The Lesser Dead

by Christopher Buehlman

  I tossed him up in the air, toward the trees, but he just flapped like hell and landed slowly, like a guy coming down in a parachute. I had never seen him do more than that, I just sort of assumed he could fly when he wanted to, but he was mostly in a cage. Then I remembered the expression “clipping your wings” and figured that was what happened to Gonzalo.

  He walked around on the ground.

  I picked him back up.

  The cabdriver must have been watching me talk to the bird; he drove away. At least that’s what I thought just then, but I looked down at my shirt and saw how dirty it was, noticed a few drops of blood on my shirt from where we bled the runaways in the boiler room. It had been such a long night that it seemed like the night before. I spit-cleaned the bloody part of the shirt, got another cab, and had him take me to a pet store. I bet nobody ever broke into a pet store to leave a pet there. Or maybe they did. Either way, I left a note.

  My name is Gonzalo. My wings have been clipped but you probably know that. I like pistachios. I’m your’s for free. I hope I’m worth more than your window.

  I got underground just before sunup.

  I got some sleep.

  I dreamed I had wings.

  MICHELANGELO

  I made sure not to pass anybody on my way out; I felt like a quitter. Making a stealthy escape was even tougher because I was carrying a suitcase; I could make myself small, but the size of the luggage was not negotiable. A plastic bag would have been smarter than the case, I guess, but it was a hell of a nice suitcase, and if I was going to pare my possessions down to so very few, they should at least be things worth having.

  Turns out in order to get out with the suitcase I had to bust an extra brick or two out of the bricked-over basement window in Chelsea, which I did by holding on to a pipe in the ceiling and donkey-kicking with my heels. It was just after sunset; there was still a little red in the sky. The first order of business was to feed, so I charmed a guy with a suit and tie and good, high hair down to the basement I had just crawled out of. He also had a suitcase. Two guys with suitcases, like we were going to have a little business meeting down there with the spiders and that moldy basement smell. After I bit him, and his blood was bitter with nicotine—he must have smoked two and a half packs a day—I told him to open his suitcase and he did. Hair care products, like hair spray and gel and shampoo and shit. A whole box of business cards, one of which I plucked out. It just read John M. Murray, gave his 212 phone number.

  “What do you, go door to door?” I asked.

  “I’m a rep,” he said, drooling all over his very wide, white shirt collar. “I call on people who own beauty shops and salons.”

  His neck was still trying to bleed, so I licked it again to close it up. He did smell good, and he could have been a TV anchorman with that head of feathered hair on him. It kind of crunched a little when you touched it, but it looked good.

  “What do you use?” I asked him, touching his hair.

  “Apollonis,” he said, pointing at a bottle of hair spray with a picture of a Greek god on it. I took it out, looked at my own suitcase, but decided I didn’t want to risk opening it for fear I might not get it closed again. I stuck the hair spray in my coat pocket.

  “There good money in selling this shit?”

  “Not bad,” he said.

  “Show me your money.”

  He took out his wallet and peeled it open for inspection. I removed the two twenties, the ten, and the five he had in there.

  “You got your car around here?”

  He shook his head no. I gave him back the ten, told him to close his suitcase, climb out the window, and take a cab west to the Empire Diner. I said he should get himself a chili sundae, I heard they were good, and forget about what happened here. Out he went; I had to give him a boost to reach the window. He was heavier than he looked, kind of a muscular guy, must have played football in college or maybe he was one of these gym guys. Anyway, off he went to the diner, or so I thought. I’d been to the Empire and seen that chili sundae, it was clever. Sour cream at the top like ice cream, little tomato for a cherry. Stuff like that made me almost wish I could eat without, shall we say, consequences.

  I sprayed a SHHT of that Apollonis on myself just for the smell and went out.

  I could still see my guy; he tried to hail a cab but it was too close to rush hour still and every cab had a head or two heads in the back, already on their way somewhere. The charm mostly wore off him, I saw it happen, and he looked puzzled for a minute, then kept walking, still going west toward the Hudson. Looked right at me, didn’t register who I was; I smiled a little, that always amuses me.

  Now I was looking for somebody with a car, somebody alone.

  I stood at an intersection with long red lights, checking out traffic, looking for a nice car with nobody in the passenger seat and the lock tab up. Somebody who looked not too bright, easy to manipulate. I saw my guy again, he passed me, and goddamn if he didn’t turn the corner and come up to a big brick-red sedan parked three cars down and fish out his keys. He got in, threw his suitcase in the passenger seat, and started it. I almost yelled HEY but instead I went over and tapped on the glass. When he caught my eyes, I poured it on again.

  “May I sit down?” I yelled over the honking and traffic.

  I saw him mouth sure but I had to point at the passenger door lock, which was still down. He leaned over far—it was a big-ass car, like an LTD—and opened up. I tossed his case full of hair shit in the back and got in with my bag.

  “Hey, I thought you said you didn’t have a car near here?”

  “Girlfriend’s,” he said. “Her name’s—”

  “I don’t care, I’m sure she’s a whore. Start the car.”

  He did.

  “Drive us to Pennsylvania,” I said.

  “Penn Station?”

  “No, fucking Pennsylvania with cows and the Amish, let’s go,” but I charmed him too much. His mouth just hung open, saliva pouring out of him like he was Niagara Falls; he couldn’t even figure out the gears. You got to charm a guy just enough if you want him to be able to do complicated stuff.

  I had last tried to drive while Eisenhower was president, but time goes fast for us and it didn’t seem so long at the moment. Anyway, I didn’t need Slobbery McGoodhair gumming up the works all the way out to Injun Hole, Pennsylvania, or wherever.

  “Get out,” I said.

  He got out, reflexively reached for his suitcase, shut the door.

  I forgot to say, “Watch out for traffic.”

  It’s the little things.

  Just as I was sliding over, the poor guy was hit, luckily just by a bicycle, but it hit him pretty hard, throwing him, the bicyclist, and the bike down in the street. The guy driving in that lane had great reflexes, screeched to a stop before he hit either one of them, but the Apollonis guy’s suitcase flew up and got whomped by a fast-moving van two lanes over, shampoo bottles and conditioner and other glop flying all over the place. I panicked, jammed down on the gas, I guess it was a V8 cause it really had some horses under the hood. I slammed into the VW Bug parked in front of me, knocked it forward; there were sparks, I’m not sure what from. I cut out left now and mashed the gas again, managed not to hit the guys in the street, taking advantage of the lane they were now blocking, saying shit shit shit all the while. I tried to keep the nose of the thing in just the one lane, but it was too long—who makes cars with mile-long hoods anyway? The fucking thing was like an aircraft carrier—and I got clipped by a taxi, which knocked me back into the Bug, and I bounced off that and into the taxi again, saw some chubby lady’s face yelling in the back, she looked like Bella Abzug, could have been for all I know. A bottle of shampoo, which must have sailed up two stories, came down and exploded in pinkish-red glory all over my windshield; this was going to be the best-smelling accident ever. Smash, crunch, smash, everybody honking, everybody y
elling. I grabbed my suitcase and tried to get out the passenger door, but it was junked shut for good. A very angry taxi driver with a cut over his eye and half a pair of glasses was shouting in Greek or something into the driver’s-side window. I heard a cop blowing his whistle. Here he came on a horse, too. All the cars were crunched up together now, there was a huge pile-up, the final spasm of which was a delivery truck clipping a tree, the goddamned tree falling down in a grand, slow-motion shower of leaves and almost taking a traffic light with it.

  “What the fucks is wrong with you?” Greek half-glasses taxi guy was yelling, having switched to English now. The bicyclist was behind me, his arm probably broken, trying to stop the Apollonis guy where he was limping around in shock picking up unopened bottles of conditioner and business cards and the cigarettes that got knocked out of his shirt pocket. The traffic light up ahead wagged crazily, like a signalman on cocaine trying to stop a train. The cop on the horse loomed up over the cars, motioning with his free hand for everyone to stay calm, his horse skidding for a second in oil or hair gel or God knows what. A woman screamed, “Michelangelo!” and a Chihuahua with a green and red sweater on went running down the sidewalk. I swear this all happened in five seconds.

  I opened the driver’s-side door, motioning angry hurt Greek guy back, but he saw I had the suitcase, correctly guessed I meant to make a run for it, tried to stop me from opening the door, but I gave it a good shove and knocked him on his ass. Bella Abzug tried to get out of the taxi, too, but I kicked her door shut. Here came the Goodhair guy, coming to his senses, slurring, “That’s my car!” through broken teeth. Here came the bicyclist with him, chicken-winging his hurt arm, trying to get a good look at my face. Here came the cop on the horse, the horse making crazy eyes at me; I knew it wanted to bite me or step on me, both at the same time if it could manage it.

  “Fuck this.”

  I hugged my suitcase and jumped up high, my butt on the roof of the car, and I rolled backward. This was ninja shit. I hit the sidewalk on my feet just as somebody yelled, “That’s the kid, grab him!” and somebody else yelled, “He tried to steal that car!” Michelangelo was way ahead, running in his out-of-season Christmas sweater, dragging his leash, and I ran that way, too. Up ahead, a crowd had gathered to see why the tree had fallen; I couldn’t run as fast as I wanted to, two Good Samaritans had almost caught me. This is New York, where a guy can stab a girl to death in front of thirty people, but let a harmless-looking kid try to steal something, ten guys form a posse. People want their name in the paper, but not if they’re going to get hurt.

  I passed a telephone booth, heard the driver of the delivery truck saying, “. . . hit a tree, I’m okay, cops are on their—” and then he yelled, “HEY!” because I was turning him and his phone booth over to block the guys running after me. One stopped, knew a kid shouldn’t have been able to do that, but the other guy meant business, skip-stepped around Michelangelo, who had stopped to eat a French fry, hopped the booth, planting his size-twelve work boot right on the glass over the hysterical face of the horizontal truck driver. The guy was coming right at me in his brownish ’fro and sunglasses. He looked like a white Reggie Jackson, but that’s what happens when you watch too much TV, everybody looks like someone famous. I turned the corner; this sidewalk wasn’t crowded, I would turn on the jets now and burn this guy, but damn if my suitcase didn’t clip a trash can and pop open, all my best shirts and pants popping out and raining down. I stopped and grabbed some; I wanted my numchuks, but they had rolled out into the middle of the street and here came the lunkhead do-gooder. I smelled something shit-like but had no time to find out why. I tore down the sidewalk, vaulted over a bum, slapped a slice of folded pizza and its greasy paper plate out of a pimply teenaged guy’s hand just for the sheer fuck you of it—I mean my numchuks were gone—then I skittered up a ten-foot-high fence using just my feet and one hand. I left the Good Samaritan guy in the dust. I started to laugh, and then I realized that my clothes had fallen in shit with pieces of straw in it, probably that cop’s horse’s shit, and now I had it on the shirt I was wearing, too, because I had grabbed it all against my chest.

  “Motherfucker,” I said, in my fouled shirt and my good-smelling hair.

  So much for Pennsylvania.

  * * *

  I went down into the subway at 23rd and Avenue of the Americas, walked the tracks until I came to the service shaft leading down to a tunnel that led to our loops. I wanted to wash what remained of my laundry, talk to Cvetko, and think about what to do next. I didn’t really trust anybody but him, and Margaret. I guess I trusted Margaret. And Luna. Okay, and Billy Bang. Maybe I could get Cvetko and the rest to come away with me somewhere; Cvetko was better at planning things and Luna kept her cool better than I did. Billy just made me laugh. The four of us would get along okay, I thought. Hell, maybe even Margaret was ready to give the loops a rest and try something else. That grenade had really put the fear of Jesus in me, not really Jesus, but you know what I’m saying. That thing would melt your face off, just two bright seconds between undead and dead-dead. I could still hear Gua Gua yelling.

  But I knew better. Margaret never had anything of her own in life and damned if she was letting anyone take this place from her. Her kingdom. Her loops.

  A train rumbled overhead, shaking the walls. That was when I heard it. A kid laughed.

  I never found out which kid.

  I probably should have looked for him, or her, but I ran.

  CHEWED UP BY A GIANT MOUTH

  “Hey, short stuff!” somebody stage-whispered above me.

  I looked up and saw Billy Bang spidered against the roof, looking down at me. “Anybody following you?” he said.

  “Maybe.”

  He dropped down, took a good long look down the tunnel behind me. Then he got close enough for me to smell the fear under his aftershave, whispered into my ear. “Margaret’s looking for you. She wants all hands on deck, keeping lookout at choke points. She’s got Old Boy combing the tunnels in a loop; whoever finds them bangs on pipes: Bang in threes means we all go there, fast. Just keep banging means they’re coming and we should play defense. No fuckin’ around this time, she says. We got to peel ’em. You ready to do that?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said, “well, that’s my official story, too. But all this war shit? Man, I just bite necks and play guitar. Billy Bang might not be around much after this.”

  “She home?”

  “Far as I know.”

  “Better go see what she wants me to do.”

  He gave me an ironic salute.

  “And hey,” he said. I turned around. “Watch yourself. We found Ruth. I found her. She was fucked-up, man.”

  “Fucked-up how?”

  “Let’s just leave it at fucked-up.”

  * * *

  Being afraid isn’t all bad. It wakes you up. You notice things. I saw Sammy from a long way off, his red bob of hair standing out against the darker walls behind him. He was walking the tracks between stations, just above where you go down to get to Margaret’s loops. As far away as he was, though, he knew I was behind him. I think he had been waiting for me to catch up. I thought about trying to find a pipe to bang on, but it was just him. I could handle just him.

  “Sammy,” I said, walking faster. “Come here.”

  He stopped. He turned around to face me. His clothes were bloody as hell, and he had tacky, half-dried blood smeared around his mouth, like a kid in Central Park in the summer with a Kool-Aid face. Was eating all they did? It was . . . animalistic. At just that moment I was sure I wasn’t like them, that they were a different kind of vampire altogether. A worse kind.

  “What are you going to do, Joey?” he said, smiling a little. “Are you going to kill me now for being bad?” He let me walk right up on him. I didn’t like this. “At least do it quickly,” he said. “I shall be very brave.”

&n
bsp; He closed his eyes now, or pretended to, keeping one slitted open as though he were cheating saying grace. The wind kicked up in the tunnel; a train was coming, I could see its light. I put my hand on his chin and grabbed the back of his hair with the other. One good twist with all I had, and even if I couldn’t uncrown him, I might fuck him up enough to lay him down in front of the train. I might even be able to throw him on the third rail.

  Maybe he can do those same things to you.

  I gave his head a little jerk, like a dry run. He was trying not to giggle. He was drooling a little, too.

  “Are you going to treat me like you did fat Mikey?” he said, giggling and drooling on my wrist. “Go ahead!” he said, and now his hands were on my wrists, gently spasming as though encouraging me to twist his head. “When I count three, you twist as hard as you can and pop goes my head, isn’t that how it works?”

  The conductor saw us now, started blaring his horn, but he would never have time to stop.

  “One!”

  I tried to let go, meaning to jump clear and find a niche to flatten out in, but he had my wrists in his hands, his hands like little pliers.

  He’s stronger than me!

  “Two!” he said. I tried picking him up, but I couldn’t; he had his feet tangled up in the running rails.

  Oh fuck it’s coming and if my head comes off I’m dead and if I hit the third rail I’m dead and even if not it’s going to hurt like a cunt let go let go LET GO.

  “THREE!”

  The light on the train was as big as a sun, the horn blew up my ears, the face of the conductor was a Halloween mask of disbelief and horror. It all became unreal to me, like it didn’t matter, the sun of the train’s light a sun over Tatooine. This letting go at the last second, this was how people died. And deer, I guess. Only I snapped to. Almost in time. I saw Sammy go flat, squeeze himself down between the tracks, taking the only place I knew to go. I remember one of his disjointed eyes looking up at me like a flounder’s eye. I took my chances and jumped up, jumped hard and tried to grab on to the roof of the tunnel, only I couldn’t get purchase. Worse, I had jumped so hard I bounced, spun in the air, and my legs swung down, breaking my heels on the windshield and knocking my shoes off. Did you ever break your heel? I don’t recommend it. I tried to get small, cling to the top of the train, but it was too late, I couldn’t get small enough not to take the worst beating of my life between the train and the tunnel’s ceiling. I screamed like a girl. I remember seeing a flash of a red letter, like a P, where some tagger had climbed the train in the yard. It was like being chewed up in a giant mouth, but fast; I broke my teeth, I broke my shoulders and ribs, my sock came off, I was half-scalped, the fucking can of hair spray dislocated my hip and tore the bejesus out of my coat pocket but somehow didn’t pop and got so twisted up in my shirt it didn’t come loose.