Reaching number thirteen, they found the door ajar. Both officers immediately drew their pistols. They walked inside where thankfully the sunlight was streaming though out the window of every room.
Jackson never saw Xcetral coming.
A black hulking mass peeled itself from the shadows and rammed Jackson's head into the wall, splitting the skull. Jackson's eyes fluttered and he swayed where he stood. Now a deep crevice, cliff sides of jutting bone, separated by a shallow river of red, trailed back from Jackson's forehead. Paralysed with fear, Jimmy could only look on as Xcetral pulled the skull apart further and began to scoop out the brain matter inside, cramming handfuls of it into some unseen orifice.
Jackson opened his mouth and began making unintelligible noises, his arms jerking wildly at his side like the work of a talentless puppeteer.
"What the hell are you doing mister?" Jimmy cried. He could think of nothing else to do or say.
“I'm feeding, trying to get to his soul. It is close I can taste it.”
For the first time since Xcetral's appearance, Jimmy noticed the gun he held in his hand. Summoning as much concentration as he could muster he fired three shots into the black being before him; and watched in terror as the speeding metal was absorbed by the black being's skin (something which Jimmy would later describe as looking like “the kind of stuff those bondage freaks wear”).
Xcetral laughed and continued eating away at the brain, throwing skull fragments to the floor.
"Holy God, what the hell are you?"
Xcetral ignored him and continued. At that moment Jimmy decided that Jackson was pretty much fucked and Jimmy should concentrate on getting the fuck out of there. He made it through the door and down the stairs and never looked back once. Jackson had been the driver of the car so it made sense that he would have the damn keys. They had been taught how to hi-jack a car in special exercises but he could not sit outside that building any more than he could the top of an erupting volcano. Instead he ran.
And finally he came to the police station.
And that's when Candy's voice started to be heard.
Back at the institution Malone got a call, this time on his cell phone, not his police band radio. He was told Officer James Davidson was verging on a nervous breakdown and talking about monsters that ate brains. Malone suggested they called the police doctor and meanwhile give him some blue Valium.
How many? As many as it damned well took. Get him calm and he'd be over in a while to talk to him. He looked at Candy then everyone else in the room and asked them all to leave; except Candy.
"Mind if I ask what this is all about?” asked Wanda the nurse.
"Mind your own damn business for now. If I need you, I'll speak to you."
Candy looked at the ceiling.
What the hell was going on? This guy knows something related to you and he doesn't want to talk about it in front of the others in the room.
Wanda and Fortune McKenna stood to leave along with the orderly. On his way to the door, McKenna stopped.
"If this concerns the institution I really should have a right to be here," he said haughtily to Malone.
"This is police business. I call the shots here, right now Mr McKenna and you're just going to have to get used to it. If I feel you need to be informed of something I'll let you know. Otherwise, keep your fucking hairy ass out of my way."
McKenna snorted with derision and slammed the door behind him, not bothering to hold it open for Wanda.
Wanda smiled politely and left the room without any fuss, secretly pleased to see Fortune take a beating in the authority stakes. He was a shitty person to work under and she was always sure his methods were so far from the book, that had they actually been written down they would be illegible scrawls in the air.
Wanda walked back to the ward and went into the bathroom. It was time for her daily hit of smack, a habit she had picked up scoring drugs for Candy.
Life was starting to feel good for Wanda.
Real good.
Detective inspector Malone sat in silence. Candy sat in silence also. Neither looked at the other.
Candy was the first to speak. "You know something don't you? About what happened to me? Tell me. You've gotta tell me for fucks sake. This isn't a fucking game."
Malone sighed and then took out his cigarettes. He handed one to Candy and lit it for her then lit his own and blew out a plume of smoke straight upwards. "Okay I'll give it to you straight. There have been two sets of uniformed officers sent out to question witnesses who claim to have sighted and spoken to Cassie... what was her name?"
"Cassie Dell."
"Right. So the first unit goes to this woman's house. Calls in fine, old lady, making them tea. Then an hour has passed and there's been no contact, so our control sends out a radio contact for them which goes unanswered. So, we send out another patrol car, and guess what they find. They find the male officer with a knife protruding from both his temples, handle one end, point at the other... you get the picture. And we ain't talking just shoved in; we're talking hammered in, the force so great forensics are saying it defies the laws of physics. But that ain't the kicker. Not by a long shot. The female officer is naked in the bedroom with her body slashed open from pussy to her tits and with a hole in the head which will not for anything stop bleeding. Now we got the latest forensics there is in this city but all DNA matter found which doesn't belong to the victim, don't even match anything human. The guys at the lab are going crazy. They have no idea what this stuff is. They say it's like skin but it's made of matter which has undergone some serious tests and is indestructible. Then there's crime scene number two. One of our guys managed to make it back from that one, on foot, and the way he was talking and describing things not one cop in the precinct wanted to go check out that apartment. He said a man, well not a man, but a massive man type creature, completely black, with no face, was all the same tearing chunks out of poor old Jackson's brain. The one who made it back is called Jimmy and he swears down on his children's lives that he saw this thing eat the brains of Jackson, and even though he had no face it was as if he did kinda see his face except that if you looked too close your brain would pack in and die right there and then. So finally we get forty armed units down there, not to mention twenty three military men, snipers, and a medic who insisted he sit in the tank until the all clear, and they all go to the flat. To all their relief, there was no black man; however there was a decapitated corpse that was once poor Jackson. It seemed his brain had been eaten and then the head ripped clean off. But you know the real fucking weird thing. I know that sounds strange, considering what I've just said, but whatever did this to Jackson, cut off Jackson's fingers and used four of them to dip in Jackson's blood and write,” Malone paused for a second and read from his notebook, “THEY CAN'T SAY YOU DID IT NOW CANDY... THEY'VE SEEN MY PRESENCE...... YOU ARE MY CHAMPION REMEMBER... and then it's signed this weird name . . X..C . .ET. . .RAL,'” under her breath Candy whispered, “Xcetral”, “ain't that the weirdest thing you ever did hear?" Malone finished.
Candy shook her head. ”So what? Should I be shocked by this? I've been telling you dumb mother fuckers all along that this was the script, that these things are real and very dangerous, and not one of you fuckers, even after that lie detector test, not one of you believed me. So what now? Do I get released? Or no, let me guess, you're here looking for my help?"
"I'm afraid the only place I could release you to would be the state penal facility. I think you're better off where you are. You go to prison they're going to give you the chair, and I hear it's painful as hell. But maybe if you can help me, I can help you get out of here quicker than you would otherwise, and you'd be a free lady. What do you say?" Malone held out his hand in handshake.
Candy stared at it for a moment before standing. "Go fuck yourself, Malone. I got better things to do that go chasing around for the pigs."
“Well anyway, I've already checked out your psyche notes. You were babbling when they fir
st brought you in here. You remember what you were saying?”
Candy eyebrows furrowed into a frown. Of course the cop knew she didn't. Of course he would have access to her notes.
She felt mentally violated, that someone had more right to her memories than she did, her words a confidential secret that she had no part in. There was a slight sting of pain as her nails dug into her palms, her hands formed into fists. “I'll assume that was rhetorical. Do you care to enlighten me or are you only asking to confirm my suspicions?”
Malone looked genuinely interested. “What suspicions?”
“That you're a smug bastard,” said Candy with a momentary smile which contained no trace of humour.
“Actually, I was going to enlighten you. You see, most of what you were mumbling was pretty incoherent. And that was before they drugged you. You were delirious, and according to the notes, that's putting it mildly. Apparently, you were spouting words that made no sense, at least at first. However a Junior doctor was the first to recognise one of them. It was Horus. That name mean anything to you now?”
“You're the one who's read the notes. To most of the fuckers working here, they think it's akin to reading a person's mind, so why don't you tell me what you know? And what you think you know about what I know?”
“Well let me tell you about the second name that was recognised. In fact the only other name that was recognised... hold on it's a hard one to pronounce.. Shub Niggurath? Shub Niggurath. Yeah, that's it. That name mean anything to you?”
“You know it does, or you wouldn't be asking. It's what it means to you that I want to know.”
“To be frank, and honestly meaning no offence, what with you being locked up in the loony ward, I'd say it meant you were nuts. Normally, anyway. However, there is something to this. But let me lay it on the line for you. According to the boys at the university mythology department, Horus is the Egyptian equivalent to our Jesus. Born on the twenty fifth of December, buried, resurrected, practically the same history. Now I'm no religious man, but so far as I understood it, Jesus was a good guy, no?”
“Why do you think they sacrificed people to these Gods? Jesus or his daddy was no exception. They eat the souls.”
“No shit? I did not know that. I'll have to pass that over to the boys at the crime lab-”
“If you're going to take the piss Malone, just fuck off and stop wasting my time, okay. Either say what you've got to say or get out.”
“Okay. Well, curiously enough the second person to identify this Sub Niggurah or whatever was an orderly. Seems he's big on the whole horror scene and happened to be reading a book containing that very name. The guy practically shit his pants when you started babbling about the goat with the thousand awful young.”
“Seems you know a bit more about this Sub Niggurah or whatever if you know that much. What sort of book did he have. Was it some occult text?”
“See, this is where it gets tricky. It turns out that it was a fictional book. That Shub Niggurath was a fantasy of the now deceased author H.P Lovecraft.”
“That's impossible. He must have stolen it from somewhere. From another book, a real one,” there was a slight undertone of pleading to her obvious confusion. It wasn't that she really cared that Shub Niggurath was mentioned in the realms of fiction. It was that she also stalked her in the realms of whatever passed for reality these days.
“Well, as it turns out, I did turn this name over to the boys at the crime lab. They weren't too happy about it, but some of them have connections to people who work in big libraries,” Malone lowered his voice to a whisper, ”It's not strictly legal, but we like to keep a close eye on what's being withdrawn sometimes. Anyway, your Shub Niggurath does not feature in any single occult text we could find and we went through literally thousands. Hell, I didn't think there was so many.”
“You’re wrong,” said Candy, “that fucking thing is real. It must be some obscure text. Or some fucking... I don't know. I mean you're fucking cops so the majority of your team are probably illiterate.”
“I'll pass on the complement. I'm sure the boys will get a kick out of it. Unfortunately for your logic, it was all done by a computer cross referencing system. Your goat, is the creation of a horror writer. And the best of it is... the guy hated magic. He thought it was childish. So the odds of him poring over thousands of texts to find a single character when there are God alone knows how many others to choose from seems pretty slim to me.”
“I thought you didn't believe in God.”
“Turn of phrase. But you know the funny thing. The strangest damned thing. I believe you. Maybe not completely, but something fucking strange has already happened. Things that quite frankly are not...” Malone's words trailed off.
“Human?” Candy enquired as sweat trickled down her raised eyebrows.
She brushed the wetness away with her sleeve and studied Malone's face. Finally the cop nodded, eyes fixed on the floor.
“So what do you want from me?” Candy asked.
“I'd like to go over it with you all again.”
“And then you'll release me?”
“Honey, you killed a cop. In front of other cops. That's a charge you ain't gonna beat. The only place I could release you to at the moment would be death row,” Malone held up his palm in a placating gesture at Candy's sigh, “But hold on. If you co-operate, then I think that perhaps you might just be in the right place. Whatever happened it affected your mind. And it may be that not that long down the line I could get you released, and this time I mean back out into the world.”
“Ha. Don't piss in my pocket and tell me it's raining.”
“Meaning?”
“Don't make promises you know you can't keep. You want my help. I'll help you. Forget about this case. Walk away from it. These creatures are more dangerous than you could ever imagine. It's not just physical death that they cause. It's spiritual. Whether you believe in God or Santa fucking clause is irrelevant. If you go looking into this too closely, you're just gonna get yourself killed-”
“Is that a threat?”
Candy laughed, then.
This fucker really just doesn't get it.
“Malone, if you want to take it as a threat, then I suppose maybe you should. But, just so you know it's not me that's making it. You're fucking with something that when you do, you go past the point of no return. That's the only clue you'll get from me. If they ain't in the history books, then it's cause they don't want to be. That's the only reason I can think of. Or more likely they're all over them, but with different names and guises.”
“So your planning on sticking around here until the authorities here decide you're fit for release?” Malone stood to leave. "Think it over. You've got a long stretch ahead of you in here. The world is a big place. Plenty of places to start a new life."
"I got plans detective. You think I'm gonna hang around here forever? You're right, the world is a big place but I'm betting the afterlife is bigger. What do you think, Malone? Think you'll lay me in my coffin with the cuffs attached? Or do you think I might be attending yours? You see I'm one up on you. I know what you're dealing with. What we're both dealing with. Truth be told if I thought you could help me, maybe I would help you. But the most help I can be is to tell you to keep the fuck away from this one; maybe even take early retirement,” Candy smiled and twiddled her fingers. “Be seeing you. Have a doughnut on me."
Malone chuckled and shook his head as he walked out the door.
This really was shaping up to be one mind fuck off a case.
Candy needed time to think. She approached the smoking room and was glad to find it empty. She lit up and the first drag hurt her throat, yet she continued, paying no heed to the pain, wanting only the monotony of action to kick her body into auto-pilot mode, leaving her mind free to think.
According to Malone they had matter that they couldn't identify and Xcetral's letter, which gave weight to Candy's story. Of course they wouldn't believe it, not completely. At least no
t the cops. She had no idea what the United States Government were making of all this, and had seriously been anticipating a visit. Malone was a different story. He was beginning to believe and that was bad for him, maybe bad for her too. But the other cops; no. Their reason wouldn't allow it, something that Candy had learned since the first time she had been deadly serious, with Beano, God rest his soul. Candy wondered which particular God had his soul, then shuddered and turned her thoughts back to matters at hand. She wasn't going to help the police. That was for sure. If Xcetral and Mephinie were giving her a helping hand, something she couldn't expect from the rest of the Rubiconeteka then she wasn't going to give them a metaphorical slap in the face. Or was it a metaphysical?
She was about to stand and leave when a massive Black man with the longest dread locks Candy had ever seen entered the room. She immediately got something from him, more than a feeling. It was as if he was sizing her up just as she was sizing him up.
Sinting got ya mind, sweets? The Jamaican voice appeared from amidst her thoughts, and she looked up and smiled.
She willed back with her thought-voice and thought she was successful in her effort. Something got yours, man?
The giant Rasta chuckled. Candy knew then her thought had gotten through. "Your name, sweet?" this time the man spoke from his mouth, yet the accent was identical; thick and somehow smooth,
Candy thought he had a voice like a milkshake. "Something like that. They call me, Candy. But, how would you know that... I didn't catch your name?"
"The name is Brekin. And you the only other person I know that got the gift."
"You don't mind me asking Brekin, what you in for?"
"I been accused of murdering my beloved Bes. You believe I murdered Bes?"
Psycho Candy Page 21