by Greg Bear
“You’re a bold little bastard,” the driver said, voice managing to descend off any human scale and still be heard. The white tile walls vibrated. “All I have to do is cut your cord, right in front of your face”—he snicked the shears inches from Oliver’s nose—“and you’ll never find your way home.”
The driver backed him up against a cold barrier of suicides. Oliver’s fear could not shut out curiosity. Was the bull’s head real, or was there a man under the horns and hide and bone? The eyes in their sunken orbits glowed ice-blue. The scissors crossed before Oliver’s face again, even closer; mere hairs away from his nose.
“You’re mine,” the driver whispered, and the scissors closed on something tough and invisible. Oliver’s head exploded with pain. He flailed back through the dead, dragging the driver after him by the pinch of the shears on that something unseen and very important. Roaring, the driver applied both hands to the shears’ grips. Oliver felt as if his head were being ripped away. Suddenly he kicked out with all his strength between the driver’s black-uniformed legs. His foot hit flesh and bone as unyielding as rock and his agony doubled. But the shears hung for a moment in air before Oliver’s face, and the driver slowly curled over.
Oliver grabbed the shears, opened them, released whatever cord he had between himself and his past, his home, and pushed through the dead. The scissors reflected elongated gleams over the astonished, watery faces of the suicides. Suddenly, seeing a chance to escape, they spread out along the platform, some up the station’s stairs, some to both sides. Oliver ran through them up the steps and stood on the warm evening sidewalk of Sunside. All he sensed from the station’s entrance was a sour breath of oil and blood and a faint chill of fading hands as the dead evaporated in the balmy night air.
A quiet crowd had gathered at the front entrance to Miss Parkhurst’s mansion. They stood vigil, waiting for something, their faces shining with a greedy sweat.
He did not see the limousine. His brothers must have arrived by now; they were inside, then.
Catching his breath as he ran, he skirted the old brownstone and looked for the entrance to the underground garage. On the south side, he found the ramp and descended to slam his hands against the corrugated metal door. Echoes replied. “It’s me!” he shouted. “Let me in!”
A middle-aged man regarded him dispassionately from the higher ground of the sidewalk. “What do you want in there, young man?” he asked.
Oliver glared back over his shoulder. “None of your business,” he said.
“Maybe it is, if you want in,” the man said. “There’s a way any man can get into that house. It never refuses gold.”
Oliver pulled back from the door a moment, stunned. The man shrugged and walked on.
He still grasped the driver’s shears. They weren’t gold, they were silver, but they had to be worth something. “Let me in!” he said. Then, upping the ante, he dug in his pocket and produced the remaining cat’s head token. “I’ll pay!”
The door grumbled up. The garage’s lights were off, but in the soft yellow glow of the streetlights, he saw an eagle’s claw thrust out from the brick wall just within the door’s frame, supporting a golden cup. Token in one hand, shears in another, Oliver’s eyes narrowed. To pay Belle’s mansion now was no honorable deed; he dropped the token into the cup, but kept the shears as he ran into the darkness.
A faint crack of light showed beneath the stairwell door. Around the door, the bones of ancient city dwellers glowed in their compacted stone, teeth and knuckles bright as fireflies. Oliver tried the door; it was locked. Inserting the point of the shears between the door and catchplate, he pried until the lock was sprung.
The quiet parlor was illuminated only by a few guttering candles clutched in drooping gold eagle’s claws. The air was thick with the blunt smells of long-extinguished cigars and cigarettes. Oliver stopped for a moment, closing his eyes and listening. There was a room he had never seen in the time he had spent in Belle Parkhurst’s house. She had never even shown him the door, but he knew it had to exist, and that was where she would be, alive or dead. Where his brothers were, he couldn’t tell; for the moment he didn’t care. He doubted they were in any mortal danger. Belle’s power was as weak as the scattered candles.
Oliver crept along the dark halls, holding the gleaming shears before him as a warning to whatever might try to stop him. He climbed two more flights of stairs, and on the third floor, found an uncarpeted hallway, walls bare, that he had not seen before. The dry floorboards creaked beneath him. The air was cool and still. He could smell a ghost of Belle’s rose perfume. At the end of the hall was a plain panel door with a tarnished brass knob.
This door was also unlocked. He sucked in a breath for courage and opened it.
This was Belle’s room, and she was indeed in it. She hung suspended above her plain iron-frame bed in a weave of glowing threads. For a moment, he drew back, thinking she was a spider, but it immediately became clear she was more like a spider’s prey. The threads reached to all comers of the room, transparent, binding her tightly, but to him as insubstantial as the air.
Belle turned to face him, weak, eyes clouded, skin like paper towels. “Why’d you wait so long?” she asked.
From across the mansion, he heard the echoes of Reggie’s delighted laughter.
Oliver stepped forward. Only the blades of the shears plucked at the threads; he passed through unhindered. Arm straining at the silver instrument, he realized what the threads were; they were the cords binding Belle to the mansion, connecting her to all her customers. Belle had not one cord to her past, but thousands. Every place she had been touched, she was held by a strand. Thick twining ropes of the past shot from her lips and breasts and from between her legs; not even the toes of her feet were free.
Without thinking, Oliver lifted the driver’s silver shears and began methodically snipping the cords. One by one, or in ropy clusters, he cut them away. With each meeting of the blades, they vanished. He did not ask himself which was her first cord, linking her to her childhood, to the few years she had lived before she became a whore; there was no time to waste worrying about such niceties.
“Your brothers are in my vault,” she said. “They found my gold and jewels. I crawled here to get away.”
“Don’t talk,” Oliver said between clenched teeth. The strands became tougher, more like wire the closer he came to her thin gray body. His arm muscles knotted and cold sweat soaked his clothes. She dropped inches closer to the bed.
“I never brought any men here,” she said.
“Shh.”
“This was my place, the only place I had.”
There were hundreds of strands left now, instead of thousands. He worked for long minutes, watching her grow more and more pale, watching her one-time furnace heat dull to less than a single candle, her eyes lose their feverish glitter. For a horrified moment, he thought cutting the cords might actually weaken her; but he hacked and swung at the cords, regardless. They were even tougher now, more resilient.
Far off in the mansion, Denver and Reggie laughed together, and there was a heavy clinking sound. The floor shuddered.
Dozens of cords remained. He had been working at them for an eternity, and now each cord took a concentrated effort, all the strength left in his arms and hands. He thought he might faint or throw up. Belle’s eyes had closed. Her breathing was undetectable.
Five strands left. He cut through one, then another. As he applied the shears to the third, a tall man appeared on the opposite side of her bed, dressed in pale gray with a widebrimmed gray hat. His fingers were covered with gold rings. A gold eagle’s claw pinned his white silk tie.
“I was her friend,” the man said. “She came to me and she cheated me.”
Oliver held back his shears, eyes stinging with rage. “Who are you?” he demanded, nearly doubled over by his exertion. He stared up at the gray man through beads of sweat on his eyebrows.
“That other old man, he hardly worked her at all. I
put her to work right here, but she cheated me.”
“You’re her pimp,” Oliver spat out the word.
The gray man grinned.
“Cut that cord, and she’s nothing.”
“She’s nothing now. Your curse is over and she’s dying.”
“She shouldn’t have messed with me,” the pimp said. “I was a strong man, lots of connections. What do you want with an old drained-out whore, boy?”
Oliver didn’t answer. He struggled to cut the third cord but it writhed like a snake between the shears.
“She would have been a whore even without me,” the pimp said. “She was a whore from the day she was born.”
“That’s a lie,” Oliver said.
“Why do you want to get at her? She give you a pox and you want to finish her off?”
Oliver’s lips curled and he flung his head back, not looking as he brought the shears together with all his remaining strength, boosted by a killing anger. The third cord parted and the shears snapped, one blade singing across the room and sticking in the wall with a spray of plaster chips. The gray man vanished like a double-blown puff of cigarette smoke, leaving a scent of onions and stale beer.
Belle hung awkwardly by two cords now. Swinging the single blade like a knife, he parted them swiftly and fell over her, lying across her, feeling her cool body for the first time. She could not arouse lust now. She might be dead.
“Miss Parkhurst,” he said. He examined her face, almost as white as the bed sheets, high cheekbones pressing through waxy flesh. “I don’t want anything from you,” Oliver said. “I just want you to be all right.” He lowered his lips to hers, kissed her lightly, dripping sweat on her closed eyes.
Far away, Denver and Reggie cackled with glee.
The house grew quiet. All the ghosts, all accounts received, had fled, had been freed.
The single candle in the room guttered out, and they lay in the dark alone. Oliver fell against his will into an exhausted slumber.
Cool, rose-scented fingers lightly touched his forehead. He opened his eyes and saw a girl in a white nightgown leaning over him, barely his age. Her eyes were very big and her lips bowed into a smile beneath high, full cheekbones. “Where are we?” she asked. “How long we been here?”
Late morning sun filled the small, dusty room with warmth. He glanced around the bed, looking for Belle, and then turned back to the girl. She vaguely resembled the chauffeur who had brought him to the mansion that first night, though younger, her face more bland and simple.
“You don’t remember?” he asked.
“Honey,” the girl said sweetly, hands on hips, “I don’t remember much of anything. Except that you kissed me. You want to kiss me again?”
Momma did not approve of the strange young woman he brought home, and wanted to know where Reggie and Denver were. Oliver did not have the heart to tell her. They lay cold as ice in a room filled with mounds of cat’s head subway tokens, bound by the pimp’s magic. They had dressed themselves in white, with broad white hats; dressed themselves as pimps. But the mansion was empty, stripped during that night of all its valuables by the greedy crowds.
They were pimps in a whorehouse without whores. As the young girl observed, with a tantalizing touch of wisdom beyond her apparent years, there was nothing much lower than that.
“Where’d you find that girl? She’s hiding something, Oliver. You mark my words.”
Oliver ignored his mother’s misgivings, having enough of his own. The girl agreed she needed a different name now, and chose Lorelei, a name she said “Just sings right.”
He saved money, lacking brothers to borrow and never repay, and soon rented a cheap studio on the sixth floor of the same building. The girl came to him sweetly in his bed, her mind no more full—for the most part—than that of any young girl. In his way, he loved her—and feared her, though less and less as days passed.
She played the piano almost as well as he, and they planned to give lessons. They had brought a trunk full of old sheet music and books with them from the mansion. The crowds had left them at least that much.
Momma did not visit for two weeks after they moved in. But visit she did, and eventually the girl won her over.
“She’s got a good hand in the kitchen,” Momma said. “You do right by her, now.”
Yolanda made friends with the girl quickly and easily, and Oliver saw more substance in his younger sister than he had before. Lorelei helped Yolanda with the babies. She seemed a natural.
Sometimes, at night, he examined her while she slept, wondering if there still weren’t stories, and perhaps skills, hidden behind her sweet, peaceful face. Had she forgotten everything?
In time, they were married.
And they lived—
Well, enough.
They lived.
Dead Run
There aren’t many hitchhikers on the road to Hell.
I noticed this dude four miles away. He stood where the road is straight and level, crossing what looks like desert except it has empty towns and motels and shacks. I had been on the road for six hours and the folks in the cattle trailers behind me had been quiet for some time—resigned, I guess—so my nerves had settled a bit and I decided to see what the dude was up to. Maybe he was one of the employees. That would be interesting, I thought. Truth to tell, once the wailing settles down, I get bored.
The dude stood on the right side of the road, thumb out. I piano-keyed down the gears and the air brakes hissed and squealed at the tap of my foot. The semi slowed and the big diesel made that gut-deep dinosaur-belch of shuddered-downness. I leaned across the cab as everything came to a halt and swung the door open.
“Where you heading?” I asked.
He laughed and shook his head, then spit on the soft shoulder. “I don’t know,” he said. “Hell, maybe.” He was thin and tanned with long greasy black hair and bluejeans and a vest. His straw hat was dirty and full of holes, but the feathers around the crown were bright and new, pheasant if I was any judge. A worn gold fob hung out of his vest. He wore old Frye boots with the toes turned up and soles thinner than my retreads. He looked a lot like me when I had hitchhiked out of Fresno, broke and unemployed, looking for work.
“Can I take you there?” I asked.
“Sure. Why not?” He climbed in and slammed the door shut, took out a kerchief and mopped his forehead, then blew his long nose and stared at me with bloodshot eyes. “What you hauling?” he asked.
“Souls,” I said. “Whole shitload of them.”
“What kind?” He was young, not more than twenty-five. He tried to sound easy and natural but I could hear the nerves.
“Human kind,” I said. “Got some Hare Krishnas this time. Don’t look that close anymore.”
I coaxed the truck along, wondering if the engine was as bad as it sounded. When we were up to speed—eighty, eighty-five, no smokies on this road—he asked, “How long you been hauling?”
“Two years.”
“Good pay?”
“I get by.”
“Good benefits?”
“Union, like everyone else.”
“That’s what they told me in that little dump about two miles back. Perks and benefits.”
“People live there?” I asked. I didn’t think anything lived along the road. Anything human.
He bobbled his head. “Real down folks. They say Teamsters bosses get carried in limousines, when their time comes.”
“Don’t really matter how you get there or how long it takes. Forever is a slow bitch to pull.”
“Getting there’s all the fun?” he asked, trying for a grin. I gave him a shallow one.
“What’re you doing out here?” I asked a few minutes later. “You aren’t dead, are you?” I’d never heard of dead folks running loose or looking quite as vital as he did but I couldn’t imagine anyone else being on the road. Dead folks—and drivers.
“No,” he said. He was quiet for a bit. Then, slowly, as if it embarrassed him, he said, “I
’m here to find my woman.”
“No shit?” Not much surprised me but this was a new twist. “There ain’t no going back, for the dead, you know.”
“Sherill’s her name, spelled like sheriff but with two L’s.”
“Got a cigarette?” I asked. I didn’t smoke but I could use them later. He handed me the last three in a crush-proof pack, not just one but all. He bobbled his head some more, peering through the clean windshield.
No bugs on this road. No flat rabbits, on the road, snakes, nothing.
“Haven’t heard of her,” I said. “But then, I don’t get to converse with everyone I haul. There are lots of trucks, lots of drivers.”
“I heard about benefits,” he said. “Perks and benefits. Back in that town.” He had a crazy sad look.
I tightened my jaw and stared straight ahead.
“You know,” he said, “They talk in that town. They tell about how they use old trains for Chinese, and in Russia there’s a tramline. In Mexico it’s old buses, always at night—”
“Listen. I don’t use all the benefits,” I said. “Some do but I don’t.”
“I got you,” he said, nodding that exaggerated goddamn young bobble, his whole neck and shoulders moving, it’s all right everything’s cool.
“How you gonna find her?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Hitch the road, ask the drivers.”
“How’d you get in?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “I’m coming here when I die. That’s pretty sure. It’s not so hard for folks like me to get in beforehand. And... my daddy was a driver. He told me the route. By the way, my name’s Bill.”
“Mine’s John,” I said.
“Pleased to meet you.”
We didn’t say much for a while. He stared out the right window and I watched the desert and faraway shacks go by. Soon the mountains loomed up—space seems compressed on the road, especially out of the desert—and I sped up for the approach.
They made some noise in the back. Lost, creepy sounds, like tired old sirens in a factory.
“What’ll you do when you get off work?” Bill asked.