ephram felt dizzy. "The Akishra?"

  "Yes. You really thought you wouldn't attract them? After all those engorgements? Or perhaps you thought you had eluded them each time? They are here. But your… 'friend' has kept them somewhat at bay. The one you call the 'Spirit'…"

  Ephram crossed his arms over his chest to cover the trembling in his hands. They are here.

  Denver sighed and went on, "Judy's out in the limo – she's become rather… well, your prediction has come true, I'm afraid. They've overwhelmed her. They've externalized. It's rather a disgusting sight. Oh, thanks – Constance, was it?"

  Denver sat in the kitchen chair Constance had brought out for him. She resumed her seat in the lawn chair next to Ephram. He was gratified to feel her clutch his arm – she clearly preferred him to Denver, it seemed, despite all.

  Denver was staring at her. She lowered her eyes. He nodded to himself. "Yes. I believe so. I saw this girl in the paper. Her picture. They found her body, or so they thought…" He looked at the bandage, where her finger had been removed. She covered it with the intact hand. He grunted. "Oh, I see. Very clever." He looked back at Ephram. "Are you ready?"

  Ephram knew precisely what Denver meant. But he said, "Ready for what, dear fellow?"

  "Why, to come out to the Ranch, of course. We can't let you roar about town like a loose cannon anymore. And you've got to help Judy."

  "I hardly think I can do anything for her."

  "You can get Reward without the Akishra. Or at least – you used to. You can repel them, you can muddle them

  – you've demonstrated very handily that you can do that, or you wouldn't have gotten this far without an Attachment. You can, ah, delouse her for us. You can save her."

  "What utter nonsense. She's made her bed, now she must lie in it – with whatever's in it, ha ha. I can do nothing. If you want to help her, put a bullet through her brains."

  Denver turned to look once more at Constance. It was a look of bloodless longing and desiccated lust. She turned to bury her face in Ephram's pudgy arm.

  Denver laughed. "To make her prefer you – over anyone – oh yes, you must have her very much in hand. Well, we'll soon see if she has any juice left in her. She'll be coming along too, of course." He stood up. "And it's time to go. Now."

  Perhaps, Ephram thought, if one of the men at the back fence were armed, he could take control, manipulate the man. Make him shoot Denver in the back of the head.

  He reached out with his mind…

  And drew back The men at the back fence were Denver's followers. They were clouded with the Akishra. Slimy to the mental touch.

  Ephram composed himself for the inevitable. He stood up, and drew Constance to her feet beside him. He bowed, ever so slightly, to Denver. "We are, of course, gratified by your kind invitation."

  Culver City

  Prentice decided to take a long, hot bath, relax for half an hour before trying to finish writing the first scene of his screenplay. He was tense, lately; probably because he kept waking up at night. Every hour or two after he'd gone to bed he'd sit bolt upright, suddenly and completely awake, with Amy's voice fading in his ears. But no memory of what she'd said.

  It took him a long time to get back to sleep and now the tension and fatigue was catching up with him. He got up from the desk, went down the hall to the bathroom. He ran the bath, undressed, sat on the toilet lid waiting for the tub to fill. There was a distant noise from people having an early evening swim in the complex's pool; otherwise the place was dead quiet. Jeff had gone for another one of his endless strings of meetings…

  The tub overflowed on Prentice's foot. He jumped a little, then reached down and hastily let some water out. Have to sop up the floor later… He replugged the tub and dumped a little bubble bath in, ran the water just enough to make it foam up. He got in; the water slippery with liquid soap and hot enough to bring sweat to his forehead. He lay back, feet toward the faucet, and tried to relax. Don't go to sleep – just relax for a minute…

  Something was bumping against his leg. He opened his eyes and looked at it. It was a woman's hand, severed redly at the wrist, floating between his knees. There was a ring on it, a gold band with an opal, which he recognized. It was Amy's. Blood swirled from the wrist stump, pink with the dilution of steaming water. Strangely enough, he felt no particular surprise or disgust.

  Other parts of her began to bob up from under the soap-milky water. A middle section of leg, with one dimpled knee. A neatly snipped out segment of torso complete with breast. A healthy, unscarred breast, he noticed with casual objectivity. The body parts bled freely and the water went red and redder yet… and then Amy's head bobbed up, by his feet. Her neck had been sawed neatly through. Her hair was plastered to her head with water and blood. The lips on her decapitated head moved soundlessly. He could read the lips a little. Help me. They have me… they have a lot of us… help us… That girl…

  ''Oh shut up, Amy!" he interrupted.

  Her lips drew back in a snarl. The head straightened, bobbed vertically in the water. It moved toward him, its lower half sunken in the water, only the eyes showing above the red, bubble-castled surface. Coming at him the way an alligator does, only its eyes and the top of its head showing. But you knew its mouth was opening under the water…

  That's when the fear broke free in him and he kicked out, screaming, thrashing -

  And woke in the tub. Woke to hear the echo of his own scream in the confined bathroom spaces.

  The severed body parts were gone. But the tub was filled with blood. He scrambled to stand up, mewling with repugnance, thinking: Amy's blood Amy's blood…

  But then he noticed the gash on his left hand. During the nightmare he'd flailed out and smashed a shampoo bottle against the wall and cut himself on the broken glass. Panting, standing in the tub, he kicked at the water and saw the scum of red part. He hadn't actually lost much blood…

  He pressed his right hand against the gash in the other and with one toe pried up the drain plug. The blood in the tub began to move amoebically toward the drain as the pipes made an echoey sucking growl and the cleaner water welled up. Tenuous shapes formed there, around the little whirlpool where blood and water spiraled. For a moment, one of the shapes was Amy's face. The red lips mouthing Help me… Help us… And then it melted swiftly away in down-whirling water and was gone.

  11

  The Hills near Malibu

  The first thing Lonny not
iced when he woke was the smell. He thought: They caught me and they threw me in some stinking pit of rotting dead people under the ranch. Maybe he should just lie here and let himself die.

  He decided he had to face it anyway. He sat up – the movement made his head swim with pain – and opened his eyes a crack.

  "Oh fuck," he said. Now he knew what the smell was from. He had been captured by a hippie.

  He was in a shack, unevenly lit with greasy yellow light from three kerosene lamps hanging from three different walls. The reek of unwashed man and dog overcame even the oily stink of kerosene. Sitting in an old rocking chair at the foot of the bed, watching him fixedly, smoking a briar pipe that reeked of pot, was an old hippie. At least, that's how he looked to Lonny. He wore kerchief-patched, age-shiny jeans and, yes: they were bell-bottoms. His horny, dirt crusted feet in homemade leather sandals. He wore an ancient Grateful Dead t-shirt, the one with the skull crowned in roses…

  Roses…

  The girl in the rose vines.

  "Look like ya seen a ghost, brother," the old hippie rasped. Sniggering to himself. "You come off the Cocksucker Ranch?"

  "I… " He couldn't seem to pull up any words.

  "Devil's Cocksuckers is what them fuckers are. The Devil's Cocksuckers." He sniggered again, this time showing his few rotting, mossy teeth. His gaunt face was leathery and sun-reddened. His eyelids budded with benign growths; his eyes were the faded blue of his jeans. His receding, waist-length black hair and beard were streaked with gray and clumped with dust. His mustache had grown over his mouth and was stained with food and pot-smoke. His fingernails were two inches long and crusty with dirt. He reached over to a worktable next to the squawky rocking chair and found a box of wooden matches. Meditatively, with one hand, he relit his pipe, never taking his eyes off Lonny. Leaning against the wall next to the worktable – within reach of the rocking chair – was a twelve gauge shotgun. Lonny never forgot it was there and neither did the old hippie.

  In a corner, behind the rickety, multi-padlocked door, a mongrel dog got to its feet in a nest of foul rags, stretching, shaking itself, its long brown fur matted, the inevitable grimy kerchief around its neck. It came trotting over, claws clicking on the flattened tin-cans nailed down over most of the floor, and laid its muzzle on the old hippie's lap, casting sideways glances at Lonny. The hippie put his hand absently on the dog's head; somehow, its blind trust in the guy put Lonny more at ease.

  He looked around; there were shelves of rusted tools; from nails on the shelves and ceiling dangled little dolls made of coloured wires and bits of junk. Between the rickety, unmatched shelves, the walls were covered with odds and ends: a cobwebbed poster of a babyfaced Mick Jagger and a startlingly human Keith Richards posing in costumes of Asian potentates against a psychedelic backdrop; randomly nailed up road signs pocked with bullet holes; and lots and lots of glued-on newspaper clippings, gone the colour of aged ivory, scribbled with notations and multiple exclamation points.

  Sure. The dude was a paranoid old hippie. "You… find me?" Lonny managed.

  "About a mile west. Me'n'Jerry here watched you for a while, crawling and talkin' to yourself." He exhaled an aromatic plume of marijuana smoke. "You crawled right through one of my fields and never looked twice at the buds. You either don't like pot or don't know it – well I expect you was spaced pretty bad. I knowed you was one that got away. First one I know about except for the movie star. And I helped him too. Lots of graves out in them hills, around the Ranch… You want some of this?"

  He offered Lonny the pipe. Lonny shook his head. It was the last thing he wanted. "You…" He struggled with his mouth. "Hard to talk…"

  "You're dehydrated is one reason. And maybe you're trying not to think about some things, and that keeps your brain busy. You got to deal with it sometime, brother, but maybe now ain't a good time. You did, though, dincha, see some pretty bad stuff in there, dincha. Devil's cocksuckers. Suckin' them worms. Dincha?"

  Lonny didn't want to even acknowledge the memories with a yes. But he nodded, once. Forced out: "You got any coffee?"

  The hippie stopped rocking and leaned forwards so suddenly toward him Lonny thought he was going to bite him in rage. But the old dude grinned and cackled, "Hell fucking yes! It's the only thing I go into town for, that an' aspirin. I go in twice a year, regular as the bad wind! Sure, Hell yeah, I got some coffee that'll make your hair stand up on your head and go, Holy shit!

  "

  Turned out his name was Drax. Mike Drax. The coffee was everything he'd said it would be and, though Lonny'd knocked back two cups only after drinking three pints of water and eating beans and tortillas, he was buzzing so intensely he was barely able to hold himself quiet on the edge of the foul-smelling bunk. He tried to relax and asked, "How'd you come to be out here?"

  Drax looked at him with a bald suspicion. "I like it out here, is all."

  "Look – I told you what happened to me. Come on. Straight up. You know all about the Ranch. Why didn't you tell the cops?"

  "Now what the hell would the pigs do? Some of them over there at the Cocksucker Ranch is cops. They in it up to their old piggy snouts." He sniggered and muttered, "It's all there, I seen it all." He waved toward the newspaper clippings. "I got the proof right there. You can check 'er out. That Mideast oil thing, it's there too. They suck on that just the same. Yeah, brother. Dobbs knows and Jerry here knows and I know." He turned to the cluttered, paint-spattered work bench that served for all the table the shack had, and sorted through a mound of tarry, golden marijuana, began to crush pot-buds between his thumb and forefinger with practiced exactitude, winnowing out the seeds.

  The old dude smokes too much fucking pot, Lonny thought. No wonder he's half cracked.

  "Your friends might still be alive," Drax said. "Sometimes the Cocksuckers save 'em for a long time." Abruptly he shot a narrow eyed look at Lonny and said, conspiratorially, "I will tell ya." His lingers kept crushing and winnowing the pot as he looked at Lonny, and went on, "It was my dad. He was a singer. Well he started out a rancher – we had a real ranch I mean, down in New Mexico. Worked it ourselves too. My mama was long dead. My dad, he was a real singin' cowboy. Not much of a rancher. About the time I was ten somebody heard him in a honky-tonk, signed him to records, two years later he was singin in big concerts. That led to movies. He was in two westerns. Then he was in television. Well sure, he was a good looking fella.

  "I was a boy, I thought he was a god. Goodest-hearted man you ever want to meet. Took me everywhere with him, right to the nightclub concerts, near everywhere he went. Never left me somewhere so he could play with those pretty-pussy girls. He loved me! And then, when I was fourteen, bang, he forgot I was alive! He left me to knock around by myself. He knew I was alone in that big old house and he…"

  The anger shook its way out through Drax's voice; showed in his white knuckled grip on the armrest of his rocking chair. The dog whined and put a paw on his lap. Lonny sat very still. The old fuck was crazy and he might grab one of the oily tools on the desk and brain him on a whim, for all Lonny knew.

  Drax's shoulders slumped. He went on, a little subdued. "… they did it to him. Sam Denver, he took my old man up to that place and they played with his head and made him one of them and started soaking up his money and his talent and everything he had. They wanted me, too. They came to get me one day and I went over to that ranch and I saw what they were doin' to them kids and I went over the fuckin wall, brother, you bet your fuckin' ass! Got myself up to San Francisco. Got myself a ticket to the other world, from Mr. Owsley himself, who I knew personally. Hell, I fucked his old lady and with his blessing, too. It wasn't no perverted thing, either. And then I drifted down to Santa Cruz. And I read about they found my old man dead in a car, all wasted up. I think he was trying to get away and they crashed his fuckin' car is what they did… Well, I knew a few things by then, I seen that other world and I knew some Peyote eaters, they showed me a few things…" He gestured toward the fetish dolls hanging
from the shelves.

  There was only one window, with a wooden, padlocked shutter over it. Drax got up, crossed to the window – only three paces, his every step seeming to bring out a creak in each board of the little one-room shack. He took a thickly clustered ring of keys from his pocket and opened the padlock on the shutter, tilted it back and propped it up with a stick. Lonny blessed the infusion of clean air coming through the broken-out window panes, as Drax pointed through the window at the ground in front of the shack It was all packed earth, enclosed in a circle of waist-high wooden posts. Hanging from each post was a trio of the fetish dolls – made from bright pieces of radio wire, bits of transistors, feathers and dried seeds and strips of cloth; they seemed to glow golden-red in the light of the setting sun. "You see that? They guard us! They guard us here. The More Man is scareda me, brother, you know he is. I know some things and I got some friends. He knows I'm going to get him sometime soon. The solstices swing around: with the stars you can see and the stars you can't, they tell the story. I'm going to get the son of a bitch, and I'm here practically on his front porch, waiting for the chance…"

  Lonny was intrigued. But the coffee having worked its way through him, he had more urgent concerns. "You got a bathroom here?"

  Tongue trapped mischievously between his snaggled teeth, Drax whirled on him, sniggering. "Well, I guess I sure as hell do! I got a bathroom maybe forty square miles wide! Just be careful there ain't no snakes laughin at the pimples on your butt."

  East Los Angeles

  Garner got off the bus a few blocks from Blume's apartment building. The city was supposedly trying to cut back on air pollution but the buses gouted black smoke and this one blew a toxic cloud directly onto Garner as he looked around the street corner. Choking, stomach bucking with nausea, he hurried across the street. On the other side was a liquor store and a row of tenements, most of them draped in the evening shadow; the streetlights had been shot out at both ends of the block. In front of the tenements the Set roiled with men and women, blacks and cholos mostly, and a few skinny white girls. Most of the steady customers for crack were white, middle-class men, Garner knew, and he watched them drive up in their Camrys and Ford Tauruses and buy crack through the car windows.