From out of the empty houses, they came, slowly at first, and then eagerly. Some shambled. Some wobbled on uneven legs. Some trotted, their stony hoofs clicking the cement. Keegan pulled over, went to the back, opened the door above the counter, his scoops tucked into his apron.
“What’ll it be?” he said to the first one.
“Chocolate,” the creature croaked, its horny bill clacking together.
“What have you got for me?”
The three-fingered creature put a box of .45 caliber shells on the counter.
“Where’d you find them?” said Keegan as he swept them out of sight.
“Chocolate,” it said again.
Keegan shrugged, then filled a cone. “Whatever suits you.”
When the creature reached for the cone, Keegan pulled it back. “Listen,” he said. “Go north tonight. It won’t be safe this close to Colfax.”
“Chocolate!” it snapped.
“I’m not kidding. You’ve got to get out of the neighborhood.” Keegan pictured the scene before sunrise. The men would carry torches above their heads, watching for eye-shine in the dark. Guns would explode. The mutoids wouldn’t run. Most of them didn’t know better. Most of them were harmless, the warped children of warped children. Some time a couple generations back, their parents might even have been human. Or maybe their ancestors were dogs or sheep or the zoo animals. Nothing bigger than a rat had bred true since Keegan had been born. There was no way to tell, and why could some of the mutoids speak? Was language passed from the ones who’d been born in human houses and then hidden? Not everyone could give up their twisted offspring so easily. Not every parent could smother a child in its sleep. “Will you go?”
Behind the creature a line had formed. An ape-like animal with an alligator’s face, its loose muscles hanging from the back of hairless arms, held a small keg Keegan knew was full of cream. Behind it a three foot tall crab with a shiny blue shell dangled a basket full of eggs from a stubby-fingered claw. Reluctantly, Keegan gave up the cone. The beast popped it into its mouth in one bite, hummed contentedly for a few seconds, then moaned as it put its hands over its forehead, eyes squeezed shut.
“I’ve told you that you get headaches that way,” said Keegan.
The thing nodded as it staggered off.
“Don’t stay home tonight,” Keegan yelled.
“Cinnamon-maple,” said the ape, its voice a hissing lisp, when it put the keg on the counter. The heavy cream sloshed inside. Keegan didn’t want to think what kind of mutoid produced it.
“The men are coming with guns,” said Keegan. The ape’s long fingers wrapped the bottom of the keg. He tilted his head to the side as if thinking about Keegan’s news.
The ape said, “More cream tomorrow?”
“No, not more cream. You are in danger.” A thin cloud slid across the surface of the moon, darkening the street. Keegan glanced up. Dozens of mutoids crept through the houses’ shadows. They were stalking him, he figured. The tyranny of the sweets. They heard the music. Most of them were small, youngsters. Were they the sentient ones, waiting for a chance to go for the ice cream? And how sentient were they? North of Colfax the boundary between the self-aware and the purely animal blurred.
“I’ll bring cream,” said the ape.
Keegan bent down in frustration, resting his head on the counter.
The crab said, “They’re simple people.” It spoke with a slight English accent and a whir behind its voice as if a tiny windmill nested in its throat. By standing on the tips of its delicate claws, and with a stretch of the clawed arm, it rested the basket of eggs on the counter. Once Keegan had asked it where it got the eggs. “Really old chickens,” it had said.
“You’ll be hunted,” said Keegan. “We’ve got to get everyone out of here, north of 30th.”
“Some might go.” The crab clicked its claws together. “The smarter ones. Not many. Are you sure the men are coming? They’ve never come before.”
Keegan nodded.
The crab’s eye stalks quivered. Was that nervousness, Keegan wondered. Or was the crab laughing?
Turning north, the crab waved a claw. “It’s dangerous out of our neighborhood. There are territories to consider. Borders to be crossed. Not everyone is so friendly as they are here.”
“The men won’t be friendly either.”
“Some of us have talked about burning them out, but we figured if we waited long enough they’d die on their own,” said the crab. It sounded meditative.
Keegan nearly dropped his scoop. “What… what would you do to me?” He couldn’t read an expression in the crab’s eyes or immobile mouth. Overhead, the cloud cleared, and for a moment the moon shone strongly, driving the shyest of the young mutoids back to shadows’ shelter.
“You’re not one of them.” It clicked its claws again. “Do you have any sherbert?”
Numbly Keegan scraped a bowl full for the crab. “Don’t eat it too fast,” he said out of habit.
The crab sidled away.
“You’ll get them to go north?” Keegan called. “You’ll warn them?”
“Those that listen.”
The next mutoid plopped a box of thirty-ought-sixes on the counter. “Vanilla,” it grunted. “With sprinkles.”
“You have to leave,” said Keegan. He shouted to the rest of them in line, to the hidden mutoids across the street. “They’re coming to kill you! You have to run.”
But none of them seemed to understand. Only the crab, and he was gone. By the time Keegan scraped the last of the ice cream out of the last bin and trade goods covered the truck’s floor, he was nearly weeping. It was after midnight. Within a few hours, the Colfax fence would open and the men would march through, their guns cradled, the safeties off.
Exhausted, Keegan leaned on the counter. The street was empty now, and the only movement was the subtle moon-cast edge of shadows crossing the asphalt. Somewhere in the distance a thing howled, a long yodeling uluation that ended like a baby crying.
After a long while, he pulled himself into the driver’s seat, started the engine and headed home. Fifteen minutes later, the garage door lowered automatically behind him. For a moment he considered not turning off the truck. It would be easy to leave the motor running in the closed space, to sit with his eyes shut. He could turn on the music and mix the carbon-monoxide sleepiness with “When the Saints Go Marching,” or “Greensleeves.”
“Us or them,” the man at the gate had said. “Us or them.”
Keegan turned the ignition off. Mechanically he unloaded the truck, putting the cream and eggs in the refrigerator, sorting through the ammunition, putting the other odds and ends in boxes. When he finished, he looked at the clock. 2:30.
The safe thing to do would be to go to bed. He would need to move his business north. No matter how thorough the men were, they were few and the mutants were many. They wouldn’t all be wiped out. He could build a new route in the downtown area, maybe, where the broken skyscrapers crawled with life.
Or maybe he could stop the men.
Keegan opened one of the storage rooms off the garage, turned on the light, scanned the walls filled with equipment: rifles, shotguns, pistols, M-16s, bandoliers, sniper scopes, night vision goggles, gas masks, trip mines, hand grenades, Kevlar jackets, bazookas and mortars. All trade goods that had come in the last year. Boxes of ammo reached to the ceiling. Some shells had spilled. Their brass casings caught the ceiling light. He couldn’t walk without kicking them.
He picked up an M-16, turned the heavy and unwieldy thing over in his hands, and realized he’d never fired it. Wasn’t even sure if he had clips to load it.
And what good would it do? He wasn’t a soldier. He couldn’t kill. “Us or them,” the voice said. “Us or them.” Keegan could hear it in the room quiet as a whisper.
“Who am I?” he said out loud. He smoothed his hands over his apron, sticky with the day’s work. They still smelled of chocolate.
An hour’s labor refilled the truck.
All the ice cream he could fit. Boxes of sugar cones. Keegan checked the clock again. Almost 4:00. They’d be at the gate by now.
Steering by moonlight, he pulled onto the street, heading north. “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” pumped out of the loudspeakers, turned loud. The first mutoid stepped from the door of a house in front of him. Keegan nodded his head, but kept rolling. Soon, another joined him, then a third. The music switched to “Song of Joy.” Keegan turned left onto 19th Street, cruising at walking speed. Doors opened. Mutoids crawled from under cars, out of manholes, from behind walls, big ones, little ones, ones that were so misshapen they were hard to look at, and still Keegan drove on, cutting back and forth through the blocks. He beat time on the steering wheel. How far could the music reach?
Old man Granger had said, “Don’t ever drive too fast. You don’t want to leave the kids behind.” Keegan watched through the mirror. Would they keep following? By now the street was crowded. When he reached University again, he turned north. Behind the music, did he hear a gunshot? How far back were the men?
Twelve blocks to go. Fourteen or fifteen if he wanted a cushion. At this speed he could feel broken glass crunching under the wheels. Slowly he passed moonlit cars’ rusted-out shells, drooping road signs. A three foot tall mutoid with a body and head like a frog supported on a pair of slender legs, trotted alongside the truck, waving a box of rifle shells.
“Keep coming,” Keegan called. They rolled through the 24th Street intersection. “Song of Joy,” finished. In the pause between tunes, the patter of feet sounded like rain. “It’s a Small World” covered the noise. Another sharp crack from behind, then, two more over the music. Definitely gunshots.
Ahead of him, a bus that had been turned on its side years ago nearly blocked the road. He steered the truck to the left to go around, over the sidewalk. A shadow stirred on top. Keegan leaned forward to look through the window.
The black creature he’d seen the day before arched its head high, its stubby front claws clasped across its chest, like a giant otter. Slowly, the truck passed the bus, within a few feet of the creature. It cocked its head to one side, as if listening to the music, and Keegan was struck again by its graceful posture, an almost regal pose with the moon-filled clouds behind it. The mutoid parade moved to the side of the houses, as far away from the beast as they could, but they kept following.
A dim reminder of gunshots rang out again. The creature looked south, then dropped to all fours before flowing off the bus, onto the street, toward Colfax Avenue, toward the men. “Don’t go,” Keegan whispered, but the long, black mutoid vanished into shadows.
Keegan didn’t pull over until he was past 33rd Street. By the time he’d opened the counter, the crowd had gathered around. Their bodies bumped against the truck. Over their heads, Keegan saw more coming.
He wiped the counter clean. A dog-like face peered up at him, the creature’s tiny, pink hands holding a screwdriver for trade. Keegan slung the rag over his shoulder. He grabbed a scoop. “What’ll it be?” he said.
When the ice cream ran out, the sun was two hours into the sky and Keegan’s wrists burned. He blinked against the daylight. The last mutoids wandered off, cones in hand or paw or claw or tentacle. But he hadn’t heard a gunshot for some time. He closed the counter. As he drove home, he turned on the music to the inside. “The More We Get Together.”
Five days straight labor replaced most of the ice cream, but Keegan was low on ingredients. It was time to head south again. He’d hadn’t unloaded the truck since his all-nighter, and it took an hour to sort the ammunition and knick-knacks. He opened an unused storage closet to stow the overflow, mostly .22 short and longs, but also an assortment of larger calibers, several boxes of shotgun shells, and four clips of what he guessed were M-16 rounds. The mutoids were good at scavenging, digging deep into basements and warehouses and abandoned homes.
A dozen men including Laird stood at the Colfax fence as he pulled up. They slid the barrier aside to let him in.
“What’s going on?” Keegan asked.
Laird rested his hand on the door. “The boys were eager to see you.” He frowned. “Seems they were pretty successful on their trip last week, and they’re raring to try it again. Acquired a bit of a blood lust, I figure. Rich there is leading the posse.”
Keegan stiffened as he recognized the man with the short mustache from the week before. “How successful?”
Rich joined Laird at the truck. “Not bad, hairlip. Didn’t get as many of the bastards as we might have liked, but we got a trophy out of it.” He gestured to a tarp on the sidewalk ten feet away. A man next to the shape pulled the tarp back, revealing a broad black head and sleek neck. A chaos of flies descended on the corpse.
“Getting ripe too,” Rich added.
Keegan opened the door, stepped onto the street. The sun leaked around his sunglasses, and his eyes teared instantly. He wiped his cheeks with the side of his hand. Up close the fur really was more purple than black. Even a week dead, the creature’s muscles stood out, as if with a flex of will, it could rise, throw off death’s shroud and rip them apart.
Rich said, “We need to trade for more bullets, though. Our supply is low.”
Keegan touched the creature’s head. Its eye was gone. Just a raw socket remained. He remembered it standing on the bus. Why had it gone toward the men? What drove it south? He smiled. There had been young mutoids then, or at least small ones. Ones he’d never seen before, like children. The truck played “Love is Blue,” and “Music Box Dancer,” and “Fly Me to the Moon” while he handed them ice cream. All of them gave him something. He flicked the trade goods behind him, not even looking to see what he was getting. There were so many. He’d scooped and scooped and scooped.
Rich said, “I’ll bet there’s a lot more of them out there, maybe more big sons of bitches like this one. Took all of us to drag him back this far.”
Laird touched Keegan’s shoulder. “It’s an impressive specimen, isn’t it? The men said it didn’t even try to run. Stood in the middle of the street as if daring them to go past.”
“Impressive, hell,” said Rich. “It’s us or them.”
Keegan said, “Yeah, he’s something.”
Rich kicked the body. “You got more ammo, ice cream man? We’ve hunting to do.”
The ice cream man’s back cracked when he stood. I’m getting old, he thought. The rest of the men faced him, none of them under fifty. The last of their kind. We’re all getting old.
“So, what about it? How many bullets can you get for us?”
Keegan thought about the little ones running after the truck. Some of them could speak. Some just pointed at a picture of a flavor. They held their hands open, ready for their treats. He thought about the rooms full of trade goods at the bank, the shiny shells on the floor.
Scavenging’s been tough,” said Keegan. “I don’t think there’s any ammo to be had.”
As he left he played “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,” and within a block the people came out for their ice cream.
SACRIFICE
Waves lapped against the ceremonial canoe, and Jermone let them lick his fingers while Cynda rowed. When they fished together, they both took a paddle, but today was special, the Whale’s run first day, and she rowed him, the king. People pampered the king. They said, “As goes the king, so goes the island.” Ever since last year when blonde-haired Glinn handed him the crown, it was true. They pampered him. They served him roasted bananas and flavored goat’s milk. He picked the best fish from the day’s catch, and Cynda’s mother, the Queen’s mother, spitted it on a stick to cook separately from the community’s meals. He was key to the Whale’s run ceremony.
When Cynda once winked conspiratorially across the fire to remind him they were friends the silliness came to him, and he laughed. The Queen’s mother laughed too, and so did the others close enough to hear. After all, he was king.
“I like the music the boat makes.” His voice sounded oddly deep to him, as it
had since the last Whale’s run. The ocean’s emptiness swallowed it. It was something to say, at least. Something to lighten her mood. “Have you ever listened to it?”
Cynda said nothing for a while, and Jermone let the surge of her paddling lull him. He offered a small prayer to the ocean gods to keep the waves calm and to speed their journey.
Ahead, the waves rippled to the mist that hid the Land. He turned on his shoulder to look at Cynda. Beneath him the damp wood cooled his skin, and the sun burnished his face. Cynda knelt in the stern. She bent forward on each stroke, and her breastcloth flapped; the intricately painted, beaded strings clicked together as they swung against her firm belly. It fitted loosely because it had been tailored for her sister, and no one had changed it. Making the clothes required all year, and the fit mattered less than the ritual. Jermone hid his grin, thinking warm thoughts. He’d dreamed today often, the ritual day.
Cynda’s strong and dark arms, much darker than his, tensed with the effort; her face serious; black hair tied back and braided. Her legs, too, below the short, brightly feathered skirt, rippled with muscle. She and Jermone had run races along the beach from Shark Point to the old wreck, and he barely beat her. He’d slap the rust encrusted spaceship an instant before her, and they’d collapse into the shadows, laughing until they could breathe again. The wreck stretched into the sea where the broken and sagging corroded metal slabs merged with orange and red corals. He couldn’t tell where the ship’s remains stopped and where the sea creatures began.
“Do you believe in the gods?” she said, leaning into the next stroke. “I mean, do you really believe in them?” She always asked questions. Jermone recognized Bundi’s influence, and he scowled. Trust Bundi to ruin the day. An old, stupid, bitter man from an insignificant family with no daughters, so his name would die with him.
Jermone closed his eyes, sighing. “The gods are in everything, of course.” He tried to imagine the sea gods, but instead her ghost image floated, pale and featureless. The sun floated behind, a dark ball in a dark sky. “Gods in the tuna and the clams, in typhoons and in us.” He squinted. The sun glared behind her. A few loose hairs caught the light in a silvery halo. “Gods in my hands, Cynda, in my body, just like yours.”
The Radio Magician and Other Stories Page 24