The Altonevers

by Frederic Merbe

  The man is bound to the bedpost, blindfolded with his tie and gagged with her underwear. Daisy on top roughly straddling the man, taking it how she likes it with totally inconsideration of his needs. She stops and listens like a wild animal hearing danger, then looking at her closed door.

  “Is that?” she sniffs the around the air, “is that the sweet sound of combat I hear?” she asks herself. The man is groaning in bliss as he climax's pinned to the bed by her thighs.

  “Shut up,” She punches the man. “It is. In the Manor!? big V!” Daisy yells then jumps off the bound man, taking the panties from his mouth and putting them on as fast as she can. Quickly grabbing a Kalashnikov rifle and a drum magazine from her umbrella stand then rummaging through her messy closet and putting two pineapple grenades in the waistband of her underwear. She races through the lightly rumblings halls of the second floor, toward the deafening buzz of the ongoing onslaught of so much gunfire the theatre resounds the sound a rushing water fall.

  Vivian is peek a boo shooting from behind her table as Harold, the butler, is standing on the ceiling and shooting double fisted over her shoulder. Rebecca's lead lusting dress is more than evening the odds, even allowing her side to easily overwhelm the crowd of combat crazy lunatics. Losing only three of her unkindness to the cost of seven hundred rabid Vaudevs, as the Ravens jump in and out of from the sanctuary of their captains lead devouring red dress.

  Harley has a .357 and a dead mime as body shield, pushing through the frenzied crowd as Popper kills a juggler for his rifle, then shoots up the stomach to a head shot dropping a Raven from the air. Harley takes two of the Ravens out, scoring two kills out of the three shots before she drops the mimes body and duck walks through the dying toward the exit.

  “They have to leave the nest sometime,” Vivian shouts to her foot soldiers, who are viciously losing the battle. She looks back seeing her long time butler Harold blown off the ceiling laying dead on the marbled floor.

  “Where in the Blanks is Daisy?” Vivian shouts after returning fire, though no one could hear her cry over the rush of lead flying inward and out.

  Anna not hearing any of the maelstrom over the bathroom exhaust fan and running water as she washes her hands, is staring at herself in the mirror wondering if she's been aging at all since she started traveling. Catching a new line in her face, one that’s hardly visible even to her, and invisible to anyone else. I guess I am aging, I think, I don't know, maybe not. Cider bursts into the ladies restroom struggling to speak through erratic breaths.

  “Ahhh!” she yells.

  “We have to go,” he pants.

  “Knock next time. I could've been on the pot.”

  “What? whatever about civilities, Rebecca’s here.”

  “That skank with the hole in her head. Is it because she loves you or something,” Anna says rolling her eyes.

  “She does.”

  “Dammit.”

  “I’m the guy in her story, okay, but, I was too old and I had no interest in her in that way anyway,” he says and she stares at him judging every line on his face “What? nothing happened. It was a young girl’s love for a man. That's why she killed herself. She thought I thought she was invisible, she was a naive girl then,” he says.

  “And now she's trying to slay you,” Anna says

  “Fate can be strange to us all. And yeah, but she doesn't actually want to. She takes orders from Alitser.”

  “Like you do.”

  “Exactly. Well, like I’m supposed to. That’s why she’s here, and she seems to really, uhh. She hates you. She wants to kill you, a little bit.”

  “A little bit, who wants to kill someone a little bit.”

  “Alot. We have to go.”

  “Story of our lives,” Anna says though Cider not waiting for an answer, grabs her by the arm. Panicking, pulling her away from the stalls into the halls toward the lawn side of the house to meet his friend's with the ride out.

  Daisy runs to the second tier of the embattled theatre like a marine into a war zone. Posting up next to a pillar on the second tier overlooking and joining in the carnage of first floor. Shooting at the leaping Ravens, picking off two in the apex of their leap to lifelessly. She takes a grenade from her panties and pulls the pin, waiting two seconds and throws the it. Blowing three more of the raptor like pack of Ravens out of existence.

  “Daisy,” says both Vivian and Rebecca with entirely opposite inflections. Only three unrelenting Ravens and the Raveness are left, so the carnage rages on. Most of the room is hiding for their lives having run out of ammunition a while back. Though the Ravens never do, their clips are forever full, so they always keep firing. Always with overwhelming firepower until they’re snuffed out of their soulless vessels. A gift from Alister, for his reapers to ceaselessly bring him more of themselves to serve him.

  Cider throws a potted plant through a window of a second floor stairwell onto the grass of the great lawn. He drops his coat over the pieces of broken glass, thinking himself a gentleman laying a coat over a puddle for a lady. The sound of the Raven's gurgles and growls and their shoes spilling down the staircase scare the color from both of their afraid faces.

  “Tuck and roll Carrots,” he says urgently.

  “I know how to do it,” she flusters, though hesitates for a second taking a deep breath, then jumps tucking and rolling nicely down the gentle slope night darkened great green lawn. Cider falls from the window a second later, not tucking and rolling as well as she, and flops like a penguin flies into a thick hedge.

  “Anna. Carrots where are you?” he grunts exactly upside down in twigs and small branches.

  “Here, I’m right here. Where are you?” she says walking back up the lawn toward the broken window.

  “Over here.”

  “Where?”

  “In the bushes, pull me out.”

  “Hahahaha, you landed in the bushes.”

  “Just pull me out, okay.”

  “Hahahaha you're head first. Ha! you dove into a bush hahahaha,” she almost rolls down the lawn laughing away her nervousness. The branches sting and scrape as she barely manages to pull her man from the hedges. The two run with panting breathes to the roundabout at the front of Vivian’s ivy covered Manor. Anna can't take her eyes off the shadow showing through the wide open peacock decorated front door. A shade of black that's still a brighter dark than the neon lights of other places. The two wait in fear, frantically watching the grass and statues to be sure they’re not enemies, seeking any sight of his friends to arrive with the ride out. Each with a loaded weapon looking around, twitching their aim at any thought of danger. Listening, suspiciously to the chorus of crickets chirping, not sounding like a calm summer night, but instead filling them with a dreadful anticipation of something in the darkness of night’s depth. Making Anna exceedingly anxious, always thinking there must be a bringer of death just beyond the edge of visibility.

  Far off, a beam of light appears through the night and turns toward them, splitting into two lights. Growing larger and coming closer to the two standing with their guns drawn and aimed to be sure. The cracked windshield and bullet riddled body of the cream convertible emerges into shape as flees from the shadow of depth. Speeding, red lining the screaming engine and swerving around the two, who stand stiff as a deer caught in headlights. Harley jerks the wheel and the car swings around the two, leaving an almost perfect circle of tire tracks scarring the green lawn. Popper covers them from the passenger's seat with his favorite gold plated AK 47.

  “Good to see you,” says Cider.

  “Yeah yeah, lover boy” Harley teases him “Get in. Quick.”

  “It's crazy in there,” Popper says. Cider flops into the blood stained backseat like a fish jumping onto a boat. Anna hops in the back, laying on him and for a second feeling safe like she's in a trench with him, out of the line of fire. She starts laughing as the ivy and white gilded age manse fades from view, with its statues of past stars of the screen shrinking away from her l
ast.

  The engine roars as they speed through the war torn streets of the city spectrum torn smeared every shade between the Brights and Bleaks, careful to avoid the heavy combat of the achromatic craters. Sliding around corners through panchromatic puddles and pools, purposely splashing waves onto the sidewalks and up the side of the car, that speckle and mist Anna's face with more warm and cool hues then her eyes will ever know. They pass the last dripping palm tree in reaching the open highway leading to the edge of town and through a slowly fading desert. The two in the backseat are turned around to watch the mind blinding sight of the single Alto that emanates all of infinities hue's. The Alto of Vi-def, the only place either of the two have ever felt at peace, at home together since they’ve known each other. The sky sized crown of pristine polychromatic effulgence radiating as an oasis stretching to the highest heights of the atmosphere. The aura will wane from view over days of speeding down the desert highway. Anna faces forward toward a large looming orange sunrise that's lighting the bottoms of lengthy lavender clouds that're round as laurels resting over yesterday’s ultramarine day.

  “You think they'll be alright?” Anna Asks.

  “Eh. Them, they'll be fine. They got a whole city at war, but Daisy is a beast in a battle. Besides Rebecca and the Ribbits are after us, not them,” Cider says.

  “Then why'd we run?” Anna asks. Popper slides Cider a peripheral glance and a smirk. Harley turns to give Anna the same sort of expectant glance, then clears her throat obviously on purpose.

  “To save you Carrots, Anna,” He says slowly leaning in to softly steal a kiss as the days sun falls.

  “You can call me Carrots...Apples,” She laughs that Daisy calls him that, and he puts his arm her shoulders.

  The dying piano player crawls up and snatches the weapon from Rebecca's hands as his last living act. She stomps through his throat with her high heel, and laughs as the surviving Vaudevs keep firing until they are completely out of ammo.

  “Now what?” Rebecca laughs, then shrugs. Blithely speaking over the moans and groans of the dying and those weeping for the dead.

  “Rebecca! you killed Harold!” Shouts Vivian.

  “Sorry about that,” Rebecca shrugs.

  “You’re not,”

  “No, I'm not,”

  “Anyhow. It's so good to finally see you after all this time. I'd love to hear all about what you've been up to. You look absolutely famished, you’ll be joining us breakfast I’m sure?” Vivian says as a mother giving a daughter forgiveness.

  “Ha! what's black and white and red all over?” Daisy asks waving and smiling from the second level.

  “Heya Dai’s,” Rebecca says.

  “Hiya Becca,” Daisy replies.

  “So what's for breakfast then?” the Raveness asks.

  “Whatever you like, my dove. We'll have blueberry tarts, Your favorite,” the Baroness says, “and Daisy, that other thing as soon as possible.”

  Lighting a trail of smoke spilling from an ashtray, is the raw orange of a hazy lazy aired afternoon also casting the shadow of a cushioned leather chair onto a typewriter and paper with a journalist’s letterhead. The room is filled with sun yellowed newspaper clippings, thousands of them, some old enough to be only blurs on withered paper Every headline, every article and photo is of Vivian. From her being born in color, to her early career as a performer, all the way through her rise and reign as the Baroness. Every word ever printed about her. A black and white wand in a hat sits on the floor beside a coat rack in the corner.

  The creaking footsteps cross the old wooden floor under a dingy carpet of the narrow hall outside of the room. A tall shadowy figure appears behind the frosted window of a half glass door. The clacking sound of a large hand gripping the door knob breaks the stagnant silence. The door squeaks opens to a wide shouldered, red vested man with a big yellow bow tie. His intense cartoonishly large blue eyes sit behind big clear rimmed glasses that cover his eyebrows and cheekbones. He closes the door and hangs his trench coat, and hat showing his brown hair parted in the middle. Taking his seat facing the sunlight lighting the trail of tobacco smoke instead of the cushioned chair of the room with his name written on the door.

  “That's my seat,” the guy says with little bit of helium in his voice.

  “You look so young. I figured you older,” Daisy says pointing a nickel plated revolver at the man’s chest.

  “So this is it then?” he asks.

  “What are you typing?” Daisy asks.

  “Dreams.”

  “Not letters to say, the Ribbits or the rival studios?”

  “Not at the moment,” he says, his voice breaking as he speaks.

  “A smoke? you look nervous,” she says throwing a lighter to him and nodding to a pack of smokes on the table next to a decanter of clear fluid.

  “Sure.”

  Daisy doesn’t move, she’s still as a viper as he reaches across the desk cluttered with photos of Vivian. The two sit uneasily staring at each other in silence. He knows this will be his last few minutes alive. When the heat of the cigarette reaches his fingers, it will be the death of him. Just when the cherry is almost burning him.

  “A drink before you go?” she smirks when asking. The man taking any delay to the moment of his death, tries speaking but the words don’t leave his throat, so he nods yes.

  “There's your glass. Vodka huh, like she drinks I see.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Love can be treacherous,” She says, her gun muzzle keeping a beat on the man's heart. He wearily reaches for the empty glass, and holds it up, waiting for her to pour him a drink from the clear decanter. She starts pouring his glass, then he shoots her a look of shock.

  “That smell,” he yells.

  “Acid,” the deadly starlet snickers splashing it to his right hand, instantly searing his flesh and muscle. Writhing in agony, he screams at the top of his lungs, runs around and falls, rolls and flailing violently around the room in a painful frenzy. He’s ripping down the photos and news clippings chronicling the life of the Baroness as he squeals and swings his arms. The acid eats quickly through his skin, seeping it's way to his bones, covering his hand in a glove of frothing white steaming foam of sizzling flesh.

  “Hahahaheeehahaaaa,” His laugh sounding like both agony and elation, he screams laughter until he's out of breath. Daisy is in his chair laughing, though never takes the nickel plated revolver off his chest.

  “Alright, alright,” she says. He can't speak between hyperventilating breaths and the whimpers of a wounded animal. She gets up from the chair and lifts the decanter from the desk. Slowly walking to the man sitting on the carpet with his back to the wall of words and pictures of Vivian. His face is next an article of her cutting the ribbon to her first studio. He's twitching in pain and afraid, staring at the starlet towering over him. The acid is sizzling his nerves, washing all sensation from anything below his wrist.

  “Now the other one,” she says, giddily grinning.

  “N..o.oo...ple..e.ase..”

  “This is an order, I'd have just killed you. She doesn't have the heart to. Now put out your left hand,” Daisy demands. The man reluctantly reaches out with his good hand and his palm down.

  “Further. You don't want your leg to get burned too do you?” Daisy says insistently. He extends his hand further and looks away. Gritting his teeth and squinting his eyes closed in anticipation of the skin searing acid in her hands.

  “This is mercy,” Daisy says before pouring the decanter onto his hand. He again flails like a fish out of water, kicking and screaming in agony, jumping around the room like a terrified hare tearing the newspaper clippings and pictures from the wall filling the air of the room like a snow globe. Daisy sits back in the cushioned chair and starts stroking the keys of the typewriter. Punching up a good review for her last film, with the expression of a kid in a candy store. Oblivious to the magician turned private eye's horrific screams and lunatic laughter. Unable to open the door, he breaks hole
s in the glass and walls, thrashing around the room like a bull in a China shop.

  “Keep it down will ya. I'm trying to think over here!” Daisy yells. Thinking now they can’t forget me after the film ends. Though they will, no one has any idea what film or actress the review is about. Never mind that her picture is already on most of the billboards in town and they still can’t recollect her as anything other than as a brutal lieutenant of the hoard of Vaudevs.

  Chingching, ching....chingchingchingching, click click...ching...chingching...ching...click...click click click click click...the typewriter chings away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  Two birds

  Popper’s at the wheel, Harley’s riding shotgun with her foot hanging over the side mirror. Cider, behind Popper, is leaning on his hand looking away from the sun. Anna is laying her cheek on the top of door, giving her a view of the blacktop passing under the convertibles spinning tires, and Harley's laces flap in the wind in front her. The four watch the stars pass from east to west each night while sailing down a highway with the sun and moon on either side. Cruising along in the cream convertible on nothing but open road for days through the same big blues above and empty yellow green prairies of big sky country all around them. At night seeing nothing past the headlights but the waxing moon standing before star splashes country sky. They get cramped limbs sitting in the same bloody leather seats as over time the days lengthen and the nights shorten.