Psycho Candy

by Steven Hunter

  Faith is impressed with what he can do, and tells his as such.John feels like a thief, but he'll be damned if he'll let the guilt of compliment give him away.

  "Does she miss me?” Faith asks about her mother, she does not give more detail and John answers a positive.

  “She wishes to be here... with you,” There is a change to John's tone that Faith does not like. Something has happened, yet all he can sense is the delay, it is as if a silent button is being pushed inside which tells him to edit this conscious stream. Even better, cut it off while he still can, yet the knowledge is hurtling now into his mind and his attention is caught in truth and possibility, event and reaction.

  He stares at Faith, at the wide open screaming mouth, and in the silence her nose begins to bleed and he holds his hand to his own and feels the liquid trickle, brings away fresh redness with his fingers, and then he is back and she has only just spoken.

  “Where is she now?”

  He is silent. She feels his pain. Of course that is a lie. He is feeling hers.

  “She’s dead. Isn’t she?"

  “Shit!” is all the Mohawk says.

  "How?" Faith asks.

  "Stabbed."

  "Who?" asks Marcus, he stops in the doorway.

  "I need to get back," says Faith.

  "Wow, hold up. Who was stabbed?"

  "My mother is dead Marcus."

  John still stares. The sound breaks. Every part of her is screaming. Her nose erupts. Her eyes puncture. “Quiet now,” says John to Faith's possibility. And hears the whisper to her voice.

  “Dead. Dead, dead, dead...” she cradles the words like still-born babies.

  He has altered the reaction.

  The fact though remains.

  The bed takes her weight without much fuss, the key in the lock has been turned clockwise, the key in her hand a more sophisticated device. She is good to go. She wants more time to hesitate as she sticks herself with the needle and opens the door.

  Laughter.

  A shout from behind, somewhere.

  The screech of tyres as a car halts, it's gasoline trail inducing a short drug like sedation during brief seconds of inhalation.Conversation grows near, then fades with the passing touch of another body. The voice is female, so she assumes the body must also be, yet she paints no pictures in her head, instead seeing only the blackness behind her eyelids as she forces them shut.

  Everything is raw here, like a toothbrush rubbed on exposed nerves. Sadness feels realer here, her mourning more painful.

  In a sense, everything is truer.

  Yet these symphonic sensations conducted by the rhythmic flow of life on Dizor helps her to acclimatise to the mixture of instant change and sudden familiarity. Help her re-establish her natural tolerance for the way she feels here, feeling being her dominant mode of perception.

  One, two, three... her eyes open on black iron gates, affixed on either side to a large stone wall which surrounds the perimeter of her destination.

  The entrance to the place she must go.

  The gates are locked yet sit ajar, more than enough room for her to pass through. A tear slips down her cheek, her body beneath padlocked chains. As her tears fall harder, she hears laughter ahead and sees a group of youths, perhaps a few years younger than herself, sitting amongst the gravestones.

  On closer inspection she sees they are drinking and a couple of them, two girls, are shooting up. A cheap Tele-box creates beats and melodies directly from the brainwaves of the collective, and a few of the bodies dance to the sound of their minds.

  Faith pulls out the revolver; she thought it best to bring it along and doesn't think just watches as bodies fall as she aims and squeezes.

  Most are now dead.

  Only the two girls in temporary drug comas remain untouched, unaware of the carnage.

  For a moment Faith wonders what reaction they'll have when they finally come to.

  Maybe the sight of death will remind them where they are, give them better ideas of places to get high in future.

  The Tele-box has automatically stored the combined brainwaves of the newly dead under the memory heading 'LAST AVAILABLE FOUND' and represents them as one continual monotone drumbeat, which reminds Faith of Earth technologies and a badly scratched CD. Alongside this it plays a harmony of discordant Es and A minors that it modifies to represent the dreams of the drugged girl's minds.

  Faith looks at the girls. Really looks.

  Their eyes are well and truly shut, their minds elsewhere.

  She follows her gaze, down the rolled up sleeves and the tracks marks on the inner forearms, all the way down to their hands which are grasped together, fingers entwined, and she thinks of her mothers, how can she not? She bends down and kisses the hands, checks the pulses too before she pulls away.

  “Glad to see you still care,” accompanied by a scratching sound and the flicker of a flame.

  “Who says I stopped?”

  “Then maybe... overreacted a little? Wouldn't you agree?”

  “No. You always say react with honesty. That we cannot do any differently. It is our nature. I did what I felt was right for the moment.”

  Trees surround the territory and scant patches of moonlight filter through. The woodland is thick and deep, the earth kept fertile from the nutrients of decaying meat, bones and all else contained within.

  Jan stands just clear of a shaft of light, which instead shines down over her head, creating enough light to both see and hide by. “And now?” Jan asks with an exhalation of smoke, a heavy plume that separates by moonlight into thin strands of silver; and Faith Emerald is mesmerised by the geometrical patterns and their combination of complexity and aesthetic beauty.

  The scent of opium is carried in these fine strands and she sighs a breath of secret longing for a world which is no more.

  “I've forgotten the question, so please don't remind me. Mum... I've missed... I've....” grief overwhelms her, fills her mind, her telepathic voice, every communicable part of her which understands on some level; unfairness, unfathomable loss and deep unsatisfied rage.

  It resonates between mother and daughter, pulls them closer and closer and soon Jan stands facing Faith Emerald. Without a moment’s hesitation she rests her child's head against her sizeable bosom, comforting her in the way only a mother can. She is the stronger empath of the two and she uses her ability to place a growing sense of well being in her daughters brain, manipulating hormones and stimulating various receptors with deceptive ease.

  Her daughter's mind reminds her of thick glass which has been created at too high a temperature and has become brittle – with the wrong kind of handling it will shatter into a thousand pieces.

  Time has passed.

  That is all they know.

  Faith cannot stay indefinitely, yet they are still within the bounds of safety, that much they sense. If the ones in grey suites come looking they will show on Jan's mental radar. She fingers her cleaver in anticipation.

  Jan has brought Faith Emerald the travelling solution Faith Senior made before she died. She holds it out to Faith Emerald, and the coolness of its touch and the sight of what she holds triggers memories of the past. Faith Emerald accepts it with a shaking hand. She knows who this belonged to, what it contains and the significance of why it holds what it does.

  This done, Jan takes her daughter by the other hand and walks her through the forest, thankful of the night's darkened cloak.

  She does not want her daughter to see her tears.

  Faith takes note of the variety of gravestones the pass.

  Dizorian gravestones are unlike Earth one’s made mostly from the precious metals of this world. They are not unlike silver, gold and platinum Faith Emerald thinks, yet there are still subtle differences to the consistency of each and no substantial words to say why.

  They reach the end of the forest footpath and come upon a circular clearing. Faith Emerald gasps in awe and wonder at the sight before her. Her mother's headstone is u
nlike anything she has ever witnessed here on Dizor.

  She walks towards it now, unaware that she is quickening her pace, or that her solemn expression turns slowly to a smile.

  She turns to Jan. “It can't be real. It can't be.”

  Jan nods.

  “But wherever did you get it?”

  “If there is one thing you should have learned from your mothers by now, it's that nothing is impossible.”

  “You didn't answer my question. I want to know. Please... It's...”

  “Of course I'll tell you. I only kept it a secret as I wanted it to be a good thing for you to see it first. I have a lot of money, Faith. I've been lucky in my abilities and my moral equilibrium that is to say the way in which I've balanced my life. So, I can do as I choose, mostly without guilt or remorse. However, money can only buy you so much. No matter who you are, not everything is for sale. Let me rephrase that. Not everything is sold for money.”

  “Then what? How did you pay for this?”

  “It's simple. I didn't,” Jan sighs. “You see, I sought high and low for this material, through all of the various countries and regions in Dizor. I bought a Tele-net headset and would connect to up to a hundred thousand minds at a time. I knew of no Dizorian word for what I searched, so it narrowed my scans massively each time, despite the various psychologies I would have to connect to. It was gruelling work, yet in truth I was glad of it; for both the purpose and distraction it provided, accessing information on who would have such a thing; as I was sure that such a thing existed. And I was right. Shub Niggurath, the goat with a thousand awful young has made it difficult for travellers to enter Dizor and recently completely outlawed residency, giving reasons of purity levels, and so forth. However my dear Faith, despite this, you are the only known being born in Dizor to a parent from another realm. The idea of purity levels is merely a spook story, a way to keep out those she does not want. There are in fact residents from other realms in Dizor, and I was surprised to learn that they had bred amongst themselves for generations. They are mostly able to pass for local, and those that are not keep themselves hidden in the mountain regions, using Dizor as only a holidaying realm. It was one of these other breeds which had this very stone you see before you.”

  “But you said that there are some things that people won't sell, no matter what.”

  “Exactly. When it became apparent they weren't interested in selling, I killed the family and stole it. I bought a second hand air rider, one of the ones which runs on land too. It wasn't cheap, but it was worth it, and I only needed it to get the job done. After I used it to transport this here, I sold it and used the proceeds to pay for the inscription”

  Both women look around the Dizorian graveyard. They feel a presence. It is not exactly close, yet close enough. They meet each other's gaze, then both turn attention once again to the emerald pyramid, which sits atop the square meter of turf.

  Dizorian graves differ from Earth.

  The coffin is put in the ground vertically with the headstone covering it to protect what is beneath. Faith's runs her vision over the inscription once more, silently speaking the promise that was made when she heard the news, now aware that Jan has made the same.

  ~ BURIED HERE IS A RIDER FROM HELL AND THE CHARIOT OF BLOOD SHE RODE IN ON. MOTHER OF FAITH JAN EMERALD AND LOVER OF JAN. MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD. YOU SHALL BE AVENGED AND YOUR NAME SHALL LIVE ON ~

  The agents are getting closer. Government telepaths have been set up in various locations to monitor any new arrivals to Dizor. Now they have pinpointed the location of Faith Emerald they have quickened their pace, although Jan is sure they do not know who the identity of the one they are coming for.

  Jan indicates the syringe, Faith Emerald's ticket back to Earth.“You need a hand with that?”

  “I'll be fine. It's you I'm more worried about. They'll be here in a few minutes. I should hang around and help.”

  Jan smiles, yet shakes her head.

  Around them the wind whispers gently, whatever it's saying the touch of its voice on Faith's skin brings fresh Goose bumps and she is glad she injects so infrequently or it would be a nightmare to bring a vein to the surface. She sits with her back laid out against one side of the emerald pyramid.

  Rustling in the trees.

  Sounds of dried twigs cracking under the tread of footsteps. Hushed voices followed by the click of a bullet entering the chamber of a gun. The green eyed girl depresses the plunger, sees Jan spin her body 360 degrees, the cleaver extended. A head rolls out of the foliage and stops by Faiths side. The last thing she hears before her body begins to fade is Jan screaming in ecstasy.

  Vengeance has begun.

  Jan looks around for her daughter, yet she is gone. There are two men still alive. The one who is dead still holds the gun in his hand, so it makes sense to her that the other's have guns too.

  She quickens her heartbeat and the world around her slows.

  Crouched low in the darkness of the forest, she searches for the others with her mind.

  All the while she is careful not to give away her own location. One, two... spins on three to the other side of the tree, the man jumps in fright before Jan splits his head in half. He wears a tie and she makes a grab for it. Catches it. Hoists the man back to his feet. Lets out a silent breath as the material she grasps absorbs the sweat from her palm.

  Is thankful she caught him in time.

  Imagines the crunch his body would have made on the dry leaves and twigs beneath.

  All the direction the other would need to squeeze down on the trigger, and they are using automatics. Not even a trained agent would need to be one hundred percent accurate with one of these.

  She leans the corpse against a tree.

  Glances at her left palm and the friction burn she has gained during the tie grabbing incident. It stings and the sweat from her palm is literally pouring salt onto the wound.

  Holding the gun outwards to her left, Jan squeezes off round after round. Moments later someone to her right joins her in firing in the same direction. His companion still thinks that the one she has just killed is alive and well, and more so has her in his sights. She sees movement in her peripheral.

  One, two... hurls the cleaver through the trees. Thirty meters away she hears the fall of a body on dead leaves and dying wood. She wonders if he now shares the fate of the leaves or the wood. On sight of the body her question is answered. She retrieves her cleaver from his throat.

  Blood erupts and she steps aside. Waits for the geyser to calm. Now it spills freely, soaking the white shirt with a glugging sound that she finds repetitively calming.

  Takes a deep breath. Riffles through his pockets. Finds a wallet. His I.D. He is Sekkllarr.

  Secret police. Continues her search. Finds another card. Smiles, holds it up to the light to be sure.

  It is an up to date territory card.

  Jan smiles.

  She has found a way to be with her daughter.

  Two hours have passed.

  Jan ties the rubber tubing around her arm. Should they call her bluff. Just in case.

  The needle is loaded with a home blended mixture which makes her apathetic and alert all at once. It also contains a heavy painkilling chemical, for what good it will do should it all go tits up. She sits in the green car, government issue which once belonged to her would be assassins and stares at the territory building. It is her only chance to avenge what she has lost and be with what she has left to love. She does not take her time with the needle. Her fetish has long since passed, and she withdraws the point as soon as it is done and immediately her entire body feels wired up, it is a smooth upper. No confusion or psychosis. She sits for an instant, content to stare at the razor wire fence. Not thinking. Not moving. She might die, and a stray thought almost welcomes it. She pushes it aside. Not helping. The drug makes her feel this way, so she reasons that she may as well see if she can make it.

  “What else is there to do?” she wonders, then drives the car t
o the entrance which befits her transportation.

  There are four main entrances to the territory. One is for workers. Another creators and designers. The third medical. The one she approaches is for government and the people associated with it. Nobody sits at this gate. Three gates really. Each are electrified. There is a slot where she must put in the card, and to her dismay there is a machine where she must type in a code. She understands the reason that nobody minds these gates is that the people who walk through them are not meant to exist. They are spooks, make believe ghosts. Their presence in the facility is pretend, nothing more. Anything more than that is dangerous to people who might start believing in them.

  Of course somebody deals with them. Otherwise what would be the point?

  Jan fingers the card, tries to get a memory from it. She clears her mind, does not look at the keypad as it will only add to her doubt. She rubs it across her palms, pressing lightly.

  Begins to see digits.

  Symbols.

  Holds it against her forehead and she knows, suddenly she knows.

  She slots the card into the machine.

  Types in the combination.

  925-33-75#57-687

  The light above the gate turns from a deep blue to an even deeper purple and the gates begin to draw back. Even as they do so three figures arrive from a previously unnoticed door.

  The figure in front wears a suite. Not grey though. It is a deep red, yet a suit none the less. The other two are dressed in white laboratory style wear. She notices the two in the lab clothes are both male, while the wearer of the red suit is a female.

  She drives the car into a slot and sits and waits.

  Fingers the automatic weapon in her left hand.

  Rubs the bulge underneath her coat with her right.