Her makeshift sanctuary was the rear entry to a small warehouse, one of many clustered in this part of the Strip. Grime clung to the concrete. Discarded needles glinted in the dim light nearby.
The maze of walkways and alleys that comprised this side of Exeter Street was the ideal haunt for the Alley Cats, hookers who offered sex then and there, in doorways, pressed against walls. Already, a few shapes watched them from the shadows further down the street.
"Come on, I have a hot shower and nice warm coffee waiting. Let's get you out of this cold." Joe said.
"What happened? With those guys, I mean?" She uncurled herself a little.
"Just a misunderstanding. They'll be no more trouble to you." He sounded distant.
Without a further word, she reached out to him. Joe took her hand and eased her to her feet. For a moment, their eyes locked—hers, watery and pale; his, the unreadable grey of stone.
Miri was a fresh face on the Strip, yet to be broken by the tide of perversion heaped onto this single neighbourhood. Joe had taken her under his wing the day he'd set eyes on her, although that had only delayed the inevitable.
Everyone lost their souls on Exeter Street. Some gave them up to crawl the heap for positions of power—the dealers, the pimps, the strip club owners. Others, like Miri, ended up there through happenstance or the worst of luck. People were already a little damaged when they arrived at the Strip. Miri, like the others forced into prostitution, was no exception.
Joe gently guided Miri from her squalid sanctuary. With one arm around her shoulders, he walked her up the incline and back toward the neon glare of Exeter Street. Joe paused at the top of the lane and glanced back.
Joe's arm tensed, and he tightened his grip on Miri's shoulder. "What's wrong?" she asked.
Joe peered into the darkness a moment longer and then shook his head and forced a smile. "Nothing, Miri. Let's go."
From among the shadows, hidden from the Alley Cats on the prowl, another set of eyes watched Miri and Joe disappear. Dark, insubstantial eyes that saw only the lusty highs of sex and death.
#
Guided by Joe, Miri's mind was only dimly aware of the walk back through the Strip. Clumps of drunken men inexplicably melted away with reverence, allowing them clear passage through an area normally clogged with people.
She caught sight of the brothers that groped her, but they, too, stepped well clear of Joe as he ushered her through. Their faces remained bowed and solemn as they passed.
"What did you do?" she mumbled into Joe's ear.
Joe's gaze was held straight ahead. "Not enough."
In silence, she endured the long walk to the outreach centre on achingly cold feet. Flashing signs, shopfronts plastered with hundreds of lights, and lurid posters, all screaming SEX, mocked her as she struggled on. The smell of sweat and alcohol was ever-present, leaving her nauseous.
The outreach centre, an annexe of the crumbling St Mary's church, was a landmark perched stately and impotent on a hill at the quiet end of Exeter Street like an eagle too old to fly. As Miri approached, she allowed a memory to slip through her defences: the trail of blood.
Trembling grew into a sob. Her legs finally gave out as she sank into Joe's quiet strength. He half-guided, half-carried her through the doors.
The coffee he mentioned was waiting as promised. It was scalding and fresh, but she was barely aware of bringing the mug to her lips. The warmth lingered, a contrast to her numbed body and spirit, even amid a fresh burst of tears.
Joe squeezed her shoulder. The warmth of his fingers calmed her. Her tears abated, replaced by vague serenity. Drowsiness soon crept upon her. The trauma, sorrow, and bone-weariness left a hole sleep sought to replace.
Joe moved her to a ready-made cot covered with military-green blankets. The centre had a number of these beds for drop-ins who couldn't face the night alone. Normally, people lined up for the beds, but the Mr X murders had spooked the regulars into more private nooks to outlast the night. Of the dozen or so beds, Miri's was the only one occupied. Joe nestled her into the cot and covered her with the blanket.
Miri's last thoughts were of Joe as he stood in the doorway, of his kindness, and his support. He was a good person, too good for a place like the Strip.
#
Most of the city had yielded to the night; everything was bedded down, turned off, and awaiting a new day. The red lights of Exeter Street stood apart, embracing the cover of darkness to launch into a frenzy of vices.
In an area that never truly rests, sleep was hard to come by. Every fibre of Joe's being yearned to lay his head down and dream, to join the rest of the city. Instead, he remained restless, immersed in the Strip's aura of insomnia.
He stood in the doorway and studied Miri as she struggled through a difficult sleep, losing himself in thought.
#
II - A Night on Execution Street
The alley was familiar yet different. Miri strolled past wrought-iron fences bristling with spikes protecting courtyards long abandoned. Every so often, she'd spot another girl emerge from a doorway or a courtyard. Each girl had her patch. Miri's was a courtyard of concrete and rust, much like the others, at the end of this row—about as far from the action as one could get. She'd painted a tiny cross on the brickwork with black nail polish, hoping that would it would somehow penetrate the veneer of decay and inhumanity to sanctify the spot.
Working so far from the Strip was not lucrative, but the cops were cracking down on the alleys close to Exeter. Complicating matters, the competition was tougher lately. The place was full to bursting. Girls like her, new to the Strip, were pushed to the outskirts to walk the Fringe.
The Johns didn't mind. In the Strip, the laneways were too clogged to cruise in cars. Out in the Fringe, the streets were wider, less crowded, and a hell of a lot darker. Every so often, a car would cruise by with its lights dimmed. The girls would appear from the shadows and be drawn like crows to carrion to parade themselves in front of the mark. Miri hadn't learned the ropes enough to score the cars. She was too self-conscious, even after a few weeks living on the Strip. Starving was still an option she could cope with, especially given the alternative. So far, one or two Johns had stumbled onto her, but she chose not to think about what she'd had to do for a couple of fifties.
A thought intruded, an alien thought, as she watched two girls flaunt their wares at the car. The sense of dejá-vu was overpowering.
She spied Rhonda further up the street. Rhonda was her friend, a sassy girl in her early twenties who looked in her late thirties. A couple of years on Exeter Street did that to everyone. Rhonda was a mentor, of sorts. Someone, like Joe, who'd taken her under her wing.
The thought intruded again. Reality stirred, fuzzing around the edges for a moment.
Rhonda leant into the window of the dark sedan and flirted with the driver. With the moonlight pale on her skin and a cheeky smile on her face, the ravages of heroin and hard living diminished. Rhonda almost looked her age.
She pulled the door open and slid into the passenger seat with a laugh. She'd seen Rhonda do this several times. It was part of her pitch. This time, watching Rhonda casually toss her head back, Miri's stomach churned. Something wasn't right.
"Rhonda! No! Come back!" she screamed as the car pulled away.
Everything stretched and swirled. The very fabric of reality drew away, growing taut at the edges. Her vision clouded black.
Miri's eyes fluttered as she tried to hold onto some shape, some form.
The world coalesced once more.
She found herself walking through alleys deep inside the Fringe, so similar to those in the Strip at first glance yet worlds apart. Empty, dark, and menacing. Dangerous in ways Exeter Street only alluded to—like the threats of a schoolyard bully compared to those of a hardened murderer.
Her feet rushed her through the dim alleys, despite her desire to stop. Her body was stuck on some surreal conveyor belt while her mind bucked and struggled to make sense of what was
happening.
Again, the dejá-vu intruded. She'd been here before, walked this route before.
The usual smells—faeces, exhaust fumes, and filth—were absent. She walked on, caught in a three dimensional movie.
Ahead, a familiar car was idling silently. Like her sense of smell, her hearing was gone. The faint rumble of the engine only a memory. In the absence of noise, the car appeared to tremble.
Its brake lights, twin red points, were the only sign of life. The passenger door was wide open. The light from inside escaped as a pathetic sepia glow.
Her rebellious legs took her forward, circling wide of the idling car. As she approached, the final latch of her mind unhinged.
She wanted to scream, to kick and fight, to close her eyes. Trapped in a traitorous body, playing out this scene she urged herself to deny, she had no choice but to confront this again.
The driver's side was awash with blood. The windows were spattered with it, punctured by clear patches that allowed her glimpses inside.
Slumped in the driver's seat was an average-looking man. His head lolled off to the side, dangling at an angle incapable of a living man. Blood stained his shirt a dirty brown-red from a slash across his throat. His shirt parted at his stomach where a wound bulged into a mound of blood and gore. His intestines erupted from the wound and were draped in ropey loops over the gear stick and seat. The man's trousers were bunched above his knees, and his dick was no more than a smear of drying blood and pubic hair, the remaining flesh forever lost to his murderer's whims.
Miri heard herself gasp, the first sound to intrude on this memory-scape nightmare, as her mind—her ensnared mind—fully registered the man's corpse. Her true self, the real Miri, had suffered through this before.
Unable to stop herself, she circled the car to check the passenger side. Even her shaking hands, shakes that had nothing to do with the cold, were relived.
Duplicity struggled in her thoughts. This memory self had no idea what to expect. The robotic Miri searched the courtyards with caution, peeking over iron fences and low, shattered brick walls for what she feared. Deeper inside, the real Miri fought for control, knowing exactly what lay ahead.
Soon enough, she discovered the trail of blood starting from a nearby fence. The initial blood-spatter was star-shaped but soon gave way to a more solid smear, a drag mark, as it trailed away. Overhanging boughs of dead trees that had climbed above derelict fences broke the moonlight, but the bloody trail was clear enough as it wormed along the footpath.
Miri's body propelled forward, ignoring her internal protests. At first, she followed the blood in stops and starts. Soon, waves of concern, guilt, and urgency took hold, driving her automaton body onwards.
She'd needed to find Rhonda.
The trail disappeared into a walkway squeezed between two high brick walls. A single wooden post guarded the entry to the walkway. She found bloody handprints smudged along the post's surface, as though someone had clung to it in desperation before being hauled away.
The trail vanished into impenetrable darkness at the far end. Miri stared into the abyss and shuddered. Both minds, her present and her past, grappled with something lurking at the edge of reason.
Light would never truly touch this place, a place she desperately didn't want to enter. On the other side, she imagined Rhonda broken, bleeding, and dying alone in the dark. Whether the whimpering and the scrape of steel were real or imagined, she couldn't say. It was easier to pretend they were her imagination playing tricks.
Something formed in the darkness ahead.
The corners of sight blurred again as she found herself sinking into that darkness. Bile stung her throat as she forced it down. Miri closed her eyes against the world as it spun out of control.
#
"Miriel."
A warm hand touched her arm. The feeling of flesh on flesh was pleasant but disorienting.
"You were dreaming." Joe gently rubbed her arm to ease her back into reality.
The sounds and smells of the St Mary's Outreach Centre—clattering pans from the soup kitchen, squeaking shoes on the rec room's lino floor, and muffled conversations—greeted her as she stretched and yawned. Her legs threatened to cramp, encouraged by the draft blowing through the room. Even in the church, Exeter Street's cold fingers reached in and toyed with her. An open window ushered in the cold, as well as other morning noises—crawling traffic and snatches of conversations from the streets outside.
"Let's get some breakfast." Joe's angular face broke into a smile.
With a listless nod, she gathered her arms around herself, staring at an invisible spot on the wall. The memories and nightmare had taken their toll.
"I have a spare jacket lying around. I'll get it for you if you like?"
Miri shook her head but Joe ignored her. He disappeared into the office and returned with a brown leather jacket.
"Come on." He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. "It's late. McDonald's breakfast menu will be over soon."
#
Walking Exeter Street in the mid-morning light was always strange. The regulars, the perverts who haunted the Strip by night, were all strung out in their hovels sleeping away the daylight hours. Those who only dabbled with the Strip spent their days earning cash in respectable parts of the city so they could shove it down a topless stripper's G-string the next night.
The sun failed to brighten the street or provide any warmth. The scum and stains ingrained into the footpaths, spattered up the outer walls of sex shops and third rate bars, were part of the fabric of the place, as was the constant smell. No, daylight brought no warmth. It merely exposed Exeter Street's ugliness.
The McDonald's outlet was on the commercial edge of Exeter Street, standing at the border between the Strip and more reputable districts beyond.
Joe led Miri down the length of the Strip, from the St Mary's Centre and the buildings of the old street, through the neon valley of sex, and eventually, to the outpost of cafés where Exeter Street was swallowed by the concrete expanse of the Federal Interchange.
Gnarled, squint-eyed characters huddled against walls and claimed street benches. More still, including many of the working girls, filled the seats outside the Latte Connection and Mort's. This was the hour of strong coffee, a ritual to fight the daily hangover. The time for vodka, ecstasy, and KY Jelly came later. The mood had been subdued ever since the murders started.
Miri was still the outsider but more faces were becoming familiar. She recognised many of the girls, especially the younger ones. Jane, still a pretty doll at eighteen, sat with Crystal and Ashlyn as they traded stories over cardboard mugs. At their approach, the three teenagers, hookers all, waved politely.
Joe lingered to share pleasantries with the trio before moving through the crowd. Miri stood back. Joe acknowledged everyone at the tables and shared jokes and tender words. For the first time, Miri understood the extent to which he kept the community together.
Joe returned after several minutes of chatting. Miri prodded him forward, spurred on by hunger pangs.
"What do you want, Miri?' he asked as they stepped inside.
"It's okay. I've got a bit of cash from last night."
"Save it." He placed a hand over hers.
Relenting, she confessed a craving for hash browns. He returned a few minutes later with their meal.
Nestled on plastic seats at a plastic table inside the restaurant, she ripped into her breakfast with ferocity. Joe barely touched his food, instead staring out the window at the people ambling by.
Tourists trickled into the Strip during the day, curious at lives and situations beyond their comprehension. They brought colour and nervous laughter with them as they strolled, but their colour was too bright, their laughter too conspicuous. Unlike the locals, they weren't faded by the Strip—their colours unleached, the masks of neon and make-up not required.
"Joe?" Miri prompted after an uncomfortable silence. "You've been so good to me, and I just realised I
don't even know your last name."
Joe blinked and pulled his attention from the window. He nodded and smiled. "My last name? In a place like this, not many people know you long enough to discover your last name, do they, Miriel Audrey Lee?"
"How did you know my name?" Shock crossed Miri's face.
"I have my sources." He tapped the side of his nose. "And it's Urban. My name, that is. Like the country and western singer. You're the first person who ever asked."
She saw a flicker of sadness creep into his eyes, to vanish an instant later.
"What brought you here as a youth worker? Must be a tough job taking care of ... of girls like me."
"I never came here until the St Mary's annexe was set up. I wasn't wanted until then."
Another silence intruded. She didn't know what to say.
"How old are you, Miri?" Joe's eyes were distant but his smile remained.
She tore methodical strips off a hash brown wrapper and kept her gaze fastened on the task. "I'll be seventeen in a month."
"That's too young for a place like this," he sighed, "too young for what I have to ask you to do."
"What's that?" She met his eye.
"We have to find Rhonda. And the others."
"But ..." she stammered.
"I wouldn't ask, except you're the only one who has been to where he dwells."
She didn't have to ask who Joe was referring to.
"I can show you, I s'pose." She returned to tearing the wrapper. "But I don't want to go in there. There's something not right about that place."
"I'm sorry Miri, but it doesn't work like that. Tonight, I need you to take me to his alley. All the way in. Only you can get me through. Your heart hasn't yet been darkened. Your concern for Rhonda—"
"Why? Why can't you just call the cops?"
"They can't help. They wouldn't understand. I have a way of stopping this murderer, this Mr X." Joe's disgust at the nickname was obvious. Something seethed, something powerful, just beneath his calm facade.
The restaurant's ceiling fans all whirred to life simultaneously. They hit top speed within seconds, only to slow and lose momentum with every rotation.
Apocrypha Sequence: Deviance Page 4