The Cleanup

by John Skipp; Craig Spector

  She missed the fact that he had almost jerked away, himself.

  "You're worried," he said, "about what's happening between us."

  "Yes."

  "Howz come?" He grinned. "I thought we were pretty terrific . . ."

  The front door came open and banged shut in a second. Mona looked up, instinctively pulling free of Dave's hand. Four people that she didn't recognize walked in. When she looked back down, Dave's hand was lightly balled into a fist.

  "Oh, Dave. I'm sorry." This time, she reached over to cup his fist in her hands. "It's just that . . . I just get nervous that—"

  The door swung open.

  And Billy walked in.

  He saw them at once. There was no missing Mona's look of frozen horror. In the instant their eyes met, he could see what was going on, how she felt about it, and what his presence did to the dynamics of the evening.

  It had not been a terrific day for Billy. After nearly five hours in the precinct house, he'd gone home and slept off the last of his headache. Not a note had been strummed nor sung; not a penny had been made.

  And now he had walked into this.

  Billy nodded slightly and gave Mona an I'll-be-over-in-a-minute gesture. Some of the people he'd met in his frequent pit stops to the Commons were hanging out. He went over to say howdy, grab a Rolling Rock, and give Mona a sporting chance to pull herself together.

  And swallow the bile, welling up in his throat at the thought of facing down Dave. Mona's companion hadn't seen him yet—had never seen the new, improved Billy Rowe—but the reverse was not true, and Billy was not cheered by what he felt to be coming.

  Already he could feel the Power gathering force within him. It was like standing under high-voltage power lines: the same prickling static charge, making his short hairs stand on end. Wonder what would happen if I put a light bulb in my hand? he mused, nearly laughing, and then the fear overwhelmed his sense of humor.

  He was terrified of letting himself go, because he was pissed. There were thoughts in. his head, violent and vengeful, that were just fine and dandy so long as they stayed there. Dave face, exploding. Dave's cock, falling off. Dave's cock, slowly growing from the middle of his forehead while his rock-star hands turned into flippers—

  NO! his mind screamed, clamping down hard on the pictures and the Power. He no longer had the luxury of innocent ugly thoughts; the leap to actuality was too easy, too impossibly spontaneous.

  Calm down. Calm down. It was almost like a mantra. Relax. Drink your beer. Drink your whole damn beer before you dare to go over and face them.

  Billy tipped his head back and poured the beer straight down his throat. He'd gotten reasonably good at it as a teenager, where one of the j.d. rites of passage was being able to shotgun a whole can of beer without gasping or choking or spraying all over the floor. Concentrating on his throat took his mind off of Dave. The bile washed down.

  In a minute, he was ready.

  "Wow," Dave said. He was absolutely stunned. "That's the same bum-out Billy I've been hearing so much about?"

  "Uh-huh," Mona muttered, but her head was shaking. She had her eyes glued on Billy as he ordered another drink. There had been a long cold moment where she could almost feel the rage pouring off of him in jagged, cutting waves. It was over now—she'd most certainly imagined it—but the realization did nothing to alter the fact that she was suddenly, inexplicably afraid of him.

  Don't come over here, she heard herself silently begging. Please, Billy, don't make another scene. It was inevitable the wish was ridiculous—but she couldn't help wanting to write the script, make her boyfriend flash an understanding smile and then turn to walk out the door.

  As it turned out, half of her wish came true; the smile that she'd hoped for, flashing toward her. The other half of the wish went diametrically in reverse.

  As is often the case, with wishes.

  "Oh, shit," she groaned as he started toward them.

  "There goes the neighborhood," Dave contributed, shrugging.

  "Dave. Please." She cast a panicky glance at him, then returned her gaze to Billy. "Be cool. Don't bait him. If a fight starts, I don't think I'll be able to handle it."

  "Swear to Cod," he said, holding up both hands in solemn testimonial. All of his fingers were crossed. Mona didn't laugh. "No, really," he assured her.

  And then Billy was standing at the head of the table, gazing at them both.

  "Hiya," Billy said. His smile was strained, but nearly halfway genuine.

  "Hi," Mona peeped, averting her eyes.

  "How ya doin'?" Dave concluded, offering his hand. "You're Billy, am I right?"

  Billy looked at it for a second .before taking it and answering. "Yeah. And you're Dave." They shook. "And, of course, we both know Mona," Dave said. The handshake stopped.

  The handgrip held.

  The air itself began to hum.

  For Mona, it was like being caught in the middle of an enormous static electrical charge: her hair felt like it stood out four feet from her head, rigid as porcupine quills, her skin seemed literally to crawl along her bones. The terror was back, much stronger than before. All she could do was stare at the two men before her: one gritting his teeth in a mask of fierce exertion, the other blank-eyed and twitching like a fish on a stick.

  For Dave, it was as if throbbing white-hot tongs had been rammed into his brain, pinching and slashing the living gray matter into a pudding that slithered and screamed. The pain was nova. His nerve endings crisped down to blackening bacon. His flesh seemed to sizzle and steam. There was nothing but the agony, complete and killing. The rest of the world, up to and including the chair on which he writhed, had never existed at all.

  And for Billy, it was a bucking bronco ride through the memory of Dave Hart, single-minded as a bullet through the brain. He didn't see the seconds leading back to what he sought; they were a blur and less, irrelevant as the scenery whipping past a blind man's window.

  When the image came, he froze from within, the pain welling up to rival Dave's own. It was a XXX feature that rolled through the projector of Billy's mind in flames, showing all that there was to be shown and then melting into lava that wore sputtering canyons in his own brain, making his own nerves cinder as the scream tore its way from his throat . . .

  The handgrip broke.

  The bar went silent.

  They stared at each other, alive and in pain; Mona and Dave falling back in their seats, Billy weaving slightly on his feet. The blood seemed to drain from all three of them simultaneously, leaving a trio of wide-eyed boggling ghosts.

  Then Dave cried out, "MY HANDS!" and fell forward across the table. Mona let out a tiny scream and reached forward, cradling the back of his head. Her eyes looked crazy, and her face wrung itself into a mask that was anything but beautiful.

  Billy reeled back, hitting the empty table behind him. Rubin and the punkette and their baby loomed up sickly behind his eyes, a nightmare paraphraseology that made just enough sense to wipe him out.

  "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?" Mona screamed, making the moment complete. The spark that went off when he locked eyes with her made his hair want to spontaneously combust.

  And his mind was a crazed mosaic of words, the web of a spider on acid, spun misshapen from the fabric of life and left to gibber at the backsides of his eardrums, saying, Omigod, I lost control, I didn't want to know what I just learned, I didn't want to see her on top of him, smiling, I didn't want to know what he felt for her at the moment that he—

  "I didn't do it," he said, little more than a whisper. He broke his gaze away from Mona's. Dave's hands were not smoking. He was too freaked to be relieved by the absence of horror. "I swear to God, I didn't," he reiterated, sliding away from the table and backing toward the door.

  Then he turned and ran, the distance closing quickly, the gawking foursome by the door no more than an asterisk for a footnote that would never be read as he blasted past them, silent scream unheard, the door flying open and ushering him
into the night's black weighty mass . . .

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THE HORRORS

  The horrors all began promptly at 11:45, with a choreographer's sense of sweep and synchronous motion. Above, the sliver moon was one perfect curling claw; the chill wind was humid and thick as the air from a punctured lung. Emptiness seemed to crowd the streets, making them feel close and paranoiac even in the absence of other people.

  It was a perfect night for the horrors. They had waited too long for just such a night.

  But the waiting was over.

  Their moment had come.

  Mona waved good-bye to the back of Dave's head as the cab lumbered up Tenth Avenue. She still had no idea what had happened. She couldn't imagine being able to figure it out.

  But Dave had been fish-white, going on green, when she'd led him out of the Commons. The headache that all of Manhattan had shared was back, a million times worse. He'd barely been able to walk, much less kiss her good night. And the conversation he'd intended to have was completely beyond him, until further notice.

  What happened? her mind demanded to know, nerves still tingling from proximity to the Power. The pictures refused to go away, flashing before her with rapid shutter-speed, piling up like 8 by 10 glossies to crowd her skull. She kept seeing Dave: the emptiness of his eyes, the slackness of his flesh . . .

  . . . and she kept seeing Billy, his terrible intensity shifting suddenly into anguish. She kept seeing him scream, terror huge in his eyes, hand yanking away from Dave's as if it were burning . . .

  . . . just as the crackling air subsided . . .

  . . . and she kept seeing him, croaking denials, staggering backward like a drunk and then racing out of the room . . .

  Mona lit her last cigarette with trembling fingers, crumpled the pack, tossed it into the can on the corner. The deli closes in fifteen minutes, she heard herself think. You want more cigarettes. You're gonna need 'em. Let's go.

  She looked in through the window. Almost everyone in the bar was watching her closely. She could understand that. She'd be watching her, too. Embarrassment claimed a toehold on her psyche, quickly shaken loose by the sheer maddening strangeness.

  Mona pointed at her cigarette and made an I'll-be-right-back gesture. Jules, behind the bar, mouthed the words be careful. The regulars at the bar nodded soberly in agreement. She nodded back, gave a feeble smile, and headed east on Twenty-fourth Street.

  Almost every street in Manhattan is a valley, lined on either side by five- to one-hundred-story cliffs. West Twenty-fourth was no exception. To her right, London Terrace Apartments loomed up and up above her, thirty-some stories and an entire city block of it, comfortably redolent with old-style class. On her left was a straight line of well-kept brownstones, their fenced-in front yards steep with shadow.

  It was a safe street, quiet and fairly well-to-do. Mona couldn't remember having been scared on it before. But the cold made every sensation clear, too clear, amplifying the click and scuffle of her footsteps. No traffic passed, either on foot or on wheels.

  And the fear of Billy was still fresh in her mind. It didn't make sense, when she stopped to look at it—no way could Billy have caused what happened—but she couldn't shake the feeling that it had come from him somehow, that he was the terrible power's source.

  "Oh, Billy. What's wrong with you?" she heard herself whimper. But the still night smothered her words.

  And Billy wasn't around to hear them.

  Stanley Peckard stood in the sunken doorway, with the broken glass and plaster at his feet. He had a dazed look on his face, a raptuous idiot grin made all the more chilling by the cold glint of steel in his hand. He was listening to the click-clicking footsteps, approaching now, coming slowly into range.

  It was her.

  She was beautiful: her dark hair long and sumptuous, her brown eyes wide above china-doll cheekbones. Delicate nose. Pursed and lovely lips.

  And those long, long legs.

  Just as They had told him she would be.

  The black leather clung tightly to the hilt of the Master Carver, ensheathed his sweaty hand. His brittle-toothed grin intensified as the girl came within five feet of him, four feet, three.

  In the darkness behind him, the Little Ones began to sing. The girl didn't hear them.

  The girls never did.

  Billy was moving fast, as if his feet were trying to keep pace with his mind. No chance. Try as he might, he couldn't walk at the speed of thought.

  And his thoughts were in overdrive, describing Grand Prix circles and loop-dee-loops around the racetrack of his mind. Fear and guilt were in the lead, dragging a mass of confusion behind them.

  He was scared for Dave most directly: there had been a frozen moment in which he'd been certain that Dave was dying. He'd felt it: the Cuisinarted brain, the spot-welded fingers. It was with him still, like a ghostly image on an old black-and-white TV overlapping the sense of his own legs pumping as he turned left on Fourteenth Street, right on Washington, down the cobblestoned center of the meatpacking district.

  Then there was the little matter of his future with Mona. He didn't know what she'd felt, but he knew that she'd felt something. She'd made it pretty clear when she screamed.

  WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM? The voice was lunatic, shriekish, clawing at his skull from within. It made his stomach squirm like a bubble of swamp gas bursting. He knew that he'd frightened her in a way she couldn't possibly explain. It didn't matter. It would still weigh against him. The vaguest fears are the hardest ones to fight.

  Billy was surrounded by squat, enormous gray warehouses of death. The one on his left went anonymous, from where he stood. The one on his right was called Golden Packing. The air on Washington Street was no less ponderous than the air in the Twenty-fourth Street canyon, but it was already ripe with the smell of corpses.

  Overhead, and to his right again, ran an upraised bridge of sorts: former railway, former roadway, he couldn't be sure. Green-leafed foliage reached over the top at various points. The stretch was clearly overgrown, long out of use. It met with an upper story of Golden Packing at one point, ended with a clearly, more recent brick wall, resumed on the other side of the building. And so on and so on, of to the vanishing points both before and behind him.

  There were a pair of pay phones down at the corner of Washington and Little West Twelfth Street, lit from within and caught in the circle of streetlight. Little West Twelfth Street had always cracked him up, made him wish he could take Elmer Fudd on a tour of it. Widdow West Twewfth Stweet, said a voice in his head, tempting him to laugh.

  But his eyes were on the pay phones, for some reason that he couldn't get a handle on. He paused in the middle of the street, fumbling a cigarette from his pocket, staring at the phones. He got a Lark 100 in his mouth, dug for a match, couldn't find one.

  He lit the cigarette with his mind.

  It was so easy. It was too easy. It was starting to scare the shit out of him. He felt like a time bomb with no legible timing mechanism, an event just waiting to happen.

  (mona)

  He stopped: feet, heart, breath, completely. It was not his voice. It was not her voice. It was not even a human voice. But

  (the knife)

  it was real; and though he had no idea what was going on, he knew it was bad, and he found himself eyeing the pay phones and thinking if I can catch her before she leaves, it'll be okay, it's got to be okay. I refuse to accept that I wouldn't be able to know in time . . .

  . . . and then he was running, the Power was mounting, the trippiness making the cobblestones seem to glow and his feet to glide smoothly above them, on air, the phone booths whitely luminous and floating closer, himself leaping up onto the curb and reaching for the first phone, grabbing the receiver, bringing it up to his ear . . .

  . . . thinking I'm gonna get you in time, baby. Nothing bad is going to happen to you.

  I promise.

  Too late.

  There was, of course, one building on the block
that was neither a brownstone nor remotely well-to-do: 411 West Twenty-fourth. It was shorter than the others, at only two stories; it had a peeling face of painted-white wood, metal bars like saw-toothed waves over the feeble doors and broken windows, a long history of excretia from the neighborhood down-and-outers. One of them was slouching in front of its doorway now, taking a characteristic whiz. She watched him for a moment as she passed.

  Noting, in the final second, that the padlock on the metal gate had been neatly snapped in two . . .

  . . . and then the hand was around her throat, cutting off her air, making the scream that tried to wail out of her throttle and die on its way from her lungs . . .

  . . . as the gate screeched open with a sound that the night absorbed, and she found herself sliding backward into a room full of fragmented glass and plaster . . .

  . . . and the Master Carver came down, perfectly aimed, and six inches into the apex of her breast and then out again, sliding over through the steaming air to wetly pierce the other side in flawless, susurrating symmetry . . .

  Billy heard the scream, and the phone slammed back down. His mind, his mind reeled, his mind went crazy as it tried to nail the source of the sound: it was right behind him, it was far away . . .

  Then the scream came again, source unquestionable now. It was coming from the loading docks behind him, a sprawling expanse of asphalt draped in the shadow of the obsolescent bridgework above. The darkness of it was impenetrable. He peered into it: afraid to run in blindly, not knowing what else to do.

  Something long and sleek and ratlike raced across the pavement, chittering.

  "Oh, shit," Billy moaned, staring back at the comforting brightness of the phones for a second. Call the cops, he heard himself think. Dial Emergency, 911.

  Then she screamed again, and he knew that the cops would never get there in time, he wouldn't get there in time if he didn't get of his fucking ass and GO . . .