“Please yourself,” my father says, so loud that his voice goes into the tunnel. He stares after her as she marches away; he must be hoping she’ll change her mind. But I see her step off the jetty into the boat, and it moves out to sea as if the ripples are pushing it to Elounda.
My father puts a hand to his ear as the sound of the engine fades. “So every bugger’s left me now, have they?” he says in a kind of shout at himself. “Well, good riddance.”
He’s waving his fists as if he wants to punch something, and he sounds as if he’s suddenly got drunk. He must have been holding it back when Kate was there. I’ve never seen him like this. It frightens me, so I stay where I am.
It isn’t only my father that frightens me. There’s only a little bump of the sun left above the hills of Crete now, and I’m afraid how dark the island may be once that goes. Bits of sunlight shiver on the water all the way to the island, and I think I see some heads above the wall of the yard full of slabs, against the light. Which side of the wall are they on? The light’s too dazzling; it seems to pinch the sides of the heads so they look thinner than any heads I’ve ever seen. Then I notice a boat setting out from Elounda, and I squint at it until I’m sure it’s Iannis’s boat.
He’s coming early to fetch us. Even that frightens me, because I wonder why he is. Doesn’t he want us to be on the island now he realizes how dark it’s getting? I look at the wall, and the heads have gone. Then the hills put the sun out, and it feels as if the island is buried in darkness.
I can still see my way down—the steps are paler than the dark—and I don’t like being alone now that I’ve started shivering. I back off from the mound, because I don’t like to touch it, and almost back into a shape with bits of its head poking out and arms that look as if they’ve dropped off at the elbows. It’s a cactus. I’m just standing up when my father says, “There you are, Hugh.”
He can’t see me yet. He must have heard me gasp. I go to the top of the steps, but I can’t see him for the dark. Then his voice moves away. “Don’t start hiding again. Looks like we’ve seen the last of Kate; but we’ve got each other, haven’t we?”
He’s still drunk. He sounds as if he’s talking to somebody nearer to him than I am. “All right, we’ll wait on the beach,” he says, and his voice echoes. He’s gone into the tunnel, and he thinks he’s following me. “I’m here, Dad,” I shout so loud that I squeak.
“I heard you, Hugh. Wait there. I’m coming.” He’s walking deeper into the tunnel. While he’s in there my voice must seem to be coming from beyond the far end. I’m sucking in a breath that tastes dusty, so I can tell him where I am, when he says, “Who’s that?” with a laugh that almost shakes his words to pieces.
He’s met whoever he thought was me when he was heading for the tunnel. I’m holding my breath—I can’t breathe or swallow—and I don’t know if I feel hot or frozen. “Let me past,” he says as if he’s trying to make his voice as big as the tunnel. “My son’s waiting for me on the beach.”
There are so many echoes in the tunnel I’m not sure what I’m hearing besides him. I think there’s a lot of shuffling; and the other noise must be voices, because my father says, “What kind of language do you call that? You sound drunker than I am. I said my son’s waiting.”
He’s talking even louder as if that’ll make him understood. I’m embarrassed, but I’m more afraid for him. “Dad,” I nearly scream, and run down the steps as fast as I can without falling.
“See, I told you. That’s my son,” he says as if he’s talking to a crowd of idiots. The shuffling starts moving like a slow march, and he says, “All right, we’ll all go to the beach together. What’s the matter with your friends, too drunk to walk?”
I reach the bottom of the steps, hurting my ankles, and run along the ruined street because I can’t stop myself. The shuffling sounds as if it’s growing thinner, as if the people with my father are leaving bits of themselves behind, and the voices are changing too—they’re looser. Maybe the mouths are getting bigger somehow. But my father’s laughing, so loud that he might be trying to think of a joke. “That’s what I call a hug. No harder, love, or I won’t have any puff left,” he says to someone. “Come on then; give us a kiss. They’re the same in any language.”
All the voices stop, but the shuffling doesn’t. I hear it go out of the tunnel and onto the pebbles, and then my father tries to scream as if he’s swallowed something that won’t let him. I scream for him and dash into the tunnel, slipping on things that weren’t on the floor when we first came through, and fall out onto the beach.
My father’s in the sea. He’s already so far out that the water is up to his neck. About six people who look stuck together and to him are walking him away as if they don’t need to breathe when their heads start to sink. Bits of them float away on the waves my father makes as he throws his arms about and gurgles. I try to run after him, but I’ve got nowhere when his head goes underwater. The sea pushes me back on the beach, and I run crying up and down it until Iannis comes.
It doesn’t take him long to find my father once he understands what I’m saying. Iannis wraps me in a blanket and hugs me all the way to Elounda, and the police take me back to the hotel. Kate gets my mother’s number and calls her, saying she’s someone at the hotel who’s looking after me because my father’s drowned; and I don’t care what she says, I just feel numb. I don’t start screaming until I’m on the plane back to England, because then I dream that my father has come back to tell a joke. “That’s what I call getting some tongue,” he says, leaning his face close to mine and showing me what’s in his mouth.
KATHE KOJA
Impermanent Mercies
KATHE KOJA is one of the rising stars of horror fiction. After a number of stories in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Pulphouse, Jabberwocky, Critical Mass and such anthologies as Dark Voices 3 and A Whisper of Blood, she created quite a stir with her first novel, The Cipher, which launched Dell’s cutting-edge horror imprint, Abyss, in 1991. She has followed that with two more books, Bad Brains and Skin.
To attempt to describe the story that follows would serve little purpose. Let’s just say that it’s unclassifiable yet is guaranteed to get under your skin. Where it ends up you must find out for yourself.
“OK,” ELLIS SAID. “NOW PICK UP the dog.”
“True,” the boy said. His name was Andy. Ellis had met him at the 7–11.
“OK, pick True up,” and Andy did, smiling, sun in his eyes, summery squint and the dog almost smiling too in that half-asinine way of the quintessential mutt; a boy and his dog, shit yes it was cute. Shot after shot after shot, as sweet a stock photo as anyone could want, head a-tilt and happy sweat on his back, OK, uh-huh, and behind the boy the long stretch of railroad tracks, summer and infinity, the beginning of boyhood’s journey; you bought it, you name it. “OK, great.” Shot and shot, enough. “I think we’re done here.” Kids were such great models. Cheap too.
Walking back, Andy’s questions—little-boy gory, you ever take any pictures of dead stuff? Any dead people?—high voice punctuated by the low gaining sound of a train, infrequent on these tracks. Ellis looked over his shoulder: almost too far away to see, there it was. True ran a loping zigzag on the tracks, Andy on the slope beside glancing up at the dog from time to time.
“You ever seen any dead people?”
The train was closer now. “You better call your dog,” Ellis said.
“True, c’mere,” pausing, one bare foot on the gulley’s rise. “True.” True paused too, looked at Andy with what seemed to Ellis a particularly stupid grin, snuffle snuffle along the steel of the tracks, lift of small scrawny leg.
“True, come on,” voice raised in the louder pitch of the train, approaching now as the boy approached the slope, Ellis’ hand a warning on his shoulder. “True!” Andy’s voice very high, he seemed to lose years in his sudden fear, a littler boy than he had been and “True!” Ellis’ bellow, best
man-to-mammal voice, pure authority that True chose, in his pure doggy way, to ignore. Snuff snuff, yum, more pee.
“True!” And Andy broke for the tracks, almost too fast to stop but Ellis did, startled reflex grab of the skinny elbow, yanking him back as the train ran on, and all at once True turned his head, the look on his face the essence of surprise: What is that? and off, four legs in quantum motion, running down the centre of the track, Andy jerking and bucking in Ellis’ grip, Ellis yelling something, who knows what into the vortex of the train’s momentum, gaining and gained all in a second and True disappeared beneath, now you see him, now you don’t. Ellis yelling still, how if True stays still, he’s a small dog, if he only doesn’t move and in the speaking the word’s negation for, without any blood at all, a small round rolling thing spat out from under and down the slope as neatly as a softball. True’s head.
Man and boy and silence, the sun all at once so hot and a fullborn headache springing free and Ellis thought, illogical inner laughter, Now True he’s got the big headache; what a shitty thought. Funny though. “Stay here,” he said to Andy, who stood as if he might never move again, and up the gulley Ellis went, to stand in the train’s far away wake and bend to the small headless body. As he picked it up air rushed into the body cavity with a bizarre sucking sound, ugly, he almost dropped it. Back down, and Andy was gone. The head was gone too, presumably with Andy, wasn’t going anywhere itself now was it, stop it where’s the kid. Ellis saw weeds, dipping and parting, called a few times but no reply; he gave it up, found he was still holding the body, let it fall beside the warm wood of the tracks which he walked beside, but studiously not on, all the way back to his car.
The pictures came out great.
Smoking the last of his cigarettes, coming out of the 7–11 with a new pack in hand and “Hey.” Andy. Trueless Andy, not smiling. Ellis stopped, stepped back, false guilty smile on his face which he at once replaced with some other kind of look, who knew. “Andy,” he said. “Where’d you go, that day? I was worried about you.”
“I took True home.” Small bare feet, so bottom-black they left sidewalk prints when he shifted. “Want to see?”
Want to see. Hell no, I don’t want to see. “What—you mean his, where you buried him?” Little boy grieves at doggy grave. Poignancy of collision, youth with death, innocence with sorrow. How much film did he have. “All right.”
Home wasn’t far, befitting a boy on foot, lucky Ellis had stopped again at that particular 7–11. Shitty little ranch house, flats of flowers wilting in their plastic containers, oil spots all over the driveway. No car. Andy led him through the back gate into the yard, more sagging flowers, somebody at least was trying, and into the house through an unlocked screen door. The house was hotter than the day outside. “Where’s your folks?” Ellis asked, suddenly uneasy at being here, alone with the boy in an empty house.
“My mom’s not home,” Andy said in that same flat voice. “He’s back here,” down the skinny hall, he who. Oh shit, not the dog, the dog’s head in all this heat, seeing without noticing the badly framed snapshots, Andy and little Andy and baby Andy, one or two with presumably Mom. And True. The before pictures.
“Here,” in Andy’s bedroom, unmade bed hand-me-down to death, and beneath it, oh shit. A saltine box. A wet saltine box. Ellis took a big step backwards, hand on the doorframe. “Andy,” reasonable adult voice thinned a little by possible pukedom, “maybe I should just— ”
“What’s the matter, motherfucker? Squeamish?”
From inside the box.
Oh come on, come on this is not happening, the kid’s a pissed-off ventriloquist, and Andy said, “I told you he wouldn’t like it,” and at the same time that deeper voice, “Oh he likes it all right. Hey you,” and the box rocked, just a little, just enough to make the first hot pissy dribble squirt onto Ellis’ jeans. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Everybody but Ellis laughed.
“You thought he was just a dog,” Andy said, and smiled, thin proud stretch as he patted the box. “He’s not. He can do stuff. He always could.”
“Like talk?” He hadn’t meant it as a question but the quaver was there.
“No,” shaking his head. “Not out loud.”
“But I can now,” from the box, and a sudden booming laugh, incredible TV voice: “And it was worth it!”
That’s it, that’s it right there, I’m out of here and he was, pushing the door so hard it nicked the wall, True’s voice yelling after him, “But what are you going to tell Sheila?” and he was out of the house and the driveway and down the street, shaking at the stop sign and grabbing for his cigarettes when the words took hold and he cracked the cigarette in two. Sheila, right, Sheila his ex-wife, hide nor hair for what, eight months, even though he’d stopped sending the cheques. Sheila, hell of a guess. By the time he got home he had persuaded himself that it was all so very improbable that it was probably stupid to even believe it had happened, and the ringing phone was a pleasant diversion, he picked it up before the machine could, let’s have some human contact, hallo.
“El, it’s me.”
His first black thought was that it was somehow the fucking dog, and Sheila’s voice, hallo, hallo until he finally spoke and yes indeed it was the genuine article, just calling to ask if he would get that box of camping stuff out of the garage, she and Richard were going to Padgett Park and they needed the Coleman and it would be nice if he could see his way to a cheque or two. Thanks, and bye, and Ellis there with hands too cold to sweat, wondering if, there had to be, a way to find the house again. The 7–11, of course, and of course Andy was there, sucking on a slurpee, the unbearable smugness of a child in the right. “Hi,” he said before Ellis could speak, and when Ellis did a cool moment of silence, letting Ellis know that he stood on the sufferance of a nine-year-old boy, and that he, Andy, knew it too. But he was nine, after all, there was no way he could say no.
“He told me a bunch of stuff about you,” Andy said, matter-of-fact swing of bare ankles, Nikes worn white over the toes. “Some other stuff too.”
“Will he,” very careful, now, “let me take his picture?”
“I don’t know. Ask him.”
Say cheese, Mr Dog Head. Pulling into the afternoon driveway, empty as before. “Does your mom know?”
“Know what,” but with indifference, no leverage there; apparently Mom was no mover and shaker in Andy’s world. “I clean my own room, and besides she’s hardly ever home anyway. Come on,” pushing in the screen, you always leave the house wide open, kid? Oh, that’s right, you have a watchdog.
The bedroom had a ripe odour that was suspiciously free of decay, but the saltine box was wet to the trademark, wet too the worn yellow carpet beneath. Andy handled the box with priestly care, turned it so the open edge faced Ellis. The damp grey flaps peeled open, and True, big doggy grin, tongue twisted the way no dog’s ever should: “How was Sheila?”
“Not funny,” forgetting everything but the face before him, Andy behind him, hands clasped in happy calm. True, speaking, a bunch of stuff indeed; they used to call it prophecy. Not so much world “events”, stock market tips or sports bullshit, but things in Ellis’ own daily life: the guy from Watersports will call, the woman from the Sunday supplement won’t, your air conditioner’s going to hell and it’ll get there a week from Wednesday, and Ellis mesmerized by the inscrutable flow, his day-to-day laid bare, so weird and oh, so compelling. Finally True stopped, made a sound it took a second to recognize as a bark.
“I’m thirsty,” rolling his eyes to look not at Andy but Ellis. “Get me a drink.”
“There’s a glass in the bathroom,” Andy’s faint malicious smirk. “On the sink.”
Shit. But he got it, filled it half-way, came back to kneel in awkward crouch before True, long tongue lapping sloppy and water on Ellis’ legs, on the floor. True blew some water out of his nose.
Now, Ellis thought. Ask him now. But True was a step ahead.
“No,” showing his teeth, b
lunt tartary fangs. “No pictures.”
“Why not?” Grim frustration, keeping his voice even, thinking I could just grab the damn box and be out of here, but the thought of actually touching it, hefting its wet weight, would it sag in the middle— ” “Why not.”
True and Andy, a look shared, and “I got a train to catch,” ha ha, they laughed their stupid asses off at that one and all at once Andy was giving him the bum’s rush, you gotta go now, my mom’s going to be home. “Maybe I’ll stay,” firm, let’s not forget who’s the grown-up here. “I’d like to meet her.”
Andy, smiling, cheeks still faintly sweet with babyfat. “I’ll tell her you tried to touch my dick,” and that was the end of that, the best he could get was a vague promise from Andy to meet him the next day, the 7–11, yeah, right. But he came, and so did Andy.
It was a ritual, irregular but not to be missed, and though Ellis was constantly disappointed, no pictures, still he could not stay away. True’s voice, its rolling gravel amusement, and oh the things he said—not only tales of Ellis’ humdrum days (which always came true, so much so that Ellis had begun without conscious decision to rely on them) but real prophecy, world news of a world Ellis had not even suspected, a universe so black and yet so greyly probable that he believed these stories, too, relied on them: grotesqueries and pains and distortions, people in Switzerland who drank each other’s urine and cast runes from the mingled flow, a man in Pittsburgh who saved discarded surgical clamps and what he did with them, the daylight flourishing on a neighbourhood cult unique in its blue-collar sophistication and blunt brutality; True the Scheherzade of the ugly and ultimate, Andy his acolyte, and Ellis, what? The sceptic, no, nor just the listener, for at night alone these tales had begun to grow not on him but in him, wreaking changes so gradual yet so acute that, wild-eyed in the mornings, he thought it some subtle form of vengeance, a cool rot like a ticking bomb in the space between his ears. But there was no staying away, and besides True had promised to let Ellis take his picture. When, there was no saying, and Ellis would not chance a miss, so back to that strange bedroom temple, on his knees before them both.
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