by John L. Monk
I kept coming back to that bizarre smokestack of death following my kick from Ernest Prescott. I’d counted them, and what a morbid little surprise that was—a thousand and one deaths. As in, A Thousand and One Soup Recipes. Or more aptly, A Thousand and One Nights, the story of Scheherazade, the princess forced to tell a story every night to King Shahryar. Sentenced to death, she survived each reading by adding to the story and never reaching the end—thus staying her execution another day and inventing the cliffhanger at the same time. And if that wasn’t a threat from the Great Whomever I didn’t know what was. His meaning was clear: do not tempt me, I’m in charge, and you’re just the help.
After I’d searched every room, I got a drink from the faucet in one of the four upstairs bathrooms. Then I padded back to the staircase and returned to the foyer. I still hadn’t seen the kitchen yet, which was a shame. Another reason why this ride sucked so bad. If I lived through this, I’d make myself something good to eat.
When I got to the foyer, I considered checking on Denise, but decided it wasn’t worth scaring her and getting shot. I still hadn’t heard any new gunshots, so she must have been fine.
I’d almost decided to check out the basement again when I thought I heard a door open and shut down in the direction of the room with the whipping wall and demon-claw stirrups. After the gunplay in the viewing room with Ernest, it had gotten harder to hear, especially out of my right ear. Still, it was worth a look.
When I got to the doors, I noticed they were partially open, so I angled myself a little to the left—a good thing too, because a section of door the size of a softball vanished in a flurry of splinters and gunfire.
I peeked through the hole. Lana was on the bed, on her knees, with the gun raised to her shoulder.
“Missed me!” I shouted, and ducked back in time for the next volley. “Missed me again!”
Lana shouted, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I wanted more money,” I said.
“Are you serious? You said you loved your salary! Why didn’t you ask for a raise like a normal person?”
“I was tired of being pushed around,” I said.
A second later, she said, “What are you talking about? Everyone liked you! Jacob had some kind of man crush on you, for Christ’s sake. What’s this about?”
“I wanted evil henchman training, but you made me shoot Sean and now I gotta cover his shift!”
It had to be the stress. I covered my mouth to keep from laughing.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she yelled. “Look, is this about that girl? You take a shine to her or something? Why didn’t you say so?”
That was a damn good question.
“I didn’t think Jacob would approve,” I said, finally.
Let’s see her get out of that one.
“That’s ridicu … Never mind. Where’s Jacob now?”
“Jacob’s dead,” I said. “Ernest too.”
I thought I heard her gasp, but again, my hearing wasn’t so good.
“Perfectly fine,” she said, moments later. “Actually, I’m glad. I always liked you, Brian. Bigger, stronger, better looking than either of them. I married Jacob in secret because I couldn’t be sure Ernest would succeed. And when he did, I didn’t need Jacob anymore. But now that you’ve killed them both…” She paused, as if choosing the right words. “I’ve always had a thing for you, Brian, and I’ve seen you looking at me when you thought I wasn’t watching. We’d be good together. And anyway, Jacob was beginning to bore me.”
Jacob may have been boring to her, but there was a .50 caliber Desert Eagle leveled about two inches from my nose, and it was very interesting to me. Likewise the tattooed arm straining to hold it up.
Jacob’s face was puffy, and a vessel in his eye had burst from being strangled nearly to death in the gym. Now he had a bad case of Terminator-eye. I started to raise my gun, but he froze me with a look: I’ll shoot you if you move. With his other hand, he raised a finger to his lips in the universal sign for shush.
“Ask her more about me,” he whispered, nodding toward the room.
As long as he wasn’t shooting me with that hand cannon, I felt obligated to try.
“Yeah, so Lana,” I said. “Uh, could you tell me more about Jacob?”
“What for?” she said.
Jacob nudged me.
Shrugging, I said, “Turns me on?”
Lana laughed wickedly, like it was no surprise and was now reveling in my confession.
“Oh, so that’s what you like,” she said. “Let’s see … The little poodle would cry after he beat me. Like father like son. At first it was cute, but then it got tiresome. I don’t do well with tiresome.”
I remembered that Wikipedia article mentioning how Jacob’s father died of heart failure. Given everything I’d seen from her, I wondered about that. And since she felt like talking…
“So about that dad of his—how did he die again? Heart condition, something like that? There was speculation in the tabloids…”
“He was old,” she said. “Too old for the Spanish Fly he was taking.”
Despite the tense situation, I laughed. “Spanish fly’s just a myth.”
“That’s what he thought. But blister beetles are as real as the cantharadin they produce. They only work on men, however, and they kill you if you take too much.”
Jacob nudged me with the gun and nodded, like he wanted me to ask her more about that.
“Did, uh, you ever give any to Jacob?”
Lana chuckled darkly. “After Vegas, we had planned a trip to Mexico…”
“And?” I said.
“And if you hadn’t killed him, in a few months the tabloids would have gone crazy.” She laughed again. “Lana Sandway’s pussy wipes out whole family! Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
I stole a glance at Jacob. He looked like he’d been slapped in the face by an ugly truth. If she’d killed his father, which it was starting to look like, he obviously hadn’t known about it. Now Jacob knew she wanted to poison him the same way.
Lana wasn’t done. Proudly she said, “The coroner assigned to the case was a fan of my old movies. That’s real power, Brian, and that should be a warning to you—be interesting, but don’t get too clingy. Now, are you going to fuck me or do I call the police and tell them my disgruntled manservant went on a shooting spree? Between the cops and me, you won’t stand a chance.”
Jacob’s eyes were raging, staring at me like … no, not at me—through me—like I was in the way. Testing the theory, I edged back against the door. Yep, he wasn’t looking at me.
For a moment there it seemed like he might … no, he was biting his lip and frowning. Not good. He needed a push.
Through the door I said, “Ernest heard you two getting busy today. He told me he called you something weird after you finished, but I gotta hear it from you.”
Lana didn’t say anything for a second, and I wondered if maybe I’d pushed the act too far. Then, in a tone of suffering patience, she said, “When Jacob was feeling sorry for himself I made him call me mommy. Now come on, I’m putting the gun away. Get in here and slay me with that big bronze dick, I can’t take it anymore.”
To Jacob I whispered, “You’re up.”
He didn’t look at me or register my existence in any way. He walked past, kicked open the doors and got shot to pieces for his trouble. Mostly through both legs and his pelvis area. I turned the corner, ready to unload—and then a backpack nuke went off.
Jacob had shot that .50 caliber gun, and it was loud.
I was watching Lana when it happened. The round tore through her neck, taking her head almost completely off but for a little flap of skin. She sat like that, leaning against the back of the demon bed in her bizarre dominatrix outfit, her head flopped upside down on her chest, the rifle still aiming our way.
Jacob hadn’t finished dying yet, but he was close. He was leaning with his back against the doorjamb, staring into space and gasp
ing for breath like a fish. His eyes found mine.
“Why … man … why?”
Staring down at him, I tried to come up with something to help when he got to the other side. He was bad, sure, but this was the end for him. A special moment. I wanted to say how evil always destroys itself in the end or some other cliché, but all I said was, “I wish I knew.”
Jacob’s eyes drifted beyond me, as if looking far away to an afterlife only he could see. He raised his gun, as if to shoot said afterlife. Then his face tore away with the sound of a thunderbolt—from behind me.
Through my mostly working ear, I heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being pumped.
Denise…
“I wish I knew too, asshole,” she said, before shooting me next.
Chapter Thirteen
Back in the Great Wherever, with nothing but time on my hands, I counted my blessings: a few museums, aching feet, rest stop ice cream, cardboard pizza, foul beer, okay sandwiches, a twisted book, and a sick movie. And though I’m normally a fan of naked women, Denise and Lana didn’t actually count—for a number of complicated reasons having to do with morality and my self-respect. Then, after all this way cool stuff, when I’d had the temerity to ask for a little help, the Great Whomever had flipped me some steam about it.
One good thing though: the world wouldn’t be subjected to any more legalized snuff from Ernest and his agent. I knew it wouldn’t last. Hollywood abhors a vacuum, and there’d be other writers ready to take up Ernest’s bloody mantle. I hoped moviegoers and readers would be appalled when they learned the truth about where the stories came from, but my guess was they’d convince themselves they weren’t the sick ones, and that everything was still ketchup and tapioca, just like before. In fact, when the story finally broke, my guess was Ernest’s publishers would sell more books than ever.
But at least I’d saved Denise and her baby. Actually, that was only partly true. In her mind, she’d had a hand in saving herself—a good thing, psychologically. Thin gruel feeds the peasants and carries them to and from their labors.
Hello, I thought into the void, and waited.
There are no days or nights in the Great Wherever. There are seconds and minutes and hours, yet no clocks to track the time. If it had a clock, I wouldn’t have been able to look at it because I didn’t have a body. So I had to guess at time’s passage without even a steady pulse to guide me.
After about five minutes of nothing happening, I tried again.
I was thinking, what with your powers and all, why can’t I have a body when I come here? Maybe a couch and a TV and some video games? Anything except Atari would be a big improvement.
I waited for a moment. Nothing happened.
Also, the whole suicide-goes-to-hell business? Shouldn’t I be burning or something if it’s really a sin? What does killing myself have to do with all these bad guys?
These were things I’d thought before but had never deliberately articulated. Gift horse in the mouth kind of thing, but I was over that now. I couldn’t imagine the Being credited with the creation of the universe could be the same Great Whomever who’d threatened me with that horrible smokestack of death. As signs from the heavens went, that one seemed more petty than divine.
I was about to ask more questions, interspersed with some great accusations when, out of nowhere, a portal opened within the no-dimensional nothingness. It waited patiently in the void, hunched near my consciousness like a coat on a chair in a dark room.
Normally I’d hope for a good ride and enter the world with both fingers hypothetically crossed. This time, I had a better idea.
That last ride sucked, I projected. I’m not saying I don’t want to help people, but you need to pepper in the good rides in-between the psychotic dominatrix snuff horrors and guns rides, that’s all I’m saying.
Seconds later, for the first time ever, a second portal appeared in the void. But unlike the first one, this portal had a strangeness about it. As if I’d somehow be limited if I went through it—like being a guest in someone’s house with a responsibility to take care of things. Another one-off doorway, like I’d had with Nate Cantrell and later with Peter Collins. If I reached for it, I’d come into the world in the body of someone who wasn’t a violent criminal. And though those other rides had turned out okay, I’d come close to getting them both killed.
I saw what he was doing. Rather than working with me, the Great Who Gives a Shit had thrown my very reasonable request for a little reprieve back in my face. This time by upping the ante and sticking all the responsibility on me. If I chose the bad guy portal, whatever happened to the good guy was my fault. And if I chose the good portal, I’d get the double whammy of having to keep him alive and unhurt, along with the guilt from whatever the bad guy did.
Sigh, I projected, because I couldn’t actually sigh. I get it. You have more information than I do and I should back off. A little old fashioned with the requirement for blind faith, but maybe that’s your thing? I give up, okay? I’m not choosing between them—you win.
Just like that, the second portal faded from my awareness like it had never even been there, leaving the first portal alone with me in a frustrating place I called “square one.”
This time, I kept my imaginary mouth shut, crossed my nonexistent fingers, and reached for the metaphorical portal.
* * *
I was sitting naked on the edge of a king-sized bed. A television was on, playing a commercial for a product guaranteed to enhance my natural virility or my money back.
The room had a coffee table, a thin blue rug, no paintings, a padded wingback chair, a small desk with a phone and a lamp, and heavy hotel curtains. Not a fancy room, and it smelled faintly of lighter fluid and sour milk.
I stood up and looked in the big mirror next to the television and saw a man spilling over with fat, late sixties or early seventies. About six feet tall, he had short white hair and an unimportant face.
A large suitcase lay sprawled open on the floor. I walked over and poked through it: men’s clothing, a shaving kit, nearly half a bottle of bourbon, and a rolled-up sleeping bag.
I looked in the mirror and grinned experimentally at my reflection.
“Hello,” I said, letting each syllable roll around my mouth. “This is my voice. I’m talking with my voice and it’s loud, loud, loud. I’m loud in my room with my voice.”
“Are you crazy or what?” came a raspy reply from the bathroom.
I tensed in surprise and said, “Who’s there?”
“What do you mean who’s there?” it said.
I fell back a step, preparing for whatever belonged to that horrible voice. But when it stepped around the corner…
“Jesus!” I shouted.
“Oh screw you,” it grated from behind cracked lips and a mouthful of rotting teeth. Four teeth, and they were attached loosely to a scantily clad female figure draped in leathery hanging skin. From the neck down, she looked somewhere in her thirties, but her meth-ravaged face was positively Jurassic.
The woman shambled forward and lay back on the bed with her legs spread and a Halloween smile on her face.
“I’m bored,” she said. “We gonna do it or what?”
My flabby stomach tightened in a dry heave.
“What’s wrong with you now?” she said, glaring at me.
“Nothing, I … Oomuai … Just my … Something I ate. Sorry.”
She laughed.
“You ain’t eat nothing yet, sugar,” she said. “And you better pay me. If you don’t, my ol’ man’s gonna cut you open.”
“Just a minute,” I said.
I went to the bathroom, turned on the sink, and washed my face with a tiny little bar of hotel soap. It went in my eyes but I didn’t care. I needed time—and I felt skeevy.
“Don’t think you’re getting out of paying me!” she yelled from the other room.
After drying off, I returned to find her perched on the bed with her back against the wall smoking a bent cigarett
e and watching me through angry bloodshot eyes.
“Where’s my drink?” she said, breathing smoke out with each word.
“Your drink?”
“You said you would. I don’t like liars.”
“Sorry, what drink?”
She rolled her eyes. “You gonna gimme it? You’re supposed to act like a gentleman.”
Then it dawned on me what she was talking about.
“Hold on.”
I stepped over to the suitcase and found the whisky bottle. When I turned back, she was pointing at something. I followed her bony arm to the television and saw it on the stand: a glass of something the same shade of amber as the liquid in the bottle.
“Right,” I said, and put the bottle down beside it.
I picked up the glass and handed it to her. She took her drink—touching me in the process—and then swallowed it down quickly. The glass had been filled almost to the top, but she finished it between a drag from her cigarette and her next exhale of smoke.
“Tastes funny,” she said, making a face.
There was a wallet on the nightstand. I opened it and pulled out some bills: a few tens and twenties. Biting my lip, I tried to figure out how much she charged and hoped it wasn’t too high. I held out hope for a box of doughnuts sometime in the coming days, because I’d earned it.
“Here you go,” I said, and handed her two twenties.
She accepted the money without looking at it, as if anything I gave her would be acceptable.
Rats.
“You sure you don’t wanna take a stab?” she said, arching an eyebrow. “You can close your eyes. I won’t mind.”
I shook my head like it was the hardest decision ever.
“Nope,” I said. “Too tired. So uh, guess you should, you know, get going now. Good seeing you, though.”
I stepped back and glanced pointedly at the door. Kind of bopping my head that way and looking at it, then back at her. Just kind of bopping my head that way again.