Bottled Abyss

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  Evan sensed Arturo and Jeremy exchange knowing glances.

  “Well he…”

  “Is this about Josue Ramirez?” she asked.

  Arturo lunged through the doorway. “We’ve got a bingo, bitch!”

  Rebecca swung left, grabbed Arturo around the throat and put him into a headlock. “Oh holy shit!” he cried out in surprise.

  Jeremy bustled past Evan, gun trained on Rebecca. “Hands off.”

  Rebecca glanced at Evan and then to the gun. “What’s going on here?”

  “We’re here for the guy you’re hiding. He might not call himself Vincent, but he was Josue’s partner.”

  “I’m not hiding anybody.”

  Jeremy pulled back the gun’s slide. “You still haven’t let my friend go.”

  “Yeah,” Arturo said, “let me go.”

  Reluctantly she pushed Arturo away. The man bounced right back at her like a wind-up toy. “Fuck is that shit, bitch? I oughta cut your fuckin’ throat right here, laying hands on me, the only thing you’re gonna touch is my dick, you fuckin’ little ho!”

  She stood there, looking at him eye to eye, fearless. Arturo huffed. Jeremy watched the two with an amused grin. Evan tried not to notice the reptilian tail extending from his tail bone and slithering down his pant leg.

  Arturo looked to a bureau against the wall with assorted pictures of a young boy. He slapped one of them facedown. “Who’s that? Your kid? Where is he?”

  “Not here,” she said with a smile.

  Evan knew everything about Rebecca by now. Her son was doing a visitation with his father. This was their weekend together. She’d just been trying to take advantage of some time alone and squeeze in a work-out, since she’d missed so many lately and had noticed some of her clothes getting snugger. Countless nights she’d stayed up, thinking about Melody Erikson, about Janet and Herman. What if that had been her? She probably would have died from the outfall of it…

  Thoughts divided in his mind and it overwhelmed him. Evan lost balance and crashed to the floor.

  Jeremy looked over his shoulder. The man’s pasty face was wide and blunt on every surface, the acne pocks on his cheeks making his eggy head resemble some sad, hideous planet. “Get up, sketchpad. I’ve got some shit to sell you when this is all through.”

  “Are you okay, Evan?” asked Rebecca. “Is Janet okay?”

  Arturo clutched her arm. “Who’s this Janet woman everybody’s talking about?” Rebecca glared at him as a response and Arturo sighed. “Hey J.P.”

  “Yeah,” said Jeremy, who had just bent over to help Evan up.

  “Forget that asshole. He ain’t goin’ nowhere. Check the house. If you find a cell phone, bring it to me. Let’s give Ms. Janet a call.”

  “Have the bitch get it. Who said I was your slave?”

  “Really? You’re doin’ this shit now, J.P.? I’m the man with the fuckin’ golden mind. You better not forget that shit.”

  “Do you want money?” asked Rebecca. “I have a safe. We could work something out here.”

  “Go check everything out,” Arturo reinforced. He took his own gun out of his pants and tucked its barrel under Rebecca’s left breast, then brought his body closer to hers.

  Jeremy watched them in sick wonder for a second before taking off into the house. Arturo slammed the front door with his foot and dead-bolted it. He motioned for Rebecca to move to the gold-flowered couch in a sunken den area. He kicked Evan’s thigh. “You too, Ratty McCrackhead.”

  Evan pushed up on the tile. His claws scraped it subtly.

  “You have some nice titties, woman,” Arturo praised Rebecca. “Little, but sweet.”

  Evan sat on the edge of the couch and looked away.

  “Take off your shirt,” Arturo instructed. He rubbed his gun-hand on his thigh as though he had an itch there.

  Rebecca went into a business mode. “What about that safe? I’ve got my kid’s college savings up there. Let’s talk about that.”

  “That’s all good. After the titties. Show me them.”

  Rebecca sighed, as though bored. “You’ve never seen tits before?”

  Arturo frowned. “Don’t get stupid on me. Take off your shirt before I rip that shit off you.”

  “I don’t think Vincent is here,” called Jeremy from upstairs.

  “Keep looking cabron,” Arturo yelled back. He ducked closer to Rebecca, joyful to a point of his wide black eyebrows rising comically high.

  “Found her phone,” called Jeremy.

  Arturo’s joy faded at the interruption. “Good, good, good, shit!”

  He unzipped his pants and pulled out a short, yet fat brown penis. He began nodding and grinning like a lunatic. “Huh? Huh? You want this shit, right bitch?”

  “I’ve seen better.”

  “The hell you have.”

  “Without that gun, I’d so fuck you up right now,” she said.

  Arturo put himself away and sniffed. Rebecca shook her head sadly.

  Jeremy came walking down the stairs with an inquisitive expression. “What have you been up to?”

  “Slapped her with my dick, eh!” Arturo laughed. The two met on the tile entryway in a mock version of an important business transaction.

  Jeremy grinned past Arturo at Rebecca. “That’s all? I’d have done way more.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You’ve seen me in action. Did you already forget about that party in Upland, with those gothic chicks and the beer bottles? Huh? Vincent could make the dirtiest chick feel cheap. It’s a gift, dude.”

  “You’re so homo for that guy, really. Vincent ain’t shit. Pulling a train on whores is unclean. Now shut up. Where’s that phone?”

  Jeremy handed over a flip phone. Arturo navigated the device for a couple minutes. “Use to have one of these,” he remarked, “piece of shit phone…ah, here, only Janet in here.”

  He dialed and tossed it into Rebecca’s lap. “Tell her to meet us here, but don’t tell her we’re looking for Vincent. Don’t pull any shit.”

  They waited, watching Rebecca closely as she held the phone to her ear.

  Muscles rippled through Evan’s back. He leaned away and bit his fist. They’d been right about his front teeth. Longer, wider and closer together than before… and his lower teeth had thinned and grown pointed. His lips itched. Something was growing there, something hard and hair-like—whiskers? He tried to dismiss the sensation but others plagued him. Legs hard and cold with scales; lower and upper torso growing with long fur; face reconstructing by each passing moment, becoming more rodent.

  “Voicemail,” said Rebecca. “Janet hasn’t been answering lately.”

  Jeremy glanced expectantly at his leader. “Art? Your move.”

  Arturo tried to look contemplative. “Tell her we got her man here.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Tell her, eh.” Arturo forced the gun forward.

  Rebecca straightened. “Hi, Janet, this is…Becca Davis. I need your help. Evan’s here with me at 4467 Rasner Lane in Moreno Valley. Call me, please.” She hung up and glanced over to Evan. “Will she call back?”

  “No,” Evan replied through a grunt. “She’ll just come over.”

  Rebecca’s face sank. “She will?”

  He nodded.

  “Another chick. Sounds fucking like the bomb to me. So we wait.” Arturo rubbed his hands together and licked his lips, his eyes feasting on Rebecca. “Hey, where’s that premature chronic?”

  “You gonna smoke, now?” Jeremy’s voice suggested impatience, as though dealing with a younger brother.

  “Got me a new bong, son! This golden mind’s gotta eat too!”

  Jeremy reached into his pocket and produced a micro-sized baggie with a green divot inside. Arturo put his gun in the crack of his ass again and accepted the baggie. He went merrily to the front door, unlocked the bolt and crept outside. He brought the bottle into the house and locked the door again.

  “Where’s the bathroom, sweetie pie?” he a
sked Rebecca.

  Jeremy giggled.

  “Behind you, dickhead.”

  Arturo made an I’m-so-hurt face and turned into the small bathroom. He put the bottle on the sink and spun it around a few times. “Hey, where’s the carb on this thing?”

  “It’s not a bong,” Evan told him.

  “Bullshit,” said Jeremy.

  “Nah, he’s right,” Arturo confirmed in disappointment. “Some shitty vase or something. Ah well, fuck it. You got papers?”

  “Nope.”

  “Aye, cabron. Oh well, then. Never mind I guess. Have to find some foil or something. Hey, you got them two covered out there?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m gonna take a shit.”

  “What a surprise.”

  “Fuck you man.” The bathroom door shut. The light came on and the fan began whirring inside.

  Evan’s forehead hammered into the arm of the couch. He was too disoriented to look up. Everything rushed inside him to an unknown origin. He couldn’t stop it. He just had to take the ride until the end.

  Jeremy glanced at the ceiling. “See you in half an hour, Art,” he grumbled.

  Something lit in his eyes then and he turned to Rebecca. He watched her longingly. “You look a lot like my sister, if she were Mexican.”

  He got up and dropped next to her. She tried to inch away but he moved even closer. “Yeah, you’re a lot like her.”

  3

  Evan loomed over Jeremy; the pervert never saw him move through time and space. Jeremy had wrestled Rebecca on the couch, pulled her gym shorts down, and stuck the gun to the back of her head. The woman, bravely, did not say a word. Evan knew she already had a plan. She was going to let Jeremy get going. A few thrusts in, just when he was getting into a good rhythm, she was going pivot on her knee and take him down, her leg behind his head. It would have to be done quickly to get hold of his gun hand. It would have to be done just right.

  But Rebecca didn’t know that her plan would never been seen through.

  Jeremy rubbed savagely between her legs, huffing, “Get wet, get wet you bitch…”

  Evan bowed over him and the man’s blue eyes boggled up at him.

  “I am Fury,” whispered Evan.

  “What the shit?”

  Jeremy struggled to stand—Evan caught him under the arms and hurled him into the fireplace.

  When Jeremy came to rest, hunched over and blood pouring from ears and mouth, he blinked in slow intervals; shock poured over him.

  Arturo fumbled in the bathroom, alert to the commotion.

  Evan approached Jeremy, who slumped lower against the brick fireplace, more bones broken inside of him than he could count at the moment.

  “Do you know the song?” asked Evan. “I long to hear it. Sing it and I will spare you.”

  A thin, syrupy stream of fresh blood ran from Jeremy’s mouth.

  “Then I seek justice for your crimes.”

  “Evan,” shouted Rebecca. “Watch out!”

  Three bullets tore through Evan’s back and exited his chest. He saw them strike the fireplace, creating a stir of red dust. He turned and watched as Arturo shot him three more times, almost at point blank range. The force drove Evan back.

  But he felt nothing.

  Arturo moved away. Evan thought about being behind him at that moment.

  And then—Evan was behind the man.

  Arturo bumped into Evan’s chest of untamed fur. A hoarse scream escaped him. “Please no!”

  “Do you know the song?”

  “No!”

  Evan sunk his claws into the back of the man’s head, penetrating the skull, and with a forward tug, pulled the skull cap off, exposing the fatty tissue of the brain.

  “It’s not golden,” Evan remarked.

  Arturo shrieked and bit into his tongue, cutting the sound short. Evan pushed him to the tile floor. The brain struck it and unfurled in a gleaming pink and white presentation.

  Rebecca was screaming. She would have run outside if Evan hadn’t been blocking the pathway to the hall. Evan’s mind stirred again and weakness set in. He’d not fully come into his own yet and the forces he’d played with had stifled his progression.

  He glanced at Jeremy. The man was dead. Being tossed against a fireplace wasn’t as dramatic a death as his friend had received, but it was just as well; the same end product.

  “Don’t hurt me,” Rebecca sobbed.

  Evan staggered toward her. “Listen closely. There is a bottle in that bathroom. I can’t touch it, but you can… something has happened to me…”

  “No shit,” Rebecca uttered.

  “Get the bottle now, please. Hurry.”

  He hoped Rebecca wouldn’t run out the front door. If that happened, there was no telling what would occur when Janet arrived.

  Rebecca, luckily for him, did as requested, but she did not come very far out of the bathroom. Her distrust of him was apparent.

  “Find a place far away and bury that bottle,” he told her. “You can’t let Janet get it. She’ll try to get it from you. You can’t let her have it.”

  “Why not?”

  Evan was about to explain but a different voice cut him off.

  “Yes, why not?”

  Without a sound she’d come in through the door in the kitchen. Janet wore black robes and held her oar like a queen with a scepter. Her drawn face had gone deeply skeletal.

  Rebecca looked about to scream. “What is this? What is all this? Somebody tell me! Janet is that you?”

  Janet swung the oar. Rebecca rolled from the attack and ran for the stairs and Janet hurried after her, robes flowing like liquid night.

  A sensation flowed through Evan at that moment. His energy was not restored—the human need for it had vanished. He was everything now, and the small man that he had once been before, gone completely except for his rage.

  Janet took to the stairs, only ascending three before he snatched her by the neck.

  FURY

  He’s gotten control of himself—Nyx did not warn me of this—a newly born Fury wasn’t unanticipated, nor was the speed with which it could reinvent itself, but this was still alarming—believed him to be an instrument for our cause, not against it—only now, having been tossed down the stairs with little care, find myself fighting him with my oar—Evan’s a monster now, a clumsy, unknowing monster, surely a dangerous combination—can stop this with the simple song Nyx taught me in the River—what is it—? Recalling the song doesn’t come naturally for me, not as it would have for Vincent Baker—don’t wish Nyx to mourn the loss of her first choice—can serve her just as well as he might have—just can’t remember the song in this frenzied moment—

  Holding the oar out, hoping it doesn’t shatter with his falling fists—

  No time for this—that bottle must be in my hands—!

  “Evan, stop—!” I cry—

  He lets out a hideous squeal and gnashes his buck teeth together—his eyes are dead—the price of blood in exchange for justice is all he sees—just as I have my focus on filling Nyx’s coffers, she has changed us—for the better—but this cannot be—not right now—Evan will not be able to kill me, only slow me down—that might let the mortal get away with the bottle—

  He has me pressed against the bottom of the stairs—

  Cupboards and drawers are slamming above—that mortal is up to something—

  “What crime have I committed—?” I yell through Evan’s attacks—

  His scaled fist hangs in the air—clear globules bend in his eyes, swelling to break— it was obvious; he didn’t remember the mortal for whom he sought revenge—his wife—Janet Erikson’s friend (what was her name?)—didn’t matter—she was gone to Evan now—he’d just been holding on to his hate—but for no crime, there could be no punishment—

  “What should I do now—?” His voice was hostile and desperate—

  “You are Fury—Choose—You have the entire world to judge—It is for you to decide who should go to
the River early—Let me go—”

  “But who—? And what crimes—? How do I choose—?”

  “By your own estimation—now, if you please—”

  He grips my robe in his claws—the black and white Border Collie hair shakes on his forearms—it reminds me of something, a warm and distant memory that might have made me smile once—it is a type of dream memory—

  “I don’t know how to do that—I just know you should die—!”

  “You will undo yourself—”

  “I don’t care—I would rather be nothing, than this—!”

  “The bottle—” I whisper in dread—that mortal could have climbed out a window by this time—! “You must let me go, for both of us—you can’t change what we are now—there is no winning this—”

  The rat clarifies in his features—but the eyes remain human—the Fury slowly pulls his claws from my throat—takes his bent spectacles off the ridge of his lengthening snout—tosses them to the floor—

  “How long does this job last—?”

  “As long as life survives—”

  “But I don’t know who to pick—! Please, help me—”

  I don’t answer him—I get to my feet, take my oar and bound up the stairs—so there would be no more interference, I would have to beat in the woman’s head—not a pleasant task, but serving Nyx was not a job that went without suffering—

  No sooner had the Ferrywoman taken a step inside the bedroom, when two bullets cut through her chest. Inky black blood painted a whitewashed armoire in speckles and whips. She glanced down and a marshy stench vented from the wounds.

  In her turquoise underwear, the mortal hunkered on the floor, using the bed to brace her arms as she held the service revolver. Smoke rolled from the gun’s mouth. A small case lay on the bed next to her, several boxes of ammunition inside.

  Feeling no pain, the Ferrywoman moved ahead. Briny blood continued to drip out and several petite vermillion-scaled fishes slipped from the wounds and splashed onto the carpet, losing form.