Elise and The Butcher of Dreams

by Steven Welch

  “Tell me a story,” said Elise.

  And so, for the next few minutes, Elise and Taariq listened to the unlikely tale of Jules Valiance and his flirtation with the mermaids of the frozen sea. It was an adventure of horror, love, and not a little absurdity. The weird story was resolved when Jules Valiance mesmerized a titanic sea gerbil by using the peculiar timbre of his voice and the reflection from his partner’s glass eye.

  “And so, that is the tale I prefer to call Kill, Mermaid, Kill Kill Kill. Would you like another?”

  “No thanks,” said Elise. She switched off the device on her wrist and looked up at Taariq.

  “It’s a computer,” she said, “and it’s programmed to answer questions and tell stupid stories. Keeps me entertained. And sometimes it’s useful.”

  “It’s scary,” Taariq said. “It’s scary,” he repeated and then said something under his breath that Elise could not hear.

  “Guess you’re not a fan.”

  “Not at all.”

  After a few minutes Elise paused to pull fish from the platter. She ate quietly and looked off toward the darkening sea.

  “Thanks for the fish,” Taariq said. Elise didn’t respond.

  “Well, that thing you’re doing there. That picture of what we saw today. That drawing. Do you do that much?”

  Elise finally seemed to notice him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s just, what I’ve been told, you know. There’s a lot of talk when you meet people out there and I know that there aren’t many people but the ones I run into all say the same thing.”

  “I don’t follow,” said Elise, but she cocked her head to the side and stared hard into Taariq’s eyes in a way that strongly suggested she understood perfectly.

  “That,” he said and poked a greasy finger at her sketch, “can get you killed in some places. And with good reason I’m told.”

  The candle light danced in Elise’s eyes.

  “Tell me more.”

  Taariq grabbed more fish and chewed as he spoke.

  “No, you tell me. What’s your story?”

  Elise laughed.

  “So, my sketch can get me killed. Right. Because it’s dangerous? That’s what you mean. Tell me more.”

  “Fine. You’re not stupid and you’ve traveled more than me. This,” he said and gestured at everything around, “used to be a different world. Something happened, something impossible, and now we’re cockroaches scrambling in the ruins of what’s left. You said it yourself. We’re weak. You’ve been hurt, I’ve been hurt, hell, there’s a good chance that neither one of us will live much longer. The world we had ended. The Turn, right? What caused it, Elise?”

  “Do you think it matters how? We’re living in it. And I plan to live a long time.”

  “That,” Taariq said, and the word came out hard and his finger stabbed the sketch and left a streak of fish grease where it hit, “opened doors. That, and stuff like that weird blasphemous noise coming from that thing on your wrist. People were too smart, they thought they could do anything, that there wouldn’t be a cost, and they opened doors that should have stayed shut and things came through and now here we are.”

  “You got grease on my sketch,” said Elise. Before Taariq could say anything else, she had his finger in her hand and she twisted just hard enough to hurt. Taariq didn’t move.

  “Let go,” he said. She did, after a moment and a slightly harder twist that made him wince.

  “Édith Piaf isn’t a weird blasphemous noise. Neither is Jules Valiance. Just to be clear. And do you believe this little philosophy?” Elise asked.

  Taariq was slow to respond. He looked out over the pool deck and the other people lingering over their food, at Sahla as she grilled, and at Denzel the towering Orcanum who sat with his feet dangling in the salty water of the pool.

  “I think what matters is the food you catch, the shelter that keeps you safe from the weather, the clothes that keep you warm. A gun with ammo matters. Clean water matters. Living is hard enough without trying to create a new world on paper. Sometimes I think they’re right, that when you create a new world just to feed your own ego you can become a god and then doors can open. So, safer to care about those things that matter, right? Food, shelter, staying alive.”

  Elise held up her hand and looked hard into Taariq’s eyes.

  “I understand,” she said, “I hear that more and more. People out there are starting to think in those terms. I’ve heard there’s been killing. I’ve heard in some places I could be killed just for having this sketch of a reef or listening to a song. Funny how an idea takes hold, isn’t it?”

  “Look, I’m not saying I would kill you,” Taariq said with a laugh.

  “I recommend you don’t try,” Elise answered. There was silence as Taariq’s laugh drifted away and he cleared his throat.

  “I told you what I was thinking. Your turn. Who are you really and what are you doing out here? What’s your story, Elise?”

  “It’s astonishing, Taariq, maybe I’ll tell you someday and maybe I won’t and even then you probably wouldn’t believe a word. Let’s eat,” she said and Elise did not say another word until they finished their plate of fish and the stars and moon had come out full above them.

  “I’m staying at the top of that old hotel,” Elise said. She pointed at the building along the shore to the west. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  “I’d like that,” said Taariq.

  Elise could feel her pulse quicken and the feeling made her angry.

  “Let’s go,” she said and moved away from the table without looking back to see if Taariq followed.

  She did, however, hear his boots hit the ground behind her as she walked and the sound made her smile.

  AN AMERICAN IN PARIS

  The journey of The Truth had been a long one. Jack’s army grew and so did their collection of weapons. He led them along the Seine until they passed the ring road around Paris, the Périphérique, and made their way toward the Trocadero.

  Zuzu did not know the army of The Truth was near and she could not feel the chill of the Parisian night on the side of her face that was years ago burned.

  She sat on the marble steps of what once was The Musée de National de la Marine and sipped her coffee. The heavy blue fleece with “Les Scaphandriers” written on the sleeves made her look even bigger than she was, while the tight leggings hinted at the strong muscles that might have aged but still carried Zuzu with a swagger.

  The hand that held the coffee cup was steady, scarred across the knuckles from brawls and from her time aboard fishing boats with her father. She was cold but her hand did not shake. Wisps of steam reached up from the hot black coffee.

  The Trocadero was now a field of ghosts. From where she sat Zuzu looked out over the wide plaza and could almost see down to the Seine. She could see the wide trench that sliced a mile wide through the distant city like a scar. Above The Trocadero there was the empty sky where once had been the Eiffel Tower. There were little pockets of glowing light here and there, survivors who had made homes where homes still stood. The rational, patterned dreams of Haussmann, the grand architect of Paris, were a shattered tumble, but it was still home so Zuzu sipped her coffee and allowed herself to think of kinder, more fantastic times.

  There once had been a museum constructed of white marble on the little hill where Zuzu sat, part of a series of buildings that commemorated different aspects of French history. The steps now led to a jumble of earth and rubble. It looked for all the world as if a giant had scraped away the museum with a mile wide rake. Now, Zuzu rested on marble steps at the base of a flat hill and on that flat hill, just behind her, sat a most incongruous thing. There was a wooden and brass diving bell the size of a small car, the sort that might once have been used at the dawn of oceanography, and it sat on a heavy steel platform like a solitary sentinel. An amber glow from inside the diving bell spilled a dim light onto Zuzu’s shoulders so she was lined in gold on that cold nigh
t.

  Movement was rare on the Trocadero after dark so Zuzu could not miss the figures that appeared from the quay along the Seine and she watched as they walked toward the Museum. They carried torches and other longer items that Zuzu immediately assumed to be weapons of some sort. They were not in a hurry.

  She took one more sip of coffee then sat the cup down on the marble steps and stood to get a better look. Standing broadened her field of vision so that she saw more figures out of the corner of her eye, closer than the others and coming in from the east.

  Zuzu rubbed her hands together and squinted hard to see exactly what those long objects they were carrying might have been.

  Too dark to be certain but they looked like rifles.

  “Well, let’s see how it goes,” she said to herself. Zuzu turned and took the steps one at a time, without hurry or panic, and turned to the wooden and brass diving bell behind her. She opened the thick glass portal on the front to reveal a plush interior lit by a small lamp. She grabbed the Browning BAR rifle that lay on the bench seat.

  Zuzu turned back and took a deep breath so she could be heard.

  “Hello,” she shouted and her voice echoed along the marble steps, “who goes there?”

  The answer was a bullet that hit close to her head and ricocheted off of the skin of the diving bell.

  Zuzu did not hesitate.

  She leveled her rifle and fired twice, once to the group approaching from The Seine and once to the group coming now from the west. Then, with surprising agility for someone so muscular, Zuzu slid into the diving bell and jammed a thick thumb on a button.

  Steam escaped from the metal platform on all sides and the diving bell descended into the ground.

  Jack the Dream Butcher watched as the solitary vessel disappeared into the flat ground at the top of the little hill.

  “Have the ropes ready. We’ll chase her down the rabbit hole. Not much else she can do because the others will already be inside the hill. Stick to the plan. Nothing she can do, my friends,” he said.

  The diving bell slammed to a stop and Zuzu could hear gunfire.

  Flashes of light and the bright red glow of flame spilled into the cabin through the thick viewing glass. There were shouts and screams.

  “Not like this,” she said.

  Zuzu did not need to check her weapon as she knew it carried nineteen bullets in the clip and she did not need to check her calf for her knife because she had used it to slice the potatoes for dinner and left it in the kitchen.

  “Fine,” she said. Her smile was tight as she kicked open the hatch.

  L’Académie was on fire.

  Zuzu shielded her face from the heat and dove out and to her right.

  This was a cavernous place of old stonework and mystery and it was a museum more strange, more comprehensive than the old Musée de la Maritime had ever been. There were wooden ships and man-sized submersibles and racks of diving gear. There were walls of books and other media alongside scale models of all manner of deep sea scenarios and visions.

  So much flammable material.

  The flames roared along the walls and devoured the old paper of the library and the dry wood of the models. Black smoke was a tornado that roared along the ceiling of the place and came down like a crashing wave of sparks.

  Zuzu saw at least a dozen men dressed in black. Several of them were putting the torch to the walls and everything around while others fired weapons at Zuzu’s friends hidden in the firelight and darkness behind models and furniture.

  Zuzu quickly counted. It was Wednesday night so there would be few Aquanauts in the Hall. There would be Renny and Robert because this was their game night and there would be the children Michelle and Sebastian because this was their night to study cetacean biology. Andre the doctor from Senegal would be on duty at the short-wave radio and Celia the teenage Capoeira enthusiast would be with him because they were a couple despite their age difference.

  Age. So, Renny and Robert were too old and were not fighters, Michelle and Sebastian were children. The other two would be more of an asset but not by much. Andre could remove an appendix and Celia could do the Brazilian martial arts dance but that would be of little use in this situation.

  Who was behind the furniture? Zuzu wanted to shout names but did not think she could be heard in the fire’s roar.

  Breath, she told herself. She aimed her weapon and fired. One of the invaders dropped and rolled on the floor, hurt but not dead.

  Bad shot, she thought.

  They concentrated the gunfire on Zuzu’s position behind the diving bell. Bullets slammed off of the brass and ripped chunks of wood that fell around her like rain.

  There was a vault of weapons on the far end of The Hall. If I can get there, she thought, this will be finished in short order.

  No way. Not through these guns.

  Where was Andre? While a doctor, at least he was truly Scaphandrier. He had training and was capable with a gun.

  Where was Andre?

  The diving bell vibrated as if something large had landed on it. Zuzu looked up. Ropes dangled from the darkness of the tunnel above and men were coming down the ropes. One was on top of the bell and his rifle was trained on Zuzu’s face.

  She ducked and rolled without thinking as the bullet sliced the air where she’d been.

  “Son of a bitch,” she said as she ran to a thick column in the center of The Hall.

  Bullets pounded the column. Zuzu looked into the darkness. The children were hiding there behind a series of metal crates. They made eye contact through the smoke and Zuzu waved them off, indicated the back of the hall.

  She stepped out and fired and hoped the kids got the hint.

  Bullets whizzed past her as she got off three shots, none of which hit anything of note, and she ducked back behind the column.

  Her side throbbed, and she looked down to see blood forming a wide patch along her vest.

  Not bad, she thought. I don’t think the bullet is in me. I think it just tore my skin. Vest did the job.

  Hurts like a bitch though.

  Zuzu looked back toward the metal crates and did not see the children. They’d gotten the hint, she thought, and she hoped that they could find their way to the emergency tunnels.

  The fire was spreading too quickly.

  Zuzu had trouble breathing through the thickening smoke. She stuck her head out again and this time she saw Andre, with Celia in hand, running toward the south end of the hall. They were silhouettes against a wall of flame and Andre fired blindly with a pistol in one hand even as he held Celia’s hand in his other.

  Suicide, Zuzu thought, then she tried to give them cover with blind shots into the darkness.

  Multiple rifles barked and Zuzu saw Andre fall.

  She dropped to her belly and crawled as quickly as she could toward her friend. The wound on her side was on fire, or at least it felt that way. Bullets made angry hornet sounds overhead. There was a scream and Zuzu lifted her head long enough to see Celia spin, hit by a bullet, and then a dark mist erupted from her body as she was hit again and again.

  Zuzu’s stomach was a cold ball that weighed her down.

  This was a nightmare and she could not move quickly enough.

  Fire, smoke, bullets, her friends dying around her.

  There was a sub-basement tunnel that led to the old sewers of Paris. The hatch was somewhere to her left, and she rolled and crawled with all of her strength.

  Her eyes burned from the waves of black smoke that billowed thicker and wider along the walls and floor.

  She thought she heard the voice of Robert, a shout and a curse, and then the latch was in her hands.

  Zuzu lifted and fell into the darkness.

  THE MESSAGE

  Jules had many purposes. One of them was as a flashlight. Elise used that function to guide their way up to her hotel room.

  She pulled the key from her vest and stole a look at Taariq. His skin was slick with sweat and strands of his straight bl
ack hair covered half of his face. Like Elise, he was breathing hard from the climb up the stairs.

  This was a bad idea, she thought and took a deep breath to get control of her heart rate.

  He caught her looking and smiled. Elise didn’t return the smile, but she moved closer to him. Taariq’s eyes narrowed.

  “Don’t try anything,” she said.

  The key went into the lock and turned with a loud click. Elise and Taariq stared into each other’s eyes as the door drifted open. He leaned in but was stopped by a finger to his lips. Elise shook her head “no” and let the way into the penthouse.

  A pair of large eyes, like those of a cat, glowed in the darkness.

  “It’s fine, buddy.” Elise said, “Relax.”

  There was an audible puff of air as the Octo-Thing huffed. The eyes disappeared and there was a light slithering sound as he retreated into the small dining area to the left.

  “What is that thing?”

  “A friend,” said Elise, “and he takes my protection seriously.”

  “I’m sure it does. How did you meet it?”

  “Him. He’s a him. And use your imagination. Make up your own story. Oh, I forgot, that’s evil,” she said as she walked to the balcony.

  The moon was high and bright. The gulf was painted in silver and blue. Taariq joined Elise, and they stood looking out over the water. The cool breeze dried their sweaty skin and their breathing settled down.

  Elise flinched when he touched her but she didn’t take her hand away.

  “I had a friend who told me that imagination makes us beautiful. I believe that. I’ll always believe it. He died as he told me that. His death doesn’t make what he said true, but it’s what I believe and that’s what matters,” said Elise.

  Shit, I’m talking way too much, she thought. His hand felt warm, and the warmth made blood rush to her face. She was glad it was too dark for him to see her blush and then she felt embarrassed and the thought of that made her grit her teeth.

  Elise pulled her hand away and stepped back into the room. Taariq stayed on the balcony and continued to stare out at the sea.