“Hi!” a voice cried. He opened his eyes to see the woman from down the hall. She was no longer wearing her Rottweiler, nor the expensively tailored suits she usually favored. Instead she wore faded jeans and the kind of extravagantly beaded and embroidered tunic Gordon associated with his parents’ youth. These and the many jingling chains and jewels that hung from her ears and about her wrists and ankles (she was barefoot, in spite of the cool evening) gave her a gypsy air. In the firelight he could see that her face sans makeup was childishly freckled. She looked very young and very happy.
“Mm, hi,” Gordon mumbled, moving his blood soaked arm from her sight. “A block party.” He tried to keep his tone polite but uninterested as he pushed through the crowd of laughing people, but the young woman followed him, grinning.
“Isn’t it great? You should come down, bring something to throw on the grill or something to drink, we’re running out of hooch—”
She laughed, raising a heavy crystal wineglass and gulping from it something that was a deep purplish color and slightly viscous, certainly not wine. When she lowered the goblet he saw there was a small crack along its rim. This had cut the girl’s upper lip which spun a slender filament of blood down across her chin. She didn’t notice and threw her arm around his shoulders. “Promise you’ll come back, mmmm? We need more guys so we can dance and stuff, there’s just never enough guys anymore—”
She whirled away drunkenly, swinging her arms out like a giddy spinning child. Whether purposely or not the goblet flew from her hand and shattered on the broken concrete sidewalk. A cheer went up from the crowd. Someone turned the music up louder. A number of people by the glowing braziers seemed to be dancing as the girl was, drunkenly, merrily, arms outstretched and hair flying. Gordon heard the tinkling report of another glass breaking, then another; then the sharper crash of what might have been a window He put his face down and fairly ran through the swarm to the front door, which had been propped open with an old stump overgrown with curling ivy. The neatly lettered sign warning against strangers and open doors had been yanked from the doorframe and lay in a twisted mass on the steps inside. Gordon kicked it aside and fled down the hall to the firestairs.
There were people in the stairwell, sitting or lying on the steps in drunken twos and threes. One couple had shed their clothes and stood grunting and heaving in the darkened corner near the fire extinguisher. Gordon averted his eyes, stepping carefully among the others. A small pile of twigs had been ignited on the floor and sweet-smelling smoke trailed upward through the dimness. And other things were scattered upon the steps: branches of fir-trees scenting the air with balsam, sheaves of goldenrod, empty wine bottles. One of these clattered underfoot, nearly tripping him. Gordon looked over his shoulder to see it roll downstairs, bumping the head of a woman passed out near the bottom and then spinning across the floor, finally coming to rest beside the couple in the corner. No one noticed it; no one noticed Gordon as he flung open the door to the fifth floor and ran to his apartment.
He walked numbly through the kitchen. The answering machine blinked. Mechanically he reset it as he passed, paused between the kitchen and living room as the tape began. A sound of wind filled the room, wind and the rustle of many feet in dead leaves. Gordon swallowed, pressed his shaking hands together as the tape played on behind him. The wind grew louder, then softer, swelled and whispered. And all the while he heard beneath the faint staticky recording the ceaseless passage of many feet, and sometimes voices, murmurous and laughing, eerie and wild as the wind itself. The tape ended. The apartment was silent save for the dull insistent clicking of the answering machine begging to be switched off, that and the muffled sound of laughter from outside.
Gordon stepped warily into the next room. He had forgotten to leave a light on. But it was not dark: moonlight flooded the space, glimmering across the dark wooden floor, making the shadowed bulk of armchairs and sofa and electronic equipment seem black and strange and ominous. On the sill of the picture window that covered an entire wall the moonlight gleamed upon one of his treasures, a fish of handblown Venetian glass, hundreds of years old. Its mauve and violet swirls glowed in the milky light, its gaping mouth and crystalline eyes reminding him of the perch he had seen earlier, eyeless, dying. He stepped across the living room and stood there at the window staring down at the glass fish. And suddenly his head hurt, his chest felt heavy and cold, Looking at the glass fish he was filled with a dull puzzling ache, as though he were trying to remember a dream, He pondered how he had come to have such a thing, why it was that this marvel of spun glass and pastel coloring had ever meant more to him than a blind perch struggling through the poisonous river. His hand traced the delicate filigree of its spines. They felt cold, burning cold in the cloudy light spilling through the window.
There was a knock at the door. Gordon started, as though he had been asleep, then crossed the darkened room. Through the peephole he saw Olivia, her hair atangle, a streak of black across one cheek. Her expression was oddly calm and untroubled in the carmine glare of the EXIT light. He tightened his hand about the doorknob, biting his lip against the pain that shot up through his arm as he did so. He wondered dully how she had gotten into the building, then remembered the chaos outside. Anyone could come in; even a woman who had seemingly just kicked a man to death by the polluted river. Perhaps it was like this all across the city, perhaps doors that had been locked since the riots had this evening suddenly sprung open.
“Gordon,” Olivia commanded, her voice muffled by the heavy door that separated them. He was not surprised to feel the knob twist beneath his throbbing palm, or see the door swing inward to bump against his toe. Olivia slipped in, and with her a breath of incense-smelling smoke, the muted clamor of voices and laughter and pulsing music.
“Where’d you go?” she asked, smiling. He noticed that behind her the door had not quite closed. He reached to pull it shut but before he could grasp it she took him by the hand, the one that hurt. Grunting softly with pain he turned from the door to follow her into the living room.
“What’s happening?” he whispered. “Olivia, what is it?” Without speaking she pulled him to the floor beside her, still smiling. She pulled his jacket from him, then his shoes and trousers and finally his bloodstained shirt. He reached to remove her blouse but Olivia pushed him away ungently, so that he cried out. As she moved above him his hand began to bleed again, leaving dark petals across her blouse and arms. The pain was so intense that he moaned, tried in vain to slow her but she only tightened her grip about his upper arm, tossing her hair back so that it formed a dark haze against the window’s milky light. The blouse slipped from her shoulder and he could see the scars there, the little golden rings against her skin, drops of blood like rain flashing across her throat. Behind her the moon shone, bloated and sanguine. He could hear voices chanting counterpoint to the blood thudding in his temples. It took him a long time to catch his breath afterward. Olivia had bitten him on the shoulder, hard enough to bruise him. The pain coupled with that from his cut hand had suddenly made everything very intense, made him cry out loudly and then fall back hard against the cold floor as Olivia slipped from him. Now only the pain was left. He rubbed his shoulder ruefully.
“Olivia? Are you angry?” he asked. She stood impassively in front of the window. The torn blouse had slipped from her shoulder. She had kicked her silk trousers beneath the sofa but pulled her boots back on, and moonlight glinted off the two wicked metal points. She seemed not to have heard him, so he repeated her name softly.
“Mmmm?” she said, distracted. She stared up at the sky; then leaned forward and opened the casement. Cold air flooded the room, and a brighter, colder light as well, as though the glass had ceased to filter out the lunar brilliance. Gordon shivered and groped for his shirt.
“Look at them,” whispered Olivia. He got unsteadily to his feet and stood beside her, staring down at the sidewalk. Small figures capered across the broken tarmac, forms made threatening by the lurid glow
of myriad bonfires that had sprung up across the dead gray lawn. He heard music, too, not music from the radio or stereo but a crude raw sound, thrumming and beating as of metal drums, voices howling and forming words he could not quite make out, an unknown name or phrase—
“Evohe,” whispered Olivia. The face she turned to him was white and merciless, her eyes inflamed. “Evohe.”
“What?” said Gordon. He stepped backwards and stumbled on one of his shoes. When he righted himself and looked up he saw that there were other people in the room, other women, three four six of them, even more it seemed, slipping silently through the door that Olivia had left open behind her. They filled the small apartment with a cloying smell of smoke and burning hair, some of them carrying smoking sticks, others leather pocketbooks or scorched briefcases. He recognized many of them: though their hair was matted and wild, their clothes torn: dresses or suits ripped so that their breasts were exposed and he could see where the flesh had been raked by their own fingernails, leaving long wavering scars like signatures scratched in blood. Two of them were quite young and naked and caressed each other laughing, turning to watch him with sly feral eyes. Several of the older women had golden rings piercing their breasts or the frail web of flesh between their fingers. One traced a cut that ran down her thigh, then lifted her bloodied finger to her lips as though imploring Gordon to keep a secret. He saw another gray-haired woman whom he had greeted often at the newsstand where they both purchased the Wall Street Journal. She seemingly wore only a fur-trimmed camel’s-hair coat. Beneath its soft folds Gordon glimpsed an undulating pattern of green and gray and gold. As she approached him she let the coat fall away and he saw a snake encircling her throat, writhing free to slide down between her breasts and then to the floor at Gordon’s feet. He shouted and turned to flee.
Olivia was there, Olivia caught him and held him so tightly that for a moment he imagined she was embracing him, imagined the word she repeated was his name, spoken more and more loudly as she held him until he felt the breath being crushed from within his chest. But it was not his name, it was another name, a word like a sigh, like the whisper of a thought coming louder and louder as the others took it up and they were chanting now:
“Evohe, evohe . . .”
As he struggled with Olivia they fell upon him, the woman from the newsstand, the girl from down the hall now naked and laughing in a sort of grunting chuckle, the two young girls encircling him with their slender cool arms and giggling as they kissed his cheeks and nipped his ears. Fighting wildly he thrashed until his head was free and he could see beyond them, see the open window behind the writhing web of hair and arms and breasts, the moon blazing now like a mad watchful eye above the burning canyons. He could see shreds of darkness falling from the sky, clouds or rain or wings, and he heard faintly beneath the shrieks and moans and panting voices the wail of sirens all across the city. Then he fell back once more beneath them.
There was a tinkling crash. He had a fleeting glimpse of something mauve and lavender skidding across the floor, then cried out as he rolled to one side and felt the glass shatter beneath him, the slivers of breath-spun fins and gills and tail slicing through his side. He saw Olivia, her face serene, her liquid eyes full of ardor as she turned to the girl beside her and took from her something that gleamed like silver in the moonlight, like pure and icy water, like a spar of broken glass. Gordon started to scream when she knelt between his thighs. Before he fainted he saw against the sky the bloodied fingers of eagle’s wings, blotting out the face of a vast triumphant moon.
© 1991 Elizabeth Hand.
First published in Interzone.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
Elizabeth Hand is the author of numerous award-winning novels and four collections of short fiction. Her most recent books are Available Dark, sequel to Shirley Jackson Award winner Generation Loss; Radiant Days, a YA novel about Arthur Rimbaud; and Errantry: Strange Stories. She divides her time between the coast of Maine and North London, where she is working on Flash Burn, the third Cass Neary novel.
Gravitas
Weston Ochse
Custer, South Dakota
The wind sang through the Ponderosa Pines, a barely discernable voice beneath the thrum that seemed to serve as commentary on the events it witnessed. To Dave it sounded like Paha Sapa. Of course it would. He knew what it meant; it was Lakota Sioux for “Black Hills.” But he refused to acknowledge it. Instead, he stared bleary-eyed at the broken glass studding the land. This was his crop, seeded over the span of four weeks, irrigated from the residue of Napa Valley grapes, sun-kissed until it glistened like dew. It was the bounty of his desperation, and now was the time to harvest.
But as he took a deep breath of the fresh Black Hills air, bile slipped up his throat. He tasted the wine from last night, the night before, and a hundred before that. So sour to have once been so good. He’d moved too fast. A wave of vertigo hit him. He reached out and gripped the door jamb. He won the battle not to fall, but lost the war. He bent and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the ground near the back tire. Hacking, arching his back like a hair-balled cat. Heaving until nothing was left.
Paha Sapa, the world whispered.
When he finally stood, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He stared down at his bare feet resting on the bottom step of the metal stairs. All he had to do was step down and begin walking. There would be pain. There would be blood. But sometime during the red screams he’d find that core of humanity he’d once had, before the divorce, before her death, before the trial. At least he hoped so. Because if it didn’t work, he didn’t know what else he could do. There was nothing else.
His stomach threatened once more. A slave to what he’d become, he waited for it. But it never came. Instead, a crunch of gravel drew his attention. He shifted his bare feet as he turned. The sound of flesh against metal sounded like a sigh.
A green SUV with a black metal grill rolled up the dirt drive, past the pond on the other side of the RV, and pulled to the edge of Dave’s man-made field. A Custer State Park Ranger took his time getting out. Through the tinted windows, Dave could make out a gun rack behind the front seat filled with high-powered weapons.
“I heard you were out here.” The lanky ranger approached by making a wide berth of the glistening ground. He examined it as he passed, his thumbs hooked in his utility belt. The brim of his smoky hat kept his eyes in shadow. “What have you done to the ground?”
I seeded it, Dave tried to say, but his mouth was a cracked and vile desert. “Broke a few bottles.”
“A few?” The ranger tilted up the brim of his hat. When he did, Dave recognized him. “Looks like you emptied the contents of a liquor store here.”
Dave nodded but didn’t respond. The last time he’d seen Lamont Cranston was at prom. Dave had been on the ground with Lamont straddling him, fists raining like hammers on his face. And it was all over a girl from Rapid City. The same girl Dave had eventually married. The same girl who’d . . .
Dave turned and went back into his trailer. He closed the door, found a seat and stared at the calendars on the wall.
He felt the shift of the camper as Lamont put his weight on the steps. Instead of knocking, Lamont opened the door and stepped inside.
“You don’t have a warrant,” Dave mumbled.
“Don’t need one. Ain’t here to arrest you.”
Dave felt the intrusion of the ranger’s eyes as they counted the cases of wine, the walls covered with dozens of calendars all turned to the same year and month, blood splattered fingerprints marking the same day on each one. Then he felt the eyes on him, measuring, evaluating, judging.
“It’s my land. I can do with it what I want.”
“As long as your aunt is alive it is. But the buffalo don’t know anything about property ownership nor what it is to feel sorry for yourself, if that’s what this is. All the buffalo know is that this is the way they go when they need to cut through the Gap into the Great
Plains. If they come now, they’ll leave a trail of blood a mile wide. Might as well be Bill Cody with a Gatling gun for all the good you’d do them. I doubt if any of the beasts would survive.”
Dave closed his eyes as he heard the words again. Paha Sapa.
“A little overdramatic, aren’t we, Lamont?”
Dave felt the heat of the ranger’s stare. He ignored it as best he could and stared at a yard full of happy boys, playing with a Golden Retriever beneath an azure sky. They could have been his kids. His dog. But the bloody mark beneath the calendar’s picture was an indelible notation that this would never happen. Fucking Hallmark and their ever-loving happiness.
Lamont finally spoke. “You don’t want those deaths on your hands too, do you?”
And there Lamont was, now a ranger, sitting astride his ego, raining down truths like hammers unrelenting and unabashed. For a moment, Dave wondered if he was talking about the kids on the calendar, but that was just him trying to defer the moment. They both knew he was talking about his wife.
Hazel and Horace were actually his third cousins on his mother’s side. But because they were so much older, calling them cousin just seemed wrong, so, like his mother, Dave called Hazel “Aunt” and Horace “Uncle.” He was nine that first summer in Custer, and the ground glistened like it had rained diamonds. Mica, they’d called it. Scientists called it a philosilicate mineral—muscovite, actually. It was used in toothpaste, Geiger counters, makeup, and water filters, among other things. It came in books, thick like the bible. He sometimes sat and peeled away piece after piece, as if he were eviscerating Leviticus, until there was nothing left but a single sheet. Then he’d let the sheets catch the wind to float away like the gossamer wings of tortured fairies.
Nightmare Magazine Issue 7 Page 4