Walk Hand IN Hand Into Extinction : Stories Inspired By True Detective

by Christoph Paul

  What seems like miles of caution tape separates the cemetery from the street. Without it, you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. There’s at least two feet of water everywhere, and enough refuse floating in it to build a house. It occurs to me that much of that refuse probably comes from people’s houses; all this rubble is the debris of countless shattered lives.

  On the other end of the yellow tape, tired volunteer workers trudge through the water in waist-high waders. Some carry large rocks, chunks of what used to be gravestones. Most tend to the humanoid shapes under the tarps. They’re lined up in the farthest part of the cemetery, where the water is at its lowest, and where they’re farthest from the small army of curious children gawking from the roadside.

  Two workers are carrying another tarp-covered shape to the end of the line on a makeshift stretcher. I watch as one end of the yellow tarp comes loose from under the shape and dangles down to the ground. I see where this is going, and my first instinct is to reach out and grab the flapping fin of fabric, but of course I’m so far away, inside a moving cab. The reflex is rendered ridiculous.

  One of the men steps on the dangling tarp, and the whole thing tears away from the shape, revealing it to be the corpse we all knew it was but were hoping to forget. The man trips and falls back into the water, and the body comes tumbling after. It lands hard, rigid limbs twisting and splashing. It looks almost fresh, flesh withered and eaten away by rot but features still identifiable. The lips are gone, leaving a mouth full of teeth to form a hideous grin. Strangely, he’s not wearing formal wear, nothing you’d expect anyone to be buried in. His clothes, though wet, ragged and dripping with filth, are visibly casual: a hooded sweatshirt and… are those waist-high waders?

  The children at the edge of the caution tape see it all, but they barely react. They just watch on in wide-eyed silence. For the first time, I notice a man standing among the children. How could I have missed him before? He towers above them, tall and thin, a stark silhouette in his dirty yellow raincoat. His hood is up and his back is to me, so I can’t see his face. He begins to turn towards me, and I’m struck by the paleness of what little I do see, but then the taxi turns a corner and the man in the raincoat, and the entire charnel scene, vanishes like raindrops cast aside by windshield wiper blades.

  “Bullshit.”

  “I shit you not.”

  “Bull-fucking-shit!”

  “Nope.”

  “I envy you,” I said, “Sounds like one hell of a collection.”

  Deacon beamed at me through the paper-thin slit between his heavy eyelids, a vision of inebriated pride. I ordered us another round from the hotel bar, put it on the Weird Menace tab. I was guest of honor, goddammit. I’d earned it.

  “You should come out sometime, to my home.” His words were a smear of melting vowel sounds. “It’s rare to meet someone who appreciates all that I’ve acquired.”

  After the book signings were over, I’d offered to take Deacon out for drinks. Hoped to pick his brain about his apparently massive collection of classic weird fiction. The drunken oaf was more than willing to boast. He claimed to have first editions and rare foreign versions of numerous classics, most notably Chambers’ King in Yellow, The Maker of Moons, The Mystery of Choice, The Haunts of Men, and The Tree of Heaven. And though I doubted some of what he told me, the more we talked the quicker I came to the conclusion that I had to see this collection for myself.

  I’d make myself his best friend and biggest fan if I had to.

  “You know what, I’ll tell you something I don’t tell anybody,” he said, his words broken up by a gasping, wheezing laugh. “I have something that nobody else has in the world. I have The King in Yellow.”

  He was drunker than I thought.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “A first-edition? You already told me about that. I have one too-“

  “No, no, no. You don’t understand. I have the actual King in goddamn Yellow. The play!”

  “What? That doesn’t exist. It’s like the Necronomicon, it’s just—“

  “Yes it does, trust me. It exists and I have it. Chambers, he wrote it. He wrote a lot of it, more than just the excerpts he quoted in the shorts. But he never finished it. It’s a manuscript. Mostly just notes. But it’s the Holy Grail. And I have it! Ha-ha!”

  I remember looking down at my palms when Deacon had gone to the bathroom. There were indents in them of my own fingernails from how hard I’d clenched my fists, thinking that the greatest unread masterpiece of weird fiction might be locked away from the world by this drunken hack.

  The sound of the Taxi tires slicing the skin of water that covers the ground stays with me long after my ride has gone and I’ve found my way into the battered manor that once belonged to Deacon Steen. I’d been here twice before (he’d been happy to show off every item of his collection, except of course, his supposed “Holy Grail”), but you could’ve fooled me. It’s dark, the light outside fading behind a blanket of bruise-purple clouds, and the shadows are so solid they seem part of the structure itself.

  I’m up to my knees in floodwater, and my hopes of salvaging something of value from my ruined inheritance are drowning fast. The beam from my flashlight cuts through the deepening black, shows me glimpses of walls with flaking painting and shattered windows like mouths ringed with broken teeth, choking on the bent and broken storm shutters that failed them.

  All the opulence Deacon bought with the blood-money from his exploitative serial killer potboilers is now gone. The mask has fallen and the decay that always lurked behind is now laid bare. Part of me surges with righteous delight, even as another part mourns that which I likely have lost because of that unmasking.

  I make my way to the library anyway.

  The bookshelves are nearly empty. The glass cases in which Deacon kept his most valuable volumes are all either broken and empty, or toppled and floating. Amorphous globs of gray pulp bob in the water, or stick to the walls like parasites. It takes a few moments to realize those blobs used to be books. It seems Deacon’s entire collection of rarities, amassed over the course of years and at the cost of more money than I or any of my books is likely to make in my lifetime, has been reduced to this.

  I frantically scan the titles that are still on the shelves, hoping to find something that can be saved. I grab a first-edition M.R. James, but it falls apart in my hands. My fingers are left tangled in tatters of damp binding. I let them drop to my feet, but when the sounds of splashing has subsided, I notice another sound. A rushing, dripping sound. I follow it to the bottom of the bookshelf. I can see it now, in the yellow glow of my flashlight. All the water in the room flows here, and disappears. As if there were a hole or crack just behind the shelf.

  The thing is damn heavy, and the floodwater doesn’t make it any easier to move, but I manage to push it out of the way to reveal a moveable panel in the floor. Deacon, you squirrely bastard!

  I pull the panel away, and a torrent snakes around my feet and pours into a compartment holding a water-tight lockbox. It’s heavy, almost as heavy as the bookshelf, but I manage to lug it out of the alcove and onto a nearby desk.

  I puzzle over it for a moment, all manner of thoughts warring for dominance until I finally settle on figuring out how to get the thing open. I pull out the envelope the lawyer sent me with the keys to the house in it. Surely Deacon wouldn’t put the key to his secret lockbox on the same ring that held the one to his garage, would he?

  Yes! He did! One of them fits!

  The metal box swings open. Inside I find first-edition copies of Deacon’s own novels, which I hastily toss over my shoulder into the floodwaters where they belong. There are a few other items whose value escapes me: a yellow raincoat, a pair of black gloves, an old Polaroid camera. But underneath that, a thick manila envelope. My fingers scramble to tear it open and, oh god, I can’t believe it! Inside, an archivally preserved sheaf of papers. Ancient and brittle, each one is individually filed in a separate envelope of cle
ar plastic. I recognize the handwriting from my studies as that of Robert W. Chambers. And the text, I recognize that too: “Along the shores the cloud waves break / The twin suns sink behind the lake / The shadows lengthen / In Carcosa.”

  But there’s more. I keep scanning, reading passages I’d never read before: “Cassilda and Camilla dancing in the light of the moon, the Phantom of Truth drawing queer symbols in blood, an inedible banquet of alien fruits on the banks of Hastur.”

  As I rifle excitedly through the pages, something falls out from between them. I look down and find several Polaroids floating face-down in little circles around my ankles, like children playing ring-around-the-rosie.

  I put the manuscript back in the box and bend down to pick one up. Just before I turn it over, a thought occurs to me: Why would Deacon leave the key to his greatest treasure, his hidden treasure, on his keyring? Unless… he wanted me to find it. Unless…

  The photograph seems to glow in the beam of my flashlight. Nausea churns my stomach as I see tiny little bodies wrapped around one another. Angry welts on fragile young flesh. Black eyes, wet with tears. Dry, red wounds and wet, pink openings. One of them has pigtails and a mouth that I keep thinking should be turned up in a warm smile. But there are no smiles. There’s no staple in her face this time either.

  Of course, there’s no way it could be her. She only just went missing, I think, and these pictures are old. My head is spinning like a bicycle tire. I can’t think straight. Thoughts are colliding, merging together then pulling apart.

  From the next room, I hear the sound of water sloshing in a steady rhythm. The rhythm of footsteps. Without thinking, I turn off my flashlight, gather up the Polaroids and the manuscript and shove them all back into the envelope, and make for one of the windows. Jagged glass teeth bite into my hands as I strain myself through. For a second, I think I see a flash of yellow and a pale face, but then I’m out and scrambling through the mud.

  I burned the photos and kept my prize. The King in Yellow is mine.

  I can’t help think, though, that it’s just a story.

  All stories are stories. Maybe lies don’t tell the truth. Maybe they just lie.

  Maybe everything I’ve ever written has been just an obscuration of reality, not a revelation. Stories don’t reveal harsh truths. They can’t. That’s not their function. They cover the truth up. Make it sweeter. Softer. Easier to live with. We live with the truth by escaping it, and pretending we’re facing it.

  Every story is a lie. Even this one. Especially this one.

  Truth is speaking to us all the time, telling us things, asking us things. And the worst thing it asks is this: “Have you seen me?”

  We should only answer, “No.”

  11

  INTERROGATOR by Anthony Trevino

  Denny “Slim” Reuthe was in prison shape.

  It started as a defense mechanism after his first state-mandated vacation. In Slim’s world skin color wasn’t an issue. Slim was white. His best buddies, Nate and Alex Colorundo, were Hispanic; no one gave a fuck.

  In jail, though, it mattered. So, when Slim started mixing up his social circle inside, the Aryans singled him out as a race traitor. They caught him in the shower room. Broke three of his ribs and carved a rope of swastikas down his back—later Slim’s tattoo artist, Animal, would morph the embarrassing scars into stitches being pried open by the mottled hand of a demon.

  Slim made sure it never happened again. After his release, he stocked up on protein shakes; gorged on meat. The cash Marco gave him for running pills went straight to a monthly membership at the Iron Men CrossFit gym—which was where he earned the ironic nickname Slim.

  Somewhere along the way, though, it became less about throwing off the bad motherfucker vibe and more of an addiction. He loved the soreness; loved how the veins in his biceps bulged underneath the skin like bloated caterpillars. Slim could deadlift 200 pounds without thinking about it and bench press any of his girlfriends.

  The lifestyle made him untouchable. The tattoo on his chest read PAIN = ME and Slim lived by that belief. There was nothing he couldn’t destroy. Which was why, when Detective Salazar and her partner, left Slim alone in the interrogation room with the device bolted to the table, he didn’t know if he should laugh or start sweating.

  The device itself sat on top of a steel box. It was clear glass molded in the shape of a blender packed with tangled wires. The front panel was made up of three dials and a keypad. Embossed onto a small metal rectangle was the word: Interrogator. Two wires tipped with electrodes snaked from a port in the side.

  Slim looked over at the glass window, certain the detectives were watching him.

  “Fuck is this shit? Some kind of high-tech torture device?”

  The speakers above crackled. A microphone whined.

  “Please attach the electrodes to your temples, Mr. Reuthe,” Detective Salazar said.

  Slim crossed his arms. “I know my rights. You can’t hurt me. Maybe you should, though. I could make some decent money suing you motherfuckers.”

  Deputy Sachs, overweight, underpaid, and too apathetic to wipe off the hot sauce dotting the front of his uniform, must have been posted right outside, waiting for an excuse. The door bounced off the wall. Slim ended up bound and bleeding from a split lip. Sachs placed the electrodes onto his temples, tapped the keypad, turned the dial up, and left.

  “This would have been easier if you complied.”

  Slim looked around the confined space. The voice sounded close, as if it came from someone sitting across from him. The Interrogator must’ve had speakers hidden inside it. Still, it was eerie. Smoke filled the glass contraption. Firecrackers of light went off inside.

  “Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Reuthe?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Do you know Lenny Waters?”

  “Never heard of ‘em.”

  “What about Wendy and Justin Waters?”

  “Nope.”

  Fog filled the Interrogator. Flecks of orange light winked inside the swirling grey mass. It crept out from the top, curled its way toward Slim. His mind told him it was just smoke, but instinct told him to run. He made a half-assed attempt to turn his face away, failed. Smoke invaded Slim’s sinuses. The electrodes at his temples burned.

  The concrete walls melted away. Slim was in the corner of his parent’s garage, watching as a younger version of himself pace back and forth. Nate, clad in a long hatchet man t-shirt, and baggy jeans tried to keep pace with Slim.

  “Dude, listen. It was a mistake. He’s drunk. He didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Fuck that.” Slim jammed a thick finger into his closest friend’s chest. “He thinks he can just talk to Eliza like that? He’s disrespecting all of us acting like a god damn fool. Call him in here.”

  “Slim, he’s my brother. I’m not gonna do that.”

  All it took was a simple shove against the garage door and Nate returned with Alex in less than five minutes.

  “What’s up, man?” Alex didn’t seem to think he’d done anything wrong. He had that airless sway that only happy drunks get.

  When Slim finished destroying the garage with Nate’s brother, like he was a human baseball bat, he remembered feeling euphoric. Now, looking back, he only felt the guilt that had been percolating for years.

  “Is this how you solve all your problems, Mr. Reuthe? With violence?”

  “It was self-defense.”

  “Self-defense isn’t premeditated. Wouldn’t you say this is indicative of how you solve problems? Is that not what you did to the Waters family?”

  “I don’t know anyone with that last name.”

  The scene changed, morphed into the living room of Slim’s house. He looked over to see nine year old Justin Waters perched on the edge of the couch. A greasy controller sat in his small hands. The kid’s eyes were wide, but focused as he navigated his way through downtown Baghdad with an M-16.

  “When do you think my parents are going to p
ick me up?”

  Slim downed a chalky protein shake. Lenny and Wendy the Skank were supposedly on their way with the money and product they owed. Steroids weren’t cheap and he explained the consequences of a fuck up like this when he agreed to sell to them.

  “They should be here soon enough,” Slim said.

  “I’m hungry.”

  The voice from the interrogation room cut in. “Does this scene look familiar to you, Mr. Reuthe?

  Slim didn’t answer. He was mesmerized.

  Slim went into the cramped kitchen, returned with some leftover tacos. Justin slid the waxy paper off them, took a bite, and then made a face.

  “They’re cold,” he said.

  “Ain’t got a microwave. That’s the best I can do.”

  Justin ate quietly.

  Slim stood by the window overlooking the weed-tangled front lawn.

  The scene kept unfolding.

  It all went down as he remembered. Lenny banged on the door. Slim threw it open, ready to fight till he saw Wendy run up the driveway. The .38 in her hand winked in the moonlight. Slim slammed the door shut. Outside, the two lovers argued. Slim stormed into the room. Justin’s eyes were wet.

  “Are Mom and Dad mad at me?”

  The Interrogator cut in. “It is in your best interests, Mr. Reuthe to tell us in your own words. A jury will be much more compassionate to someone who is remorseful about killing a child.”

  “I didn’t kill any fucking kids,” Slim said.

  “That’s not what your memory shows.”

  Slim grabbed Justin by his orange shirt collar, pulled him off the couch. Justin cried harder, fear filling tiny eye sockets. Two shots went off. Slim heard the sound of the door handle ring off the tile. He hefted the boy up to his chest.