Splatterpunk Fighting Back

by Bracken MacLeod

  Around him, the voice of Dr. Walker chanted in the strange language he still could and couldn’t understand. He rushed through the familiar door to find the young woman he’d woken up with. She was bleeding from her head, but was breathing and alive. He picked up the maul that lay in the dirt next to her and hefted it. Its weight and shape and balance all felt so natural in his hand, though he couldn’t remember ever in his life picking up a tool like it. Wood and stone, lashed together, primitive and perfect. He swung it once in the air, getting the feel.

  Looking at the woman, he felt a stirring in his guts. A pressure under his balls excited him and he felt his cock fill with blood and push against the leather apron hanging from his waist. His breathing quickened. His heart raced. He could hear it beat in his ears, deadening all the sounds of chaos around him. This is what I paid for!

  4

  Cary sent Doug a text letting him know that’d she’d be leaving the lab in another ten minutes. He knew it’d be more like twenty; it always took her longer to wrap up work than she anticipated. Though she possessed this self-awareness, she never adjusted her estimates to reflect it. Both of them factored that lag into her messages. They liked being able to joke about her magic power that made time pass half as quickly as it actually did. Teach me, oh master. It’d be great for my billable hours, Doug would say. Today, though, she got out of the lab exactly when she said she would. She reckoned that meant she’d end up skipping a train or two to meet her husband on the deck so they could ride the rest of the way home together. It was that or head back to her desk to goof off on the Internet for a while. She preferred waiting on the deck. Underground, without a signal, she could sit and read her book without the distractions of social media or another lab associate cornering her to gossip. Or, she thought, if she got into Downtown Crossing early enough, she could drop in to her favorite bookstore and browse for a bit. The day can’t get much better than that.

  She headed for the bus that would take her downtown. As she approached the stop, a trolley pulled up, no waiting. She contemplated sending another text to let Doug know how her luck had come in, but decided it didn’t matter. As soon as I do, we’ll get stuck in traffic. Cary wasn’t any more superstitious than she was timely, but she liked to hedge her bets. Worst case scenario thinking was something both she and Doug leaned toward. They were so often pleasantly surprised when things went better than anticipated, they felt like it made them a perfect couple.

  5

  Dr. Walker handed Spencer a glass bottle of sparkling spring water, careful not to let go until he was certain the man had a good grip on it. Often, it took new travelers time to get their shaking under control. “The first time can be very unsettling,” he said. “And thrilling.”

  Spencer was sweaty and wide eyed; possessed of that charge Dr. Walker had seen so many get in a place like Sacred Ridge or Barkol during the Dzungar conquest. He’d actually been much more receptive to the suggestion than most of the others. If this man possessed a hurdle to his fullest potential, it was low. He was going to be someone truly magical if Walker could get him to undergo the therapy again. This session had taken up the day, and he’d had to forego lunch and shopping on Newbury Street. Given what the client was paying, though, it was worth it. And from what he could tell from the look in the man’s eye, maybe doubly so. Spencer was shaken and looked worried, but if Walker was right about him—and he was always right—he had a new convert. A moneyed disciple who’d broaden the circle.

  “You didn’t tell me it would be... like that.”

  “The Sacred Ridge massacre is a truly special event. It’s a chance for you to push yourself to the limits of your ability to comprehend your own potential. Like I told you when we began, however, a single session isn’t usually enough to overcome the totality of your reticence. Every journey begins with a single step, right?”

  Spencer finished the rest of the water and gasped. “Was it real?” he asked.

  Dr. Walker cocked his head to the side and held out his hands, moving them up and down like a scale. “As real as your mind. As real as time or any of your perceptions of it. What matters is how you chose to live the experience. What you took from it.”

  Spencer smiled, showing his back teeth. Dr. Walker felt something change in the air at that man’s grin. A charge like he had become lightning looking for something tall to strike.

  He looked at his watch. “Jesus Christ! I’ve been here for—”

  “The meditation takes place in real time. But as you’ve come to know first hand, it’s what we take from time that matters.”

  Spencer set the bottle on the table next to the sofa, stood, and straightened his tie, buttoning the front of his sport coat. “It was something special.”

  Walker gave the man the big wolf smile that graced the back of his books. “So, I’ll see you in November?”

  “That’s a guarantee.”

  “Excellent. You should know, in the Invitation Only Group, we’re going somewhere far better than the Dream Dance Retreat. Bank on it.”

  Spencer laughed. “If it’s anything like what I just did, I’ll break the bank for it.”

  Of course you will. Walker led his client to the door of the suite, ushering him out into the world.

  6

  Doug rushed out of his office. He’d gotten distracted and only half-heard the chirp of his phone when Cary sent him a text letting him know she was out of the lab on time. Actually, on time. By the time he noticed the green light on the device, a quarter hour had passed. He scribbled down the last three six-minute billing increments of the day on a notepad and vowed to do a proper job on his timesheet tomorrow. They weren’t due until tomorrow anyway, and he was ahead on billables for the week. So, it could wait. He had time.

  He grabbed his suit coat off the hook on the back of his door and hurried past his secretary’s empty desk. She left every day at five like clockwork, unencumbered by time that had to be counted in tenths of an hour. Where he counted minutes, she counted days. Three more until Friday. One more until the weekend. Two more before it was time to come back to work. He envied her. With her seniority in the secretarial pool, she made more than he did as a second year associate, and had less stress. She didn’t have to justify her time to the partners.

  The elevator seemed to take forever, stopping at every floor to gather more and more people leaving work. Halfway down from the 18th Floor, it was too full, and when the doors opened, no one else could get on. The stop was just a delay in their descent. The air was hot and Doug began to sweat again. What had dried out in his air conditioned office, was freshly moistened, and the scent of that morning’s perspiration wafted up to his nose. He felt embarrassed and clutched his elbows to his side a little tighter, trying to contain his body odor. He’d probably end up taking a shower both before and after he and Cary went to the gym. She’d laugh, but he wouldn’t be able to deal with it.

  Outside, he hurried along the sidewalk, not running, but walking briskly enough to dart around other commuters. He didn’t run for trains, but he’d run for Cary. He didn’t want to leave her alone on the subway platform for too long. This time of year, it was hot as murder down there.

  He scanned his fare card and hustled down the escalator to find a train waiting. A small flood of people disembarked and he fought against their tide to reach the car doors before they closed. The signal bell chimed and the doors closed. He slapped a hand against one and shouted, “Hey!” The MBTA operator looking out the window stared right through him. The operator rang the bell again and the train started to pull out of the station. The asshole only had to flip a switch to open the doors to let him on. It would’ve only taken a second.

  Doug stepped back behind the yellow line as the increasing speed of the train buffeted him with wind. He checked his watch and sighed, hoping that Cary hadn’t been waiting too long.

  7

  The driver held the limousine door open, but Spencer told him that he’d like to walk home today and stalked off w
ithout waiting for a reply. The man’s face showed an expression of concern for a second before returning to its professional blankness. Whether his boss wanted to walk a mile and a half back to his house wasn’t any of his business. Spencer set off in the wrong direction, and his driver remained by the car, waiting for him to change his mind. But he was set. He walked around the corner, toward Back Bay Station.

  He wanted to go underground.

  Once there, it took him a few minutes to figure out how to pay the fare. He hadn’t taken the T in adulthood, and while he knew they had replaced tokens several years ago, he had thought getting a ticket to ride would be as easy as handing a person in a booth a certain amount of cash, and them handing him back a card. The booth he approached was unoccupied and didn’t look like anyone had worked in it in quite a long time. Standing off to the side of it was a bank of self-service machines. He approached one and made his way through the process on the touch screen, buying himself a month’s pass, though he only intended to take this single experimental ride. He hadn’t ridden the subway in decades, and wasn’t about to start regularly. But if this experiment was successful, perhaps he would make it a more occasional indulgence.

  The people waiting behind him in line were anxious and one was outright rude, but he didn’t care. The rabble could huff and puff all they wanted; he was still tingling from his experience in the pueblos. Or, the illusion of it.

  It had seemed so real. So, present. He still felt the touch of the sun on his bare skin and the weight of a stone club in his hand.

  Descending the escalator felt almost like stepping into a pit house. It was dark and humid and the smells were slightly similar, though different enough to spoil the illusion when he tried closing his eyes to imagine.

  A train arrived before he could get the real lay of the station. He stepped on board along with the other commuters. It was crowded, and he almost fell when the train began to move, because he hadn’t wanted to grab on to a pole or a strap. A woman caught him and helped steady him as the car moved faster. She smiled at him with crooked, yellow teeth. He thanked her and reached out to hold the pole. It was cool in his hand, and felt like it was slick with the residue of hundreds—thousands—of previous riders who’d grabbed onto it before him. Despite his strong desire to let go and wipe his hand on a handkerchief, he held on. Falling on the floor would be worse. Being double indebted to the woman with the idiot smile would be the worst.

  Anxiety started to build up in him. His heart beat faster and it felt harder to get a breath. He hadn’t had a full panic attack since he was a boy, but he remembered them well. Spencer closed his eyes and imagined the odors of blood and smoke. He tried to pretend that the acrid stink of the subway car was the smell of a pit house fire. The movement under his feet dispelled his best attempts at recreating the illusion. He needed Dr. Walker to return to Sacred Ridge. But the Doctor had said the next meditation would be different. It would be something special. November was so far away.

  He rode for several stops until the mechanical voice announced they were approaching Downtown Crossing. That felt far enough. This is where he wanted off. This was where he wanted to see how Dr. Walker’s therapy had affected him.

  8

  Cary hustled down the stairs of the station, a plastic bag of books slapping against her hip as she dug in her purse for her Charlie Card. She’d found a first edition of one of her favorite books and had spent a little too much time lovingly admiring it before finally settling on used copies of two other books she could actually afford. Looking at her phone, she’d realized that Doug would likely already be on the platform looking for her. She’d explain she saw the copy of The Blind Assassin, and he’d understand—he knew that she “lost time” inside bookstores—but that wouldn’t mean that he wouldn’t be worried. She kind of loved his little panics. Still, she wanted to protect him from that kind of misplaced anxiety when she could.

  She turned the corner to find the train pulling out of the station. People leaving the station slipped around her like water around a rock. She moved carefully toward the wall, where she could wait for them to pass and then get a look to see if Doug had gotten there ahead of her. If he hadn’t, she’d sit on the bench and flip through her new used books. The half-finished novel in her purse would have to wait this evening, while she flirted with her next lovers.

  The last of the riders filed out of the station, leaving her momentarily alone on the platform. It wouldn’t be long—likely seconds—before other commuters came down to wait for the next train, though they’d be fewer than when she first got there. Rush hour was almost over. She had lost so much time in the bookstore.

  She walked to the bench and turned to sit. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the image of a man at the far end of the platform. Too far down to have just arrived—he hadn’t passed her. He must’ve gotten off the last train. He just stood staring at her. That familiar feeling crept into her bones. That feeling that this man’s gaze wasn’t the same kind of gaze she met whenever she went out. It was something different. Something that made her skin pimple and her scalp tighten. He had a weird vibe. You’re being paranoid, she told herself, and sat down on the bench. Vibes aren’t reality.

  That the man was wearing a suit was no guarantee that he wasn’t a creeper, she knew. But, she also knew that men in suits had jobs and families to protect. As soon as someone else arrived on the platform, she’d be safe. He wouldn’t try anything in front of a witness.

  Cary cracked open the copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but didn’t read a word on the page. She kept her eye on the man, watching her.

  9

  “Hey, there you are!” Cary started at the sound of Doug’s voice and fumbled her book.

  “Jesus Christ! Where did you come from?” She bent over to pick her book up off the floor, frustrated that she’d just bought it, and now it was getting filthy.

  He shrugged. “Sorry. Asshole conductor wouldn’t let me on. Instead of waiting, I went back up and hiked to this station.”

  “Meanie.”

  “Right? Anyway, you been waiting long?” She held up her Brattle Bookshop bag and he nodded. “I’m sweating like crazy and you didn’t even miss me, did you?”

  She shrugged and pointed to the bag next to her on the bench. “Books.” As if that was all that needed to be said about it.

  The man at the end of the platform started to walk toward them. Cary felt her skin crawl again, but Doug was there. He wouldn’t do anything to her with Doug standing right here. He’d abide by The Man Code and not objectify another man’s woman. Especially not one accompanied by a man in a suit. Men in suits did not do things to offend another member of his tribe. Men in suits were well behaved around each other.

  Except when they weren’t.

  “Excuse me,” the man said. Cary thought he looked familiar close up. Like she might have seen him before, but couldn’t place where. He definitely wasn’t an academic. He was a lawyer or a banker or something. Maybe she recognized him from something at Doug’s firm.

  Doug said, “Can I help you?”

  “I was wondering if you knew how often these trains run. I missed the last one and have been waiting here for a while.”

  Cary knitted her brow. That was bullshit. He hadn’t missed a thing. He’d been standing there the whole time. He got off the train she’d watched pull away. At least she thought he did. She supposed he could have been standing there longer than that. Waiting. No. That was ridiculous. Of course he hadn’t been waiting like that. Waiting for them, instead of a train.

  Doug looked at his watch. He looked at his wrist even when he wasn’t wearing it. Another neurosis born of law school. “Shouldn’t be long. This time of day, they run every ten minutes or so.”

  “Thanks.” The man turned and walked a few paces in the direction he’d been standing before. He straightened his arm and checked a watch that even from a distance looked like it cost more than Doug and Cary made in a year. She started to whisper
to Doug that the man hadn’t missed anything. But she only got, “Hon, that guy...” before he turned and came toward them again.

  10

  The way that bitch was looking at him, Spencer wanted to break her fucking skull open with a sharp stone and make her cuckold husband eat what was inside. He wanted to scrape her scalp off and make the faggot wear it. He wanted to do so many things. But he wouldn’t. More people were appearing on the platform and he couldn’t touch anyone without being caught. His indecision had cost him. The last vibrations of the massacre had worn off and he felt like himself again. Except, now he was underground with these people, instead of high above. Up in his office building. On the hill where his penthouse stood. He was down and debased with all of them.

  “I’m sorry to bother you again,” he said. He wasn’t. “Can you tell me if one can walk to Cultivar from here?” The man’s face clouded like the woman’s, though instead of suspicion, it was confusion. He didn’t know where Cultivar was. Looking at his cheap suit, of course he didn’t.

  The voice from the speaker above announced that the next train was arriving. Spencer felt the advance of air pushed out of the tunnel ahead of it begin to blow. A damp coppery smell carried along on the breeze.

  The man raised his voice to compete with the rising drone of the train. “I suppose you could walk. But if you get on the next train and ride to the State Street exit, it’s right there. It’s just one stop.”

  “Thanks.” Spencer took a step back. The woman stood and she and the man walked toward the yellow safety line at the edge of the platform. He wanted to shove her so much. Wanted to put his hands on her back and push hard, so she fell on the tracks. Maybe she’d be electrocuted by the third rail, but really he wanted to watch her cut apart by the wheels of the train. He wanted to smell the insides of her like the scent carried ahead of the train but… more. More pungent. More vibrant. More real.