The Skunge

by Barr, Jeff

  "You're one of them, huh. Them Skungers," the boy said.

  Arneson felt a dam break inside himself. He was a Skunger. He had been infected by some God-knew-what outer-space hoodoo zombie plant, and now… here he was, driving to some destiny he couldn't imagine, with a woman who didn't even know his real name. And he had almost taken the life of a random man who had just been trying to protect his kid.

  "Yeah, I'm afraid so."

  "Does it hurt?"

  "Sometimes. Not usually."

  "Oh."

  "Are you sure about that ambulance, kid?"

  "Yeah. My dad would have a kitten."

  "Alright. Do me a favor and keep an eye on him, yeah?"

  "I know first aid well enough. Now I got to ask you to leave. I don't have anything in particular against Skungers—my friend Billy Carmichael, he's got a wicked bad case—but my dad…"

  "I know. Try and give me a head start before you call the cops, what do you say? We're just passing through."

  "OK." The kid drew himself up to his full height, and swallowed like it hurt him. But his eyes were clear, and sure. "Thanks for not killing my dad. Sometimes he can be a real asshole."

  Arneson resisted the urge to laugh and instead sketched a small salute to the kid. "You're welcome. Seeya, kid."

  The bell jangled on his way out.

  He trudged, head down, until some intuition made him look up. The passenger-side door hung open. Sugar was gone.

  CHAPTER FORTY NINE

  He threw open the back doors. Nothing. Nothing underneath the Jeep. His eyes roved around the area.

  He sprinted to the nearest treeline, head ratcheting back and forth. "Sugar!" Nothing responded except the murmur of the wind, speaking through the gnarled forest of Juniper and Ponderosa pine that hemmed the gas station's lot. If she had gone into the pines, she would be lost within minutes.

  The forest was a nightmare. Jagged basalt rocks, left over from ancient lava flows, lurked every few feet, waiting to trip you or break an ankle. The morning sun sent spears of piss-yellow light through the trees, but beyond twenty feet, the land land dropped down into a dark ravine. He turned back, tripping over several rocks, cursing as the hoary needles of a Western Larch raked his face.

  He stopped at the edge of the gas station tarmac, and concentrated. Every sense straining outward, pulling in raw information.

  He heard something. Not a sound, per se, but more an emanation; something that arrived in waves like the lapping of water on the shore of his mind. He turned his head back and forth, feeling for where it was strongest, and followed the signal.

  "Sugar?" He crunched over the gravel approach, peering at the building. There. A dirty mechanic-yellow steel door. The signal pulsed from behind that door.

  He burst in. Nothing. The bathroom was empty, desperately filthy, and graffitied across every square inch of the walls. The entire room was no more than five by five. He checked behind the door, then something on the floor caught his eye. He knelt to examine a tight circle of red droplets. Fresh blood. He felt a drop of something warm land on the back of his neck. As he looked up, his neck creaked in the silence.

  Sugar hung above him, swinging from the ceiling on thick ropes of Skunge. She looked like she had been crucified. Her arms were splayed, her legs held together with loops of the stuff. Vines sprouted from beneath her clothes, and one appeared to have grown from the back of her neck. Her mouth was open, and a long string of bloody drool hung from her mouth, trembling with each movement of the Skunge. As he stared, it broke and splashed to the floor. Her eyes were closed, her pale face serene in the flyspecked glow of the light fixture above the mirror. The Skunge twined and untwined like restless snakes.

  "Jesus, no." Arneson had known anger that burned so deep it had hollowed him out. He had experienced sadness so deep he had lost himself in it, for a long time. But now, for the first time in his life, the slippery disk of sanity tilted under him, and Arneson had to scrabble to stay upright before he tipped into an abyss of madness. "Sugar?"

  Sugar's mouth opened, and for a moment he thought she might speak. A vine whip-cracked out of her mouth and wrapped around Arneson's throat. He managed to work two fingers between his neck and the choking vine. The Skunge yanked him off his feet, pulling him to the ceiling. He grappled at other vines that snaked around him as they tried to push into his mouth. They twined around his hand, moving with nauseating, muscular speed. He rolled his wrist, wrapping the Skunge around his own forearm to get a better grip. He realized his mistake a second too late as it bore down on his arm, squeezing so hard that the skin of his arm darkened to an alarming shade of purple within seconds. The vine around his throat crackled as it squeezed tighter, almost cutting off his ability to speak.

  "Sugar. Wake up," he wheezed. That was the last of his air. He fought against the coiling vines—he yanked, twisted, and tore, but still they drew him inexorably closer to Sugar. Up close, her face was inhuman. Eyes wide but empty, mouth yawning wider than what seemed possible. Green veins throbbed and pulsed under the surface of her skin, and tendrils of Skunge wormed their way from her tear ducts, her nose, her ears.

  His lungs burned. He pinwheeled his legs in the air, three feet from the floor. This time, instead of searching for her with his senses, he broadcast them. He screamed with every ounce of his being except his voice.

  Every animal makes a sound as it dies; even humans are not above this base function of biology. Soul, spirit, animus; no matter what it was called, always it sent that last burst of energy into the cosmos, sending the final message: I was here. I was here.

  Sugar's eyes snapped open. She saw him. The Skunge thrummed, like a spasm, and one of the grasping vines wrapped itself around the light—a bare bulb. It squeezed, and the bulb exploded, throwing the room into darkness. The Skunge spasmed, as if in pain, and Sugar spasmed with it. Arneson felt her grasp on him loosen, and then he was falling.

  He lost consciousness before he hit the floor.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  "I don't remember any of it. I remember wandering away from the car at the filling station, and the next thing I remember was you shaking me, telling me to wake up. You know how when you're dreaming, and you get woken up, and for a minute you don't know what's real?"

  "I know it."

  "It was like that." Her eyes had returned to normal, but the Skunge had bloomed with a new fury. "It's still like that. This is all some kind of a dream." Her skin was lined and ridged all over with the stuff, the slithering sound of it moving filled the Jeep.

  Arneson kept his eyes on the road, the dotted center line blurring together into an unbroken river.

  She coughed. Her lungs made a wet burbling sound, like a pneumonia patient. "I don't want you to—" she stopped, moving her mouth as if she were tasting the words. "I don't want you to stay with me. I want you to get me to a doctor, and then leave me alone."

  He didn't look around, though he felt her gaze. "These people are no more doctors than I'm an astronaut."

  "You know what I mean. Whoever they are. Once we get there, I want you to go."

  Arneson smiled, the same old bleak light in his eyes. "Is this the old leave-me-here-save-yourself speech? Because I've heard it before."

  She started to speak, and he cut her off.

  "Skip it. In my line of work we have a saying: The last guy out is the only one who gets to leave without a body over his shoulder."

  "I have no idea what that means." Her eyes were dry and angry. She hacked up another cough, and specks of black ichor spattered her lips.

  "It means no one gets to leave. Ever. Once you're in, you're in, until they cut you open and fill you with cotton balls."

  "They don't actually do that, do they? Stuff you?"

  "I don't know, I've never been killed. I'll be sure to let you know as soon as I find out."

  They rode in silence after that, her hand on his thigh.

  The highway twisted and turned through the high desert, passing through Old Wes
t theme towns, resort communities, sludgy lakes and mile after mile of forest. They passed through an Indian reservation. Blank-faced natives sat at either side of the road, in pickup trucks and Subaru wagons, rifles across their laps, jugs of water and sack lunches beside them. Arneson knew the look: relaxed, alert, confident. They wouldn't hesitate to use their guns on anyone who stopped. He kept driving.

  They entered Junction City just after eight P.M. The sun was as red as a blood-clot behind the mountains.

  "Holy shit." Arneson said. He opened his window, and the stench of acrid burning filled the car.

  Sugar woke up coughing, bits of Skunge flying out of her mouth to speckle the glass on her side.

  The town was a shambles. Spires of smoke dotted the skyline, and the main drag was in ruins. A late-model sedan sat overturned in the first intersection, the side splashed with dried-to-maroon blood. Debris lay everywhere. They weaved around abandoned cars and wreckage. A queen-size bed lay face-down in the center of the intersection, remnants of rope tied to the four posts.

  Arneson knew the area, and he drove confidently and casually, wending his way down an empty series of streets. The only movement came from an occasional Russian thistle, blowing across deserted streets.

  She squinted at a row of cloned suburban homes. "Doesn't look like much."

  "It isn't."

  "Where's the town you grew up in, from here?"

  "An hour or so north."

  She chuckled. "Do you ever just give up information without questioning?"

  He cast her a look. "Nope. Of course, we have that in common, so maybe not such a bad thing."

  She appeared to consider, then punched him lightly on the arm. "We'll make a decent boyfriend of you yet."

  "I doubt that very much. But hope springs eternal."

  A family of deer stood and watched them as they passed, their glassy brown eyes alert, their ears flickering to follow the sound of their passing.

  Juniper Ridge was a blocky granite structure, no different than a thousand industrial parks, except for the reflective-tint windows and burly steel doors. Loops of razor-wire, installed atop the fence, jangled in the wind. The industrial campus was large and impersonal, more like a prison than a place people might work. Everything was gray as a banker's heart. Crisp black asphalt inscribed with arrows and parking lines surrounded the place like a permanent shadow. Nothing moved except the clouds.

  Arneson pulled up to the outer gate. It slid open after a moment, but the inner gate remained closed. A guard shack sat to the left, and a uniformed guard, assault rifle strapped to his side, stepped out and waved them forward a few feet. His face was impassive behind reflectorized aviator sunglasses.

  Arneson rolled down the window then put his hands back on the wheel, like he would with a cop. "Morning. We're here to see Lester Brayle," he said. The guard said nothing. "Frank Staunton sent us." The guard cocked his head, and Arneson saw curly cord dangling from his ear.

  "Licenses."

  "What's the magic word?"

  The guard said nothing. Arneson sighed and handed over their papers. With an air of subtle reproach, the guard took them and retreated back to the guard-house. Several long minutes passed.

  Sugar mused on the idea of Purgatory, the way the Catholics meant it: a waiting room before Heaven and Hell, where sinners awaited their ultimate fate. An eternal time between fences, with nothing to do but sit and wait and itch. Sometimes, when she blinked, her sight flickered, and occasionally she had flashes of vision at strange angles, like she had grown eyes in different parts of her body. There was no pain, but the itch, the itch, the itch.

  Arneson smoked, staring at the building. "This place looks like a tombstone."

  The guard returned. Still silent, he handed back their papers and left them there. Nothing for at least three minutes. Arneson looked in the side mirror and noted the row of spikes that had sprung up behind the back tires. No backing out now.

  Finally, the inner gate opened with a jingling, rolling efficiency, and they drove forward. Arneson swung into the parking lot, and cruised through it toward Juniper Ridge.

  Arneson smoked meditatively, tension thick in the air. He parked next to the handicapped spot, and together they got out and stood before the building. They peered into the windows and saw only their reflections staring back, ephemeral as ghosts of the future. Sugar twined her fingers through his, and he squeezed her hand.

  "Wish us luck," he said, half-smiling.

  "Luck."

  He took a deep breath. "What could possibly go wrong, he famously said, just before they drove off a cliff."

  "You're hilarious." She raised his hand to her mouth and kissed it. He folded her hand in both of his, and returned the kiss, his eyes locked on hers.

  For a moment, through a trick of the light, she may have seen something like hope in his eyes.

  "Ready?" they said at the same time, and shared a smile.

  Together they entered Juniper Ridge.

  PART 3

  CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

  The foyer was dim and silent. Not unused; there was no dust and the floors were clean. A pot of drooping Chrysanthemums sat atop a long, curving desk where a receptionist might sit and greet visitors. The desk was dotted with displays full of pamphlets extolling the putative functions of the Juniper Ridge facility. Environmental Study in Central Oregon, Our Ecological Impact, What Does Climate Change Mean to You. The information looked legitimate. All of the marketing materiel was copyrighted the current year.

  Sugar leaned against Arneson, her face wan. She needed medical attention.

  She flipped through the pamphlets, smirking at the peppy verbiage and bright stock photography. Sugar replaced the brochure she had picked up, and then straightened out the edges. Arneson smiled.

  "Hey!" Arneson shouted. "I know you're watching. Hurry up and—"

  The elevator pinged and they both turned toward the doors.

  The guard who stepped out was so tall that if he had been wearing a hat, he would have had to duck to fit through the doors. Rolls of fat and muscle strained against the confines of his gray uniform shirt, and each shoe was big enough that you could bury a cat inside it. A black goatee limned the first of his double chins. He wore mirrored aviator style sunglasses, and had a spot of what looked like mustard on his tie. He lumbered out of the elevator, and Arneson could have sworn he heard the tiles underfoot grinding.

  He took a long look at Arneson, and an even longer look at Sugar. His eyes roved over her body, spending as much time on her tits as the looping whorls of Skunge that coiled under the skin of her arms and legs. "You can't bring her in here. This is a clean zone." He turned back to Arneson. He stared so long Arneson began to wonder if he had fallen asleep. Then the big man leaned closer. He must not have liked what he saw, because he gulped and stepped back. "You're a Skunger too."

  Arneson returned the up and down inspection, and made it obvious that he didn't care much for what he saw. "We're here to see Lester Brayle. I want to talk to him."

  "I don't care if you're here to see Big Bird." He stabbed a finger at them. "You're not coming in here." His radio crackled, and he tipped his head to one side, growling a string of call-codes into his shoulder-radio.

  "Keep talking like that, Andre the Giant, and instead of asking nicely, I may decide to go through you," Arneson said.

  "Stop it," Sugar rasped. The Skunge in her throat had roughened her voice; she sounded like she'd been gargling with broken whiskey bottles.

  The guard's name-tag said R.CRANTZ. He swallowed, but to his credit, stayed where he was. "Facility policy. No can do." He crossed his arms. Sugar stared at them in wonder—each arm was the size of her thigh.

  "Look, asshole," Arneson said. "I have clearance. I was told to come here by West-Pac control. We are coming inside." Arneson stepped closer.

  "Your clearance doesn't mean shit-all to me." Crantz stood his ground.

  Ding.

  The elevator emitted a tall, blinking m
an with graying hair and a long face. He wore a white coat and two pair of glasses: one on his face, the other around his neck on an old-lady chain. Behind him came three more guards, each so alike as to be indistinguishable.

  The tall man spoke with a surprisingly pleasant, deep voice. "Mr. Crantz, introduce me to our visitors, please."

  "Sorry Doctor Brayle, but I was just saying, rules and regs say no entrance. They're both Skungers—by the looks of the girl, she could snap any time."

  Brayle turned to regard them, blinking through his spectacles. "Well, Crantz here does have a point." He waited a beat. "Unfortunately, it's on the top of his head." When no reaction was forthcoming, he sighed and slipped his glasses up his forehead. "OK, tough room. But, legally, even if you weren't obviously infected, we couldn't allow you in here without a full inspection. MRI scanning, bio readings, the whole enchilada. This is a Level 4 Biosafety facility."

  "I don't know what that means." Arneson spoke directly to Brayle, cutting Crantz out of the conversation.

  Crantz's keys jangled as he stepped forward, close enough that his belly almost brushed Arneson's jacket. One meaty hand rested on his Sam Browne belt. "What that means is everything that comes in here follows strict regulations and protocols. This is a clean facility." The guards shifted, not moving any closer, but not looking away. Hands rested on truncheons, tasers, gun butts. Arneson's eyes flicked to Crantz, then back to Brayle.

  "Yeah, I can see what a clean facility this is." Sugar gestured to the mustard on Crantz's tie. Crantz turned an unpleasant shade of brick. He glanced back at the other guards and jerked his head toward them. They stepped forward, their boots echoing in the mausoleum quiet of the foyer.

  Arneson sunk his weight down to his center, hands up at ready position. His mind ticked over like a clock, assessing the guards as they approached. Conclusion: they were soft. The old rule was: you don't see action, you won't be ready for action. These guys hadn't seen action in a long time.